The ORION Project | ✔

chapter 3

Because of the love this book is getting, I've decided to write another chapter just for you guys. Shower this book with the love you've been giving it, leave a comment and tell me what you like about this book so far ;-)

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The Sports Hall was scanty, as expected, it was only the first day of resumption, Grace doubted half of the university's population was present, the first week was never taken serious anyway. Even at that, the sports hall was only crowded on Wednesdays -- the day for the weekly university sports -- and today wasn't an exception. The hall was generally for playing Table Tennis, Taekwondo, Judo and Badminton. It had two badminton courts and an area reserved for Tennis and the martial arts. Only a few students loitered around.

Grace played badminton and on occasion the previous semester, she had joined the school team for a competition outside the state but that wasn't why she was in the sports hall, a few moments after the Tomi debacle, her brother had texted her and asked to meet at the sport hall. He stood, resting against the far left wall, watching two adults play badminton, a girl stood by his side trying to get him to listen to whatever he was saying.

Sanmi had yet to notice her and Grace took a moment to observe him, he was dressed casually in jeans that were slightly ripped at the knees and a black muscle top, Grace wondered how he managed to get past the university's fashion police this morning, they would have taken one look at him and denied him access into the school, his dandelion tattoo was exposed too. It was like he was begging to be seen.

He dangled his school ID card from one hand and a plastic bottle of Coca-Cola soda from the other, it was half full. Grace eyed it with suspicion, she wasn't sure if the contents in the bottle was purely soda.

Her brother was handsome, and as fair as their mother, almost fair to the point of being confused as white, he had a thick mane of curly hair that he took painstaking effort to style weekly, he was that obsessed with how he looked like. The only flaw in his masculine beauty was his crooked nose, he had broken it in a fight when he was a child, trying to defend her. It was why she could never be indifferent towards him like she was with Ewatomi, she and her sister had always been distant but Sanmi had always had her back despite being a fuck up. He still had her back and maybe it was why she continued to clean up his mess because she felt she owed him.

The girl besides him tugged at his hand in a bid for attention and Grace wondered if she was his new flavour of the week or rather, fuck buddy. Sanmi didn't have girlfriends, he changed them like the watches on his wrists. The worst part was that the girls knew what they were getting into, but they all wanted a taste of the forbidden, and he was all too happy to oblige.

Grace made her way to him, avoiding stepping into the boundaries of the badminton court before the two men playing attacked her with their rackets. Sanmi, seeing her, whispered something to the girl besides him making her stomp her foot before moving to sit on the bleachers. As she drew closer to her brother, she noticed the redness of his eyes and she knew he was high, or coming down from a high. Disappointment hit her unexpectedly, he had swore to her just weeks ago that he was clean and was never going back.

"You asked for me," Grace said, almost harshly. She was suddenly tired, tired of cleaning her family's messes. Sanmi had most likely gotten into more problems. She could barely keep her lip from lifting up in disgust, Sanmi reeked of alcohol.

Sanmi bobbed his head in answer, momentarily distracted by the sudden shout of one if the men playing badminton.

"I need a favour." He said, his voice used to be comforting, back when he was actually the big brother he was supposed to be. Now, it made her mad.