The Wi-Fi was back. His friends had left a trail of cookie crumbs and terrible card game strategies in their wake. And Ares was waiting.
Kairos took a deep breath, opened his laptop, and opened the chat.
**Kairos:** Okay. I'm back from the digital void. Whatcha got?
Ares's response was immediate. A screenshot of a notes app appeared, filled with neat, bullet-pointed ideas. His own list of "App that finds one Airpod" suddenly felt deeply embarrassing.
**Ares:** Did some thinking. Top contenders:
**1. "CampusSync"** - A study group/matchmaking app based on courses, proficiency, and availability.
**2. "EventFlow"** - Centralized calendar for ALL campus events (academic, clubs, social) with reminders and interest-based filtering.
**3. "ResourceHub"** - Digital map of campus showing real-time availability of study rooms, printers, and which coffee shop has the shortest line.
Kairos stared. They were all… good. Professional. Well-thought-out. She'd even included potential challenges for each one.
**Kairos:** Wow. You did not come to play. These are all solid.
**Ares:** I aim to please. Your turn. You said you had ideas.
Kairos winced. He looked at his list. He could not send "App for rating professors on their grace re: flooded rooms." He decided to lead with his only semi-serious one.
**Kairos:** Okay, don't laugh. What about a streamlined maintenance request app? With photo upload, tracking, the works. I'm… personally invested.
The typing bubbles appeared. He braced for a polite dismissal.
**Ares:** …
**Ares:** Actually… that's not bad. It's a real pain point. But it's more utility than social. Evans might mark us down for lacking the 'community' aspect.
She'd already considered that. Of course she had.
**Kairos:** Yeah, you're right. Back to the drawing board.
**Ares:** Wait. What if we combined them?
**Kairos:** Combined how? "Study for your exam while you wait for your leaking sink to be fixed"?
**Ares:** 😂 No. Think bigger. What's the core of the maintenance app? It's about **fixing a shared space**. What's the most shared space on campus? The entire campus.
A new idea appeared in the chat, typed out by Ares in real-time.
**Ares:** **Idea #4: "CampusFix"** - A community-driven reporting app for campus issues. Not just hostel maintenance—everything. A pothole on a main walkway, a broken streetlight near the library, a perpetually jammed printer in the lab. Students report it, it gets geotagged on a map, and the app routes it to the correct campus department. You can upvote issues to show they affect more people.
Kairos's jaw went slack. It was brilliant. It was huge. It was…
**Kairos:** …incredibly complex. We'd need a real backend, a database, a way to categorize and route requests…
**Ares:** So? You're the dev. You said you'd do the heavy lifting. 😉
There it was. The challenge. The vote of confidence. He could almost hear her smirk through the screen. He felt a jolt of adrenaline. This was miles better than anything he'd come up with.
**Kairos:** Okay. You're a genius. Let's do it. CampusFix it is.
**Ares:** Great. I'll start on user personas and wireframes. You start researching tech stacks and architecture. We'll sync up tomorrow after class.
And just like that, they had a plan. Kairos felt a surge of energy he hadn't felt all day. He opened a new document, ready to dive into the glorious world of backend frameworks.
And then his phone buzzed. Not a message. A campus-wide broadcast email.
**SUBJECT: URGENT: LAST-MINUTE HACKATHON SIGN-UP - TOMORROW!**
His eyes scanned the text. The annual "CodeBlitz" hackathon was this weekend. A team had just dropped out. Organizers were desperately looking for a replacement team to fill the slot.
The grand prize?
**Fully funded Google Play Console developer accounts for the entire winning team, plus a year of free cloud hosting credits.**
Kairos's breath hitched. A developer account was expensive. Those credits were worth a fortune. It was exactly what they would need to actually *launch* CampusFix for real, not just as a class project. This wasn't just a prize; it was a golden ticket.
His door burst open without a knock. Robin stood there, phone in hand, eyes wide with manic energy.
"You saw the email." It wasn't a question.
"Robin, I can't," Kairos said, gesturing helplessly at his laptop. "I have this project with Ares. It's huge. We just decided—"
"—to build an app!" Robin finished, rushing in. "Exactly! This is perfect! Win the hackathon, get the prize, and you've got everything you need to deploy your project for real! It's fate!"
"It's a 48-hour hellathon! I won't sleep!"
"Since when do you sleep? Look, Sam and Drake are already in. We just need you. You're our secret weapon, the code ninja! Please, man! This is for all of us!"
Kairos looked at his screen, at the nascent project plan for CampusFix. He looked at Robin's desperate, excited face. He thought about the Google Play Console account. It was too perfect. Too tempting.
He was supposed to be rolling with the punches. This felt less like a punch and more like a golden opportunity falling from the sky and hitting him on the head.
He sighed, the sound of a man who knew he was making a terrible, wonderful, chaotic decision.
"Fine," he said. "I'm in. But I'm dead. You're carrying my corpse to the finish line."
Robin's cheer was so loud it probably violated hostel noise policies.
As Robin danced out of the room to tell the others, a new message popped up from Ares.
**Ares:** Just had another thought about the reporting categories. We should probably include…
Kairos stared at the message. He looked at the hackathon email. He had a project to plan, a 48-hour coding marathon to prepare for, and a life that was once again spiraling beautifully out of control.
He couldn't tell her about Robin and the guys. She didn't know them. How would that sound? *'Hey, I know we just agreed on this huge project, but I joined a random hackathon with my friends for the weekend, hope that's cool!'*
The universe, it seemed, wasn't done with him yet.