Yang Xiao Long had been waiting years for this moment, but this was not really what she expected.
Yang didn't really think she was ever going to make it to college. Her dad was a single parent trying to raise two kids, and she'd never had the best of grades. But when her Uncle Qrow got the job as a police officer working for Beacon University police, she got herself a leg up on admissions and tuition costs since she had a family member working there for at least five years. It didn't hurt that Beacon University had one of the best criminal justice programs in the country, and Yang always wanted to enter the police force like the rest of her family.
Yet, Yang had made it to Beacon U. She had finally made it, after years of public school and working extremely hard, a summer full of buying stuff for her dorm, and anxiously awaiting her roommate assignment.
Yang had a lot of anxiety involving her future roommate. Freshmen were all randomly assigned roommates at Beacon U, but used a small survey to at least match up their sleep schedules and stuff. Yang had heard from some of her old friends that the survey wasn't exactly the best, and sometimes people ended up with roommates that didn't match at all. She'd thought up every possibility for her roommate, and thought about how to handle it… or so she thought.
Yang hadn't thought of the idea that her roommate literally had no information about her out there. Yang had gotten her name and e-mail from the reslife, and Yang had tried to look her up on every single form of social media. Not a single site provided any results for the mystery girl, Blake Belladonna. Even her e-mail told nothing about the girl. It was her school e-mail, the same format that literally everyone else had.
Yang had e-mailed her roommate and gotten a little bit of information from the girl. Her future roommate was was moving in a few days early, and would provide a microwave and a rug for the shared portion of what they would need for the room. Yang had e-mailed her again, trying to get a little bit of personal information from the girl. Blake had never responded.
The single e-mail from Blake had not relieved Yang's anxieties. She couldn't wait to get to school and finally meet the mysterious Blake Belladonna. Yet, when she arrived at her dorm room, her dad and little sister in tow, helping her carry up her things, she found the side of the room furthest from the door and window set up, but no one in sight.
Yang sighed as she looked at her little sister, Ruby, and her dad, Taiyang. They'd been as excited to meet the mysterious Blake Belladonna as Yang was, but not nearly has anxious. Yang decided she would just have to introduce her roommate to her family another day. Given, of course, that Blake actually showed up at some point.
Blake Belladonna had always hated small talk and questions about herself.
When Blake got her roommate assignment for college, she learned she'd lost her one percent chance to get a single room as a freshman without some form of disability on her record. She'd given her new roommate a quick web search to determine that Blake's roommate nightmares had come true. Her roommate, Yang Xiao Long, was totally a party animal.
Blake couldn't see much without an account on most social media sites, which she had no intentions on making. Yet, from the handful of pictures she could see, she immediately assumed everything about her roommate. She had to be a total partier, who'd probably end up dropping out of college within a semester. When Yang reached out to her in an e-mail, Blake had given as little information about herself as possible. Blake just hoped Yang would be out of the dorm enough so that she could study in her room without having to worry about her new roommate being loud.
Blake was no stranger to having roommates. She'd had many different ones throughout her life, and had always trusted none of them. She was treating Yang no different when she arrived to college. She was sure of that the moment she saw Yang's profiles online.
Blake had made arrangements with the school to arrive a few days early. She simply did not want to deal with questions about where her family was when she moved in. She also didn't want to talk to Yang's family, or Yang, to be honest, but she knew the latter couldn't be avoided forever. She'd considered a few different ways to get out of having to talk to Yang's parents, including pretending she didn't speak English. It hadn't taken Blake long to realize that there was a million holes in that solution, the first and foremost of which being that she was an English major, after all.
Instead, Blake decided to find somewhere else to hide on the university-wide move-in day. Blake picked the place she knew best: the library. Yet, when she arrived there, she found that the library wasn't opening until classes started. With a long sigh, Blake found herself wandering about, trying to find any building with the door unlocked so she could find a corner to curl up in with a book.
After searching for quite a while, Blake finally found her way to the student union, with dozens of various common rooms. Most of the small rooms were occupied by families getting lunch together before departing. Blake felt like the emo kid in public school again, glaring at the happiness of others and hiding in a large comfortable chair in one of the smaller common rooms with a book.
