Chapter Text
Tryhard College, Late August, 2001
Tryhard College was the kind of campus that looked idyllic only from far away. Up close, the cracks showed. The pathways were uneven, the ivy grew too aggressively, and the stone benches were always either scorching hot or freezing your ass off, never in between. But prestige didn’t require comfort and Tryhard had prestige in suffocating abundance.
Incoming freshmen arrived with overstuffed suitcases, wide eyes and nervous chatter. Except for Bitzz.
Bitzz took his suitcase and stepped out of his father’s sleek black vehicle with the composure of someone entering a board meeting with a CEO instead of his freshman year. His white shirt was crisp despite the heat, his red striped tie knotted perfectly — making it obvious that he hadn’t tied it himself — and his blazer hung open with practiced casualness that was probably more rigid than he knew. The sun caught on the pale lean edges of his face. Not soft, nor especially warm, but striking in a clean and somewhat intimidating way.
His dark blue backpack hung from one shoulder, the strap perfectly aligned. It was clear that he’d positioned it like that deliberately. He positioned everything deliberately.
His father hadn’t gotten out of the car. He never did.
“Remember”, his father said, eyes fixed straight ahead, hidden in the dark while breathing out cigarette smoke towards his son, as if even acknowledging him was a waste of time. “Connections matter more than grades. Make friends who have futures.”
Always the same advice. Always delivered like an instruction manual with no emotional depth behind his words.
“I know”, Bitzz murmured, fighting back the childish urge to roll his eyes at his father.
His father didn’t respond. The car door clicked shut beside him before he fully stepped away and the vehicle pulled off within seconds. Clean, efficient and cold — as if eliminating any emotional residue was vital to maintaining the family brand.
Bitzz stood alone on the sidewalk, blazer faintly rustling in the warm breeze. A few scuttered clusters of incoming students glanced his way, or rather, glanced at the car he’d stepped out of. Wealth had its own gravitational pull: people noticed even before they knew why.
Two of his father’s business acquaintances’ children — future finance majors with practiced laughs, reeking of golf clubs and expensive family dinners — waved from across the courtyard.
“Bitzz! You made it.” Yelled one of them from across the courtyard and laughed.
“Dude, the orientation mixer tonight is gonna be crazy. You’re coming, right?”
Bitzz forced a polite smile and shrugged. “Maybe? We’ll see.”
They beamed like it mattered. They liked him. Or rather, they liked being seen with him. Connections matter more than grades… right?
It didn’t bother him. It didn’t exactly please him, either. Though, he was used to it. This was his ecosystem.
He adjusted his tie and began walking towards the freshman dorm building, mentally sorting through which clubs he would join first. “Debate, obviously...”, he whispered to himself. Maybe the student council if the president wasn’t too incompetent. His father would expect that. He knew that he would want that.
He had halfway rolled his suitcase towards the entrace when he heard the first loud crash of the semester.
An unfamiliar suitcase slammed into his shin. Bitzz jerked back with a sharp yelp.
“Watch where you’re— !”
A guy scrambled to gather the belongings that had burst from the cheap zipper. A beat-up dark green hoodie, several loose papers with slanted handwriting of which he could hardly make out the words, a pack of gum — and bitzzarely (hah) — a pair of green underwear…?
The guy didn’t look up. “Yeah, yeah, one second— “
His voice was tense but not necessarily apologetic. More like someone trying to finish 52 due assignments at once, trying not to get distracted.
Bitzz frowned. “Could you– maybe– move your stuff off my legs?”
That got the guy’s attention.
He lifted his head and his blue-greyish eyes locked onto Bitzz’s beady eyes.
The first impression was messy. Blonde hair with dark roots, chopped short but uneven, nearly covering one of his eyes. After taking a second look, he was even more unimpressed.
Eyes narrowed just slightly. Jaw set. Expression weary in a way Bitzz couldn’t place.
The third impression came last and hit surprisingly hard:
“This person is completely out of my social orbit…”
No polish. No posture. No respect. Just raw edges, cutting and unfiltered. Something Bitzz wasn’t used to seeing.
