“Your mother has settled everything Rooney. You may now leave. ” Mrs. Ojukwu. The consecutive principal and daughter of the founder of Emerald Academy told him.

     He already felt uncomfortable that he'd been with her for more than five minutes already, so he was glad to hear her words.

  You may leave now.

Leave...

   Settled.

  He knew what ‘settled’ meant. She already knew his history.

   Rooney picked up his crutches and stood up slowly, his leg was healing. The makeshift healing bay in his hostel had done some good to him two days ago.

    He didn't remember anyone taking him to the healing bay, but it seemed right—to him— to assume that his friends took him there.

   He barely even remembered what the conversation he was having with his friends, before his attack was all about.

      When he woke up, he woke up with his migraine totally and completely gone and his leg wrapped in bandage, his broken leg felt like it was on fire at first but the pain eased away slowly once Arthur came in.

   He'd come to ‘talk’, came to sympathize with him, he'd come to make peace. Rooney knew he should've felt some sort of anger at least, watching the boy who'd broken the number one Bro Code by being with his girl.. His former girlfriend, apologize to him while running his left palm over his broken leg but he couldn't.

   Arthur had made him laugh and not long after his arrival it felt like they'd gone back in time. Back to when Arthur didn't interfere and they were best friends.

   “Rooney. In as much as I understand you were found innocent, I don't want to hear a word from anyone in this school that you brought your drugs to this great establishment. We just expelled students who did drugs outside this school and I will not hesitate to expel you if you recreate your former type of friends amongst the students I have here. Is that understood? ” The glare, the widening of her eyes, her defensive posture.

    Even if he'd made the mistake of bringing anything toxic, he was surely flushing it today with the way she was reacting.

  Thankfully, he didn't. He was done with that lifestyle. Now, he just had to deal with the effects of his former lifestyle.

  The after effects of Tiana.

   “Is that understood?” The question jerked him back to reality and it took a while for Rooney to realize that she'd just repeated her question back to him and he turned to nod at her.

   A courteous action. A respectful gesture.

  Yada yada.

    She sighed, “Rooney. Your mother wants twenty four hour, constant surveillance on you, so I will be watching you, we will be watching you. You already know what you did, we don't need to discuss it. ” A short silence followed before she continued.

   “You took pills that got you high, you drank and smoked, you were charged with rape—”
 
‘We don't need to discuss it’ she said.

  Yada yada yada yada yafada yafada yafada fada.

  “I was framed, the court found me innocent. The only fucked up shit.” Her eyebrows rose up after his interruption, his audacity was undauntedly unique.

  Two cuss words in less than ten seconds, right in front of her!

  “I did was” sleeping with that fucking slut who Chiamaka now keeps reminding me of. Like two sluts in a pod.

  Pod.. Porn. Two sluts in a porn. Hah!

    Rooney instantly stopped talking once he noticed her facial expression.

   No doubts she would've long been dead if she could read my mind.

   She looked horrified, the old Rooney would've found it amusing, the old Rooney would have looked forward to telling the story to his friends so they could laugh over it and exchange tales.

   The new Rooney found it stupid that she was acting like a prude. She had kids, so obviously she's no virgin.

  Why did she have so many filters, so many rules?

   He turned and walked out the door without another word, with his next destination a floor away. The (D) Department.

   He needed his new senior clothes and his SSTwo books.

He was using his 10th grade transcript from his high school abroad to stand in for his SS1 grades and SS2 first term.

     His friends who waiting outside the principal office were more than eager to help him with the load, Arthur was happy he could skip class and have an excuse, he wasn't ready to speak to Munachi just yet.

     Two days ago, he'd watched her walk right past him, she was less than a feet away and directly in front of him but he'd chosen to find comfort in the dark.

Just so he could think.

 The guilt was plaguing him down already, soon he'd confess, soon he'll apologize, he'd seen her search for him but he ignored her, soon she would too. They would both have to apologize to each other. Soon they would have to talk.

