~ Monday ~

15:45

~ Fera University ~

Mika sighed, as he folded the last of his clothes into his dresser.

Behind him, his roommate, Lacus continued to complain about the pure injustice of them not having a closet, and Mika continued to encourage him that wardrobes were actually something you could buy.

Finally, when Lacus had somewhat organized himself into his side of the room, he announced that he was stir crazy and not going to spend on more minute in this god-forsaken room. To which Mika did not move at all, and politely invited Lacus to enjoy himself while he was out.

When Lacus had left, Mika finally had a moment to himself to think. He sat down on his bed, exhaling heavily and closing his eyes.

On the backs of his eyelids he saw bright green eyes and a boyish grin.

Mika's eyes snapped open.

He pulled out his phone, quickly scrolling through his contacts and tapping on Krul's name.

It rang twice.

"Mika," came a smooth, cheerful voice on the other end. "How is the first day going?"

Mika felt himself smile a little.

"It's going alright. I don't think Ferid is making very many friends though."

"Well that's to be expected." Krul sounded like she was smiling. "How about you, Mika?"

"Well my roommate is Lacus." Mika admitted and Krul laughed.

"Aww, come on Mika. I know your relationship isn't perfect but he has been your friend for years."

"Broadly speaking," Mika replied, and Krul laughed.

"There is one other person…" Mika said slowly, and Krul hummed into the phone.

"A new friend."

"No," Mika admitted, "Actually… I ran into an old friend. Do you remember that friend from Sanctum I told you about?"

Krul giggled, "How could I forget? What does Ferid call him? Your princess?"

Mika blushed. "Stupid Ferid."

Krul laughed again.

"So what about him?"

"He's here." Mika explained slowly into the phone, feeling oddly nervous about doing it.

"Really?" Krul sounded oddly invested suddenly. "Didn't you tell me he was a Canis now?"

"Yeah…" Mika rubbed a hand over his arm awkwardly.

"Well have you gotten to talk to him? How did you run into him?"

"He's a student ambassador too." Mika shifted lean against his wall. "I saw him at the meeting today. We didn't really get to talk much… he's seemed really surprised to see me."

"He wasn't rude to you was he?"

"No!" Mika thought of Yuuichiro's smile and shy posture and felt a smile pulling at his lips. "No he wasn't mean. His girlfriend was little bit though." the smile disappeared again.

"His girlfriend?" Kurl's voice took on an odd tone.

"I think so," Mika ran a hand through his hair. "He didn't introduce me to her, but she kept telling him they had to go and pulling on his hand."

"Hmm…" Krul hummed quizzically. "Well you should still try to catch up with him. It's been a long time, I'm sure it would be nice for both of you."

"Yeah, I was planning on it." Mika agreed. "I mean that's what this is all about right? Making friends."

"Exactly," Krul agreed, and then Mika could hear someone else speaking on the other end.

"Sorry, Mika I've got to go now, but it was good to talk to you. Call again tomorrow?"

"Of course," Mika agreed. "Talk to you tomorrow."

Then Mika hung up the phone.

And sighed again.

He sat on his bed in silence for another couple minutes, contemplating leaving the room at least for food.

Then he heard a loud crash from outside.

~ Monday ~

~ Fera University ~

~East Hall~

Yuu had helped absolutely all of his friends find their rooms before himself. It turned out all of them were rooming together. Mitsuba and Shinoa were roommates on south campus, and Kimizuki and Yoichi were roommates on North Campus.

Yuu had been ready to throttle them all when they'd started whining that they were too tired to help with another dorm room today, and now he was now left using a strange cart contraption to haul all of his boxes up to his room himself.

"Damn worthless, good-for-nothings." Yuu complained under his breath as he stood in the east hall elevator. The door dinged when it reached the top and creaked open.

Yuu was in the process of trying to pushed the cart out- but the overly top heavy, and probably over-full cart managed to catch it's wheel on the crack between the elevator and the door, causing it to tip over and dump all of his boxes onto the floor.

Yuu started breathing curse words.

A few people from his hall heard him and came out of there rooms to look, and Yuu could feel himself becoming the laughing stock of the entire floor so he ignored them.

He had just shoved the last of his boxes out of the way of the elevator-mentally thanking the gods that didn't pack anything fragile- when he heard a voice call to him from up the hall.

"Yuu-chan?"