“Sorry your royal suitcase got in the way”, he said dryly, stuffing items back into his bag. His hoodie rode up as he moved, revealing three piercings glinting on his left ear. The other ear had three as well.
Bitzz scrunched his face at the sight and blinked. “My– what? Royal?”
“Well, the tie, the walk, the ‘do you mind’…” The guy zipped the bag shut with force. “You scream ‘my family owns multiple properties.’”
Bitzz bristled. “Because it does...?”
“Yeah.” The guy stood, swinging the bag over one shoulder. “I could tell.”
His tone carried no admiration. Not even curiosity. Just flat acknowledgement, like Bitzz’s entire existence was solely a puzzle with missing pieces he wasn’t interested in solving.
Bitzz tried to regain control of the moment. “You could still apologise properly.”
“I could”, the guy said. “But I won’t.”
Bitzz stared. “Why not?”
He shrugged. “You look like you’ve already got enough people pretending around you. I’ll do you a favour and not add to the count, alright buddy?”
Bitzz’s jaw hung open for a full two seconds.
The guy walked past him and tossed over a final line:
“Nice tie, by the way. Is it glued onto you?”
Bitzz clenched his fists. He hated him instantly.
The feeling didn’t fade as he walked away. If anything, it grew sharper with every step — irritation curling tighter around his ribs and embarrassment simmering under his neatly buttoned blazer. He could still hear the stranger’s voice in his head, flat and dismissive:
“Nice tie. Is it glued onto you?”
His jaw twitched.
Who even says things like that?
And to him of all people? What did he even do to him?
He pushed through the campus crowd with stiff precision, trying to shake off the encounter, telling himself he would never see that guy again anyway. There were thousands of students on campus. Statistically, the universe couldn’t be cruel enough to him to force another collision between the two.
He straightened his tie once again — unnecessarily — and adjusted the strap of his backpack, forcing his breathing to steady. A deep breath. Two. He could regain control. He would regain control.
Freshman year was supposed to begin cleanly, smoothly, predictably. No slip ups.
Bitzz rounded the corner into the freshman dorm building, dragging his expensive looking suitcase after himself.
The moment he stepped inside, the world shifted into a chaotic blur: laughter bouncing off chiselled narrow walls, the bangs of doors slamming shut, the sharp squeak of someone slipping on freshly mopped floors. He glanced over at posters for Welcome Week events plastering every surface. Hollow promises of “Free food!” written on it, that he already knew would be cheap and bland.
But even the noise and cluster of the hallway couldn’t fully drown out the lingering annoyance twisting in his chest.
He exhaled sharply
Anything, literally anything, had to be better than running into that disaster of a person again.
He approached the door to Room 310, rolled his shoulders back, and forced himself into the composed, controlled version of himself he knew how to be.
Bitzz grasped the doorknob.
He stepped inside and nearly walked into the same guy from before again.
“YOU?!” Bitzz snapped.
The guy, currently half-kneeling on the floor untangling an outlet strip, glanced up with a neutral look. He grinned and finally responded: “Oh. Your highness.”
“My name is Bitzz!”
He didn’t blink. “Cool.”
“Cool?!”
“You want a medal?”
Bitzz sputtered, dragging his suitcase inside and setting it firmly on the other bed on the right side of the room. “Why are you here?”
The guy gestured lazily at the room, as if the answer was obvious. “This is my dorm.”
“No, this is my dorm.” Bitzz pointed at the number on the door, but he just smirked, short and almost pitying.
“You’re slow for someone who dresses like a president”, he said. “We’re roommates.”
Bitzz’s entire worldview paused.
“No”, he said again. “No, no, no. This can’t be right. There must’ve been a mistake.” Bitzz dragged his hands down his face and groaned.
“If there is, it’s not mine”, said the other one, sitting on the edge of his bed. He pulled out his phone, then immediately shoved it back into his pocket again, as if the cracked screen annoyed him.
Bitzz pressed his fingertips into his temples. “Who are you?”