   Ironically we could have been doing that now if I wasn't stabbing class. If I wasn't avoiding her.
 
  “What'd she tell you that took over ten minutes? ” Arthur asked once Rooney successfully hopped out of the principal's office and he shrugged with the crutches under his armpits as a reply.

   “Guy, talk. Why are you shaking shoulder?” Dominique interrupted and Rooney sighed.

Dominique had changed a lot, leaned forward from his reserved quiet role and boldly stepped into his dominant body.

  “Mum's settled everything, I don't need SS1 results to continue off. Don't bother m.. ”He stilled.

  She froze.

     What was he doing here?

What were they all doing outside the principal office?

   “Muna.” Two voices called out her name at the same time and Silvana, who was internally cursing at a lizard turned to stare at the weird scene in front of her.

     Rooney uses crutches?

Last night he was perfectly alright, what happened?

“Rooney, long time oh. How far. ” Silvana tried to reduce the obvious awkwardness between the two friends by walking towards him.

  Munachi took a deep breath in and followed her. 

   “I'm good. ” A simple reply, a reply that made Silvana want to smack the back of his head not roll her eyes like she just did.

    Of course. He's still the same jerky faced jerk.

Rooney's eyes were fixed on Munachi's thick body, his eyes admired her almost fair legs, her curves that beautified the school skirt, her almost chubby waist, she reminded him of an hourglass and nothing would distract him from watching time move.

  Not even her annoying best friend who seemed to be over a talkative phase. 

  Especially...not, her annoying best friend.

   Munachi walked closer towards them and Kenelum raised up his palm for a high five, which she returned, much to Rooney's surprise.

   “Are you two besties now, in this another aspect of this other dimension that I'm somehow still trapped in, you know my heartbeat dating my spine and my heartbeat's friends with the one guy who hated her guts, you know like some nightmare-dimension of some kind.” Rooney asked the both of them and Kenelum rolled his eyes.

    “I no hate anybody, na Chiamaka confuse me.”

Munachi kept staring at him as Kenelum spoke, Rooney's accent was so different, she couldn't stop her self from replaying his words over and over and over again in her head.

    Was it gangster or black American?

   Her eyes roamed through his body while she subconsciously refused to look up at his eyes, those blank eyes that she'd seen yesterday, eyes that had fueled her anger to slap him.

     She stopped looking at him and looked at Arthur who had been looking at her look at Rooney, he was watching her, trying to find out how she'd react around his presence.

      “Nana.” Arthur muttered out and Rooney turned.

“Nana?” He'd asked and paused.  “Is that your nickname for her?”

   “Rooney, mind your business. ” Rude words but it was her speaking to him, he turned again to smile at Munachi like if he were a child again. Like she'd given him an early birthday present.

And then responded, “How? How do I mind my business when you're my business. How'm I gonna mind you?”

   Munachi felt her insides warm up but she suppressed the smile that could've formed on her lips.
   
   Started feeling like hell had her back on speed dial.

     Arthur watched them. Accessed her behavior around him and accepted that the roles had been switched again. She may not have realized it now, but no way on Earth that she didn't still like Rooney. No way on Earth that he wasn't back to square one.

   He wasn't the evil one, he wasn't the villain, he didn't even make his feelings public, he waited. Rooney was gone, Rooney wasn't supposed to be coming back again.

  Rooney transferred, Rooney left her. He didn't ruin anything for them.

  Why was Rooney doing this to him?

  What was Rooney doing to him?

   “You know instead of this tension building up, why not just have threesomes. Share her. ” Nonso randomly said, like he was just asking what they'd all eat for lunch, Pizza or Burger instead of actually suggest that they partake in sexual activities together much to everyone's surprise.

   Munachi shrieked and Arthur did the same too, two second interval between two shrieks.

   A threesome? A screw must definitely be missing in his head.