Oh you have got to be kidding me…

Yuu froze. His tail going ridged and his ears perking up.

Part of him wished he could somehow disappear into the floor at that very moment, or wake up and realize that his pasted twenty four hours had all been a dream.

"Yuu?" the voice repeated, and Yuu heard the sound of footsteps coming closer to him.

Yuu mentally counted to ten before looking up into a curious pair of slitted blue eyes.

"Mika?" Yuu's voice came out a little rough.

Mika was staring at him with a mixture of concern and confusion.

"Are you alright?" Mika asked, as Yuu stooped down to start gathering up the fallen boxes-none of them had broken open, thank the gods.

Yuu blushed. "I'm fine. Stupid cart just tipped over." he grumbled.

"Well, in it's defense, it's a smart cart not a U Haul." Mika teased as he kneeled down to help him. "Did you actually try to load up all of your stuff in one go?"

"I didn't want to make two trips." Yuu complained, as he finished tipping the boxes right way up and stacking them. Mika laughed.

"That is so like you. Why didn't you ask someone for help?"

"Because my lazy ass friends all ditched me." Yuu huffed. "Next time they can all move their own selfish asses in all by themselves."

Mika blinked at him.

"Wait, you helped them but then they ditched you?" He frowned. "Yuu… have you been making the wrong kind of friends while I've been away?" Mika asked in a mockingly patronizing voice. Then he picked up a couple of the boxes. "Don't worry, Yuu chan. I'll rescue you from your selfish friends."

Yuu blinked at him. "You don't have to do that-,"

"It's fine." Mika shrugged him off. "You live in this hall, right?"

Yuu nodded. "Room 842."

Mika smiled, "I'm room 845."

Yuu felt warmth bubble up in his stomach. "So we're hall-mates then."

"Looks that way." Mika agreed. "Now should we get going? My arms are starting to hurt."

Yuu quickly gathered up a couple of boxes and headed down the hall.

He found his room pretty easily-though unlocking his door proved to be a bit of a trick while carrying boxes- and stumbled awkwardly inside to deposit the boxes on the bed.

Yuu looked around.

The room was small but livable, with a mirrored floor plan on each side except the one bathroom on the right. It was currently empty but there were mostly unpacked boxes on the other side of the room hinting at the recent departure of his roommate. When they had gotten the last of the boxes in, Mika huffed and sat down on Yuu's bed, looking around.

"Huh…" Mika said quizzically. "Yours is smaller than mine. And where's your jacuzzi tub?"

Yuu looked at him and Mika grinned.

"Ha ha," Yuu rolled his eyes elbowing Mika's arm as he sat down next to him. "But seriously, thanks for helping me."

"Of course," Mika hummed, "But now I'm starving. Think you could thank me with a sandwich?"

Yuu chuckled. "Sure," he agreed, "But I have no idea where food is around here."

"There's the dorm cafe downstairs, but I don't think it's open yet." Mika admitted. "But I think I saw something that looked like a food-court on my way here, and it looked open."

Yuu nodded in agreement. "All right, lead the way."

Yuu stood up and was about to open the door when it flew open and Yuu had to jump aside before it hit him in the face.

"Oh," said the person on the other side, looking up.

It was an oddly small boy with long purple hair- pulled back in a ponytail- and big red eyes. His ears were pointed and his had large bat-wings sticking out from his back.

"You must be my roommate." The boy said. "looking from Yuu to Mika. Unless the blonde is, and you're his boyfriend."

"I am," Yuu corrected him quickly, fighting off a blush. "I'm Yuuichiro. This is my friend Mikaela, he lives across the hall."

"I'm Asura," the boy replied. "Nice to meet you both."

He stepped passed Yuu into the room and kicked off his shoes before sitting down at his desk.

"You too." Yuu replied. "We're going to get something to eat, do you want anything?"

Asura turned to look over his shoulder at Yuu, smiling. "Oh. So you're one of THOSE roommates. That's sort of adorable. Nah I'm fine, nice guy. You two enjoy yourselves."

Yuu frowned. "What do you mean 'one of those'? You act like you've had a bunch of roommates."

"I have." Asura replied. "I know I look young, but I graduated early. This is actually my third year at a university, and I've had a different roommate every semester. You're one of the nice guys roommates. Which is cool. It lets me know I can take advantage of you to do stuff for me."

Yuu raised his eyebrow. "I was just being polite. I'm not your errand boy."

