Castor Rowe ⚚ AURA

The villa sat on the edge of the city like something that had been designed to be admired from a distance and endured from within. All sharp lines and dark surfaces, it looked less like a home and more like a statement—angular walls of stone and concrete, long stretches of tinted glass that reflected the sky back at itself, as if even daylight had to negotiate entry. It was expensive, undeniably so, but in the same way a perfectly calibrated machine is expensive: not decorative, not indulgent, but precise.

Inside, everything followed the same philosophy. Space was not filled so much as arranged. The open-plan living area stretched wide and uncluttered, furniture low and deliberate, lighting soft enough to keep eyes from straining after hours of screens. The air carried a faint, constant hum of something electronic—cooling systems, distant PCs, the quiet infrastructure of performance. Even the silence felt intentional, like it had been trained into the walls.

The practice wing was separated by a glass corridor, soundproofed to the point where stepping inside felt like entering a vacuum. Identical setups lined the room, each station immaculate, each chair positioned with the same almost clinical symmetry. Above them, a digital board rotated through drafts, schedules, scrim notes—data replacing decoration. It was the heart of AURA, beating in clean lines and controlled variables.

The rest of the villa was built around recovery rather than comfort. A professional kitchen stocked with things that looked nutritious but suspiciously joyless. A lounge where conversation stayed low and slow. A compact gym that smelled faintly of disinfectant and discipline. Outside, a narrow lap pool cut through the patio like a ruler line, reflecting the night in perfect stillness.

It was, in every sense, a place designed to eliminate excess.

Which made Castor’s room something of a quiet rebellion.

Compared to the rest of the villa, it looked like a small, contained collapse. Clothes on the floor in a way that suggested they had been removed mid-thought. Empty cans lined along his desk like a timeline of poor decisions. And on the walls—carefully placed, but far too numerous to be accidental—photos. Most of them were of her.

He had told himself, at some point, that he would take them down. That it would be cleaner, easier, more in line with everything else about this place. He never did. Instead, he left them exactly where they were, as if pretending that proximity could replace presence.

By the time he joined the others in the kitchen, the worst of the training fatigue had settled into something dull and manageable. The team had already spread out around the island, food containers open, beers cracked, the atmosphere loose in that post-scrim way where no one quite wanted to think about the next day yet.

Vivianne was mid-story, hands moving as much as her voice, her laughter bright enough to feel almost out of place against the villa’s controlled quiet. Marcus sat at the far end, steady as ever, eating with the same focus he applied to everything else. Elias leaned back in his chair, expression unreadable but eyes tracking everything. Qian, as usual, seemed both present and elsewhere at the same time, scrolling through something on his tablet between bites.

Castor slid into an empty seat, phone already in his hand before he fully registered the movement. It had become a habit he didn’t question anymore. Instagram loaded almost automatically. Her profile opened even faster.

There was something absurd about how familiar it all felt—the arrangement of posts, the small shifts in aesthetic, the way he could tell what kind of day she’d had based on a caption that, to anyone else, would mean nothing. He lingered on a photo longer than he should have, thumb hovering, then moving, then stopping again.

The message box opened.

He typed.

Deleted.

Typed again.

Deleted.

At this point, it was less communication and more ritual.

Across the counter, Elias watched him for a moment, then took a slow sip of his drink.

“You’re gonna wear a hole through that screen,” he said, voice casual in the way that made it worse.

Castor didn’t look up. “I’m reading.”

“Yeah,” Elias replied. “Very intensely.”

Vivianne leaned forward slightly, eyes already bright with interest. “Oh my god, is this about her?”

Castor exhaled, the sound somewhere between a sigh and a warning. “Don’t.”

“Too late,” she said cheerfully. “It’s already happening.”

Marcus didn’t comment, but there was a subtle shift in his posture, the kind that suggested he was listening more closely now. Qian’s gaze flickered up briefly, assessing, then back down again.

It wasn’t exactly a secret.

Castor had never made an announcement, never explained, but absence had a way of speaking for itself. The way he checked his phone more often. The way his focus slipped in half-second intervals. The way certain topics simply... stopped existing around him.

“You know,” Vivianne continued, resting her chin in her hand, “most people just text their ex instead of... whatever this is.”

“It’s not ‘whatever this is,’” Castor muttered, though he couldn’t have defined it if asked.

“Right,” Elias said. “It’s a high-level strategic observation mission.”

Castor finally looked up, expression flat. “You’re both annoying.”

“Correct,” Vivianne said immediately. “But also right.”

He leaned back slightly, running a hand through his hair, the gesture more tired than frustrated. For a moment, he considered saying something—explaining, maybe, or at least defending himself—but the words didn’t line up cleanly enough to be worth it.

Because the truth was inconvenient. He missed her. Not in a vague, nostalgic way, but in a constant, low-level presence that never quite left. It threaded through everything—wins that felt quieter than they should have, losses that lingered longer, moments where his instinct was to reach for his phone and then stop halfway through the motion.

