Mihail thought lockers were unnecessary. He kept all his belongings carefully stocked away in his bedroom, sitting snugly on undecorated shelves and settled in a neat pile on the corner of his desk. The metallic lockers standing in the hallway of Kheimon Hall were too far for his liking, and yet, every so often, he found there was reason to visit them. There would be some combination of classes where it was too inconvenient to carry all the required books in his usual bag, or where the trek back to Theros House would take too long, and he would be forced instead to make a quick pitstop between the two lessons to exchange one textbook for another.

Today, morning classes had broken for lunch, and the black-haired man had made his way back to his locker from his Classical Civilisation & Language class to retrieve the Further Maths textbooks he had left there between the two lessons. He would have carried them both at once, but his Latin professor had introduced a particularly heavy new edition of the Aeneid, and Further Maths had brought out another Core Maths textbook, and it was a nightmare to take them both at the same time (not to mention Mihail had always been particularly resistant in allowing others to touch his belongings).

His locker stood three from the end of a section, where they were ordered alphabetically, and wholly undecorated. There seemed no reason to cover the front door of his locker with unnecessary bought trash, nor did he care to fill the interior with all the accessories and baubles others appeared to require. It served the same purely practical purpose as his bedroom, and sat as neat and minimalistic as if it had never been touched, the only sign of its use a large lock which sealed the door shut. Mihail was fussy about his locks: he was a skilled lockpicker himself, and combination locks were never as safe, so the only logical choice, as such, had proved to be a biometric lock, which wirelessly linked to his mobile phone and only opened at the touch of the appropriate fingerprint. Three grand on Amazon, but you had to make suitable investments.

Mihail pulled open the metal door, momentarily setting down the still-hot macchiato he’d been sipping in class, reaching for his maths textbook and the notebooks that came with it, dropping it into the black leather messenger bag which hung from his shoulder. It was weighty - tediously so, in fact - and he could not fathom why anyone would have assigned a pair of classes so close together with such a horrid set of books attached. He rolled his eyes in frustration as the bag sagged sadly where it hung, pouting despite his refusal to leave the books in the now-empty locker.

He slammed the locker door shut with a lack of forgiveness which was evident in all his other actions, clipping the lock back into place as he raised his wrist to check the time on his watch. The minute hand was perched towards the twelve, and the silver hour hand was not far behind it, thus meaning that lunch was imminent. The food itself did not matter all that much to Mihail - he never ate much anyhow - and he tended to prefer the second half of lunch anyhow, but there was a meeting for Head Students a little past twelve, and he had never once been late.

Turning to exit the hallway and direct his way to the meeting room in question, Mihail’s eyes were elsewhere, directed onto the screen of his phone, scrolling absentmindedly through Instagram. Most people moved out of the way, but it appeared that someone that day had not received the memo, and he promptly walked into them. His macchiato wobbled in his hand, then his grip gave way, and the reinforced-paper cup tumbled to the ground, the thick liquid splashing unceremoniously over the vinyl stone flooring to land on the beaded silk of his Aqualac loafers. His hand fell to rest on the waistline of his white shirt, cinching the fabric further, and his eyes narrowed so that the snake-shaped eyeliner made them seem little more than angered slits, a stray bang falling almost maliciously over his gaze.

“My shoes,” he hissed, a part of him irritated that he’d chosen not to wear the Dandelions instead that day, for then the stain would have been somewhat less significant. His gaze dropped to the navy blue dial of the watch on his wrist, and he frowned as the time seemed slightly off. “You have decalibrated my watch, wasted my mid-morning coffee, and you have ruined my fifth-favourite Louboutins. Were you not gifted with eyes at birth, or are you just too idiotic to use them?”

She was awkward, and stammering, which was the usual response for someone who had just committed such a heinous crime, and her phone clattered loudly to the ground between them. It took her a moment to speak, though it was useless. ‘They’re not ruined. I’m sure the stain can be removed easily enough if you ask. I mean, my dress and shoes-’ She gestured wildly at her outfit, like he cared about the patches of coffee which had spilt on the fabric, like this whole trouble wasn’t her fault. ‘I guess we can both learn a lesson from this. Maybe we can both look where we’re going in the future?’

Shoes weren’t ruined. The very statement was laughable, though Mihail was hardly in the mood to do so, and the sole indication of his amusement at such a sentence was the way the left side of his lips twitched upwards for a split second into a smirk which reeked of twin disdain and derision. “These are Aqualacs,” he informed her, ignoring every other word that had come out of this girl’s mouth thus far. Her stutters and lessons meant nothing to him, and he saw them solely as a further assault to the sanctity of his precious loafers. “They are hand-embroidered to a custom design. Beautiful. French. They cost four thousand dollars.” Mihail tilted his foot, so the light glinted off the silver and green beads that made up the snakes designed on the vamp, now partially stained with the remains of his coffee. No boarding school, no matter how prestigious, would be capable of providing the resources to fix his shoes to the standard he desired. "This is grosgrain silk; I doubt the staff here would know what they’re doing. Besides, I do not let others touch my beauties." He was fussy about the shoes, more so than anything else, and only the very closest of his companions were given the excuse to touch them.

