The Alien Academics (MMMM romance)

Chapter 1

Felix

Did you ever wish for something to be the exact opposite of what it actually was?

Like when you went out with a friend, and they wanted a doughnut, so you went to a café. There, your friend asks you, with infinite patience, what kind of doughnut you want. And you tried, you really, truly tried, but you just couldn’t decide because there were way too many options. So you asked them to choose for you, and they came back with, let’s say, a chocolate one.But just as they walked towards you with your doughnut, you realised that wasn’t what you wanted. Suddenly, your brain knew with absolute confidence that what it wanted was a vanilla doughnut.But you can’t bring yourself to say it after insisting that anything was okay. So now you have no choice. You have to eat your chocolate doughnut in silence, reminding yourself that you were luckier than the orphans in Africa who were starving and doughnut-less.

But that quietly dissatisfied voice wouldn’t let you rest. No, it poked and prodded at your desire, and now you were torturing yourself as you stuffed your face with doughnut, knowing it was good—no offence to it—but you wanted something else.

I’ve never had a doughnut in my life.

What was actually bothering me at the moment was the boundlessly exuberant, human-shaped ball of sunshine talking a mile a minute with me.

“—and that’s why I know for a fact that ghosts exist! And not only that, in Colorado, the Stanley Hotel is the—”

I zoned out again, returning to my own thoughts.Ezra Jesse Beckham was my roommate, and I’d met him ten minutes ago when he shoved open our dorm room door and dragged in far more luggage than a student should have. I’d stared in stunned silence as he pulled out another pair of dumbbells, looked around, and placed them on my desk with an apologetic smile.

“—just until I can find another place for them. It’s just that the room is much smaller than I thought, so I guess I gotta send a few things back.” He let out a slightly sheepish laugh. “But enough about that! Isn’t the view from our room dope? I mean—”

And he was back in yapper mode, his voice slightly too rough for my liking.I couldn’t sense any bad intentions from him, and he seemed like a genuinely nice guy, but I wasn’t looking for friends, and especially not human ones.

And so, he was my chocolate doughnut.

My vanilla doughnut would be a completely introverted roommate who had no interest in me and loved spending all his time outside.

When I first arrived here, the woman in charge of assigning rooms had asked whether I wanted to room with someone in my major. I’d politely told her I was fine with anything, mostly because I still wasn’t used to asking for things I wanted.And so, when she told me I was sharing a room with a man called Ezra, I got Zayven to do a bit of research on him, just to make sure he wasn’t an asshole.

Zayven called me back around half an hour later with his entire biography and assured me that Ezra was a perfectly normal guy. But something had sounded slightly off about his voice then, almost uncharacteristically hesitant, and I now understood why.

Ezra Beckham was a talker, an extrovert in the truest sense of the word, and Zayven knew that wouldn’t go well with me.I resisted the urge to call him and throw a fit, primarily because he’d give me a long speech about how I needed more outgoing people in my life than just Aelion, and how Ezra was the key to my social life.

“—I’m sorry, am I rambling too much?” He rubbed the back of his neck, his whitish hair falling into his face. “I talk a lot when I’m nervous, and you seem like the quiet type…”He trailed off uncertainly.I gave him what I hoped was a reassuring smile. “It’s fine. I just don’t talk much.”I pulled my bags closer to me, their proximity giving me a sense of safety. I’d brought my stuff three days ago, but I still hadn’t dared to unpack them. It felt as though, at any second, my father would bust through the pathetically flimsy door and drag me home anyway.

My hands tightened around the bags. I guess I should say something now?“Uhh… okay…” Great Goliath, could I be any more awkward? “So… what degree are you pursuing?” I asked, mostly to keep the conversation going.

This was how normal people talked, right?

Judging by the confused look on his face, I didn’t think so.“...Digital Arts. How about you?” His voice was slightly more subdued now, and though that was what I’d initially wanted, it made me feel slightly uncomfortable.

“Astrophysics,” I replied, unable to hide the pride in my voice.And I’d chosen it all by myself, with no one coercing me into taking something that would benefit them, or being burdened my what was expected of me.Even Zayven hadn’t given me any advice, saying he was happy I was making my own choices. And though Zayven had had to create more than half a dozen documents for me to enrol here, I was going to prove that I was more than worthy of being in these classes.

I mean, I’ve literally traveled the galaxy, and I bet none of my classmates could say the same.

“Oh, damn. You’re one of the smart ones, huh?”His voice wasn’t judgemental, but there was a certain edge to it that I chose to ignore, something a tad bit unsure.

The dorm room was slightly crowded with an overflowing amount of things, but Ezra was doing his best to clear it, so I refrained from commenting. Instead, choosing to stare out the window. Even though I’d been here for a rather long time, I still wasn’t used to it.The world here was pretty, to put it simply. Not in the all-consuming, ethereal way my home planet was, but in a quieter way, with long, stretching fields and large buildings scattered across the landscape.And the colours were slightly muted here, but that only added to the calm, relaxing atmosphere, and I loved it.

The window was closer to my bed, and I’d picked that bed specifically for that reason, even going as far as to arrive here early just so I could stake my claim, as looking out of it gave me a foreign freeing feeling.

Ezra walked out soon after, leaving most of the room a mess. He declared that he had to go make friends with our neighbours, gave me a quick wave before disappearing.

I remained seated on my bed, legs pulled tautly together. My legs ached slightly, and the bed was much harder than I was used to, but I paid it no mind.Though life back on Evon hadn’t been ideal, I could never say I’d lacked anything. Everything I used had always been of the best quality, and my father had made sure that even my friends were nobility. Equipments of inferior grade were a first for me, but for some reason, it gave me weird pleasure to have them in my hands. I grinned to myself as I remembered the first time Aelion sat on a sofa, and almost shrieked from how different it was from his usual feather filled furnitures back home.

Everything was such so overwhelming and new, and deep down, I knew that was the reason I didn’t like Ezra. I didn’t think I could handle another unknown variable in an already sensitive environment. I pushed aside the quiet uncertainty gnawing inside me, my hands instinctively going to the chip at the back of my throat, covered by my hair.

I sighed loudly and let myself fall back onto my pillow.Everything would be fine.I knew Ezra’s type. The outgoing, friendly guys always tried to mingle with everyone, but they would soon give up trying to talk to me, annoyed by my half-hearted replies.

And that was for the best.The brainless type had always exhausted me anyways.