Chapter Text
There were days when Est thought being student body president felt less like an achievement and more like a sentence he had willingly handed to himself.
It was not that he regretted it. Regret implied surprise, and Est had never been foolish enough to believe leadership would be light. He had known, even before the elections, that the title came with endless obligations and impossible expectations, that people would look at him and see either someone to admire or someone to criticize, never just a person trying his best to keep an entire college from collapsing into complete disorder. He had known it would mean waking up with schedules already circling in his mind, carrying deadlines in his chest like a second heartbeat, and measuring every action, every word, every expression because people were always watching him whether he asked for it or not. But knowing something in theory and having to live it every single day were very different things, and lately the weight of it had settled so naturally across his shoulders that he almost forgot he was carrying it until a day like this one made every muscle in his body ache with the strain.
The afternoon had dragged on in a way only university afternoons could, long and humid and filled with too many voices asking too many things from him. One professor wanted a revision to the event proposal. One department representative had complained about the shortage of volunteers. A student organization had submitted paperwork late and still expected approval by evening. Someone from logistics had misplaced a list that Est himself had stayed up organizing the night before, and by the time the final meeting ended, he could already feel a headache gathering behind his eyes like storm clouds. He kept his expression pleasant through all of it, because he was good at that, because there was almost an art to being composed when everyone around him was making it difficult, because being Est—President Est, dependable Est, calm and polite and efficient Est—meant never letting irritation show unless it could be used productively.
Still, when he finally stepped out of the main building and into the late afternoon heat, he exhaled as though he had been holding his breath all day.
Campus at that hour existed in a strange in-between. Classes had not fully ended yet, but the edges of the day were beginning to soften. The walkways were still crowded, though thinner now, and the buildings threw longer shadows over the pavement. Groups of students laughed too loudly near the courtyard, their voices carried by the warm breeze. Somewhere farther off, someone was rehearsing with an amp turned up too high, a guitar line cutting through the air in uneven bursts. Est adjusted the strap of his bag higher on his shoulder and kept walking, nodding politely at the people who greeted him, offering small smiles that came automatically now, the kind that had long become part of his public self.
"P' Est!"
He looked up at the sound of his name and found two first-year students near the benches, one of them half-standing already as if she had been waiting for the chance to catch him.
"Yes?" he said, stopping.
They immediately straightened, faces bright with a combination of nervousness and admiration that he had encountered so often he no longer knew what to do with it. "We just wanted to ask if the deadline for the volunteer forms can still be extended by one day."
Est should have said no immediately. He should have told them deadlines existed for a reason and kept moving. But they looked earnest and a little overwhelmed, and he knew too well what it was like to be buried under university demands and still try to hold yourself together in front of someone older, someone with authority, someone who seemed like they had everything figured out. So he listened. He asked questions. He answered carefully. He explained what could and could not be done, and by the time he left them with an agreement that was technically more generous than it should have been, both of them were thanking him like he had done something extraordinary instead of simply being reasonable.
That was the problem with being known for kindness. People remembered it, and then they expected it every time.
By the time he made it past the student center, his patience was worn thin enough that even the sound of his own footsteps annoyed him. He could have taken the main path toward the parking area, but that would have meant weaving through more people, more greetings, more interruptions, more moments in which he had to be visibly available. The thought exhausted him. So he took the side route instead, the older path that curved behind one of the auxiliary buildings and cut through the narrow alley near the maintenance wall, a shortcut few students used unless they already knew it existed.
Est liked that path because it belonged to no one. There were no booths there, no organizations trying to hand him flyers, no professors stopping him with follow-up questions, no classmates trying to casually ask if the administration had already approved this or that. The alley was quiet in an almost ugly way, the cement walls stained with age, the ground uneven in places, the air a little hotter because it held the day's heat between the close surfaces. It smelled faintly of dust, old paint, and sun-warmed concrete. It was not a beautiful place, but it was hidden, and hidden was enough.
He had barely stepped into it when he smelled smoke.
His stride faltered.
For a second he thought maybe it was drifting in from the street beyond the campus wall, but no—the scent was too fresh, too close, too deliberate. Cigarette smoke, thick and bitter and immediate, curling through the air like an insult.
