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THE NOD

Penulis: Whizcasky
last update Terakhir Diperbarui: 2025-08-22 06:03:07

The gym smelled sharper than usual this morning—sweat, chalk, leather. The kind of smell that told you something serious was about to happen.

Collins wrapped his hands slowly, every motion deliberate, trying to drown out the ache in his ribs. Double sessions were chewing him up alive, but he refused to show it. Not to Coach. Not to Curtis. Not to anyone.

Musa sat beside him, bouncing his leg like a kid on too much sugar. “Today’s the day, bro. I can feel it.”

“Feel what?” Collins muttered.

“Coach is gonna stop pretending you don’t exist. I’m telling you, he respects you. He’s just too grumpy to admit it.”

Collins snorted. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

The whistle blew, and sparring rotations began. Fighters paired off, gloves lacing, the sound of fists cracking against pads filling the air.

Coach paced like a hawk, eyes sharp, saying nothing. Just watching. Always watching.

When it was Collins’s turn, Coach barked, “Curtis. You’re up with him again.”

Curtis grinned like Christmas c
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  • Royalty College    Faulty Lines

    The courtyard was electric.Students whispered from the edges, eyes wide, phones half-raised as if this moment deserved to be immortalized. The weight of it pressed down on Aaliah until she could barely breathe.Jeffrey’s grip on her wrist was iron. Collins’s stance was rigid, fists flexing, every muscle alive with warning.And Aaliah stood in the middle—heart hammering, lungs burning, pulled apart like she was the rope in a war neither man wanted to lose.“Let her go,” Collins said again, his voice sharper this time.Jeffrey’s jaw clenched. “You disappear for weeks, leave her here to drown, and suddenly you think you get to order me around? No. Not happening.”His words sliced deeper than Aaliah wanted to admit. Collins flinched, almost imperceptibly, but his eyes stayed locked on Jeffrey.“You don’t get to talk about her like she’s yours,” Collins said, his tone low, steady, dangerous.Jeffrey’s lips curled into a half-smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “And you do? You vanished. You

  • Royalty College    Reunion

    The library was quiet, but Aaliah’s chest felt like thunder.She sat at the back table, sketchbook open, but the page was blank. No matter how long she stared, no lines came. Her pencil hovered, her hand trembling. She hadn’t finished a design in days.The silence pressed on her, broken only by hushed whispers. She caught fragments as students passed by.“Still showing up? Brave, I guess.”“Vanessa’s already miles ahead.”“Why does she even bother?”Each word landed like a slap.Her throat tightened. She wanted to scream that she belonged here, that she could fight back—but her voice had been caged for so long, it barely remembered how to rise.She closed her sketchbook, slamming it harder than she meant to. A few heads turned. She didn’t care.She grabbed her bag and stormed out.The courtyard was empty except for one figure leaning casually against the fountain.Jeffrey.Always Jeffrey.His eyes lit up when he saw her, but he didn’t smile—not the way other people did. His expression

  • Royalty College    The road back

    The bus hummed like a restless beast, rattling down the empty highway under a sky full of tired stars. Collins sat by the window, his forehead pressed against the cool glass, eyes locked on the blur of dark fields rolling past.His duffel bag sat at his feet, heavy but not nearly as heavy as the thoughts crashing inside him.He was going back.Finally.Weeks of pain and drills and humiliation at camp had stripped him bare. He’d come out scarred, bruised, tougher than he’d ever been. But beneath the hardness, one thing had carried him every single day.Aaliah.Her laugh — soft, surprised, unguarded.Her brow furrowed in focus, pencil dancing across her sketchbook.The way she’d look at him when she thought no one else noticed.Every image was fuel. Every memory was the reason he kept standing when the trainer wanted him on his knees.But guilt gnawed at him, sharp and relentless.He hadn’t called. He hadn’t written. He’d left her to fight her battles alone while he disappeared into the

  • Royalty College    Edge

    Aaliah’s hands wouldn’t stop shaking.She pressed them flat against her thighs as she walked into the studio, willing them to be steady. But nerves betrayed her, fingers twitching, shoulders tight.Vanessa saw it instantly. She always did.“Careful,” Vanessa sang, loud enough for the room to hear. “Wouldn’t want another… accident.”Laughter rippled across the studio.Aaliah clenched her jaw and kept her eyes on the floor.But when she reached her station, her stomach dropped.Her fabric was gone.In its place: scraps. Cheap, frayed, useless.Her pulse spiked. She whipped her head around. Vanessa sat casually at her table, running perfect, untouched fabric through her fingers, her smile razor-sharp.The teacher entered before Aaliah could react. “Begin.”The order was final.Her chest tightened. How could she begin with nothing?Vanessa leaned closer as if to help, but her whisper was poisoned. “Quit. Before you humiliate yourself again.”Snickers spread like wildfire. Aaliah’s cheeks

  • Royalty College    Cracks in the glass

    Aaliah couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept through the night.Her bed felt like a cage—sheets tangled, pillows damp, ceiling mocking her with its silence. She would toss until dawn, her mind clawing at every memory of laughter, of humiliation, of Collins’s absence.By morning, she was always exhausted. The kind of exhaustion that no coffee, no makeup, no pep talk could hide.Her eyes had grown darker each day, hollow shadows under them. Her posture had slumped, her smile had vanished.And still, she forced herself to move. To go to class. To hold a pencil. To pretend.But the whispers followed.Always.In the cafeteria, her hands trembled as she carried her tray. She picked a corner table, hoping for peace.It never came.“She looks worse every day.”“Can you believe she even tried out?”“Vanessa was right—she’s out of her depth.”Her fork scraped against the plate too loudly. Heads turned.Laughter followed.Her throat tightened. She lowered her gaze, pushing food around with

  • Royalty College    Leaving the forge

    Collins’s body ached in places he didn’t know existed. Every breath pulled at bruised ribs, every step sent pain shooting through his thighs, and yet—beneath it all—something pulsed steady, strong.He had survived.Not as the boy who had stumbled in weeks ago, soft and untested, but as something else. Something harder.The campyard buzzed around him as new recruits stumbled through drills. He watched them struggle with shaky stances and sloppy punches, their fear written plain on their faces.He remembered being them.The jeers. The humiliation. The way every eye had waited for him to collapse.But now, those same eyes followed him for a different reason.Respect.The trainer’s voice cut across the yard. “Most of you won’t last. You’ll break before the week is done. But if you stay, if you bleed for it, you’ll come out with steel in your bones. Ask him.”Every head turned to Collins.He froze for half a heartbeat. He wasn’t used to the spotlight here—wasn’t used to anything but being

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