So gather up your jackets, and move it to the exits
I hope you have found a friend.
Closing time-
Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.
-"Closing Time" by Semisonic
CHAPTER ONE: MOVE-IN DAY
After all the nail-biting excitement and frustrating counting down on the calendar, watching the campus approach really cemented it: Mikan was actually going to college.
It was all real now, something that Mikan hadn't really felt until that moment.
"Are we excited?" her mother asked, turning around in her car seat to grin.
Mikan nodded but there was something fluttering in her stomach too, something that was nervous.
"Now, remember not to go to any frat parties," her father warned from the driver's seat. "Don't drink. Don't take any pills that anyone offers you. Try to stay on top of your grades. Beware of boys-"
"Izumi," her mother bit out. "You're being overbearing. Besides, you already told her this before." She turned to face her daughter again and smiled. "This is gonna be fun, okay? Don't be worried. We're only two hours away, after all, so if you need anything, we'll be there in a jif."
"I know it'll be fun," Mikan said, sitting up straight to get a better look out the window. "I can't wait!"
The feeling in her gut didn't subside.
Mikan was going to the same college as her best friend Hotaru Imai. They were on different levels academically, with Hotaru being a prodigal genius and Mikan being a C student at best. Mikan made up for her academic failings by being an incredible athlete. She was the star on her high school track team and she received interest from colleges because of her abilities.
She'd have gone to campus on Move-In Day with Hotaru except that Hotaru was already on campus, having attended a summer session to prep her for her engineering major. Meanwhile, all Mikan had to do to prep for the track program at Alice University was train at home for the summer to make sure she was in shape for the fall semester.
Suddenly remembering Hotaru, Mikan fished her phone out of her pocket and texted her friend telling her that she was only a few minutes away from the dorm.
"You're gonna be mostly freshmen," her mother was saying. "So you won't have to worry too much about making friends… not that you'd worry… but everyone's new so it won't be a problem making friends with people who aren't Hotaru."
Mikan smiled at that. Her parents loved Hotaru. She was responsible, smart, well-behaved, straight-laced: the perfect influence. Her grandpa had even been overjoyed when he first met Hotaru, back when the girls were in third grade. He, like Mikan's parents, had been excited to see if Mikan would absorb some of Hotaru's qualities, but it didn't exactly turn out that way.
What Mikan was worried about wasn't her making friends: she was worried for Hotaru. Hotaru was a bit misanthropic (which was probably the main reason she was so straight-laced, in addition to the fact that Hotaru's pet peeve was idiocy and getting drunk or high counted as idiocy), so she didn't like mingling with people much.
Hopefully, having a social butterfly for a roommate (ahem, Mikan) would help her befriend a couple of people.
Hotaru texted back with two letters:
OK.
Izumi then shifted the car's gears into park and took a deep breath, as if to prepare himself. "Alright, Yuka, Mikan. Time to move in."
Mikan's dorm number (231) had been sent to her already in the mail, so that she didn't have to stop by the administration building and wait in a long line like the people who'd lost their assignment in the mail or who had experienced some sort of mistake.
Her family had a box each in their hands, trudging to the front door of the E building. The halls inside of the building were crammed with newcomers and their families, making it difficult to shove through.
"Maybe we should've tried to find the dorm first before we started taking in boxes," Izumi said regretfully as he led the charge, looking out for the room number.
"Shoulda coulda woulda," Yuka said. "Let's just try to find the room, okay?"
After a lot of fighting, they found the room and dropped the boxes off on the floor. Hotaru wasn't there, but her side of the room was already crowded with boxes. It was strange that Hotaru hadn't unpacked yet, especially considering that she'd been there all summer.
Mikan and her parents went to and fro for about an hour, getting all the boxes and bags from the car to the dorm.
When they were finished, Izumi told them he'd go get them some lunch while Yuka and Mikan started unpacking.
When he'd gone and they were in the middle of making the bed, someone cleared their throat behind them.
Mikan spun around and saw Hotaru standing in the doorway. She was wearing a tweed dress and a little bow in her dark hair and she looked just like she had when Mikan last saw her so Mikan ran to her best friend and hugged her tightly. She held on for as long as she was permitted, as long as it took until Hotaru finally peeled Mikan off.
