As Regras do Campeão

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Belgrade, Serbia, 2002.

The morning mist, heavy with the vapor of the Danube, swept through the streets. There was no sign of life; on either side, old, crowded houses exuded a sense of desolation.

The sunless, chilly sky made the city appear all the more forlorn.

Lynch brushed the unruly hair from his forehead, gazing once more at his own handsome yet unfamiliar face reflected in the window of a pastry shop.

Three days ago, he had been an ordinary eighteen-year-old, full of youthful energy, passionate about basketball, video games, and the appreciation of the human form.

As a carefree high school graduate, Lynch cherished every evening. He’d poke fun at the Dallas Mavericks’ “Brow Blockbuster” series that barely began before ending abruptly, mock Jimmy Butler’s overzealous tributes to Paul Pierce, play a few rounds of video games, then finish with a good movie. He never went to bed unless exhaustion demanded it, savoring every second of entertainment.

He didn’t consider this a waste of time. He understood well enough that, for a boy of modest upbringing with no grand ambitions, these carefree, unfettered days were already in short supply.

Twelve years of hard study, followed by decades of drudgery—what harm in enjoying life while he could?

There is no crime in savoring life, nor in letting the milky days of youth slip through one’s fingers.

Yet, before long, his peaceful existence was overturned. Overnight, his consciousness was brought to the year 2002, into the body of a sixteen-year-old boy who shar