The back garden of the Minerva Institute was a carefully planned oasis of tranquility. Ancient-looking statues stood guard among perfectly pruned rose bushes, and the soft murmur of a nearby fountain was the only sound breaking the afternoon silence. This was the kind of place designed to inspire peaceful contemplation.
For me, it felt like an execution ground.
Felissia walked toward a marble bench beneath a massive oak tree whose leaves filtered sunlight into soft, dappled patterns on the ground. She sat down, maintaining a respectful but not cold distance from me, and opened her notebook. The crisp sound of the turning page was like a starting pistol for my anxiety.
"Here it is," she said, pointing to a complex-looking graph problem from Professor Flavia's class. "The part where she explained asymptotic decay. I understand the formula, but don't understand why it behaves that way. It's like... it's giving up."
My brain, thankfully, latched onto the familiar safety of the problem. This was my territory. Logic. Variables. Predictable outcomes.
"I see," I said, leaning in. My voice came out a little too high, a little too eager. I cleared my throat and tried again, but it was softer. "The key isn't the decay itself, but the limit it approaches. The function never actually reaches zero—it just gets infinitely close. It's the paradox of an endless approach without arrival."
I sketched the steps on a blank page in her notebook, explaining the logic. My hands moved with a confidence I rarely felt. I wasn't that awkward, overthinking Octavian for those few magnificent minutes. I was a scholar, a peer, someone who effortlessly unraveled the mysteries of the universe.
Felissia listened intently, her brows furrowed in concentration. Her focus was so absolute it was almost mesmerizing.
"Ah," she said when I finished, a small smile spreading across her lips. "It actually makes sense when you explain it like that. You see the structure behind the chaos." She looked up from the notebook, fixing her brown eyes on mine. "You're really good at this."
That was it. That was the spark.
This compliment fired every faulty wire in my "expert" brain. She's impressed, screamed the voice in my head. This is your chance. Show her your depth. Connect the problem's logic to life's logic. Be profound!
This was a catastrophically stupid idea.
"It's not just about mathematics," I began, leaning back on the bench in what I hoped was a philosophical, relaxed pose. I probably just looked like my back hurt. "Everything in life has structure behind the chaos. People, emotions... they're all just variables in a larger equation. We think events are random, but they're just approaching their own limits and inevitable truths."
Felissia blinked. Her smile faded, replaced by polite but apparent confusion. "I see... I guess?"
I was too far gone to notice the warning signs. Fed by a year's worth of half-baked theories, I continued. "Take your question, for example. You said the function 'seems like it's giving up.' That's such an insightful way to put it. Many people feel that way, don't they? Like they're just decaying, endlessly approaching a goal they'll never reach. But the beauty and truth aren't in the arrival—it's in the approach."
I paused for dramatic effect, letting my "wisdom" hang between us. I'd read that line in a book about Syrian stoicism and had been waiting for a chance to use it.
Felissia stared at me. The silence stretched, thinned, and became fragile. I could hear the fountain again, every ripple of water like the tick of a clock counting down to my disaster.
Finally, she spoke, her voice carrying cautious bewilderment. "Right... but... I was talking about the graph. The mathematical curve. Why doesn't the line touch the x-axis?"
I felt the blood drain from my face. It was a physical sensation—a cold wave starting in my chest and spreading to my limbs. She wasn't speaking metaphorically. She wasn't alluding to some deep, personal struggle. She was asking a math question. Literally, straightforwardly, a math question.
I responded with a personal development seminar.
"Oh," I managed, my throat suddenly dry as desert sand. "Yes. The x-axis. Right. Because the denominator can never equal zero. Mathematically." The words tasted like ash in my mouth.
"Okay. I understand." Felissia nodded, but she wasn't looking at me anymore. She was looking at her notebook, then at the path leading out of the garden, then anywhere except at the pretentious fool sitting beside her. She quickly gathered her things. "Anyway, thanks, Octavian. You... definitely explained it. I have to meet a friend. See you tomorrow."
She stood and walked away—not quickly, but with a determination that screamed escape.
I sat frozen on the bench, a monument to my own stupidity. The expert had been tested and had failed in the most spectacular way possible. I hadn't just misread the signals—I had invented them, built a fantasy around them, and then presented it to her as profound insight. This was worse than just being weird. This was pathetic.
