章 1: Chapter 1
Virgo's Groove by Beyoncé was playing and Felix could feel himself about to jump up from his chair and just start vibing to it, but he held himself.
He groaned internally. This is why he's always doubtful when anyone claims that they can read while listening to music; it wasn't possible. At least, it wasn't possible for him. He didn't know why he even tried, he'd been doing it since high-school and it never worked. Honestly, at this rate, he'd end up failing.
Felix stood up from his desk, removing his earpods from his ears, walked to his bed and just laid down with his phone in hand. He started scrolling through WhatsApp. He wasn't very social, but he was in the class WhatsApp group and so was able to keep himself informed about a lot of things. Seeing that they were just talking about meaningless things, he moved to Instagram– here, he wasn't active at all but he sure liked to just come to see pictures and videos.
Scrolling through, he saw a notification from a particular profile that made him smile. He opened it to see that his friend had uploaded new photos. She'd made a comment under.
Just finished a successful performance tonight.
Felix chuckled as he liked the post. They just started the session and she was already at the forefront of everything. Well, it was expected, she said she'd do everything she could anyway. If he were her parent, he'd expect it too, especially since it was such an expensive school. Sometimes he wondered where his parents got the money for school when they could've just paid for a federal university; it was cheaper. He knew it was for his own good though, strike and other unnecessary things that affects universities wouldn't affect him.
He looked at the time in his phone. 8:00. Might as well sleep, then wake up by midnight to read properly.
"And no more music", he whispered to himself. Then set an alarm, placed his phone by the bed and decided to get comfortable as he prepared to sleep.
The last thought in his head before he felt his eyes closing was him thanking God for giving him the privilege to go to school and hoping not to disappoint his parents and to make them proud.
Hopefully, nothing's going to spoil his plans.
*****
Where are you?
He sent a message.
There was no way on earth he was going to spend his free time looking for Ada. He was hungry and just wanted to lie down.
Ada!
He sent another message. He was already standing in front of the music department building. It was quite big and he didn't know how he was going to be able to trace where she was. The school, Marley Gold Private University was massive. Each department had its own building and the buildings were always looking like mansions– the ones he'd seen though.
Felix felt his phone vibrate and realized that someone was calling him. It was Ada.
He sighed. "Yes?"
"I'm sorry, you can come upstairs," came a rushed response. "Please, don't be angry."
"Ada, I'm hungry and tired,"
Felix complained. "You told me you wouldn't waste time."
"I'm so sorry. Just come upstairs and I'll give you something. I promise I'll even pay for your food after I'm done."
That seemed like a good idea. All in all, he wouldn't be the one to spend money.
"Give me the directions."
Turns out that it wasn't so hard to find her class. It was just upstairs, probably because she was just in 100 level.
He stopped in front of the open door where he could hear noise from. This was the musical instruments room, as explained by Ada on the phone and all he had to do was walk in and if he didn't see her, he'd ask around.
Walk in… That sounded wonderful. That was a wonderful thing his friend said to him, who wasn't a fan of being the center of attention, or meeting new people– obviously, he had one friend.
He decided to call his friend.
"Feli!" He heard a familiar voice scream before he was engulfed in a tight hug.
Felix cringed at the piercing scream, and also at the nickname his best friend's been obsessed with for years. What the hell was 'Feli'? It was mostly his fault, all those years of telling her to call him whatever made her comfortable. He really needed to ask her where she got the name from and why she liked it, because he didn't.
He patted his friend's back. "Heyy."
"How are you doing?"
"Good," he answered, looking at his friend's face properly.
She looked beautiful, as usual. She had on long and beautiful box braids which were blue in color. She had on little make-up, quite unexpected as she claimed she'd be on heavy make-up for her performance today.
"You look beautiful," he complimented her.
He could feel people's eyes on them and wanted to run out of the building. But they probably didn't care about him and were just curious. His hunger was what was bothering him the most though.
Her white teeth shone as she smiled, then giggled. "Thank you, Feli. I love your compliments."
"Is he your boyfriend or something?" An unfamiliar deep voice behind Ada said.
Felix quickly let go of his friend, startled, to look at the person who spoke.
The first thing he noticed was how he suddenly couldn't breathe properly.
The guy was pretty tall, had on dreads and his two ears pierced. Now, Felix wasn't a fan of piercings on guys, but on him, he didn't mind. He was dark-skinned, and his eyes and sharp jawline accentuated his beauty the more.
"Sorry. This is my bestest friend, Felix and he just came to visit me," Ada said. "He's hungry and all, so I promised him food,"
"Well, I certainly don't have a problem with that."
"I'm going to get you something to munch on for a bit, okay?" Ada said.
Then she walked away, leaving them alone together.
Felix felt himself get red in the face– being light-skinned was so annoying sometimes– as he looked into the golden brown eyes of the guy Ada was talking to and just didn't know what to do with himself. He knew he sucked at meeting new people and being the center of attention but… it was much more worse. He was terrible when it came to beautiful people and this guy right in front of him was simply… indescribable.
