Or maybe he was just good at masking emotions. I would not be wrong to assume that, since I had barely identified any emotion on his face since I saw him. Then again, it was only hours ago, so my assumption might have been too quick.

❦︎

~[VICTORIA]~

The day was still young but all my energy was already drained.

Tracy had drained all my energy in less than two hours. Talking about things that I was not interested in but still had to think of a reply.

"And before I forget, you can join me in the cheerleading team. It's fun!" She clapped her hands eagerly as she giggled.

"I'm sorry but cheerleading is not my thing." I tried to sound as polite as I could, an effort to hide the fact that I wanted her to shut up.

"It never hurts to try something new." She pouted.

"I-"

"The girl is obviously uncomfortable," A raspy, low voice cut into our conversation. "Drop it already."

We both looked at the row beside our seat, where the voice came from. And that was when I saw him, he had been hiding his face all these while but he was there. The boy who I had conquered two consecutive years now. The Jason Ugonna. We had both met twice at the finals of The Nationals, last year and this year's February. I had won for SLI both times.

But he was there, looking at me. And what scared me the most was that his face lacked expression. It gave off nothing and it terrified me to my bones.

"No, she isn't." Tracy turned to look at me, tilted her head. "Are you?"

"Of course, not." I lied, sported a fake smile. The idea of telling her the truth made me feel guilty already. She was only being friendly after all.

"Hmm." Jason hummed; he clearly was not convinced by my little lie. He unzipped his bag and brought out a notebook and then extended it towards Tracy. "Here."

"What's that?" I could not see the expression on Tracy's face but I could tell she was confused.

"It's our chemistry homework," Jason deadpanned. "We're meant to submit it to the class rep. You're the class rep, in case you've forgotten."

Speedily, she yanked the book from him before she yelled, "Turn in your chemistry homework, now!" Her voice was surprisingly commanding compared to the tiny, childish voice I was unfortunately still trying to get used to.

Some people turned in theirs while some just went about their activities like they did not hear anything.

"I'll be back," She smiled at me as she picked up the pile of notebooks on her desk. "Don't miss me too much."

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes, instead, I smiled and she made her way to the door and walked out of the class.

I glanced at Jason. It was easier to see him now that Tracy was no longer in my view. His familiar light skinned profile was in full view as I watched his defined jawline clench occasionally, his curly, dark hair fell lazily over his forehead and temple. His lips were pursed, although he periodically nibbed on his lower lip

As if sensing that eyes were on him, he looked up. Dull, grey eyes met mine, and my breathing halted. He held my gaze for a solid five seconds. Yes, I was counting in my head. And then he scowled, eyed me as if to say, 'what the heck are you looking at?'. He raised a brow when I did not look away, seemingly taking my scrutiny as a threat. I swear, I wanted to turn my eyes, but his empty, grey eyes seemed to have frozen me in place.

With his scowl deepening, he looked away, slightly waving his hand like I wasn't worth being graced with his gaze.

Like I was zapped back to reality, I blinked, looked away with the feeling of regret for even looking at him in the first place.

°°°°°

It was lunch break already and I rested my head on my desk, deciding to use the time to nap since I wasn't hungry and hopefully rejuvenate the braincells that Tracy had weakened with her endless banter.

Unfortunately, she was not having that.

"You should have lunch with my friends and I. You'll love them." She shrieked, like me having lunch with her would drastically change her life for the better.

"I would love to but-"

"But nothing. You're having lunch with my friends and I, that's final." She got up and attempted to pull me up but her thin arms betrayed her miserably. "Get up, please." She stomped her feet on the floor when pulling me up seemed to be a futile task.

I could not even begin to imagine what having launch with her would entail, and what if her friends were just like her? The thought of being in the same place with more than one Tracy almost brought tears to my eyes.

"Just this once," she pouted, pulling the classic puppy eyes on me. "Please."

I sighed, giving in. It was obvious she was not going to free me. "Just this once."

"Yay!" She literally leaped for joy, clapping her hands. She grabbed me by the wrist and started pulling me towards the door. "Let's go, they must be waiting already."

°°°°°

Tracy pulled me through a sparse crowd, walking swiftly as I wondered how she managed to walk that fast in heels, wedge heels for that matter. Pleading with her to slow down was a complete waste of energy, since she did not even bother to heed my plea.

I could feel eyes on me from every corner of the large space. My eyes met disapproving ones everywhere I looked so I just had to settle my gaze on the floor. It was a good thing eyes could not shoot arrows or bullets.

"We're here!" She finally came to a halt in front of a table in the cafeteria as she let go of my wrist and I muttered a prayer of thanks to God. "Hey, Charles."

"Hey." A boy with dreadlocks held together in a pineapple bun greeted back. Light-skinned with dark, brown eyes and a pointed nose.

But I recognized him.

It was Charles Ayuba, the prominent tech wizard of SH, only second to Tshola Jacobs of SLI in the national rankings.

