Campus Babe, Episode 2: The Prince of Campus
The first gift arrived before Blessing had finished her morning tea.
It came in a glossy white bag with gold ribbon, carried by a boy she had seen the night before, the same one who had delivered Kolade's message at the mixer. He stood in the doorway of Room 14 looking like a man who had been told not to come back empty-handed.
"Good morning, Blessing. Compliments of Kolade."
Tolu, who had been brushing her teeth at the sink, froze with the toothbrush in her mouth.
Blessing did not take the bag. "I told him I didn't need a drink."
"It's not a drink."
"Then what is it?"
The boy shifted. "I wasn't told to say. I was only told to make sure you collect it."
"Then take it back."
"Please, I can't." He looked genuinely afraid. "If I go back with it, he'll think I didn't try. Just collect it. If you don't like it, you can throw it away. Just collect it."
Blessing sighed, took the bag, and closed the door.
Inside, wrapped in tissue paper, was a perfume bottle. She recognised the brand immediately because she had stood in front of it in a mall in Ibadan once, pretending to browse while quietly reading the price tag. The price had been ₦68,000. She had put it down as if it had burned her.
Beneath the bottle was a small cream card in elegant handwriting:
Because the girl in the black dress should smell as good as she looks. K.
Tolu had spat out her toothpaste. "Ah ah! Oh my God. Blessing. Blessing."
"Don't."
"He's moving fast. That man is moving like he's late for something."
"It's perfume."
"It's sixty-eight thousand naira of perfume! That's not a gift, that's a deposit!" Tolu wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "Please tell me you're sending it back."
"I'm sending it back."
"With a note?"
"With a very polite note."
Blessing set the bottle on the shelf and stared at it. It caught the morning light through the window and glowed like something alive.
She told herself she would return it by evening.
By Wednesday, there had been three more gifts.
A designer scarf with a card that said For the cold nights. A box of expensive chocolates with no note at all. And a bouquet of white roses, delivered to the lecture hall during a Media Law class, so that forty students turned their heads at once while the lecturer paused mid-sentence.
"Miss Okafor," Dr. Fadeyi said dryly, "is this a lecture or a courtship?"
The class laughed. Blessing slid lower in her seat and wished she could vanish through the floor.
Each time, she sent a message back through the same nervous messenger: Thank you, but I can't accept. Each time, the reply came within the hour. Not angry. Not pleading. Just a short, amused text from an unsaved number she had begun to recognise.
I don't mind waiting.
Persistence is a virtue.
You can't return everything forever.
On Thursday, he stopped sending messengers and appeared in person.
She was crossing the road beside the Faculty of Arts when the black Range Rover slid to a stop at the curb. The window rolled down, and there he was, sunglasses pushed up into his hair, one hand on the steering wheel.
"Blessing Okafor," Kolade said, as though tasting the name. "I was beginning to think you were avoiding me."
"I was."
He laughed. It was a real laugh, easy and unbothered, and it threw her off because she had been prepared for arrogance.
"Honest. I like that." He leaned across the passenger seat and opened the door slightly. "Let me give you a ride. You're going to the library, yes? It's too hot to walk."
"I'm fine."
"It's thirty-four degrees."
"I said I'm fine."
"You're sweating, Blessing."
She was. She wasn't going to admit it.
"I'm Kolade," he said, as if she didn't know. "Kolade Balogun. We haven't properly met. I'd like to, if you'll allow me. Two minutes in the car. If you hate me, you can get out at the junction. I won't say a word."
Behind her, a group of students had slowed down to watch. She could feel them: the whispers, the raised phones, the audience. She could also feel her own heartbeat, a traitor in her chest.
Say no, she told herself. Say no and walk away.
"Two minutes," she said.
The car smelled of leather and something faintly like cedar. The air conditioning was so cold that the sweat on her neck turned to a chill. Kolade drove with one hand, comfortable, his phone buzzing in a holder on the dashboard that he never looked at.
"You don't talk much," he said.
"You haven't asked anything."
"Fair." He smiled. "What are you studying?"
"Mass Communication."
"Ah. Of course. You have the voice for it." He glanced at her. "And you're good, I hear. Someone told me you pitched a documentary last semester."
