Chapter one - Jenny

"Look Jeniliya, nobody gets top marks on all their assignments." Michael Carpenter, my Employment Law lecturer, gives me a patronising smile which he pretends is sympathetic, but I can see he doesn't care. He just wants me out of here so he can go home.

Admittedly it is late, but this is the only time slot he had available and I really need to figure this out now.

"I do." I can hear the desperation in my voice, but he just sighs heavily, pushing himself out of his chair and walking to his door, his arms gesturing for me to leave. I can't leave now, I haven't settled this satisfactorily so I stay put, swiveling in my chair to face him. "What can I do? Can I try again?"

"There's no need to do it again. Fifty-eight is a pass, most of the other students would be pleased with that." He presses down on the handle and the door opens, highlighting the silent corridors because no one else would still be in any of the rooms at eight o'clock in the evening. "Go home, go out, whatever you do to relax, do that."

"Mr Carpenter…" I stand up so I'm eye level with him, holding my assignment up to show him the big red 58 written on the paper, as though he wasn't the one to put it there. "In my entire life, I have accepted nothing less than ninety-five percent and even that was difficult to stomach. I need to redo it, please?"

"I'm sorry Jeniliya no. Think of this as a learning curve. None of us are perfect, we have to accept the way things are sometimes." I open my mouth to reply and he holds up his hand to stop me. "I understand what you are used to and you are an incredibly bright girl, but you are going to make yourself ill if you constantly stress over what is actually a perfectly acceptable grade. Now, enjoy the weekend and do not, under any circumstances, rewrite the assignment, because I won't read it and it'll just be a waste of your time."

"But…"

"If you are still unhappy about your grade after the end of module exam, we will revisit this conversation, but not before." He gestures out of the door, then, obviously seeing I have no intention of going anywhere, he grabs his bag and walks out, calling "goodnight, Jeniliya" over his shoulder as he strides speedily down the corridor.

And with that, I'm all alone.

Well shit! What do I do now?

I glance at the clock on the wall and curse, a side effect of my new housemates. My father would be furious if he heard the recent additions to my vocabulary.

Sliding my assignment into my bag, I hurry towards the stairs, hoping Priya won't be too upset that I'm late. She's been on about us having a sister night for ages because we were always close growing up, but, since moving into a house with a dozen other people, it feels like we never have time to just be together, so she suggested we have a late dinner tonight at this little pub near campus that she and Danny love. I was meant to meet her about fifteen minutes ago but I didn't realise Mr Carpenter would be so difficult.

Grinding to a halt, I stare out at the pitch black tarmac in front of me, the rain is so hard it is literally bouncing back up towards the sky. 

Luke has this annoying habit of singing good morning to us all when he takes Cleo to her swimming training at the crack of dawn, so after practicing my speech for Mr Carpenter into the early hours, I stuck ear plugs in to hopefully sleep through it and inadvertently slept through my alarm, meaning I didn't check the weather forecast before rushing from the house when it was bright and clear, so I don't have so much as a jacket on me to try to save me from being thoroughly drenched.

Like I said, today has not been a great day!

"Shit, shit, shittity, shit." I mutter, dancing from foot to foot as I contemplate calling a taxi for the short ten minute journey and being even later to meet Priya or taking the short cut across the lawn, which should only take me a few minutes if I run fast enough. "Oh fucking, fuck it."

Decision made, I hold my bag across my chest and run like the devil is chasing me. 

The rain pouring down on me is somehow cathartic and I squeal and giggle as it feels like the icey water bypasses my clothing to land on my skin. 

I barely slow down before barreling through the door and realising everyone is staring at me, but, like the confident, independent woman I pretend to be, I, literally, shake my hair back off my face and meander through the place in search of my twin.

Surprisingly, she's not arrived yet and when I order a drink from the bar, the girl behind it, who doesn't try to hide her amusement at my drowned rat appearance, informs me that the kitchen will be closing in the next ten minutes if I plan to order food.

With a quick perusal of the menu, I order two Hawaiian burgers with chips and carry my drink to a table to wait, quickly sending a text to Priya to tell her where I am.

Once comfortable at a table, and after a large sip of my wine, I finally take a breath and really look at the place.

It's busy, so busy in fact that I'm surprised I managed to get a table, but it doesn't take long to realise that the majority of the people here are students who have come to see the bands that are playing at the opposite end of the pub, leaving the seating area free for me and a few other students that look like they're equally as stressed out as me.

The band that suddenly starts up next is loud, loud enough for the girl two tables across from me to jolt her hand across her paper and then scowl in their direction before roughly tearing the paper from the pad and scrunching it up on the table.

I feel her pain, even with the assignment in my bag, it feels like the red 58 scrawled across it is burning its way out of the bag to taunt me and the brief reprieve I had when the rain was soaking me, is gone, my stress levels higher than ever.

