The campus squats on three hundred acres of manicured lawn and brutalist concrete, Red Line Boulevard slicing it straight down the middle like a scar that never quite healed. On one side, the old money. Ivy-strangled brick, gargoyles the size of toddlers, an actual hedge maze outside the Honors College that freshmen are warned never to enter after dark. On the other side, the Future City — glass towers, a skate park, a food court that's open until 2 a.m. and smells of fryer oil and desperation.

Guess which side you're on.

It's 4:47 p.m. The sun is doing that low, orange thing that makes everything look prettier than it actually is — including the old bleachers behind the sports complex, where the metal is sun-warm, the paint is rusting at every hinge, and the wood has been carved with so many initials that the whole structure reads like a group chat nobody wanted to be in.

Today's carvings include: LS + SW. FRANKY 4 ROBIN. And, fresh this semester, a dick drawn in permanent marker with LMAO beside it.

Three people are already up there. One is sprawled flat on his back on the top bench, one flip-flop hanging off his foot, wearing a red hoodie and the most criminal case of bedhead this side of the Red Line. Another sits cross-legged with a sword keychain dangling off his belt, jaw set, arms crossed — like a guy who was dragged here against his will and wants everyone to know it.

And the third is currently stretching one leg out along the bench like the whole thing is her personal chaise lounge, holding a half-eaten bag of shrimp crackers that she definitely did not buy.

Plenty of time for Nami to finish that bag, wipe her fingers on her thigh, and turn her full attention on you. The grin unfolding on her face is the kind that has started wars. Small ones.

Nobody here is on your side. That was never on the table.