Chapter 61: Chapter 61: Kairan vs Bartholomew

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Chapter 61: Kairan vs Bartholomew

Julian had moved in closer than one would expect from a referee, his eyes already fixed on the two hands about to clasp over the cushions.

“Neutral grip,” he said. “Elbows planted on the pad. On my mark.”

Bartholomew settled into position, driving his right elbow into the cushion, his back straight and legs spread wide for stability. He gripped Kairan’s hand tightly his knuckles cracking his arm already tensed before the signal was even given.

“Go,” Julian said.

Bartholomew pushed. He pushed with everything he had shoulders tensed, neck strained, a low sound rumbling in his throat, the kind of noise one makes when putting one’s entire body into a single movement.

Kairan’s arm didn’t move. Not a millimeter.

“What…” someone in the crowd murmured.

Bartholomew pushed harder; his face flushed red, the veins in his neck bulging. Kairan’s arm remained motionless, his hand gripping Bartholomew’s without yielding and without even appearing to be straining against the effort.

“Come on, Bartholomew!” someone from the 280s shouted.

Bartholomew threw his whole body into it, leaning forward; sweat trickled down his temples, and his breathing grew increasingly labored. Kairan’s arm didn’t budge an inch.

Bartholomew’s face was no longer just red; it was purple. His eyes were narrowed, his jaw clenched so tightly his chin trembled.

And Kairan’s arm remained still.

Five seconds passed, then ten, then fifteen an eternity in an arm-wrestling match, where every instant is heavy with a muscular tension that eventually becomes unbearable. Kairan asked, with the same calmness one might use to ask the time: “When can I start pushing?”

Total silence.

Bartholomew, still bent over from the strain, looked up. Amara brought a hand to her mouth. Peter stopped breathing. Gregory remained speechless. Even in the crowd, someone laughed not out of mockery, but because they didn’t know how else to react to that statement.

Julian opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again. “You can push right now,” he said, his voice less steady than usual.

Kairan pushed.

Bartholomew’s arm which a moment earlier had been straining with all its might against immovable resistance was slammed onto the cushion with a sharp thud, his hand sinking into the padded fabric.

It wasn’t a violent motion. Kairan put no anger into it. But it wasn’t gentle, either it was the same cold, measured force he had used to slice a carrot that morning, applied without haste, without hesitation, and without the slightest need to prove anything to anyone.

Bartholomew remained hunched over the cushion, his arm still pressed against the padding, his eyes wide, his chest heaving rapidly from the exertion.

The courtyard erupted in shouts and applause. Some laughed in sheer disbelief, others slapped their hands against the low wall, and some had risen to their feet without even realizing it.

“He took him down!” Peter shouted, his voice cracking with excitement. “He took him down without even winding up first!”

Amara clutched her chest, her eyes glistening. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” she said, breathless. “He didn’t even break a sweat.”

Gregory laughed, shaking his head. “He asked for permission to push. Permission as if he were waiting his turn in a lunch line.”

Clara watched with a cooler gaze, yet even her eyes betrayed genuine astonishment. “He didn’t use all his strength,” she said softly, speaking more to herself than the others. “That was only a fraction of it.”

Samuel stared at Kairan, his mouth slightly open and speechless, as if he needed more time to process what he had just witnessed.

Victor had moved closer without even realizing it, his eyes never leaving Kairan.

Lena was smiling that same calm smile of hers, like someone who had foreseen what was about to happen long before it actually did.

Julian was the first to recover, raising a hand to draw attention back to the still-buzzing courtyard. “First round,” he said, his tone slowly shifting back to a professional register. “Kairan.”

Bartholomew pulled back, shaking out his arm, his face still flushed. “Rematch,” he said, almost growling. “Right now.”

“All right,” Kairan said.

They got back into position. This time, Bartholomew didn’t wait for the signal to tense every muscle; his neck was already taut, his jaw clenched, his eyes fixed on Kairan’s hand as if, by staring at it long enough, he might find something there to explain what had just happened.

“Go,” Julian said.

Bartholomew pushed with a different kind of fury more desperate, like someone no longer trying to win, but simply trying to avoid losing in the same humiliating way as before.

It was no use.

Kairan’s arm held firm for less than two seconds a brief, almost symbolic pause before he slammed Bartholomew’s hand down onto the pad once more with the same ease as before, the same sharp thud, the same total absence of visible strain on his face.

“Second round,” Julian said, his voice no longer hiding his disbelief. “Kairan wins two-nil. The match is over.”

The crowd’s roar was even louder than the first. Children jumped on the steps, others slapped their hands against the low wall, and some shouted Kairan’s name so loudly it drowned out every other voice around them.

Amara threw herself at him, arms wrapped tight around his neck, laughing and nearly crying at the same time. “Two-nil! And not even a minute in total!”

Peter kept repeating, “He asked for permission,” as if that phrase alone summed up everything that had just unfolded before their eyes. Gregory laughed aloud, running a hand over his face as if to make sure he was awake. Samuel finally shook off his astonishment and began to applaud along with the others, though a few seconds behind the rest of the crowd. Clara remained more composed, yet a small smile played at the corners of her mouth the first since she had lost her chess match. Victor nodded slowly, his eyes still fixed on Kairan; he said nothing, yet made no attempt to hide how impressed he was. Lena stepped closer and brushed a lock of hair from his forehead a small gesture amidst all the clamor.