“Mark.”
No last name. No introduction. No explanation. Just “Mark.”
He resisted the urge to demand more information on principle. “Well, Mark”, he said stiffly, “this is… unfortunate.”
“Trust me”, Mark replied, “I’m devastated.”
They stared at each other for a long, prickly moment. Mark looked away first, but not in defeat, more like he had quickly become bored of the interaction.
Bitzz felt irritation rise. He wasn’t used to being dismissed. Before he could retort, his two acquaintances from earlier appeared at the door with big fake smiles.
“Bitzz! We found you!” One of them said, already sounding like he planned to weaponise Bitzz’s presence socially.
The other one looked Mark up and down with a raised eyebrow and a confused smile on his face. “Who’s this?”
Mark stared back flatly. “Future lawyer. Boo.”
The guy scoffed.
Bitzz felt a strange urge to defend Mark, but crushed it immediately.
This was not someone you defended. This was someone you avoided. He thought of something his father had previously said to him and lightly shook his head.
“See you at the mixer?” One of his acquaintances asked.
“Sure”, Bitzz said.
They left. The room fell quiet again
Mark exhaled slowly and began unpacking, pulling out a green hoodie, a small stack of books (all political theory or law — from what Bitzz had seen), a chipped mug, and a notebook filled with the same cramped handwriting on the edges that he’d already taken notice of earlier.
He set everything down carefully, with the precision of someone who didn’t want to draw attention to anything they owned. Not out of shame, more like habit.
Bitzz was weirdly intrigued. Fascinated even.
He tried not to be.
* * *
Orientation Week continued like a social avalanche. Bitzz attended mixers, club fairs, an outdoor meet-and-greet where someone’s frisbee nearly decapitated him and trimmed down the two tufts on the back of his head by a millimetre, and a networking brunch filled with people who looked almost ten years older than freshmen had any right to be.
He listened to his father and collected new “friends” like they were business cards. Impressive. Connected. Entirely shallow.
Mark attended nothing.
Bitzz knew, because he checked.
He didn’t mean to. Mark simply appeared in his thoughts uninvited, usually whenever someone bragged about internships their parents had secured for them. Mark’s existence was a reminder that not everyone arrived wrapped in privilege.
In class, Mark always sat in the back, uniform fixed up messily, scribbling constantly. Bitzz thought he wasn’t paying attention until Mark answered a professor’s question with a response so sharp the room went silent.
The professor was impressed.
Bitzz’s stomach twisted. He hadn’t known Mark was smart.
He hated knowing it.
* * *
The campus auditorium smelled faintly of coffee, dry-erase markers, and panic. Students clustered into rows, whispering nervously. Bitzz stood near the front with perfect posture, hands folded behind his back, heart steady.
Debate was his arena.
His father expected him to excel there.
Bitzz expected himself to excel there.
He wore his best tie.
His backpack was balanced neatly on his chair.
Everything was controlled.
And then Mark walked in, having abandoned Tryhard dress code etiquette entirely. He was wearing the white shirt of the uniform with the sleeves rolled up and the blazer missing. A simple tie and a deadpan expression adorning his appearance. He sank into a back row like he planned to disappear into the upholstery.
Bitzz’s control cracked.
What was he doing here?
Mark didn’t even look up. He slouched down, chewing gum.
Bitzz felt heat crawl up his neck. “He doesn’t belong in debate”, he muttered under his nervous breath.
But then he saw Mark’s eyes — briefly — watching him. Not admiring. Not mocking.
Just… measuring.
Bitzz looked away quickly.
The club president spun a wheel to assign quickfire trial topics.
“Round 3! Topic is— “
The arrow clicked repeatedly until it settled on a red section.
“Does inherited wealth invalidate personal merit?”
A few people groaned. A few murmured, “Oof, that’s brutal.”
Bitzz felt the blood drain from his face.
The president continued:
“Speaking for the motion… Mark.”
He laughed.
“…speaking against the motion… Bitzz.”
Bitzz’s stomach dropped.