Blake glanced up at the clock. It was 10 am. Yang wasn't due to arrive for another two hours based on their move-in rules, but Blake probably wouldn't head back to their dorm until at least 5 pm. Quickly setting a vibrating alarm on her phone, Blake shut out the rest of the world as she delved into her book.
The half of the room that had been the plain white and prison-cell-esque was now covered in Yang's belongings. Posters and pictures of her high school friends and her family covered the walls on her half of the room. Her desk, which faced the wall so people walking by when the door was open couldn't snoop on what she was doing, had a small TV, her laptop, a printer, and various other school belongings. Her bedsheets were colorful, primarily fitting a yellow color scheme. A red hand-knit pillow rested along the side of the bed, a gift made by Ruby.
Yang was laying on her newly made bed, scrolling through her phone. All of her friends from high school had uploaded pictures of themselves in their dorm rooms with their roommates. Yang had uploaded a similar picture, but just a collage of a few pictures of the room and a selfie with her family.
Yang glanced anxiously over at the other side of the room. The walls had nothing on them. The desk, which faced her bed, was empty, aside from a locked box sitting in the open shelf beneath the flat top of the desk. Her bedsheets were pure black, nothing fancier than a single lamp on her dresser next to her bedside. Where the hell was this girl? Who the hell was this girl? Why wasn't she here today? She'd mentioned moving in a few days early in her e-mail, but Yang hadn't expected that to mean that she'd be gone all day.
Yang sat up straight when she heard the jingling of keys into the lock on the door. Hopping off her bed, a huge smile on her face, she watched as the door opened to finally reveal the mysterious Blake Belladonna.
Blake opened the door and found herself staring at a very excited blonde. The girl seemed a bit more human and a lot less stereotype than she had in her profile pictures.
"Hiya! I'm Yang!" the blonde's smile spread across her face as she held out her hand.
The raven-haired girl gave a small nod as she shook Yang's hand. "I'd hope you're Yang, considering you're in our room. I'm Blake."
"I like your sense of humor!" Yang's smile somehow seemed to get wider. Blake just couldn't wait for this to be over already.
Yang stepped to the side, allowing Blake to enter the room and put down her small backpack next to her bed.
"So," the blonde girl said, dragging out the o as she hopped onto her bed and sat on the side, "what's your major?"
"English, with a concentration in creative writing. How about you?" Blake asked, mostly out of courtesy rather than actual curiosity.
"Criminal justice! You want to be a writer? That's really cool!" Yang exclaimed, her unending excitement bubbling through again.
"Thanks." Blake's face remained the hard neutral she had trained it to be, but she could honestly not feel more put off by her roommate. Criminal justice. A party girl who wanted to be a cop? The girl was probably dumber than a sack of bricks, as most cops Blake had met in her lifetime were. She'd always had a hard time trusting them, given they'd never taken her word as fact. She'd had so many bad run ins with cops, she couldn't despise a single profession more. Yet, here she was, her college roommate studying to be what she despised the most.
Just one year. You only have to live with this girl for one year. If you get lucky, you can transfer to another room halfway through the year! Or maybe you could get three jobs, and save up for an apartment. Blake's mind was running with ideas as she pulled off her backpack and sat down at her desk.
"Are you going to go to convocation tonight? I heard it's a really cool experience." Yang hopped back onto her bed, trying to strike up some more small talk with the raven-haired girl.
"I don't think so. I don't really do crowds," Blake gave a small shrug as she pulled her laptop from her backpack. Yang noticed immediately that it seemed to be a bit older, and was of a brand that was notoriously cheap – as well as notoriously easy to break. She'd assumed that a writer would have a decent machine to write on, but she shook off the question. Yang didn't want to be rude when they'd just met.
"Oh, come on! It'll be fun. We get a free t-shirt and a silly little electric candle thing. We can hide in a corner, and make fun of people acting like idiots trying to impress everyone else!" Yang smiled widely as Blake glanced up at her.
"I don't know…" Blake sighed, glancing at her laptop, which she had opened, but not turned on.
