The wealth he'd seen there… it dwarfed him. Men dripping in power and influence, people who could buy lives the way others bought drinks. And the hobbies they indulged in, the sick things they spent fortunes on… twisted pleasures that no one dared to question. Compared to that level of excess, what was a car? What was a few expensive clothes, a nicer apartment?
Pathetic, really.
He realized then that he'd been acting like a fool, clinging to some outdated sense of modesty, as if hiding would keep him safe or make him more 'relatable.' But in the real world, no one cared. People with true wealth and power never apologized for it. They flaunted it. They used it. And still, the world bowed.
So why shouldn't he?
If anything, he was only cheating himself by playing small, by pretending he was just another student. That life wasn't his anymore. It never had been, not after everything that had happened.
