Kian didn't remember the walk up the stairs. He was just... in his room. The slam of the door was a physical shock, an echo of the violence in his words.
The silence that followed was heavy. He stood in the dark, his back pressed against the wood, his chest heaving. His own pulse was a roar in his ears, a frantic drumbeat against the stillness of the massive house.
"You're just like him."
The words were still in the air, hanging in the opulent hallway outside. He had said it. He had taken the one weapon he had—the one uncrossable line—and he had used it to gut his own brother.
He'd seen Leo's face. He'd seen the bright, stupid, passionate light in his eyes just... die. Extinguished.
And the worst part? The part that made him want to punch the wall?
He didn't mean it.
Leo wasn't like their father. Not even close. Their father was a ghost, a myth, a man who loved an idea more than his family. A man who saw talent as a commodity, a 'gift' to be polished and sold, and who had no time for anything—or anyone—else.
Leo was... just Leo. He was a golden retriever in human form. He was all loyalty and hard work and terrible, corny jokes. He was the one who had, on the night their father left, sat on Kian's bed and sworn—sworn—that he would never, ever leave.
And Kian had just... he had just...
"Aargh!" The sound was a low, frustrated growl, torn from his throat.
He pushed off the door and paced his room. It was the anti-Leo's room. Where Leo's walls were covered in posters of legends and pennants for Crestwood, Kian's were bare, painted a dark, calming charcoal grey. The only things on his walls were his own sketches: hyper-detailed, photorealistic drawings of architecture, of hands, of tree bark, of the human eye.
He stalked over to his desk, to his current project. It was a drawing of the quarry, of the rusted, bare rim. He'd been working on the precise, delicate flaking of the paint.
He picked up the 6B pencil. He pressed the lead to the paper. His hand was shaking.
He couldn't draw. The "noise" was too loud. The anger, the guilt, and the sudden, terrible memory of the game... it was all in his head.
He hated this. He hated the feeling. He hated the adrenaline still pumping through his veins from a stupid, pointless pickup game. He hated the memory of the ball dropping through the net, that perfect thwump against the asphalt. He hated that it had felt... good.
He threw the pencil down. It clattered on the desk.
He needed... something. He needed to break something.
He walked to his closet, a massive, custom-built walk-in. He pushed past the neat, dark-colored clothes his mother bought him, to a section in the very back. Hidden under a stack of old, hard-cover textbooks he'd already finished, was a large, dust-covered duffel bag.
He pulled it out. Unzipped it.
Inside, there was only one thing.
A basketball.
It wasn't a cheap, lumpy rubber ball like the one at the quarry. This was pristine. It was perfect. An official, pro-league, full-grain leather ball. The logo was embossed in gold. It was the last gift his father had ever given him, on his tenth birthday, just before he left.
Kian stared at it. It was his curse. The "gift." The reason for everything.
He didn't pick it up. He didn't dribble it. He never dribbled in the house.
He just... looked at it. He hated it. He hated the man who gave it to him. He hated that he was this close to picking it up, to just feeling the perfect seams, to silencing the noise in his head.
He zipped the bag. Violently. He shoved it back under the textbooks, burying it under the weight of geometry and physics. He buried the "gift" under facts.
He sat on his bed, the anger gone, leaving only the cold, familiar emptiness. He'd hurt his brother. He'd played the game. He'd lost control. It was a bad day.
Two doors down, Leo Vance stood under the scalding hot water of his shower, letting it run over his head until the steam fogged the glass.
You're just like him.
He'd heard Kian say it. But he hadn't... he hadn't believed it. He thought Kian was just being Kian, all spikes and sarcasm.
But today... Kian had meant it.
Leo turned the water off, the sudden silence of the bathroom almost as loud as the spray. He stepped out, wrapping a towel around his waist. He looked at himself in the fogged-up mirror. He wiped a clear spot with his hand.
He saw his own face. His mother's eyes. His grandfather's nose. And... his father's jawline.
