'God. Fucking. Damn it.'
Steve could feel the weight of his fellow students stares—sharp, unrelenting, and far too many for his liking.
Eyes from all corners of the training mat bore into him, like silent arrows laced with expectations.
Even Dina, with her typically slight aloof expression, watched from the corner. And there Steve stood, wooden daggers gripped in his hands.
Across from him stood his opponent, Sara, the girl had picked by the instructor.
There was nothing particularly memorable about her. No haunting beauty, no radiance that would steal the breath from the lungs of men.
She was average—utterly so. Not eye-catching in the slightest, at least not to Steve.
But even then, Steve's mind wasn't fully on her. It was elsewhere, a tumbling mess of inward frustration and frantic thoughts.
'Damn it. She wasn't supposed to pick me. I'm not supposed to be out here.'