"Hi, I'm Psalm Gerard", he introduced himself. "400 level music student."
400 level. Wow, almost a graduate. Lucky.
Felix raised a brow as he registered his first sentence. Psalm?! Were your parents out of name ideas or were they simply copying the Kardashians??
Psalm laughed. "I honestly don't have the answers to those questions, Felix."
His eyes widened when he realized that he'd said those things out loud. And in front of him.
"I– I'm sorry, I didn't mean– " he said, feeling embarrassed. "I just– "
Psalm shrugged. "It's okay." He paused. "Ada said you're her friend, what level and department?"
"Oh, um, 100 level, English Education."
He whistled. "Wow, an English student. That's big."
"Excuse me, you're blocking the entrance," somebody said.
They moved away from the door and Felix was trying to move away from the guy because he assumed their conversation was over, but he was grabbed by an arm.
"Sorry," Psalm apologized, letting go of his arm and smiling. "I just wanted to have a simple conversation with Ada's friend. Never knew she could have such an interesting person as a friend".
Before he could stop himself, Felix snorted, surprising both himself and the young man in front of him.
"Sorry. It's just…there's nothing remotely interesting about me," he said, folding his arms.
How was he even able to talk to him properly this long without fainting or just losing his voice?
Psalm tilted his head to look down at him. He was silent for quite a while before he talked.
"I doubt it."
He was unable to argue before Ada ran up to him with her arms filled with snacks, from doughnuts to sweets, water and juice.
"Um… how many do you have?" He asked. "And where did they all come from?"
Ada laughed. "We have a whole lot. And they all came from senior Psalm, who put it upon himself to buy snacks for us and his class in case of anything. Mostly because he's always hungry and didn't want to look selfish."
"Oh." He turned to Psalm, who was watching him closely, a smile on his face. "T– thanks."
"You're welcome," he said. "Enjoy."
He walked away from them to where some people were playing some instruments.
"He seems… okay," Felix said when they were alone.
"Oh, trust me, he's the best!" Ada exclaimed. "Come let me find a seat for you."
"He's rich, right? Because only someone with money can spend so much on snacks for everyone."
"Yup. Stinking rich– wealthy even."
Damn. Fitting for such a beautiful person. Beauty and money always made sense.
"He's single, too," Ada sighed, then sat down at an empty table, scattering the snacks in her arms, then groaned as she stretched herself.
Felix raised a brow, wondering why that information was important.
"I'm sure he'll find someone eventually," Felix said, picking up a chocolate bar as he sat down, their spot showing him everyone present and what they were doing. "Why did you even say that? Are you interested in him?" He teased.
Ada rolled her eyes at him. "Of course not! I'm just worried about his love life, he's way too fine to have no one."
Felix hummed. The same way she was worried about his, too. His friend really needed to rest because there were other important things to think about than relationships.
"I'm worried about yours, too," She added, unsurprisingly.
He smiled. "You need work to do. You already know that I'll probably never have a 'love life' unless a miracle occurs somehow".
Ada pouted. "We're more than five hundred, probably past one thousand or so, in this school, I'm sure something's going to happen."
Sometimes he couldn't deal with his best friend's optimism. She already knew that he was gay, that his life was shitty and stressful enough as it was– with everyone putting their hope in him to do well and make them proud and make sure to come out with a first class and get a scholarship to further his studies.
Yeah, he already had enough on his plate for now.
"Ada! Come here let me teach you something!" Someone called his friend.
"Okay!" She looked at him and smiled. "Watch me and be impressed."
He shook his head at her silliness. She knew he'd always be impressed by anything and everything she does.
"Just go, Ada. But you better be back to buy me proper food."
She saluted. "Okay, sir," she said and ran up to the people waiting for her.
He couldn't really see their faces but he could see how tall they were. And with how mature a few looked, he could bet that they were not first years. He hadn't really met other years in his department, just the department's president whom he met by accident and seemed eager to help him on his first day in school. They greeted whenever they met, and that was it.
"Too much junk food is terrible for me", he muttered as he took a bite of a doughnut that he'd just unwrapped. Water was his drink choice as he didn't want to ruin his system the more.
While eating, he made sure to look at his friend. Seems she was being taught how to play the violin. Honestly, it sounded terrible, but with how excited she looked, he knew that later if she asked, he wouldn't have the heart to say anything. He looked away from her to others who were busy with other stuffs; drums, piano…there were quite a few instruments in the room.
It was quite big, too.
There really were big differences between federal and private unis.
He continued looking around till his eyes met someone else's. Psalm.
He was standing by the door, phone in hand and earpods in his ear. Felix figured he'd look away, but he didn't seem to want to so, he concluded that he had to because he couldn't handle the intensity of the young man's gaze and he felt himself getting more uncomfortable by the moment. He was feeling like his skin was on fire.
Why's he staring at me like that?! He wondered.
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