The smell of roasted beans lingered on Ryan's hands long after his shift ended. He hated that smell. It stuck everywhere on him, his clothes, his bag, his skin. But he couldn't do anything about it as the café paid enough to cover what his father never could. Accommodation, textbooks, and those late-night meals he pretended were dinner.
When he finally made it out of the café that night, the sky was starting to get dark. He pulled out his phone, scrolled to the school's website to check his GPA again, as if the numbers might have miraculously changed in the past few hours. They hadn't.
2.4.
His scholarship required a 3.0.
Between his early morning café shifts and late night delivery runs, lectures were starting to feel optional to Ryan, cause most times, he simply couldn't make it. The lecturers here didn't care enough to repeat classes, and catching up alone was nearly impossible as he wasn't the type to self-teach himself.
The university, Westhill College, was a world built for the wealthy, a Westernized dream in the heart of the country. And for someone like Ryan, who had to work for every meal, every textbook and every quiet hour of sleep, it felt like playing a game already rigged against him.
His roommate, Ethan, never related to it. Ethan wasn't rich, but he was comfortable enough to live like it. He was middle ground. He loved talking too, especially about people, and lately, that "people" circled around one person: Adrian Val, the class representative of the Third year Business Department.
Ethan followed him on Instagram, reposted his pictures, and could narrate his club nights just from memory.
"Bro, you don't get it," he said one night, sprawled on his bed and scrolling through his phone.
"Adrian Val is literally the standard. Dude's got everything. He's got the brains, the money, the face, you name it. If I had half his luck, my life would have been so much easier."
That day, the air felt thick as he walked back through the university gate. Westhill College shone brightly under its street lamps. It screamed quiet, polished, like a model city tucked away from the rest of the country. Even the pavement looked too clean for someone like him, a boy who spent most of his evenings fighting traffic on delivery gigs.
He took the stairs two at a time when he reached his hostel, his legs sore from hours of working and walking. Inside, his roommate Ethan was sitting cross-legged on the bed, headphones hanging around his head and singing along to a song.
"You look like death," Ethan said, looking up at him.
Ryan said nothing, trying to stop the droplets that were about to fall from those large hazel almond eyes.
"Your results came out, didn't they?" Ethan pressed.
The previous day, Ryan had gone on and on about the results being released. Ethan already knew he wouldn't meet the cutoff, and Ryan knew it too. Whenever Ryan talked too much about something, it was always from anxiety. Ethan had suggested that he take the next day off work, but Ryan insisted on going in anyway.
You should have just listened, Ethan thought. Well, see who looks half-dead now.
Ryan just sat at the table, head buried in his arms. He wasn't saying anything. Ethan knew him well enough. They'd been sharing a room for four months, and whenever Ryan was down, he shut off completely unless pushed.
"What's your score? 2-point? 1.5? Or just a pass?" Ethan joked, trying to lighten the mood.
Ryan tossed his phone onto the table. "2.4," he muttered, barely audible.
Ethan pulled a face. "Well, that's not entirely bad."
Ryan raised his head. "What do you mean 'it's not entirely bad'? You know it's very bad, Ethan."
There was silence for a while, broken only by the whirring ceiling fan. Then Ethan asked quietly, "So what are you going to do?"
"I don't really know. I've thought about it, and I can't seem to figure out where to adjust from. I can't quit the café or the chicken delivery job…"
"Ryan, I think you should get tutoring," Ethan interrupted. "You can ask Adrian for it."
Ryan frowned. "Who?"
"I'm being serious," Ethan said. "Ask Adrian Val to tutor you. I believe he's not tutoring anyone at the moment, so he's like the best fit. You need someone like him."
"I don't need anyone like him," Ryan muttered and climbed up his bunk, pulling the blanket over his head and plugging in his earbuds.
He knew Ethan would keep talking about Adrian Val, and he didn't want to hear any more of it. He didn't like how easily Adrian's name rolled out of Ethan's tongue, or how often he came up in their conversations. Something about that constant praise made Ryan uneasy.
Still, as he lay on his bed staring at the ceiling, Ethan's words replayed in his head. Adrian Val. Class representative. Perfect student. The one everyone seemed to admire. Ryan didn't admire him; he didn't even know him. But the thought of having to depend on someone like that, someone from a completely different world, made him really uncomfortable.
