"Beep beep"

The loud sound of the alarm clock woke her up. Her eyes were only half opened.

"This damn sound of the alarm. It's so annoying!", she mumbled to herself.

BANG!

"Now it's quite. Quite is better. I like better", she said after breaking the alarm clock.

Well, she never really liked alarm clocks, she had a phone to set alarms so why do people have to gift her alarm clocks when they could give something as special as an octopus?

"Ah- too awake now!". She sat on the bed for a while looking straight at the wall blankly. That's just how she is, each day after waking, it takes her a while to remember who she is and where she is right now.

Apparently, Ivy Blaise was still half asleep. She wasn't as happy and excited for her first day of university as she was the previous day.

While getting ready, something caught her attention. It was a dairy, kept on the desk which was reflecting the sunlight from the window towards her.

"It's been 2 months since I stopped writing", she wore a sock and walked towards it. It was an 11 inch large black journal with several colourful loose sheets attached to it. While turning the pages, she muttered, "Should've stopped earlier."

She took her other sock in her hand and started walking toward the kitchen.

"He~llo~" she said loudly. So loud that even her neighbours said it back.

"Well seems like someone, lost her mental stability!", said Sylvia Blaise, her mom.

As Ivy walked toward her dad to hug him, he held a pen in his hand and put it in front of Ivy's face pretending like it's a mic and said, "So, Ivy Blaise, today is your first day of college, would you like to share how you feel about it?"

"I feel like I should've slept for 5 more minutes"

"What's wrong? You look like you didn't get to sleep for a week", her mom asked with a frown.

"That bad?", she said with exhaustion while looking at the mirror.

She indeed looked miserable for not getting much sleep due to her excitement the previous night. Vincent Global University, one of the best noble universities in the world.

"Don't worry about that, your mother made you some snacks. Your favorite, Not mine. Obviously!", her father exclaimed dramatically.

Her parents have always been cheerful but there was something a little different.

Are they going to ask me again to get married? No it can't be!

"We've something to tell you". He continued his speech with a wide smile staring at her mom, "I and your mother are going out on a date tonight."

Without even listening, Ivy hollered, "No! I'm not sharing my cake with anybody!"

Soon she realised it was not about marriage but their date. It surprised her as well as her mother.

She flushed and said with a loud voice, "What are you talking about? We're just going out for dinner!!"

Ivy was certain that there was something off. Without giving a second thought she said, "Respect single people's feelings!"

In an instant she realised that she called herself trouble by saying that. Her mother stared at her while nurturing her own thoughts.

Ivy wasn't born in an ordinary family. She was the daughter of a well known business merchant. Though she was only 19, her parents wanted her to get married soon as the heir of the Blaise family to ensure the Blaise name lived on.

"Our Ivy is single? Do you want me to find you a handsome man to take care of you?"

She snapped out of her daze. She turned her head away quickly, muttering, "I think I'm getting late. Enjoy your date, bye!"

She took a bread from the plate and hastily ran away from the conversation, she turned back to look for her bag and escaped as fast as she could.

As she was sauntering, she couldn't stop thinking about the date her parents were talking about. She felt like there was something off. Both her parents work together and there were times when they went out for dinner or to spend time together for days. Ivy knew there was something more to it. What were they hiding from her?

"Ivy!"

She heard a familiar voice from the other side of the road. It was Kate and Alex waiting for her on the bus stop.

"Kate! Alex! You're early."

She said while running towards them with her hands up front to hug them. They were the only two friends she has ever been comfortable with.

"We ain't early. You're late!", Kate Ritch said. They've been in the same class all the way from elementary to high school. As for college, they planned to stick together.

"We missed our bus for you", Alex Benson said demurely. Alex, Kate and Ivy have known each other since they were in elementary school.

"What? Why didn't you go ahead?", Ivy said in disbelief. Of course, she could read them. She knew that her overly dramatic friends would never admit to be considerate. So if they ever do, then certainly they're lying.

"Because I wanted to go with you", Alex said flirtatiously, in his words, seductively. Ivy noticed how Kate's expression changed as soon as the words slipped out of Alex's mouth.

She likes Ivy for sure, but will she get mad at her for flirting with Alex? She's been into him since elementary school, why couldn't she fess up already?

Everyone's been through that. When you want to do something, but deep down you know you got to do what's right. Kate wasn't the type to put anything else before friendship.

