Chapter 2 - Of CCAs and Coincidences
Chapter 2: Of CCAs and Coincidences
The sun hadn’t even yawned yet when Aleem arrived at the NTU student lounge, half-asleep, hoodie up, eyes still adjusting to the dim fluorescent light. It was 5:58am—an hour earlier than the actual reporting time for the U.n.I Camp.
Aleem wasn’t early because he was excited. No, he was just… efficient. He didn’t like being rushed. It gave him anxiety. So he showed up early, hoping for some peace before the chaos.
Peace was not what he got.
Because at 6:03am, in a whirl of canvas shoes and coffee-infused chaos, Crystal barged into his quiet sanctuary like a meteor hitting a pond.
“GOOD MORNING~!” she chirped, a little too loudly for someone who just walked into a nearly-empty lounge. Her eyes sparkled, her ponytail bounced, and her canvas tote bag looked like it was filled with five days’ worth of energy snacks and… maybe glitter?
Aleem blinked. Once. Twice.
Crystal’s eyes landed on him like radar. “You’re here for the U.n.I camp too, right?”
He nodded cautiously. “Yeah.”
“Omg, I thought I’d be the first one! You beat me to it! Wah you super kiasu ah?” she said, plopping herself on the chair beside him without invitation.
Aleem forced a polite smile, shifting slightly away. His mind screamed, Why is this bubble of chaos ruining my sacred quiet morning ritual?
Crystal didn’t notice—or didn’t care. She launched into her self-introduction like a one-woman show. “I’m Crystal, Year 1, School of Humanities, majoring in Linguistics and Multilingual Studies, but actually I wanted to do Psychology but my JC grades weren’t good enough, so… y’know la, life.”
Aleem managed a weak chuckle. She was the human version of ten browser tabs playing TikTok at the same time. But there was something strangely… magnetic about her.
The camp officially began not long after, and as fate would have it, they were in the same group: “Team Solaris.” Aleem silently cursed the universe.
But something shifted during the ice-breaking games. Maybe it was Crystal’s refusal to let anyone feel left out, including him. Maybe it was her ridiculous team chant that included the word mooncake for no reason. Maybe it was the way she roped him into joining the “embarrass-yourself” charades by mimicking a very questionable chicken dance.
Slowly, his resistance melted—not completely, but enough to let laughter sneak in between the cracks.
Later, during the Amazing Race segment of the camp, Crystal got them lost… twice. Aleem, with his Google Maps mastery, saved the day… twice. She cheered every time like he’d just discovered the lost city of Atlantis.
At the group reflection session, while everyone was busy writing in their journals, Crystal whispered to Aleem, “You know ah… you’re not actually that quiet. You just hide your noise better.”
That line stayed with him.
But nothing—nothing—compared to the magic of the final night.
The campfire blazed under the stars. Fairy lights strung across trees flickered like fireflies. There was warmth in the air—not just from the flames, but from the people, the music, the laughter that echoed across the field.
“Come lah!” Crystal tugged on Aleem’s arm as the music started to play. It was some ridiculous pop remix of a camp theme song.
“No thanks,” he said, firmly planted to the ground.
“Oh no you don’t,” she said, crossing her arms. “I’ve seen you dance. I saw that chicken charade, remember?”
“That was different.”
She grinned, eyes sparkling with challenge. “Scared ah?”
And that’s how Aleem found himself standing awkwardly next to Crystal in front of the entire camp, unsure of what to do with his limbs.
But then… the beat dropped.
And Crystal moved.
Not in a technically impressive way—but with soul, with joy, like she was born to make chaos look cool. Aleem tried to follow. At first, it was like watching a confused penguin learn to salsa. But Crystal matched his rhythm, adjusted to his pace. She didn’t outshine him—she brought him in.
They spun. They laughed. She tossed him a playful wink mid-twirl, and something unspoken clicked into place.
The crowd whooped. Someone shouted, “Super duo, sia!”
From then on, they were inseparable.
Not romantically but in a way that turned heads and started stories. The introverted-extrovert and the extrovert-extraordinaire. Yin and yang. Still water and a skipping stone.
And Aleem… he didn’t even realise when her chaos stopped bothering him.
He had grown to crave it.