Fiction: Three unlikely people become friends at a university and dream together of making it big

On the first day of the semester, Maya woke up buzzing with excitement. She made herself a cup of three-in-one coffee before getting dressed. The first few days were just orientation, but Maya was excited nonetheless. She wore blue jeans, an orange peplum top, and accessorised with some gold bangles. After poking and prodding at her hair, she finally decided to put on a headband before heading out the door.

Over the weekend, she hadn’t bumped into any of her housemates. The unit was quiet except for the occasional opening and closing of the front door. Whenever Maya heard the door, she would rush out to greet her housemates and introduce herself, but by the time she came out, they seemed to have disappeared into their respective rooms. Maya wondered whether her unit was haunted, but a quick Google search didn’t reveal any frightening horror stories involving their dorm building.

Casting this worry aside, Maya took the elevator down and made her way to the open foyer, where all the new students had been asked to gather. Rows and rows of chairs were arranged facing a makeshift stage with a podium at its centre. Someone was already on the stage giving a speech and Maya hurried to take an empty seat at the back. “. . . carve your own path to glory. True to our motto, I’m sure every one of you here is bursting with potential . . .” The dean of admissions, Dato’ Peter Tan, went on for another 20 minutes, talking about the history and achievements of Maestro – basically a much longer (and more boring) version of the university About Us page.

After that, students were divided into groups of ten and given a campus tour, each group headed by a member of the student council. Maya’s group was headed by Jasmine Yeo, a Chinese girl who looked like she had walked straight out of a fashion magazine.

During the tour, Maya tried to socialise with her groupmates. They were pleasant enough, but some of them already had their own cliques and others were conversing with each other in Mandarin, making it difficult for Maya to join in the conversation. The campus tour ended in the open field, where students were asked to regroup according to their respective faculties. Six groups of varying sizes were formed: business, English literature, IT, health science, social science, and engineering. The business faculty group was by far the largest, with over 200 students, and Maya’s group – the English literature gang – was the smallest, with a measly 15 students.

The student council organised a series of games, including dodgeball, tug-of-war, and the old-school ibu ayam dan musang (a Malaysian children’s game where one team dodges the attacks of a “fox” from the opposing team), pitting the different faculties against each other. The business faculty won overall, followed by engineering and then English literature. Maya was proud to be a part of this small but scrappy team of talented individuals.

After the games ended, snacks and refreshments were served at the campus cafeteria, giving the students a chance to mingle. Maya sat down with her English literature gang and enjoyed some mee goreng and teh tarik. She instantly clicked with Esther Cheong, a petite Chinese girl with a black bob and cat-eye spectacles. They connected over their love for the Hunger Games series and excitedly discussed their favourite characters in the books.

All her other coursemates were Kuala Lumpur natives, who didn’t stay on campus like her. As soon as the eating-cum-mingling session came to an end, they hurriedly said their goodbyes as they all wanted to head home before peak-hour traffic. Before parting, Maya and Esther exchanged numbers and saved each other’s names with a crossbow emoji at the end.

After bidding farewell to the English literature gang, Maya walked back to the dorm, wishing at least one other person was staying on campus with her. Feeling a little disheartened, she took the elevator up to her dorm unit and opened the front door. Someone was seated at the dining table with her back towards Maya.

For a moment, Maya froze. She had convinced herself that her housemates were all silent ninjas, skilled at the art of swift entry and exit. She contemplated the possibility of the figure before her being a ghost, but then decided not to jump to such ridiculous conclusions. There’s only one way to find out, Maya thought to herself.

“Hi,” said Maya hesitantly as she slowly walked in and shut the front door, trying hard to not turn her back on the unidentified person sitting before her. Although she was fairly sure it wasn’t a ghost, she thought it best not to let her guard down.

The girl turned around and, with a mouth full of Maggi noodles, blurted out, “Oh hey!”

Maya couldn’t help but laugh. And that’s how she met her best friend, Chong Mei Li.

Excerpted with permission from Frappes for Three, Vidhya Sathyamoorthy, Penguin South East Asia.