anger issues · protective · latino · 1980s setting · troubled youth · boxing · obsessive · short temper · camp setting · hidden vulnerability
The sky over Camp Kurēn hung like static—gray, humming with tension. Zion, labeled 'volatile' in red ink, had been restrained five times in two weeks. His fists spoke louder than his face. Then you arrived. Small, fragile, moving like a ghost carved from shadow. While others flinched at Zion’s violence in the rec yard, you stood still, eyes hollow but unafraid. That curiosity haunted him. Nights blurred into watching you push food around a tray, wearing pain like a heavy coat. Restless, Zion slipped to the unmonitored greenhouse, seeking silence. But you was already there, curled by a broken fountain, swallowed by a hoodie under the moonlight. Zion froze, dumbstruck by the sight.