Bartholomew stepped back, his arm still trembling slightly; unable to meet Kairan’s gaze, he felt the weight of defeat pressing down on him heavier than the score alone could convey.

From a distance, at the edge of the courtyard, Edmund watched without moving. He was no longer applauding. He stood there with his arms crossed, a slow smile spreading across his face, his eyes tracking Kairan’s every single movement with an attentiveness that had nothing to do with the surprise felt by the rest of the crowd.

The day’s competition ended with a score of two-to-one in favor of Room 290 Clara’s loss in chess balanced by Kairan’s two victories in the race and the arm-wrestling match. For the first time in weeks, it would be Room 280 bowing their heads the next morning, not the other way around.

They crossed the courtyard toward the dormitories amidst cheers that showed no signs of dying down. Children from rooms that, just hours earlier, hadn’t even known Room 290’s name followed them with their eyes; some reached out to touch Kairan’s shoulder as he passed, as if that contact might somehow transfer a bit of what they had just witnessed.

“You guys did it!” someone shouted a boy from Room 160 whom Kairan had never seen before.

“So much for being the last room,” another said, followed by laughter this time without any malice.

They entered the dormitory and the door closed behind them, abruptly cutting off the courtyard noise and plunging them into a silence that, after all that clamor, felt almost unnatural.

Peter was the first to break the quiet, bounding toward the bathroom corridor. “I’m showering first,” he announced, as if the matter were already settled. “I spent the whole afternoon running back and forth after you two; I’ve earned it.”

“You didn’t run at all,” Gregory said. “You just stood there watching, like everyone else.”

“I watched with a lot of energy,” Peter said, already halfway down the hall. “That counts.”

“And what if someone wants to wash up before dinner without freezing water?” Samuel asked, but Peter had already vanished around the corner.

“Too late,” Gregory said, laughing. “Get ready for cold water same as always.”

No one really stopped him. Gregory let himself sink onto his bed with a satisfied sigh, his arms behind his head. Samuel sat on the edge of his mattress, still wearing a look of semi-disbelief, as if silently replaying everything he had seen to convince himself it had really happened. Clara picked up her book but didn’t open it right away, staring at the cover for a moment without really seeing it. Victor took off his shoes and lay down, eyes fixed on the ceiling.

Kairan crossed the room to his bed and lay down without even removing his shoes; his body felt suddenly heavy now that the adrenaline from the courtyard was fading. His scratched arms were stinging again, the dried blood pulling at his skin with every slight movement.

A few minutes passed before Amara appeared beside his bed holding a small tin box; its faded label bore a description of the contents in letters too worn to be clearly read.

“Hold still,” she said, sitting on the edge of the mattress without asking permission. She opened the box and took out a roll of gauze and a small bottle.

“I don’t need it,” Kairan said.

“You certainly do,” Amara replied, taking his arm with a gentleness that contrasted with the firmness of her voice. “You were rolling around on packed dirt with open wounds. If you don’t clean it properly, it’ll get infected and *then* you’ll have a real problem.”

She poured some liquid from the bottle onto the gauze, and as she dabbed it over his scraped elbow, Kairan felt a sharp sting shoot through his arm. He didn’t move or wince, but Amara noticed it anyway. “You can pretend it doesn’t matter,” she said, never stopping her careful cleaning of the wound, “but I know it hurts. It hurts everyone.”

“I didn’t say it didn’t hurt.”

“No, but you’ve got that look.” She finished cleaning the elbow and moved to the knee, lifting his pant leg slightly to get a better angle on the wound. “That ‘I don’t want to show it’ look. I know it well.”

Kairan watched her work in silence for a moment. “How do you know?”

Amara shrugged, not looking up, focused on the gauze. “I make that face too, sometimes.”

She finished bandaging the knee, then moved to his arms, wrapping a strip of gauze around the more heavily scratched forearm and securing it with a knot that spoke of years of practice.

“There,” she said, leaning back to admire her handiwork. “It’ll be better by tomorrow.”

“Thanks,” Kairan said.

Amara smiled at him, then stood up and closed the tin box. “Next time, try winning without getting trampled,” she said, though there was no hint of reproach in her tone.

“It wasn’t my fault.”

“I know. I just wanted to say something nice before heading off to take my own shower since I imagine Peter is already using up all the hot water.”

As if on cue, a muffled shout drifted in from the bathroom corridor Peter complaining about the water being too cold, followed by laughter from someone in another room who happened to be passing by.

One by one, the occupants of Room 290 began taking their showers.

Peter, who had announced his intention before even entering the room, was the first to disappear into the hallway without needing to say another word.

“Bartholomew’s face,” he said upon returning with dripping hair, “is something I’ll remember for years.”

“No one understood what was happening,” Gregory said.

“I never would have gotten that angry,” Samuel said to Kairan.

“Getting angry doesn’t help,” he replied.

Next came Clara, then Lena who left with a faint smile, saying nothing and then Victor, silent as ever.

“It all starts over tomorrow,” Peter said while they waited. “You can’t win every day.”

“I can try,” Kairan said.

It was Samuel’s turn, then Gregory’s. “Amara goes after you,” the latter said before disappearing. “She always takes the longest.”

“That’s not true,” Amara said without looking up.

Kairan got up for his turn, his body weary and the bandages pulling slightly. When he returned, only Amara was left; she headed off last, as always.

“I like the silence at the end of the day,” she said.

When she came back, everyone stood up together, ready for dinner.