Est's expression changed before he was even fully aware of it. His brows drew together. The ache behind his eyes sharpened. Of course. Of course, after a day like this, after every unnecessary inconvenience already piled on his back, he would find one more thing waiting for him in the only quiet place he had wanted for himself.
He rounded the bend fully and saw him.
A man was leaning against the far wall of the alley as though he owned the space, one shoulder pressed lazily to the concrete, one boot bent with the sole resting flat behind him. There was no mistaking what he was doing. The cigarette glowed faintly between his fingers, a slim white line burning down in slow increments, and he inhaled from it with the kind of unbothered ease that immediately made Est's irritation flare hotter. He wore the university badge clipped carelessly near the edge of his shirt, which somehow only made the whole thing worse. It was one thing to break the rules privately and another to do it so openly, like being part of the university meant absolutely nothing, like the rules existed for everyone except him.
Est stared for a fraction longer, mostly out of disbelief, and in that fraction the stranger lifted his head slightly.
That was when Est noticed the rest of him.
Not all at once. Not neatly. It came in flashes, the kind of details his eyes caught before his mind could tell them not to. The broad line of his shoulders beneath his clothes. The looseness of his posture that somehow did not lessen his presence but made it stronger, more insolent, more impossible to ignore. Dark hair falling just enough to make him look like he had walked out of some trouble instead of into it. And the tattoos—God.
They were not fully visible, which somehow made them worse.
A dark sleeve of ink was hidden beneath the fabric of one arm, but not completely. It revealed itself where the material stretched over his shoulder and upper arm, only a shadow at first, then a pattern, then enough to suggest something intricate continuing where Est could not see. Fine black lines climbed the side of his neck in controlled, elegant curves, neither excessive nor subtle, just daring enough to draw the eye and hold it there a second too long. There was script behind one ear—delicate, almost understated, as if someone had written a secret directly onto his skin. Faint traces marked his hands too, disappearing over knuckles and along the heel of his palm. Nothing about it was accidental. It looked like mystery worn with intention, a story half-hidden under clean clothing, a deliberate contrast between order and danger that should have been ridiculous and instead made Est's pulse do something stupid in his throat.
No, he thought at once, violently, as if the force of the denial could erase the reaction from his body. No. Absolutely not.
The man was smoking on campus. That was what mattered.
Est straightened. "Put that out."
His voice cracked through the alley, hard and clear, sharp enough to cut through the heat.
The man did not move.
He did not even look surprised. He only took another drag as though Est's words had been part of the ambient noise, then let the smoke out in a slow stream from slightly parted lips. The sheer refusal in that tiny act irritated Est more than open confrontation would have.
"I said put it out," Est repeated, stepping closer.
This time the man looked at him properly.
His gaze moved over Est with a calm, assessing slowness that was so blatantly disrespectful it nearly made Est laugh from the audacity of it. It was not the kind of look people usually gave him. Most people, upon realizing who he was, adjusted themselves in some way. They straightened a little. They softened. They became more careful, even if only slightly. This man looked at him like none of those instincts existed in him at all.
Then he smiled.
It was not a warm smile, not even a friendly one. It was a slight curve of the mouth, amused in a way that suggested he had found something unexpectedly entertaining.
"Do you always order people around like that?" he asked.
The voice matched everything else about him—low, rough at the edges, infuriatingly calm.
Est folded his arms loosely over his chest, more to keep himself from doing something rash than out of any real composure. "Only when they're violating campus regulations."
"Campus regulations," the man echoed, as if testing the phrase for humor. "That sounds exhausting."
Est's eyes narrowed. "You're smoking inside the university grounds while wearing an ID. Are you trying to make it easy for me?"
At that, the man glanced down at his badge as if he had forgotten it was there, then looked back up. "Maybe."
The answer was so careless that Est had to take one slow breath through his nose.
"I'm not joking," he said. "Put the cigarette out."
"And if I don't?"
Est had dealt with difficult students before. Arrogant ones, dismissive ones, students who mistook friendliness for weakness and rules for suggestions. He had learned that if you gave people enough stillness, enough directness, most of them eventually folded under the discomfort of it. So he held the stranger's gaze and said, very evenly, "Then I'll file a report, submit your name, and see to it that you face disciplinary action."