Breaking up had made sense at the time. That was the problem.

“It’s been months,” Elias said, not unkindly. “You gonna do something about it, or just keep... observing?”

Castor’s jaw tightened slightly. “There’s nothing to do.”

Vivianne made a face. “That is objectively untrue. You could apologize.”

“I did,” he said.

“When?”

He paused.

“...once.”

Elias huffed a quiet laugh. “Damn. Real commitment there.”

“It was a good apology,” Castor added, which only made it worse.

Vivianne straightened, suddenly energized by the idea. “Okay, no. We’re fixing this. You’re going to apologize properly.”

“I’m not—”

“And,” she continued, ignoring him completely, “you’re going to bring something.”

“I’m not bringing anything.”

“A grand gesture,” she said, as if he hadn’t spoken. “Something memorable. Something that makes her emotionally compromised.”

“That sounds manipulative.”

“It’s romantic,” Vivianne corrected. “There’s a difference.”

Marcus finally spoke, voice even. “Depends on execution.”

Castor stared at them for a second, then looked back down at his phone, as if the conversation might dissolve if he disengaged hard enough.

Vivianne leaned closer, lowering her voice conspiratorially. “Get her a puppy.”

There was a brief pause. Then Elias snorted. “That’s insane.”

“It’s genius,” she insisted in dramatic fashion pointing at Elias accusatory finger. “No one can stay mad at a puppy. If Qian would get me a puppy at least once I would never be mad at him. It’s scientifically impossible.”

“That’s not science.”

“It is in my heart.”

Castor didn’t laugh. Instead, something in his expression shifted—not dramatically, not obviously, but enough.

Vivianne noticed immediately. “Oh no.”

“Oh no,” Elias echoed, sitting up slightly.

“Don’t,” Vivianne said, pointing at him. “I was joking.”

Castor was already standing.

“You’re not serious,” Elias said.

He grabbed his jacket without answering.

“Castor,” Vivianne tried again, half laughing now, “it’s midnight.”

“That’s fine.”

“It’s not fine. Puppies are asleep. Probably.”

He paused at the door just long enough to glance back, expression unreadable but intent in a way that felt dangerously close to determination.

“Where would I even go?” he asked.

Elias blinked. “You’re asking us?”

Marcus shrugged slightly. “There’s a shelter two districts over. Open late sometimes.”

Vivianne covered her face with her hands. "Qian is going to kill me”

Castor nodded once, like that settled it. Then he left. The door closed behind him with a quiet, definitive click, leaving a brief, stunned silence in its wake.

Elias leaned back slowly. “He’s not coming back without a dog, is he.”

Vivianne peeked through her fingers, already grinning despite herself. “Nope.”

Marcus took another bite of his food, unfazed. “At least it’s not worse.”

Elias raised an eyebrow. “Worse than a midnight emotional support puppy purchase?”

Marcus considered that.

“...fair point.”

---

By the time Castor found himself standing in front of her door, the confidence that had carried him through international finals, elimination games, and interviews with a million eyes watching had thinned into something far less reliable.

It was late enough for the street to have settled into that particular kind of quiet that feels less like peace and more like a held breath. The building’s exterior lights cast a muted glow over the entryway, softening the edges of everything except the thoughts running through his head, which remained annoyingly sharp. He stood there longer than necessary, one hand loosely gripping the strap of the small carrier he had long since abandoned in favor of holding the puppy directly, as if proximity somehow made the situation more manageable.

It did not.

The puppy, for its part, had no interest in emotional nuance. It shifted in his arms with determined enthusiasm, its small body radiating warmth and movement in a way that made stillness impossible. The Stitch onesie—an impulse decision that had seemed, at the time, like a detail of questionable dignity but undeniable effectiveness—was slightly crooked now, one ear flopped awkwardly to the side. The effect was less “strategic emotional leverage” and more “small, chaotic creature dressed by someone with too much at stake.”

Castor adjusted his grip, glancing down at it.

“This was your idea,” he muttered, as if the puppy had been present in the kitchen conversation and not simply the unfortunate consequence of it.

The puppy blinked at him, unimpressed, then attempted to lick his chin.

He leaned back slightly, avoiding it with the kind of reflex that had won him games and was now being applied to far less dignified circumstances.

The absurdity of it all did not escape him.

If someone had told him, even twenty-four hours ago, that he would be standing outside her apartment holding a dog in a cartoon onesie, mentally rehearsing an apology he couldn’t quite finalize, he would have dismissed it outright. Not because it was impossible, but because it didn’t fit the version of himself he preferred to believe in—the one that made decisions cleanly, executed them without hesitation, and moved on.

That version of himself had been remarkably efficient.

It had also been wrong.

