It was the second week of autumn term, and the mood in LSE's quantitative analysis lecture was colder than the models on the syllabus.
Julian sat by the window.
The seat next to him was still empty.
He had arrived ten minutes early.
His notebook lay open, half-covered with yesterday's unfinished differential equations.
His hair was still damp from a rushed shower.
The coffee on his desk had already gone cold.
As the handouts began circulating, a voice came from his right:
"Hey—do you mind if I sit here?"
Julian looked up.
The boy was brown-skinned, slim-built but upright in posture, holding a worn-down pencil and a small plastic box with two rice balls.
Julian nodded.
"Go ahead."
The boy sat down. After a quick glance, he noticed Julian had no pen, and offered a spare:
"Here. You probably don't wanna do matrix derivatives with a half-dead pen."
Julian took it with a faint smile.
"Cheers."
Nothing more.
Class began.
After the lecture, Julian was slow to pack up.
So was the boy—almost like he was waiting.
As they stepped out of the classroom, he asked:
"You on campus lunch, or do you actually eat real food?"
Julian blinked, then laughed—genuinely, without calculation.
"Depends on your definition of 'real'."
They walked together toward a small bento shop tucked behind the campus.
Lunch was quiet. They sat on the stone steps, rice in hand, conversation flowing like a stream that didn't need a current.
The boy's name was Leon.
He was from Tower Hamlets.
No dorm, his family lived in East London.
He attended classes during the day and worked part-time three nights a week at a legal data consultancy, mostly doing data scrubbing for discovery requests.
They talked about jobs, rent, and the pressure of coursework.
Eventually, the topic drifted to LSE's invisible caste system.
"Ever notice some of them don't even seem to remember they're here to study?"
Julian nodded.
He'd seen it—the students scrolling through phones mid-lecture, vanishing after exams to ski resorts and second homes.
Leon's voice stayed light, but the words landed clean:
"Let them waste daddy's money. I'm paying my own way."
Julian didn't respond right away.
Something in him shifted.
Every calm person he'd met before was either weak or afraid.
But Leon was different.
His calm wasn't passive—it was strategic.
The kind built after surviving commutes, graveyard shifts, and 9 a.m. deadlines, and still having enough focus left to ask a good question.
And in that moment, Julian felt something unexpected:
Respect.
For the first time, he understood that not all who stay sane are soft.
LSE Library – Subterranean Trading Room · Night
London in autumn felt like a soaked canvas bag—
Outside, the rain tapped on rooftops like a question with no punctuation.
Julian couldn't tell if the sound above was water or rats.
He swiped into the basement trading room.
It was always half-empty, grey-walled and over-chilled,
the air conditioning running like a server farm.
There were six Bloomberg terminals humming in low neon.
He slid his student ID into the slot.
The blue-and-black screen blinked to life—like the entrance to some old magic.
He wasn't planning anything.
Just wanted to pull some numbers for next week's Quantitative Finance assignment.
But the moment he clicked into the Options Chain,
he swore he could smell gunpowder.
IBM— Calls, Puts, Volatility Smile.
Rows and rows of price ladders and IV curves stared back at him,
not like homework—
but like a thing alive.
There was a kind of beauty here,
the kind you couldn't explain to anyone else.
The numbers twitched,
like beasts in cages—
waiting for someone to name them free.
Julian sat there, barely breathing.
No iPod in his ears.
No thought of dinner.
No self.
Only one sensation:
His brain was moving in ways it never had before.
"This isn't homework," he whispered.
"This is… a signal."
He clicked on an old lecture recording—
some buy-side alumnus had uploaded it years ago through an LSE address.
It detailed a structured strategy:
how to exploit time decay using option greeks,
how to turn volatility into something you could wear like armor.
Julian listened, transfixed.
But he didn't try to mimic it.
He did something else instead:
He opened the simulation system.
It was a sandbox built by LSE and Bloomberg—
live prices, fake trades.
Each student got two trials per term.
Julian stared at GE's daily chart.
Hands still clumsy, breath still shallow.
Then typed:
Short Call, strike 32, expiry Oct 21, volume 1 lot.
He didn't know if it was the right move.
Didn't care.
He just wanted to feel that moment—
the one where you place your bet before the explosion,
knowing it might take you with it.
Twenty minutes later, he was down $185.
And he smiled.
It was the first time in university he had chosen his own loss.
Not a bad grade.
Not a friend walking away.
Not some teacher rolling their eyes.
This time, it was him vs the market.
And the market won.
He shut down the terminal, pulled out his student ID, and climbed back up into the night.
Outside, the rain had stopped.
His phone buzzed.
[Mum]
Berlin concert done. Bow snapped during second piece. Was dramatic.
Have you eaten something with colour this week?
xx
Julian looked at the message and smiled.
That was how she always messaged—
half absurd backstage stories, half soft-life reminders.
No big talk.
No questions about his GPA.
But you could tell she cared.
He thought for a moment, then replied:
[Me]
Had a red pepper in my sandwich. Counts?
Hope you played better than your bow.
She replied almost immediately:
[Mum]
Always. Love you.
He pocketed the phone and looked up at the ceiling of the library lobby.
There was a sentence he didn't type.
"It's nice to know you're still there."
He walked to the corner shop and bought the cheapest canned black coffee on the shelf.
As the can chilled his hand, he understood something:
Some people fall in love with trading to get rich.
But he?
He fell because it was the only arena where he wasn't at the mercy of human systems.
No explanations.
No apologies.
No need to spell his name.
Just price.
Just reaction.
Just being hit—
and learning to hit back.
London, December 2003
The sky had gone flat grey, rain soaking socks one step at a time.
When the midterm results came out, Julian wasn't surprised.
He had spent two weeks on his essay—eighteen citations, quotes from Keynes and Sen.
He got a 61. Barely merit.
On the score sheet, in neat pen:
"You write with conviction—perhaps a bit too intense for first-year coursework."
"Too intense?" he muttered, sliding the paper into his folder.
A week later, he visited the lecturer.
The office smelled like printer ink. Framed degrees on the wall.
Hyde looked up briefly:
"Very… passionate. But it read more like a manifesto than a paper.
Expression too sharp can dull the argument. You understand?"
Julian didn't reply.
But he did.
In this place, discomfort was worse than being wrong.
Two days later, in the tea room, he overheard two boys:
"Another rejection. It's all quotas now."
"At the firm I'm applying to, half the intake are diversity hires."
Julian's hand froze on the teabag.
Not angry. Just aware.
No matter how polite, how precise,
to some people, he'd always be a placement.
That night, in the bathroom mirror:
Pale skin. Sharp features. Eyes too still.
The kind of face they'd use on a brochure, then bench in client meetings.
"Which box am I in?" he whispered.
He opened his notebook in the library.
No feelings, no flourishes—just cold orders: fix the CV, line up applications, pick the banks, find someone to drill him.
Don't hesitate. Don't elaborate.
Water spilled across the page.
He didn't wipe it. Just watched.
I'm not here to complain. I'm here to break in.
They said Britain was a gentleman's society.
Fine. He'd learn the gestures.
Smile in interviews. Rewrite his anger as "eagerness to contribute."
Not knocking on the door.
Crawling through the pipes.
And one day, when they thought he was just another quiet maths student—
he'd stand in the spotlight,
and type his name on the first slide of their goddamn presentation.