The Mailroom
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The mailroom was a small room on the second level of the student center. The room was lined from the outside with the small student mailboxes, each with a number, and almost all littered with various stickers so the students could better identify which mailbox was their own. On the far end of the hall was the window where students could pick up their packages or send off mail.
The small boxes were only about the side of a loaf of bread. The students put in a combination to open the box, and if one looked, they could see to the other side of the box, where the opening was to the mailroom. There was no back to the mailboxes, because mailroom attendants had to slip notes into the boxes somehow.
Roxas wanted to kill the mailroom. His combination wasn't working. And it wasn't like he was stupid or anything and didn't know how to work locks. He'd gone through public school. He'd had to deal with lockers. And damn it, the student center was old and the mailboxes were old, too.
He hated his mailbox. The previous owner had left a rainbow flag on the front, covering up the number. When he'd first gone off in search of his mailbox, he couldn't find it because there was a no number. And now he kept forgetting to find a way to remove it until he came downstairs and there was the god damn rainbow sticker and fuck it, he didn't have any remover on him or anything, or stickers to cover up the god damn embarrassing rainbow flag sticker.
Luckily on this day, he was the only one opening up the damn mailboxes, so nobody had to see him and realize he was 'the first year with that gay sticker on his mailbox.' It wasn't that the campus was anti-gay. On the contrary, he was at a very liberal campus, but, damn it, he wasn't gay!
He pounded his fist against the mailbox after it failed to open for a third time.
"Mother fucker!" he swore at it, as if curses would help the combination work and the damn mailbox to open. Then he heard something scratch against the other side of the mailbox and heard a small little click. He blinked and stared. Then, hesitantly, he leaned forward and gripped the knob. He opened his mailbox and peered inside.
"Hello!" the mailbox chirped.
Roxas whirled back. "What the hell?"
He looked again and saw that there was a pair of eyes regarding him from the other side of his mailbox, shoving some letters into his box from the mailroom. The green eyes were captivating, but Roxas wanted to just grab his mail and run. His backpack was heavy from today's classes and he just wanted to pass out in his dorm room.
"Ah, sorry!" the pair of eyes apologized, locking onto his mundane blue ones. He watched the corner of the eyes crinkle and knew that the person on the other side of the wall was smiling. The green eyes were glittering in what could only be explained as a mischievous manner. He'd probably been the one to open his mailbox.
"Doesn't matter," Roxas said after a moment of just staring into those green eyes. He reached out his hand and grabbed the mail the other person had left for him in the mail room. Extracting it, he shifted through it.
"You have a package," the damn green eyes told him before disappearing and revealing a shred of light from the mailroom. Roxas stared at the empty space for a moment before slamming his mailbox shut and shuffling over to the mailroom window to pick up his package.
He didn't have to wait long, because as soon as he walked up to the window, the man from the other side of the room appeared with a small little flourish. It didn't take Roxas long to know that it was the same guy. Those green eyes were unforgettable, and the rest of him was just as unique. The wild flame of red hair stood up as if on its own and he had two tattoos under his two eyes. He was tall and skinny and stood with a slight jutting of his hip.
He pulled out a huge catalog, the long list of received and picked-up packages. It was protocol that they log each package and check off when each student picked up the package for him. Roxas presented his ID card when asked and the red-haired man searched through the long list of names.
"Roxas… Roxas… Roxas…" the man muttered to himself before grinning cheekily and shoving the catalog towards him. "Sign here."
The blonde did as he was told and signed his signature on a tiny little line beside his name, ID number, and package log number. Then the mailroom attendant ducked down from view and Roxas heard shuffling.
He remerged a moment later with a medium sized package. "From your mooommy?" he teased, "a care package, perhaps?"
"Shut up," Roxas said, tugging the package from the attendant. "It's my textbooks."
The man was still smirking and a piece of red hair fell over one eye before he batted it away. He leaned forward, resting his chin in his hands and staring up at Roxas from a hunched over position. Roxas stared at him, frowning intensely at such a pose before shoving the package under his arm and turning to leave.
"You're the kid with the rainbow mailbox, right?" he asked as Roxas began to walk away.
"Shut up," Roxas told him again. "Why?"
The man was laughing. "That was mine last year. They keep the combination every year. Its 14-33-0 instead of whatever they say it is. It was a misprint and they've never fixed it. Just thought you should know."
"Are you the asshole that put that damn sticker on it?" Roxas asked, spinning around to glare at him.
This aggravating man seemed amused by such a question. He tapped his fingers against his cheeks, still in the same position and those impossibly beautiful green eyes staring at him. "And what if I did?"
"I'd tell you that you caused me a lot of grief the first day of orientation," Roxas told him firmly.
The redhead seemed amused by such a statement. "Oh, really?"
"Yes."
He tilted his head to the side and hummed quietly, as if trying to think about a proper way to dispute what Roxas had said. The blonde stared at him, his eyebrows knitting together and his blue eyes narrowing at the obnoxious redhead.
"You're welcome," he said, his eyes crinkling again. "I'll see you around, Roxas."
Roxas stormed away, shouting something about no chances in hell and god damn rainbow flag stickers. But Roxas made a note of the combination in his head to write down later, and tried to banish the thought of beautiful green eyes peering at him from the other side of the mailroom.
