The first morning arrived without a bell.
Joe woke at six twenty-eight anyway. His body surfaced from sleep cleanly, already prepared to move. He lay still for a moment, eyes open, waiting for the familiar sequence to follow—light snapping on, footsteps in the corridor, the distant echo of shuttles warming up somewhere else.
Nothing came.
The room stayed quiet. No vibration from his phone. No calendar reminder. The stillness felt provisional, as if the day hadn't quite started yet and was waiting for him to trigger it.
Joe sat up. His shoulder rolled once, unconsciously checking itself. Fine. His calves flexed beneath the sheets. Ready.
He swung his legs out of bed and stood.
Without the academy, the morning stretched in front of him without edges. He showered, dressed in training clothes out of habit, then paused in the kitchen, staring at the counter. There was no packed meal waiting. No list pinned to the fridge. His parents were already gone—both of them, judging by the silence and the absence of movement upstairs.
Joe poured cereal, ate it standing, and checked the time.
Six forty-five.
By now, he would usually be halfway through footwork drills.
The thought didn't arrive with emotion. It arrived as data. A missing block in a familiar structure.
He picked up his bag and left the house.
Outside, the street was already busy with people going somewhere. Offices. Schools. Shops opening their shutters. Everyone moved with direction, even if it was mundane. Joe walked for ten minutes before realizing he hadn't chosen where to go.
He stopped at the edge of a small park. The grass was still damp. A pair of runners passed him, breathing in sync, headphones in. Joe watched them for a moment, then stepped onto the open patch near the far fence.
He set his bag down and unzipped it.
The racket came out smoothly, grip worn exactly to his hand. He rotated his wrist, testing tension, then bounced lightly on the balls of his feet.
Warm-up first.
He began with footwork, marking the court lines in his head. Left corner, backpedal, pivot, lunge. His shoes scuffed the grass instead of polished wood, traction inconsistent, timing slightly off. He adjusted automatically, shortening steps, lowering his center of gravity.
After two minutes, his breathing deepened. After five, sweat broke across his back.
He shadow-swung clears, drops, smashes—each movement precise, economical. The arc of the racket cut cleanly through the air. His follow-through snapped back into guard without conscious effort.
For a moment, it almost worked.
Then he stopped.
Without a shuttle, the strokes ended too early. Without a feeder, there was no rhythm to lock into. His eyes tracked imaginary trajectories that never arrived. His reflexes fired—weight shifting, shoulders turning—but there was nothing to respond to.
Joe reset and tried again.
This time, he imagined a rally. Lift to the backhand corner. He moved, planted, swung. Net return. He stepped forward, wrist flicking sharply.
The sequence collapsed halfway through. The timing drifted. He hesitated—not from uncertainty of movement, but from lack of confirmation. No sound of impact. No feedback. No correction.
He lowered the racket.
A man walking his dog glanced over, curiosity flickering across his face before fading into indifference. Joe became aware of himself as an oddity—someone performing an incomplete action in a public space.
He packed up without hurry and sat on the bench at the edge of the park. His heart rate slowed quickly. Too quickly. His body adapted faster than the situation did.
By eight, he was back home.
The house absorbed him without comment. He moved from room to room, straightening things that didn't need it. He opened his laptop, closed it. Picked up his phone, scrolled, locked it again.
Messages came in—group chats still active from the academy, schedules updating, jokes about drills, reminders about upcoming tournaments. Joe read them all without responding.
No one asked where he was.
By mid-morning, the absence of structure became physical. His muscles stayed warm too long, as if waiting for instruction. Every sound—a passing car, a door closing somewhere—registered as a possible cue.
At ten, his body expected class.
He sat at the dining table with a notebook and opened it to a blank page. Wrote the date. Stared at it. There was nothing to revise, nothing assigned. No coach expecting progress. No benchmark to hit by the end of the hour.
He closed the notebook.
At eleven, he tried again.
This time, he took the bus across town to a public sports hall. The building was older, lower ceilings, scuffed floors. He paid the fee without thinking and walked into the main court area.
Badminton lines crisscrossed the floor, overlapping with basketball markings. The nets were already up. Three courts were occupied—club players, older, slower, chatting between points.
