PART 1: FALL SEMESTER
Beep. Beep. Beep.
A pale hand slammed down onto the phone going off next to the sleeping girl. She attempted to shut it off, but her fingers failed to slide the button on the screen to the off position. She wasn't yet fully awake, unable to stop the noise that was bringing her out of sleep.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
The girl sat upwards in bed, grumbling to herself about the annoying alarm sound. She grabbed her phone and slid the alarm off, finally silencing the noise. She twisted her back and reached up above her head to stretch herself out. Spinning herself to the side, she hopped off the bed and silently landed on the floor. The girl wandered towards the mirror that hung in the room, looking at herself in the mirror as she pulled her long black hair out of its bun. She ran her fingers through the hair from the top of her head backwards, loosening it from the waves the bun had left it in.
The black haired girl turned from the mirror to look at the rest of the room. Today was her last day of peace in the dorm by herself, before she was certain that all hell would break loose.
Move-in day.
Of course, she'd made early preparations to move in a week ago. She had paid a little bit of extra money, but in her opinion, it was more than worth the cost. Doing so avoided awkward questions from both her roommate and her roommate's family about why she was moving in alone, or why she had so little possessions. Plus, it meant that she didn't have to deal with her roommate in general for at least a little bit longer.
Even after the girl had moved in, the room was still pretty empty, even if it was only half inhabited. Her side of the room was as simple as she could make it. Her bed was plain, a simple set of sheets and a comforter with a single pillow. The desk was neat, with a desk lamp, her cheap laptop, and a small cup of pens. Her closet was half-empty, and neatly organized. Under her bed was a microwave, still packed inside its box, waiting to be placed on her roommate's mini-fridge. Aside from those items, the only other thing visible in her room were her books. Stashed under her bed were several crates stuffed to the brim with books, the only thing that she owned in plenty. Her side would never really be messy. Her roommate, however?
Ugh, her roommate. She'd been dreading this day for some time. She'd had roommates before, that was nothing new. She'd just never had good experiences with them, and based on what she'd gathered so far... Her expectations were not very high.
The girl turned to the closet to get dressed. She needed to get out of the room as soon as possible. She had no clue when her roommate would show up.
A few minutes later, she was dressed and ready to go, her backpack slung over her back, packed with her laptop and a book or two. She opened the dorm room door, slightly blinded by the bright lights of the hallway. She blinked a few times, shaking her head. Those lights stayed on 24/7, and goodness, they were as bright as the sun in the middle of July.
The girl closed the door behind her, turning to lock it before she left. She glanced up at the nametags on the door, written in overly perfect handwriting on little apples. Blake. Yang.
Yang. The first time Blake had seen that name, it was in an email she'd received from the reslife office about her roommate assignment. The girl's full name was Yang Xiao Long. She'd punched the name into Google, and got back a couple of results. The top was Yang's Facebook profile, which was... Telling. The girl was blonde, with giant, poofy, blonde hair, and her pictures reeked of party girl. It only took a couple of profile pictures for Blake to know that she was going to have a bad, bad year.
Blake was the opposite of a party girl. She just wanted to get her education, read, write, and get a job. That's all she'd ever wanted! But instead, she had to live with a party girl for her freshman year. All freshmen were required to live on campus, so it's not like she could exactly get out of it. She'd weighed her chances at a room switch the moment she closed that Facebook page. Blake would likely get moved to the shitty dorms, with smaller rooms, more parties, and a worse location on the very edge of campus. She'd determined that she'd try to stick it out, at least for a little while, to determine whether or not this Yang character would really be bearable to live with.
Blake turned towards the stairs and began to walk down, looking at the sky through the large glass windows in the stairwell. The sun had barely risen. The campus was quiet, the calm before the storm of first years moving in.
Blake had already done a few searches around campus in the days prior. She'd looked for smaller, more secluded spots, where she could get away from people if she needed to. There were still some limitations, however, as most buildings on campus were magnetically locked until the first day of classes. For now, she only had access to the public buildings, like the student union, or the bookstore.
The bookstore was a solid no for today. People would be flooding in and out like crazy once they got moved in to pick up last minute items, or even some of their textbooks for the semester. The library was locked until the first day of classes, as were most of the academic buildings, and she had no clue what the population would be like in those buildings. The student union would be... Complicated, but probably her best shot. She'd have to explore the upper floors a bit more than she already had, in hopes of finding a quiet spot that most people wouldn't be visiting on their first day on campus. The lower floors would be crawling with people in just a few hours. Outdoors wasn't an option. It was far too hot, and lost students might stop and ask her for directions. Ugh.
The walk to the union was not very long. It only took Blake about five minutes to enter through the doors. There were a few people wandering about- mostly RAs waiting in line at the coffee shop for the long day ahead of them. No one paid much attention to Blake, just the way she liked it.
It wasn't long before Blake had found a quiet place to sit- a ring of armchairs outside of the Queer Center, hidden away in a corner on the top floor of the union. The QC had signs advertising it's grand opening tomorrow. Maybe, just maybe, she'd consider going. But that was a tomorrow problem. Today, her only problem was how she was going to deal with Yang. But even that wasn't a problem for right now.
Blake shoved her earbuds into her phone, putting on some music to listen to while she read. She figured she might as well drown out the fact that she was going to have to deal with Yang eventually while she still could.
This was the day she'd been waiting for.
Move-in day.