"I'm glad you found everything okay," Hotaru said in her usual monotone.
"Yes," said Yuka, still tucking in the comforter (the cutest one at the store-a pastel pink one littered with teddy bears and bows and hearts). "We had to push past a lot of people to get in here. I almost forgot how scary move-in day was. It's been a while since I had my own move-in day in college."
"We've already started unpacking," Mikan said excitedly. "Come on in, we can unpack together."
"Sure, I can help." Hotaru walked in and closed the door behind her, muttering something about how noisy it was in the hall.
"Or you can get started on your own boxes," Mikan teased, grabbing a box to start decorating her desk.
"I've already unpacked," Hotaru said, helping Yuka shove the pillows into teddy bear pillowcases. "And your taste is as childish as ever. You know people will actually end up seeing your bed, right?"
Mikan rolled her eyes. "I figured you'd have already set up by now but your side's all messy still. It's so weird 'cause I thought you were supposed to be the organized one."
"I am. That's not my stuff."
Mikan looked at the boxes stacked on the other bed. "What do you mean it's not your stuff? Are you holding boxes for another girl until she arrives or…? What… I don't get it."
Hotaru rolled her eyes. "We're not roommates, stupid."
Yuka had politely excused herself to the hall, claiming that she needed some fresh air (which was silly because the hall was still full of people and had no fresh air to spare). Hotaru and Mikan were left alone in the room.
"I thought you knew already. I told you about Otonashi during the summer."
"I thought she was only a temporary roommate, like until the fall semester starts!" exclaimed Mikan. "I didn't know the school didn't allow roommate requests."
"If they didn't allow roommate requests, they wouldn't have had a request form," Hotaru said coldly. "I didn't want to be your roommate, that's all."
"What?' Mikan collapsed on her newly made bed, slumping over in a new found depression. The fluttering in her stomach from before was back, this time screaming at her, "I told you something bad would happen!"
"I didn't want to be your roommate," Hotaru repeated.
"Why not?" All of the excitement of the day was gone.
"Because you're noisy and I'll need to be able to study this semester. I can't have you causing a ruckus or throwing accidental parties when I need to read up for a midterm." The brusqueness of Hotaru's voice sent a shiver down Mikan's spine. She had always been so clinical.
"I thought we were gonna be roomies!" Mikan said, collapsing against her pillows. "We were gonna watch movies and go to classes together and every night would be a sleepover!"
Hotaru was arranging things on Mikan's desk now, fiddling with a pencil cup. "This is college, Mikan, not a sleepover. I hope you got matched up with someone who's willing to be as loud as you but that's not me." She turned around to offer the first and last smile of the day, a small and almost pathetic little thing. "We're still best friends. I just don't wanna be your roommate. We can have the occasional movie night, of course. This isn't as bad as you're making it out to be."
Mikan wiped at the origins of tears, little wet drops threatening to enlarge and slip down her face if she didn't get a grip.
"I'm… I'm fine!" Mikan said, sitting up straight. "I'm sure my real roommate is great and she'll be my new best friend."
Hotaru rolled her eyes. "You'll get over it," she said. "See you later."
She left then, quickly replaced with Yuka's return. "Was everything okay? Did you work it out?"
Mikan shrugged. "I guess I'm just sad that she didn't tell me before. I got all excited for nothing."
"Well, not for nothing!" Yuka exclaimed. "Your roommate will be nice, probably, and you might get along really well! In fact, knowing you, you'll be fast friends!" She picked up another box and cut it open. "Let's get some more done; your father should be back soon and we want to have room to eat, don't we?"
Mikan grinned and wiped at the last vestiges of tears from her face. She got back to unpacking with her mom, glad that her parents would always be on her side.
Mikan made up for her obliviousness (or what Hotaru liked to call "airheadedness") with a strong spirit and tireless optimism, traits she inherited from her parents. Her mother was tough and never gave up, while her father was never downtrodden for long (Hotaru said this had less to do with a worldview and more to do with a very short attention span).