Joe stood at the edge, bag over his shoulder, waiting for someone to acknowledge him.
No one did.
He warmed up alone in the corner, stretching, skipping lightly, eyes drifting back to the rallies. The sound was wrong. Shuttles hit with duller thuds, timing uneven. Points stopped and started without discipline.
A man eventually wandered over.
"You waiting for someone?" he asked.
Joe shook his head. "Just hitting."
The man nodded, noncommittal. "You can ask around if you want a game."
"Okay."
Joe didn't ask.
He stepped onto an empty court and began feeding himself shuttles, tossing them up and striking them down the line. The ceiling was lower than he expected. Two clears clipped the lights. He adjusted, flattening his trajectory, sacrificing depth.
The adjustments felt wrong. Necessary, but wrong.
He switched to net play, placing shuttles carefully, trying to keep them tight. Without an opponent, the shots lost meaning halfway across the tape.
After fifteen minutes, his shoulder tightened—not from exertion, but from overcorrection. He stopped, rolled it once, and packed up.
On the bus home, he caught his reflection in the window. Training clothes. Racket case. He looked like himself, but the resemblance felt superficial, like wearing a uniform without an assignment.
At home, the afternoon stretched longer.
His parents came back separately. There were no questions about his day. He didn't offer information.
He ate lunch late. Protein, carbohydrates, habit intact. Purpose absent.
By three, restlessness set in—not agitation, but something flatter. His body kept preparing for effort that never arrived. Energy pooled with nowhere to go.
He paced the living room, then stopped abruptly and dropped into a defensive stance. Knees bent, weight balanced, racket imaginary but present. His foot slid instinctively as if responding to a cross-court shot.
He straightened again.
The movement had been clean. Correct.
Useless.
The following days followed no pattern.
Joe woke early every morning. Sometimes he went back to sleep. Sometimes he lay still until the clock changed enough that it felt acceptable to get up. He trained sporadically—runs without distance targets, stretches without sequences, strength work without cycles.
Everything felt provisional.
Without the academy, time lost its segmentation. There was no before or after, only duration. Hours passed unnoticed until they were gone.
People outside didn't look at him differently. No one treated him like someone who had fallen. That, more than anything, unsettled him.
He existed in public spaces without friction. Invisible not because he was ignored deliberately, but because there was nothing to notice.
One afternoon, he walked past a school playground and stopped.
Kids were playing badminton badly—rackets too big, swings too wide, laughter interrupting rallies. A teacher clapped and called encouragement that meant nothing.
Joe watched, arms folded loosely, posture relaxed.
A shuttle landed near the fence. One of the kids chased it, missed, chased again.
Joe's foot shifted before he realized it. A half-step forward. A ready position triggered by nothing more than trajectory and angle.
He caught himself and stepped back.
The next morning, he returned to the academy.
Not inside. Just close enough.
The building looked unchanged. Cars lined the lot. Players arrived in clusters, bags slung easily, conversations spilling ahead of them.
Joe stood across the street, hands in his pockets.
Through the glass, he could see Court B. Lights bright. Nets taut. Coach Mercer at the edge, arms crossed, scanning movement.
The session began.
Joe's eyes tracked patterns automatically—footwork sequences, drill rotations, minor inefficiencies. He saw a player hesitate on recovery, another overcommit on a smash. Corrections assembled themselves in his mind, precise and immediate.
No one asked for them.
The door opened briefly as someone stepped out. Laughter spilled, then vanished again when it closed.
Joe shifted his weight, mirroring a movement inside.
From here, the sound was muted. Shuttles struck with a dull echo. Commands blurred into indistinct rhythm.
He watched for an hour.
His body responded the entire time—muscles tensing in anticipation, breath adjusting as if preparing to enter the court. Reflexes fired without permission, small and contained: a shoulder twitch, a shift of stance, fingers flexing as though around a grip.
None of it went anywhere.
When the session ended, players filtered out, flushed and focused, already transitioning to the next thing. Some glanced his way without recognition. Others didn't look at all.
Joe remained where he was.
Observation, he realized—not as a thought, but as a physical truth—did not carry weight.
Standing there changed nothing.
The doors closed. The lights inside dimmed.
Joe turned away, the academy behind him continuing without pause, and walked on.