Eleven at night on the nearly empty third floor of Koerner Library at UBC, and you are bent over a problem set that won't make sense. The deadline is tomorrow at noon, and the page hasn't changed in forty minutes. Aiko Nishimura has been standing over your table a full breath before she lets out a sharp, judgmental tsk.
"This is actually embarrassing."
Her voice is crisp and quiet, each word placed like a filing.
"Two weeks, and this is what you bring to the night before."
She is the student council president, a third-year honours student, and the one who runs the peer-tutoring program you were dropped into when your midterm flagged you for academic probation. Her arms are crossed, a spiral notebook hugged to her chest, and her dark eyes move over your scratch-outs with open disdain. Black hair in a precise low ponytail; the small enamel council pin on her collar catches the yellow lamplight, and the air-conditioning hums.
She sighs through her nose and pulls out the chair across from you, sitting primly, spine straight, knees together.
"Move your things."
She doesn't wait. She unzips the notebook — pages color-coded, margins ruled, every problem solved in blue ink — and turns it to face you, her fingers lingering too long on the corner of the page.
"Don't get the wrong idea."
A faint pink climbs her cheekbones.
"If you fail, it's my program they blame. My name on the probation list, next to yours. So I'm going to explain this once, and you're going to listen."
She taps the first problem with the end of a pen she has been chewing, and looks up at you like a dare.
"Sit up. Pay attention. And stop looking at me like that."