My hand lands on my phone. I know he's at home studying but I really need to talk to Dane before Priya gets here, he'll find a way of making me feel better about it.

Except, the phone just rings off to answerphone and I'm left even more irrationally irritated that I can't even depend on my boyfriend when I'm in the middle of a crisis.

I'm aware I'm being overdramatic, but I work so hard to get good grades. I'm the smart one, that's what's expected of me, I can't let my family down when they're all so proud.

My phone dings and for a second my heart leaps, thinking maybe Dane is calling back, but my hopes are dashed when my sister's name appears.

Priya: Oh Jen, I'm so sorry, I completely forgot we were meeting. Come home, we're having a party. Kia has got Ethan and Alex singing Cheeky Girls, it's hilarious, look…

Attached is a video of two of my housemates singing "touch my bum" while sticking their bums out and practically twerking in the corner of our living room. My sister's laughter is almost completely drowned out by Danny's and I know exactly how she forgot about me.

There we have it, the last in a long line of crappy things to happen to me today - being ditched by my sister for her boyfriend.

I decide to ask the girl behind the bar to make my burgers a takeaway and get a taxi home, sit in my room, sulking and gorging on fried food.

She seems busy at the moment, there's a lull in the music and what seems like the entire pub has descended on the bar for drinks, so instead, I swipe Priya's text away, send one to Dane asking him to call because I've had a shit day and need to talk, then bring up my phone and start watching a murder documentary while I wait for the bar to clear or my food to arrive.

"Hi there gorgeous, is anyone sitting here? Only the place is packed." A guy who looks to be in his early twenties smiles down at me, two drinks in his hands and a hopeful look in his eye. 

I don't get chatted up very often as usually I'm in a big group of friends, but today is not the day to appreciate this sort of thing and I barely manage to hold in my groan of irritation.

"I'm not going to be here long, I've been stood up." I mutter, turning back to my phone and hoping he'll get the hint that I want him to go away.

"Oh, I'm sorry, your date's clearly an idiot. Wait for him to grovel and then block his number." Without waiting for an invitation that isn't coming, he slides into the seat beside mine, placing both drinks on the table, one nearer to me than him and facing me like he's got no intention of leaving me alone.

"Yes, well, unfortunately my 'date' is harder to shake off than that. It's my sister." I pause the show on my phone and flash it in his direction so he sees the title. "I'm quietly researching how to get away with Sororicide before I go home."

"Interesting…" He slides his chair closer and lowers his voice as though he's pretending to conspire with me. "So you'll be needing an alibi then?"

"Not necessarily." I point at my phone and shake my head. "If I get it just right, I can make it look like either self defence or an accident." 

"But you've already confessed your plan to me, how do you know I won't tell?" His smile gets a little wider and if I wasn't in such a bad mood I'd admit to this being quite an entertaining conversation.

"You're a complete stranger who doesn't know who I am, nor my sister. This is not my first time plotting someone's murder you know." I grin evilly and the guy actually does look a little nervous now, like he might possibly have chosen to sit with a serial killer and he makes a sort of nervous hum noise. "Ok, yeah that did sound ominous, sorry. I actually haven't killed anyone, but I plan it out regularly for one of my housemates who I should never have moved in with."

"What does she do that's so bad?"

"What doesn't he do?" I put my phone down and look at the stranger, swirling my hands in front of me to warn of an impending offloading of problems that aren't actually that big a deal to any normal person but I don't feel like a normal person today. I feel like a histrionic, overdramatic nutcase who is having the day from hell. "Seriously, run away now, the rant is building. I promise I'm not a psychopathic killer, I won't actually murder my sister. I really do love her. I'm just having a bad day."

"Me too actually. Go ahead, rant away and distract me from my own troubles." A waitress appears and slides the two burgers onto our table, one in front of each of us and tells us to enjoy, hurrying back to help the girl behind the bar before I get a chance to ask her to make them a takeaway. The guy shrugs, picking up the fork and stabbing one of the chips meant for Priya. "Do you mind? I'm starving and it'd be a shame to waste this. I'll pay for it, don't worry. You were telling me about your bad day."

"Ok, well, I did give you an escape option, don't blame me when I ruin your night…"

My rant at my tablemate does make me feel a lot better, he makes all the right noises and facial expressions even though if the positions were reversed I'd be trying to escape the crazy person with verbal diarrhoea. By the time I'm finished and he's telling me about his hectic day unsuccessfully trying to find a birthday present for a sister who has everything, needs to know what he's getting her but still somehow wants to be surprised, we've finished the food and all four drinks on the table.

I drank the two I bought for me and Priya, suggesting he drink the two he brought to the table, because while I'm unexpectedly enjoying talking to this stranger, I'm not an idiot who is going to risk being drugged while all alone.

