You put away your phone, and feel a small grimace play across your features.
"That was the Chinese take-out place we ordered from," you call across the room to Dave. He's currently looking through the DVDs you laid out for movie night. From what little you can see of his expression, thanks to the sunglasses he still won't take off, it looks like he's taking the task way too seriously.
"Yeah, and?" He calls back, eyes still trained on your lovingly worn copies of Ghostbusters and several Nic Cage classics.
"They're swamped with orders. It's going to be at least another twenty minutes before they get here."
Dave goes still, and you groan inwardly, knowing what's going to come next. Sure enough, he slowly lifts his head, and you can feel his eyes boring through the thin layer of his sunglasses.
"They have failed us," he says, rising from the couch in one smooth motion.
"Dave, no," you say as he turns towards the wall above his bed. He pretends not to hear you, and you sigh as he lifts his katana from the wall.
"They have failed us," he repeats, holding the katana so it catches the last bit of sunlight from outside. "This cannot stand." He looks very dramatic holding a sword silhouetted by the light shining through the window. Or at least, he would if he weren't still wearing his apple juice helmet.
"What are you going to do?" You ask. "Challenge the restaurant employees to a battle of honor? Because I'm pretty sure that tradition died out a few centuries ago." You wish you could say you were being sarcastic when you asked this, but after the three weeks you spent at Dave's place last summer, you know firsthand that this is an all-too-real possibility. It's probably a good thing you've never had any plans of moving to Austin, because now you're pretty much banned from every restaurant in a 20-mile radius of the Strider household, thanks to Dave and his older brother.
Well, except for that one Thai place. All's fair in harmless pranks and war in your book, but sadly the manager didn't agree. Neither did the employees, the cops, the Girl Scouts, or that elderly man with the glass eye… Heh, yeah.
That one was on you.
"John!" Dave exclaims, bringing you back to the present as he lowers the katana. "Honor battles are a Japanese thing. You can't just lump a bunch of cultures together like that; that's racist! Uncool man. Uncool." He shakes his head slowly in disapproval and turns away.
"Uh-huh. Says the Texan with a katana," you reply.
"HEY," he growls, whipping around. He points the sword at you like an accusing finger. "Don't you be mocking my blade."
"I wouldn't dream of it," you laugh as he nods, satisfied. Apparently he's decided that tonight is not the night for an honor battle, and he goes to return the katana to its rightful place on the wall. You chuckle a bit as he strikes a fake slash at one of his pillows with the sword before hanging it up
God, this year may be a long one with Dave as your roommate, but it's also going to be great. You still can't believe just how lucky you got. You've got one of your best friends as a roommate, another who shares at least one of your classes and is on the same campus, and yet another who's within easy driving distance. You got into the school of your choice; you're looking forward to your classes, and despite not being here in person, your dad continues to be a supporting presence in your life. You're not sure how it happened, but you've kind of go it made.
Dave goes back to looking through DVDs, all potential plans of storming the restaurant forgotten, and you take a minute to just sit back and relax.
Your eyes wander over the room around you, still unfamiliar despite the well-known clutter of yours and Dave's stuff. It's so weird to think that one day this place will seem as familiar to you as the back of your hand.
Your dorm, while not particularly fancy, is actually pretty cool. The walls are the same light blue as a lot of the campuses corridors, and the carpet is a light beige color. You're pretty sure that won't be the case after a year of you and Dave living here; but hey, that's what steam-cleaners are for, right? Anyways, it's what's in your room that actually matters.
Neither of you have gotten around to putting up your posters yet, but soon the walls will be covered with them. Right now the only thing hanging from the walls is Dave's katana, conveniently located just above his bed, and a calendar by the door. Somehow, you managed to make him take the top bunk. Score one for Egbert!
Dave insisted on wedging this sagging brown sofa into the dorm and now it's taking up most of the room's center. There's just enough space for a coffee table to sit in front of the couch, and for a one-level shelf for the T.V. to rest on. Honestly, you're fine with him bringing in any furniture he wants. As long as in exchange the dorm room stays a puppet-free zone.
The wall to the left of the door hosts both of your dressers and a narrow, full-length mirror. The bunk bed claims about half of the next wall, and beyond that is a window and one of the two desks. Along the third wall is the second desk, the closet, and the empty space you and Dave had a brief argument over. By argument of course, you mean you both shouted "I call dibs!" at the same time and spent the next ten minutes debating who said it first.
You wanted to use it as a spot for a mini-fridge, while he wanted to use it as a home for his turntables. Long story short, the battle, as many seem to be in hindsight, was stupid and had an easy solution that could've prevented the whole thing. Said solution was helpfully pointed out to you both by Rose.