"Wow," he chuckled bitterly, taking me in ever so slowly, but I did not miss the way his lips curled downwards in utter disgust. His face had absolutely no humour to it. "The Victoria Kanayo has stepped foot in SH, is there anything my eyes would not behold?"

I swallowed hard, lost for words. I should have run away while I still had the chance. He was still glaring at me, eyes fixed on me like a lion on his prey. Only thing was that I had no way to escape as the prey.

Involuntarily, I took a step back- no, two. I needed to run away, that was my first instinct.

Suddenly, his features softened. The crease on his forehead and his slightly furrowed eyebrows straightened. Then he began to laugh, clutching hard on his stomach. Tracy joined him, laughing even harder and I was beginning to believe that the place was an asylum in the guise of a school.

Wasn't he just glaring at me just now?

"You should see your face right now," Charles coughed out. "Like you're about to piss yourself or something."

I looked between both of them, confused as to why they were both laughing maniacally in the middle of the cafeteria.

"Calm down," Charles said when their laughter had died down. "No hard feelings, I swear." He grinned, tipped his head to the side. "It's actually good that you're here. At least, we now have a higher chance of beating SLI in February."

I was so relieved I wanted to cry. These guys could ridicule me all they want if they wanted to but they were actually being polite to me. It felt good to know that I was getting along with at least two people in SH. Although, I had it at the back of my mind that I had to thread carefully, it was only my first day here, wasn't it? Surely, it was too soon to trust people.

"Why would we have hard feelings by the way?" Charles asked rhetorically. "Anyone would work hard to emerge best in these things. It's part of being a person." He shrugged.

"I guess so," I smiled. "I'm glad to be here though." That was a freaking blatant lie.

"C'mon, sit." Tracy beckoned, pointing at the white, plastic chair opposite her. I took the seat to the right of Charles and Tracy, the one to his left, leaving one vacant seat directly opposite Charles.

"Where's that child?" I thought he was here?" Tracy complained, crossing her arms. "I won't even wait for him today."

"Here he comes." Charles pointed his chin towards the entrance of the cafeteria and surely enough, the child Tracy was talking about was approaching. But it wasn't just anybody, it was Jason Ugonna. The person I so wanted to avoid but now, I seemed to have been trapped in his little circle.

"Sorry I'm late, head boy duties." He took his seat opposite Charles, expertly pretending like I didn't even exist. It was impossible to tell if my presence affected him or not.

"Char?" Tracy tapped Charles' arm. "Would you please get our order? The usual for Jason and I..." She turned to me, a small smile playing on her lips. "What would you like?"

"Anything." I shrugged and I could sworn that I heard the curly haired boy-Jason-scoff but I chose to ignore it. It must have been something he saw on his phone, not me.

"You know, my name is literally one syllable so you don't have to shorten it but fine, I'll get the food." Charles clacked his tongue and got up, made for the counter and Tracy rolled her eyes.

"Jay?" Tracy placed a hand on Jason's shoulder. "You didn't say hi to our new friend."

He looked up, his face still lacked expression and his eyes no emotion. He stared at me for a few seconds before he murmured, "Hi." And he went back to whatever it was that he was focused on, on his phone.

Ignore it, I urged myself, It means nothing. I mean, I did not expect him to give me a hug and pat me on the back, saying thank you for narrowly beating him two years consecutively. Emphasis on narrowly.

"That's not n-"

"It's fine." I cut off Tracy.

He looked at me and rolled his eyes, muttering indistinct words under his breath. It was now crystal clear that he was not happy about my sudden appearance in his school.

"So, why did you move to Lagos?" Tracy inquired, perhaps in an attempt to ease the tense atmosphere.

"My dad decided he wanted to move. Abuja held bad memories." I explained.

Everyone heard of the death of Kevin Kanayo's wife, what they did not know was that she was my mother. Nobody knew my parents, all they knew was that the anchor of The Nationals had nicknamed me The Nigerian Einstein and they went with it on the internet. Dad wanted it a secret after all.

"Oh..." She smiled apologetically. "I'm sorry."

"It's fine, it was a harmless question." I assured her, shrugged.

"It's weird." Jason decided to finally speak, looking up from his phone and directly at me.

"What?" I was confused.

"Enrolling a student in SS3, a terminal class, it's weird." He elucidated, looking squarely at me. "How much did you bribe the management with?"

"Excuse me?"

"Jason!"

Tracy and I let out at the same time. The boy had succeeded in getting on my nerves. He had audacity; I'll give that to him.

"Victoria, don't take him seriously. He's just extra grumpy today." Tracy pleaded on his behalf and he only scoffed, rolled his eyes and picked up his phone.

"I think I should just go." That was the only way to evade more trouble, embarrassment and disrespect.

I got up and made to walk away but Tracy held on to my wrist from across the table.