"Hey, Rufio, we're out. Got some girls, we'll save you a couple at the hotel if you strike out with this one." A tall dark haired guy ruffles my stranger friend's hair and winks at me, striding off cackling to himself to join a few other guys walking out with girls clinging to them like limpets.

"I… shit… my friend sucks." He shakes his head, watching them go and blowing out a breath. "I'm sorry about him, he thinks he's funny but he's a dick. I'm not actually friends with them. I don't know them at all. I should have gone with that, shouldn't I? Ignorance."

"Yeah, not when they call you by name." I grin at him, finishing up my drink. "And I actually have a boyfriend, so if you're looking for anything more than burger and crazy rants, I'm not your girl, sorry."

"Rufio is not my name." He puts his hand on mine when I reach for my phone. "And I'm not looking to take you back to a hotel. I wouldn't be adverse to it… but I was actually enjoying sitting here with you. And eating your sisters burger, that was a good burger."

"Ok, not-Rufio, what's your real name and why did he call you Rufio?" My mood lifted, I decide it'll be ok to engage in some harmless flirting now we both know where it won't be leading.

"Kenji, Ken to my better friends and no way, I don't know you well enough to tell you the embarrassing story of why he called me Rufio." He crosses his arms over his chest and shakes his head, his lips twitching as though he's trying not to smile. 

"Oh go on, it'll make up for my shit day, especially if it's a funny story." I shift closer to him and his smile finally slips out a little.

"Ok, but on two conditions, you come shopping with me tomorrow to help me pick a present for my lovable but annoying sister and two, you stay and have a couple more drinks with me, maybe dance to the bands, anything you want, so long as I don't have to go to the hotel and have some random girls thrown at me by my so-called friends." I don't know what comes over me, but I find myself agreeing to his conditions, eager to find out the story behind the name. "Ok, good, I'll get drinks first, what do you want?"

I watch him go and order at the bar, wondering if I should have gone too so he doesn't have time to drop anything in my drink but I see him pointing back to the table and that's when I notice the eye of pretty much every girl in the vicinity turn my way.

Ok, weird?!

"She'll bring them over." He says, sliding back into his seat and again I notice the girl's around us hovering close by as if waiting to pounce. "So… what did you think of the band's so far?"

"Not my sort of thing and don't avoid the subject, you promised me a Rufio story." I cock my eyebrow at him and he chews his bottom lip, lowering his voice and shifting close enough to me that he can't be overheard, which tells me he must be aware of our audience.

"Ok, but it's not a big deal really, when I was a stupid kid, I fancied this girl and I overheard her saying how she thought I looked a bit like Rufio from the film Hook, you know the one? Well, like him, but not as hot without the hair and clothes." His face scrunches up at the memory and I can already predict what he's about to say. "Yeah, so I may have got my friends, that idiot you just saw included, to help me dye my hair with streaks of red to try to impress her. I bought the whole outfit too and was all set to go meet her at the park but my mum refused to let me out of the house, she told me not to go anywhere while she went to buy black hair dye to fix what I'd done to myself. I should have listened to her."

"Oh no." I giggle and he winces. "What did you do?"

"I got dressed up and road my bike to the park, my friends were already waiting. They thought my hair looked cool but they didn't know about the clothes." I slap my hands over my mouth, imagining the humiliation as though I'm feeling it myself. "Yeah, so the girl apparently didn't fancy Rufio as much in real life because she laughed in my face. A lot. She did not want to go out with me and her friends took pictures to show the rest of the school. Everyone called me Rufio after that, even with my hair back to normal. It was awful."

"Oh no, you poor thing." I really try not to laugh, but I fail miserably. "I'm so sorry."

"Yeah, you look it." He rolls his eyes but smiles, thanking the bar girl when she delivers the drinks and pushing mine towards me. I also notice the bar girl moving towards a group of girls particularly close to us and after speaking to them, they walk away to the other side of the room. I'm about to ask him about it, when he sits back and points his finger at me. "You owe me a few dances for enjoying my humiliation."

"Ok, ok. One dance and then I need to get home before my sister remembers that she forgot about me again." I grab my drink and strand up, hooking my bag over my shoulder.

"No way, you can't dance with that." He laughs, grabbing the strap and lifting it from my shoulder.

"I can't leave it here. It might get stolen." I hold the strap and we stand there, both of us holding the strap of my bag and facing off.

"Heidi'll look after it behind the bar." He gently tugs it from my hand and hurries over to the bar, passing it over as though it's normal to get the staff to look after your stuff, hurrying back he offers me his hand and drags me to the dance floor, where the bands have stopped but similar music is blasting through the speakers loudly enough to cause vibrations in the floor.

