Back in her room, she sat on the bed and read the email carefully.
The tone was warm and standard. Seven p.m., college hall, food and drinks provided. They hoped everyone would use the opportunity to meet each other and "integrate into the community." At the end there was a thoughtful reminder: Dress code: smart casual.
She stared at those three words for a long time.
Back in Country C, "dress code" had been easy to understand: just don't make a mistake. Not too bright, not too sloppy. Now, with her suitcase opened on the bed, she looked at the clothes she'd brought from home and suddenly felt that each piece of clothing carried a tiny instruction: try not to show where you come from.
In the end she settled on a black dress. It wasn't exactly pretty, but it wasn't embarrassing either. The hem came just below her knees. The cut was so plain it almost looked like a uniform. She put on a grey knitted cardigan over it. The yarn had started to pill in places. It was the sort of fabric that hid its price but showed clearly it wasn't expensive.
She stood in front of the mirror for a while.
The Zola in the glass wasn't sloppy, but she wasn't striking either. She looked like a neatly arranged girl who could be dropped into any class photo without taking the centre.
That's fine, she thought. If no one notices, I don't have to explain who I am.
She tied her shoelaces, went downstairs, and walked towards the party.
The college hall was buried deep in the main building. To get there, you had to follow a slightly curved stone corridor. Portraits lined the walls—mostly stern-faced noblemen, principals, scholars, dressed in clothes from centuries ago. Their expressions were all the same: firm, a little tired. As Zola passed, it felt as if they were calmly checking each new entrant's face, weighing who was worth being remembered by this building.
At the door to the hall, two tall candlesticks stood on either side. The flames flickered with convincing seriousness. Only when she got closer did she realize they weren't real. The "flame" was electric. The wicks would never burn down. Even the wax drips were plastic, frozen at the most elegant moment of falling.
Real candles would burn shorter and shorter, drip everywhere, and occasionally go out for no reason. These wouldn't. They existed only to look like candles.
For a second, Zola felt oddly disoriented. The "oldness" here had been carefully designed.
She pushed open the door.
The hall was higher than she expected. The ceiling was made of dark wooden beams that crossed and stretched away, like the spines of books standing side by side. The walls were stone, hung with oil paintings. Not just religious scenes, but portraits—children, women, men, ancestors and donors in clothes from different centuries. Each face carried a kind of ownership she didn't recognize, the calm of people who had never doubted that they belonged here.
The light was a soft yellow. It didn't come from candles in chandeliers, but from bulbs wrapped in shades. These lights felt trained—there to illuminate, not to approach. The hall was warmly lit, but no one patch of space seemed to belong completely to any one person.
Rows of long tables stretched out, covered with spotless white cloths, the edges pressed straight. Plates, cutlery, and glasses caught the light with a faint sheen. Along the buffet table, food had been arranged in careful order—cold cuts sliced with precision, cheeses with visible edges of fat, roast chicken that hardly seemed to steam at all, salads in colours that were almost too bright.
On a separate bar table, a line of slender champagne flutes had been set out. The glass was so thin it was almost invisible, with pale gold liquid inside, tiny bubbles climbing up in orderly trails.
For the first time, Zola felt that "buffet" wasn't just a way of serving food. It was a way of relating to people. Everyone took their own plate, scooped their own food, carried their own portion around.
No one owed anyone a bite.
The hall was already filling up. Some people stood with their glasses, smiles hanging on their mouths while their eyes roamed the room. Some had already formed tight circles, backs turned to the rest, faces turned in to their chosen few, as if every story that mattered was already happening in that small ring.
Voices rose and fell. English. Another European language. Now and then, she caught an Asian accent. Every voice carried a practised ease and a casual confidence.
Zola tightened her grip on her small bag and stood in the doorway for a second, unsure where to go first.
On the email, this was supposed to be a "warm, friendly event to help you settle in." But in reality it felt more like a silent test. Whoever found someone to talk to was "fitting in." Whoever stayed at the edge needed to be "taken care of."
She gave herself a job to get a drink.
She walked past the champagne and picked up a glass of orange juice instead. It looked harmless. The colour was too bright, though, as if it had been mixed to look cheerful. Holding the glass, she slipped around the food table and found a seat near the wall.
Not quite in a corner. Not quite in the centre.
Just the right kind of invisible.
Conversation flowed around her. Some people were discussing how challenging their courses might be. Some were swapping stories about where they came from. Some complained about the weather. Someone said, "I'm so excited," in a tone so enthusiastic it sounded rehearsed.
Zola caught the odd word, but rarely an entire sentence that felt whole. She could only hear the tones—excitement, ease, confidence, the way they brushed off the future like it was a game they knew how to play.
She looked down at her own clothes. The black dress looked a little heavy in this warm yellow light. The cardigan around her shoulders reminded everyone that she was someone who got cold easily. The girls around her were dressed in many different ways. Some wore heels, some boots, some pale, silky blouses. When they laughed, their hair caught the light and gleamed like it had been combed and styled just for this night.
