She stepped over the broken shards of glass from the exhibition displays, gaping like many of the other students at the horrific sight that met them that morning.

She knew the minute she pulled into the parking lot that something was wrong. Police officers, eager reporters and a crowd of people weren't something she normally woke up to every morning. She expected a break-in from the looks of the shattered glass front doors, but the damage inside was more than she could've ever envisioned.

Graffiti was splashed across the bright white walls, across the floors, even some on the ceiling and the windows. But as if that wasn't enough, almost all of the showcase cabinets had been knocked over and/or broken into, damaging its historically important artifacts inside. The hallway was completely trashed, the same hallway she had loved walking down every morning.

"They say they caught the guy who did it," Her friend Anna told, coming up to Mia, holding a bunch of heavy psychology books in her arms. "Apparently he's done stuff like this before. The judge ordered him to 400 hours of community service since he's only twenty. Can you believe it? A twenty-year-old did all of this. That's practically our age."

"You of all people should know that age doesn't take responsibility for your actions," Mia strong-heartedly replied. She looked at the beautiful hall that now looked like any New York subway station. "I hope this dickhead will suffer where he's going and that his community service involves picking up shit with his bare hands."

"Whoa, easy there," Anna chuckled, looking amused at her friend. "Since when did you get so mouthy?"

"Since some bastard ruined my hallway!" She seethed, crossing her arms. "If I ever see him, I'll murder him."

"Well, you might get your wish, Cindakiller," Anna replied. "His community service is being doled out here. He has to work here as a janitor and clean up his own mess."

"What?!" Mia nearly choked on her own saliva and glared incredulously at her friend. "He's coming to work here?! Have they lost their fucking minds?! That's like... like bringing a thief to work at a bank, counting the money! Are they shitting us?"

"They really aren't, but you, missy, have lost your usage of the fine English language," Anna said with a raised brow. "I never knew vandalism brought out such a cavewoman side of you."

"Look at what he's done!" Mia shouted, gesturing into the hallway they were standing in, their feet swimming in glass shards. "Precious artifacts are broken, priceless paintings have been ruined by graffiti! I'll be damned if it doesn't piss me off!"

"Alright, settle down," Anna sighed. She placed one of her hands on Mia's shoulder. "You're mad, I get it. Let's just head to class, I'm sure they'll have all this sorted out by the end of the first lecture. Come on, hon."

