"Hurry up," Zack hissed from the doorway, already dressed, bouncing on the balls of his feet like a man watching a bus he couldn’t miss pull away from the curb. "She’s going to be gone by the time you get your shoes on."

Stan didn’t waste time fussing. He shrugged into the first jacket within reach, slid on his shoes, and headed out at a brisk pace. Even in a rush, he looked like he’d planned it. 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

The campus square was already a circus.

Sophie Youngs had apparently made the mistake of crossing the open quad during peak morning foot traffic, and the result was predictable.

A small crowd had coalesced around her with the gravitational inevitability of moons falling into orbit, mostly boys, a handful of curious girls, all of them drawn by the same force: the simple, irresistible fact of Sophie Youngs being visible in public during daylight hours.

Some of them were openly gawking. Others had positioned themselves at strategic distances, pretending to check their phones while stealing glances.

A brave few were edging closer, nursing the delicate fantasy that today might be the day they worked up the courage to actually say something.

"If we could just get her Snapchat, even that would be enough..."

"You’re dreaming. Didn’t you hear? Some guy tried to ask for her socials the other night and she told him he had to buy a house in Four Seasons Garden first."

"A house? In Four Seasons? Who can afford that?"

"Nobody, that’s who. That’s the whole point."

The conversation drifted through the crowd in low murmurs, and inevitably circled back to the same story, the viral clip that had been making the rounds across campus for the past two days. Some nobody in a sharp suit, stepping out of a crowd, asking Sophie Youngs for her Snapchat. Sophie setting an impossible price.

The nobody agreeing without flinching. The crowd laughing as he walked away.

It was already campus legend. Half the student body had seen the video. The other half had heard a secondhand retelling that was, by now, roughly forty percent embellished.

Stan arrived at the edge of the square and spotted Sophie immediately, she was hard to miss, even in a crowd this size. Same effortless beauty. Same quiet composure. Same invisible perimeter that no one in the crowd quite dared to cross.

He didn’t slow down.

"Sophie."

His voice carried cleanly across the open space, unhurried and direct.

He raised one hand in a casual wave as he walked toward her, cutting through the outer ring of onlookers the way a man walks through a door he already knows is open.

Every head in the vicinity swung toward him.

"Wait, is that,"

"Why is he here? Did he actually buy the house?"

"There’s absolutely no way. Four Seasons Garden starts at over a million. Where would a college kid get that?"

"He probably couldn’t afford it and now he’s back to pester her in person. Classic desperate move."

"Some guys really don’t know when to quit."

Not a single face in the crowd was friendly. Sophie belonged to them, or at least, to the collective fantasy of them, and anyone bold enough to walk through that crowd like he had a right to be there was an intruder by default.

Their eyes tracked him with open hostility, flicking over his clothes, his posture, the easy confidence in his stride, and finding, irritatingly, nothing obviously wrong with any of it.

He looked good. The outfit sat well. The composure was real. And that only made them angrier.

"Who even is he?" someone muttered. "I’ve never seen him in any of the top circles."

"That’s the guy from the viral video. The one who asked Sophie out and got told to buy a house."

"Oh, it’s him. Didn’t recognize him at first. He looked sharp in the video... looks the same in person."

A scoff followed.

"And he just walks up to her like that? Does he even know how many people are waiting in line?"

A guy near the back crossed his arms and let out a short, dismissive laugh. "Confidence is one thing. Not knowing your place is another."

"He looks decent," a girl admitted in a low voice, before catching herself and sharpening her tone. "But Sophie Youngs shouldn’t be impressed by just decent."

"Exactly. Half the guys chasing her drive cars he probably can’t even pronounce the names of."

"And he thinks he can compete with that?"

A brief, cold silence. Then someone chuckled.

"Let him try. This should be entertaining."

Sophie saw him coming before he reached her.

And something in her expression, something small, something she didn’t fully control, shifted.

Her eyes brightened

It was subtle. A slight lift at the corners. A warm smile. A softening of the careful neutrality she wore like armor whenever she was in public. Most of the crowd wouldn’t have noticed it. But it was there.

"It’s you," she said with a warm smile

Stan stopped a comfortable distance from her, close enough to talk, far enough to not crowd. He held her gaze evenly.

"Let’s add each other on Snapchat."

Sophie looked at him for a beat. Then, to the absolute stupefaction of every single person in a thirty-meter radius, she nodded.

"Okay."

She said it simply. No conditions. No theatrics. No buy a building first like last rike. Just, okay.

Stan almost blinked. He’d come prepared with his trump card loaded, the entire building deed, the nuclear option, the closer, and she’d said yes before he’d even played it.

But he wasn’t about to leave the card on the table. He pulled out his phone, opened Snapchat, and said calmly:

"I bought a place in Four Seasons Garden. So you don’t have any reason to turn me down this time."

The crowd erupted.

"He, he actually bought one?"

"No way. No way. He actually spent millions on a house in Four Seasons Garden?"

"Going bankrupt to buy a house just to get a girl’s Snapchat? Is he clinically insane?"