For a moment longer, the man stared down at the shoes, his gaze still dark, obviously distressed by the entire situation, though he refused to show any emotion rather than anger. As if he needed to pay more considerable attention to his walking-path: most were intelligent enough to step out of his way and not comment on the way he was so often engrossed by all his favoured social media apps. The idea of interrupting him would have been thoroughly idiotic, and Mihail ignored the suggestion that he should alter his attentions. Instead, he glanced down at his watch in irritation once more, still annoyed by the way the collision had shifted the time by what he calculated to be around one-minute-and-thirty-seconds. Thankfully, there still appeared to be time left before the meeting. Very well, then.

He turned his gaze back to his temporary victim, running it down the length of her stained outfit and settling on her own drenched shoes.

“I imagine we were rushed to return to the Victorian period?” he queried, smug at his own words, noting that while her outfit was not drastically out of the norm, it was far from what he would consider fashionable. “I am certain Jane Austen can wait to receive you in that darling little number.” The words dripped with sarcasm, and he quirked his hip outwards, clearly indicating he did not mean to move from his current position until this entire matter had been resolved to his standards. “Now, do we desire a detention for gallivanting so madly through the halls, or am I feeling apologetic?”

That was almost a joke. Never was there a moment when the man was feeling apologetic in his capacity as a Head Student. Such was evident in the way his eyebrows remained furrowed together, and he had not shifted his hand from his waistline, even as she tried to make amends with some half-hearted apology. Something along the lines of ‘please forgive me’ and ‘I can pay for a replacement’, as if either statement would change his mind. He snorted at her feigned sweetness, and at the suggestion that she could pay for his items. It was not a matter of price - he was relatively confident she could afford either the replacement or the laundering - but more an uncommon sentimentality.

“I do not desire them replaced,” he objected, his tone tilting in such a way that implied incredulity she would even suggest this. “As I said, these are custom-designed. No one touches my Louboutins.” There were only two (three, technically) people he would trust to do so, and this girl was not one of the lucky few. “I think a detention is more than fair.”

Mihail reached into his bag to find his little pad of detention slips, well-worn because he did enjoy dishing out a fair number as seemed only logical. He scrawled on the name printed on the cover of one of her exposed textbooks (his handwriting had never been all that elegant), then scribbled some comment about the alleged ‘assault’ which was her offence. “Tonight, hm?” he suggested, even though the question was rhetorical as he marked down the final time. “Lucky you: I specifically requested the honour of supervising this evening’s detention. You’re sure to have a delightful time. Five-thirty to eight-thirty. Do you know where the detention room is?”

Her eyes were wide, either because she thought the punishment was ridiculous or because she had never had a detention before. Either way, he did not care, and only watched with a semi-amused expression as he awaited some sort of response - an agreement that she would be attending the detention as he demanded. Finally, she repeated the word scratched on her note: ‘Assault?’

“Mm,” Mihail replied, having momentarily been concerned that her hesitation was due to an inability to read his handwriting. It was true that it was not the neatest, but the style of his script seemed thoroughly unimportant compared to the grand scheme of things, and he didn’t care if others disliked it. Mihail was not one to be interested in the opinions of others. “Assault, noun. In law: an act which threatens physical harm to a person, whether or not actual harm is done. Your actions here have threatened harm unto me and, therefore, it merits detention. I would rather you did not question me, else I might be forced to give you another detention period for disobedience, and that would be a shame.”

Mihail returned his booklet of detention slips to his bag. The girl was staring at him with evident distaste, and her expression had turned to something he supposed she thought was menacing but only seemed amusing in its failure. It was not a strange reaction: most weren’t quite so happy to see they had been assigned a detention. Her tone was nothing new either, and Mihail bent down so that his height was level to her, despite the heel on his ruined shoes.

“I would save your attempts at viciousness, darling. You ruined my shoes and decalibrated my watch, and I am not in the habit of forgiveness. You wouldn’t like to see what I did to this one man who tried to steal my Biancas, but, and do trust me on this, he can’t see you now.” He smirked at her, lacing his words with the same malice she attempted as he pulled himself up to his full height, looming over the girl. She was not exceptionally tall, perhaps five-foot-three at most. “Bad behaviour begets punishment; I am sure you must have learned that at some point in your life and, even if you have not, I can assure you that you shall in your time here. Now, the detention room is on the second floor of Kheimon Hall, and it is rather difficult to miss.” Mihail tapped his foot impatiently on the ground, frowning thoughtfully. “I suggest you do not attempt to wriggle out of this one. I think you will find that I have the right to assign detentions as I see fit. Now…” He glanced at his watch a final time, still annoyed by the slightly incorrect timing, then continued, lingering after he spoke to ensure she was fully aware of the situation: "I have a meeting. I shall see you this evening. Do not be late. Is that understood?"

She nodded again, and he tilted his head to one side with a sardonic smell resting on his features as he watched her scramble away, replaced instead by the sight of a different, smaller student who was attempting to run past without drawing much attention to themselves. The Thanasi reached to grab him by the collar as he passed, frowning. “We do not run in the halls. But, if we do as Princess says and get her a new macchiato before her meeting, then maybe we can avoid too lengthy a detention. Venti; skinny; hazelnut and caramel; sugar-free syrup and no whipped cream. Run along.”

He let them go, feeling altogether too pleased with himself for the way both those situations had been managed, stretching arms behind his back before he dropped them back to his waist in some satisfaction. Honestly, life would run a lot more smoothly if everyone could do what he wanted all the time, or at least be more sensible. Gods, how he wished they could all be as obedient as he desired.