A strange feeling washed over Zola, not inferiority, but mismatch.
She didn't think she was particularly awful. She just felt like she'd been hung in the wrong frame. Around her was gold, old oil paint, champagne, and quiet, expensive tableware. She was just an ordinary figure in ordinary clothes, holding a cheap-tasting orange juice, sitting quietly at the edge, like a prop someone had borrowed at the last minute.
She truly thought no one would notice her.
Until that girl appeared.
Emily was the kind of beauty that made your heart skip when you saw her from across the room. Not sugary, not seductive exactly, but a beauty that had been looked at, considered, and still found flawless, as if mirrors didn't judge her, they obeyed.
Her features were balanced like careful lines in architecture. Smooth brows, just-right eyes, a straight nose, full lips that weren't trying to be sultry but still carried a natural sense of advantage. Her skin had that healthy, expensive colour that didn't come from the sun alone but from sunbeds, spray tans, and routines stacked step by step until they produced "just right."
Her hair was pale gold—not the flat kind, but layered. Each strand looked like it had been highlighted, treated, blown out, and fixed in place. It was hard to imagine it ever misbehaving. The light seemed to prefer her, resting on her hair with open favour.
Her dress was pale, almost blending into her skin, which somehow made her look even more sure of herself. It was cut cleanly. The high waistline pulled her silhouette straight. Her shoulders opened naturally, as if both polite and quietly declarative. Her nails had been done too. Not the loud red kind, but a milky, translucent sheen, smooth like tiny pearls embedded at each fingertip. When her fingers brushed the glass, it felt as if even the air heard it—a delicate, controlled, utterly certain I deserve to be seen.
She stood there like a portrait of an old aristocrat stepping out of its frame. Not trying to blend into the crowd. Making the crowd bend around her instead.
She knew she was beautiful.
And she used that beauty as a weapon, gentle, sharp, easy, never wasted. Even her smile seemed rehearsed to perfection. Just enough. Never too much. Touched with a bit of casual confidence that made people tuck away their awkwardness and hand over their curiosity.
When she walked, her steps were unhurried, but the space around her rearranged itself. It wasn't forced. It was the kind of centre-of-gravity presence that comes from years of people smiling, making way, starting conversations for her.
Zola first saw her only as a flash in the gap between others. A smooth, polished stone that drew the eye without effort. She assumed the girl would stay with the loudest, brightest circle, in the middle of the noisiest laughter, where she obviously belonged.
But Emily didn't.
Zola was staring off into nowhere, feeling the whole room like something happening on the other side of glass, when she heard a soft voice:
"Is this seat taken?"
She looked up.
The pretty girl was standing right in front of her, holding a glass of champagne. She held the stem loosely, her gaze steady and direct. Her eyes were a light colour that almost turned transparent in the lamplight.
For a second, Zola didn't react. She blinked, then quickly shook her head.
"No, no…"
As soon as she spoke, she felt her voice had been swallowed by the carpet. She could have said, No, please sit, clearly and simply. But those words crowded together in her head like schoolkids lining up at the wrong door, none of them making it out in time.
Emily didn't seem to notice her awkwardness at all. She smiled and sat down beside her as if it were the most natural thing. The chair made a small sound as she moved it. To Zola, that click felt like an announcement—her solitude had been seen.
"Too many people," Emily said, scrunching her nose slightly. "It's a bit… overwhelming, isn't it?"
Her tone was light, like she was sharing a small secret, not making polite conversation.
"Yeah… a bit," Zola replied, trying to keep her pronunciation from sounding too stiff.
Emily turned her head slightly, as if to take another look at her, or just to confirm that she was really there. That look held no judgement, no scanning up and down, just a simple acknowledgement.
"Which course are you in?" Emily asked.
Zola tensed up a little. She knew this was the standard opening line, but every time she answered, she had to explain herself again,degree, background, origin. Repeating her own label like a product description.
"Art history," she said. Then added, "First year."
"Nice," Emily nodded. "I'm doing Politics and International Relations. Also first year. I'm Emily, by the way."
She smiled as she said it, with the ease of someone who was used to introducing herself and to being remembered.
"I'm Zola," she replied, keeping up with the expected rhythm.
"Zola," Emily repeated softly, tasting the name. "I like it. Sounds… a bit like a character in a book."
She said it with certainty. It wasn't a throwaway compliment.
Something shifted inside Zola. No one had ever said that about her name. In Country C, "Zola" had been a name she picked for an English assignment and never bothered to change. Her family used her Chinese name. Teachers used her full official name. "Zola" only showed up on forms and applications, like a label for convenience rather than a real identity.
Now someone was looking right at it and saying it sounded like it belonged to a story.
She felt a little embarrassed, and a little oddly proud.
"Thank you," she said. Her voice is steadier now.
