Chapter 18 The Stamina

Chapter 18 The Stamina
After aggressively defending the honor of Matthew's ass in the forum, Ruth scrolled back up to read the thirsty poetry thread. The more she read, the more she had to admit that the Finance majors were shockingly talented at literature. Unable to resist, she took a few screenshots to save the best rhymes.
The roaring hype of the basketball tournament had officially concluded, and today marked the first day of the track and field events for the Sports Festival.
The morning began with an agonizingly long opening ceremony. The principal’s speech could be perfectly summarized in four words: long, boring, and useless.
If Ruth hadn't had the forum thread to keep her entertained, she would have fallen asleep sitting upright on the bleachers.
The stands were currently half-empty because all the athletes had been called away.
Ruth had arrived slightly late this morning. When she sat down, the girls next to her explained that the sports rep had been in a complete panic over a mix-up with the registration numbers and had dragged all the competing athletes off to the registration tent.
She assumed Matthew had been dragged along with them, which was why she hadn't seen him all morning.
Bored out of her mind, Ruth went back to refreshing the forum.
The anonymous board didn't give notification pings for replies, so it took a while for people to notice Ruth's aggressive post. For the first twenty minutes, the entire thread was still completely focused on Matthew's "lethal waist." It wasn't until the 80th post that someone finally acknowledged her comment.
[Post 80]: Hahahaha the girl at Post 56 is asking the real questions! How are you guys completely ignoring his ass?! LMAO what a bizarre priority.
[Post 81]: Ugh, obviously we noticed it! This thread was just specifically dedicated to his waist! But honestly, is there a single part of Mat that isn't absolute perfection? I challenge you to name one!
[Post 82]: A lethal waist and a perfect ass... Tsk tsk tsk. I am so jealous of whoever eventually gets to claim him.
[Post 83]: A lethal waist and a perfect ass! I volunteer! I am ready! Mat, I am ready!
Ruth: "?"
You're ready? Did you even ask if HE was ready for you?!
She was just about to aggressively type out a rebuttal when another reply popped up.
[Post 84]: Wake up, sister. Consent is a two-way street. It doesn't matter if you're ready, it matters who Mat is ready for. [Nosebleed]
Ruth emphatically hit the "Like" button on that post. Exactly! Finally, someone with some sense!
However.
When it came to the question of who Mat was actually ready for...
Ruth's fingers hovered over the keyboard, but she didn't type anything. Instead, a slow, violent flush began to creep up her neck and spread across her cheeks.
After hesitating for a solid minute, she decided to just say screw it. It was an anonymous forum anyway; no one knew who she was. She was just about to shamelessly nominate herself as the designated claimer of his ass.
"What are you doing?"
The sudden, familiar male voice dropped from directly above her. His voice was incredibly distinct—low, smooth, and laced with quiet amusement.
Ruth nearly jumped out of her skin.
Feeling exactly like a first-time thief getting caught red-handed by the homeowner, her survival instincts kicked in. She aggressively slammed the lock button on her phone, plunging the screen into darkness, and whipped her head up.
Matthew Lynes was standing there wearing a backpack.
This was actually the first time Ruth had ever seen him carry one. He was dressed in a sleek, all-black athletic tracksuit. The zipper of his jacket was pulled halfway down, exposing his pale collarbones and the clean line of his throat.
He was standing at the edge of the bleachers, leaning slightly forward. With the bright morning sun directly behind him, his silhouette looked sharp, athletic, and devastatingly handsome.
Caught completely off guard, Ruth stared at him blankly for two full seconds.
"...Nothing," she finally stammered. "Just... playing on my phone."
Matthew straightened up, a knowing smile curving his lips. He raised an eyebrow. "Just playing on your phone? Then why is your face so red?"
Ruth: "...It's hot. The temperature went up today."
Whether Matthew actually believed the worst excuse in human history or just decided not to expose her, he didn't press the issue. He slung his backpack off his shoulder and casually dropped into the empty seat right next to her.
As the morning breeze shifted, Ruth caught the faint, crisp scent of clean laundry detergent radiating off him.
Suddenly, she felt a strange, overwhelming wave of nostalgia.
This is what actual college life is supposed to feel like.