My cheeks burned with such intense shame that I could have warmed my hands on them. I buried my head in my hands.
"Well, well, well! Look who we have here!"
I looked up to see Cassius and Gaius approaching with broad grins on their faces, and my heart sank even deeper.
"So, Romeo," Cassius said, clapping me hard enough to rattle my teeth. "We saw the girl leave. You two were out here for quite a while. Were you able to answer her question?"
Gaius burst into laughter. "Don't be crude, Cassius. Our friend is a man of culture. He doesn't need cheap talk. He listens to his heart, remember?"
Both of them looked at me with eyes sparkling with expectation, waiting to hear the story of my great triumph.
It took me less than a second to collect myself. I wiped the shame from my face and replaced it with a forced, confident smile. "Yes, I answered her question," I said, sounding as normal as possible. "She was in a hurry, so she left."
Cassius raised an eyebrow mockingly. "Really? Your cheeks are red as tomatoes, though. Like you didn't just answer a simple question."
Even as panic began to flow through my veins like ice, the fragments of my year of theoretical preparation came to my rescue. I laughed. "When someone shares a vulnerability with me, a question, that's sacred to me," I said, winking at them. "If I told you what she asked now, you'd tease her tomorrow. I can't do that."
This unexpected answer surprised them both, and then Gaius laughed heartily. "Wow! Philosopher Octavian at work! Okay, okay, we'll keep your secret."
As they relaxed, I breathed a sigh of relief. "Besides, didn't you guys leave? Last I saw, you were taking Marcus and heading out."
"That was to leave you alone with the girl, idiot," Cassius said, laughing. "We were expecting to hear a story from you. But it looks like you just needed to answer her question."
"That girl had no other intentions, and neither did I," I defended myself, perhaps a bit too harshly. I stood up to change the subject. "Anyway, my bus is about to leave."
We walked together toward the campus exit. At the bus stop, our paths diverged. I boarded mine while they got on a bus going in a different direction. I sat in an empty seat by the window and began watching outside. The crowd had dispersed—I was alone again.
As Apexia's magnificent buildings flowed past my eyes, all the day's events replayed in my mind. Professor Livia's joke, the spilled water, Professor Flavia's scolding, and finally that pathetic moment with Felissia... Every lie I told, every fake image I constructed, sat in my stomach like a heavy stone.
Is this what the "new me" was supposed to be? A coward wrapped in lies and anxiety?
When I got home, my mother, Aurelia, emerged from the kitchen. She was a woman whose warmth could rival a hearth fire, with silver threads just beginning to appear in her dark hair. Her smile was as genuine as always, but there was a glimmer of worry in her eyes.
"Welcome home, dear. Your face looks pale. Are you exhausted from the first day? Did you eat anything proper?"
"I ate, Mom, don't worry," I mumbled. "Just... a new routine, you know. It was tiring."
Sitting in the living room, my father Titus looked up from his tablet. He was built like an old oak, sturdy but with gentle eyes that always remained kind behind his serious demeanor. His presence filled the room.
"Tiredness passes. What matters is your mind. Did you like the environment? How are your professors? Who are your friends?" After a brief pause, he added the question he was waiting for: "Will you go to the Sacellum for Prostratio this weekend?"
"Of course, father," I said without hesitation. The Covenant was one of the fundamental pillars of my life. My faith in Deus Solus was the only harbor I could take refuge in within this chaos. The responsibilities that came with being a Jurant were at least clear and understandable—not complicated like social relationships.
After dinner, as I was about to retreat to my room, my sister Marcella, a sophomore in high school, ran up to me with a book in her hand. "Brother, could you look at this for a second? I couldn't solve it."
She handed me the book. It was a logic problem. I glanced over it. "Look," I said, pointing to a specific part of the question. "Your mistake is here. You considered these two possibilities independent variables, but they're actually connected. The formula isn't like this—it should be set up like this." I summarized the solution in two sentences. Clean. Efficient. No philosophy.
Marcella's face lit up. "Oh, okay, now I understand! Thanks, brother!" she chirped and returned to her room.
I just stared after her. That's all it takes, I thought. Simple. Clear. Could you answer the question and finish? Why couldn't I do that with Felissia? Why did I turn a two-minute simple explanation into a half-hour philosophy lesson?
