Rani watched a girl from SMU cry in the corner because her boyfriend (a mahasiswa who looked exactly like Aldo) was flirting with a mahasiswi from a different faculty. She saw two boys trading RBT (Ring Back Tones) codes for their Nokia phones. She saw Dinda laughing, her university ID card swinging from her neck like a VIP pass.

It was standing in a gas station parking lot at 2 AM, belonging to nobody, but fitting in perfectly anyway.

The hero of the night was Aldo. A mahasiswa dropout who still wore his university jacket like a badge of honor. He rode up on a beat-up Suzuki Shogun, his flip phone clipped to his waist.

“Take a picture,” Aldo said, handing Rani the bulky digital camera. “Document the youth.”

At midnight, they migrated to the pom bensin (gas station) to buy kerupuk and gorengan . This was the ritual. The cheap food tasted better at 1 AM.

“ Mampus (deadly) traffic,” he lied, grinning. He handed Dinda a folded piece of paper. “The setlist for the gig. My band is going on in an hour.”

The “gig” was at a dingy kafe behind the mall. It wasn’t a real concert. It was a nongkrong session—lifestyle as entertainment. Inside, the SMU kids crowded the sofas, pretending to understand the poetry being screamed by the band on stage. The SMP kids, like Rani, stood near the back, holding warm bottles of Fruittea just to look busy.

Rani, an ABG (Anak Baru Gede) fresh out of SMP , tugged at her studded belt nervously. She was the youngest in the group, invited only because her older cousin, Dinda, was a mahasiswi who felt bad leaving her at home.