Mello sighed as she carried her incredibly heavy books back to her dorm. Why the hell did the book store have to be so far away? It was like they wanted to punish the freshmen or something. Her car was parked so far away that it wasn't even practical to drive it to class. Cradling her books in one arm, she fished around in her purse for the wad of keys she knew was there. Once she was inside she practically threw the books down on the bed, her arm red and sore from the weight. One thing she was thankful for was the fact that she didn't have a roommate, only a bathroom shared with her neighbor. Being the smart kid really did pay off when you were accepted into the honors dorms, she decided as she looked around her small room. She contemplated what to do next, a shower seemed like the best idea. She laid her clothes out on her bed before grabbing a towel, and her other bathroom things. The shower was relaxing, Mello closed her eyes and let the water run over his face. She wasn't sure how long she'd been in the shower before an annoyed knock broke her out of her reverie. "Mello! You're taking forever!" Her neighbor, Linda, was a petite brunette with little patience. Mello hadn't known her long, but she figured they could get along."Sorry!" Quickly turning the water off, and wrapping her plush towel around herself she unlocked the door for Linda before going back to her own room and closing up her side of the bathroom. It was really an awkward set up when you looked at it. Dropping her towel to get dressed Mello realized that she had apparently forgotten to lay out panties. "How weird..." Figuring that she'd just not thought of it, she got another pair from her drawer and got dressed for the night. Mello grabbed a Cosmo magazine before laying on her bed, using her stuffed dog as a prop for her head. About midway through a very interesting and detailed column about which position brings a woman to orgasm faster she felt her phone vibrate and grinning she answered. "Hey Matt."

"Hey," Matt said with a grin, sounding excited. "I just joined that gamer's club!"

"I figured you would. What floor are you on again? You got the honors dorms right?" Matt had been Mello's best friend since fifth grade, they were so close that Mello even felt comfortable changing in front of him. Her mother hadn't been very comfortable with letting Matt stay over anymore once they got into middle school, but Mello assured her that Matt was gay. He wasn't. Not that Mello would do anything with him anyway, she thought of Matt as her brother. A brother that occasionally checked her out, but still a brother.

"Yup! I'm on the second floor, room 214. How about you? I wish we had some time to hang out earlier, can I come to your room for a while?" Matt hadn't really felt much like socializing with the other guys on his floor, since most of them wanted to talk about football when he would rather talk about Mario.

"I'm in room 103, girls and boys are separated by floors I guess? Yeah, I'm not busy right now." Mello had hoped that boys would just have been on separate halls, but she guessed that being co-ed in general was good enough for her. She hadn't seen any boys that had really caught her interested yet, but she hoped that would change very soon. She'd broken up with her boyfriend before she moved, so it better have been worth it.

"Cool, I'll come see you. So did you meet anyone new today?" Matt locked his door before taking the elevator down, being too lazy to use the stairs, and knocked on the door to Mello's room.

Hanging up the phone and opening the door, she smiled at her long time friend. "You know, it would've taken less time to use the stairs, you lazy ass." Matt had always been that way, though. It was a wonder that he didn't weight a ton. Mello always nagged him on how being sedentary would catch up with him someday, and that he should be more like her. Mello jogged about a mile every morning, and she hoped that the new atmosphere wouldn't affect her routine.

"Pfft, my way was totally faster. Whoa, your room's clean," he said, peeking over her shoulder. "You gotta come organize mine later. Come on now, I asked if you met anyone new. Got a boyfriend?"

"No, not yet, but I am looking at some football players." Mello nearly giggled when she saw Matt's face light up with hope only to be crushed a second later. Was that cruel? Matt was used to her treatment, anyway. "Maybe I will come clean it up for you. I bet all your stupid games are scattered around everywhere."

"They aren't stupid, and they're all in my closet, I just can't find anywhere to fit my clothes now. And come on, why football players? I've got all of the Madden NFL games if you wanna watch me play!"

Mello giggled and wrapped her arms around Matt's waist. "I still come watch you play, but your games can't do the things a real football player can do to me."

Matt pouted and hugged her. "I could."

Laughing, she ruffled his hair. "Come on Matt, you need some nerdy girl who likes those stupid games, too." It's not that Mello didn't like Matt, he was cute. She just thought he was too sweet, and really didn't ever want to hurt him. He would always be her best friend.

"I always get stuck in the friend zone," he complained, still pouting. "And my games aren't stupid."

"Then maybe you should just take charge for once, some girls really like that you know. Or maybe you should pretend to be more experienced than you are, I know that when I was younger I wanted to date guys that knew what they were doing, because I didn't."

"I guess I'll try. There's some kind of stoplight party or something coming up, isn't there? Maybe we should go." Matt wasn't exactly sure what a stoplight party was, but hey, parties were always good.

"Sure." Mello giggled. "Do you own any green shirts? Maybe a striped one?" Matt really did have a good idea. As Matt brought up a mental catalog of his clothes, Mello walked over to her closet and opened it. It was full to the brim with clothes, since like most girls she loved to shop. Surely there was at least one green shirt in all of that.

"I'm pretty sure I do," he replied after a bit of thinking. "Why, though?"

"Don't you even know how these parties work? If you wear a green shirt it lets everyone know you're single, yellow means maybe, and red means taken. How does this look?" Mello held up a strapless turquoise green shirt with a ruffle at the top to her chest and posed for the redhead.

"Awesome. I think it starts soon, should I go change now?"

"That's tonight? What time?" Mello figured she should read the 'Potty Times' a bit more closely. What kind of school put up announcements on the inside of stall doors? It was rather creative she supposed, since there wasn't much else to do when you sat there.

