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Edited 1/2/23. Edit notes at the end of the chapter.
"Wait Lara, it's not-" Sam began as Lara quickly got to her feet.
"Not what?" Lara demanded, "Not the way it seems? You were just curious, right? Why can't people just mind their own damned business?!" Sam stepped in her way in an attempt to bar her exit.
"You don't understand, I-"
"I gotta go," Lara spat, "I have a shift at the Nine Bells." She pushed past both Sam and Steph and stormed out of the dorm. Sam stood there helplessly, watching her as she left and listening to the sounds of her retreating footsteps. She shook her head to clear it and scowled over at Steph.
"Steph, what the hell?!"
"I didn't realize it would cause such a big issue," Steph replied, raising her hands up in front of her defensively.
"Of course it would!" Sam exclaimed, throwing her hands up exasperatedly, "It's exactly the same as if-" she stopped mid-sentence, and her stomach sank as she suddenly realized her own hypocrisy.
"You wouldn't happen to be the same Nishimura as the owner of Nishimura Corporation?"
"Yup...that's my dad…"
"Jesus Christ…" She blurted out, slapping a hand to her forehead. "You know what? Nevermind, lemme just get your sunglasses for you," she said, making for her desk and pulling Steph's sunglasses out of one of the drawers.
"Wait, but-" Steph stammered as Sam handed her glasses to her.
"It's fine," Sam said in a monotone as she turned Steph around by the shoulders.
"I didn't mean to-" Steph continued as Sam guided her to the door and showed her the way out.
"I get it, but I'm really stoned and I need to fix this right now so let's talk about this later, 'kay?" She closed the door behind Steph before leaning back against it exhaustedly while she evaluated the current situation. If Lara had been angry at her before for getting too personal, Sam figured she might as well be dead to her roommate at that point. "...Fuck!" She shouted after a little while, and she kicked over a pile of books right beside her desk before crumpling to the floor and squeezing her eyes shut to think. What was she going to do? It wasn't like she could talk to Molly or anyone at UCL about the situation without further drawing Lara's ire. Steph had proven that.
The first place Sam's mind went to was asking Jess for advice. Then, her mind took a steep downturn and plummeted into darkness when she remembered that was no longer an option. She didn't have anyone she could talk to. The realization sunk in like a double shot of tequila, clouding her mind and numbing her inside. She had no one. Is that why she was clinging so hard to the current situation with Lara? Codependence and a need for human connection? Distraction from heartbreak?
Why do I even care? Said a voice at the back of her head. It wasn't like she'd known Lara for a while, and for all Sam knew she could turn out to be an awful person even if she managed to patch things up for the time being.
It's because she's like me, said another, more confident voice in her mind. She knew why Lara was so quiet and touchy about her personal life. Loss had a way of making one favor isolation and seclusion. It was the brain's favorite defense mechanism, after all. It's for that reason that Sam herself never made many friends in high school. She went out and partied a lot, and hosted a fair number of parties herself, sure, but none of those people were actually her friends. She never really felt like she connected with any of them. They were just people she drank to escape with. All their conversations were kept at surface-level. How could she get hurt if she didn't give people the ability to hurt her?
Which was all the more reason why Jess meant the world to her.
Which was also probably the reason why she cared so much about Lara. Sam felt like she was forming a genuine connection with her and it just…stopped. How could she not be upset in light of all the facts?
"Well shit…" Sam whispered to herself, getting to her feet and letting herself out of the dorm room. When she was a little younger, she'd gotten herself into a tight spot or two when the police had busted a party she was at. She couldn't remember another time where she had to demonstrate such prowess in terms of speed and parkour. At one point, she had to climb down from a third story balcony and run two miles to avoid getting an underage. Compared to that, she felt as though chasing Lara down would be a piece of cake.
The moment she set foot outside the dorm hall, she started sprinting at full speed with her phone's GPS open and held out in front of her so she could track where she was supposed to go. Admittedly, she was a tad less fit than she used to be as a freshman or sophomore in high school in the absence of her mom's mandated fitness program that comprised of yoga and cardio, as evidenced by the burning sensation she began to feel in her sides. Left, right, left, right, she kept pounding away on a mixture of grass and pavement regardless, desperate to head her roommate off and fix the mess she'd created before it was too late. She pounded away on the city sidewalks, bobbed and weaved in and out between pedestrians who cried out in surprise as she came barreling by, keeping an eye out for Lara's long, flowing ponytail as she did.
"Hey! Lara!" She gasped out as loudly as she could when she finally saw Lara up ahead of her, "Stop!" Lara didn't stop, however. If anything, her pace quickened so as to get away from Sam. "Damnit, I said stop!" Sam shouted with the little breath she had left in her lungs, finally catching up to Lara and grabbing her by the shoulder to spin her around to talk.
"Get off of me," Lara snarled, batting Sam's hand away, but she had stopped moving for the time being. Sam doubled over to catch her breath, balling her hands up into fists.
"What the hell is your problem?!" She demanded in between breaths, feeling hot sweat trickle down her face and back.
"What's your problem?!" Lara fired back.
"Don't deflect from the question!" Sam spat, finally having taken in enough air to draw herself up to full height.
"I'm not deflecting!" Lara exclaimed angrily, "You're the one who can't mind her own damn business!"
"I'll admit that it was wrong of me to pry into your personal life like that," Sam conceded, wiping the sweat from her brow, "but I'm going to tell you again: it's not for the reason you think it is."
"Oh by all means, I'd love to hear what excuse a spoiled little rich girl like you can conjure up!" Lara snapped. That struck a nerve.
"Wow," Sam began, shaking her head angrily, "yeah, you know what? I may be a fucking spoiled rich girl, but do you know why that is, do you?!" Lara opened her mouth to respond, but Sam held a hand up to silence her, "No, you shut the hell up for a moment. Lemme tell you something, you may think you're all alone in this world, that nobody understands you, but that's not the case. Do you even know who I am?" Again, Lara opened her mouth again to try to reply but Sam stopped her, "No. Of course you don't. Because you're too busy sitting on your high horse and judging people to even have an open conversation with someone. God, you really are a fucking noble."
"How dare yo-!" Lara began.
"Good, you're pissed," Sam interjected, "now you know how it feels to be called a spoiled little rich girl by someone who doesn't even know me." She crossed her arms across her chest, "Lemme ask you something, are you familiar with Nishimura Corporation?"
"Everybody is," Lara retorted coolly, "they're one of the largest media conglomerates in the world. They're notorious for pushing questionable agendas."
"Yeah, well guess what? The CEO, Hisao Nishimura? That's my dad."
Edit notes: trimmed a lot of irrelevant fat. Deleted unnecessary text convo with Jess because I felt that it added nothing to the fic and, in fact, detracted from its potential.
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