'What's written at the back?' Leon's thought buzzed as he turned to see what Mr. Lee really wanted him to read.
'Not for the soft-hearted; only for the relentless soul.' The words seared into Leon's thoughts, shifting the fire in him cold.
"Your relentlessness is your strength. Your power is like a flood that needs fixing. You have contained it for a moment. But it will break under sufficient pressure." Mr. Lee paused and gasped for air.
Then, slowly, his voice turned soft like the wind, but hard as the depth of the sea. "You must become the riverbank. You must learn to guide the current, not just to block it."
He gestured to the book. "This is not about fighting. It is about understanding flow, balance, and redirecting force."
Mr. Lee turned toward the wall and grinned.
"Your enemy's strength can be your own. Learn to feel it and turn it against them. Fail, and you will drown in your dreams forever."
Leon's struggle roared inside him. The memory of the contained star-blast in his chest felt like fresh pain.
"I don't know how to stop it," Leon admitted in a soft voice. "Whenever I try to hold it, it feels like it will tear me apart. When I let it out too… it becomes an explosion."
"Precisely," Mr. Lee said, his wide eyes glinting in the dark.
"That is what you must learn. The in-between is not a passive state. It is the most active state of all. It is the moment of choice between the spark and the inferno. Now, stand."
Mr. Lee positioned Leon in the center of his own room and stood in front of him with his arms spread.
"The first lesson is not about attack. It is about reception. You will not strike. You will only defend. And you will not use your power to create a shield—even if you could. You will use it to feel the air I displace."
Mr. Lee held Leon's arms and let them fall. Then he began to move in a slow, deliberate motion. He swung a hand toward Leon's face, not to strike, but to pass close by.
Leon felt the heavy air pass by his face the moment he saw Mr. Lee's hand pass.
"Feel the flow of the air. Feel the intention of each movement. Not by looking, but by sensing."
Mr. Lee swung again. "Do not push your energy out. Let it spread. Make it a net that catches the whispers of every motion around you."
Leon closed his eyes, trying to sense the air. But the moment Mr. Lee's hand moved, his instinct screamed, causing him to falter.
His bones ached as if reshaping, his chest on the brink of blasting apart. The energy within him flared in a defensive state.
It didn't explode outside. But the heat that pulsed out of Leon's body knocked a cup off his desk and shattered it.
He flinched, frustration boiling over. "See? I can't! It just… happens."
"Again," Mr. Lee said, his voice utterly calm. "Your frustration is just another current in the flood. Acknowledge it. The power is yours."
Mr. Lee moved closer to Leon. "Feel its heat. Then let it pass. It is not a separate beast; it is the strength of your own spirit, wild and untrained. You must be the rider, not the thrown."
They continued for what felt like hours. Swing. Flare. Shatter. Failure. Each time, Leon's rage grew—at himself, at Tiger, at the impossible task.
Each time, Mr. Lee would say, "Again. Find the space between the trigger and the reaction."
Slowly and painfully, something began to change. He stopped waiting for Mr Lee to correct him. He started watching, studying, and choosing for himself.
'He's showing me the path,' Leon whispered in his head, tracking Mr Lee's every movement. 'But I have to walk through it myself.'
The fifth time Mr. Lee's hand swung, Leon felt the surge of power but didn't let it push.
He adjusted his footing before Mr Lee could tell him to and lowered his shoulders without being asked.
He imagined the power flowing through his veins, spreading to the edges of his body, becoming sensitive skin.
He didn't just feel the air; he felt the intent behind the movement a fraction of a second before it finished.
The energy didn't flare out. The heat didn't shatter anything. It hummed, contained, like a live wire under his skin, waiting for his command.
Mr. Lee stopped, his hand hovering an inch from Leon's cheek. A genuine smile touched his lips.
"Good. You see? The bridge is not to contain the dam. The bridge is you, built over the flood, choosing where the water flows. That," he said, pointing to the humming, controlled energy thrumming within Leon, "is the beginning of precision. That is the scalpel."
"The tournament will try to make you explode. Tiger, and all other strong opponents, will feed on your rage. Practice. Feel the current. Do not let it feel you."
With that, Mr. Lee walked out of the room, rubbing his knuckles as if he had slammed something unbreakable, and once again left on in the quiet room.
Even as Mr. Lee was gone, his ghost movements still lingered in the air, and for the first time, a flicker of true understanding danced in Leon's heart.
The struggle ahead was far from over, but now, he had finally found the right path.
With nothing else to do, Leon lay on the bed, letting the cold wind wash over him.
He stared at his arms as he swung them slowly, trying to see if he could redo Mr. Lee's actions. After trying for a while, he gasped and covered himself with the blue-black bedsheet he always kicked to the floor.
Slowly, his eyelids grew heavy, then drifted in the night's arms until sleep claimed him whole.
His body twitched countless times as the air flew above his head, raising strands of his hair. No one spoke in the room, but it wasn't quiet.
Insectoid sounds loomed above his roof so hard he could hear them in his sleep. But among the noises, one thing, one question, echoed countless times in his mind.
Was last night's lesson enough?
He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling where moonlight bled through the gap in the curtains. He placed his palms at his side, palms up, fingers loosened.
Leon's chest rose as he breathed in through his nose, then exhaled softly through his mouth.
For the first time since he had found his father's cap fluttering on that piece of rebar, Leon's chest didn't feel like a locked vault. Instead. It felt like a room with a small but open window.
He closed his eyes, then smiled as sleep slowly swallowed him without a struggle. Yet the question repeated itself as Leon's mind entered the dream state.