Mark rose from the back row slowly, shoulders loose, hands in pockets, completely unfazed. Bitzz tried not to show how rattled he was as he joined him at the podium.
They faced each other.
Mark’s expression was unreadable — calm, distant, a faint challenge simmering beneath.
Bitzz kept his posture straight, chin up, everything about him projecting confidence he didn’t feel.
Mark went first.
He approached the podium without notes, without hesitation, without adjusting the microphone. His voice, when it sounded through the room, was steady and deceptively quiet. Quieter than they’d anticipated.
“Inherited wealth doesn’t just influence merit”, he began. “It distorts it.”
Several students nodded immediately. Mark didn’t notice. Or didn’t care.
“When a person starts life already miles ahead, what exactly are we praising when we applaud them for arriving at the finish line first? Their athleticism? Or the fact that they were born closer?”
Bitzz felt something unpleasant twist in his chest.
Mark continued. “Merit requires struggle. Hardship. Choices. If you never have to choose between food and textbooks, between job and study time, between opportunities and obligations… how can we measure merit on the same scale?”
Bitzz clenched his jaw.
Mark’s gaze quickly flicked towards him, then back to the audience.
“And before anyone says, ‘people with privilege can work hard too’, sure. They can. And some do. But their starting position still cushions their failures, amplifies their successes, and guarantees their second and third chances even.”
Mark stepped back.
Bitzz swallowed hard.
His turn.
He gripped the edges of the podium.
“Inherited wealth doesn’t invalidate merit”, he began, voice steady out of sheer force of will. “It simply offers different challenges.”
He saw Mark raise one eyebrow slightly — not derisively, but curiously. Bitzz pushed forward.
“People born into wealth face immense pressure”, Bitzz said. “They have expectations to carry legacies, to maintain reputations, to succeed not just personally, but publicly.”
He didn’t look at Mark.
Looking at him would make this an argument, not a debate.
“And effort is still effort”, Bitzz protested. “Just because someone has resources doesn’t mean their achievements are meaningless. Privilege changes circumstances, not capability.
His heart hammered too fast.
Mark leaned back slightly, listening with a focus that felt uncomfortably sharp.
Bitzz finished: “Merit isn’t determined by where we start — it’s determined by what we do with the opportunities we’re given.”
A few claps echoed through one side of the room. More murmurs from the other.
He exhaled shakily when the round ended.
It wasn’t his best performance.
He knew it.
Mark probably knew it.
Everyone probably knew it.
Mark walked past him to return to his seat, brushing lightly against him — just enough to say ‘I saw right through you’ without words.
Bitzz stood frozen.
He hated him.
But beneath the hatred was something else — something new.
Something he didn’t want to name.
* * *
Back in their dorm that night, Mark laid on his bed flipping a cheap pen between his fingers, hoodie on, an unread textbook open beside him.
Bitzz sat at his desk, pretending to write notes, though his page remained blank. His empty gaze kept drifting to the window, the walls, the floor.
Anywhere except towards Mark.
Finally, mark broke the silence.
“Good debate.”
Bitzz stiffened. “Don’t pretend to be nice.”
Mark huffed a short laugh. “I wasn’t being nice. Just honest. You argued well.”
Bitzz turned sharply. “I didn’t.”
“I’ve seen worse. Much worse.” Mark shrugged.
They stared at each other.
Not hostile.
Not warm.
Just… aware.
Then Mark returned to his pen-flipping without another word.
Bitzz slowly relaxed.
He opened the drawer of his desk and pulled out a small sketchbook — the one thing he kept hidden from his father, as he’d have told him to throw it away and not waste his time on stupid fantasies he’d scribble onto the paper, rather than real life. His carefully curated identity, shoved away into a drawer.
He flipped to a blank page and started to draw without thinking. Lines formed, slow and soft. The curves of a face. The slouch of a posture. Eyes that never fully revealed what they were looking at.
He paused in realisation of what he’d begun to draw.
Shut the notebook and shoved it deep into the drawer again.
He hated him.
He hated how fascinated he was.
He hated that he wanted to understand him.