Chapter 237: 237 | Statistically Unusual [PS BONUS]
The shower in Room 205 had water pressure that belonged in a five-star hotel. I stood under the rain shower head for longer than necessary, letting the heat work into muscles that Steele had personally victimized over the past two hours. The Demigod recovery had already handled the worst of it, returning my body to baseline while my classmates were probably still lying on Field Epsilon questioning their life choices, but hot water felt good regardless of whether my biology required it.
I killed the tap, toweled off, and caught my reflection in the bathroom mirror.
The Demigod trait had been busy overnight again. My shoulders sat wider than they had a week ago, filling out in a way that made the proportions of my frame look intentional rather than accidental.
My jaw carried a harder line. The abdominal definition that Sloane had traced with her fingers two nights ago had deepened into something you could see from across a room. My arms held a density that communicated real functional power without looking like I spent twelve hours a day in a gym.
I looked like someone who belonged at Halloran. Not a guest. Not an anomaly. A student who had earned the right to walk through those halls, even if the credentials that got me here were sitting in a gacha interface nobody else could see.
The Halloran uniform hung on the back of my bathroom door where I’d left it the night before, freshly pressed and waiting. I pulled the white fitted shirt off the hanger first, working through the buttons from collar to waist. The fabric sat close against my shoulders and chest in a way the standard sizing charts probably hadn’t anticipated, following the new lines of my frame without pulling or bunching. It tapered at my waist without restricting movement when I tested the range of motion, the kind of tailoring that respected what was underneath it rather than trying to flatten everything into a template.
The charcoal blazer went on next. The weight of it settled across my shoulders with a substance I could feel, the deep green trim at the collar and cuffs adding a visual punctuation that made the whole thing read as deliberate rather than decorative.
I adjusted the single silver collar pin on the left side, Combat Operations, one pin for the track I’d been sorted into based on an entrance exam that had involved considerably more property damage than anyone had planned for.
The pin caught the bathroom light and threw it back like a small declaration of intent.
Dark trousers completed the picture. Fitted through the thigh, clean break at the ankle, the kind of cut that moved with you when you shifted your weight rather than fighting you every step. I checked the full image in the mirror and something in my chest settled into place.
This looked right.
Not in the way that Diane’s carefully curated shopping outfits looked right, all strategically assembled pieces that communicated specific messages to specific rooms. Not in the way that Felicity’s blue button-down had looked right yesterday, engineered to sit at the exact intersection of casual and compelling.
This was different.
The Halloran crest sat embossed in silver on my left chest, the same crest that had been on the acceptance letter I’d received three weeks ago, the same crest that appeared on every billboard and recruitment poster scattered across Verano’s waterfront district.
Wearing it made the whole thing feel real in a way that the apartment key, the cafeteria meal plan, and even Steele’s two-hour conditioning session hadn’t quite managed.
I was a Halloran student. Combat Operations track. Third-ranked entrance applicant in the entire country.
And I looked damn good in the uniform.
I adjusted my collar one more time, ran my hand through my hair to push the dirty-blonde strands into something resembling order, grabbed my bag, and headed for the door.
The hallway was already full of 1-B residents moving toward the stairwell and elevator in various states of morning readiness. Percy emerged from Room 204 at the exact same moment I stepped out, his uniform immaculate and his collar pins aligned with a precision that suggested he’d used a ruler. His navy blue hair was combed flat, his notebook was already in his hand, and his expression carried the focused calm of someone who had been awake since four-thirty preparing for this exact moment.
"You look good," I said.
Percy blinked twice, processing the compliment with the speed of someone running diagnostics. "Thank you. That observation is reciprocated. The blazer fits your shoulder-to-waist ratio well. I noticed the tailoring appears custom despite being standard issue, which suggests your physical dimensions coincidentally align with the manufacturer’s default measurements. Statistically unusual."
I paused, letting that fully land before responding. "Or I just fill out a blazer."
"Also possible," Percy conceded, his tone suggesting he was adding that alternative hypothesis to an already extensive mental file. He fell into step beside me as we headed toward the stairwell, his movements precise and slightly too deliberate.
"I mapped the optimal route to our homeroom classroom this morning. Building C, Room 214. Seven minutes from the front entrance using the covered walkway, nine if the west corridor is congested, which it will be because 1-A’s homeroom is in Room 212 and their students historically cluster near the vending machines. I cross-referenced last year’s foot traffic data with the current enrollment numbers to account for variance."
"You mapped a route around vending machine congestion?"
"Bottleneck analysis is a foundational element of logistics." Percy said this the way most people say the sky is blue.
We took the stairs because the elevator was backed up with three separate groups trying to load simultaneously. The stairwell echoed with voices and footsteps, the particular energy of twenty teenagers who had just received their first real uniforms and were processing the fact that the next two years of their lives had officially begun.
The common room hit me like a wall.
Not the noise, though the noise was considerable. Not the energy, though that was also significant.
It was the women.