Thanks to them, Mikan never stayed upset.
In no time at all, Mikan and her mom were finishing up unpacking the essentials and Izumi waltzed into the room with a paper bag.
"Let's take a lunch break, huh?"
Hotaru texted Mikan about an hour after she had left:
Sorry I wasn't clear before about the roommate thing.
Mikan texted back with an emoticon, :P, and nothing else.
Yuka scolded her daughter for being petty. "You've been friends for years. You don't want to be one of those girls that stops being friends as soon as high school ends, right?"
Mikan gasped. "Mom! I didn't say anything about ending our friendship. I would never do that. I just want her to realize she did something unforgivable, that's all."
Izumi laughed. "If you're planning on making up with her eventually, isn't it at least a little bit forgivable?"
Mikan scowled at him as they finished unpacking the last of the things.
The final item on the unpacking agenda was to throw out the boxes and say goodbye.
Standing by the car, Mikan stared at her parents, unwilling to let them drive away. Suddenly, she was aware of the permanence of this. This wasn't summer camp or a class excursion. Mikan wouldn't be going back to live with her parents (though she could be returning for summer and winter break, since the dorms were closed then). This goodbye was a turning point. The end of something, the end of everything Mikan had known up to that point.
Sure, it wouldn't be forever. They didn't live too far away.
Still.
"Come on, Mikan, don't cry," Izumi said. Mikan hadn't even realized she'd been crying.
"I'll call you every weekend!" Yuka promised. "And we'll send you care packages!"
"If you get homesick, we'll come to visit, okay?"
"We'll miss you too."
Mikan's vision was getting blurred by her tears but as they slowly started trickling down her face, she could see that her parents were crying too, smiling widely at her.
"Oh no," she muttered. "We're all crying."
"Of course! You're my baby. I don't wanna say goodbye!" Yuka then reached out to embrace Mikan. "But I know I have to. You're growing up and I am so proud of you."
"If I could, I'd keep you home forever," Izumi said, wrapping both Yuka and Mikan in his arms. "But you need to leave the nest eventually."
Mikan stayed there for a while, held tightly by both of her parents for a long time. It must have been at least a few minutes that they were hugging before they slowly parted and Yuka rubbed desperately at her cheeks to dispel the tears.
"I'll miss you, Mikan!" she said, her voice breaking. "Remember: it's not forever!"
Izumi opened the car door and beamed. "We'll keep your room clean for you," he promised. "You are always welcome back home."
"I love you!" Mikan said, wiping at her own tears.
And then the last car door was slammed shut and they pulled out from the curb, Yuka waving all the while. Izumi honked once as a final farewell and then they were out of sight, around the bend.
And Mikan was alone.
No parents, no best friend to be her roommate.
The anxiety in her gut started laughing at her. "I told you."
Her phone vibrated and Mikan checked it once her face was dry, only to see a text from Hotaru:
When you're ready to be mature, I'm in room 214, in the middle of the hall.
Mikan decided to ignore the text and go back to her own dorm. She was not ready to be mature.
At this point, the halls were emptier (though there were still a few parents running about with boxes) and most of the doors were closed.
Her own dorm-room was closed as well and since she hadn't closed it, she assumed her new roommate was busy unpacking inside.
Mikan prepared her friendliest face and got ready to greet her new best friend.
She opened the door and saw that the other side of the room was decked out with black and green and magenta. To contrast the fairy lights above Mikan's bed was a poster of some attractive boy band, the members of which were decked in black leather. The comforter on the other bed was dark and elegant, like something out of a fancy catalogue. Instead of a teddy pattern, there were simple stripes. The girl in the room was also more elegant, with dark hair cropped at the chin except for two longer strands that continued into unique curls. She looked fashionable, wearing black shorts and a light denim jacket over a mint blouse.
As soon as Mikan entered, the girl looked at her with intense green eyes.
"Oh, hi," Mikan said. "You're my roommate, right?"
The girl straightened up and placed a hand on her hip. "Yeah, I guess. You're Mikan, then? You're gonna need to throw out that comforter because-no offense-it's embarrassing. As your roommate, I veto it."
