Being clumsy was disliked by him and being in discipline was not liked by me. We both were far different from each other, not to mention when I changed from not liking to see his face early in the morning to staring at his perfect body with ocean blues wholeheartedly. It’s all the game of hormones, not love still, or is it love? Or is it both?

But who knew this thing was going to complicate both of our lives because he was not the one who was matching with his college personality in which he mostly stays on, he was something more to the outside world and a great threat to our college students which I came to know later on. And hereafter I had welcomed my first ever breakup which was a way hard to cope up with. Not that I was into depression or something, it just didn’t felt good that the person I got attracted to first and later realised that ‘Oh I am in love’ was going to me my first break up too. I hated it, and despite all these complications I noticed that he was way more protective to me after the breakup. This fact didn’t leave me peaceful but added to my mind thoughts with so many questions. Along with this the great threatening news which was my college students were being murdered by not known murderer.

I was trapped from everywhere, and in this slowly my mental health was deteriorating like sometimes I was living on 1 hour sleep, and not to mention the dark circles under my eyes were worsening and eyes were caught up in infection. Though under my eyes it was common to have dark circles as I was a regular specs girl from age 14 to now. Nevermind the only thing helping me a bit to cool me down was his presence around me more and more. I liked it but no one knew till when I was going to like it and what was our relationship even called after the breakup. It just became one sided as I was the one who was constantly bringing up the relationship topic and he was the one who declined as always cause his only favourite was to protect me that’s it. Or was it because I decided to think in this way?

TIME SKIP-(1)

“Ruby, I am not the right person for you, try to understand.”

“I have decided, Beaufort! It is no one but you!”

“Then you are definitely wrong in this decision of yours.”

TIME SKIP-(2)

“I am done with you!”

“I always said you did wrong choosing me and here you are saying this.”

“You purposely wanted me to leave, I know.”

“No you don't, Ruby but I would say that you are not wrong this time.”

TIME SKIP-(3)

“Why can’t you be the normal person in front of me?”

“Because the normal one can’t take dangerous steps for the girl they are in love with.”

“Of course the abnormal would do, Right?”

“Wrong lavender.”

TIME SKIP-(4)

“You weren’t the one beside all this right?”

“Wrong again, lavender.”

“Why?”

“Because I had to.”

“This doesn't answer my question Beaufort! Do not joke around.”

“I didn't, it's just that your question isn’t rightly asked, lavender. It should be, ‘Why didn't it happen to me’.”

“Come on, try again.”

And the truth behind everything from the start of becoming my roommate to becoming my lover and the last which I didn’t expect was never to my understanding level. Absolutely by doing these all he wasn't a normal college student at all.

...CHARACTER AESTHETIC...

P.S.- This book is being published for Heartbeat Contest, hosted by MTN Community.

Prompts Given by Regulus

Cover Of The Book Made By- HAZEL💖

Ruby’s POV

Students studying in Maxton Brainery are G for genius and because of that they love nights more to complete their pending assignments sitting in library or in their own dorm rooms. But they surely do not sleep before 3:30 am. It’s their favourite time to go to bed and sleep. I am too among these students completing my psychology assignment not in the library though. Psychology isn’t my major subject but like it’s not that I would leave it like a trash. My major subject is Physics while my minor is Psychology and the assignment it’s actually okayish to complete but needs a lot of effort to research the topic so yeah that’s actually a hard task. In case you are wondering what the assignment is all about. So, it’s basically regarding analysing research on a PLOS research article and the work we have to do in this is to compare a popular news article with this research article mentioned in the module and separately describe everything. It might seem easy but no it’s not and trust me when I say this, I love my physics assignment more than the Psychology one.

