...
You're annoying. You're annoying when you touch your hair every time it tickles your forehead. You're annoying when you smile at random kids in restaurants. You're annoyingly nice all the time.

Did I mention that I hate you?
...

The next morning, Malika stepped into the classroom to be greeted with haughty faces and stone cold eyes of Umaira and the girls.

The night before, right after she left Imran and his friends without a proper goodbye, she had a raging fight with her boyfriend over the phone. He was furious over her measly crush over Aryan Malik  years ago. She told him to get over it. Then he started the name callings.

She simply hung up the phone on his face. Malika might have tolerated this when she was younger, but she no longer had the patience for this kind of behavior.

Malika found Umaira and the girls already in their designated seats. The girls had fixed seats for every class since the beginning of the year, and no one was allowed to question it. Since Malika started dating Imran, she got a seat with the popular girls as well, but this morning it was occupied by Natasha's Chanel tote.

Malika resisted the urge to roll her eyes. There has been a subtle power struggle between her and the girls since day one. Umaira constantly competed over petty things. But this was silly, even compared to her standards.

The girl's gazes followed her as her Manolos clicked across the classroom floor. Malika halted briefly in front of them.

"Sorry, seat's occupied," Safiya snorted under her breath.

"That's what you get for breaking the girl code," Natasha hissed.

Malika snorted and continued to make her way to the back of the class. After her fight with Imran, she had no more patience left to deal with this petty drama. It wasn't like she was dying to sit with them anyways. The popular kids were where Malika was at, she decided.

Malika made sure to lean down next to Natasha on the way and put her lips close to the girl's ear. "The bag looks like it belongs in my grandmother's closet," Malika slipped under her breath as she walked past them.

Natasha's jaw dropped as she whipped her head up. "That's Chanel!" she cried. "You can't insult Chanel. It's a classic!"

Malika knew the comment would come to bite her in the rear later, but the mortification that colored Natasha's face was worth it. She simply took her seat at the backbench with a smug smile attached to her lips. Natasha was right, the purse was a classic, but the bearer of it possessed no class; and accessories could only mask so much.

Malika spent the rest of her day away from the crowd. As much as she enjoyed giving Umaira and the girls a taste of their own medicine, she knew the girls could be vengeful. So for the sake of her own safety, Malika kept her head down, ate lunch on the bleachers, and spent her free periods on the hollow space behind the bleachers.

Since last year, Malika had been using this space as her hiding spot. She always got attention, since she was a kid.

"You look like a young Aishwarya Rai," people always told her.

She became aware of good and stares even before she entered her teens. It was such a constant in her life that she just learned to live with both. However, these days, the attention was starting to suffocate her. She sometimes wondered what it would be like to live in the shadows.

Malika's eyes landed on the dark-haired boy. This time, however, she was using this spot to scrutinize him more than she was hiding herself.

The boys were practicing for football. The clouds overhead threatened a storm. As Imran stood by the goal post with furrowed brows and hands on his waist, Malika's gaze glazed right over her boyfriend to find Ibrahim Ahmad.

He was on the sidelines, shaving just joined the team. He had his gaze locked on the field, squinting his already small eyes. Ibrahim looked a lot like Dahlia, having the same eyes, nose and lips. He also had very dark hair with the end of the strands slightly coiling up in soft curls. His features worked nicely, but nothing out of the ordinary. Only his broad shoulders and overwhelming height stood him out.

As Malika deduced previously, on a regular day in a sea of crowd she would have never paid him attention twice. But as she kept watching him she couldn't tear her gaze away from him.

There was something about him, in the way he carried himself. Ibrahim Ahmad had also already wedged his place between Zakariya Azad and Aryan Malik. Zakariya was the serious studious type. Aryan was a troublemaker.

Social status was everything to her. Perhaps that was an exaggeration, but it was pretty important. Your friends define you and your worth in society, she had believed that for all her life.

However, such rules didn't seem to apply on Ibrahim. Half of the boys he hung out with seemed nothing like him. She could see him being friends with Zakariya, but his relationship with Aryan made no sense to her. Aryan Malik almost treated him like an equal. And Aryan never did that.

During lunch one day, Malika heard Zakariya tell Farrah, "Well, we're the tallest boys in our Pure Math class, that's how he met."

To which Ibrahim retorted, "Well, I'm the tallest boy, he comes a close second."

Malika could also tell he had a sense of humor.

A couple days ago, she caught Aryan Malik checking out a girl in the hallway. Ibrahim caught him and narrowed his eyes, "you're supposed to lower your gaze," he said playfully.

To which Aryan Malik rolled his eyes. "I'm supposed to do a lot of things that I'd rather not do."

"He's the religious type," Malika heard a girl whisper in the female washroom once.

On top of that, Shahriar 'Shorty' Kabir could often be seen lurking around Ibrahim. Shorty was a non-certified but very legit creep. The rude nickname, Shorty, that was coined when they were in the fifth class, due to his lack in height, did very little to dampen his confidence. Shahriar had asked out half of the female population of the school despite being shorter than almost all of them.

"Don't you find it weird?" Malika asked Layla and Farrah one day. "That this odd mix of boys constantly hangs out together with him?"

"I think they all are friends with him because he treats everyone with respect." Farrah told her. "Ibrahim's actually really nice."

Nice, that wasn't a word anyone would use to describe Malika. She was a lot of good things but she wasn't nice; and she didn't believe being nice could get you anywhere in this world.

Then again, Ibrahim Ahmad managed to win hearts by being nice. And his social circle did little to tarnish that reputation.

Whether he was genuinely a good guy or he was just a people-pleasing pretentious prick; Malika had yet to decide.

