Jason could hardly be called anything other than a genius. In fact, it would be more accurate to call him a one-in-a-trillion prodigy.

Whether it was speaking in complete sentences by the time he was one, earning his PhD by sixteen, or curing cancer two weeks after his twenty-second birthday, everything he did seemed to revolutionize an area of research, change lives, or break new ground in some way.

But if you asked him, he'd simply shrug and say, "I just do what I'm good at," and then walk away with that self-righteous grin of his, leaving people to wonder if he was mocking them or just painfully unaware of how he came across.

Honestly, the only thing Jason couldn't do was connect with people. Well, that or get a girlfriend.

"I don't need leeches in my life," he'd often mutter under his breath whenever he was asked about it. But deep down, he knew it was a lie. Looking back, it wasn't hard to see how lonely his life had been.

His family name was Sansa, but he rarely used it. That was his father's name, and Jason hadn't spoken to either of his parents in six years.

Their relationship hadn't always been strained. Jason was born into a lower-middle-class family in the northeastern United States. They never had much, but there was always a roof over their heads and food on the table.

When his parents found out they were expecting a child, they were overjoyed. They had been trying for years, and when Jason was finally born, his mother cried tears of relief while his father held him like he was the most precious thing in the world.

"If only I hadn't been born a genius," Jason often thought to himself. "Maybe I could've had a real family."

It all started to change when he was five. His kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Thompson, called his parents into her office one afternoon. Jason sat outside, swinging his legs under the chair, oblivious to the conversation that would alter the course of his life.

"Your son is… extraordinary," Mrs. Thompson began, her voice tinged with awe. "He's already learned the entire kindergarten curriculum. In three months. I've never seen anything like it."

His parents exchanged glances, pride and confusion warring on their faces. "What does that mean?" his mother asked.

"It means," Mrs. Thompson said carefully, "that Jason is far beyond his peers. I strongly recommend advancing him to the next grade. He needs to be challenged."

And so, after careful consideration, they did just that.

What followed was a relentless cycle of expectation, pressure, and overexertion. Every success only fueled his parents' ambitions for him. They enrolled him in every extracurricular they could afford, hired tutors, and pushed him to skip grades. By the time he was ten, he was in high school, surrounded by teenagers who treated him like an exhibit rather than a peer.

"Jason, you're going to change the world," his father would say, clapping him on the shoulder. "You're going to make us proud."

But Jason didn't want to change the world. He just wanted to enjoy his life.

The scholarships and endorsements came flooding in when he was twelve, and with them, his parents' dreams grew larger. "This is our ticket out," his mother whispered to his father one night, not realizing Jason was eavesdropping from the hallway. "He's going to make us rich."

Jason's heart sank, a cold weight settling in his chest as her words echoed in his mind. He had always suspected their motivations, but hearing it out loud was like a punch to the gut. Despite this, he buried himself in his work, hoping that if he kept excelling, they might finally be satisfied.

They never were.

The breaking point came at his graduation party. He was sixteen, the youngest PhD graduate in the university's history. The room was filled with professors, mentors, and family friends. Jason stood in the corner, nursing a glass of punch, until he overheard his mother's conversation with a friend.

"It's about time!" she said with a laugh. "Now we can finally start making back the money we spent on him. We're going to be rich!"

The words hit him like a sledgehammer. The veil of a loving family who only pushed him because they cared was ripped away, leaving behind a raw, gaping wound of betrayal.

Shortly after, Jason packed his bags and left. He didn't say goodbye or leave a note. The only reason his parents knew he was alive was that, every now and then, he did something noteworthy enough to make the news.

In the years that followed, Jason threw himself into his work, hoping to fill the void with achievements. He slowed human aging, revolutionized infrastructure, and taught university classes filled with the brightest minds of the next generation. But no matter how much he accomplished, it never felt like enough.

"What's the point?" he muttered one night, staring at the ceiling of his empty apartment. "I've changed the world, but I've never really lived in it."

Everything changed when he joined the bio-engineering project. The goal was to alleviate world hunger by developing crops that could grow faster and larger. It was a noble cause, but what made it different was the team.

For the first time in his life, Jason found himself surrounded by people his own age. There was Mia, the biochemist with a sharp wit and a love for bad puns; Raj, the engineer who could fix anything with duct tape and sheer determination; Elena, the botanist who talked to plants like they were old friends; and Liam, the data analyst who could recite pi to a hundred decimal places but couldn't remember where he left his keys.

And then there was Jason, the youngest at twenty, awkward and unsure how to navigate the camaraderie that came so naturally to the others.

"You're like a robot," Mia teased one day, poking him in the arm. "Do you even know how to have fun?"

Jason blinked, unsure how to respond. "Fun is… inefficient," he said finally, earning a round of laughter from the group.

Over time, they wore him down. They dragged him out for drinks after work, played pranks on each other in the lab, and convinced him to join their weekly game night. For the first time, Jason felt like he belonged.

Then came the breakthrough. The stimulant they had developed to accelerate plant growth turned out to be a failure—but it had an unexpected side effect. When tested on cancer cells, it neutralized their mutations, effectively curing the disease within a week.

The team celebrated with champagne and pizza, but Jason couldn't stop thinking about Mia. She had been the one to suggest testing the stimulant on cancer cells and the one to ask him out a few weeks later.

Their dates were awkward but endearing. They bonded over their shared love of science and their mutual inability to small-talk. And then, one late night, she invited him over to her place.

Jason stood outside her door, his heart pounding. For the first time in his life, he wasn't thinking about research or achievements. He was thinking about her.