I'm BAACCCKKKKK! Hello my dear readers! Miss me? I was gone for a while, but I did say I would return and had a couple things up my sleeve when it happened. And that moment has finally arrived! I'll try to update regularly, but my new living schedule is very limited, I'll try not to leave you guys hanging for too long…maybe. ;)

Here we go with the next one! First chapter is in Raoul's POV, though I'm sure you could guess that by the chapter title.

Disclaimer: I do not own PhofOp.

Now onwards!

Everyone Loves Him, Except Me

Why did I come to here again? Raoul thought as he settled down in the library to study.

He heard the chair across from him move and glanced up to see his girlfriend, Christine, sitting down. The sight of her made Raoul mentally shrugged. He remembered why.

The two of them were freshman in college, and it was a month into the semester. Raoul had not been prepared for the craziness that was college life and had struggled the first couple weeks. Luckily, so had Christine and they had gotten through it together. Raoul had been happy to learn that they were going to share the same dorm building, but were still a few floors away from each other. Each floor being single-sex and all that. Her roommate was a sweet but spunky freshman called Meg while he shared his room with a slightly intimidating junior named Nadir.

Christine had become fast friends with her roommate, while Raoul actively tried to avoid his. It wasn't that the older man was mean or rude but he was one of those quiet, intense types that made Raoul nervous to be around. Nadir was kind enough, but they didn't speak to each other much when they happened to be in the dorm room at the same time. Sure they could be considered on friendly terms but Raoul doubted that they would ever be friends. Besides, the Iranian student seemed to be the type that kept to himself and have a small group of friends.

Raoul and Christine had already promised each other that once they knew that they could afford it, they were going to get off campus housing. Raoul thought that they could do it now but there was a requirement for freshman to live on campus. Bummer but there you go.

The only reason why Raoul had even gone to this school was because of Christine. He was a business major so pretty much had his pick of schools. Christine, on the other hand, was determined to get a degree in performing arts and that was a major that needed a good school. Raoul hadn't realized this at first but he now understood it. Christine had made sure of that. It was all about networking for her major and while the school itself wasn't the most prestigious school in that field, it had a great networking system and Christine wanted to use that to her full advantage.

That wasn't going too happened until later though, right now, they had to deal with the school's core classes that everyone had to take. It was dull and boring!

That's why they were currently in the library. It was Raoul's favorite place to study other than his dorm, which he knew he couldn't use at the time because Nadir was out of class and liked to spend his free time after those days taking a short nap before he had to go to work. Even if Raoul didn't already make sure he wasn't there because he was tense around Nadir, he would have stayed away to give the man the time to sleep.

"Do we have to do history first? It's boring!" Raoul remarked as he noticed that Christine had taken her history textbook out. The evil thing was, maybe not the biggest book, but it was the densest one to read.

Christine raised her eyebrow but had a smirk on her lips, she knew how much he hated history. "Wouldn't it be better to get the most hated one out of the way first?"

Raoul groaned softly, already wanting to bang his head against the table. Christine had a point, she usually did. This was not going to be fun.

With a defeated sigh, Raoul took out his hated textbook and flipped to where they needed to read the chapter and answer the questions that were posted online by the professor. They had to do that for three chapters. That didn't sound too bad, if it wasn't for the fact that each chapter was about 40 pages each.

Raoul sort of wanted to cry and they had only started.

Yet, he had Christine and that automatically made things better. She read the chapters out loud and would often use her voice to make the chapters more interesting. One could only do that so much with something so boring but it helped.

An hour into their work, Meg showed up.

"Hey, sorry I'm late. Anton needed my help." She explained as she sat down next to Christine. "What are we working on?"

"History. We're almost done with the first set of questions." Christine replied. "What did Antoinette need?"

Antoinette was Meg's older sister who was a junior this year. She was majoring in dance and from what Meg has told Raoul and Christine about her, she was doing extremely well. She was already receiving offers at different dance and theatre companies to get her as their dancer. Meg herself was an English major because she wanted to be a writer, specifically gothic and horror. Raoul has read a few of her short stories and he knew without a doubt that someday that will happen.

"She wanted a second opinion on her routine for the auditions for the dance competition coming up. I told her that it wasn't until December but, she likes to plan early." Meg informed them.

"Why haven't we met her yet? As your friends, shouldn't we meet your sister? Especially since she's in the same school?" Raoul joined offhand as he twirled his pencil in his hand.

Meg shrugged. "She doesn't like to meet new people, people tend to want to use her because she's Erik's friend."

Raoul rolled his eyes. "Oh yes, Erik, musical genius that only came off his high horse and graced us with his presence because he wanted to experience college life."

Meg huffed. "He's not like that. You wouldn't know that because you don't know him."

"Oh, but I do. I have my music appreciation class with him as the tutor remember." Raoul stopped twirling the pencil and pointed its tip at Meg. "If I had a dollar for every time I've seen him roll his eyes at someone's answer I would be a very rich man indeed."