He'd always been proud of that. It was the one part of himself he could physically see that connected him to the man in the faded photographs. The man who was a basketball genius.
Now, it felt like a brand.
"He's wrong," Leo whispered to his reflection. "He's... he's just wrong."
He walked into his bedroom. It was a shrine. A Michael Jordan "Wings" poster. A signed jersey from a local college star. His own JV championship trophy. And, on his desk, a framed photo. It wasn't of his father. It was of him and Kian, aged twelve and ten, sitting on their grandfather's lawn, both of them holding basketballs, both of them grinning.
It was the last picture ever taken of Kian holding a basketball.
Leo's heart ached. He looked at the happy, bright-eyed ten-year-old and then thought of the cold, cutting stranger who lived across the hall.
"I'm not like him," Leo said, this time to the boy in the photo. "I'm not."
His father had the "gift." He was magic. It was all easy for him.
Leo... Leo had to work.
He looked at the clock. 9:30 PM.
He toweled his hair dry, put on a pair of shorts, and walked over to the corner of his room. He picked up his own ball. It was worn, the leather soft, the grip familiar.
He went to the center of his room, on the thick, sound-dampening rug. He crouched low.
And, in the silence of the massive house, Leo Vance began to practice.
He did low, quiet, controlled dribbles. Right hand. Left hand. Crossovers. Muffled, rhythmic, precise. He was practicing his left. The one Kian had pointed out was flawed. The one Dylan "Flash" Riley didn't have.
He wasn't his father. He wasn't Kian. He couldn't just will the ball to do what he wanted. He had to teach it. He had to earn it.
Thump... thump... thump...
He would work until his hand was numb. He would work until his back ached. He would work until the hurt went away. He would work until Kian was wrong.
The next morning was Saturday.
Breakfast was a tomb.
Kian came down late. His grandfather was reading the Wall Street Journal, his face hidden. His mother was at the stove, her back to the room, her shoulders tense. Leo was at the table, methodically eating a bowl of oatmeal, his eyes fixed on the wood grain. He didn't look up when Kian entered.
No one spoke.
Kian grabbed a protein bar from the pantry, his stomach twisting. The silence was worse than the yelling. He couldn't eat.
"I'm going out," he mumbled.
His mother turned. Her eyes were tired. "Be back by lunch." It wasn't a request.
Kian nodded, grabbed his bag—his sketchbook—and his bike, and left.
He rode. He didn't think about where he was going. He just let the rhythm of the pedals take over. He rode past the manicured lawns, past the gates, and through the quiet, wealthy suburban streets.
He ended up at the quarry.
He told himself it was the only place he could draw. The only place it was quiet.
He parked his bike, walked up the concrete stands to his usual spot, and sighed. It was empty. The court was just... a court. No bullies. No kids.
Relief. He felt a profound, deep sense of relief.
He opened his sketchbook, picked up his pencil, and the world narrowed to the point of lead on paper. He found the "noise" in his head finally quieting. He drew the rusted fence. He drew a patch of weeds. He drew the shadow of the rim on the asphalt.
He was so lost in the work that he didn't hear them at first.
It wasn't a sound, really. It was a lack of it.
He heard the thwack... thwack of the lumpy ball. But it was hesitant. And there was... whispering?
Kian looked up.
They were there.
Milo, Ana, and the other kids. They were on the court. They had the ball. But they weren't... playing. They were... practicing. And they were failing.
Milo was trying to do Kian's crossover, the one that had fooled Devin. But he was just... slapping the ball from one hand to the other, losing it every few seconds. Ana, the little girl, was standing at the free-throw line, holding the ball, trying to shoot it backward. It flew out of her hands and hit another kid in the head.
And through it all, they were quiet.
When the ball hit the other kid, he didn't scream. He just rubbed his head and whispered, "Ana! Watch it!"
And Ana, her face red, whispered back, "Sorry! I'm trying!"
They were following his rule. They were on his court, but they were being respectful of his one, bizarre request.