During her three years at Harvard, she had been entirely immune to the charms of Western frat boys, meaning she had zero interest in dating. Going to the local college bars was boring. Her entire existence had been reduced to aggressively counting credits, pulling all-nighters, and praying for early graduation so she could finally return home.
But this time around, even though she was technically here on corporate business, running into Matthew had completely changed everything. Attending classes, watching basketball games, dealing with chaotic classmates, and constantly getting flirted with by an incredibly gorgeous, outwardly innocent guy...
It felt like the universe was finally compensating her for the three dark, miserable years she had spent locked in the Harvard library.
Just as she was lost in thought, a hand waved in front of her face. Ruth blinked and saw Matthew holding an open bottle of water out to her. He smiled. "What are you zoning out for so early in the morning?"
"..." Ruth paused, then delivered her lie with absolute conviction. "I was studying late into the night. You might not be able to tell, but I am currently doing a silent review of market mechanics." She tapped her temple solemnly. "Meditation."
Matthew: "..."
There was absolutely no way to respond to that level of bullshit. Matthew silently turned his head and took a sip of his water.
Once he capped the bottle, Ruth asked, "Did you guys get it sorted out?"
"...Get what sorted out?"
"The registration numbers," Ruth blinked. "The sports rep said there was a mix-up. Didn't he take all the athletes to the tents to get them swapped?" She looked around the half-empty stands. "Wait, how are you the only one back already? Where is everyone else?"
Piecing together her scattered questions, Matthew immediately understood what had happened. He stretched his long legs out and leaned back comfortably against the bleachers. "I didn't go with them. I just got here."
"..." Ruth stared at him. "Weren't the athletes supposed to meet up at 7:00 AM?"
"Yeah," Matthew agreed easily. "But I didn't wake up. I overslept. I already texted the rep."
When he turned his head, he found Ruth staring at him with a look of absolute, profound disappointment.
He frowned slightly. "...What?"
"Classmate Lynes," Ruth said, her tone suddenly incredibly serious.
Matthew: "?"
"The Sports Festival is a massive, important event. You can't just oversleep because you feel like it. You should have set multiple alarms and arrived on time to support the team." Ruth sighed, adopting the tone of a disappointed mother. "You really need to work on your sense of collective honor and team spirit!"
At first glance, the girl's perfectly stern expression looked completely genuine. But Matthew had spent enough time with her to know exactly what she was doing. She had found an opening to lecture him, and she was seizing it aggressively.
On the outside, she looked like a perfect, rule-abiding student. On the inside, she was absolutely cackling.
Matthew's notoriously foul morning mood had been ruined by having to wake up early, but listening to her completely hypocritical moral lecture suddenly made him feel significantly better.
Watching Ruth put on her little act, Matthew thought back to high school. When he had first noticed her, this exact personality had just been starting to form.
Back in high school, Ruth rarely spoke to people she didn't know well. She was quiet, innocent-looking, and breathtakingly beautiful. Because of that, the entire student body assumed she was incredibly soft, fragile, and gentle. She was universally crowned the untouchable "Campus Goddess."
But they were all completely wrong.
She looked like a piece of sweet candy, but underneath the sugar coating, there was an entire chaotic spectrum of flavors.
Ruth treated strangers and close friends entirely differently. The vibrant, chaotic energy she showed to her friends vanished instantly around outsiders. If a guy confessed to her, she would just offer a polite, distant smile, and then throw the love letter in the trash without even opening it.
She was the school's pure, perfect first love, but behind closed doors, she was an absolute menace.
When he had run into her again at Cal U, everything seemed exactly as he remembered. But the longer they spent together, the more her true, chaotic nature began to bleed through.
The girl who accused people of having "chronic vocabulary deficiency." The girl who threatened him to "go eat fish." The girl who casually suggested a "miracle cure" just so his corpse would smell like cinnamon when he dropped dead.
And now, the girl who was completely terrified of marriage, but was secretly defending his ass in an anonymous group chat.
And here she was, trying to lecture the ultimate lone wolf on "team spirit."
If his high school friends heard her say that to him, they would probably laugh until they dislocated their jaws.