He tried to sleep but couldn't. A lot of things clouded his head. He kept thinking about his GPA, the scholarship letter that said "failure to maintain academic standards will result in withdrawal," and the growing bills he had yet to settle.
He needed to fix this. But he wasn't sure where to start.
_____________________
The next morning came too early. Ryan woke at five to make his morning café shift. He brewed coffee until his eyes stung, served the little customers that came, and then dashed across campus for his 9 a.m. lecture. Half the seats were filled with students in nice outfits, with low laughter filling the air. He slipped into the back, keeping his head down.
He barely lasted twenty minutes before exhaustion hit him, causing him to almost drift into sleep. By the end of class, he couldn't remember half of what the lecturer said.
Afterwards, he stopped by the Faculty Office to submit a Course Adjustment Form, an official request to retake a course he'd failed the previous semester. The long hallway smelled faintly of new books and inks, and the air conditioner breathing too loudly for comfort. The woman at the reception barely looked up when he handed over the file. She just stamped it and said, "Next."
He lingered a bit longer than necessary while he stared at the noticeboard beside the office. On it were lists of Dean's List students, scholarship renewals, and departmental club meetings. His name wasn't on any of them but not like he expected his name to be there either.
Just as he turned to leave, laughter spilled from the nearby Senior Students' Lounge. A smooth, poised kind of laughter that filled a room without effort. He glanced in by accident.
There was Adrian Val.
He sat on the edge of a table, surrounded by three other guys who were always joined at his hip. Even from a distance, Ryan could tell who he was. The posture gave it away, calm and unbothered with a type of quiet authority people didn't need to announce.
Ryan walked away after a while, but the image stayed with him long after he left.
The weeks that followed blurred into one another.
Ryan worked, studied the lecture notes he could, and hardly got enough sleep. His body ached in small ways, stiff shoulders, burning eyes. There were days he would sit through lectures and not process a single word, and nights when his mind drifted endlessly through thoughts.
Sometimes he thought about quitting one of his jobs, but the idea of that meant resorting to missed accommodation fees, skipping meals and a whole lot of others. And that meaning was enough to kill the idea of it instantly.
And there was Ethan's voice, filling whatever silence remained, and always talking about Adrian Val.
"Did you see the club page? Adrian gave a talk on leadership."
"Bro, Adrian's team crushed everyone at the interfaculty basketball game."
"He posted a video with his friends. Man, that guy's life looks so unreal. Like, how can someone be this perfect?"
Ryan never replied, but each mention left a faint mark. Annoyance.
He started catching glimpses of Adrian everywhere. Once was while crossing the courtyard, another time was while making deliveries for a student event. Adrian, in his clean shirts, luxury shoes, and walking like he had nothing in the world to worry about.
It wasn't envy, not really. It was something else, a kind of awareness that some people were built for ease, while others like him had to fight for air.
Even on one Friday evening, after his last delivery, Ryan walked into the campus café to return his apron, and froze.
Adrian was there.
He was sitting with two of his friends. They were Dylan, from Computer Science, and Liam, a medical student whose father owned a private hospital. They looked like guys who never struggled for anything and had their paths laid out for them. Adrian leaned back in his chair, quietly listening as the others talked.
Ryan kept his head down and went to the counter, pretending to count the bills in the drawer. Still, he could feel Adrian's presence across the room that made everyone else seem too loud, too different.
When he left, he found himself irritated. Not because Adrian had done anything wrong, but because he hadn't. He just existed perfectly, and Ryan hated how he was becoming so aware of it.
Why was he even this aware? Because Ethan talked about him too much? Because of the tutoring suggestion? Or was it something else entirely?
By mid-semester, Ryan was starting to run out of time. He didn't ask for help. He didn't improve. And the thought of failing again, and having to drop his scholarship, wore him down like a slow poison.
_____________________
The afternoon sunlight slid through the long glass windows of the faculty building, tinting the hallway gold. Ryan Kane stood outside the lecturer's office, his heart beating faster than it should for something as simple as a student-lecturer meeting. His palms were damp, his shirt clinging slightly to his back.
After a lecture on Psychology, a general studies course, one of the courses, he can't help but wonder what business he has with it, the class rep had mentioned that the course advisor requested to see all scholarship students.
He knocked once.
"Come in," came the deep voice from inside.