A beat of silence followed.
Then the man gave a short, almost incredulous laugh. "You talk like this is a courtroom."
"This is a university."
"That's not better."
The ridiculousness of the conversation almost overshadowed Est's irritation, but only almost. "Who are you?"
The stranger tipped ash to the ground. "Who's asking?"
Est stared at him. "The student body president."
That got a reaction, though not the one he should have gotten. The man's brows lifted slightly, and then that same infuriating curve returned to his mouth.
"President?" he repeated. "You?"
Something about the way he said it—like it was absurd, like Est was absurd—struck a nerve more quickly than it should have. "Yes," Est said coldly. "Is that surprising?"
The man looked him over once, lazily, eyes passing over Est's pressed uniform, his ID, the bag hanging neatly from his shoulder, his posture that by now had settled naturally into something formal and rigid. "A little."
Est let out a humorless breath. "Right. Because clearly your standards for leadership are very high."
"Actually," the man said, pushing off the wall at last, "I just didn't expect the president to look like that."
Est's jaw tightened. "Like what?"
"Pretty."
The word landed with humiliating precision.
For the briefest moment, Est forgot how to respond.
It was not that he had never been called attractive before. He had. He knew what he looked like. He knew people stared sometimes, knew there was something about the shape of his face and the softness people associated with it that made others linger longer than necessary. He had heard compliments his entire life, from relatives, from classmates, from strangers trying to flirt badly. But pretty, said like that, low and almost lazy, in the middle of an argument with someone who looked like sin and bad decisions wrapped in a school uniform, irritated him in a way he did not fully understand.
"I'm not here for your commentary," Est snapped.
"Pity," the man said. "You seem like you need some."
Est should have walked away then. That would have been the mature thing to do. He could have turned on his heel, noted the time and place, sent a report later, and spared himself the headache of dealing with someone who was so clearly impossible. But there was something in the man's face that made retreat feel like surrender, and Est hated the thought of giving him that satisfaction before the battle had even properly begun.
So instead, Est stepped closer.
Up close, the details became worse. More dangerous. More annoyingly vivid. The tattoo behind his ear was a line of script so fine Est had to stop himself from reading it. The ink along his neck disappeared beneath his collar in a way that invited the mind to imagine the rest. Even his hands were unfair—veined, strong, marked with dark fragments of ink that made the simple act of holding a cigarette look indecently deliberate. His body carried itself with the relaxed confidence of someone who knew exactly what effect he had on people and had long ago stopped apologizing for it.
He was, Est thought with immediate resentment, exactly the kind of man who would ruin someone's life and then smile while doing it.
Which was irrelevant. Entirely irrelevant.
"You're not above the rules just because you think you're interesting," Est said.
The man looked down at him, and there it was again—that maddening amusement. "Do I think I'm interesting?"
"Yes."
"Maybe I just think you care too much."
Est felt his temper tighten. "Someone has to."
"Why?" the man asked, and suddenly the question sounded more serious than teasing. "Because they gave you a title? Because they told you this place falls apart if you're not constantly chasing after everyone else's mistakes?"
Est's mouth parted slightly before he could stop it.
It was a ridiculous thing to react to. The man knew nothing about him. Nothing. He was just saying things, throwing out provocations because that was obviously the kind of person he was—someone who liked pressing at whatever might bruise, someone who enjoyed the spectacle of irritation and wanted to see how far he could push it. Still, the words slipped under Est's skin with uncomfortable ease, finding places that were already sore.
"That's none of your concern," Est said.
The man took one last drag from the cigarette, eyes never leaving Est's face. "Exactly."
Then he leaned forward just enough to exhale the smoke away from himself and into the narrow air between them.
Not directly at Est. Not fully.
But close enough.
Close enough that Est could smell it more sharply, could feel the heat of it briefly on his cheek, could understand that the gesture was deliberate and insulting and somehow more infuriating because it had been done with such quiet control.
Something in him snapped.
Before he could think better of it, Est reached out, snatched the cigarette from the man's hand, and dropped it to the ground. He crushed it under his shoe with one sharp motion, his pulse jumping high in his throat.
The silence that followed felt electric.