Yang would be lying if she claimed that she wasn't excited. Or nervous. Or both. She'd literally been waiting years for this moment, years to get out of Patch. But the slow car ride in the line of move-in day traffic certainly had her on edge.
The small car was packed to the brim, but barely contained a fourth of her stuff. Following her from behind was her father, in his big pickup truck, with the remainder of her stuff held in the bed of the truck. Her younger sister, Ruby, sat in the passenger seat of Yang's smaller car, bouncing up and down with way more excitement than Yang was showing.
"Ohhh! Do you think Beacon University has a video game club?" the younger girl asked.
Yang shook her head. "Of course Beacon has a video game club, Rubes. It's a university! There's clubs for everything there."
"Only two more years till I get to join you! I'm super excited!" Ruby's bouncing seemed to speed up, although Yang wasn't entirely sure how that was physically possible.
"Easy there, squirt. You've still got half of your high school years ahead of you. You should try to enjoy it while you can. You also have to get admitted to BU before you're allowed to be this excited."
"Hey!" Ruby interjected, sticking out her tongue at her older sister. "I'll be excited all I want! I'll get into BU, and then you'll be helping me move in!"
Yang smirked. "I sure will, kiddo. Hopefully I'll be out of the dorms by then. I can't imagine being stuffed into one of those little rooms for four straight years."
"Speaking of the dorms, did you ever hear back from your roommate?"
The older girl sighed, perking up a bit as the slow line of cars suddenly moved forward several feet. "No, she never responded."
Yang's roommate was... A mystery. Yang knew next to nothing about the girl, other than her name. Blake Belladonna. The girl had no social media, no trace anywhere on the internet. The girl had only sent one email to Yang, telling her that she'd already gotten the microwave and hoped that Yang had a minifridge, because she wouldn't be able to afford one. Blake had also noted in her email that she'd be moving in a week early, and would be out of the dorm on move-in day, to stay out of Yang's way as she moved in. Yang had replied warmly, asking the girl questions about herself. But that was weeks ago, and she'd never gotten a response. Yang had even sent another email last night, saying that she'd hoped that Blake was enjoying the dorm, and letting her know roughly what time she'd be moving in. But still, no response.
Ruby shrugged, a smile still on her face. "Oh well! I'm sure she's a nice girl, Yang. Besides, you know what Dad always says!"
Yang sighed as the two spoke in unison. "Strangers are just friends you haven't met yet."
"I know he really likes that saying, but I just don't know. What teenager doesn't have social media nowadays? And why wouldn't she answer my questions? It was just like, what's your major, what are your hobbies, stuff like that! Basic roommate stuff!"
The younger girl put a reassuring hand on Yang's shoulder. "Maybe she's just shy, or hasn't checked her school email, considering school hasn't started yet. And maybe she just doesn't like social media, like me! Sometimes it can really do more harm than good."
Yang took a moment before speaking again. "Yeah, I guess. I didn't really think of it like that. I just... still feel weird about it."
"Don't!" Ruby said with a big smile. "I'm sure she'll be just fine. She's just a friend you haven't met yet."
The line of cars began moving again, at a much more rapid pace than the slow crawl they had been moving at so far. The conversation between the sisters stopped as Ruby was filled with excitement, and Yang, a mixture of excitement and anxiety.
"Oh boy! We're so close!" Ruby exclaimed.
"I can see the campus from here," Yang whispered.
"You okay, Yang?"
She nodded. "Just nervous."
"You're gonna be fine, Yang! No one knows how to make friends better than you!"
A small smile formed over the older sister's lips, before disappearing again. "Thanks, Ruby. It's not just me I'm worried about, though."
The line of cars slowed to a dead stop.
Ruby furrowed her brow. "What do you mean?"
"You know what I mean."
The car was quiet for a moment. "Me?" Ruby asked.
"Yes, you. You know I worry."
"Yaaang," the younger sister groaned, "I'll be fine! I can take care of myself. I'm back in karate lessons, Cinder graduated, and I have Penny!"
"I know, Ruby, I'm not just worried about you at school."
"I know."
There was a moment of silence between the two of them.
"I'll be okay, Yang. I promise."
"Anyone gives you shit at school, who do you go to?"
"Straight to the principal."
"And out and about?"
"Straight to Dad if they pose no immediate physical threat."
"And if they do?"
"Kick them in the crotch."
Yang smirked, as the line of cars began moving again. "Good, I've trained you well."
Ruby pressed her face up against the window of the car. "Look, Yang! The sign!"
On the right side of the road was a black sign with large, bolded, yellow lettering. "BEACON UNIVERSITY". Beneath the bolded words were a smaller tagline. "Beacon Bees: Men's Lacrosse Team National Championships". Underneath that was a full list of all the years the most popular team at BU had won the championships: 17 times. It filled up the remainder of the huge, black sign.
As they passed the sign, the girls both thought the same thing: they had officially entered campus.
AN:
A few brief thank yous! Thank you to everyone who moved over from my old account to my new account! It really means a lot to me for all the support! Another thank you to the RT Writing Community on Discord for getting me back into writing and for help with some of the technical side of things! Additionally, I'd like to give a huge thank you to my beta-reader, masterread, for putting up with my nonsense.
I hope you all had a fantastic holiday season and that you enjoy the rehash of this story! Updates will be weekly on Thursdays, probably sometime during the evenings/night EST!