Chapter 9 - Niiya

When she came out dressed in jeans a checkered t-shirt with her hair tied up in a high pony, she danced her way onto the portico, where she met her grandfather again. He stared hard at her and held his left arm out in front of her, warning her not to take another step. Slowly, she raised her hand to remove his arm, but Ed caught a hold of her hand with his left hand and, turned her around. Before she knew it, she had been pushed out. The force was so strong that it sent her flying out of the portico. Adrianna double flipped in the air, landing gracefully on the ground, and ran to her motorcycle to drive away.

Some good morning!

Ed could have run after his granddaughter and caught her easily, but he ended up laughing at her antics. He had been extremely worried the night before. However, today he was already laughing at her. He shook his head and went inside. He had always wondered how Adrianna could adjust amongst the humans; her heightened sense of smell must be very overbearing, but he admired the fact that she was patient and tenacious.

Adrianna drove her motorcycle through the winding roads that lead to her college. Looking gamine, she loved the fresh air that whizzed past her body; it was refreshing and energetic. While riding her vehicle, she heard someone whispering softly, as if telling her to be aware of the danger that was lurking around her. She stopped and looked around. There was no one, only the deep lush forest from where she heard the owls hoot. The long winding road ahead of her was empty. Thinking it was just her imagination, Adrianna started up her motorcycle's ignition and drove away.

Adrianna only chose the college because it was closest to her grandfather's cottage. The college was a small community college, which catered to the local students. The town was very small, located on the border of the jungle, and had no more than a population of five thousand. The college itself was equipped with state-of-the-art facilities and surrounded by lush vegetation from all sides, and so when Adrianna wanted an escape, she would often enter the jungle and spend her time walking around.

She parked her motorcycle in the parking area, removed her helmet and placed it in the top box attached to it. Circling her key around her finger, she whistled softly as she walked towards her class, unaware of the eyes that were staring her from above from a room with large windows.

She entered the busy hallway that led to her class when her college's dean, Howard, called upon her in a stern voice. "Adrianna!"

She stopped and turned around. "Another round of bickering," she thought to herself.

Howard walked up to her and in a very severe voice scolded her, "If you want to finish your major in biochemistry, you had better regularly attend college. The professors are complaining about you, and I don't like it."

Adrianna knew that no one at the college cared as to who attended the classes or not, but Howard was her grandfather's good friend. In his late forties, he was one of the youngest deans amongst the colleges in the surrounding area. He had made his life's ambition to train and tame Adrianna.

All of the other students who were passing by started snickering at her. They loved it when Adrianna was reprimanded by their dean, so openly at college. Adrianna rolled her eyes and said, "Okay sir."

She turned around , but she instantly fell onto the ground. "What just happened?" Adrianna thought as the students around started laughing at her. Agitated and bewildered, she got up and slowly walked to her class.

Howard stared at the arrogant girl in front of him before rolling his eyes and turning around to go.

These kinds of instances had become very common between Adrianna and Howard, and almost every student at the college knew about it.

Adrianna saunteered towards her classroom that was located at the end of the hallway and quietly sat down somewhere in the far right end corner. Since class hadn't started yet, there were only five other people in the corner, whom she stayed away from. Her friend, Okashi, was majoring in philosophy and her classroom was in a different part of the school altogether, but they had decided to meet in the gardens in front of her classroom after Adrianna's class was over.

Adriana was currently waiting for Niiya, Okashi's twin brother, who was taking the same class as her, so that she could get the notes from him. Niiya was a bright student, only second to Adrianna. The two of them sat together in most of their classes and one could say that Niiya was totally infatuated by her.

For Niiya, she was the one. He was extremely proud of her, and according to him, the best thing about her was her hair. It fell in black ringlets around her fair cheeks, so striking that he would keep staring at them from afar. He would listen to her and get drunk on her words as though they were a strong wine; he loved the tipsy feeling he would get. He looked at her as if the stars surrounded her. He so badly wanted to embrace her in his arms and never let go, but first things first, he had to ask her out on a date whenever he finally garnered enough courage to ask. His nerves were so bad that he shook at just the thought.

Niiya arrived five minutes later and spotted Adrianna as soon as he came. He beamed at her and ran up the steps of the classroom to where she was sitting. Without a word, he took out all of his notes from the past week and handed them to her. With only five minutes left before class started, Adrianna took his notebooks and stashed them in her bag. The next five minutes were spent discussing gossip that happened within the college during the time that she was absent. Slowly, the class started filling up and the professor arrived.