The man stared at the ruined cigarette, then lifted his gaze back to Est's face.
For one dangerous second, neither of them moved.
Est was suddenly aware of everything at once—the heat trapped between the alley walls, the sound of his own breathing, the way the man had gone completely still, the hard line of his jaw, the subtle flare in his eyes that suggested he had not expected Est to touch him, not even like that. It should have made Est feel victorious. It should have made him feel in control.
Instead, it made him feel like he had just stepped into something without knowing how deep it went.
"Come with me," Est said, because he had to say something, because if he did not fill the silence then the silence would fill him. "Now."
The man's expression shifted slowly from surprise into something else. Something darker. More entertained.
"You just don't know when to stop, do you?"
Est laughed once, short and disbelieving. "That's rich coming from you."
"What are you going to do?" the man asked softly. "Drag me there yourself?"
The image flashed across Est's mind so quickly it almost embarrassed him—his hand around the man's wrist, the heat of skin, resistance, the force it would take. He hated that his body reacted before his reason did, hated that attraction could make itself known in the worst possible moments, like a traitor with terrible timing.
"I wouldn't have to," Est said, each word clipped. "Most students know how to act like decent human beings when they're told they've crossed a line."
The man tilted his head. "And I don't?"
"No," Est said flatly. "You don't."
For some reason, that seemed to please him.
He smiled again, but this one was slower, rougher around the edges. "You know," he murmured, "for someone so polite in public, you've got a nasty mouth."
Est felt his face heat with instant offense. "You don't know anything about me."
"I know enough." The man pushed away from the wall entirely now, standing at full height. Taller than Est by enough to be irritating, broad enough to make the narrow alley feel narrower. "I know you take yourself too seriously. I know you think this little title means people have to listen to you. And I know you're annoyed because I'm not."
Est held his ground. "You're not special. You're just rude."
"Maybe," the man said. "But you noticed me."
The sheer arrogance of that statement left Est speechless for half a beat.
Then he said, low and cutting, "Trust me, noticing a problem doesn't make it impressive."
The man laughed then, genuinely this time, and Est hated the sound of it because it was good. Warm despite the mockery, rich enough to settle somewhere inconvenient in his chest.
"President," he said, as if tasting the word. "You really hate me already."
"Yes," Est said immediately, because that at least was easy.
The man's gaze dropped briefly to Est's mouth before lifting again, so quick Est might have imagined it if his own pulse had not stumbled at the same moment. "That's intense for a first meeting."
"It would help if you were less unbearable."
"And it would help you if you learned to relax."
Est stared at him. "You're smoking on campus."
"And you look like you're about to have an aneurysm over it."
Something about that, combined with the day he had already had and the airless heat of the alley and the infuriatingly beautiful stranger standing in front of him acting as though rules were a joke and Est himself was some amusing little challenge, made his composure crack in a way it almost never did.
"You're an asshole."
The words came out before he could temper them.
For one brief second, Est thought perhaps he had overplayed it. That perhaps this would be the point where the stranger's expression hardened for real, where the game stopped feeling clever and started feeling ugly. But instead the man only looked at him, eyes unreadable for a moment, and then his mouth curved again with what looked dangerously close to approval.
"There you are," he said quietly.
Est frowned. "What?"
"That's better." The man slipped one hand into his pocket, utterly relaxed. "You were starting to sound like a handbook."
The insult should have infuriated Est more than it did. Instead, against all logic, it made him feel seen in a way that was somehow worse.
He hated this. He hated the alley, hated the smoke still clinging to the air, hated the way the conversation kept slipping out of his control no matter how firmly he tried to steer it back. Most of all, he hated himself for continuing to stand there and engage when he should have already ended this.
"What's your name?" Est asked suddenly.
The man considered him for a moment. "Why?"
"So I know what to write in the report."
A lie, partly. The report would not need to happen today. He could ask around. He could find out through other channels. The truth was simpler and more humiliating: he wanted to know. He wanted a name to attach to the face that had already lodged itself somewhere irritating in his thoughts.
The man must have sensed that there was more to the question than procedure, because his eyes sharpened with faint amusement.
"Ask around," he said.
Est stared at him in disbelief. "You can't be serious."