She turned in surprise. "Who told you that?"
"I make it my business to know about interesting people."
It should have been flattering. Instead it landed in her stomach like a small cold stone. He's been asking about me.
"There's a birthday party on Saturday," he went on, as smoothly as if he were commenting on the weather. "Obinna Adeleke, my friend. His family owns half the properties along the Lagos-Ibadan expressway. They've rented out a lounge in Bodija. Everyone's going. I'd like you to be there."
"I don't know Obinna."
"You'll know him by midnight. Everyone does."
"Kolade..."
"Come as my guest. If you hate it, I'll have my driver take you home. No pressure."
The car pulled up at the library steps, though she hadn't told him which entrance. He stopped precisely at it.
"Think about it," he said.
She stepped out. The heat hit her like a wall. Behind her, the Range Rover idled for a second, then glided away.
Blessing stood on the steps with her hand pressed against her chest. The perfume bottle, she realised, was still sitting on her shelf in Room 14. She hadn't returned it.
She hadn't returned any of it.
"Don't go," Tolu said.
They were sitting on the roof of the hostel block, a place only the two of them knew about, accessed through a rusted fire door that had been broken since 2022. From up here, Royal Crest University was a map of lights. The Faculty buildings glowed pale orange. The cafeteria hummed with generators. Far off, beyond the football field, the road to the expressway curved like a dark river.
"I haven't said I'm going."
"You've been looking at your phone for twenty minutes. You've opened his last text eleven times."
"You counted?"
"I always count, I'm your best friend." Tolu turned to face her. Her voice dropped, losing its usual teasing note. "Blessing, listen to me. I'm not trying to be your mother. But I've seen this movie."
"Which movie?"
"The one where a rich boy decides a girl is a project. The one where it starts with perfume and ends with her being unable to say no to anything." Tolu shook her head. "Rich men don't give things away. They invest. And when you've been invested in, you owe interest."
"It's perfume, Tolu."
"Today it's perfume. Tomorrow it's school fees. And then one day you wake up and you're not a girl he likes. You're a girl he owns."
The word hung in the night air.
Blessing hugged her knees. "I can handle myself."
"Everybody says that."
"I'm not everybody."
"I know you're not." Tolu softened. "That's why I'm scared. You're the smartest person I know. You're the one who's going to do something big. I just don't want somebody like Kolade Balogun to put his name on your story."
For a long moment, Blessing said nothing.
Then her phone rang.
She looked down. Mummy.
Her stomach turned over. She stood up, walked to the far edge of the roof where the wind was stronger, and answered.
"Mummy?"
"Blessing." Her mother's voice was thin and unsteady, nothing like the steady tiredness of last week. "My daughter, I didn't want to call you again so soon. I know you are busy."
"What happened?"
"It's Nedu." A pause. "He was not feeling well at school yesterday. They sent him home. I took him to the clinic this morning. The doctor says he needs some tests. Many tests. And some drugs."
Blessing's knees went weak. She pressed her free hand against the low parapet wall. "Is he okay? Mummy, is he okay?"
"He is resting. The doctor says it is not an emergency, but he must not delay. He wrote down a list. The tests, the drugs, the follow-up. It comes to nearly seventy thousand."
"Seventy..."
"And the school has sent another letter." Her mother's voice broke. "They are saying if the fees are not paid by the end of next week, Nedu will not be allowed to write his first test. Blessing, I don't know what to do. I have sold what I can sell. The market is slow. Everyone is complaining. I am sorry. I am so sorry."
"Mummy, please don't apologise."
"I should be the one taking care of you. Not the other way around."
"You are taking care of me." Blessing's eyes burned. "Listen. Listen to me. I'll fix it. Okay? I'll find the money."
"How?"
"I'll find a way. I promise."
"You are a good girl," her mother whispered. "God will reward you."
When the call ended, Blessing stood motionless on the roof. The wind pulled at her hair. Below, the campus carried on, laughter and music and the tiny orange lights of a thousand windows.
Behind her, Tolu was quiet.
Seventy thousand for Nedu. Forty-two thousand for the school. A hundred and twelve thousand naira, with eleven thousand in her account.