Malika spent the majority of her day lurking in the shadows. It was in the last period when she joined her friends and walked together with them towards their respective classes.

"So, why did you guys change schools?" Malika heard Farrah ask Dahlia.

Dahlia Ahmad was a new inclusion to their posse. The petite girl was in twelfth year like them and had been around for barely a few months, but like her brother, she had already made her mark in their group.

Malika didn't really know what to think of her. Dahlia dressed like a hobo at least four days a week, but once in a while showed up donned in the lastest scarf from Vela, proving that she wasn't obsolete - just lazy.

Dahlia was also too reserved around strangers, slightly awkward and a complete weirdo. She wasn't exactly making a lot of friends, unlike her brother.

But in their first week of classes, Junayed Hassan was harassing Layla. He had been constantly hankering her for her number and making inappropriate comments about her rear, when Dahlia turned around in her seat and gave the boy a look filled with so much disgust that he physically cringed.

Dahlia had been eating lunch with them and walking to classes together ever since - no questions asked by her friends.

Dahlia roamed her eyes around the crowd, as all three girls had their attention on her. "We had to change houses and our parents were thinking of shifting us to York for quiet a while since it has a more reputable academic program," she finally replied to Farrah's question. "Decided to do both at the same time since commute would be easier this way."

"Your cousin's here too, no?" Layla drawled, speaking for the first time that morning. At that, Malika's ear perked up.

"Yeah, but he's not just my cousin," she said, her lips curling up in a smile, "he was breastfed by my mother when he was an infant so he is technically my foster brother."

"Foster brother?" Malika asked, narrowing her eyes quizzically.

The petite girl raised her brows with surprise. Despite hanging out together a few times, the two barely conversed directly. They were just too different, Malika decided. She was just the girl who was friends with her friends. That was the extent of it.

Dahlia looked a little abashed to be conversing with someone she wasn't as close to. "Yeah, it's a thing," she responded.

"Interesting."

"So, where are the witches?" Farrah asked, prying her eyes away from Dahlia and landing them on her.

"Don't call Umaira and the girls that," Malika chided, already familiar to the old nickname. Though the girls deserved every bit of it, a part of her still felt loyal enough to stick up for them.

"Then ask your bffs to stop acting like it," Layla quipped, rolling her eyes.

"They're not my friend," Malika said in a flat voice.

"Why do you hang out with them then?"

Malika let out a tired sigh. "It's complicated, you kno-"

At that moment, pair of soft hands wrapped around Malika's head and covered her eyes, catching her by surprise. She stopped mid sentence and let out a loud gasp.

"Guess who?" a familiar voice whispered in her left ear.

Malika let out a breath of relief. "Imran," she heard Farrah's dismal voice hiss, her tone laced with a venom only he elicited from her.

He dropped his hands and placed them on Malika's shoulders, enabling her to see again. He looked at Farrah with his brows furrowed.

"You spoiled the fun," he complained. "I wanted Malika to guess."

"Oh, right," Farrah snorted. "Because your girlfriend of four years wouldn't have been able to recognize your voice."

Layla let out a loud laugh at her words. She quickly clamped a hand over her lips to smother it.

Imran shot them a pissed-off glance, like he usually did at her friends' less-than-friendly attitudes. He grabbed Malika by the wrist and pulled her after him without another word.

"Hey!" she cried.

He started walking before she was able to speak.

Malika almost staggered forward, unable to keep up with his sudden movements in her high heels. They got out of the room, crossed the hallway, and passed the classrooms. Soon, she caught up with his rhythm and took straining steps to match his larger footsteps.

"Slow down," Malika hissed to him.

She tried to wriggle her wrist out of his grasp and his fist tightened in a death grip. Malika gave up and followed him silently.

They went out the door of the building and kept walking until they reached the pitch. Imran halted just in front of the bleachers and let go of her hand.

Malika wrapped her hand around herself, throwing him a heated look. His eyes were on the green field, the look in them unreadable.

Feeling her gaze, Imran turned to look at her, a grin on his lips.

"Hey," he said with a coy smile.

The anger in Malika's chest intensified. She folded her arms over her body. "You have some nerve to do this," she spewed with vexation.

She dropped her hands and looked away from him, jaw still taut.

Imran let out a sigh. "I'm sorry, okay? I shouldn't have used the words I did last night."

"You shouldn't have used them on me ever," Malika said through gritted teeth.

"You're right," he admitted. "I said I'm sorry. It won't happen again," he insisted. "There's something I want to tell you."

Malika stayed quiet, still refusing to look at him.

He held her hand again and prompted her to sit on the bleachers. She complied without resistance.

"Coach called a private meeting tomorrow," he said. "I have an inkling I know what it's about. He didn't say it, but I think I'm going to be captain this year." His grin widened.

Malika barely batted an eyelash, the look of indignation still on her face.

"Oh, c'mon," he cried good-naturedly. "You know how long I have been waiting for this." Imran looked back at the field, an affectionate expression on his face. "I have worked so hard for this." His lips quirked up in a smile, the first genuine smile Malika had seen on him in years.

The afternoon sun was battering down on them, casting a golden glow over the duo. Imran's tousled hair was a light brown under it, and the edges of his face softened by the light.

He looked younger. It reminded Malika of when they first started dating and he used to bring her to the bleachers. They would spend hours discussing their future.

"We're celebrating next week. I and the rest of the gang. I want you there, baby." He touched a lock of her highlighted hair and tossed it over her shoulder to get a good look at her face.

The iciness around Malika's eyes melted and she meekly nodded as a reply. His soft fingers slipped in between hers, and for the moment, Malika let them stay there.