The office was cool, air-conditioned, with lined shelves and books that looked like they hadn't been opened in years. Behind the desk sat Dr. Mensah, the Management Theory lecturer for the upper levels, but also the assigned course advisor for scholarship students in Ryan's level.
Across from him, seated casually on the edge of a couch, was Adrian Val.
Ryan froze mid-way. Of all people to run into here, why him?
Adrian was the kind of person people noticed easily. Tall, broad-shouldered, with deep dark eyes and jet black silky hair. He was the first and only son of a powerful conglomerate family, nephew to the school's owner, and, 'somehow', the most disciplined face of his infamous friend group.
Ryan stepped in quietly, keeping his eyes on the floor.
"Ah, Mr. Kane," Dr. Mensah said, adjusting his glasses. "Have a seat."
He obeyed, setting his worn file on his lap.
The lecturer adjusted and flipped through a sheet of paper, frowning. "Your attendance is worrying, Ryan. Your grades have slipped drastically. Even last semester, you were way below 3.0. What's happening to you?"
Ryan swallowed. "I've been… working, sir. My shifts sometimes..."
"Shifts?" the lecturer cut in. "You're on scholarship. You should be using that opportunity to study, not exhaust yourself on part-time jobs. This isn't a vocational college. You're here to do more than just the basics."
The words stung hard, but Ryan didn't flinch. This was nothing to him as he had heard much worse than this.
What even unsettled him wasn't the scolding, it was the faint awareness that Adrian was there, a few feet away.
Dressed in an oversized shirt and sitting on a black couch that in a way elevated his aura, Ryan could feel the weight of his gaze, steady and unreadable.
Dr. Mensah went on, his voice loud enough to fill every corner of the room. "Even if I don't teach your level directly, I keep tabs on my scholarship students. The school expects discipline, and I want to see improvement, Mr. Kane. Not just on your grades but improvements on your attendance, assignments, and everything."
Ryan nodded faintly. "Yes, sir."
He didn't know why his throat felt tight. If it were anyone else sitting there, he would've brushed it off. But something about Adrian being there made the shame feel worse.
The lecturer's tone softened slightly. "You're industrious, Ryan. But being industrious will not give you a second class, not to mention a first class, in this college."
Ryan forced a small nod, trying to focus but his mind kept drifting. He could barely keep his eyes open lately, running from work to class to nowhere. And now, this.
He blinked, realizing Dr. Mensah was still speaking.
"...and if you don't take responsibility for your attendance and grade, young man, even a scholarship won't save you from failure," the lecturer concluded, his voice sharp with finality.
Ryan stared blankly for a moment, the words echoing faintly. And then, through the fog of exhaustion, one thought surfaced. A thought sudden, unwanted, and terrifyingly clear.
I need Adrian.
The idea itself startled him but it stayed. Out of everyone, Adrian was the only one who could actually help him pull through this semester. He'd thought about asking others, but he barely had friends. Even approaching the top students in his level felt impossible to him. Those people already had study groups, routines, and affluence he couldn't stand close to. And deep down, Ryan's pride feared rejection, especially from someone in his level. So Adrian was the best fit. He was the only upper-class man Ryan knew; they barely knew each other, apart from Ryan, who was forced to get to know Adrian through Ethan, and Ryan had less time with him compared to his coursemates. So yeah, Adrian was the best fit. Ryan thought conclusively.
The course advisor kept talking on and on, circling back to his earlier points like a preacher repeating his sermon. Ryan tried to keep up, but the room wavered in his vision. His chest beating hard. Normally, he could handle long hours, harsh words, even hunger. But now, in this small room and under this third party's gaze, he felt like all his gathered stamina had vanished.
When the session finally ended, Ryan exhaled shakily with relief, hitting him. At least it was over. At least he hadn't completely lost face in front of Adrian.
He muttered a quick "thank you, sir," gathered his things, and turned to leave.
The corridor outside was bright, silent. He took one step forward, then another, and suddenly the world shifted.
His vision blurred, his knees gave way, and the last thing he felt was the cool air against his face before everything went black.
In the dark, there was motion. Arms were around him. The faint rush of air. The warmth of someone's body as he was being lifted.
His eyelids fluttered weakly. For a second, through the haze, he caught a glimpse of a familiar face, dark hair, a jawline he knew too well.
Then everything disappeared.