Chapter 351: The Phei Fever

Nothing he did looked awkward or ordinary. Even breathing looked cool. Even blinking looked intentional.

The crowd didn’t just see a boy walking onto a court—they saw a

moment

being carved into memory.

Landon and Brian flanked him—his boys, his teammates, the ones who’d stuck with him when everyone else had written him off.

They walked with their own confidence, feeding off whatever impossible energy Phei was projecting, looking like they belonged on that court even though every odd in the world said they didn’t—the kind of belonging that comes from choosing the losing side and deciding it’s still worth dying for.

The crowd stayed silent.

Stunned.

What the hell are we looking at?

The question hung unspoken in the air. Because this wasn’t the charity case they’d been promised. This wasn’t the nobody who was supposed to get crushed by Legacy royalty... the online pictures they’d seen made no justice, The students just couln’t get enough. This was something else entirely.

Something that made the back of your neck prickle.

Something that made you want to look away and couldn’t.

David rushed across the court—professionalism cracking, genuine excitement bleeding through—mic raised, words tumbling out before he’d fully thought them through.

"Ladies and gentlemen—the challenger—

Phei Ryujin Tiamat

and his team!"

His voice echoed through the silent stadium.

And then Phei did something

Marcus

hadn’t done.

He

smiled

.

Not the cold, distant expression he’d been wearing all day. An actual smile—

warm

,

human

, crinkling the corners of his eyes, making him look like a normal teenager instead of whatever otherworldly thing had just walked out of that tunnel.

He waved at the crowd.

Casual.

Easy.

Like they were friends he was greeting at a party instead of strangers who’d paid money to watch him potentially get humiliated.

Landon

and

Brian

followed his lead—waving, nodding, acknowledging the people who’d shown up. Brian even threw up a peace sign at a section of Downtown kids who started cheering—the kids who’d never had a reason to cheer for anyone until now.

And then Phei reached

David

.

He extended his fist.

David blinked—surprised—then grinned and bumped it without hesitation. A simple gesture. Unplanned. Unpracticed. Just two people acknowledging each other like human beings instead of performers on a stage—the moment that felt more real than anything else that had happened tonight.

The crowd noticed.

It wasn’t dramatic. Wasn’t calculated. But something about the moment—Phei taking time to greet the announcer, to treat him like a person worth acknowledging, to be humble when he had every reason to be arrogant—

hit different

.

On the other side of the court,

Danton

watched.

His jaw tightened. He glanced at

Marcus

—still standing with arms crossed, expression bored, radiating the

"I’m above all this"

energy that had always worked for him—and then back at Phei.

Danton

started toward David.

Tried to replicate it. Tried to wave at the crowd, to nod at the announcer, to show that he too could be down-to-earth and approachable.

Too late.

The moment had passed. What looked natural from Phei looked

desperate

from Danton—a scramble to match energy he couldn’t generate, to copy something he didn’t understand.

Brett

and

Anderson

followed awkwardly, their attempts at casual acknowledgment landing flat—like children trying to imitate their father’s signature and failing miserably.

Marcus

didn’t move.

Didn’t try to match Phei’s energy. Didn’t wave. Didn’t smile. Just stood there, arms crossed, watching with those perfect features arranged in perfect indifference—the indifference of a man who’d never needed to try, because the world had always bent to him without effort.

And honestly? Some people respected that too.

Marcus

was his own man. He lived by his actions, not by performing relatability for crowds. He didn’t second-guess himself. Didn’t adjust his behavior based on what his opponent was doing.

He was who he was—

take it or leave it

.

Plenty of people in that stadium would take it.

But plenty of others had just seen something that made them

wonder

.

The silence broke.

One voice. Female. Somewhere in the student section. High and clear and absolutely

unhinged

:

"PHEI! I’M IN LOVE WITH YOU!"

The stadium held its breath.

Then another voice—different section, different girl:

"MARRY ME!"

And another:

"I’LL LEAVE MY BOYFRIEND FOR YOU!"

The dam burst.

Suddenly voices were erupting from everywhere—confessions and declarations and promises that ranged from romantic to desperate to genuinely concerning. Girls were standing on their seats, waving their arms, screaming things that would probably embarrass them later when the adrenaline wore off—or maybe not, because some things are worth the shame.

"PHEI I’LL HAVE YOUR BABIES!"

"I’M ALREADY PREGNANT WITH YOUR EYE BABIES!"

"MY MOM SAYS SHE’LL ADOPT YOU!"

"FORGET HER MOM, MY MOM WANTS TO DATE HIM!"

Phei just smiled.

That same warm, human smile. He waved at each section that screamed for him, acknowledging their chaos without feeding it, accepting their devotion without letting it inflate his ego.

It was the response of someone who understood that these people had chosen to support him, their time—had bet on him, had organized for him, had shown up when the odds said they shouldn’t—and the least he could do was acknowledge that support with

grace

.

The

PheiCrush Simps

section was losing their absolute minds.

Emily

had tears streaming down her face.

Delilah

was screaming so hard no sound was actually coming out.

Even the people who’d bet against him found themselves caught up in the energy. There was something

infectious

about watching someone handle that kind of attention without becoming an asshole about it—the rarest kind of power:

humility that doesn’t feel like a performance

.

Marcus’s Angels

tried to start a

counter-chant.

It died immediately.

The stadium belonged to

Phei

right now, and everyone knew it.

Then one voice cut through the chaos.

Louder than the others. Clearer. Coming from somewhere in the middle sections where a girl had climbed onto her seat and

cupped

her hands around her mouth like a megaphone:

"TAKE IT OFF!"

The screaming stopped.

200,000 people turned toward the voice, then back to Phei.

What?

"TAKE OFF YOUR SHIRT!"

It started with her. Just one girl, chanting alone, looking half-crazy and fully committed. Her friends tried to pull her down—embarrassed, laughing—but she shook them off.

"SHIRT! OFF! SHIRT! OFF!"

Then the people around her picked it up.

"SHIRT OFF! SHIRT OFF!"

It spread like wildfire—section to section, row to row, girls who would never admit to this kind of behavior suddenly pounding their feet and clapping their hands and screaming demands that would mortify them later.

But right now?

Right now, something had taken hold. Something

primal

. Something that made good girls forget they were supposed to be good.

"SHIRT OFF! SHIRT OFF! SHIRT OFF!"

The entire stadium was chanting.

200,000 voices demanding that a

seventeen-year-old

boy strip for them in the middle of a basketball court.

The

Heaven Reapers

watched in disbelief.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. The challenger was supposed to be intimidated. Nervous. Overwhelmed by the magnitude of the moment. Instead, the crowd was treating him like a stripper at a bachelorette party, screaming for skin before the game had even started—the kind of screaming that made you wonder if they’d brought dollar bills.

Marcus’s

expression didn’t change.

But something flickered behind his eyes.

Something that might have been the first seed of

doubt

.

David

raised his mic—half-laughing, half-bewildered—and looked at Phei with an expression that clearly said

your move, man.

The chant grew louder.

"SHIRT OFF! SHIRT OFF! SHIRT OFF!"

Two hundred thousand voices.

One impossible demand.

And

Phei

standing at center court, the ghost of a smile playing at his lips, like he was actually considering it.