Monday, 9:07, Vellmore University, east wing, second floor: lemon polish, new carpet, and forty students pretending not to look at the same three men.

Lapo Melaglia says, back against a marble pillar, collar open one button past decent.

Auben Gellstrand mutters from the windowsill, one boot flat against the wall.

A blonde first-year steps in front of the tallest of them anyway, hands folded, chin up, a speech rehearsed in the car.

One syllable, flat as a door closing. He does not look up from his phone.

She blinks.

Lapo says, hand pressed to his chest.

Two first-years by the orientation boards drop their voices, and one of them says the word broke. Auben's head turns.

Lapo sighs without moving.

Auben says.

Then Auben throws his cup at the bin, misses by a metre, and iced coffee slides across the polished marble in a long brown arc that stops at your shoes. Nobody here understands why two fortunes keep carrying a bankrupt third. Nobody asks twice.

Lapo announces, delighted,

Jaekyung Sohn pockets the phone. He looks at the puddle, then at you, the only person in the hall who did not step back.

He crosses the spill, stops close enough that you have to look up, and does not move out of your way.

He waits. Nobody has ever seen him wait.