Meg scowled. "I don't want to talk about this anymore. Chance the topic."

Raoul shrugged and caught sight of Christine giving him a disapproving frown which made Raoul inwardly cringe. Maybe he shouldn't have said that last part. He knew that Meg had grown up with Erik as her older sister's best friend and as a result, saw him as an older brother. Even if Raoul didn't like him, he should have held his tongue for Meg's sake.

Raoul sighed and ran his hand through his hair. "Sorry, ignore me. The history is getting to me."

Meg grinned in sympathy. "I know how that feels. Maybe I can help with that."

Raoul nodded gratefully and they got back to work, though he couldn't help but linger his thoughts on what they had talked about.

Erik Destler was kind of a star figure on the campus. He was a junior this year but when the media had discovered that the esteemed musical genius was going to college, they flipped. He had created a musical when he was eighteen and it had hit big in Broadway. For a year, the creator of Don Juan Triumphant was a major name in the theatre industry and travelled around to different states that wanted to perform the musical he had created. However, after that year, Erik suddenly announced that he was going to spend the next few years at a university and had chosen the one Raoul and Christine had begun to attend a year later.

No explanation was given except that he wanted to go to college and see what it was like. It didn't hurt that the school basically paid for everything because they could say they had him as a student. A lot of people were not satisfied with that and a lot of theories came into play. The most popular was that the genius had gone there because his lover was going there. Said lover was commonly thought to be either Antoinette or Nadir, his childhood friends. Yes Raoul's roommate was Erik's friend, another reason why Raoul tried to avoid the older man. Luckily, two years has passed since Erik started school and now the fuss is pretty much over with.

Meg had told them a little bit about the trio but for the most part remained tight lipped. Raoul couldn't say he blamed her, Erik seemed like the type of person that liked his privacy and chose a selective few to help him maintain it. He kind of felt sorry for Christine though. She was a fan of Don Juan Triumphant and to have a friend that was close to the creator of one of her favorite musicals probably wasn't all that fun. But she was also one of the most sympathetic people Raoul knew and wouldn't dare use her friendship with Meg to meet Erik. Though, she did punch Raoul's arm when she found out that Erik was his music appreciation tutor. It had been hilarious because a jealous Christine was a funny Christine, but he digressed.

Raoul had no thoughts on the creator of the now popular musical, the most he cared about the musical itself was when Christine talked about it. However, when he had met the man, his thoughts formed and they weren't pretty. He didn't think he has ever met such an arrogant person before. Raoul truly had no idea how a person like Meg and Nadir could stand to be around the man. He couldn't say his opinion on Antoinette because he has never met the woman before. Sure, Raoul was fine with a little confidence, because, hey, how wouldn't that soar up because of the popularity of his musical, but Erik was about five levels too high!

He was arrogant and dismissive of the students in the class. Raoul had not been lying when he had said that he would be rich from the amount of times that the older man rolled his golden eyes because of something a student asked or said. While Raoul was in class, Erik would sit at the professor's desk as the professor gave the lecture seemingly not to be paying any attention at all. He would spend most of the class what Raoul thought would be writing music on blank sheets, tapping his free hand to the beat as if playing a piano. The only reason why Raoul knew that Erik would roll his eyes so much was because his writing hand also tended to twitch on paper. The first couple weeks he would look up to see who had spoken, but then would dropped his head back down to go back to his music. Apparently, he learned to recognize everyone's voices because he stopped doing it, but after that, Raoul saw every hand twitch and every subtle eye roll.

It made Raoul frustrated that a guy like him could get all this attention and not be humble by it, instead it was the opposite. Every time Erik gave an eye-roll or hand twitch, Raoul wanted to yell at him. Not everyone was a musical genius like him! Most people needed time to learn things and sometimes they get things wrong! There are such things as dumb questions, but Raoul didn't think that any of the ones asked the past month warranted such a patronizing reaction. Plus, a lot of the students in that class aren't there because they are music majors, they took it because they saw it as an easy pass class for a requirement they needed. Meaning, they really aren't going to know a lot about the subject beforehand. So yes, Raoul didn't like Erik. Even if Meg told him that Erik wasn't like that, it was hard to believe when he sees how the older man acts with his own eyes.

Raoul mentally shook his head at the thoughts. He needed to focus on the assignment, Meg and Christine would not be happy with him if they think he wasn't pulling his own weight in the group. Raoul could argue that Meg needed to catch up with their work, but he would rather not risk it.

Basically this was an introductory, as I'm sure you were able to tell. Things pick up after this, do not worry. Hope everyone enjoyed the first chapter regardless and will leave a review! Please!? They are lovely to read and I get in the writing mood when I read them. Lol ;) Anyway, I'll see ya next time. Next chapter will be in Christine's POV.