Perfectly Imperfect [Neel X Malang] Campus Beats

Chapter 1

"You got to be fucking kidding me..." Neel breathes letting the basketball bat hang by his side. The crowd parts as he trudges forward dragging the butt of the bat against the concrete. It grates noisily against the floor, ominous and foreboding. He can feel the gawking, terrified eyes trained on him to the sound of their bated breath through the buzz of adrenalin pumping in his ears; it makes him feel almost giddy.

Good. They should know their place. Beneath Ruthless, underneath the sole of their boots.

"So it was you?"

This bloody BG.

"I already told you that it was me, so you can put an end to this harassing and let them go." She eyes him back defiantly. Neel finds himself laughing.

"Harassing, she says," he drags his eyes up her yellow blouse and right into her eyes. To his delight he sees the fright in them. Another wannabe trying to bluff her way out. He's seen Rihaana pull better intimidating faces as a child. "Harassment huh? I'll show you harassment!" He growls and swipes an arm over the cups on the table sending them violently across the hall. The crowd gasps and it escalates from there.

A brawl breaks out in full swing.

Neel doesn't feel an ounce of remorse as he smashes the hallway light in to bits. It's a shanty dorm belonging to the bloody welfare department. He might as well bring the walls down in this godforsaken place, he'll be basically doing them a favor. Figo's kick sends the table slamming on the wall in pieces as he makes his way to the bloody BG, Kiran, where she's trying to unbind the two losers. Neel leaves Figo to deal with it and focuses on smashing shit in his eye sight, that is until the yellow blouse butts in. Then he goes after her.

At first, Neel doesn't know what he's doing. He's fucking angry. Matters at home didn't ever really piss him off as much they did Rihaana. His mother made sure of that. But when it comes to his team, Ruthless, more often than not Neel loses his shit. Dancing is his passion, hell, it is his career if not it is his future. Ruthless is not here to fool around and have fun. They are here to win. Their reputation is the fucking paramount, no bloody welfare loser is going to muck up their hard work. How dare they? First, they drag their name, their university reputation through the mud, then they have the nerve to call the fucking cops on them! Righteous bastards.

Neel grits and rears the bat back.

If only he couldꟷ

Something stops him.

Neel freezes. His first thought is it's Ishaan. His best friend always had a royal case of self-righteousness and a moral compass to match. If he wasn't so fond of Ishaan, he'd have beaten up his ass into their fifteen years of friendship, ages ago. This is nothing new. But the thing is, the pull barely has any weight behind it. Not Ishaan, then. It's Neel's sheer will that stops him swinging both the bat and the person attached to it across the room. Who the fuck is stupid enough to cross him at a time like this?

He turns around to give a piece of his mind, and his fist and the bat.

The sight leaves him dumbfounded.

What a joke.

Neel continues to stare. He doesn't know if it is the absolute ridiculousness of it that threw him off kilt, or the bout of hysteria bubbling in his chest at the absurdity of the situation.

The dude is half his weight, gangly little thing with wide eyes. A wimp. Neel wants to laugh. A back breaking good laugh. He looks at the hands clutching the bat for good measure to make sure this is really happening. One twist, with right pressure he can break the bony wrists without a sweat. But then his amusement wades as the realization dawns him that what caught him was his face. The soft looking wispy hair worthy of a good yank, he notes silently, frames a small face that makes his eyes look too big in his face. Timid, spooked. They are staring almost pleadingly at him. Neel's heart races. Even with sweat glistening skin, pale with fright, it's a pretty face.

Neel doubles back with a violent lurch. What the fuck is he thinking?

Who the hell is this?

And then he makes a face at him, like the pet rabbit Rihaana used to terrorize with her daily tantrums when they were little. Neel snaps.

A loud clatter reverberates the walls as Neel brutally yanks the baseball bat off and hurls it on the ground. The crowd collectively gasps. Each and every pair of eyes is on them now. Neel grabs the front of the flimsy shirt and yanks and yanks, manhandles him out in to terrace like a sorry excuse of a sack and pins him against the parapet wall. That earns him a breathless squeak.

Figo and Sam crowds in to their side with the crowd hot on their tails. Neel jerks him like a ragdoll one last time, just because he can. The yellow blouse starts yapping behind them. He ignores that too.

"Fighting won't solve anything..."

Even his voice is meek. Figures. A total pipsqueak.

He holds up a protective hand in front of him, doubled over in pain, cradling his bruised side with a twitching fist. As if that's going to stand a chance against Neel.

Neel rakes his eyes up the hunched frame, sizing him up.

The clothes aren't too shabby. Split-sole dance sneakers, so couldn't be a total lost cause. What the hell is an OG doing with the welfare freaks?

"I'm not sorry I called the Police. In fact, I'm not even remotely sorry that I got to stop you at all."

Neel finally tears his eyes away from the pink, parted mouth to hone his glare at the yellow blouse instead. And she keeps going. Eyes vicious and no trace of fear this time. Unsurprisingly, it pisses him even more.

He's getting a headache.

She needs to shut the hell up.

Figo goes off behind him. Neel barely pays attention to half of the tongue lashes. What's the point? If one thing he learned at home, men can never win arguments against women. For all his annoyance, Figo does manage a quip or two on his own, but falls short tight-lipped no sooner than he started. Neel feels him hanging behind him, stewing in his silent fury, heaving like a bull.

Guys deal with fists. Now that the physical part is over there's nothing left for them to do here. Rihaana would be more equipped to handle grounds like these.

Where the hell is his sister when he needs her?

"Passion means shit if you have no talent,"

Speak of the devil and they may appear.

Rihaana saunters through the crowd like she owns the place, her cruel, smug smirk a contrast to her petite frame.

Finally.

The yellow blouse eyes her like one would do a feral animal. Neel smells the booze on Rihaana as she brushes past him to walk right in to her space, no doubt staring back with her demeaning smirk like she's looking at trash.

When she gets like this, she's not pleasant to be around, sister or no. One of the many traits she shares with his mother.

With her presence, Figo and Sam shifts straighter, chests puffing, a gait to their prowling that wasn't there before. If Ishaan is their linchpin, Rihaana is their solid backbone.

Neel rolls his shoulder, steps back and lets her do her thing.

If these losers want a fight, they'll damn well get a fight.

................

Lmao I forgot how warped Ruthless' logic was in the first two seasons. Gets on my nerves every time 😂😂. At least Ishaan and Neel are redeemable. I barely tolerated Sam and Figo. Don't get me started on Rihaana 😂.

Next chapter, 'First dancing practice' where things get interesting 😏