She opened her messages with a hand that didn't feel like hers.
I'll come on Saturday.
She stared at it. The cursor blinked.
She deleted it. Typed it again. Deleted it again.
"Blessing," Tolu said softly.
"I'm not saying yes," Blessing said without turning around. "I'm just... thinking."
Tolu didn't answer. But in the dark, she looked at her friend's back for a very long time, and her expression held something Blessing would not have recognised: worry, and underneath it, something smaller and sharper that she did not yet have a name for.
The lounge in Bodija was the kind of place Blessing had only ever seen on other people's Instagram stories.
The entrance was lit in violet and gold. A man in a black suit stood at the door with a tablet, checking names. Beyond him, bass thudded through the walls like a second heartbeat. Cars lined the street outside, polished and silent: Benzes, Lexuses, a white G-Wagon with a custom plate.
Blessing stepped out of Kolade's Range Rover in a red dress that she had borrowed, altered, and prayed over. Tolu had refused to come. I'll watch your location, she'd said, which was her way of saying she was worried. Favour had done her makeup instead, murmuring "Wow" every few minutes.
"You look incredible," Kolade said, offering his arm.
"Thank you."
"I mean it. I've been to a hundred parties. I haven't seen a woman walk into one like you're doing now."
She took his arm. It was strong and warm, and entirely too confident.
Inside, the room swallowed them. Light and noise and perfume. Waiters in white gloves carried trays of drinks through the crowd. Women in glittering dresses leaned against velvet booths, laughing with men whose watches cost more than Blessing's school fees. A DJ stood on a raised platform, nodding to a beat that shook the floor.
"Obinna!" Kolade called.
A heavyset young man in an embroidered agbada waved from the center of a circle of admirers. "Kolade! My guy! And who's this?"
"Blessing Okafor," Kolade said, with the unmistakable tone of a man introducing something rare. "Mass Comm. Campus royalty."
"I've heard about you!" Obinna grinned. "Welcome, welcome. Eat. Drink. Enjoy. Everything is on me tonight."
For the next hour, Blessing floated.
She was introduced to a dozen people whose names she forgot immediately. She laughed at jokes. She accepted one glass of something fizzy and held it all night without drinking. She was photographed from three angles, and each time, she tilted her chin and gave the smile, the one that never failed.
Kolade stayed beside her. He didn't hover, but he never drifted far. When someone spoke to her too long, he appeared at her shoulder. When a boy leaned a little too close, Kolade's hand rested lightly on her back, a gesture that said mine without saying anything at all.
It was flattering.
It was also a little suffocating.
"I need some air," she said at last.
"I'll come with you."
"No, it's fine. Just the bathroom."
He studied her for a second, then smiled. "Of course. I'll be here."
She slipped through the crowd, past the dance floor and a row of velvet booths, toward a corridor near the back. The music dulled. The air cooled. She leaned against the wall for a moment, closing her eyes.
One night, she told herself. Just one night. Then I'll decide.
"Excuse me, ma."
She opened her eyes.
A familiar voice. Dry. Very slightly impatient.
Daniel Adebayo was standing in the corridor with a laptop bag on his shoulder and a coil of cables around his forearm, looking at her as if she were an obstacle in a hallway.
"You," Blessing said.
"Me," Daniel agreed.
For a second, neither moved. He wore a plain black shirt, sleeves rolled, glasses perched on his nose. There was a smudge of dust on his collar. He looked entirely out of place among the glitter, and yet he stood with the quiet ease of a man who didn't feel the need to belong.
"What are you doing here?" she asked.
"Working." He lifted the cables slightly. "Emeka's team set up the sound and lighting system for tonight. The controller crashed an hour ago. I'm here to fix it."
"You fix... lighting systems."
"I fix things that have logic. Lighting is logic." He frowned at her. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm a guest."
"I can see that." His eyes moved over her dress, not rudely, just observing, and then back to her face. "You look like you're about to run."
"I'm not running."
"You were leaning against a wall with your eyes closed."
"I was thinking."
"Alone, in a hallway behind a party?" He shrugged. "People who are enjoying themselves don't usually do that."
