The problem with improvement was that it still felt bad while it was happening.
Larius discovered that sometime around day twelve.
Not day twelve since transmigration.
He had stopped counting that precisely because the number made his chest feel strange.
No.
Day twelve since he started trying.
That was different.
Twelve days since:
breathing exercises
conditioning work
grounding routines
library shifts
security work
flower maintenance
attempting structure instead of drifting
And somehow—
he still felt wrong inside his own skin.
That part frustrated him more than anything else.
Because effort was supposed to feel like progress eventually.
Wasn't it?
Instead everything still felt:
awkward
tiring
incomplete
slightly artificial
Like he was manually operating himself.
The thought stayed with him all morning.
At the library, he misplaced two books.
Not badly.
Just enough that he noticed immediately after shelving them.
His brain caught the mistake half a second too late.
That tiny delay irritated him disproportionately.
He fixed the books.
Then stood motionless between shelves for several seconds afterward.
"…why am I still bad at this."
A child nearby looked up briefly.
Larius immediately resumed working like a normal person who absolutely had not whispered insults at himself between nonfiction sections.
Still—
the frustration stayed.
Because twelve days felt long emotionally.
But physically?
Psychologically?
Objectively?
It was nothing.
That realization made him irrationally angry.
1 — THE QUITTING THOUGHT
The thought first appeared during stretching.
Marcus had him doing controlled mobility exercises again.
Slow.
Careful.
Foundational.
Larius hated foundations now.
"Relax your shoulders."
"They are relaxed."
"They absolutely are not."
Larius exhaled sharply.
The irritation had been building all week.
Tiny things stacking on top of each other:
breathing failures
soreness
slow improvement
awkward social moments
invisible progress
constant maintenance
Nothing dramatic.
Which somehow made it harder.
Because there was nothing specific to fight.
Just friction.
Marcus adjusted his stance again.
"Stop forcing the movement."
That sentence snapped something small inside him.
"I am trying," Larius said suddenly.
Too sharp.
Too immediate.
The gym noise continued around them.
Weights clinking.
Shoes against rubber flooring.
Music somewhere overhead.
Marcus looked at him carefully.
Not offended.
Just observing.
"I know."
That somehow made it worse.
Larius rubbed a hand over his face.
"…it still feels wrong."
Marcus stayed quiet.
So Larius continued before he could stop himself.
"I've been doing all this breathing and posture and routines and conditioning and somehow I still feel like I'm manually pretending to function."
Silence.
Then Marcus leaned lightly against the equipment rack.
"How long did you expect rebuilding yourself would take?"
"…less than this."
"That's not a timeframe."
Larius looked away briefly.
Because the honest answer was:
immediately.
Some part of him had expected effort to produce visible certainty quickly.
Instead—
everything was gradual.
Marcus crossed his arms.
"You know what most people quit on?"
Larius exhaled tiredly.
"…conditioning?"
"Consistency."
That word again.
Marcus gestured toward the gym floor.
"Most people can survive intensity briefly. What breaks them is repetition without immediate reward."
Larius stared at the floor silently.
Because unfortunately—
that sounded true.
2 — THE SECURITY SHIFT
Saturday morning started badly.
Not catastrophically.
Just wrong in small ways.
He overslept by twenty minutes.
Forgot his water bottle.
Burned his coffee slightly.
Then spent the bus ride feeling uncomfortably aware of his own heartbeat again.
By the time he reached the startup office, his shoulders already felt tense.
The lobby lights seemed brighter today.
A delivery worker asked him a question.
Larius answered automatically.
Then realized halfway through he'd given the wrong loading entrance directions.
Again.
"…sorry," he corrected immediately.
"Other side entrance."
The worker shrugged casually and left.
Tiny mistake.
Still—
that crawling feeling returned immediately beneath his skin.
Restlessness.
Unease.
Like his own nervous system refused to sit properly anymore.
He tried grounding exercises.
Five visible things.
Four touch sensations.
It helped less today.
That scared him quietly.
Because now even his coping methods felt inconsistent.
Larius sat behind the desk staring at the monitor feeds.
People entering.
Leaving.
Deliveries arriving.
Normal life moving forward without effort.
And suddenly—
he wanted to quit all of it.
The gym.
The routines.
The breathing.
The flower.
The constant self-monitoring.
All of it.
Because maybe this was pointless.
Maybe he was exhausting himself trying to become "stable" when stability simply wasn't available to him anymore.
The thought settled heavily in his chest.
Then something small happened.
A janitor entered the building.
Older man.
Probably late fifties.
Larius had seen him before.
Quiet guy.
Always polite.
Today the man moved slower.
Favoring one knee slightly.
