Timeline note: Set in between Mike signing Oozma Kappa up for the Scare Games and Mike and Sulley arriving at their new home.
He had been lucky that the library was still open at this hour, or he would have been forced to carry all of his reading material over to the fraternity house. The librarian had been staring at him when he had carried in a stack of books almost twice his own size, but as he had been treating each and every one of them with the respect they deserved, she had simply nodded and started to put them back into their appropriate places.
Mike let out a deep, tired sigh upon re-entering his dorm building. Good thing he had not had to do that himself, as it would have cost him way too much time. Most of his stuff was packed, so if he hurried, he might manage to get out of the room before Randy came to collect his own stuff. He really did not want to face the guy right now. Enough had happened today for him to chew on.
A group of students passed him on the stairs, staring at him, then started whispering when they thought they were out of earshot.
Mike did not concern himself with them. Let them talk! He would show them what he was made of.
There was more whispering in the hallways, but he tuned them all out, mentally going over the list he had made for the stuff he had needed to return to various places, and finding that the library had been his last stop. Good.
He froze when the door to his room came into view, the very much open door, the one he had closed upon leaving for the library.
He closed his eye for a second, taking a deep breath, before quickly crossing the remaining distance and entering the room.
It was empty.
He let out the breath he had not realised he had been holding, warily regarding the right side of the room and letting his gaze wander over the now activated reading lamp on the desk and the opened suitcase on the bed that was not his.
Well, technically, the other one was not his anymore, either.
With a sigh, he went over to his side of the room, taking a few of his own books from the shelf and carrying them over to his backpack lying on said bed. He made sure his back was firmly turned to the other side of the room before speaking up.
"Drop it, Randy. I know you're there."
He waited for the slight rippling sensation which usually accompanied Randy's transformations and which had become so familiar to him over the course of the last few months. It never came, so he assumed Randy must be standing too far away. There was, however, no mistaking the additional shadow that suddenly appeared on the wall over the bed, overlapping with his.
"...hi, Mike."
He did not bother to dignify that with an answer. Randy had made it obvious that he did not want to talk anymore than he wanted, so what was the point in forcing it?
So he tuned out Randy just as he had done with the monsters in the hallways, busying himself with the books from the shelf instead and wondering why they did not fit into his backpack anymore. They had fit on the way here, right? It was not as if they had magically gained volume over the past months. Why did this happen every single time he had to pack his things?
But as much as he hated himself for having to admit it, it was not as easy distracting himself this time as it had been with the other students, and he could not stop his eyes from flicking over to that shadow every now and then. Randy had been standing behind him for quite a while, but was just now turning around and going back to packing his own stuff. Why could he not have decided to join ROR a few days earlier? Then none of this would ever have had to happen between them.
But he also would not have known what Randy truly thought of him, nor what he was capable of. No, better to break this off as soon as possible instead of growing even more attached to the guy and only hurting more for it later.
Why had he decided to join ROR in the first place? To declare his loyalty to a fraternity that had a tendency to bully his only friend? One would think there should have been at least some hesitation involved.
A large encyclopaedia slipped out of his hand at that moment and painfully landed on his foot. He yelped at the sudden burst of pain and saw the shadow on the wall disappear at the unexpected sound. Cursing under his breath, he stooped down to retrieve the elusive book. When he straightened up again, the shadow had reappeared and seemed to have turned around to him, although he could not be sure of that.
He averted his gaze from it, successfully wrangling the book into the backpack, before opening the drawer of his desk to check that he had not missed any of his stuff. What remained were only a few folders full of notes and his stuffed animal still sitting on the shelf.
A loud noise made him whirl around in surprise. It had sounded like Randy had purposely hit something, but before he could ask to be sure nothing had happened, Randy had whirled around to him, too, glaring fiercely.
"Dammit, Mike, why are you ignoring me like this?!"
Mike stared at him for a second. Had he honestly just asked that question after trying to avoid the conversation in the first place? "I'm not ignoring you," he answered calmly and truthfully. "I just don't see any point in talking."
"No – point – in talking?" Randy repeated incredulously, and Mike felt his lower lip start to tremble. He had never noticed this before, but Randy seemed to have adopted his bad habit of overemphasising his sentences. Why did this hit him so hard right now?