When Matthew was a teenager, he had been brilliant, easily bored, and constantly looking for ways to cause chaos. He naturally became the undisputed, untouchable tyrant of the school.
Looking back, the "lone wolf bad boy" phase was a bit childish... but whether it was in sports or video games, he had always preferred to fight alone. "Team spirit" was genuinely a concept he had never cared about.
Matthew let out a low, amused laugh. "Are you really lecturing me about collective honor...?"
Ruth fought desperately to keep a straight face, acting like she couldn't understand why he was laughing. "What? Do you think I'm wrong?"
"Classmate Keen."
Matthew suddenly mirrored her exact formatting.
Ruth froze.
Matthew stretched his legs out further, his posture impossibly lazy. The thick, sleep-deprived rasp hadn't entirely left his voice. "It is currently eight o'clock in the morning. I don't think I've mentioned this before, but my morning sickness is severe. I absolutely hate waking up."
"The fact that I managed to drag myself out of bed to be at this event is a literal miracle..." Matthew held up his fingers, slowly counting them off. "And I signed up for... I think it was three events."
"So don't lecture me about team spirit. Why do you think I signed up for all those races? Why do you think I forced myself out of bed at eight in the morning to come to this stupid track meet..."
Matthew leaned forward, closing the distance between them until he was entirely in her personal space. A wicked, devastating smile pulled at the corner of his lips.
"...Do you really not know?"

8:30 AM.
Ten minutes before the Men's 100-Meter Sprint preliminaries.
Matthew had already left the bleachers to head down to the field.
Ruth had only wanted to playfully tease him about oversleeping, but instead, he had completely reversed the trap, leaving her heart violently hammering against her ribs. She had been sitting there for ten minutes and her face was still burning.
Worse, her classmates kept walking past her and casually asking, "Ruth, are you okay? Your face is super red!" or "Master Ruth, do you have a fever?"
Ruth squeezed her eyes shut, pressing both hands against her hot cheeks, desperately trying to mentally cool herself down.
Suddenly, someone slapped her on the shoulder.
She looked up and saw the sports rep standing over her, looking absolutely frantic.
"Master Ruth! Emergency! You need to go give Mat his water!"
"Me?" Ruth stared at him, completely bewildered. "Why me?"
"How the hell should I know?! He specifically told me he refuses to drink it unless you're the one who delivers it!" The rep leaned in, dropping his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Honestly, I think he just wants you to come down to the field and cheer for him. And since he's too proud to ask directly..." The rep winked aggressively. "You know how it is!"
Ruth: ...I just got completely decimated by his flirting, I absolutely do not want to know how it is right now.
But she couldn't exactly argue with a desperate sports rep. Eventually, Ruth was forced out of her seat. She grabbed two bottles of water from the cooler.
The rep pointed frantically toward the registration tent on the far side of the massive track. "He's over there! But Master Ruth, you really need to run! If you just walk across the entire field, you won't make it! He's going to run his race completely dehydrated! Could you really be that cruel?!"
Ruth: "..." Yes, I actually could.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the field, Matthew was standing in the registration line. Because of his height and his face, practically everyone in the vicinity was staring at him.
Feeling slightly annoyed by the crowd, he pulled out his phone. After confirming with the sports rep that Ruth was on her way, he opened WhatsApp.
Matthew only had two active group chats pinned on his phone. One was for his Vanguard Cup team, and the other was a chat with his three closest high school friends.
The group chat name changed constantly. Matthew didn't even know when it had happened, but it was currently titled: [Whoever Falls In Love First Is A Dog].
His friends were absolute idiots. They constantly roasted each other. The last group name had been [Arthur Finlan is a Stupid Turtle]. It was just an endless cycle of toxicity.
Matthew scrolled through the recent messages, then tapped the text box and tagged the entire group.
[Matthew]: @All. I have an announcement.
Even though Arthur Finlan had finally gotten his leg cast removed, he still wasn't fully mobile. Since he spent all day sitting at home on his phone, he was naturally the first to reply.
[Arthur Is Not A Dog]: Mattie is alive?!
[Arthur Is Not A Dog]: Russell is a human! Henry is a human! Holy shit! The last time we hung out, I spent the whole time complaining about the bitch who cheated on me, I completely forgot to tell you guys! Mattie actually has a situation going on!
