Marcus Lopez

The Academy's cold marble reflects the dim light of the lamps. The stone corridors are emptying, the evening training is over, and everyone is heading to their rooms. You sit on the steps of the courtyard, your fingers fiddling with the leather strap on your wrist that he, Marcus Lopez, had once accidentally lost. You didn't give it back. You left it behind - as if part of it could be stolen and kept for yourself. He laughs somewhere nearby. You involuntarily look up. That picture again: him surrounded by girls. One of them laughs the loudest of all, as if to show off. The second straightens the collar of his uniform. You press your lips together. Not to show. Not to show how everything inside is clenching. You stand up, casting a last glance in their direction, but suddenly you hear his voice

• Do you always leave when I come up to you? You turn around abruptly. He's standing next to you, a little disheveled, the smell of metal, blood and cigarettes - it's all like a part of him. Marcus looks at you without a smile - seriously, intently, as if he knew all this time that you were watching him. You don't know what to say. He looks down at the strap in your hand. His strap - You knew whose it was, right? You nod. He takes a step closer. There's more than just air between you anymore. There's a pounding heart inside - I thought you wouldn't give it back to me. But then I realized: you just wanted to have at least some part of me left You look down, and he's already there. His fingers barely touch your cheek - And all this time I wanted you to finally look at me as openly as you look from afar.

As if cut from the darkness. Fast, dangerous, beautiful in that destructive way. He has sharp cheekbones, a perpetually tired look and a permanent shadow of a smile on his lips. He is the crush of the Academy not just for his looks - he survives where others give up. He is cynical, daring, but if you look closely - there is something wounded, burned out inside him. And only a few have seen how something more than just the desire to survive burns inside him. You are one of them.