"Pl-"

"Tracy, please let me go."

Reluctantly, she released my hand and I stormed past Jason who had remained unshaken since he grabbed his phone.

I jogged to the SS3 block and ran up the stairs, ascending them two by two. I put my head on the table immediately my behind touched the chair. Taking deep breaths, I counted from ten to one repeatedly and when I was sure I had calmed down significantly, I raised my head up only for his words to invade my mind again.

Does he really just talk to people like that?

The level of my anger seemed to have doubled. I only realized that my palms were folder tightly into fists when I felt the stinging pain of my fingers digging into my skin.

I coached my self to breath, slowly feeling my fury evaporate.

Then the sound of the electric bell reverberated throughout the building. I groaned in frustrating, knowing that my fellow members of the class would flood in any moment.

Surely, they started trooping in, either in cliques or individually. Shortly, I sighted the trio, strolling into class. I didn't know how to react. Show them my displeasure or just stay quiet? I opted for the latter.

"H-hey," Tracy stuttered as they got to our seat, her gaze was uncertain. "I know you're upset and I-"

"I'm fine," I waved my hand dismissively. "I'm okay."

"My guy can be a dog sometimes," Charles quipped. "Pay him no mind."

"I'm right here." Jason deadpanned.

"I know," Charles shrugged, eyed him. "You should apologize."

"No." Jason nonchalantly threw himself on his seat and sighed heavily. You would think he had carried a thousand blocks of cement earlier. "Y'all are stressing me, leave me alone."

Tracy exhaled, fiddling with her fingers, "He's not a bad person, I promise." Her brown eyes were sincere, pleading for me to believe her. "He's just... he's just not in a very good mood today."

"Hmm." I hummed, nodding. Really, seeing him as a bad person would be far-fetched, I simply felt disrespect by his assumption.

"Stop." Jason's voice was a sharp contrast to his calm expression. "You really don't have to apologize on my behalf, it's a waste of time."

"Jay!" Tracy groaned, squinting at him. "Stop this nonsense."

"No, you stop this nonsense." He said dryly. "Seems like I'm the only one using my brain here."

What does he even mean by that?

"Guy, chill." Charles placed a hand on Jason's shoulder and he shrugged it off almost immediately.

"Y'all are just-" Jason closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath, murmuring incoherent words to himself. He turned to his front, picked a book from under his desk and started reading it like nothing had just occurred. I could see the concentration on his face and it baffled me how he went from upset to calm and collected within seconds.

Or maybe he was just good at masking emotions. I would not be wrong to assume that, since I had barely identified any emotion on his face since I saw him. Then again, it was only hours ago, so my assumption might have been too quick.

Looking away from Jason, I found Charles looking down at me ruefully. "He'll come around." He shoved his hands in his pockets. "I have TD now, we'll see later, yeah?"

"Yeah." Tracy said as I nodded and Charles made his way out of class.

I noticed as she turned to look at Jason, he was still concentrated on the book in front of him. She looked at him for a few seconds, I could not make out the expression on her face since she was turned away from me but I heard her sigh. She turned to her front and she had a weary look on her face, almost like she had a loved one on a sickbed. She sighed again and ran her hands over her face, turning to look at Jason again.

And him? He couldn't care less what was going on around him, it was like the book had become so fascinating that he could not take his eyes off it for a second.

"Jay?" She called out to him; her voice so soft you could imagine it as a fluffy cloud.

"What?" He asked but he didn't grace her with his gaze, his eyes remained fixed on the book.

"You have us. You know that, right?" She made to touch him but decided against it and rested her hand on her thigh.

Finally, he raised his head from the book, looked at Tracy. He held her gaze for some seconds, his eyes back to their voidness. Then he nodded slightly and returned to his reading.

Tracy turned away from him, the ghost of a smile appearing on her lips as she simply watched the other members of the class go about their activities.

I observed as her face morphed into a scowl when she sight a boy slap a girl's bum harshly and them into a smile when she saw a girl pick up a pen for another girl.

The Tracy now was different from the Tracy I met a few hours ago. This Tracy now was quiet and observant, unlike the loud and oblivious Tracy I met.

Studying her profile, I concluded that there was more to the playful and bubbly side of her that I was welcomed with.

•
•
•

A/N

Happy new month! May we all see the end.

So... uh... thoughts?

And, yes, Jason does not like Victoria... For very shallow reasons, in my opinion.

Who else wants to punch Jason? I know I do.

And you met Charles! From the tiny part of him you saw, what have you concluded?

You can't deny that he's nice though 😌

Remember Fidel? He's coming in the next chapter ☺️ When I say I LOVE this boy ehn... You won't understand.

Have you voted? No? Haba nau🥺 Please, click that star if you don't want us to fight today.

And oh! This is a reminder that I LOVE YOU!♥️♥️♥️

Take care of yourself for me, you hear?

K, bye!♥️

Next update: Saturday.