His silence seemed to infuriate Randy even more. "You're acting as if I've done something to you! One day, we're best buddies, the next, you act like I'm contagious! It's not fair! It's not like I could have done anything! Did you honestly expect me to change fraternities for you?!"
He had moved closer with every word, practically hovering over Mike now, still glaring.
And Mike just blinked up at him in wonder. Was it really so hard to understand?
"No, not at all."
Randy took a few steps back in sudden confusion. "What? But then... why..."
Mike stared up at him, unable to keep the bitterness out of his eye. Why did Randy have to make him explain it?
"I expected you... to be sorry about this."
He could clearly see Randy's eyes widen at the implied accusation. He seemed to be at a momentary loss for words, and somehow, Mike felt himself slipping into anger because of it.
"But you're not, are you? What happened to me simply doesn't concern you, does it? That I lost my lifelong dream! That the entire school was making fun of me, and still is! That now I'm forced to put up with the constant presence of the one monster that ruined everything! It just doesn't matter to you!"
Randy was staring at him, seemingly caught off guard by the sudden outburst. Could he not at least deny it, even if both of them knew it was the truth? Could he not at least try and salvage what was obviously a dying friendship?
"You didn't say 'sorry I can't help'," Mike continued, now glaring himself. "You just basically told me to stop asking for your help. Just… wow. Thanks for the support, buddy! I thought calling someone your 'best chum' would have meant something to you!"
He averted his gaze, the hurt threatening to overwhelm him. It should have meant something, right? There was no way you could spend so much time with someone, to have so much fun with them and not grow attached to them... or was there?
"Yeah, well… you ruined my cupcakes!"
"Yes, I did!" Mike blurted out, even louder than before. They had been through this already! "Because I didn't have control over where that thing was going, and I didn't even know you'd been there until you told me! And it was a complete accident! And I felt awful about it! And I apologised to you about fifteen times!"
He tried to calm down, feeling what was left of his control over the situation slipping completely. His eye darted around the room before settling on the window. He could see their tree outside and wistfully remembered a great number of cramming sessions they had spent under it, preparing for tests. "But you? I needed your support, Randy. I needed it badly. And yes, you weren't in a position to give it, but that's not even relevant. What's relevant is that either way… you didn't care."
The quiet declaration made both of them pause. As ridiculous as it sounded even to himself, time seemed to stand still for an instant, as if it was trying to grant them both a moment to let the realisation sink in.
Mike felt the corners of his mouth turn up into an ironic smile. "Yes. That's the crux here, isn't it? You don't care. As long as you're with the 'cool kids', what does it matter what happens to someone who can't measure up to your perception of 'coolness'?"
He turned back around to the bed, picking up his belongings again. "Well, Randy, the thing is, you can't make people care. I've had to learn that the hard way. They either do, or they don't, and there's nothing you can do to influence their choice. Which means I can either whine about it or just accept it and move on."
As painful as it was to do it.
Randy was still silent. Why did he not argue? Did he think that what he just heard deserved no answer? Or did he maybe agree with the words? Was he feeling guilty?
Well, Mike certainly would not ask him. What was the point? What Randy felt or did not feel right now had no influence on the fact that he did not care.
So he simply gathered the last of his things and successfully found a way to squeeze even Little Mikey into his backpack without it being too uncomfortable for the small guy. And afterwards, he just allowed himself a minute to gather his wits. He did not need to make this goodbye even messier than it already was.
When at last he shouldered his backpack, he thought he saw the shadow above the bed that was no longer his reach out one of its many hands towards him. But when he blinked, the silhouette had steadied itself, so he dismissed the sensation as a figment of his imagination, born out of wishful thinking. Deep down, he knew that was not how it worked.
He silently took his bags and walked over to the door, then hesitated in the doorframe, before finally turning back around and facing whom he had been sure would be his friend for life.
"Goodbye, Randy," he whispered, feeling tears welling up in his eye. "I hope fraternity life works out for you."
And he did not even wait for a reply before turning around and hastily striding down the corridor. He was too afraid he would not get one.