"Stop laughing, everyone!"
Mr. Harrington rushed to Thompson's side, trying to help the two-hundred-pound student to his feet.
After two attempts, Thompson slid limply back down both times, groaning and clutching his crotch and backside.
Harrington's face burned red. He felt his dignity as a teacher being trampled—crushed beneath the feet of the entire class and mixed in with the splintered remains of the broken chair on the floor.
This was the worst class he'd ever taught!
"Everyone, study on your own!" he barked.
"Turn to page seventeen of your textbook!"
"Wait here—I'll be back to check!"
He shouted the orders without caring whether anyone was listening. Then, without another word, he called over two of the strongest students to drag Thompson—still groaning like a pig at slaughter—toward the infirmary.
The classroom door slammed shut behind Harrington's furious retreating figure.
Freed from constraint, the room exploded into a sea of laughter and chatter.
One boy even sprinted to the front and began mimicking Thompson's entire collapse—leaning back in exaggerated shock, then crashing to the floor with a loud thud.
The class erupted into a second, even louder wave of laughter.
Amid the chaos, one figure stood out.
Peter Parker.
A bookworm who always wore black-rimmed glasses and kept his shirt buttoned all the way to the top.
He didn't join the laughter. He didn't even speak.
From the moment the chair shattered, his brows had been knotted in deep concentration.
He adjusted his glasses.
Behind the lenses, his eyes locked onto the pile of wooden wreckage on the floor.
Something's not right.
Something's really wrong.
In Peter's mind, the gears of logic spun at full speed.
The chairs at Midtown High were standard reinforced oak models.
The joints between the legs and backrest used four M8 hex bolts.
They were rated to support over 350 pounds—engineered specifically to handle rowdy athletes like Thompson.
Thompson was heavy, sure—but he wasn't a rhinoceros.
The inertial force from simply leaning back shouldn't have caused the chair to disintegrate instantly.
This… this defied Newton's Third Law!
It was as if a miniature, precisely directed explosion had gone off inside the chair.
Peter ran through every physical model he knew. Each calculation led to the same impossible conclusion.
Unless… there'd been external interference.
When the noise around him quieted slightly, Peter stood and crept toward the wreckage, crouching low like a squirrel stealing nuts.
The tear marks in the wood fibers looked fresh—no signs of decay, no pre-existing cracks.
He picked up one of the bolts.
It was perfectly intact. Threads sharp, coating unscratched. Not a single tool mark.
If this was a prank, there should be evidence—a crowbar would leave dents, a drill would leave holes, a wrench would scuff the bolt.
But there was nothing.
Before class, Thompson had been swinging his legs back and forth, and the chair held just fine.
Peter's entire logical chain shattered.
None of the known variables added up to a plausible explanation.
He looked up.
His gaze swept past the raucous crowd—and landed squarely on the back row.
Joren Joestar.
Leaning against the window, utterly relaxed, Joren held a thick book titled Introduction to Marine Biology that covered most of his face.
Sunlight haloed him, making him seem almost out of place in the noisy classroom.
The moment Peter's eyes locked onto him—
Joren lowered the book just a few centimeters.
Their turquoise eyes met in midair.
"!"
A sharp pang of panic shot through Peter.
He felt as if he'd just been scanned by a supercomputer.
Yale yale.
Joren tugged his hat brim lower over his eyes.
This thin, bespectacled figure radiated a kind of razor-sharp rationality—cold, precise, and utterly unyielding.
He was the absolute antithesis of Thompson, that muscle-bound meathead whose brain seemed to run on instinct alone.
This is trouble.
Not just ordinary trouble—this was the worst kind. The kind that notices you noticing it.
Joren looked away, refocusing on the dugong sketches in his battered picture book—simple, honest, uncomplicated.
Graduating quietly from Midtown High was proving far harder than he'd expected.
...
The school bell rang—a clarion call for freedom.
Joren slung his backpack over one shoulder, hat pulled low, and melted into the afternoon crowd like smoke.
Behind him, Peter Parker frantically shoved books into his bag and bolted from the classroom.
This isn't stalking.
This is continuous observation of anomalous physical phenomena.
Yeah. That's it. Scientific. Totally legitimate.
He'd mentally reconstructed that shattered classroom chair at least ten times. Every simulation confirmed it: no natural force could've caused that kind of breakage.
And the only variable? Walking twenty meters ahead—calm, silent, utterly ordinary-looking.
Peter quickened his pace, heart hammering. Half from anxiety. Half from the electric thrill of a physics nerd on the verge of discovery.
Queens in the late afternoon was usually peaceful. Sunlight, distant traffic, the scent of sidewalk pretzels. But Joren veered suddenly into a narrow side alley—quiet, shadowed, lined with aging red-brick apartments. He liked places like this. Forgotten. Still.
Just as he reached the corner, he stopped.
Outside the corner general store, a gaunt man in a grimy hoodie had an elderly woman pinned against the wall. A fruit knife trembled in his hand.
"Wallet! Now! Don't make me—just give it!"
The woman's face had gone sheet-white. Her body shook so badly the bag of oranges in her grip slipped, spilling bright spheres across the pavement.
Yale yale.
Joren's brow furrowed beneath his hat.
Robbery—and of the lowest sort. His first instinct? Detour. Avoid. Walk away.
Paperwork. Police. Gawkers. Headache.
But the robber lost patience. He shoved the woman aside and yanked her purse free. She staggered back, tears in her eyes, as oranges rolled in every direction—one stopping neatly at Joren's feet.
He looked down. Then up.
The thief, grinning like he'd won the lottery, was already sprinting toward him—right over a rusted manhole cover.
Now.
A golden flicker—barely visible—zipped from Joren's shoe into the grate below.
BANG—!
The two-hundred-pound cast-iron cover blasted skyward like a missile.
The robber never saw it coming.
One moment he was running; the next, an invisible force rocketed through his legs. Momentum twisted him mid-air—he spun twice, arms flailing—before slamming face-first onto the concrete.
THUD.
His stolen wallet flew from his grip. He twitched once… then went still.
Without a word, Joren stepped forward. Picked up the dusty orange at his feet. Retrieved the wallet. Walked it over to the trembling woman and placed it gently in her palm.
Then he knelt, gathered the scattered oranges, and tucked them back into her net bag before handing it to her with quiet efficiency.
"Th-thank you…" she whispered.
Joren gave a slight nod and turned to leave.
"Wait—wait!"
Peter burst from behind a telephone pole, breathless, eyes wide with manic energy. He planted himself directly in Joren's path.
"It was you! You did that—with the manhole cover! I saw it! A golden streak—then boom! That kind of impulse? On a static object? The energy transfer alone—unless there was an underground explosion, but there's no blast residue, no pipe rupture—nothing! It was targeted! How did you—?"
"You're loud."
The interruption was ice-cold. Joren didn't even pause. He brushed past Peter with a casual shoulder nudge.
It felt casual.
But to Peter, it was like getting blindsided by Mike Tyson. He staggered backward six steps before collapsing onto his rear, stunned.
By the time he scrambled up, Joren was already halfway down the block—gone like a ghost.
Peter stood there, pulse racing, thoughts spinning.
What… was that?