Oh and currently I live alone in my dorm room cause the one I was sharing this room with was my senior and she just graduated so for now it’s vacant. I am waiting for my new roommate. And I really pray to god that she doesn’t appear to be a very strict disciplined girl cause I totally dislike it and I am very opposite to it. And it’s clearly visible by the scenario inside my room. Anyway, also it’s a total lie for the one who says, to complete the work one needs to be productive and follow the right schedule. Well no, listen to me, one only needs a sufficient amount of sleep no matter if it's night, noon or even morning. Eat , drink water , take a nap if you eat too much just in case. And that’s it additionally of course do take bath whenever you get time. No need to show the fancy productiveness. A person like me gets demotivated seeing that instead of being motivated. 

In the meantime I also got a call from my father, I know the reason behind his call. He only calls during odd hours to give me a nice one hour lecture about how to live like a disciplined student and get assignments done as early as possible, not lagging it to midnight and so which I regularly do. I picked up the call, so as to complete the father-daughter talk formality.

“Daddy! I know what you are going to speak next but before you start just listen to me, I have a very long psychology assignment to complete which is due tomorrow only so it’s a request that please don’t take this call as a 1 hour lecture session. Or I will be really doomed tomorrow.” I said in one go cause if I had stopped in the middle my daddy would have not let me complete my sentence.

“Ruby stop, I didn’t call you today to tell you the importance of discipline, it’s that I am worried about your health, pay attention to it, eat healthy and sleep properly without any stress in mind.”

“Daddy what’s the difference? You just didn’t add a discipline word but used synonyms of it. It’s all the same and I am fine , eating healthy, drinking water, and sleeping.” I said getting annoyed.

“Ruby, I am serious. Please, dear. How are you eating healthy while drinking too much coffee?”

“Daddy you are talking about eating and I drink coffee. It's not the same again. I guess you are ageing, that’s why you are mixing up everything.”

“Okay Ruby stop now. It’s not funny, tell me about your new roommate!”

“There is no one for now daddy, when I get a new roommate I will surely inform you first.”

“I hope she be the most disciplined roommate you had till now.”

“Let’s see daddy and I hope it never gets true. Goodnight, sleep well and wish mumma too from my side.”

“Sure, Goodnight Ruby take care and inform me if you get into any trouble.”

“Will do Daddy!”

And here, I ended the call thankfully this time it wasn't an one hour session on discipline. Also, lemme tell you that our psychology professor is so kind enough that she told us to do the assignment in pen paper mode and you know what that means? A huge trouble because it’s not physics it’s psychology, a very theory heavy subject. Writing everything is so painful for me. Typing is far better. I have got dents on my forefinger and thumb because of continuous writing and not to mention the ink that had messed up on my palm. I am surely going to have marks with this for at least a day. I hate it, I don’t know why this cruel professor doesn’t let us use our laptop to type out and send her the assignment. 

It was around 1:45 a.m. when someone knocked on the door. I kept the pen down on the notebook and shifted my chair little back so that I could have a little space to get up. 

Opening the door , my sight was caught by one of my college student from physics class.

“Hey Ruby, Sorry to disturb you but I need help with some questions, I can’t understand it lol. Though, I tried solving it many times.”

“Hey Clara Right? Sure come inside.”

“Yep, thanks.”

I didn’t hate it that she came to me personally to clear her doubt but dude doesn’t she know that tomorrow is the psychology assignment due date. Like it’s so famous among every student in Maxton as the majority opt for this, it’s another fact that some take it as major while some as minor. But still it doesn’t change my statement. Nevermind I will explain to her quickly and get back again to my writing. 

“Do you know that you are going to share this room with the new transfer student? And that too he is a boy?”

WHAT?

This was not even the least I expected let aside be the most. And how the hell authority gave permission to make a girl and boy stay in a single room? Or wait, this could be false rumour too right? Because if it was true any professor or staff would have informed me first , that too before my own college student.

“Clara, are you sure? Cause maybe it can be any false statement you heard by someone.”