"Because I wanted to go with you", Alex said flirtitiously, in his words, seductively.

"Stop fooling around. It's not time for the bus to arrive yet. And it's pretty obvious who you actually want to go with!", Ivy exclaimed with a hidden meaning.

"Can you believe that?", Kate said calmly. "You guys are my childhood buddies and we've known each other since forever and you're probably the only people I can rely on."

Ivy knew that Kate said it to change the topic, so she reassuringly responded, "That was sweet, Kate."

"Sweet? That was creepy. You said it out of the blue."

...

On their way to the class, there was a girl standing in the middle of the long corridor beside the reception who seemed quite confused.

Alex held Ivy by her chin and turned it to direction where the girl was standing in and said, "Look at that girl. She's looks pretty.."

"Oh yeah? She looks pretty then why don't you go ahead and talk to her?", Kate said grinning.

"I was gonna say that she looks pretty confused! But anyway, I think we should go talk to her", as he said this, he went forward to ask her if she was okay.

"Hey! Um.. Are you okay?", Alex asked politely as he slowly approached her.

He wasn't always so polite and confident with girls, which is, until he met Kate. It was a group project that made the three of them best friends. Back in those days, Alex was just another nerd who didn't have any friends and was desperate to become popular.

Alex was a bit worried as he always had social anxieties, and would easily get nervous around new people but surprisingly he got along really well. Though now he's among the cool kids and he flirts with other girls, his behavior always ensures that he has a thing for Kate.

"Oh, hi! I'm new here, I can't find my class", she said with a gentle smile. Her dark brown wavy hair flowing down her shoulder and a white shirt on, tucked in her ankle length pants giving off a confident aura. And with a skin so fair, it almost looked pale.

"We're on our way to the class, we can look for it together maybe?", Alex asked with a slight smile.

"Do we have the same class? I'm in the psychology department", she said with a low confused voice glancing at Ivy and Kate.

Ivy went ahead to jump in the conversation, "We only have our orientation today, all the departments will be there so we can go together", Ivy said cheerishly to break the formalities and make her comfortable. After all, she looks Korean!

"Ah that's great!", she exclaimed and continued, "I'm Kim Hana" , she said with the same excitement. This time, it was certain she was Korean. Just when Ivy was gonna turn into a die hard kpop fan, Kate and Alex started introducing themselves. They were bonding well on their way to class, though Ivy was still deep in thoughts.

I'm certain it's the first time we met, and her name..

"I'm Kim Hana, it's nice to meet you all"

I've never even heard of her before, but somehow, she seems very familiar.

As a matter of fact, this new girl they befriended was actually familiar and someone they already knew. But the question was, who was she?

...

After a few hours, they went to the cafeteria. The 4 hours felt like 12 hours for them. They were starving, so they hurried to the cafeteria and ordered food first. Surprisingly, Kim Hana who seemed so shy, had a big appetite as well.

"It's so frustrating, this university is so big, I haven't laid my eyes on Ian yet."

Kate said disappointedly with her hands in her pockets, she slightly turned to kick the wall and pretended to sob.

"Ian? Ian Somerhalder?"

Kim Hana let out a laugh and was curious to know who she was talking about, "I thought that Alex guy was your boyfriend haha."

"Alex? No way! I only like handsome guys like Ian."

Actually, Kate didn't mean what she just said. She might get head over heels for a handsome guy she just laid her eyes on but deep down she knew that she could never feel the same for any other guy as she feels for Alex. She knows she wouldn't be able to replace him.

"Just another hot, kinky guy, spoilt by his dad's wealth who leads a gang to bully other people.", Ivy said. It was easy to assume as Kate has always been attracted to these kind of guys who in her opinion, need serious therapy.

"Jeez, you're so intuitive. You always guess it right!"

"I can tell, he's also a high ranked student with high popularity", Kim Hana added more to Ivy's assumptions.

Ivy started posing like gang leaders and soon one after another, they kept imitating him assuming his personality but none of them had any idea what kind of a person he could possibly be.

"Since he could manage to catch your attention, he must be really handsome?", Ivy said while posing dramatically with one hand in her pocket and the other on her chin forming a symbolic gesture representing charm which she learnt from her ex boyfriend.

"Or maybe.. he's more than a gang leader. Maybe he's a secret assassin!"