He stopped near the desk and exhaled carefully before continuing toward the maintenance hallway.
Not dramatic.
Just tired.
But before disappearing around the corner, the man stretched slowly against the wall.
Carefully.
Practiced.
Then kept walking.
Something about that tiny motion held Larius's attention.
Not because it was impressive.
Because it looked familiar.
Maintenance.
Not recovery.
Not perfection.
Just maintenance.
Repeated daily because otherwise things got worse.
The realization settled slowly.
Even if he quit:
the breathing
the grounding
the conditioning
the routines
that crawling feeling inside him would still remain.
Stopping effort would not restore comfort.
It would only remove structure.
And somehow—
that was worse.
Larius leaned back slowly in the chair.
Exhaled.
"…damn it."
Because now he knew.
3 — PRIDE
The hardest part wasn't the soreness anymore.
Or the exhaustion.
Or even the instability.
It was pride.
Specifically—
how often reality forced him to admit he wasn't actually good at things yet.
That irritated him constantly.
At the library, he still:
double-checked shelves
lost focus sometimes
moved too stiffly around customers
At the gym:
his posture still failed
his breathing still drifted
his recovery still lagged
Even sign language with Fabian remained terrible.
Sunday afternoon proved that aggressively.
Fabian signed something slowly.
Larius watched carefully.
Really tried.
"…water?"
Fabian stared.
Then physically covered his own face in disappointment.
"…okay wow."
Sofia laughed openly from behind the counter.
"He asked if you were tired."
"…those seem emotionally similar."
Fabian pointed accusingly.
Larius sighed dramatically.
"I'm trying."
Fabian immediately wrote in the notebook:
"Trying badly still counts."
Silence.
That hit harder than expected.
Larius looked down at the sentence.
Then leaned back slightly in the chair.
Because somewhere along the way—
he had quietly come to expect that effort would protect him from incompetence.
But effort didn't do that.
Effort just meant:
you continued despite incompetence.
That distinction hurt his pride more than expected.
4 — THE LILY
That evening, he checked the lily again.
Still nothing.
Of course.
He crouched near the pot anyway.
Adjusted the curtain slightly for better light exposure.
Then immediately stopped himself.
"…no."
Because that was the problem.
He kept trying to interfere constantly.
Optimize constantly.
Correct constantly.
Like growth could be bullied into existing faster.
His shoulders loosened slightly as he sat back against the couch.
The apartment stayed quiet around him.
Not peaceful.
Not uncomfortable.
Just lived-in.
That difference mattered now.
The notebook rested beside him on the coffee table.
He opened it slowly.
Stared at the latest pages.
Mistakes.
Observations.
Failures.
Adjustments.
The pages looked less clinical lately.
Messier.
More human.
He added another line carefully.
things do not become easier immediately just because I started trying
Then beneath it:
maybe repetition matters more than motivation
He stared at that sentence for a long time.
Because motivation came and went constantly lately.
Some mornings he wanted structure.
Other mornings he wanted to throw the breathing exercises into traffic.
But repetition stayed.
Library shifts.
Stretching.
Grounding.
Work.
Gym.
Flowers.
Tiny actions repeated long enough that eventually—
they started shaping him quietly from underneath.
Like roots.
Invisible at first.
5 — THE BREAKING POINT THAT WASN'T
Later that night, the crawling feeling returned again.
No trigger.
No reason.
Just sudden awareness beneath his skin.
Restlessness.
Unease.
Like his body expected danger it could not identify.
Larius closed his eyes.
Tried breathing slower.
It failed immediately.
Too forced.
Frustration flared.
"…seriously?"
He stood up too quickly.
Paced once across the apartment.
Then stopped near the window.
The city lights outside flickered softly in the darkness.
Cars moving far below.
People continuing their lives somewhere beyond his walls.
His chest still felt tight.
The old impulse returned briefly.
Quit trying.
Stop monitoring everything.
Stop caring.
Stop rebuilding.
Then another thought followed quietly behind it.
And after that?
Silence.
Not peaceful silence.
The bad kind.
The drifting kind.
The version of himself sitting lost on that bench twelve days ago.
Disconnected from everything.
That image settled heavily in his chest.
And slowly—
very slowly—
his shoulders lowered.
Not because things felt fixed.
Because they didn't.
But because for the first time—
he understood something important.
Trying wasn't curing him.
Trying was keeping him connected.
To routine.
To people.
To structure.
To himself.
The realization hurt his pride in a strange way.
Because it meant:
he needed help
he needed repetition
he needed foundations
he needed time
And no amount of intelligence or self-awareness could skip those steps.
Larius leaned lightly against the window.
Breathing slower again.
Not perfectly.
Not smoothly.
Just enough.
And maybe that counted too.