"Oh, I am." He took one slow step backward, then another, moving toward the mouth of the alley. "You seem resourceful."
"This isn't over."
That stopped him.
Not fully. Just enough for him to glance back over his shoulder.
Sunlight from the open path beyond the alley caught at the edge of his profile, outlining him in gold and shadow, sharpening the line of his jaw, the curve of his mouth, the ink at his neck. For one awful second, he looked less like a student and more like a problem the universe had handcrafted specifically to test Est's patience.
Then he smiled—not kindly, not cruelly, but with the quiet certainty of someone who already knew exactly how this would go.
"No," he said. "I don't think it is."
And then he walked away.
Just like that.
As if the encounter had meant nothing.
As if Est's anger were entertainment and nothing more.
As if he had not walked into the one quiet corner of Est's afternoon and managed to ruin the entire thing within minutes.
Est remained where he was, staring at the empty mouth of the alley long after the man disappeared from view. The silence felt wrong now, charged with the residue of something unfinished. The smoke lingered in the heat. His own body felt tight, restless in ways he refused to examine too closely.
He bent down after a moment and stared at the crushed remains of the cigarette under his shoe, absurdly dissatisfied. It should have felt like a small victory. Instead, it only reminded him that the stranger had left exactly as he pleased.
"Unbelievable," Est muttered.
He dragged a hand over his face and started walking again, but the calm he had sought in the alley was gone. Every few steps his mind replayed pieces of the conversation without his permission. The look on the man's face when Est had crushed the cigarette. The low drag of his voice. The tattoos. God, the tattoos. The line of ink disappearing beneath the fabric at his shoulder. The script behind his ear. The infuriating audacity of looking that good while behaving that badly.
Est exhaled hard, disgusted with himself.
This was exactly the kind of man he was supposed to dislike on principle. Reckless. Disrespectful. Self-satisfied. The kind who walked through rules as though they were cobwebs, who treated responsibility like a personal insult, who probably made everyone around him miserable and got away with it because he was attractive enough for people to excuse almost anything. Est knew that type. He had seen it before, in different forms, in different faces. Boys who thought rebellion made them profound. Boys who mistook cruelty for charm. Boys who let everyone else clean up after the messes they created and still somehow got called magnetic for it.
He hated that type.
He really did.
And yet.
There was a shameful, irritating part of him that could not stop replaying the details anyway.
The way the man had said pretty as though it were not a compliment but a challenge. The way he had stood there without a trace of apology, like he had never once in his life felt compelled to make himself smaller for anyone. The way the tattoos had turned his skin into something both deliberate and dangerous, fragments of hidden stories visible only where the clothing allowed them through. It was infuriating how well the whole thing worked. He looked like temptation dressed as insolence, like a warning sign sculpted into a person.
Est clenched his jaw.
No.
Absolutely not.
Attraction, he told himself firmly, was a physical response. Meaningless. It could happen in inconvenient moments. It did not say anything serious about him, and it certainly did not matter here. People could be physically appealing and still be terrible. In fact, that was often the problem. Beauty made everyone else stupid. Beauty made people tolerate things they should not. It explained, perhaps, why someone like him could smoke on campus and still carry himself with the confidence of a man used to being wanted anyway.
That thought irritated Est enough to steady him.
By the time he emerged from the side path and returned to the broader campus walk, his expression had settled back into something cooler, sharper. A group of students passed him and greeted him. He greeted them back automatically. Someone from one of the organizations waved from across the open court; he nodded once in acknowledgment. It was almost alarming how quickly he could put his face back on, how instinctively he could return to the public version of himself even while his mind still smoldered with private annoyance.
He should forget the alley. Forget the smoke. Forget the stranger entirely.
But then one of the students near the waiting shed said, to another, with obvious excitement, "Did you hear William nearly fought with one of the faculty assistants last week because they told him rehearsal hours were over?"
Est slowed by accident.
The second student laughed. "He's insane. But I swear, even when he's rude he still looks good doing it."
William.
So that was his name.
Est kept walking before they could notice he had reacted at all, but the name settled into him immediately, annoyingly, as if it had been waiting for a place to land. William. It fit too well. Too smooth. Too clean for someone that aggravating.
