Kuala Lumpur, August 2003. The city is draped in Jalur Gemilang flags, but for Darin, a freshman from the quiet hills of Sabah, KL feels like a battlefield. Darin arrives at his local college with a heart as hardened as a sun-dried cocoa bean. To him, women are like "rumput semalu"—fickle, shallow, and always leaning toward the next best thing. He’s sworn off romance to focus on his studies and his survival in the concrete jungle.

On his very first morning, a "foul meeting" occurs over the last packet of Nasi Lemak at the crowded college cafeteria. He crosses paths with Dina, a sharp-witted, fiercely independent girl from Penang. Dina carries a "Bitter Chocolate" exterior—dark, intense, and refined—but it’s a shield. After watching her father betray her mother for a second wife, she’s categorized all men as "liars by nature."