"Sure you aren't nice guy." Asura replied. "Just go on your date all ready. You're boyfriend is waiting. Oh!" Asura turned fully around. "And we'll go over rules about sex in the dorm when you get back so be sure to bring him with you."

Yuu stiffened.

"He's not my boyfriend, and we're leaving now." Yuu fumed, grabbing Mika by the arm and dragging him into the hall before slamming the door.

"No slamming the door!" Asura called back from inside.

Mika was still laughing about it when he and Yuu sat down with their trays at the food court. Mika true to his word had gotten a sandwich that somehow had salmon on it and Yuu had gotten two cheeseburgers and a milkshake. Because it had been that bad of a day.

"Well at least you'll never be bored. Your roommate seems very entertaining."

"Yeah I can just never bring people over now." Yuu replied. "I'll have to have everyone meet me at the elevator, and tell them my roommate's a germaphobe."

Mika snorted. "Don't want to give your lazy friends any ammunition against you?"

"Nope," said Yuu. "It'd been like giving a terrorist a nuke."

Mika laughed harder this time.

"You sure make your friends sound delightful."

"They aren't all bad." Yuu admitted. "They just like to pick on me."

"All of them?" Mika asked, his tone sort of odd. Yuu didn't know what he was getting at but answered anyway.

"Mitsuba isn't as bad as Kimizuki and Shinoa. And that one Yoichi kid doesn't look he could mock anyone without apologizing first."

Mika chuckled at that. "Shinoa, huh? Wasn't that the fox ambassador girl's name?"

"Yeah," Yuu admitted. "Sorry in advance for that by the way. I don't control the things Shinoa does when people put her in charge."

"I'll keep that in mind." Mika tilted his head, his ears twitching curiously. "Have you known her a long time?"

"Since I was twelve," Yuu said quickly inhaling the rest of his burger and taking a swig of his drink. "She's trouble but she's always been a good friend. Even if she is bossy and always setting me up on blind-dates with her crazy friends."

"Blind dates?" Mika was suddenly smiling brighter than before. "Why did she do that?"

"Because she said she wants couple friends for when she starts dating this girl she likes." Yuu explained, careful to not spread Shinoa's secret information around too much., since he knows she'd kill him if she found out.

"A girl, huh?" Mika seemed in an even better mood that before. "Was she ever successful? With setting you up I mean."

"Nope," Yuu replied, sighing. "At least not for very long. I kind of suck at dating, apparently."

"Oh I don't know if I believe that." Mika said with a grin that made heat rush to Yuu's stomach.

Yuu wiped his face as an excuse to look away.

"What about you?"

Mika's ears flipped back and forth. "Me what?"

Yuu shrugged. "I don't know. Friends, dates… what have you been up to for six years?"

Yuu swallowed. Six years? It really had been so long…

Mika thought, his tail swaying through the air behind him, making Yuu distracted.

"That's a lot to cover," Mika said finally. "But I guess I'd say Lacus is my friend. Even if he's difficult sometimes. And I'm not currently dating anyone, if that answers your question. But as for the rest of it…" Mika shrugged. "You'll just have to spend more time with me if you want to find out."

Yuu smiled. "I can do that," he said, without totally thinking about it, and Mika's smile grew.

When Yuu's mind caught up he instantly blushed.

18:57 - SHINOA:

WHAT? He lives across the hall from you?

18:58 - YUUICHIRO:

Yeah. RIGHT across the hall.

19:00 - SHINOA:

Oh my gods, Yuu! I've got the perfect plan!

19:00 - YUUICHIRO:

No.

19:03 - SHINOA:

But you haven't heard it yet!

19:06 - YUUICHIRO:

I don't care. I can sense your crazy from here.

19:10 - SHINOA:

But seriously Yuu, all you have to do is 'pretend' to get locked outside your room in just your towel. Then you go over and ask to wait in his room until your roommate gets back.

19:11 - YUUICHIRO:

NO SHINOA! That is the most humiliating thing I've ever heard.

19:13 - SHINOA:

Fine, just keep it in your back pocket for later. ;-)

19:14 - YUUICHIRO:

Screw you, Shinoa.

19:15 - SHINOA:

That's Mitsuba's job. You stick to screwing Mika. Or getting screwed by him. Whichever you prefer.

19:17 - YUUICHIRO:

OH MY GODS. GOODBYE SHINOA!

~ End of Chapter Three ~