Shame slapped me in the face again, harder this time, because I had just proven to myself how easily I could have done it right.
I went to my room, spread my books on my desk, and reviewed lessons. The graph problem Flavia had asked, the probability theories Livia had explained... These were my weapons. Numbers and formulas didn't lie. In their world, everything had logic and an answer.
My studies were the subjects in which I could be the most expert now. I have to be the best at them. This shame I feel about myself may lessen a bit.
When I lay in bed, the ceiling stared blankly back at me. The first day was over. I had survived, yes. But at what cost? Tomorrow was a new day: new mistakes, new humiliations, and a new chance for one tiny correct moment.
I closed my eyes. What would tomorrow bring?
My fall into sleep was less like a slow unconscious drift and more like falling off a cliff. And where I landed was a caricatured, distorted version of all the day's anxieties. In the dream, the corridors of the Minerva Institute had turned into a labyrinth, and mocking whispers seeped from the walls.
"Philosopher Octavian at work!" This was Gaius's voice, but echoing with a monstrous tone. "Good for nothing but wiping the blackboard..." This was an unfamiliar girl's voice. "Getting attention by using his uncle's name..." The voices turned to laughter, and at the end of the corridor, Felissia appeared. She was drawing a graph with chalk on a giant blackboard. "Why doesn't the line touch the x-axis?" she asked, but her voice boomed throughout the corridor. Everyone in the class turned to me and laughed uproariously.
Then the scene changed. I was back to that fight from high school. Blurry faces, shouting, the rush of adrenaline-pumped blood in my ears... And that familiar, nauseating feeling: uncontrolled rage. The dull sound my fist made hitting a face...
I woke up in a cold sweat, gasping for breath. My heart was pounding against my ribcage, and the silence of the room rang in my ears. The feeling of the nightmare was still on me—that poisonous mixture of shame and anger. I sat up in bed and buried my head in my hands.
I whispered to the darkness, "I don't want to be like I used to be anymore." I don't want to hit people, but I raise my voice to defend myself. I don't want people to fear me—I want them to love me and understand me.
This was like an oath. The most difficult promise I'd ever made to myself.
When I fell back to sleep later, my dreams were calmer. In the morning, I woke to my mother's gentle voice: "Octavian, come on, wake up, dear. You'll be late."
When I opened my eyes last night, my anxieties were still in my mind like fog. I had no appetite. I quickly nibbled on a piece of bread in the kitchen, grabbed my bag, and left the house.
On the bus, I was again by the window, alone. I pulled my class notes from my bag to avoid reliving yesterday's shame. First, I quickly reviewed yesterday's topics. Then, just to be safe, I also started looking at today's lesson notes. It was an old notebook from high school, but it would do.
Being prepared helped me react better in situations like yesterday. This was the only thing I could control.
When I arrived at the institute's magnificent entrance, I saw the trio I'd met yesterday. I took a deep breath and walked over to them. "Good morning," I said. Cassius and Gaius responded cheerfully, while Marcus always settled for a slight nod.
Just then, Myria passed by us. We made eye contact, and she gave me a barely perceptible nod. The boy next to her is gone, I thought with momentary curiosity.
Immediately after, Felissia entered my field of vision. When she noticed me, she quickened her pace, muttered "Hi" as she passed by, and quickly moved away. A slight pang pierced my heart. Now she's running away from me like I'm someone who talks nonsense.
Before I had a chance to feel sad, Professor Livia appeared at the main entrance. There was a mischievous smile on her face. "How are you, Octavian? You didn't get lost today, did you?"
This sincere teasing made me smile. "No, professor, thanks to you, I'm more comfortable today." I nodded and passed by her, heading toward the classroom door.
Just as I was about to open the door, it opened from inside, and Professor Flavia emerged. I hesitated momentarily, then collected myself and held the door for her to pass. "Good morning, professor."
She stopped and looked at me, her stern expression softening momentarily. "Good morning. You're early. Well done," she said, walking down the corridor with firm steps, disappearing.
I stared after her in amazement. An "well done" from Flavia was worth a hundred compliments from Livia. When I stepped inside, my heart beat with the uncertainty of a new day.
Today's lessons... would be different.