She suggested that you purchase a table top or wooden board and support it on one side with a mini fridge and on the other with a drawer of equal height. That way you get your mini fridge, and Dave gets a place to put his turntables. Plus, extra storage space. You and Dave agreed that this was the best course of action.
Rose has always been good at thinking of things like that. You're pretty sure it ties into her love of psychology. To her, people are like puzzles. If she can figure out how the pieces fit together, she can figure out why they build the image they do; and when a piece is missing or damaged, she can find a way to fix it and make it whole again. At least, that's what you gathered from the long analogy she uses to explain it to people. To be honest, you also think it has to do with her mom. Ms. LaLonde was the greatest puzzle of Rose's life.
She was also the puzzle Rose never got a chance to solve.
"JOHN!" Dave shouts. You whip your head up just in time to meet his questioning stare before a knock at the door diverts your attention.
"You back on Earth, Space Cadet Egbert?" He asks. "You zoned out there for a few minutes."
"Huh? Oh, sorry about that!" You say, glancing at the alarm clock on your dresser. It's already been ten minutes. Geez, time flies when you're distracted! "I was just thinking-"
"Yeah well, I have a feeling whoever is at the door was just thinking about leaving," Dave interrupts, opening the door. "That was the third time they knocked on the door!" He peers out into the hallway, which is already filled with students wandering from one room to another. "Oh shit it was the delivery guy! Hey," he calls. "Wait up!" Before you can say anything else Dave is running down the hall, several people stopping to stare at him as he rushes by.
You walk to the doorway of your room, and notice that unlike last night, your door isn't one of the only ones closed. While classes officially started today, most people arrived a day or so in advance. This resulted in last night being a sort of "welcome to college" party throughout the dorm. You met some really cool people, played a few video games, watched movies, and witnessed several hilarious failures involving a keg someone tried to smuggle in. Emphasis on "tried". You're looking forward to more times like that, but tonight you're glad to just relax. Plus, you could do with a good night's sleep. After last night, you just barely made it to your Biology lab. At least you had the good sense not to schedule any classes first thing in the morning!
Oh, that reminds you! Speaking of that lab, who should you see when you first walked into the classroom today but that guy who bumped into you by the coffee stand! He was seated a few rows back, and glanced at you once before turning away with a scowl. You think that might just be his default expression though.
When you left he was already gone, but it seemed like he was really interested in what the professor had to say. He didn't ask a lot of questions, but the couple of times you turned around to listen to other people speak he was either furiously scribbling down notes or staring with rapt attention at the professor as she answered. Maybe you should try talking to him sometime… You're still not sure what you hope to do with your interest in biology, assuming you choose to pursue it at all, but it sure would be nice to be friends with someone who shares you fascination! Rose prefers psychology (duh), Jade listens politely, but she'd rather discuss the biology of animals than people, and Dave…well Dave has begun claiming he is allergic to "the dreaded biologies" and covers his face and slowly backs away or hides behind the couch whenever you bring it up.
Speak of the devil, here comes Dave now. And, oh, he's got the food!
"The mission was a success," Dave announces, setting the bags on the coffee table as you close the door behind you. "I have conquered and gotten the foodstuffs with minimal fatalities." You sit down on the couch and begin unpacking the food. You pop open one of the square containers as Dave places whatever movie he's chosen into the DVD player. The mouth-watering smell of spring rolls greets you in a wave of steam, and you happily take a bite out of one of them.
"A sucsheful mishon indeed," you agree. You swallow, and go to grab two cans of soda from the cooler you brought in until the mini-fridge actually becomes a thing that exists in your room. You hand one to Dave and sit back as the long-outdated previews begin. After all that time it took him to decide, and Dave still went with Ghostbusters, despite the fact that you've both seen it enough to recite every line. It's decisions like these that remind you why you and he are such good friends.
"It's too bad Rose couldn't do something with us tonight," you say. The four of you went to lunch together yesterday, and afterwards Rose drove with Jade over to her campus to help her get settled in. You called Jade after classes finished to see how her first day was, but you haven't spoken to Rose once today with all the mayhem… "I feel bad that we couldn't get together today."
"Eh, I think she'll get over it," Dave shrugs. "I talked to her earlier. She "met a fellow wanderer in the confusing maze that is the halls of Skaia". Turns out they're both learning how to psychoaggravate people and last I heard Rose was going to see if said girl had plans."
"You mean psychoanalyze?" You ask just as the movie starts.
"Same thing, Egbert," he replies. "Same thing."
AN: Sorry about the wait for this chapter! On the upside, long wait = I'm almost done with the next chapter!
On another note, there's now a Tumblr page for WBOTH. It can be found by searching 8eautiful8luechaos .
It's looking a bit bland right now, which leads to my question: Would you all be interested in me drawing some sketches of the characters and posting them online? If anyone has any ideas for it I'd love to hear them! Comments and questions are always welcome, both here and on Tumblr.