"Maybe he's more than a gang leader. Maybe he's a secret assassin!", Kim Hana made it seem like he was an undercover agent. She must have guessed by now what kind of guys can make Kate's heart flutter.

"The boss who leads the college in turf wars"

Ivy added, while Kate was imagining, she signaled at Kim Hana to exaggerate a bit. And she knew what exactly to say, "He fights, bullies and.."

Just when she seemed to be running out of words, Ivy added a little more, "..runs away from home, he's on drug, drinks and gets lucky everynight with different faces."

For a moment, Ivy felt like she was going way too far, but well, she didn't care.

They kept making fun of Ian, totally unaware of the situation he was going through. Kim Hana asked them to go shopping with her later in the evening.

"It's been an eternity since my last shopping."

Ivy said scrunching up her face miserably. Being overdramatic, she could change her expression from misery to grinning real quick.

"Ayo! Do you guys even realise how you all look like from afar?", Alex shouted while slowly walking toward them. He held his phone straight up making it seem like he was clicking pictures.

"Are you clicking our pictures? Do we look so beautiful from afar?", Kate's face lit up not only because he was taking pictures of her, but the fact that he was looking at her from a distance made her face turn red.

It wasn't hard for anybody to read them and tell how both of them felt for each other. It was obvious for even a stranger, with no exceptions.

However, Kate and Alex were apparently the only exceptions.

"Not even close. You three look like crackheads!", Alex said with a muffled laugh while running his hands gently on Kate's head.

Suddenly, a loud noise was heard from the end of the cafeteria attracting everybody's attention. The originally noisy and chaotic area quitenend down.

Within minutes, everyone started running towards the noise while the four of them looked at each other questioning and were dumbfounded.

They went across to the other side along with the others. The cafeteria was crowded in an instant leaving no room for Ivy to see. All she could hear were voices laced with infatuation. She somehow got her way in, her gaze drifted on a tall, smooth figure.

Her gaze drifted on a tall, smooth figure. She couldn't help notice the fitted dark blue retro shirt which complimented the masculine body underneath. Glancing down, Ivy could see a pair of perfectly straight legs leading to a pair of freshly polished leather shoes which glistened in the sunlight coming through the window. This man had a strong presence. He grabbed the collar of another man who's face couldn't be seen due to the crowd.

While the crowd was cheering up for the two to fight, Kate hollered, "Kill him, Ian! Triangle choke him to death! Punch him right in that face!"

"Kate! What do you think you're doing?", Ivy asked while laughing. Of course she didn't notice the man standing in front of them was Ian, the guy she has been speaking ill about.

Kate, laughing with an evil glint in her eye said, "It's our first day and we already witnessed a fight between the Ruiz brothers. It'd be so interesting if one of them killed the other"

Upon hearing the name, Ivy narrowed her eyes and asked, "Hold on. The Ruiz brothers? The Ian you were talking about is THE Ian Ruiz?"

The Ruiz brothers were very famous. Who wouldn't know about the sons of the business tycoon, Javier Ruiz? So whatever Ivy and Kim Hana assumed about him were actually true.

"Duh, Of course he's THE Ian Ruiz. Who else do you think can take my breath away?"

Kate said with infatuation and adoration filled in her eyes.

"You are wrong at so many levels!", Ivy exclaimed with sign.

Ian Ruiz. Not only was he a royal ****, but also the heir of the Ruiz family. Just like she assumed, a rich spoilt brat with nothing but his looks.

He wasn't just riding on his wealth and good looks but he was also known for his grades. A GPA so low, and still not caring about it? Not everyone's piece of cake. His mother died in a car accident near the bridge of M. County. She has always been his rock.

Whereas his step mother, Audrey Ruiz never had that strong maternal instinct which he needed. As his father is always busy, there's no one else to stop their disputes.

Ivy was least bothered about the disputes between Ian and his step brother, Finn Ruiz as both the brothers were exceptionally gorgeous but way out of her league.

Perhaps it was an elite school; in a glance, there were indeed a handful of good looking boys. But after seeing this tall handsome man, they paled in comparison.

Soon the crowd was cleared followed by Ian's friends, Debrie and Cordan Smith.

The Smith brothers are twins; they are well acquainted with Ian, the three handle almost all the tough situations together.

As the break ended, Ivy and her friends headed back to their home while Ian headed to Debrie's place.

After a warm shower, Ivy was too tired. She just wanted to call it a day already.