Blessing felt irritation flare, hot and instant. "Is this your hobby? Analysing people who didn't ask?"
"No. It's a side effect of paying attention."
"Well, stop."
"I'm not doing anything. I'm standing here holding cables." He paused. "How was the dress?"
"What?"
"The white top. From the cafeteria. Did the stain come out?"
She stared at him. "You remember that?"
"It was yesterday. Last week. Whenever." He looked mildly confused. "Did it?"
"...Yes. Cold water."
"Good." He nodded, satisfied, as if a small experiment had succeeded. "Told you."
"You're unbelievable."
"I've been told."
There was something maddening about the way he didn't flinch. Everyone else on this campus rearranged themselves around her. Daniel stood where he was and let her flow around him like water around a rock.
"Daniel!" a voice called from the end of the corridor. A boy with a shaved head and a headset jogged up, grinning. "Bros, the board's up. You are a genius. Oh! Sorry, I didn't know you were with somebody."
"He's not with me," Blessing said, a little too quickly.
"I'm not with her," Daniel said at the same time.
Emeka looked between them and grinned wider. "Right. Of course. Not at all."
"Emeka."
"I said nothing."
Blessing exhaled sharply. "I should go."
"You should," Daniel agreed.
She stopped. "That's all you have to say?"
He considered. "Be careful in there. It's a lot of money in one room. People behave differently."
"I know how to handle people."
"I'm sure you do." There was no sarcasm in it, which somehow made it worse. "That's what worries me. You've got the look of someone who's good at handling people. It's a tiring way to live."
For a moment, she couldn't answer.
Then she lifted her chin and said, "Enjoy your cables."
She turned and walked back toward the lounge, heels clicking on the tile, her pulse louder than the bass.
She did not see Daniel watch her go.
She did not see Kolade, standing at the far end of the corridor with a glass in his hand, who had been watching both of them for the last two minutes.
"Who was that?"
The question came as soon as she returned to the booth. Kolade's voice was pleasant. His smile was intact. But something in his eyes had cooled by a few degrees.
"Who?"
"The boy in the corridor."
"Oh." Blessing took a sip of her drink. "Daniel something. He's a Computer Science student. I met him once at the cafeteria."
"You seemed to be having a conversation."
"We were arguing."
"About what?"
"Nothing important. He's just..." She waved a hand. "Annoying."
Kolade watched her for a long moment. "You looked at him differently than you look at the rest of us."
"I looked at him like I wanted to throw a drink on him."
"Hm." He swirled his glass. "Maybe that's what I mean."
She laughed to cover the sudden tightness in her chest. "Are you jealous?"
"Of a boy with cables?" Kolade's smile returned, bright and smooth. "Of course not."
But his fingers tightened slightly around the glass.
Across the room, through a gap in the crowd, Blessing glimpsed Daniel again. He was crouched beside a speaker stack with Emeka, tapping at a laptop, completely absorbed. He didn't look up once.
Good, she thought.
She didn't know why the thought felt slightly like a lie.
It was past midnight when Kolade guided her onto the terrace.
The night air was cooler there. Below the railing, the city spilled out in shades of amber and blue. The noise from the party had faded to a distant pulse. A string of lights hung above them like fallen stars.
Kolade leaned on the rail beside her. For the first time all evening, he wasn't performing. His shoulders were loose. He looked, almost, tired.
"Can I tell you something honestly?" he asked.
"Sure."
"I don't do this." He gestured vaguely at the world. "Chase girls. People think I do, but they're wrong. Girls come to me because of my name, my car, my father. I'm used to it. It's easy. It's boring."
"And I'm not boring?"
"You looked at me like I was a problem to be solved." He smiled. "I haven't been looked at like that in years."
She said nothing.
"Blessing." He turned to face her. "I'm going to ask you a question, and I want you to be honest. Is something wrong?"
"What do you mean?"
"Since the night of the mixer, I've noticed something. You laugh at the right moments. You say the right things. But sometimes, when you think nobody's looking, you go somewhere else." He tilted his head. "Somewhere heavy."
Her pulse jumped. "That's ridiculous."
"Is it?"
"I'm perfectly fine."