And apparently he was exactly what Est had suspected—known. Not just another random student who thought rules did not apply to him, but someone who had already built a reputation around doing whatever he wanted and daring everyone else to stop him.
Wonderful.
By the time Est reached the parking area, his headache had worsened. He unlocked his car with more force than necessary and slid into the driver's seat, shutting the door firmly behind him. The silence inside the vehicle was cooler, more contained, but not enough to settle him. He tossed his bag to the passenger seat and leaned back for a moment, hands gripping the steering wheel without starting the engine.
William.
He hated how quickly he could picture him. Not vaguely, but specifically, infuriatingly. The slant of his mouth. The shape of his eyes when he smiled like he was being entertained. The visible fragments of ink suggesting there was more where the shirt concealed it. The attitude, the carelessness, the impossible nerve of him.
Est closed his eyes briefly and dropped his head back against the seat.
What kind of person smoked on campus in broad daylight and then acted as if the real inconvenience was being called out for it? What kind of person looked another person directly in the eye and made defiance feel effortless? Worse, what kind of person could be so mean—so openly rude, so dismissive, so provoking—and still somehow walk away looking like he had stepped out of someone else's fantasy?
A bad one, Est answered himself immediately.
That was the answer.
A bad one.
And if Est found that appealing for even one second, then that was his own problem to fix, not something to romanticize.
He started the car.
The engine hummed to life, the air-conditioning pushing cool air across his face, but his thoughts still would not settle. He found himself imagining future encounters despite not wanting them, as if some instinct already knew this was not the last time William would appear in his path. Men like that did not exist quietly. They left impressions. They collected witnesses. They turned irritation into a spectacle. Est could already imagine him moving through campus with that same infuriating confidence, students drawn to him for reasons they would probably mistake for charm, teachers frustrated, rules bent around his moods because no one wanted to deal with him long enough to enforce them.
And Est, apparently, had become one of the unlucky few who had already dealt with him and come away worse for it.
He drove out of campus with the windows closed and the radio off, the city outside moving in ordinary patterns he barely registered. His mind kept circling back anyway, dragging pieces of the encounter through him until even his annoyance began to feel rehearsed. He hated that. Hated when a thought stayed longer than it deserved, when a person occupied space they had not earned.
By the time he reached home, he had already decided on the official version of the day's final inconvenience.
He hated William.
Not casually. Not vaguely.
Immediately and with reason.
He hated his arrogance. Hated his refusal to listen. Hated the way he spoke as though authority itself were a joke. Hated the smoke, the mockery, the deliberate disrespect. Hated that being called pretty by someone like that had unsettled him for even one humiliating second. Hated, most of all, that somewhere under all of that irritation was the uglier truth he would not say aloud even to himself: that if William had been anyone else, if he had not opened his mouth and revealed how impossible he was, Est would have looked at him and thought, very plainly, yes.
Yes to the face, yes to the body, yes to the tattoos trailing up his neck like a temptation written in ink, yes to the dangerous mystery of sleeves hiding more than they revealed. He would have thought him exactly his type and hated himself for how immediate the recognition was.
But William was not anyone else.
He was a rule breaker with a sharp mouth and a worse attitude. He was campus smoke in human form, the kind of person who would burn through everything around him and act surprised when someone called it destruction. He was all edges and provocation and insufferable confidence. Whatever he looked like did not matter. Whatever stupid spark of attraction Est's body had betrayed in that alley did not matter.
Est got out of the car, shut the door, and stood for a moment in the quiet of the driveway, breathing in the evening air.
"I hate him," he said aloud this time, as if saying it clearly might pin the truth down and keep everything else from moving around it.
And maybe he did.
Maybe that was the simplest version of it.
Because there was no way—none—that a person could be that rude, that arrogant, that impossible, and still be worth thinking about.
No way at all.
The only problem, Est would later realize, was that even on that first day, standing there under a darkening sky and trying to convince himself he felt nothing except anger, a part of him already knew this would not end in one meeting, one argument, one alley, one crushed cigarette under his shoe.
Somehow, instinctively, maddeningly, he already knew William was not going to remain just a stranger he hated once and forgot.
He was going to become a problem.
And Est, despite every rule he lived by, had the sinking feeling he was going to notice every second of it.