Upon this realisation I immediately averted my eyes and swallowed again, attempting to rid of the bad feeling that had settled inside of me. “S-so-sorry. I’m s-so so-sorry. This-this is all my-my bad.” Shit, shit, shit. I got the wrong guy. I got the wrong freaking guy! I need to leave. I needed to leave, now!

As if staring at me gave him the strange ability to see what was in my mind and therefore find out my plans to escape, this guy immediately grabbed my hand. “If ‘sorry’ could fix everything there wouldn’t be any need for jails.” His voice was calm. Too calm. He pulled me closer and whispered in my ear, “Or Hara-kiri.”

I flinched as I felt his peanut butter and jelly scented breath tickle my neck and ears. Hara-kiri?! HARA-KIRI?! Wasn’t that some form of crazy suicidal ritual used for soldiers back in ancient times?! This guy was planning to kill me!

I looked around frantically. By now, my audience had lost interest and the crowd had dispersed. Ugh! What good were they? Where is the panic button when you need one?! Laura! Where was Laura? I noticed Laura had mysteriously disappeared. Where was Laura when I needed her most? She was just here at the rooftop. I could feel a bead of sweat run down the side of my face from panic. “I-I’m sorry. I was just practicing a skit I had to do for my next class…”

He grabbed my chin and held it close to his face. He was studying me, scrutinising me. And probably also memorising my face and mentally listing me on his blacklist. “Name?”

I gulped at the thought. “Litoris, Mike. That’s my name.” Lies.

He wrinkled his nose, as if hearing my faux name offended him. “Bullshit.” He tightened his grip on my chin and pulled my face closer to his. “That’s not even a girls name. You’re full of shit.”

“Okay, okay,” I spluttered, “My real name is Mikayla. ‘Mike’ for short.” He was too close and I was nervous. That, and my face was starting to hurt.

He raised an eyebrow and brought my face even more closer to his. Did he have bad eyesight? We were already a couple inches apart. If we were any closer we would be already kissing or something that needed face touching. Now, I could see his eyes weren’t only brown, but also had funny little specks of green in it. Right now, his eyes reminded me of vomit.

“Liar,” he frowned at me, “Your friend called you ‘Agnes’ before.”

Oh crap. Yes, she did. “Yeah. Mikayla Agnes Litoris would be my full name, but who calls people by their full names these days anyway?” Great. Don’t tell me Laura ditched me and ran.

He glared at me. As if deciding whether I was actually telling the truth or not.

“You don’t have to believe me,” I babbled on,” Actually, I’d prefer it if you didn’t. I hate my name. I hate ‘Mikayla’, so I get people to call me ‘Mike’ or ‘Agnes’ instead.” Lies, lies, lies. My real name was Agnes Bernhardt, and there was no way I was going to let him know. Ever.

“‘Agnes’, eh?” He narrowed his eyes, “Fine, Mike. I’ll take your word. Department?”

There was no way I was going to tell him my building either. Right now, if there were one thing I liked about my university, I would say I liked the pointlessly large amount of students. At Edinborough University, with over 30,000 students, it was easy to lose a student and totally forget their existence. Meaning, most students had naturally acquired the skill of mysteriously disappear in the large crowds of people and avoid people they didn’t like. We might as well be ninjas. “Building Four.”

“There is no building four. Do you belong in the science or health department too?”

“Actually, I meant the fourth building.”

“I already said that there is no building four.”

Shit, shit, shit. “I-I-I meant… fi-fifth building.” Ugh, I am pathetic. I was never good at outright lying. Just like how I was never good at insulting people.

He frowned at me once more before letting go of my face. I immediately began rubbing my face. What a weirdo! Who does these kinds of things?! “Now you’re just making it up.”

“Yes, but did the building have a four?” I began to mumble. He just stared at me and blinked slowly. Good. That always threw people off. And speaking of throwing people off, I pointed to the sky. “Look, a distraction!”

He scoffed at me, but nevertheless looked up at the sky. Idiot.

And while he was too busy being distracted by a distraction, I ran away.

~

“How could you get the wrong guy?!” Laura cried as she shook her head at me. Her arms were in the air, frantically waving as she shook her head in disgust at me. “Agnes! How could you?”