"Okay."
She held his gaze. He held hers. The music pulsed faintly through the glass doors behind them.
"If I were to guess," Kolade said softly, "I'd say it's money."
The word dropped between them like a stone into water.
Blessing's mouth went dry. "Why would you say that?"
"Because it's always money." He said it gently, with something that looked very much like compassion. "I've seen it before. Beautiful, brilliant girls who carry the weight of a whole family on their shoulders and smile through it. They think nobody notices. But I do."
"You don't know anything about me."
"No," he agreed. "But I'd like to."
She looked away, out toward the glittering skyline. Her throat ached.
"I'm not going to pretend I know the details," Kolade went on. "I'm not going to pry. But if there's something I can help with, school fees, a bill, anything, I want you to tell me. Nothing complicated. Just help."
"I can't..."
"You don't have to answer now."
"Kolade, I can't accept money from you."
"Why not?"
"Because..." She searched for the words. Because Tolu said it's never free. Because my mother raised me better. Because Daniel's voice is still ringing in my head. "Because I don't want to owe anyone."
"You wouldn't owe me."
"Everyone owes someone."
He smiled, almost sadly. "That's very wise. And a little sad." He reached out and, very lightly, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "The offer stands. It doesn't expire. Take your time."
She didn't pull away.
She should have.
Somewhere in her chest, a voice she barely recognised whispered: A hundred and twelve thousand. A hundred and twelve thousand, and he's just standing there, asking.
"I'll think about it," she heard herself say.
"That's all I ask."
He stepped back, and the moment dissolved. Behind them, a cheer erupted from inside: the cake had been brought out. Obinna's voice boomed through the speakers, calling for everyone to gather.
"Come," Kolade said, offering his hand. "Let's get you some cake before it's all gone."
She took it.
As they walked back through the glass doors, laughing at something Obinna was shouting about candles, somebody in the crowd lifted a phone.
Click.
Nobody noticed.
Blessing didn't sleep that night.
She lay in the top bunk of Room 14, staring at the ceiling, listening to Tolu's soft snores below. The fan rattled. A mosquito whined somewhere near her ear. The perfume bottle stood on the shelf, a pale ghost in the dark.
At 5:41 a.m., her phone lit up.
She picked it up without thinking.
Then she sat bolt upright.
Seventeen notifications. Then thirty. Then sixty. Her screen was shaking with them, a flood of tags and messages and mentions, each one more frantic than the last.
Babe, have you seen this??
OMG Blessing.
Is it true?
Girl, call me.
She opened Crest Confessions with trembling fingers.
The post was at the very top, pinned, already approaching four thousand likes.
It was a photograph. Grainy, but clear enough. Blessing, in the red dress, standing on the terrace with her hand in Kolade Balogun's. His other hand was touching her hair. They were close, so close, and in the glow of the string lights, it looked intimate, almost romantic.
Beneath it, the caption was in the bold white font she had come to dread:
Looks like Royal Crest's favourite campus babe has finally found herself a sponsor. 👀 Who says beauty doesn't pay? #CrestConfessions #SponsorSzn
Below that, the comments were already stacking up.
Called it.
Why is nobody surprised?
Okay but she's fine though.
Lowkey sad. I thought she was different.
Chief Balogun's son?? Girl is MOVING.
Blessing's hands went cold.
Her thumb hovered over the screen. She read the caption again. And again.
She hadn't told anyone she was coming to the party except Tolu. No one at that terrace had been close enough to hear her. And yet someone had been watching. Someone had lifted a phone at exactly the right second. Someone had known where to be, what to capture, and when to post.
And the post had gone live at 4:58 a.m., while she was still lying awake, trying to decide whether to say yes.
Beneath her, Tolu stirred. "Blessing?" she murmured sleepily. "What's wrong?"
Blessing could not answer.
She was staring at the picture, at the thin white line of Kolade's fingers against her hair, at the girl in the red dress who looked so certain, so poised, so impossibly bought.
Her private decisions, the ones she hadn't even made yet, were already being traded in public.
And somewhere out there, someone was holding the camera.
END OF EPISODE 2
Next: Episode 3, "A Price for Every Gift."