Adjusting to college is hard.
On a rainy Sunday, Elsa Arendelle knows this all too well. It's raining like a bastard, and Elsa silently berates herself for not bringing an umbrella. She isn't worried about the cold, per se, but she's worried about catching one, and the water seeps through her clothes until it reaches her core and she's utterly soaked.
Her trench coat does nothing to protect her from the rain, and the water settles into her perfectly put up hair.
Everybody else is inside, sleeping in the dorms, but Elsa's an early riser, and she's already had breakfast. The paper bag she carries in her hands is full of extra doughnuts that she bought for breakfast, and in her other hand is a giant coffee cup, half of which was consumed in one long gulp.
The little drops fall from the sky to coat her eyelashes, and she isn't really sure where she's going. She's walking blindly, and she thinks she's going to the right place, but she can't be too sure, so worry settles in her stomach.
This is to her, college in a nutshell: confusion, alienation, and rainy Sundays in which she inevitably gets lost because she's an idiot who hasn't familiarized herself with the campus yet and because—
"Hey, are you lost?"
Her spine arches stiffly when she realizes she's not alone, and the voice behind her belongs to a boy.
Cautiously, she turns around to see someone only slightly taller than her with crazy white hair and crazy blue eyes. Goddammit, it is a boy. He's wearing a battered navy hoodie that looks like he's had it forever. And even better, he's holding quite possibly the ugliest umbrella she's ever seen in her life. It's garish and abstract and strange.
"No, I'm not lost," she says quietly, shaking her head. Water droplets fall from her face, and she's thinking how to get out of his vicinity as soon as possible. "No, but thank you."
"You are totally lost," the boy says with an accusing grin. "Are you a freshman or something because—"
"No," she repeats firmly. "I'm not lost, but thank you."
He steps close to her until she's under the umbrella. Her breath stops, and she can't believe he would just approach her like that. He's far too close to her now, and her hands begin trembling. Goddamn nerves. And all he does after is just casually ask, "So where are you going?"
"I'm not lost," she says out of exasperation. She doesn't like to be under strange people's umbrellas, and she doesn't like boys that automatically assume she's lost even if she is.
"You aren't going to get rid of me that easily," he says with that same open forwardness, and she looks at him like she can't believe what he's saying. And she really can't. His face is too close, and she draws in a rattling breath. Calm yourself. "You're clearly soaked, so just let me walk you back to your dorm or whatever."
She eyes him warily for a moment. He looks genuine enough—bright eyes and a mouth that seems to be perpetually smiling. He looks far from intimidating too. Her examination continues before she concedes and he sees it in the slight relaxation of her shoulders. "I'm in Desmond Hall."
He laughs. "You, lady, are so lost. Desmond is all the way on the other side of campus. Freshman, right?"
"I'm a professor, actually."
"Oh, testy. No need to get sore with me, lady. I'm just doing a good deed."
Under the umbrella with him—she doesn't even know his name yet—Elsa wants to bolt, but she knows that he knows the way and she's going to get even more lost without him. He begins walking, and she adapts to his pace quickly, noting how her flats look wildly out of place next to his beat up sneakers. She can't even hug herself because her hands are full of food, and her breath lets out little cold puffs into the air.
"My name's not lady," she says after a beat. It's too long of a pause, and she wonders if he'll even know what the hell she's talking about.
"What is your name?" he asks, and he says it with these waggling eyebrows, as if he knows that it's a superficial question, a stupid one that she doesn't want to answer.
"…Vladimir Putin."
"God, the testiness. Are you really Putin himself?"
"Yes."
He laughs then, and she can't help but smile a little too because at least he can tolerate some acrid humor.
"Are you enjoying your freshman year at Pittsburg, Professor Putin?" The playful words ease the chill on her skin, and she finds her smile growing a little bigger.
Is this what they call 'flirting'?
"Mildly."
"Why isn't your answer a resounding yes?"
"An amalgamation of factors," she says, and he lets out a low whistle.
"Impressive vocabulary."
"Thanks. I read every once in a while."
"I'm glad."
A silence falls between the two of them, and Elsa figures she might as well say something to be polite. It's always about being polite. And the umbrella is keeping her relatively dry.
"What's the design on your umbrella?" she asks, hating the slightly breathless quality in her voice. It makes her sound unsteady, unsure, and—
"You ever hear of Matisse, lady?" He looks up at the umbrella, and she notices that the design is also on the inside.
"Was he...a painter?"
"Very good," the boy says. "A plus student. Only, Matisse wasn't only a painter—he did this fantastic series of expressionist art called the Jazz cutouts. He couldn't paint anymore then, he got too old, the poor bastard—excuse my language. But yeah, they're these really awesome paper cutouts, and when I went to a museum they had umbrellas there with this print on them, so I thought wa-hey why not?"
"Are you an art major?" she asks. Something in his voice sparks when he talks about Matisse, and she likes it.
"Nah," he says, shaking his head. "I just appreciate a lot."
Elsa lets that sentence sit in her mind until she can arrange it in loops and poems in her head.
"Hey, look—Desmond's right over there."
When the building comes into view, Elsa breathes a sigh of relief and steps out under his umbrella.
It's still raining, and she has to kind of squint to see him, but she still tries to make direct eye contact with him anyway, as a courtesy. "Thank you."
"No problem," he says easily, as if he always walks lost girls around campus at seven in the morning. "You ever get lost again, lady, just call me."
She doesn't get his name, and when she walks up the steps, all she does is give him a tentative wave.
He returns it, and she sees that ugly umbrella as he walks away in the rain.
And that one sentence he said shifts around in her mind until she finds the perfect structure, and she's a tiny bit happy, even if her skin is bone cold.
I just
appreciate
a lot.
AN: Hello! All these one-shots will be in different modern settings, and the majority of them won't be connected whatsoever, but they'll all be "firsts," like first hug, first kiss, etc.
If you're looking for a slightly more saucy first, I'm sorry because I'm terrible at writing those kinds of firsts and if I did write one it'd be totally sarcastic and taking the piss out of everything, which is something I tend to do.
But if there's a first you really want me to do, tell me and I will be happy to think about it :D