His gaze shifted to the door, lingering there as if expecting it to offer some kind of guidance. It did not. Doors, much like games without clear win conditions, were unhelpfully neutral. He exhaled slowly, the sound quieter than he intended.

There had been a time when showing up like this would have felt unnecessary. When he could have texted her, called her, walked in without thinking about it. When the space between them hadn’t needed to be measured, navigated, justified. He remembered, with uncomfortable clarity, the first time he met her.

It had not been dramatic. No immediate spark, no cinematic coincidence. Just a small, ordinary moment that had, in hindsight, rearranged more of his life than anything else. She had been standing slightly off to the side at an event he hadn’t particularly wanted to attend—something loosely related to the team, sponsors, expectations he had not yet learned how to decline. He had noticed her because she wasn’t trying to be noticed, which in a room full of people performing versions of themselves was oddly disarming.

She had looked at him like he was just another person. Not Deadeye. Not a rising name. Just someone who happened to be standing there, equally out of place. He had found himself talking to her before he fully understood why.

It had been easy in a way that nothing else in his life was at the time. Conversations that didn’t feel like they needed to go anywhere. Silences that didn’t demand to be filled. She hadn’t asked him to be anything other than present, which, for someone who spent most of his time managing expectations, felt almost unfamiliar.

He had not planned to let it matter. That had been the first miscalculation. The second had been assuming he could walk away from it without consequence.

The memory shifted, less comfortably now, to the end of it. The conversation that had felt, at the time, controlled. Logical. Necessary. He had framed it carefully—career, pressure, timing. Words that sounded reasonable, even to him, arranged in a way that made the decision seem inevitable rather than chosen.

He had not stayed long enough to see what it did to her. That part had been easier to avoid. Until it wasn’t.

The puppy shifted again, letting out a small, impatient sound that pulled him back to the present with surprising effectiveness. It had, he was beginning to realize, very little tolerance for prolonged introspection.

“Right,” he said under his breath, more to himself than anything else.

His hand lifted, hovered in front of the door, then dropped again. For a moment, the hesitation felt almost physical, like something resisting forward movement. Not fear in the dramatic sense, but something quieter and more persistent. The awareness that this was not a situation he could control, not an outcome he could predict or influence with enough precision to guarantee success.

He had spent years refining the ability to read situations, to anticipate reactions, to position himself advantageously before anything even began.

None of that applied here.

There was no correct timing, no optimal approach that ensured a favorable result. There was only the choice to act, and whatever followed. He tried, briefly, to run through what he would say, but it did not go well.

Every version sounded either insufficient or overly rehearsed, swinging between detached and uncomfortably sincere with no stable middle ground. He could feel the instinct to deflect, to soften things with humor or distance, already pressing at the edges of his thoughts.

He ignored it as this was not a situation he could charm his way through. He lifted his hand again.

This time, he knocked.

The sound felt louder than it should have, echoing slightly in the enclosed space. He let his hand fall back to his side, suddenly very aware of the puppy, of his posture, of the fact that he had not, in fact, accounted for what came immediately after this step. The seconds that followed stretched in a way that made time feel less linear and more like something being pulled thin.

He adjusted his stance, then immediately regretted it. The puppy took the opportunity to shift again, one small paw catching on the edge of the onesie. He fixed it automatically, fingers more careful than he would have expected from himself.

“Stay,” he murmured, as if that were a reasonable request.

The door opened. For a fraction of a second, everything he had planned—every version of the conversation, every attempt at control—collapsed into something much simpler and far less structured. He held out the puppy.

It was not subtle. It was not strategic. It was, in fact, exactly as ridiculous as it sounded.

The puppy blinked, then let out a small, enthusiastic sound, entirely unaware that it had just been deployed as part of a deeply questionable emotional approach. Castor exhaled, something almost like a laugh slipping into the motion before he caught it.

“I—” he started, then stopped, recalibrating in real time.

“This is probably... not how people usually do this,” he said, tone deliberately lighter than he felt, as if acknowledging the absurdity might make it less so. “I was told it might help.”

A brief pause, just long enough for him to register how that sounded.

“I mean—no, that’s not—” He shook his head slightly, the movement small but decisive. “That’s not the point.”

He adjusted his grip on the puppy, then extended it again, more deliberately this time.

“I’m not trying to bribe you,” he added, which, given the circumstances, did not improve his position as much as he might have hoped. “Or—okay, maybe a little. But not in a—”

He stopped himself before the sentence could get worse.

“I wanted to talk,” he said, the words more grounded now, less filtered through habit. “If that’s... okay.”

There was a moment where he considered saying more—explaining, justifying, filling the space before it could turn into something uncomfortable.

He didn’t.

Instead, he stayed where he was, holding a puppy in a slightly crooked Stitch onesie, expression steadier than he felt, and waited in a way that had nothing to do with strategy and everything to do with something he was still learning how to do properly.