I cleared my throat and turned back to Helen who seemed amused by something I was probably oblivious of.

"Let me run through the scale again." I said as I picked up my sixty leaves notebook and continued from where I stopped.

"You okay?" Helen asked.

"Sure." I nodded and ran through the purposed scale accurately. Even though there were glitches here and there.

"So which song have you chosen to sing on that day. As for me, it will be the part of Halsey in Without Me by Juice Wrld." Helen said.

"That's okay. Right now, I basically have nothing to sing that day. Don't count me into the interhouse sports performers. I have the Seals Stars Educational Competition to think of." I told her.

"But you can still...all right. So how are you going to cope, having Esther Darwin as your direct partner?" She asked me.

"Very well."

"You sound so sure. Good. About what happened during break, I am so sorry. Hope you..."

I cut her off. "Seriously, Helen I'm tired of you saying this all over again as if I didn't just tell you that I've gotten over it. I'll pull my hair, if you repeat that statement again."

Helen smiled and I noticed quite a slight dimple. "Which hair are you talking of pulling? This tattered corn rows or what?"

"Its been long that I made this hair. But the pain of loosing and combing the hair is more than painful. And you know the hair is a very stubborn virgin hair. Moreso, I'm not yet prepared to go through the trauma of plaiting this hair again." I said while making painful faces, hoping that she would understand my point.

"Now that you have gotten the attention of Paris, I don't think you should be carrying your hair more than two weeks." Helen stated and I widened my eyes as I gave her a look.

"You don't seem to have my best interest at heart. How can you of all people say such?"

"Paris is my classmate and I will tell you one thing that I'm certain of, he's good and intelligent."

I scoffed. "I meant, how can you advice me to carry my hair for just two weeks not if Paris is good or not. Why is this discussion even evolving around him? That annoying brat."

"I know that he's rude and..."

Now she comes. "Exactly! He's rude and too full of himself. You wouldn't imagine if I tell you what he told me the first time we collided."

Helen twitched her plum lips. "Tell me something I don't know."

"You must be an ambivert. Never knew you could gossip like this, Faith." Helen and I exchanged glances before turning to look at the person that just spoke.

Talking of the devil and he suddenly appears.

I felt like a kid whose hand got caught in a cookie jar. Or worst still, a kid scolded for not wearing her shoes.

"Why are you here?" I found myself asking.

"What did you see me doing? Playing the Piano of course." He retorted and I rolled my eyes. "I thought you would follow your mind and come over to compliment me."

"I, for the records never intended on complimenting you." I lied.

"But I saw it in your eyes. It was written boldly in it." He said and I scrunched my face at such stupid cliche. I nearly hissed as I looked up and then our eyes met.

Dumbstruck? Nah.

"Stop this guys, I'm jealous." Now it was I and Paris' turn to glare at Helen who smiled sheepishly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Darkness.

Perfection.

Those two words really went together that none could really do without the other. Maybe, we can liken them to rain and tears. For when we tear up under the rain, nobody but we know about it.

It was in the thick dark curtains of the night that people- having souls and bodies like us, bleed profusely and heal.

When we look up to the starry night, memories trigger other memories. When our eyes try following the moon, we realize that after all, life evolves just around one thing.

Darkness has no colour but all I could try visualize were those hazel eyes.

Weird. But not too weird.

I closed my eyes wishing to lock away those beautiful hazel eyes and just drown in the mystical hypnotic clouds of darkness. But I couldn't.

I was still staring out of the window as I ignored the Data Processing textbook before, oblivious of the hard stare of the Prep prefect.

"Faith is that your seat?!" The loudness of the stern looking brown skinned prep prefect got me whipping my head sideways to meet her eyes. "What is that thing that seems to catch your fancy outside?"

I cleared my throat, shaking my head sideways.

"Will you speak up?!"

"Nothing. I was fascinated by nothing." I sat up more and sighed.

"Get on your knees. Angle sixty degrees. And let your hands form an angle of elevation."

What?!

"But..."

The pissed off senior gritted her teeth and stood up, packing her study books together. "Follow me."

And I did just that.

She took me to the A class, handing me over to the prep prefect over there to deal with me.

"Labour her till she's out of breathe and full of sense." That was her exact request before turning and leaving me here.

All eyes were on me. Like, I felt oppressively suffocated with the uncomfortable long stares and whispers I got faced with.

"Come over here," The prep perfect I was handed to called me over with a wave of her short hands. "Sit here."

I obliged by sitting beside her. With a sneak peek at her current activity, I discovered that she was reading a thriller book.

"Your job now is to fish out anyone talking." It was a tedious annoying task that she assigned to me.

Her focus went back to the book she was reading while my eyes darted around the class.

And first met with Paris'.

He kept his gaze on mine but I soon tore out of it and looked at the person beside him who was no other person that Ruth.

She was talking to him. And funny enough, her voice was really audible.

"Lol. Why would you say that?" Paris chuckled, still looking at me from the corner of his eyes.

"You're good looking and a brainiac. Girls also like beauties with brains." Ruth looked serious as she answered him.

"Well, that you like me doesn't mean all girls do. Ok, that you view me in that manner doesn't mean others do. I'm sure of one girl who doesn't." When he said this, he looked at me and looked away when Ruth tried to follow the direction of his stare.

"You know nothing. No girl can...no girl with a brain can." She insisted. "And...you're...I don't know. How did you know my thoughts."

Paris furrowed his brows. "Which thoughts?"

"That I like you." Ruth shamelessly retorted.

"Why?"

"Nothing. I just like you romantically. What's wrong with that?"

"Yeah, nothing is wrong with that. But you liking me in that perspective is really wrong." He pointed out. And I almost smiled.

You're meant to mark those talking and not getting lost in this discussion!, My sub unconscious scolded.

"You know, you telling everyone that we are a thing when we aren't even friends is dumb and uncalled for. I don't find it cool. It's toxic to me."

Paris blurted out in a very much higher pitch. Now some people were staring at them.

Ruth shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "I just..." She switched emotions. "You're rude."

"No excuse for that." Paris responded. And that got on her shameless nerves as she slapped his right cheek and stood up, wanting to get out of this class.

"Hey, you wait." The prep perfect seemed annoyed that her thriller book reading was severed by side distractions.

Paris walked up to me and I felt awkward just then. "Are you impressed?" He asked casually.

Shoot! My temperature rose degrees higher.