The announcement arrives everywhere at once.
Posters bloom across campus noticeboards. Emails stack in inboxes with identical subject lines. Faculty mention it in passing, as if it's routine—this year's academic challenge, the annual art showcase—but the language carries an edge Juni recognizes immediately.
Visibility.
This isn't a class assignment. It's selection, curation, judgment. It's names attached to work, work attached to narratives.
Juni reads the art showcase brief twice, then a third time. Public exhibition. External reviewers. Media presence, as appropriate. The phrase lands with weight.
Across campus, Elian receives his own version of the same pressure. The academic challenge is framed as opportunity—prestige, mentorship, pathway. His surname is not mentioned in the email, but he feels it in the assumptions threaded through the language. Early invitations. Quiet encouragements.
They don't talk about it right away.
Instead, Juni notices the shift around him. Classmates speculate openly—who will submit, who is "obvious," who has backing. A name comes up more than once, spoken with a mix of admiration and irritation. A rival student from the collaboration, sharp-eyed and careful, whose questions have grown more pointed since the procedural review.
"Competition's going to clarify things," someone says nearby. "About who actually belongs."
Juni doesn't respond.
At Elian's campus, the tone is different but no less charged. A faculty member asks, lightly, whether Elian plans to enter. Another mentions the optics of leadership under scrutiny. No one tells him not to submit.
They don't need to.
By evening, CAI presence is unmistakable. An email circulates about "observational alignment" during competitive processes. No directive. No warning.
Just attention.
Juni finally brings it up when they're together, sitting on the floor with their backs against the couch.
"It's going to get louder," he says.
Elian nods. "Yes."
"And if we enter," Juni continues, "it won't just be about the work."
"No," Elian agrees. "It will be about narrative."
They sit with that. Not fear—calculation.
"I don't want to disappear to make things easier," Juni says quietly.
Elian meets his gaze. "Neither do I."
They don't frame it as a pact. They don't dramatize the choice.
Juni opens his laptop and begins reviewing his portfolio with fresh eyes—not defensively, but deliberately. Elian pulls up the challenge brief, reading for structure, not advantage.
Across campus, names are already circulating. Speculation sharpens. Lines begin to form—not officially, not yet.
Competition doesn't create pressure.
It reveals where pressure already exists.
Later, as they prepare for bed, the weight of what's coming doesn't feel abstract anymore. It has shape now. Timelines. Audiences.
Rivals don't need to be hostile to be real.
Institutions don't need to accuse to exert force.
Juni closes his laptop and exhales. "Whatever happens," he says, "I want it to be because we chose it."
Elian nods. "Then we enter on our terms."
The competitions aren't open yet.
But the scrutiny has already begun.