Chapter 13

Angel pressed on the control key and the slash key at the same time on her laptop keyboard to produce a question mark.

It was already dawn and Angel had barely slept. Being an architecture student was close to carrying a rock thrice the size of an elephant.

She had stayed up all night to build the physical model of her building project from scratch.

After completing it, Angel was tempted to write a bit to relieve her stress. Today, she had to present her work in front of the jurors which were her evil, heartless lecturers.

Last session, in her second year, the Modeling Lecturer, Mr. Awo had slammed everyone's model against the wall to test the structural integrity which in lame man words means how firm your mini house is.

Ofcourse, only few people's model survived.

Angel sighed remembering such a disgraceful day because hers crumbled before her lecturer could throw it against the wall.

The bathroom door opened and Iffie appeared in a white fluffy robe which cost probably a ten thousand naira. Iffie switched on the room lights and a groan came from above Angel's bed.

Angel felt her eyes burn and she immediately covered her eyes.

Iffie looked unapologetic and walked to her wardrobe which was situated beside her own bunk.

Joy was still fast asleep after spending the entire night on a phone call with her boyfriend, helping him finish his own model. Iffie stayed on top of Joy while Tife stayed on top of Angel.

The room was spacious and big, there was enough space for two double wardrobes, two dunk beds and four table and chairs, each table and chair located at the end of the bunk.

Both bunks rested on the opposite end of the wall and there was a massive space in the center of the room.

Tife's desk was located beside the window while Angel's desk was located in between her bunk bed and the double wardrobe shared by her and Tife.

On the other side of the room, the arrangement was mirrored, only that Joy owned the desk by the window and Iffie owned the other desk.

In-between the windows were a glass sliding door which led to the terrace where their clothes were hung to dry or to air.

Cooking and boys were not allowed in the hostel as girls were not allowed in boy's hostels unlike Federal Universities which was owned by the government.

Iffie sat by her desk which she had transformed into a vanity dressing mirror with all sort of make-up and skin care products.

"Angel, did you finish your modeling project?" Iffie asked, glancing at Angel while applying a sophisticated body cream that smelt of strawberries on her fair skin.

Yawning loudly with a stretch, Angel nodded, "I managed to finish it but it is too late to sleep, my class is by eight in the morning."

Iffie nodded and began to wear her underwear, "Too bad, its past seven."

"You ko?" Angel asked, it was a phrase which meant 'What about you?'

"I have a shoot after school…"

Tife groaned again and soon her sleepy voice was heard, "You too are disturbing me!"

Out of all of them, Tife had the most temper. Her character was firm and nobody dared to offend her, not boys or girls –only her silly roommates.

Iffie scoffed, "Then wake up, don't you have a class by eight?"

Tife shook her head sleepily while still on the bed, re-adjusting her sleeping position, "It was moved tomorrow."

"Wake Joy up, she has a test this morning," Tife muttered before going back to her sleep.

Iffie nodded and picked up her long selfie stick to poke Joy who was sleeping peacefully. Joy could sleep in a storm or a concert and it wasn't an easy job to wake her up.

Angel moved her focus back to the screen of her laptop, wishing to write more but knowing that there was no time to relax.

Soon, her friend – who is also her course mate – would come hurry her for class.

She switched off her laptop and got off from her bed.

The day crawled by and finally, the jury presentation was over. It was past six in the evening and third year architecture students could finally breathe and sleep.

It was the first semester of the third year in architecture when everything was rushed.

Reasons due to the fact that the second semester was solely for students internship program, which lasted a total of six months.

The semester started in October and would end in March, lo and behold, it was almost February.

Angel was in their studio lab where most of their classes were held. The presentation also took place in the studio lab. Every architecture year had their studio, even Masters One and Masters Two.

At the University of Yonderville, Architecture was six years with masters degree included.

Four years for Bachelors Degree and two years for Masters Degree which was not compulsory to do immediately the bachelors degree was obtained. Most of her seniors went to serve.

Every Nigerian was required to serve for a year. It is called NYSC which stands for Nigerian Youth Service Corps.

At that time, one would be posted by the government to any part of the country and would be paid by the government on a monthly basis.

Also, it begins with three weeks of military drilling and social activities, living in the barracks with Nigerians from different cultures and nationalities.

After the three weeks, the government would arrange a workplace in relation to ones work and one would be posted there.

Angel planned to do her full six years before going to serve.

"What are you thinking about?" A petite and very light skinned girl intruded her line of thoughts. She turned her head and saw that it was her very close friend, Haddie.