Emily took a small sip of champagne. The movement was graceful but not affected. She glanced around the hall.
"They try so hard to make it look old, don't they?"
The remark caught Zola off guard. She laughed. "Yes. Even the candles are… fake."
"Exactly." Emily sighed gently, as if agreeing with some shared disappointment. "Everything is old, but also new. Very… curated."
The word slid into Zola's mind like something fallen from a course reading list. She filed it away instinctively,not just for future essays, but because at that moment, she felt someone was looking at this world through a lens she understood.
She snuck a look at Emily.
Yes, she was beautiful. That much was obvious. But what really made Zola feel flattered was not the beauty itself, but the fact that in a room full of people she could have chosen, Emily had walked past them all, come to this quiet edge, to her, and sat down. And then taken her seriously.
It felt like some little gear in this old college had reached out and taken her hand.
She lifted her orange juice for another sip. It was still cheap and too sweet. But for some reason, it tasted a little better now. The heavy feeling in her chest—that sense of being luggage, loosened, just a fraction.
She realized something.
On the third day away from home, in a hall lined with portraits, fake candles, and oil paint, for the first time, she was not sitting here as someone "sent" to this place.
She was sitting here as someone who had been noticed.
Emily was still talking to her.
The world hadn't suddenly grown kind. But in that moment, it tilted, just a little, in her direction.
The party slowly began to wind down. Voices loosened, like strings stretched too long. Some people started drifting towards the door. Some said goodbye in low voices. Some drained the last of their champagne and left the glasses anywhere, their movements relaxed like finishing a required task.
Zola had expected their conversation to end the way parties did, suddenly, at some corner in the noise. But Emily didn't seem in a hurry to leave. She stayed where she was, as if even time wasn't sure whether it should nudge her along.
She turned the stem of her glass between her fingers and went on asking questions. Nothing sharp, nothing intrusive, but enough to make someone unconsciously unfold. She asked where Zola lived, where she was from, why she'd chosen her subject, which painters she liked, which cities, even what kind of weather she preferred.
The questions sounded simple, but they led gently outward, like hands lifting pieces of her into the light.
Zola wasn't the type who was good at talking. She usually checked her own thoughts several times before letting them out. But there was no pressure in Emily's tone. No expectation, no verdict. Just something soft to fall on, so even a clumsy answer didn't feel like a disaster.
Eventually, Emily took out her phone.
"Do you have Instagram?" she asked.
Zola froze for a second, then nodded. She fumbled for her phone, brought up the little pink icon, and opened it. When she handed it over, her fingertips brushed the warm skin on the back of Emily's hand. It felt like someone had touched a wire. Her heart jumped in a way that didn't make much sense.
Emily looked down to type. Her fingers moved quickly, the way of someone who was used to leaving her name in other people's worlds.
Then she handed the phone back.
"Now we're connected," she said.
Her tone carried a quiet certainty, as if this was something that was meant to happen.
Zola nodded, saying nothing. She didn't know what she could say that wouldn't sound foolish. She was afraid that saying too much might break this fragile balance.
The lights grew brighter, that polite signal from the college that it was time to go.
Emily stood up and smoothed her dress. She looked down at Zola and smiled. This time it wasn't the general, social smile she'd worn earlier. There was a little something in it that felt like a secret shared only between the two of them.
"Let's meet again," she said. "Maybe coffee, maybe nothing formal. Just… next time."
Zola nodded, the movement almost automatic, as if something had taken hold of her from inside.
"Okay."
Emily stepped in, half a pace closer.
It wasn't an embrace. Just closeness.
Close enough for Zola to catch the faint scent of her perfume.
It wasn't sweet. Not floral. A soft, expensive woodiness. Too subtle to remember after just one breath. Impossible to forget after the second.
Up close, Emily was even more beautiful. Her skin was as smooth as a porcelain lamp that had been polished with care. Her eyes, that light colour, looked like a lake just after rain. Her lashes cast the thinnest shadows.
For a moment, Zola thought: some people really were made for the light.
"Good night, Zola," Emily said softly.
"Good night," Zola answered, her voice a little quiet.
She could almost feel her own face warming, inch by inch.
She left the hall and walked back along the corridor. The portraits on the walls watched her, silently, like witnesses to a shift she hadn't yet sorted out in her head. The night air was cool as she stepped outside. It should have cleared her mind, but it didn't. She held her phone as if it were an unopened letter from the future.
After she left, the lights in the hall came fully on.
Emily stood there for a few seconds. Then she took out her phone, slid her thumb across the screen, and opened her messages.
There was only one conversation thread.
Not a name.
Just a single letter:
M
She typed:
I met her.
As she hit send, the corners of her mouth lifted in a small smile. Gentle, but carrying something harder to read.
She locked her phone and held it loosely, like a book she had only just opened to its first page.
The light fell on her profile. Calm, beautiful, sure.
As if this had always been part of her plan.
And the story was only just beginning.