Mikan wondered why everybody seemed to hate her comforter. "It's not embarrassing, it's cute."
The curly girl rolled her eyes and continued unpacking. "Embarrassing, but whatever. It better not influence anyone's opinion of me."
Why did everyone hate teddy bears? Teddy bears weren't capable of hate-they were symbols of love, like the Care Bears. Who on Earth could hate a Care Bear? It just wasn't possible.
Though, Mikan had her own teddy bear to match her comforter, an old and somewhat mangy thing she called Mr. Bear that sat on her bed, judging everything and everyone. He looked a little bit mean, even Mikan could admit. Mr. Bear was probably the only teddy bear capable of hatred and Mikan found some sort of ridiculous solace in that he probably hated the new roommate.
The roommate didn't seem to like him much either. "And throw that in the garbage too. It's old and kinda ugly."
Mikan was getting irritated. "You know what's ugly? Your perms, Permy!"
The girl dropped her pillow in shock. She grumbled something under her breath that sounded an awful lot like "Why does everyone call me that?" before taking a deep breath and looking Mikan head on. "The name's Sumire, and you should know because I wrote it on the door already."
"We're allowed to write on the door?" Mikan asked, surprised.
"On the whiteboard, idiot."
"Why didn't you say so," Mikan griped, looking at the other side of the door where Sumire had scrawled her name out in beautiful cursive, the kind you saw on aesthetic videos. "Should I write my name too?"
"Uh, yeah," scoffed Sumire. "The whiteboards are there for a reason."
Mikan was almost hit on the head by the marker her roommate tossed her way, but all those years of building her reflexes had balanced out with her clumsiness so she only fidgeted with it for a second before holding it and writing her own name on the whiteboard.
It wasn't nearly as beautiful as Sumire's. In fact, it was rather ugly, especially under Sumire's beautiful name. Mikan always had plain handwriting but the effort to make her name pretty backfired completely. After rewriting it three times, she finally gave up and left it looking somewhat normal. Now her name only looked boring, instead of ugly, under Sumire's fancy writing.
She returned to the room, closing the door behind her. "Did you parents already leave?" she asked, sitting on her bed.
"Yeah, an hour ago."
"Mine too. They left just now." Mikan tried not to focus on how that thought broke her heart. Instead she remembered how incredible her last day with them had been. "It was actually really cool because we left kinda late but we still made it. My dad wanted to make me a nice breakfast-well, my mom did too but she sucks at cooking-so we ended up eating pretty late. Anyway, we started going and we had to go through a bit of the countryside and saw a lot of cows. Isn't that weird? Anyway, we eventually got to the dorm-before you were unpacking, but your stuff was here-so for a while I thought your things belonged to my best friend Hotaru, but it turns out Hotaru is rooming with someone else and she just didn't tell me. Anyway, my parents and I were unpacking after my dad brought us lunch… or dinner… or both, whatever… Is that called dunch? Linner? I think I like dunch. Well, we were eating dunch before we unpacked everything. It's good you weren't there because we took up a lot of space. I really like pad thai too so that made it better-"
"Oh my God, do you have, like, an off button or something?"
"That's so rude!" Mikan exclaimed. "I'm just trying to make conversation."
"If that's what a conversation with you is like, I'd rather not converse, thanks."
Mikan was slowly realizing that Sumire was not going to end up her new best friend.
"Jeez. Sorry." Mikan looked at her own side of the room and let herself smile in pride. It was cute, no matter how embarrassing everyone else thought it was.
"You know what," Sumire said, slowly, almost slyly. "It's getting dark out, right?" Mikan glanced out the window and saw that it was true: the night had arrived, making the fluorescent lighting of the room all the more bright. "Well, I read online that this is the best time of the day to take a shower because everyone else is studying or getting ready to settle in. Nobody wants to take a shower so late in a public bathroom. But the cool thing is that Hall E is an all-girls dorm."
"It is?" Mikan asked, surprised.
"Yeah. No boys. So it's safe to go and take a shower before winding down for bed. I'm probably going to go take a shower after I unpack but I'd recommend going now before all the hot water's gone."