Giving one last glance to the hallway she felt physical sympathy for, Mia sighed silently and then nodded. "Fine. Let's go."

~~~

"Are you done yet?" She looked at Anna who was still going through all her notes. "I want to get to lunch, let's go find Zoe!"

"Hold on, I'm just making sure I have everything," Anna replied, distracted. "Do you know how many notes you have to take during psychology class? Oh no, you don't; all your work is on a single canvas and the only thing you have to bring to class is your talent."

"Hey," Mia snapped, glaring offended at her. "Art students do a lot more than just sit around and paint. You have to study the historical works of significant artists, learn the distinctive pattern between—"

"Alright, I get it, I'm sorry, I'm just stressed," Anna cut her off with a tired sigh. "It's just exam pressure. I don't know how I'm gonna get through it all."

"Let's just start off with lunch, mkay?" Mia replied and offered her a little smile. "Come on, let's go get Zoe, she should be done with Advanced Math by now."

They both started going down the hallway again which looked as trashed as it did earlier. The only difference was that now, it appeared someone had been hooked up to clean it.

"Damn, who's the new hot janitor with the flipped cap?" Anna smugly asked. "Da-yummy, daddy!"

"Who has gone cavewoman now?" Mia pointed out.

"That's not cavewoman, that's just pure unadulterated horniness in the face of a hot white guy with tats," Anna said coyly, swiping her long black hair over her shoulder.

"Whatever, I rest my case." Mia replied, too tired to argue. She now took a glance at whoever Anna had been talking about.

A guy in a janitorial suit stood a little way down the hall, sweeping the floor with a broomstick. The faded navy blue suit did nothing to hide the fact that he was one hell of a muscular guy. Mia could see faint outlines of giant biceps every time he made a hard sweep.

"Shit, is that a tattoo on his skull?" Anna exclaimed, dropping her jaw.

Until now, Mia had been too preoccupied with staring at guy's body to notice his face. When her eyes flipped up to take a look, she nearly choked.

With a brooding, hard face, the guy looked like he could kill with his mind. His eyes were glaring at the floor and his lips were pressed angrily together as he cleaned the floor. His ear and nose was pierced with shining silver studs that did something to empathize his strong features. The side parts of his hair was trimmed short and revealed – as Anna had pointed out – a pattern of black, tribal tattoos inked onto his temple that went around the back of his ear and continued down the length of his neck and finally disappeared into the tight collar of the janitor suit.

"How far do you think it goes down?" Anna wondered out loud with a little smirk, clearly also obsessing over the excessive amount of ink on his face and neck – and hands, now that Mia looked.

"I don't know and I don't want to," She said, grimacing a little. That much ink was just crazy, and frankly, stupid. Why would anyone seriously do that? Stupidity.

"Those janitor suits should be banned," Anna continued, tilting her head slightly and sighed. "Whatever happened to the stonewashed, low-sitting jeans with the bare torso or a white tank top? What was wrong with that?"

"I think that's gardeners you're thinking about," Mia frowned at her friend who was looking dreamily at the tattooed idiot.

"Well I would certainly groom his stem if he'll water my rose, you know what I'm saying?" Anna grinned, waggling her eyebrows.

"Oh my God, you did not just..." Mia shook in disgust at her friend and then turned to glare at the inked guy again. "Seriously Anna, look at him. He looks like a crimi—"

Mia froze up mid-sentence as a lightbulb (more like a red blare) lit up inside head and made her realize what she was saying. And then her disgust turned into pure anger.

This tattooed slob had to be the crazy fucker who trashed the hallway and graffitied the walls. He was the one who ruined the things she had cherished glancing at while walking through these beautiful halls. Artifacts from her biggest idols; Picasso, Da Vinci, Dali, Kahlo. Their art brushes, color pallets and paints had all been exhibited in the glass monitors, all of which were now either damaged or broken. All because this goddamn jerk didn't have the intelligence to know what he was touching were treasured relics. He was too ignorant to care about stuff like that; his type was all about the fun and trouble.

"Oh this can't be real," Mia stated through gnashed teeth. "I'm going to kill him. Right now. The sonofabitch ruined my—"

"Whoa, whoa, hold on!" Anna objected and yanked Mia back when she started to march angrily towards him, set on jumping his sorry ass. "You don't even know if that's the guy!"

"Of course it's him!" She snapped, pulling her arm out of her friend's grip. "Just look at him, you know it's him! You think the board would hire a type like him to be the new janitor? Hell no, not unless they've been smoking something funny."

"Alright, alright, settle down, babe," Anna persuaded when Mia was boiling with rage. "There's no need for violence. He's doing his time and he looks pretty miserable if you ask me, so let's just leave him to do his job and not trash this hall more than it already is," Anna paused for a moment when Mia took a deep breath to try and calm herself down. "Good girl. Now let's go find Zoe and get some grub."

Sending a final scowl towards the tattooed jerk, she let Anna drag her away. He never looked up, but kept his cold eyes on the ground like he pretended the rest of the crowd wasn't there, glancing judgmentally at him and his extensive ink. The people who went here didn't see types like him often. And with good reason; He was nothing but trouble and disaster.

Anna and Mia walked down the hall and finally reached the Advanced Math auditorium just as the class ended. A stream of people flooded out though the doors and Zoe's characteristic blue hair poked out from the crowd.

"Zoe! Over here!" The girls called. Zoe spotted them and sent them a wide grin.

"Hey guys!" She greeted. "How's your day going?"

"Awful." Mia bitterly replied. "Just awful, but let's not talk about that," She said when Anna shot her a scolding look. "How's yours? Was class any fun?"

"Ugh, no," Zoe groaned back. Zoe was the smartest mathematical mind around, but instead of wearing glasses and a knitted sweaters like any stereotypical nerd, she had short blue hair, piercings on her lips, ears and nose, and dark eyes lined with black eyeliner. Her style was what you could describe as emo or hipster, or maybe even a mix between the two. In any case, she always wore black like she just came from a funeral.

"It's that time of the year where the teacher throws up an impossible problem for us to solve and then promises us a high score on our final exams if we manage to crack it," She told, tiredly swinging her backpack higher up on her shoulder. "This time Mr Bleacher gave us one of Fermat's hardest unsolved math problems on positive integers—"

"Pausing it right there," Anna cut in. "We won't understand what you're about to say, so let's skip forward."

Rolling her eyes, Zoe continued. "Fine. He's basically giving us a problem that no one's been able to solve since Fermat died, and now we get to glare at it on that stupid blackboard until our exams, which are weeks away. Do you know it's been in Guinness' world record book and was described as 'the most difficult mathematical problem'?Do they honestly expect us to crack it if the Stephen Hawking's and Bill Gates' of the world can't do it? Let alone spend time on it when we're studying for the finals?"

"If anyone can solve it, it's you," Mia smiled, throwing an arm around her friend's shoulder. "You're the smartest person I know."

"Aww, thanks," She grinned, showing off her pearly whites. "Captain Obvious, but thanks!"

"Hey, I'm smart too!" Anna objected, pouting her lips in fake offense. "I don't think you actually know how hard psychology is. The neurotransmitters in the brain—"

"We won't understand what you're about to say!" Zoe mimicked in a high pitched voice to replicate Anna's. She stuck her tongue out at her which Anna only reciprocated.

"Alright enough, what are you, babies?" Mia chuckled at her friends as they begun walking back the way they came from. "Seriously, let's go eat, I'm starved! Are you guys hungry?"

"Actually, I'm feeling thirsty," Anna smugly commented, openly glancing over her shoulder and glaring after what Mia now saw was the inked idiot again.

"Seriously, stop it, it's disgusting," Mia snapped. "He's revolting!"

"Who are we talking about?" Zoe enquired, following their stares.

"That white chocolate over there with the ink job," Anna snickered. "He's the one who trashed the hallway."

"Holy shit, I know him!" Zoe exclaimed, dropping her jaw.

"What?!" Both girls screeched at the same time, glaring at their friend.

"You know him?" Mia gaped.

"Who is he?" Anna excitedly asked.

"That's Eli Greyson!" Zoe replied, staring completely stunned at him. "He hangs around this downtown club I sometimes go to, but he seemed nice. I mean, total badmouthed badass and pussy magnet, but nice."

"You talked to him?" Mia asked incredulously.

"Only briefly," Zoe shrugged. "My friend introduced us, but he was busy rolling one for his buddy."

"Rolling one? As in..."

"Weed," She deadpanned. "You need to get out more, M. Get some inspiration from the real world."

"If I wanted inspiration, the last place I'd go would be the clubs that people like him hang out in," Mia snorted, crossing her arms.

"I hang out in those places." Zoe pointed out.

"You're the exception of the rule," Mia quickly said. "It's just a fact that people who spend their lives hanging out in clubs and smoking joints are the people who are going nowhere in life. You know, unambitious people."

"Whatever," Zoe replied, rolling her eyes, then glanced back at Eli as Mia now knew his name was. "I think you'd be surprised if you ever actually came out to the streets and experienced the unambitious people for yourself."

"Maybe, but let's save that for another day," Mia sarcastically replied. "Okay, this is the last time I'm going to say it; let's go eat, I'm starving."

The girls all agreed and then continued walking, but Mia couldn't help but glance one last time at the face that now had a name; Eli.

And just in the moment she glanced back at him, he looked up. His eyes landed on hers and penetrating her with an arctic glare. His eyes were so intense and so filled with anger, Mia stopped breathing for a second and had to swallow a lump.

After glaring at her for another moment, he then broke the eye contact with her and returned to staring at the floors he was ordered to clean up.

Mia exhaled and felt a shiver run through her body, but she couldn't determine whether it was from fright or something completely else. Whatever it was, it left her body slightly trembling.

She determinedly turned back to the company of her two friends and decided to shove it out of her head.

– There was no room for his kind in her thoughts.

