10. Misha
Ihated the dining hall. There were too many people in there and they ate too loudly. If I ate anything from the dining hall, they packed it up to go for me so I could eat it in my room. Azriel and Orion knew this, but I knew they wouldn’t ask me to be here unless it was important.
I just didn’t think this was important. Orion was bored and Azriel had his eye on a new conquest. We all hated this place.
Adoring fans were great, but only with an orchestra pit separating them and us.
We wanted to create and perform. We’d earned that.
There was always something new to learn as artists, but no one here could teach us that.
Still, she was very pretty. It was weird she was here weeks before finals, but we were all weird. Some of us were more eccentric than others and a lot of us took pills for it. I know I did.
Johann was a sycophantic arse kisser who hated his job, even though the alternative was much worse.
He did what he was told. Instead of dragging me to the dining hall, we could just find Topher and ask him why she was here.
He didn’t bother us much, but he was always lurking around the students.
I didn’t care what name he was going by now.
We all hated him, but we could spend five minutes around him to ask.
I was trying to focus on tuning out all the noises that bothered me. Azriel and Orion were staring pretty hard while they threw out theories. The kind of stare you could feel on the back of your neck.
Her whole table knew. The new girl was ignoring us, but her friend was boldly staring Azriel and Orion down like she would unleash the fires of Hell herself if they did anything to her friend.
Orion filled us in that the tall, strong one was just helping her friend get settled in.
Honestly, she might be scarier than Azriel when he was in a mood.
“There are multiple people we could get answers from instead of having a staring contest with her friend. The new girl can’t grow her nails out because she’s a musician, but something tells me if you even chip that black nail polish, her friend is going to fuck you up,” I said, rubbing my forehead.
It was so noisy in here and I was about at my limit.
We had a bunch of groupies sit around us.
They all had a favorite. When we performed, we were all on stage.
I was dancing, of course, and I brought in other dancers, but Orion had his grand piano up there with me and was giving just as much of a performance as I was.
Azriel managed to make painting look like dancing. Most people were looking at me, though.
The students sitting next to us were talking about us like slabs of meat and they didn’t care if we could hear them.
Orion had locs down to his waist. He’d been growing his hair a long time, and he took good care of it.
They were loudly talking about pulling it.
Then, they completely switched topics about me in tights and were wondering how big my cock was under my dance belt.
We could hear everything and they didn’t care.
I needed to get out of here. I wasn’t even eating. I stood up with the intention of bolting out of here. Why did they make me do this? Except I wasn’t paying attention to anyone and ran straight into the girl who was looking at us like she would murder us if we messed with her friend.
I expected them to yell. I just knocked that girl right on her arse. I needed to stay and help her. Fuck me. I couldn’t be in this place a second longer. They didn’t yell. Harlowe, the new girl, was staring at me with a furrowed brow.
“Are you okay?”
I must be a total mess. She asked me that when I just knocked her friend over.
Everyone was staring and I couldn’t handle it.
They probably thought I was a complete idiot.
The new girl tripped and spilled her coffee all over herself.
I had the feeling she did that on purpose.
Azriel and Orion swooped in and we got the fuck out of there.
“Sorry, Misha,” Azriel said. “You’re right. There were plenty of people we could have asked without making you do that.”
“I think the new girl dumped coffee all over herself to distract everyone from Misha so we could get him out of there. The floor wasn’t wet and there was nothing for her to trip over except those head stomping boots and something tells me she could dance in those just fine.”
“Why would she do that?” I whispered.
I was feeling slightly better now that I was away from the masses, but my body and mind were still vibrating over what happened when I tried to leave.
“She’s either not an arsehole, was doing it to impress you since she’s a fan, or she wears those boots even though she trips over her own feet.”
Maybe now I was curious too. People weren’t kind to me except for Orion and Azriel.
They loved my dancing and my choreography.
I could always function when I was working, but people distanced themselves when the cracks showed.
No one wanted anything to do with me when that happened because it could mean bad press for them. Everyone except Azriel and Orion.
It didn’t really matter if she was different. The three of us were probably the only students here who knew what this place really was. She might be one of the few decent people here, but that didn’t matter.
The three of us were together. We shared women sometimes, but never anything serious. Orion and Azriel weren’t stupid. There was only one reason she’d be here so close to the end of the semester.
And we couldn’t piss him off.