The screen glowed long after the match had ended.

Lark lay on his bed with his phone resting against his chest, the warmth of it seeping through his shirt like a pulse that hadn’t decided to stop yet. The word DEFEAT had already disappeared, replaced by menus and blinking icons, but he could still see it. His eyes stayed open, fixed on nothing.

The room was loud a moment ago. Voices shouting through his headset. His own voice among them—too sharp, too desperate. Now there was only the fan rattling above him and the distant sound of traffic drifting in through the window.

He hadn’t noticed the door opening.

“Again?” his father said.

The voice cut through the room, heavy and sudden. Lark flinched, fingers tightening around his phone.

“You’re still playing this game?” his father went on. “All day, every day. You failed your exam, and this is what you do?”

Lark sat up slowly, pulling the headset off his ears. The silence felt worse than the shouting had.

“It was just one match,” he said. His voice came out thinner than he expected.

His father laughed once, short and bitter. “One match. Yesterday it was one match too. Tomorrow it will be another.”

He stepped fully into the room, arms crossed, eyes scanning the scattered notebooks on the desk—untouched, exactly where they had been for weeks.

“Do you think this will give you a future?” his father asked. “Do you think anyone cares how good you are at pressing buttons?”

The words landed with practiced accuracy. They always did.

Lark opened his mouth, then closed it again. There were too many things he wanted to say, and none of them sounded real enough.

“No more matches,” his father said. “Go study.”

The door slammed.

The fan rattled on.

Lark sat there for a moment, staring at the place where his father had stood. His chest felt tight, as if something inside him had folded in on itself. He picked up his phone again, turning it face down on the bed, as though hiding it might quiet the noise it carried.

He waited.

When the footsteps outside his room faded, he stood, slipped his shoes on without turning on the light, and eased the door open. The house was dark, breathing softly in sleep.

Outside, the air was cooler. The streetlight flickered. His phone vibrated once in his hand—a message from his team already queuing without him.

Lark didn’t answer.

He started walking.