"I mean, we're supposed to go. It's supposed to be the only time our entire class gets together. Graduation is even separate based on college. I think you'll regret it if you don't." Yang shrugged slightly, a small smile still on her face, which Blake saw out of the corner of her eye.
How could one person smile that much? She'd known Yang for a whole three minutes and the blonde hadn't stopped smiling the entire time. Blake couldn't even remember the last time she genuinely smiled on reflex, and not because she'd forced herself to. Okay, that was a lie. Blake could remember. It was when she'd gotten accepted to Beacon University and she got her ticket out of the hellhole that was her life before here.
Beacon was supposed to be something new for her, right? Something good for her to experience. She looked up at Yang once more. "Alright, I'll go."
A huge smile sprawled over Yang's face, yet again. "Yay! We should probably head down now; our floor is meeting up to walk over together in a couple minutes."
Blake shut her laptop and slid it back into her bag. Her writing would have to wait until later. Somehow, this overly smiley blonde had convinced her to break out of the comfort zone she had already set up for herself and get her out to a stupid school event.
Blake mentally swore to herself that Yang would never manage to do this with a party. Blake refused to compromise her scholarships and grants with such a concept, no matter how much the blonde gave her those huge, genuine smiles.
Yang was right. This is pretty fun.
The roommates had found themselves in as much of a corner they could create in the large circle of freshman that surrounded the stage. Everyone had a t-shirt and a crappy electric candle, just as Yang had promised. People were all trying to impress each other by dancing and singing and rapping like idiots over the background music that played while everyone filed in.
Blake couldn't decide what was funnier: the stupidity of these kids trying to show off, or Yang's jokes about them and impressions of them. Blake found herself genuinely smiling and even laughing at the blonde. These two concepts were nearly foreign to Blake, but it wasn't really on the front of her mind as she laughed at Yang mimicking the dance of a boy about ten yards away.
The two laughing girls were interrupted as a bunch of people ran up onto the stage. Both immediately recognized them as the orientation leaders that had led them through the two-day orientation program over the summer. With them was someone in the school's mascot costume: a giant bee.
Yang could come up with a million puns for Beacon University's mascot being a Bee. Her high school friends had heard them all a thousand times, up to the point where Yang regularly forgot that her spelling of "Beecon" wasn't actually the name of the school, just some stupid pun that Yang had come up with.
Blake hadn't been indoctrinated to Yang's puns yet. Back home, Yang was notorious for her horrible puns, incredibly proud of the number of groans and the occasional chuckle she could get out of people. A sly smile formed over Yang's face as she leaned closer to Blake.
"You know, it sure is great to be at Beecon University." Yang's face lit up with a huge smile, glancing over at the bee mascot and trying to stop herself from chuckling.
It took Blake a moment to get the joke, but she let out a groan once she put two and two together. "Yang, that was horrible."
"I'm notorious for providing the best puns around… Or the worst, depending on how you look at it." Yang winked at the girl.
Their conversation was interrupted by the school chant starting from the orientation leaders, to which the huge mass of people responded. They did the chant three times, and by the third time, Yang even got Blake to join in.
Before they knew it, the President of Beacon University was on the stage, giving some inspirational speech about how wonderful the school was with the new additional class. Yang tried to listen, but was too distracted by the mass of students around her. All of them were potential friends. Yang was overly ecstatic to be here.
Blake, on the other hand, had slipped out of the good mood Yang's antics had put her in. She had suddenly realized the mass of the crowd around them. Her stomach began to twist and twirl. They were in a sort of corner, on the outskirts of the circle. She knew if she took off, Yang was going to ask questions. Blake didn't want to answer questions. She just wanted to attend school and get a degree and then a job. So, she stood there, her heart racing and stomach churning, as she tried very hard to focus on the speech being given so she could take her mind off her surroundings.
The President finished her speech, and all around the two girls, people were raising up their candles. The scene around them felt chilling as the two turned on their candles and raised them up.
"This is really happening," Yang whispered.
"Yes, yes it is." Blake glanced at the blonde girl, who was marveling at the scene around them. Blake couldn't help but feel the same way. She'd finally made it. She'd finally made it to college.