I groaned. Even though I had barely managed to escape, I ran to the only safe place where I knew he would never be: the ladies bathroom. And in the ladies bathroom was where I had found Laura hiding. My own Judas. But before I could even scold her or tell her about the ethics and code of friendship, our break had ended. So now, we were making our way to our next lecture.

“There isn’t a mark, is there?” I asked as I rubbed my sore face.

“How could you – ah, don’t worry there isn’t.” Laura poked my chin.

“That guy… Hey, that hurts!” I slapped Laura’s poking hands away from my sore chin, “Who grabs people’s faces like that? What, does he think I’m that attractive or something?”

Laura scoffed at me, as if that idea of me attracting someone was ridiculous and began poking me in the arm, “I can’t believe you, Agnes! You actually hit the wrong guy! No. No, you actually hit the wrong person! Don’t you know how bad that is? Agnes, not only did you hit the wrong person, you actually hit, hit a person! That’s terrible! Where are your morals?!”

This traitor was asking where my morals were? Really? Huh. I shrugged in pathetic response, because I knew nothing I could do or say would get me out of this one. As long as I’ve known Laura I knew she was strongly for animal rights and little technicalities. She was that type of person that would read every terms and conditions, private policy and frequently asked questions before signing up to anything – even a website. I mean, who does that in this day and age?!

“Do you know who he is? Do you?” Laura looked at me and patiently waited me to shake my head. “Do you, Agnes?”

I sighed. Sometimes Laura was like that mother-in-law I could never please. Might as well go along with it. “No, Laura. I don’t know who he is,” I recited blandly, “Tell me, who was he?”

Shaking her head in utter disbelief at me, Laura threw her arms in the air, “Of all people here, it had to be him! Could it be fate? Could it be a curse? No, it was stupidity!” Laura groaned and massaged the bridge of her nose, “Of all people, it had to be him. It had to be Zahran Lobachevski.”

Wow, what a name.

“It’s not funny, Agnes. Don’t you dare laugh,” Laura frowned at me, “I mean, you of all people shouldn’t laugh. He’s really dangerous. I mean it. I mean, out of all the students, the lecturers, the faculty members, the janitors, out of all the people here at this university – the whole thirty-one thousand, four hundred and fifty-seven of them, you had to hit Zahran! They say his mum is some conspirator and his dad is like, part of the Russian mafia or something!”

“You know,” I stared at Laura, “that’s not really nice…”

“I don’t care!” Laura cried, almost reaching the point of hysteria, “Did you even hear me? How on earth did you get the two mixed up?! Zahran and Jesse look nothing alike!”

Silence was my best response. That was true. I will freely admit that was true, but not to Laura. To my defence, everyone knows that love was blind. And knowing that I would have five hundred dollars in cash must have put me in a blind daze.

I shrugged. “They do say ‘love is blind’…”

“What?!” Laura snapped her head back and looked at me, “Jade was in love with Jesse, not you! Don’t tell me you – ”

“I mean, well, it’s not like he’s going to hunt me down, mysteriously kill me and then sell my organs to the black-market or anything, right?” Laura’s hesitation made me panic a little. My voiced ended up trailing an octave higher, “Right?”

Laura looked at me warily and sighed. “You never know, Agnes. He put seven third years to the hospital in one day only because they called his mum a ‘terrorist’. Another time, he even took on twelve guys by himself because they said something about his brother or something… and he’s freaking Zahran Lobachevski!” Laura paused to take a breath. Wow. She was getting really worked up. “He’s even on academic probation because he’s been suspended so many times!”

Whoa. Who is this guy – some sort of fighting legend? I thought back to the time at the rooftop. I remembered watching him eat his homemade peanut butter and jelly sandwich, casually leaning on the rails watching traffic pass by. “Yes Laura, I believe you. He is so irresistibly dangerous.”

Laura narrowed her eyes, “Don’t you dare laugh, Agnes. This is a serious matter. Out of all the thousands students here, you had to slap Zahran freaking Lobachevski!” By now, Laura was past the point of hysteria.

I shrugged. Though I was highly embarrassed and felt slightly bad that I had targeted the wrong person, there shouldn’t be much drama, should there? I’ll prostrate myself and apologise solemnly before the end of the day. “This isn’t freaking girl politics, Laura. I don’t see why this is a big deal. A little apology and make up is all that’s needed. He’s an adult. It’s not like he’s going to run home, cry to his mummy about this or bitch to his girlfriends, convincing them everyone hates him.”