“Oh yes, I am very sure Ruby it was our physics professor talking to a guy yesterday, the guy was all okay just that I found him a little older? But that could be because he had way more muscles than the normal guys. At first I got confused, whether he is a college guy or any professor but then I heard our professor saying to shift himself into your room because of the current scenario where we don't have extra rooms for newly mid transfer students. Then everything was well and clear to me.”

Oh God!!! So it's basically true but why is it me? There are way many girls in MAXTON forget about boys while it still has to land on me? Nevermind I will wait for tomorrow and deal with this buggy situation tomorrow itself, I can't risk it at any cost, cause who knows how he lives like I am not scared by the fact someone is disciplined rather than fuzzy clumsy like me but still the alert of it makes me feel bad. He can be one of them right? So no chance to let him stay with me. No, not even in my dreams though I dream less.

“Oh, I see, nevermind You should focus on the question Clara. I will deal with him myself, you need not to worry about it.”

“Yeah sure!”

Few more minutes passed and we both were done. She thanked me and went back to her dorm room. Now that it was all me in the room, I went back to my study area and made myself again comfortable on the chair. It was close to 2:30 am now but sleep was nowhere close to my eyes. WHY? Because of two reasons now, as to before there was one but when Clara made her not so pleasing statement it had changed from one to two. Firstly my assignment which I have to finish anyhow before tomorrow and then secondly to deal with that transfer guy. Apparently I was busy with continuous writing of my assignment and thereafter when it was around 3:45 am, I was ultimately done with the tiresome writing assignment. Wait a minute I got no chill after this cause, I have to sleep for only 3 or maybe 4 hours, okay i get it! This might be quite satisfactory for some but no not for me as I am a huge sleepyhead. Throwing away my subconscious mind thoughts, I placed my books, notebooks, and some more essentials which were needed for tomorrow and after doing all this chaos I finally decided to make myself all comfortable in my lovely bed.

Next morning, not actually though it was just me waking up after 4 hours that is 8:00 am and at this point you should know that I was technically 15 minutes late for my physics class and if I delay more , I am damn surely going to miss psychology too, but I can't cause I have to submit my assignment too for it and oh god that transfer guy case too , shits there is a lot of work I need to patch up today but none is done for now. But it's okay we won't panic, I will try to get everything done gradually. Fixating this in my mind I made myself look a little presentable and drove my way to the first class of the day which I was technically late.

Reaching near the corridor wing, I was able to hear the historic as usual students gossips about one or the other thing ignoring them which is an obvious thing I made myself get into my class and as expected professor was teaching, at one point I thought why not just peek into the classroom without even taking his permission but then I was little scared to do this mischievous act so dropped the idea eventually.

“Yes, Ruby, deliver your new excuse to me now!”

And yeah I was caught between the time I was thinking about forwarding my mischievous plan or not.

“Sorry, Professor, it was just accidental, I got late today.”

“Oh? I thought like many students, yours too, the psychology assignment was making you stay up till late and then have a sleep of two or three hours resulting in being late for my class. Is it true Miss Ruby Bell? Or are you different species from those I heard this morning?”

Well, why he had to be so considerate enough to speak every detail when he actually knew it would be true, nothing to exaggerate but that determines that he is an actual student torturer at this point. And I am not feeling apologetic to speak about him.

“Professor, it's true but nothing to take care of because our psychology professor is not like you to show mercy on us. If we didn't take this risk we would have landed ourselves in one more bundle of assignments for tomorrow which personally I could not afford. As it's not digital based we have to bang our hands to write each and everything resulting in dents.”

“I appreciate your statement Ruby, but I don't think I should forgive you this easily now, cause every single time I cannot accept this excuse despite the fact it's true, get yourself a better routine, complete assignments early and be punctual to the classes. That's it for the last time, next time you would be expelled from my class for at least a week and you know what it can result in. So yeah take it as a final warning and you may get in now. Get settled with the recent notes , I am formulating.”

Okay that was little long lecture, I didn't expected it but fine at least it's done.