"Really?" Mikan smiled. Maybe Sumire wasn't so bad. She seemed really helpful now. Maybe she was just shy, in her own way. "Thanks for telling me. That's really nice of you."
"No problem," Sumire said, turning back to her boxes. Her voice had just an edge of a rush to it when she added, "Hurry up before the hot water runs out. At this rate, I'll probably have to shower tomorrow. Gross."
Mikan grabbed a towel (a polka-dotted orange one with a penguin on it-so cute…) from the top of her wardrobe.
"Don't forget that nice big toiletries bag you have right there," Sumire said. "It's a good idea to get your nightly routine done with all at once so you don't have to go back."
"Good idea, Permy. Thanks!"
"Here to serve," Permy muttered.
Taking a shower actually wasn't as scary as she thought it'd be. Permy had been right: there weren't many other girls in the bathroom. She was drying herself when it suddenly occurred to her that she hadn't brought a change of clothes.
"Shoot." She tried to come up with a solution and in the end she tucked her towel around her like a dress (though she was always bad at tucking the towel comfortably without it slipping a whole lot). She brushed her teeth and gathered all her dirty clothes in her hands and started going down the hall to her room. At this point there weren't any people in the hall, having all retired to the comfort of their dorms, so Mikan felt safe.
That is until she realized she was carrying way too much. Her clothes kept getting pushed down her chest by the weight of the bag and the towel was slipping.
Eventually, about halfway through the hall, she had dropped all of her things-the bag and the clothes-in a desperate effort to push her towel back up.
Luckily for her that was also the same moment that a door opened and a boy was looking at her intensely (and judgmentally). Mikan rushed to tuck her towel in again. He was only a little bit cute, with black hair and red (red?) eyes and an unpleasant frown. The frown really detracted from his cuteness.
"What are you looking at?" she snapped.
He looked at the floor, where all of her clothes and underwear had fallen, in addition to the sparkly toiletries bag she had dropped. "Uh…"
"The answer is nothing!" she hissed, bending down to pick up her things.
"Sure thing. By the way, nice towel, Polka Dots," he said sarcastically. Mikan's blood boiled and her cheeks turned hot.
"Thank you!" she shouted indignantly. "Orange is my favorite color!"
She shoved everything back into her arms and rushed down the hall (still barefoot, which was incredibly inconvenient because the floor was carpeted, so who knew what kind of germs were hiding in the fibers? On the plus side, if it had been a tiled floor that would've been grosser and colder).
She knocked on room 231 with her shoulder, probably bruising it.
Permy opened the door pleasantly, looking down to see the towel start to slip again. Mikan dropped everything yet again to shove it back up under her armpit. Permy backed away before any of Mikan's belongings could fall on her.
"You lied! Hall E is co-ed!" Mikan yelled. She faintly heard a snicker from down the hall (probably from that jerk who called her Polka Dots) and resolutely slammed the door as soon as she had kicked in all of her belongings. "Why would you lie to me? I thought we were friends!"
"Who told you that?" Permy asked, a tinge of disgust in her tone. "I can't be friends with someone who dresses like she's a character from the Disney Channel."
"Why are you such a jerk?" Mikan spat.
Permy shrugged. "In my DNA, I guess." She picked up a plastic bag with a change of clothes and a toiletries case inside. "I'm gonna go take a shower now." She opened the door. "Also," she said, ducking her head in to see Mikan. "These dorms don't have limited hot water so you don't need to rush and you might want to get yourself a smaller toiletries bag. I don't think make-up or cleansers or creams will ever fix all that ugly on your face." She smiled sweetly and left. "Toodaloo!" she said before closing the door.
Mikan changed and angrily typed out a message to Hotaru:
I'm never forgiving you for this!
A/N: Y'all... It's been forever.
Please forgive me.
I'm not home (in an entirely different timezone, actually) but I really wanted to write more so I hope you enjoy this trashy college AU. :)
There is more to come!
Also I'm gonna post this on AO3 because I really like the formatting of AO3 and I might as well start using that account for more than just reading.