Laura stared at me. “How typical of you. Do you not know who he is?”

I thought we already established this. “Zah – ”

“Yes, he’s Zahran Lobachevski. But he’s the Zahran Lobachevski.”

“You make him sound like a legend. Like they exist.”

“And you’re not?” Laura shot back.

I shrugged. True, I couldn’t say anything about that. My services have been getting quite the name – a mercenary university student willing to do almost anything for money. Not the most ideal reputation, but still a notable reputation of some sort.

“I heard he’s on academic probation because he got into a fight with other students that even involved a lecturer!”

“Oh, so he’s like, the what?” I wrinkled my nose, “The misunderstood tough guy or something?”

“No, he’s more like the relentless delinquent!”

“Your point is?”

“He’s in the Russian Mafia!” Laura leaned in, lowering her voice, “You know, the ‘you hit me, we hit you… hard’.”

I laughed, though it sounded more in denial than anything before. “That’s just gossip. He didn’t lay a finger on me.”

“Only because you managed to run away first.”

“I’m fine now, aren’t I?”

“He’s probably planning his revenge now.”

“What are you, a conspiracy theorist?”

Laura groaned. “Whatever! You are beyond help. I give up! You don’t have to believe me, but just keep a low profile for now.”

“But I still need to find that Jesse guy.” I whined. “I mean, Jade Mengel is paying my five hundred dollars in cold, hard cash to get that guy.”

“You are hopeless.” Laura shook her head at me, “And Jade Mengel is a slut. Why do you even need the money anyway? What about your business? Isn’t it booming or something? What more do you want?”

“But gaining more profit won’t hurt anyone.”

Laura rolled her eyes. “Agnes, I swear all this,” Laura waved her arms in a frenzied manner gesturing at me, “will bite your ass in the end.”

Feigning shock, I placed a hand over my heart, “I’m hurt, Laura. How could ever imply such mean and hurtful things?”

“I wasn’t implying, I was obviously stating.”

I laughed, “Yeah but – ”

“Hey Mike!”

I froze, mid step. Oh my god. Did I just hear someone shout ‘Mike’? Haha, of course not. I mean, what were the chances of that? I mean, there were over tens of thousands of students here, at this university. That could have been someone else – I mean that could have been that chick with purple hair, for all I know. Convincing myself it wasn’t what I thought it was, I began to walk again. I mean, of course that couldn’t have been –

“Mike! Hey you! Mike Litoris!”

Laura glanced at me. I froze. I couldn’t believe it. Oh my god. Not only did someone finally fell for that name, I could not believe he just called me ‘Mike’. In public. People in the hallway looked around. I heard a few people snicker. Great.

“Fuck,” I heard Zahran cuss, “That little… Hey. Hey, you! No, not you. What are you looking at? Hey!”

I immediately looked to the ground and started to speed walk to class.

“I-I’ll try and distract him,” I heard Laura say, like what a good friend would say.

I would have given her a thankful nod if I weren’t too busy trying to escape.

“Hey Agnes, where are you going?” I heard Zahran called.

I tried to ignore him. I quickly glanced behind me. Crap. I shouldn’t have done that. Now we made eye contact. Or ‘eye sex’ as Laura would call if it two people made eye contact for three or more seconds.

I noticed his brown and sort of green eyes – not blue eyes I mentally noted – widen in recognition from our eye sex. Shit. My head immediately snapped back down and I started to speed walk. Or walk as fast as I could in a hallway, trying to not run in the hallway, since that was dangerous and since we weren’t allowed to run in the hallways – actually no. Forget that crap, my life is in danger! I’m running! I pushed, I shoved, I swam through the sea of pointless amount of people. Move bitch, get out of the way! I’m going to die!

Again, I decided to sneak another glance, to check if I could have maybe lost him in the crowd of – no. He was there still trailing my ass. Crap. Doesn’t he ever give up? Why won’t he stop following me? He couldn’t be holding a grudge, could he?

“Agnes! I know you can hear me, so stop pretending you can’t! Don’t you dare forget about what just happened at the rooftop!”

Yes. Yes he could be holding a petty grudge. And maybe he had the right to. I mean, I did kick his ass for no apparent reason in front of our peers. I thought about what I had done to him. I thought about stopping. I really did. Then I remembered what Laura told me. Maybe not.

So I ran for my dear life, stopping for no one and for nothing.