We dance and it's not like dancing with a stranger, he does silly faces and moves, making me laugh and it's only when there aren't that many people around us anymore that I realise we've danced for most of the night.

"Oh god, I need to go home." I tap his arm and he nods, putting his hand on my back and guiding me back to the bar to get my things.

Instead of waiting for "Heidi", he steps behind the bar and grabs it, slipping it over his shoulder as we head to the door.

"You didn't drive, right?" He asks me suddenly and I shake my head.

"No, I ran. Through lighter rain than that." I point to the rainstorm that's going on outside, all that's missing is the thunder and lightning, but still, the cold is enough to make me take a few steps back inside and shiver. "I'm going to ring a taxi."

"I can take you back. Here." He slips off his jacket and offers it to me, grabbing his phone and speaking to someone quickly. "They'll be two minutes."

"Uh… there's no need, honestly. I don't live far away." As I'm saying this, I pull his jacket around me because it is freezing out here.

"It's late and my car's around the corner, look, there it is." He points to a black car driving towards us and tugs me towards it as soon as it pulls up. "What's your address?"

He relays my address to the driver and the car starts moving away in the direction of my house.

"So, tomorrow, do you want me to pick you up or meet me somewhere?" He asks as I pull off his jacket and hand it to him.

"What?"

"Shopping. For my sister." He chucks the wet jacket onto the seat, his eyes flicking all over me and for the first time, I feel a little exposed under his gaze. "I tell you what, here, I'll give you my number and you let me know when you wake up. I can take you for lunch as a thank you too."

"Uh… ok." I unlock my phone with my thumb, passing it to him and he enters his number, pressing the button to call his phone just as we pull up outside my house. "Great, so I'll see you tomorrow then." 

Climbing out of the car, he waits until I sprint to the door and my phone dings with a message before the car's even driven out of sight.

Kenji: Awkward and embarrassing moment but… what's your name? I can't believe I didn't ask. X

Jenny: Jeniliya. Friends called me Jenny. 

Kenji: Well, if that's not unmei, I'm not sure what is!

Jenny: Unmei?

I make my way up to my bedroom, past happy dancing people and briefly stopping to tell Priya I'm home and going to get changed, with no intention of coming back downstairs.

Kenji: Fate, destiny, like we were meant to meet - Jenny and Kenny, Jen and Ken, murderer and alibi ;) X

Jenny: stressed out student and Rufio?

Kenji: Princess Jasmine and Aladdin? X

Jenny: There's no way you're as cute as Aladdin! :D

Kenji: How rude!! Rufio is way better than Aladdin anyway! :P X

I screenshot a picture of Rufio, then Aladdin, then on a whim Chen from the new Mulan film and send them all to him.

Jenny: Chen is the hottest ;P

Kenji: Oh really?? Because that's actually me you know ;) xx

Jenny: Yeah right and I'm the real Princess Jasmine x

Kenji: I'll show you a whole new world then Princess ;) xx 

Jenny: Go show your "new world" to one of the girls your friends are saving for you! x

My phone starts ringing and Kenji's name is flashing on the screen, I debate for a millisecond not answering but my thumb has already hit answer.

"Princess, you've got a very dirty mind. I was just talking about the shopping centre tomorrow, but if that's what you want…" Kenji's teasing voice filters through the phone and I gasp, giggling and looking around at the empty bedroom as though someone might hear me.

"Stop, no, go away. I think I've drunk too much. I'll see you tomorrow." I squeal, hiding under my quilt as though that can save me from the embarrassment of it all.

"Ok, I'll see you tomorrow. Goodnight Princess." My stomach does a little flip at his voice and after whispering my own goodnight, I hang up and stare at the phone in horror.

What have I done? I've got a boyfriend and I've spent the night laughing, flirting and dancing with another guy. One who has my number and who I've continued flirting with, made plans with tomorrow and just had tummy flips for. Not even Dane makes my tummy flip. 

I'm a horrible person! 

Rereading the messages I convince myself that I've led him on and plan to put it right tomorrow, because I can't cancel on him after promising to help him.

Yeah, that's the reason!?

Part of me knows that I've enjoyed this evening and wants to see him again, but I really don't want to be that person.

Maybe I'm just missing Dane, it's hard not seeing each other regularly.

I dial his number, figuring he'll be in bed, but hopefully not asleep yet, but once again, my call goes to his answerphone and I send him a text telling him I miss him, before putting my phone on charge, getting into my pajamas and climbing into bed with my earphones in. Falling asleep quickly and realising only on the brink of sleep, that from the moment Kenji sat down at my table, I hadn't even thought about my failure of an assignment.

Picking up my phone, I reread the texts and decide it's just friendly banter, similar to the way Luke and Billy are with me and neither Cleo nor Elsie seem to mind that. He's just another flirty guy, but it's nothing serious.