~~~

After a long day, Mia was ready to head back to her flat. Reading and painting all day got exhausting for the head, especially when your teacher kept telling you your art was a bit plain. She needed some new inspiration, otherwise she'd fail her class.

So with a tired groan, Mia walked down the hallway where the last of the students were heading out as well. She was lost in her own thoughts when she suddenly heard loud voices arguing from a corner. She automatically flipped her eyes to the voices and wasn't surprised when she found the source being the head janitor shouting at Eli.

"...sn't cleaned up at all! You call this polishing the windows? You can stay until these damn windows are spotless, you hear me?"

"Are you fucking shitting me?" She heard Eli reply. His voice was deep and dripping with flat sarcasm. He glared at the head janitor who shoved a cloth and a bottle of Mr Muscle at him.

"Clean it up, now!"

The head janitor stormed off and left a growling Eli standing in the hallway. He then suddenly glared her way, maybe sensing her stare. "The fuck you lookin' at, bitch?"

Gritting her teeth, Mia used every bit of her willpower to just keep walking past him until their eye contact finally snapped. He was just looking for more trouble. If she engaged in an argument with him, she would only give him what he wanted. So she walked straight on past him, keeping her nose in the sky.

She heard him mutter something incoherent under his breath and then suddenly, a loud clatter sounded. Mia glanced over her shoulder to see a metal bucket skidding across the floor, making a loud spectacle as it rolled and bounced away. He had kicked it.

Mia clenched her fists angrily, but then stepped out of the front doors to the school, overjoyed to finally escape this nightmare of a day. She couldn't wait until tomorrow where things would hopefully be back to normal again and where she would do everything in her power to ignore a certain inked shit.

• • •

Tattoos are the shit.