   Silvana patted her boyfriend's cheek in a mimic slap action and kissed his lips, Rooney slowly smirked at the sight in front of him.

    Silvana and Nonso... Nice.

  They've definitely fucked. Nice.

   “Dude, a threesome's not a bad idea.” Segun said quietly.

    “I swear, guy it'll make sense. ” Rooney smiled and Munachi's eyes widened at how vulgar he sounded.

   At how he almost sounded Nigerian again.

     “Well, she's not interested. ” Arthur was besides Munachi. No one knew how he'd gotten there that fast or when but Arthur was now certain about one thing; they were going to talk now.

    He picked up her palm. Then walked away with her towards the stairs while thinking of a thousand ways to say sorry.

     “I was even joking. Who's he to speak for her?” Rooney's voice was deeper when he spoke, his eyes were now a darker shade of brown.

   Silvana scowled at Rooney and he felt a surge of anger slowly begin to fill in the pit of his chest at her next words.

  “Her damn boyfriend. ”

  Her damned boyfriend.

  Damned because he took what's mine.

It would have been more easier for him to have stormed out of there, easier for him to hop/walk back to his hostel angrily and think up a million ways Arthur could mistakenly fall since now he didn't have to worry about anyone punishing him anytime soon for entering the hostel but Ojukwu's words were loud and clear and strangely he heard her voice again.

  “We will be watching you” she'd said to him and he believed it, his mother would throw a fit and fly to Nigeria just to force him into his school uniform she would even throw in a slap if he argued with her..if she found out that he skipped going to The Department.

   His eyes shade slowly dropped a tint and they were now back to normal, just thinking about his mother and her newly found wrath was enough to “push” out the surge of anger.

     He didn't come back to Nigeria to fight with Arthur, he needed his companionship now more than ever.

    He'd come back to Emerald Academy because of the support system that were made up of his friends.

   Friends he would all lose if he fought with Arthur and tried anything stupid with Munachi,

     He needed their companionship now more than ever.

  He couldn't lose them... Munachi was undeniably worth far more than all of them combined with the exception of Arthur but, unfortunately now he couldn't have both of them.

   Now he had to sacrifice one of them... And as he raised his head from the floor and stared at Arthur wrapping his arm round Munachi's waist.

  He made a tough decision.

    He chose none.

He didn't want any of them, they didn't think about him before throwing stupid tags round their faces.

   Yes, he'd kissed other people, yes he had sex with more girls other than the devilish snake Tiana like he now called her but he did all that with Munachi's face imprinted behind his eyelids. With the way they were walking off, it was obvious that Munachi barely thought of him while he was gone.

   Have they had sex yet?

   Munachi's not like that.

   Neither was Silvana.. 

Fuck.

   The only girl he'd fallen in love with had replaced him with his best friend there was now a limitless possibilities of what she could have done.

   His best friend took the only thing he had, his best friend had stolen the broken doll he'd fixed and was now prancing round Emerald Academy with a brand new doll.

   A Munachi that had changed.

Was she the same girl he'd tried countless times to make her laugh just so he could see her bright smile?

  The same girl who'd washed off the oil stain?

Same girl he'd introduced to his mother?

  The same girl whose mother he'd even threatened the first day he met her?

Was she the same girl he stared at the devil for?

  The anger surge was instantly back in full force, he couldn't see clearly anymore, his eyesight now had spots of the color black obscuring his view but this time he wasn't going to think up ways to hurt Arthur.

  Now his anger was fueling something different, determination and not jealousy. He was going to get over Munachi Odumba, keep his friends, keep her as a friend even but...

   He was going to learn how to stop loving her.

Learn how to stop respecting Arthur because as far as he was concerned now. The two people he'd known were dead and in their place were Nana and Arthur.

  Not Numb and Thor, now those... Those two were actually the people he needed.

  He chose neither Nana nor Arthur.

He chose none.

•••

  “It's funny how I used to cry over things that now make me laugh...”