Among all the things that Flavius could have expected by spending some time with Juliet, being beaten up and insulted were not the two he had predicted.

“Raise your face, again. I’m just going to slap you; you have to drop that habit of closing your eyes as soon as possible. If you do that in battle, you are dead,” Juliet said while landing another supersonic slap on his cheeks.

The girl was none too pleased to train such an inept, but Flavius had the special privilege of being Jacob’s disciple and she felt obligated to make him at least decent.

“Come on! Did you faint?! Flavius, you are a little pussy, I swear,” said the shorter girl.

“That’s sexist,” Flavius wrinkled his bruised nose with great pain and commented.

“Sure, wait for the second act of the sexist show,” Juliet said before hitting him again with what she called a ‘slow-slap’.

“I don’t understand, aren’t you supposed to have a 9th level of both Martial and Magical Talent? How can you be so incompetent,” she was gawking by now. “Jacob said that talent reflects, to some level, both physical and mental fitness. It’s not an exact equation, but it does have an influence. And right now, you look like the biggest unfit idiot I have ever seen.”

“Ouch,” Flavius attempted a smile that was promptly rebuffered by her stern expression.

“What’s your Martial Style, again?” Juliet asked.

“Yin-Yang Martial Style,” Flavius said while cringing a little for the name, “Jacob said the style is about balance, but I don’t understand what he means.”

“What do you mean you don’t understand?” Juliet was on the verge of plucking her own hair out, “it’s fucking balance, you fucking idiot. Just don’t fall or something. Feel the balls of your feet when you are trying to dodge, balance your fucking body, your fucking energies and balance your balance your fucking balance too!”

If Flavius had not just been beaten up to a pulp, he would have probably been offended by Juliet’s tone. But as things were standing, he was starting to believe that he was truly an idiot for not understanding.

“What does that mean, I just do this?” Flavius got on the balls of his feet and started focusing on balance while thinking about how his Cultivation Technique worked.

“How do you feel now?” Juliet asked with brows furrowed.

“I feel like an idiot, that’s how I feel,” and then Flavius went back to his normal standing position.

“Listen, Flavius, I’m kind of wasting my time here,” Juliet said bluntly, not a care in the world for his feelings. “But I think you might be getting too much in your own head with this ‘I feel like an idiot’ whining. We are in the apocalypse, fighting Demonic Beasts with funny-sounding Cultivation Techniques and other things. Either get a uncomfortable and start growing up, or just go die after you first real fight.”

With that said, Juliet started walking away, this time for real.

Well, man, that didn’t go that well, Flavius told himself. I should have picked up my mother’s offer when she told me to go train with her and the other women.

Flavius wondered how in hell he should be comfortable with the goddamn ‘Yin-Yang Martial Style’. Come on, what was he supposed to do, put something to cover his eye and try to feel the force?

His life wasn’t – and had never been for what mattered – a movie. He had barely managed to do a few exams in the medicine faculty, and now he was supposed to become an incredible warrior out of the blue?

Why?

Why should it work like that? Why would it work?

Was the universe so simple that you just needed to be comfortable with something and just try your best? Come on, it couldn’t really be like that, could it?

Part of that question really scared Flavius, because he had to consider the answer he had never taken as true.

What if it’s really all it takes? What if being just a bit more shameless would change everything?

What if he had tried that when universities had not yet been razed to the ground? Would it have worked? What if instead of paralyzing anxiety and sleepless nights over books he had just gone out and relaxed a bit, knowing that one way or another, he would still make it. And maybe he wouldn’t have made it; but who cared? That was the point.

And who cared about being embarrassed when the other option was to die a terrible and miserable death? Should he prioritize his fragile feelings of shame and shyness over the chance to survive? Was he so stupid he would really rather die than just sink into the cringe he had always felt for certain things?

Who knows, if I had asked more questions to my classmates, maybe I could have snaked my way through their note-taking groups, the study-groups, the friendships that they were enjoying so much. But it’s always so painful to ask questions. Like, what I’m supposed to do, go there and say ‘yo, I think I’m not getting this shit, do you have a Facebook group or something where you share your worries about the exam?’.

Flavius looked down at the ground. There was some of his blood on it. Not much because Juliet had tried to avoid hurting him too much.

It was mostly blood mixed with spit from all the slaps he had taken.

Can’t even bleed like a man, I guess.

He had only really acted relaxed and natural while being drunk. He met the few friends he had made while being quite a bit drunk and throwing cringy jokes left and right, even calling people ‘bro’ without thinking twice.

Flavius suddenly raised his head.

“Shit, I know what to do! SHIT!”

He started sprinting toward one specific house in St. Peter.