Felicity watched my expression shift and her smile widened with the satisfaction of someone who’d planted a seed and was watching it germinate in real time.

"Also," she added, leaning slightly forward in a way that pulled her blazer open and shifted the collar of her white shirt in a direction that tested my peripheral vision’s ability to remain peripheral, "if you run for rep, you’re going to need a best friend first lady."

I blinked.

"That’s not a thing."

Felicity gasped with entirely manufactured offense, pressing one hand against her chest in a gesture that drew attention to exactly the area she intended. "Of course it’s a thing, silly. Every representative needs a support structure. A confidante. A right-hand woman who understands media dynamics, social positioning, and which students are secretly forming alliances that could affect voting patterns."

She counted these qualifications on her fingers with the deliberate energy of someone who’d prepared this pitch before entering the classroom. "Someone who looks good standing next to you in photographs, which will absolutely happen. Someone who can translate your brooding silence into language that normal humans find approachable."

"I don’t brood."

"You brooded for three consecutive minutes during Mercy’s lecture last week. She noticed. I noticed her notice."

Behind us, Caden had launched into a campaign speech that involved promising better snack distribution in the common room and a formal petition to Steele regarding the scheduling of six AM conditioning sessions. Marco provided hype commentary from the adjacent seat. Theo listened to three separate students explain why he should run with the patient warmth of someone who’d already decided to serve regardless of the election’s outcome because serving was simply what Theo did.

Camille had cornered Zara near the window and the two of them appeared to be forming either an alliance or a mutual non-aggression pact, their voices carrying the specific intensity of women who respected each other enough to negotiate terms rather than compete.

Percy wrote in his notebook while Rina sat beside him and translated his muttered observations into language he could present to potential voters without losing consciousness from social anxiety.

And Felicity Hardy sat on my desk with her thigh warm against my hand and her stockings smooth under my fingers and her blue eyes looking down at me with an expression that mixed genuine friendship with the absolute certainty that she would get what she wanted if she waited long enough.

The Oracle Feed stayed quiet.

The System said nothing.

For once in my ridiculous, fraudulent, overcomplicated existence at the world’s number one Hero academy, the decision in front of me had nothing to do with gacha pulls, Temptation Gauges, quest completions, or the ongoing project of convincing an institution full of licensed combat professionals that a transmigrant with a fake Aspect registration deserved to occupy one of their seats.

This was about whether I wanted the chair at the table where the decisions happened, or whether I was content to let someone else sit in it.

I looked at the fourteen raised hands.

I looked at Percy’s trembling arm, still extended.

I looked at Camille’s jaw, set with the force of someone who refused to accept second place in any context.

I looked at Hiro, who hadn’t raised his hand but whose eyes tracked the nominations with the focus of someone already calculating the political implications of each potential outcome.

I looked up at Felicity, whose thigh shifted against my palm as she swung her legs one more time.

"If I run," I said, "you’re not getting a title."

"I don’t need a title." She hopped off my desk with a lightness that left a warm impression on the wood surface where she’d been sitting, straightened her skirt with a tug that settled the fabric back to regulation length, and turned to face me with the full force of her smile. "I need access."

"Access to what."

"To whatever room you’re in when the interesting things happen."

That was either the most honest or most terrifying thing anyone had said to me since arriving at Halloran, and I genuinely could not determine which.

I raised my hand.

Steele’s pink eyes found mine across the room. Her smile widened by exactly one degree. Not enough for anyone without a hundred Intelligence to catch.

She’d been waiting for it. The entire announcement, the silence, the buildup, the deliberately extended pause before opening nominations. She’d designed this moment knowing I would resist, knowing someone would push me, knowing that whatever complicated machinery operated inside Lukas Belmont’s decision-making process would eventually arrive at the same conclusion she’d already reached.

The infuriating thing about Imara Steele was not that she was right. It was that she was right specifically about me, every time, before I finished being wrong.

"Belmont," she acknowledged, making a note on her tablet. "Self-nomination for male representative."

Caden whooped from behind me. "The main character enters the race!"

Marco threw a chip at Caden’s head. "Shut up, he’s the competition."

"He’s YOUR competition. I’m running on vibes and public approval."

Percy’s notebook stopped moving. He looked at me from one seat over with those dark brown eyes that processed information faster than his mouth could translate, and something passed between us that didn’t require the Oracle Feed to interpret.

Not rivalry.

Recognition.

Two people who both wanted the chair for completely different reasons, competing for the same position, and neither of them willing to let the other win easily.

Percy returned to his notebook.

I settled back into my seat.

Felicity claimed the desk to my right and began writing something on a piece of paper that she folded twice and slid toward me without looking up.

I unfolded it.

In her neat, slightly too perfect handwriting:

BEST FRIEND FIRST LADY is absolutely a real thing and you will thank me later.

I folded the paper and put it in my blazer pocket.

The election was Wednesday.

I had forty-eight hours to convince nineteen people that the kid with the fake Aspect, the trending interview, and the worst romantic decision-making record in Halloran history deserved to speak for all of them.

Simple.