The silence Adrian Nguyen left in his wake was sharper than any reprimand. Hana stood frozen for a heartbeat, her hand still tingling from the brief contact with his desk. The mahogany surface felt impossibly cold, and yet the memory of her touch lingered in the pit of her chest like a spark she couldn't quite extinguish.
Adrian didn't lift his head. His eyes, fixed on the financial report before him, were distant, glacier-blue, unyielding. No glance, no flicker of acknowledgment. Just an emptiness that pressed against Hana, making her feel small, unnecessary, almost irrelevant.
She drew in a shaky breath, forcing herself to speak. "Right… I'll be more careful next time," she murmured, her words fading into the vast quiet of the library. The towering shelves and high ceilings swallowed her apology. Adrian's pen continued its precise, ruthless scribble on the page as if nothing had happened.
Hana's gaze dropped to her own books, the stack in her arms suddenly feeling heavier than it had a second ago. She retreated to her usual corner, the one with the faint scent of old paper and vanilla candles—a corner of warmth in the otherwise cold academic world.
Sitting down, she tried to focus on her textbook, but every word twisted into Adrian's sharp jawline and the cold precision in his eyes. Get it together, Hana. It's just a book. He's just a guy. A ridiculously over-privileged, terrifyingly perfect guy. Focus on the sociology, not the silver-spoon legacy.
The term "untouchable" replayed in her mind, echoing from the whispers of the students who had walked past earlier. "He's the CEO's son. Cold. Brilliant. Untouchable." The words clung to Adrian like a second skin, a shield that kept the rest of the world at bay. And yet, something about that shield had faltered, however slightly, when her fingers brushed the mahogany.
Hana slammed her highlighter down on a paragraph, a jagged streak of neon-yellow across the page. Fine. If he wants to act like I'm irrelevant, I'll prove him wrong. I'll find the logic in compassion. I'll show him there's a world outside spreadsheets.
The library's quiet was punctuated by the soft shuffle of footsteps. Three students passed by Hana's corner, impeccably dressed, their whispers just loud enough to carry. "He pulled an all-nighter on the cross-border merger simulation," one murmured.
"Of course. Adrian Nguyen," another replied. "Son of the CEO. He doesn't need a degree—he needs a coronation."
Hana's stomach twisted. She had seen this world before: the children of wealth moving through life as if it were owed to them, the rest of humanity a blur of background noise. And here she was, a scholarship student with nothing but tenacity, trying to carve her place among them.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the unmistakable sound of Adrian's boots on marble. He passed by, and even from twenty feet away, Hana felt the presence of his attention—or at least the weight of it. She couldn't tell if he noticed her or if her mind was just playing tricks.
Determined, she whispered under her breath, I may be irrelevant to him, but I'll make him see me. Not as a variable. Not as an interruption. But as a person.
The next two days, the pattern repeated: proximity without interaction, silent observation, both of them caught in the invisible gravitational pull of the other. They were in the same courses, the same seminars, orbiting one another like distant planets.
Hana caught glimpses of Adrian's meticulous attention to everything: the way he arranged his notes, the precision with which he highlighted key figures, the almost surgical calculation of each movement. It was intimidating. And frustrating. And… oddly captivating.
She would watch him for minutes at a time, heart pounding, wondering if he would finally speak, finally notice, finally… react. But he didn't. Never. Not in the way she imagined.
And then came the coffee shop moment—the Economics Department lounge, crowded with students, buzzing with discussions about mergers and acquisitions. Hana sat with her third cup of bitter brew when Adrian entered. His gaze scanned the ticker on the wall, distant and calculated, and he ignored the room entirely.
Hana's friend nudged her. "Does he even breathe? Or is he powered by sheer capital?"
Hana's eyes followed him, narrowing. "He calculates, yes. But he doesn't see the human cost. He doesn't see the ripple effects."
Unable to resist, she spoke louder than intended. "It's not just efficiency, Adrian! Social failures aren't just numbers. They're people—families, businesses, lives!"
He turned slowly, the first acknowledgment of her presence, eyes meeting hers with a cold precision that made her knees weak. "Externalities," he said evenly. "They are necessary byproducts of market efficiency. Sentiment is irrelevant."
Her blood roared. "Efficiency for whom? The system is only fair if it considers opportunity for all—not just the privileged!"
He pivoted, shoulders straight, gaze distant once more, but the faintest twitch betrayed the crack in his composure. He had been challenged—not by another rich kid, not by a professor, but by someone small, fiery, and defiantly human.
That night, the Quiet Zone of the library became her sanctuary and her battlefield. Hana worked alone on the complex macroeconomic model she couldn't crack, while Adrian, unseen at first, typed furiously in a carrel across the aisle. The proprietary model she struggled with was open on his screen—a chance she couldn't ignore.
She approached cautiously, voice low: "Miss Nguyen… I mean, Miss Tran," she corrected herself, but he cut her off with a glance.
"The rules here are clear," he said.
"I know," she whispered, pointing to the model. "But look at this variable. The contingent capital requirement—it's too high. Smaller institutions are structurally disadvantaged. It's mathematically perfect… but ethically corrosive."
His eyes narrowed, then paused. She had done the impossible: identified the flaw in a system designed by his father's engineers, not with a trading floor, not with a team of analysts, but with a notebook and determination.
Adrian leaned back, a microsecond of surprise flickering across his expression. Then, deliberately, he pulled up the hidden assumption matrix.
"Not in the textbook," he said, low and precise. "Strictly confidential. If anyone asks, you were never here."
Hana sat down across from him, a victorious thrill rushing through her. The marble walls of his untouchable citadel had cracked. The fire had reached the heart of the siege.
And for the first time, Adrian Nguyen did something he was never supposed to do: he engaged.