Haddie was short for Hadassah which meant Esther in Hebrew. Hadassah was Angel's closest friend and also her course mate.

Angel sighed, "Depressed."

Haddie sighed also and glanced at the rumble of trash that was once a beautiful mini sized apartment building.

Haddie turned back to Angel, "It is already late, let's buy food before going to the hostel."

Angel shook her head, "I am not hungry, I am angry, how can they treat us like this?! It's not fair! Don't they know the amount of effort we put into this!"

Haddie smiled, covering up her feelings of hurt with a smile and she took Angel's hand, "What is in the past is in the past, let's go buy food."

Angel glanced at Haddie and noticed her red trimmed eyes which only appeared when she was holding back tears and nodded, squeezing out a smile for her friend.

"Let's buy ice-cream and be happy!"

Haddie nodded and thought of something, "Angel, what do you think? Lets go back to the hostel to shower and change to casual clothes."

"Then we take a walk to enjoy the night breeze," Angel completed and both girls agreed. Immediately packing their things, they took a shuttle back because of the plenty load they had.

They parted ways and agreed to meet by 8:20pm, which was in an hour's time.

Before Angel opened the door to her room, she could already hear Joy's voice. She seemed to be very annoyed about something.

"HOW COULD THEY DO THAT! IT DOES NOT MAKE ANY SENSE AT ALL?"

"THOSE EVIL LECTURERS ACTUALLY ROASTED AND TOLD THEM ALL TO REDO THEIR WORKS AFTER ALL THEY HAVE DONE! IT'S NOT FAIR…"

Angel stepped into the room and saw Joy in the middle of the room ranting to two of her friends who came to visit. She was probably angry because Joy did most of the work for her boyfriend, Enoch.

Joy glanced at Angel with concern, "Babe, I heard about what ha…"

Truth be told, Angel was not in the mood to complain or rant and just gave neutral responses to Joy and her friends before escaping to take a shower.

By the time she returned, the room was empty and the lights off.

Angel closed the curtains and switched on the lights to change into a free blue t-shirt and her mini skirt.

On a normal day, Angel wouldn't dare to do so because of Mama Yu but this night, she wanted to free herself.

After dressing up, she picked up her leopard print purse and let her hair down. The door opened and Hadassah appeared at the entrance with a baggy brown top and black leggings and a fancy flurry slippers.

Angel changed from her bathroom slippers to her slides which revealed her perfectly yet natural manicured toe nails.

They walked downtown to get food and talked all the way. A lot of boys threw glances their way, some flirty, some indifferent, some confident smiles but Angel and Haddie kept their facial expression straight and ignored them.

It must have been because of their dressing, Angel thought. After all, Haddie had a lot of hips and butt and she wore tight black shinny leggings. Her baggy top didn't do its job to cover it well.

While Angel was very much tall and had long slim attractive legs and maybe thighs which attracted the boys.

Ofcourse, no one could dissuade how pretty both girls were; Haddie was a fair beauty and Angel was black beauty.

In a dark corner at Downtown, a gang of seven boys were present, all stood except two.

The scent of illegal substance filled the air as those that stood passed around a small wrap of burning paper.

Out of the two that were seated, only one was smoking with his own personal paper wrap.

The one that refused to smoke was staying at a girl standing under a light at a restaurant.

One of the boys that stood noticed and began to speak, his speech slurring from the substance abuse.

"Boys, see that pretty girl standing under the light, in mini-skirt, I can approach her and get her number."

The one that stood at the far end holding the rolled piece of paper laughed, "Impossible, don't you know who she is? You think she is like every normal girl, my boss dream on!"

The other guy who sat down smoking had kept his eyes closed all this while, opened his eyes.

He excluded a fierce aura and all the other guys who stood seemed to pay homage to him as their leader.

"Who?" He spoke out, his voice was very deep and domineering.

"Prince, that pretty girl in blue shirt and jean mini skirt beside the fair girl," the one who stood at the edge said.

Prince put down his paper wrap and gleamed through the crowd at different restaurants before spotting her.

"Looks familiar," he replied nonchalantly but his eyes remained on her.

The one seated beside them looked uncomfortable with the way they were looking at her and rose up. "Prince, I have spent enough time hanging with you, then I will go back to the hostel."

The fierce looking boy turned his head and his aura softened, "Jordan, if you are not here, there would be no sober person here to prevent harm."

The one who first mentioned the girl glanced at the person referred to as Jordan with hidden envy and loathe.

At Yonderville, the number one gang was their gang and Prince was the leader of the gang.

Anything he wanted was at the tip of his finger and his father was one of the directors of the school so he easily got away from trouble.