Kian watched them. He watched Milo trip over his own feet. He watched Ana's disastrous backward shot. He watched the smallest kid, Timmy, try to lay the ball up, and it just... bounced off the bottom of the rim. It was, objectively, the worst basketball he had ever seen in his life. It was a physical offense.
He was about to just put his head down, to block them out, when Milo, frustrated, kicked the ball. It rolled, lopsided, toward the stands.
Milo looked up, exasperated. And his eyes met Kian's.
The kid froze.
The other kids, seeing Milo freeze, all turned. They saw Kian. They all froze. They looked like a herd of deer, caught in the headlights of a car. They looked terrified, like they'd been caught breaking the one rule.
"We... we were being quiet!" Milo burst out, his voice a loud, defensive whisper. "We were! Right, guys?"
The other kids nodded frantically. "Super quiet, mister!" Ana said.
Kian just... stared. He was annoyed. He was frustrated. He had come here for peace.
Milo, seeing Kian wasn't leaving, slowly walked over. He picked up the lumpy ball and held it, as if it were an offering.
"We were," Milo promised again, his voice small. He looked down at the ball, then back at Kian. "It's just... it's just harder than it looks. What you did."
Kian said nothing.
"I... I can't," Milo said, his voice full of a child's pure, honest frustration. "The ball... it just... it won't go. And my shot..." He pointed at the hoop. "It's all... wrong. I don't know why."
Kian looked at him. At this small, nine-year-old kid, who was just... frustrated. He wasn't asking for a miracle. He was just... stuck.
And Kian's brain, the part of him that was his father's son, the part he hated, immediately supplied the answer.
His elbow is out. He's shooting from his shoulder, not his legs. His follow-through is a snap, not a release. It's all wrong.
He hated that he knew that. He hated that he could see the physics of it, clear as day.
"You're doing it wrong," Kian said, his voice flat. He hadn't meant to say it out loud.
Milo's eyes, the "puppy-dog" eyes, lit up as if Kian had just turned on a searchlight.
"I am?" he gasped, his voice no longer a whisper. "I am? I knew it! How? How am I doing it wrong?"
Kian's jaw tightened. Trap. It's a trap.
"It's just... wrong," Kian said, trying to retreat.
"But... but... how?" Milo said, taking a step closer to the stands. "Is it my feet? Ana said it was my feet. I think it's my hands."
"It's your elbow," Kian snapped, his patience gone.
Milo blinked. "My... my elbow?"
"It's out," Kian said, gesturing. "You're... you're pushing it. Like a... like you're pushing a door. You're not shooting it. It's... it's disgusting."
"Oh!" Milo said. He tried to mimic a shot, tucking his elbow in. "Like... like this?"
"No," Kian said, exasperated. "That's... that's even worse."
He hated this. He hated this more than anything. He looked at Milo's hopeful, confused face. He looked at the other kids, who were now all at the edge of the court, watching.
They were quiet. They were trying. And they were... looking at him like he had all the answers.
He just wanted to draw.
He looked at his sketchbook. He looked at the perfect, graphite shadow of the rim.
Then he looked at Milo, who was now holding the ball in a way that was so physically wrong it made Kian's teeth hurt.
"Give me the ball," Kian said, his voice a low, angry sigh.
Milo's eyes went wide. "What?"
"Give me. The ball."
Kian stood up. He snapped his sketchbook shut, the sound echoing in the quarry. He slung his bag over his shoulder.
He didn't say anything else. He just... started walking.
He walked down the concrete steps, one by one, his face a mask of pure, unadulterated annoyance.
The kids on the court parted, watching him, holding their breath.
Kian walked onto the court, the cracked asphalt familiar under his sneakers. He stopped in front of Milo, who was holding the ball, trembling.
Kian held out his hand.
Milo, with a look of pure, religious reverence, placed the lumpy, orange ball in Kian's hands.
Kian took it. He hated the feel of it.
"Your elbow," Kian said, his voice dead. "It's supposed to be... here."