A minute later, the other two—who actually had corporate day jobs—replied.
[Russell Is Human]: Unless Mattie is handing out free money, don't tag me.
[Henry Is Also Human]: Unless Mattie is finally confirming his sexuality, don't tag me.
[Arthur Is Not A Dog]: Why are you two so toxic?
Reading their absolute garbage banter, Matthew smiled and typed his reply.
[Matthew The God]: Yeah. I have a situation.
[Matthew The God]: A 'bout to stop being single' situation.
The second he sent the message, the group chat went entirely dead.
Thirty seconds later, a tiny gray system notification popped up at the bottom of the screen.
System: Member [Russell] has changed the group name from [Whoever Falls In Love First Is A Dog] to [Matthew Lynes Is An Old Ugly Dog].
Matthew laughed out loud.
He thought about it for a second, then looked down and typed one last message.
[Matthew The God]: I haven't locked it down yet, but thanks for the early blessings. I accept them.
He closed WhatsApp just as he reached the front of the line.
After filling out his registration form, Matthew stepped out of the tent. Based on the timing, his designated water delivery girl should be arriving any second now.
He realized that once you start reminiscing, it's impossible to hit the brakes.
Thinking about Ruth in high school naturally reminded him of the exact catalyst that had brought them together in the first place.
It had been an orange cat. A cat that slept even more than he did, had worse morning sickness than he did, was incredibly dumb, took the most toxic shits on the planet, but was overwhelmingly, stubbornly affectionate.
Before he could go any further down memory lane, he heard the sound of frantic footsteps approaching from behind. He turned around just in time to see Ruth jogging toward him, slowly decelerating into a heavy, exhausted walk.
"The rep told me... I had to run..." Ruth felt like she was actually dying. She clutched the water bottles to her chest with one hand, resting the other on her hip as she bent over, panting violently. She immediately started complaining. "Hah... I thought you were in a rush... your race hasn't even started yet..."
She looked up at him, her large eyes filled with pure exhaustion and annoyance. "And why are you suddenly obsessed with me bringing you water? He said you refused to drink unless I brought it? ...What kind of psycho demand is that?"
Matthew stared down at her. His Adam's apple bobbed sharply. "Yeah," he admitted smoothly, without a single ounce of shame. "It's a psycho demand."
Ruth rolled her eyes, entirely out of energy to argue.
Her stamina was genuinely tragic. Just jogging across the turf field had completely wrecked her. She stood there, taking deep, shuddering breaths, entirely unable to catch her air.
As the soft, breathy, rhythmic sounds of her panting slipped from her throat, Matthew mentally cursed.
Fuck.
Her voice was already naturally sweet. But hearing her pant like that? It sounded completely, devastatingly inappropriate. It was driving him insane.
It made his blood run hot.
Matthew let out a slow, tight breath. He reached out, his hand wrapping firmly around her shoulder. He physically turned her around and pointed toward the heavy, secluded shadows underneath the massive metal bleachers.
"Go wait over there," he ordered.
Before she could even respond, he dropped his hand and started walking.
Ruth followed him, completely baffled. She had to jog a few steps just to keep up with his long strides. When they finally stepped into the dark, secluded space beneath the stands, she was even more confused. "...Why are we here?"
"I just checked the board. My heat is one of the last ones. It's going to be a while." Matthew looked down at her. His expression was suddenly incredibly intense, laced with a strange, dark undercurrent. He cleared his throat. "Plus... you're panting way too hard. Rest here for a bit before you go back."
Ruth blinked. "Huh? Then why did we have to come hide under here? We could have rested anywhere..."
"It's not sunny under here," Matthew said simply.
"..." Okay, fair enough. No girl wants to stand in the blazing sun.
"And..."
Ruth was so exhausted she was literally about to squat down on the dirt when she heard him say 'And'.
She looked back up at him.
In the dim, heavy shadows beneath the bleachers, the amber color of Matthew's eyes had darkened considerably. The way he was looking at her made the air suddenly feel incredibly thick.
"There were too many people out there," he murmured, his voice dropping into a low, incredibly rough rasp. "...I don't want anyone else to hear you sound like that."