"At 6:00, so in like twenty minutes. You gotta pay more attention to the welcome week stuff."

Mello rolled her eyes. "Whatever, go get dressed and meet me at the university center." She pulled her shirt off a rummaged through the dresser for a strapless bra.

"Don't be all moody." Matt laughed and kissed her cheek before hurrying out to avoid getting smacked, then went to his room and changed into the first green shirt he could find.

"Matt!" She shook her fist at the fleeing boy before smiling when he was out of sight. He always put her in a good mood. After changing she headed over to the university center and waited for Matt under the clock tower. The party was just starting up, and only a handful of people had shown up, she guessed that everyone was waiting until closer to dusk. One figure stood out to her in particular, a man with dark hair, wearing an even darker coat. The only reason she even gave him a second glance was just because of that coat. It was still nearly eighty degrees in the shade, how could he even stand it? As she turned her head to take a second glance at the man he was gone. "What the...?" She looked all over in the man's general direction, but he was no where to be seen. How strange.

Matt forced himself to not take a quick break for videogames and headed off to the university center, making his way over to Mello when he saw her. "Hey. Not a lot of people here yet, huh?"

"Hm?" She turned to look at her friend, dressed in a forest green striped shirt. "Oh hey. Yeah, not too many people are here. I'm kind of bored."

"I hope we didn't come to a crappy party." He got punch for Mello and himself, handing a cup to her and leaning back on a wall. "Well it looks like a few more people are showing up. Maybe we're just a little early."

She sipped the punch, frowning at its artificially flavored taste. "Yeah." She scanned the crowd, already weeding out the boys she would avoid finding the few that she might bat her eyelashes at. None yet had really caught her eye.

Matt looked around for girls, but the few that were there looked way out of his league. Frowning, he downed his punch and reconsidered what Mello had told him earlier. "Hey, I'm gonna go talk to those girls. See you in a little bit?"

"Sure, text me if you need help. Oh, and if you want you can have one of my bras in case you need to prove you've been with a girl." She gave Matt a reassuring pat on the back as he made his way over to a cute brunette with her hair up in a high. Mello gave the crowd another once over, spotting a boy that had apparently just arrived since she was sure she'd never seen him before. He was more than just fairly attractive, and her gaze lingered on him for longer than any other boy at the party thus boy didn't need much more encouragement than catching Mello's eye for a moment, so he certainly wasn't about to leave it at just that. He approached her with a smile, taking a drink of his punch. "Hey."

She gave the boy, or man, Mello decided upon closer inspection, a flirtatious smile. "Hey." He was very handsome, with light brown hair and eyes to match. This one could definitely be a winner.

"I'm Light. What's your name? Are you a freshman?"

"Melony, but you can call me Mello. Yeah, I'm a freshman, you?" She took a moment to look the man over. He was dressed well, slacks and a white button up shirt. He wore a green tie...guess that counts right?

"Interesting name. I'm a senior." He took another sip from his cup, watching her. She wasn't exactly his type, but she was pretty cute.

"A senior? Wow, what's your major?" She'd always wanted to date a senior, it's what all of her friends talked about in high school, a college senior was their dream. A few weeks ago she thought it was silly, but now...the prospect of dating a senior was looking pretty good again.

Light barely stopped himself from smirking. He really did love it when things went according to plan. "Criminal Justice. Have you chosen a major yet? What's a pretty girl like you interested in?"

Mello blushed and giggled like an idiot. She just couldn't help it, even though she'd probably kick herself for it later. She wanted to be sexy, not be a dumb blonde that just seemed easy. "I uh, forensic science. So I guess it's kind of like criminal justice." She would have to try pretty hard to redeem herself in the next few minutes.

Light laughed. At least this girl was amusing. "They're related, yeah. You want to work in a lab?"

"Yeah, in the field too. Do you have any minors?" She glanced to the side to see that Matt must've been doing pretty well, considering the girl he was talking to hadn't thrown her drink in his face yet.

"Sounds pretty interesting. I don't have any minors, I just wanted to focus on criminal justice when I got here." He followed her eyes to Matt and the brunette. "Which one is your friend?"

"Oh, well I guess it's good to have something you're passionate about." Mello smiled. "The cute little redhead."

Light laughed a little at her choice of words. That guy was far from cute, he was the kind of person Light wouldn't really even want to associate himself with. "I see. Yeah, everyone should have at least one thing they're passionate about." He stepped a little closer to Mello, casually draping an arm over her shoulders.

She smiled up at him. "Is there a certain person you're passionate about?"

"There could be," he replied, pulling her closer. "Why don't we go somewhere else?"

She took one final look at Matt before nodding. "Sure, where?"

"My room."

"Lead the way." She leaned against him, enjoying the feel of his warm hand on her hip.

Light kept his arm around her and started walking back to his dorm, not bothering to stop himself from smirking this time. It was starting to get dark, anyway. "You're very pretty, you know."

"Yeah, I know." She didn't really care if she sounded like a bitch, from what Mello had gathered Light liked a challenge.


Grinning at the small collection he'd started, he tossed the last pair of panties into a bag. The blonde girl he'd been following was one of the prettiest he'd seen so far. Lucky for him she was careless, too, leaving her door unlocked as she went to shower. She even left her class schedule just lying on her desk. After quickly jotting down her class times, he had been planning to only take what she had left on her bed, but he always did have some trouble controlling himself. She probably wouldn't think too much of two or three missing pairs of panties anyway, right? It didn't bother him whether she was concerned or not, anyway. His plans weren't changing. He just wanted to watch her for a little longer before he tried anything else. And as long as she kept leaving her door unlocked, there wouldn't be any problems.