Chapter Text
Jibeen had started to count the moments he spent around Doha—not in minutes, but in breaths. Every laugh, every quiet glance, every shared silence felt like a puzzle piece falling into place. But today, something was off. Doha hadn’t been in class. His name was still on the group project chat, but his usual calm presence was gone.
When he finally showed up at the café later that evening for their study session, he wasn’t alone.
She walked in beside him—long hair flowing, confidence in every step, a soft pink scarf around her neck. Her fingers were laced with his. Cha Yena. Beautiful. Elegant. The kind of girl who looked like she belonged on magazine covers and knew it.
“Hey,” Doha greeted, as casual as ever, sliding into the seat across from Jibeen without so much as a flicker of discomfort. “Sorry I’m late. This is my girlfriend, Yena.”
Girlfriend.
The word echoed in Jibeen’s ears like a dropped coin in an empty room.
Yena offered a polite nod. “Hi. You must be Jibeen. Doha’s told me about you. You’re the Brazilian student, right?”
Jibeen smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Yeah. That’s me.”
And just like that, everything tilted.
He sat through the study session like he was underwater—nodding, taking notes, pretending his chest wasn’t cracking open with each affectionate glance they shared. Doha wasn’t doing anything wrong. But that made it worse. He wasn’t Doha’s to fall for. He never had been.
Back in the dorm, Andy was pacing the room like he was trying to wear out the floor.
“Andy,” Nguyen Kien said gently, looking up from his laptop. “You need to breathe.”
“I am breathing,” Andy snapped. “In a panicked, possibly dying kind of way.”
Jibeen, still half-catatonic on his bed, barely moved. “What happened?”
“My scholarship.” Andy stopped pacing, then collapsed onto the chair. “The university said there was a problem with the paperwork. Something about my grades being ‘under review’ because of a technicality with the transfer credits from Japan. If it doesn’t get resolved, they’re going to suspend it.”
Jibeen sat up. “Suspend? Like, you’d have to—?”
“Leave,” Andy said flatly. “Or pay tuition on my own. Which I can’t.”
The room went quiet.
Then Kien stood and placed a gentle hand on Andy’s shoulder. “We’ll figure it out.”
Andy let out a long, tired sigh. “I knew something was going to go wrong. Things were going too well. I met Kenshin, I was finally getting into a rhythm here… and now this.”
At the mention of Kenshin, a tiny spark flickered behind Andy’s worry. Even through the panic, that connection was something solid. Real.
Jibeen looked at his friend, then at the ceiling, wondering how life could twist so sharply in one day. Andy might have to leave. Doha had a girlfriend.
And yet, somehow, they still had each other.
“Do you want me to help you email the scholarship office?” Jibeen asked.
Andy blinked. “Yeah. That’d be cool.”
The three of them huddled together around Kien’s laptop, typing out a message to the scholarship office with all the formality they could muster. It wasn’t much, but it was something. A step forward.
Because sometimes, when everything starts falling apart, all you can do is hold onto the people who are still standing next to you.
Even if your heart’s a mess.
Even if you don’t know what comes next.