₦airaland Forum

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"Mom, it's okay. Everything's fine. We are all good. We're ad-grown and can take care of ourselves," Ade said to her Mom.

Mrs Omowunmi chuckled in return, clucked her tongue and shook her head. She brushed her daughter's comment aside and breezed around the airy room bent on her inspection.

Maeve and Ade indistinctly got familiarized, subconsciously and physically drawing to each other. Like the pull of magnets' like ends. Ife was out of the 'unregistered' cult, and Ade's little sister began her own tour of the room - detaching from her big sister, in tentative steps, her neck spinning round and around, left, right, raised high in awe, at delicate objects in the room. Love seats and a sofa, chest of drawers.

The young girl had an impressionable mind, her path in life seeming to be tailored after Ade's, but not exactly in the dancing world. Ayoola was out of touch with her directions and didn't regain senses 'till she climbed over a mound, followed by a deep hiss and she was sent tumbling backwards, almost falling on her butt.

"Sorrr–" she cried in realization of stepping onto someone's foot in a shaky voice and snapped her head up. Her look was met with the depthfully, soulless - red-rimmed - eyes of Ife, piercing to her soul. She recoiled like a snail to its shell, sticking to her Mom's leg once again.

Hideous you.

How great.

Ifelayo's mental chords strung.

Many minutes later, after the welcomes and being acclimated to Ade's new living quarters, her friends—including the oddly independent one, and much series of pep talks, counsels of "remembering the home you came from" and such, Mrs Omowunmi left. Bearing heavy hearts. And superficial energies of two growing teenagers. Nevermind Ife's, as she's eternally never having - bereft externally and internally.

The girls stood aimless, rigid for a while. Mind going through a mechanical blockage, and restarting to pushing out fresh energies and desires.

Adunade turned to Maeve, fist jacked in a jacket's pocket. "We have classes? I guess?"

"Yeah," Meave replied her, her enthusiasm flickering. She gestured her fleshy arms to the back of the room where she'd constructed a makeshift vanity. Make-up tools and products, fragrance boxes littered her space. "I was just getting ready."

"Oh. . .cool." Ade blinked, shocked a bit and back to being composed at the flashy diva persona. She wondered if Maeve was on scholarship. She tucked the train of thought away, and said, "Let me get my books." She spotted her bed in an instant, the one next to Maeve's. And it was totally not because of her new roomie was she choosing it. The bed had a white pillow with a red heart embroidery. The sheets were red, too, and dazzled with minuscule greenery designs. A love and emotions person she was, who will choose brightness over grey any day. She adored things giving lively vibes off. Settling in will be for the evening, she thought, as she'd enrolled late, having just enough time to prepare her papers and belongings, cut of pre-existing ties, and burn things that needed to. Yes, for all her sensitivity and affinity for glowing ambience, she shied away from relationship issues and acknowledging them was rather difficult. But, no one knew that. Not that anyone needed to, since they all perceived her to be logical, capable, and motivating which'll make a great other half, sometimes. It's all good that way, and she liked it.

Ife had slipped out before the latter duo, circumventing Rosenberg's plan to get them trio to wearing matching outfits. Because why not? Mae lived for groups and thrived in gatherings, and anything to dominate whatever social circle she found herself in was approved. She cautioned her wildness occasionally to be overt not too much, lest her cover burst.

She and Adunade were side by side already in the constricted hallways of Pearly Heights students' dorms. They all clashed and bumped into other enrollees, from different walks of life, swarming like locusts, and dripping out from thousand doors consecutively in the sixteen-storey building.

It was a small continent.

The biggest arts school in Lagos State, and among the top five in Africa.

The music students, especially, unabashedly but unintentionally hit their instruments on faces, causing paint brushes, spiral bound notepads and gadgets to tumble down, somersaulting on banisters at each floor. The acting students experienced no easier, too, hefting and dragging along suitcases of costume.

But they were all very happy. Each Pearl Heighter specialized in a talent department. Their veins ticked and chests rumbled, multiplied by the city feels. It's exhaust, fuel, stress, traffic. Shining lights and bustles. It was the heartbeat of any metropolitan and cosmopolite town. The adrenaline, ever supplied, do not wear them out but did the opposite instead. It was an addiction, that intensified negative effects the more- commuting between sky-rising blocks with sixty-plus panes arranged steeply and in steps, reflecting the panorama, sun and imposing structures across the highway.