A/N: I apologize for the late chapter, my life has been so busy. Writing has literally been held up at least thirty times because of an unexpected and unscheduled homework assignment or project (ahahaha, kill me now _ ) and not to mention the fact I had very short bursts of inspiration in between periods of terrible writer's block. Please read and leave a review.
Honestly, Sherry felt that she could have barreled through a burning building and be much less anxious and nervous than she was right now. Rose hadn't replied for only a minute but the suspense was killing the blonde. No, killing was an understatement. Torturous, more like. The doorknob to the bathroom turned and a red haired girl stepped out. Her light almond eyes met Sherry's emerald ones immediately. She wore a loose long sleeved black shirt and jeans, a gold pendant hanging from her neck.
"Euh... Rose?" she said nervously, her sweaty palms rubbing together. "Rose" stared at her for what seemed like an eternity before a large smile spread on her face and she tackled the young Frenchwoman.
"SIEG-KUUUUUUUUN!" the redhead cried, rubbing her cheek on Sherry's affectionately. The blonde was absolutely paralyzed in shock at her friend's reaction. Rose pulled away from the forceful hug, her hands gripping the taller girl's shoulders. "I never thought I'd see you for real! You are so much cuter than I thought! And your hair is like gold, how do you brush it in the morning?"
Sherry simply sat there on her bed, her brain struggling to process what was happening as a steady stream of questions came from the other girl. "I... euh... I'm... can we calm down for a minute?" she finally managed to say. "And perhaps introduce ourselves properly? I'm doubtful your name is really Rose."
"Rose" nodded and moved herself a bit away from the blonde before sitting cross-legged on the bed. "My name is Aki Izayoi," she said, smiling. "Please take care of me, O Great One!" Aki did an exaggerated bow, causing Sherry to laugh.
"You're never going to give up that inside joke, are you?" the young Frenchwoman asked. "My real name is definitely not Siegfried Chevalier. It's Sherry. Sherry LeBlanc." She watched the Japanese girl stare at her inquisitively. "What is it?"
"You are very calm about this situation," Aki mumbled. "Aren't you surprised?" Sherry blinked. What was she supposed to be surprised about really? That she was sharing a room with her closest Internet friend or that she wasn't cooped inside of her room, shooting arrows into dangerous mushroom zombies?
"I'm supposed to be surprised about...?" The blonde waited for her friend to finish the sentence.
"That you're in the same room with me! I never actually thought we'd meet because you lived nearly half way around the world and I'd been in Japan all my life!" the Asian exclaimed. "Plus, you never mentioned travelling even though your parents are um... what was it again... eto... ah yes, ambassadors! They must travel everywhere. It's a shame you don't join them."
Sherry felt her eyebrows scrunch together as she answered, "I don't go with them anymore because my parents are very particular about what I do while I'm around them." She cleared her throat and began to imitate her parents, "'Non, Sherry, you can't go outside of the hotel room.' 'Non, Sherry, you cannot have water during this boring wait outside of the meeting room.' 'Non, Sherry, non, Sherry!' It got tiring after my third attempt to be 'with' them on a trip."
Aki nodded with some sort of understanding and got off of the bed, walking to her unpacked luggage. "Sherry, your parents sent you here. It almost sounds like they're annoyed to have you around," she said, unzipping the biggest suitcase and packing away her clothing into the first drawer. The blonde winced at her blunt manner of speaking but continued listening. Aki noticed and her eyebrows furrowed. "I'm sorry, Sherry. Did I say too much?"
"No, no, no, not at all," she reassured quickly. "I'm just tired. And I'm hungry as well. I haven't eaten since 13 in the afternoon." The Asian looked confused as she stuffed several piles of clothing into the second drawer of her bed.
"'13?'" Aki quoted, a small wooden box emerging from her second suitcase and set onto the desk nearby.
"I mean 1 in the afternoon, sorry. Forgot that a large part of the world goes with the 12 hour system," Sherry apologized, rolling her eyes. Her stomach created a noise similar to that of a whale and Aki began to laugh, keeled over on the bed and slamming her fist onto the blankets. "That wasn't funny, Aki!" she exclaimed, looking embarrassed.
"Not to worry, starving knight!" the Japanese girl declared, pointing her finger at the ceiling while still giggling. "I, the Rose Witch, have brought provisions for us! Behold!" She unzipped her final and largest suitcase, taking out a large case of instant bowl noodles and a small electric water boiler. "A feast fit for a hardworking member of the army such as yourself! Let us dine, madame!" Sherry broke into an uncontrollable fit of laughing and it took a solid four minutes before either of them could properly breathe.
As they noisily slurped up their instant noodles, the two girls talked about topics ranging from their preferred shower times and thread counts on their sheets to the deck types they ran and their favorite foods. Aki filled in the silence, much to Sherry's relief. The young Frenchwoman lacked the distinct skill of carrying a conversation for longer than five sentences; on the contrary, her words flowed when speaking with the Japanese girl.
"You know, Aki," Sherry said as she set aside her empty bowl, "I haven't had such a long conversation and this much fun in a really long time. You're a great friend and I-" She was interrupted by an extremely loud bang outside in the hallway. "... what was that?" Aki shrugged, looking somewhat shaken. Muffled shouting could be heard as well. The blonde slowly opened the door and peeked outside. At the far end of the hallway, there were two men arguing extremely loudly. A tall blond and a much shorter one with spiky orange hair were yelling, their faces extremely close and spittle most likely flying at each other.
"- and another thing! Don't you dare spend funding on your stupid Starbucks coffee! That shit smells nasty AND it's expensive as hell!" the orange haired one screamed. "Our funding is for the dorm repairs!"
"Bah! We can repair this stupid place just fine! After all, if I'm not comfortable, how am I supposed to help with fixing the dorm?" the blond defended, looking convinced that he had the upper hand in the argument. His opponent in the argument thought otherwise.
"You unhinged the door to our room just half a minute ago, Jack," he said slowly, crossing his arms across his chest. "And you're standing on it." Jack looked down very slowly at the piece of wood and silence fell on the pair. Sherry raised an eyebrow and ducked back into her room where Aki was waiting on her bed with a worried expression.
"Hey, you have any popcorn?" the blonde asked. "It's about to get exciting out there and I don't want to miss a thing." The Japanese girl rolled her eyes and shook her head but she had a grin on her face as she cleared the bed of her empty suitcases.
"I want to see what's going on outside," Aki said, getting up and looking out the door. Sherry joined her, the two of them watching as the argument continued to rise and fall, going from how horrible they each thought of the other. The orange guy was Crow. The young Frenchwoman thought it was a strange name but continued watching, chuckling at the embarrassing stories they were flinging at each other. Then the ominous clicking sound came. At first it was just a slow clicking. Then it went at a faster pace, becoming louder and faster by the minute.
Mina appeared at the corner of the hallway, a menacing aura pouring out from her small frame. Jack and Crow stopped whatever they were doing, feet planted on the ground as they shook in fear. The blunette smiled at the both of them before frowning and grabbing both of them by their ears and dragging them to her office. "Ow! Ow! Watch the hair, Mina!" Jack cried, yelping in pain again as the woman pulled him roughly.
"You can take care of that later! You two have some explaining to do about your door!" Mina said calmly, her voice fading as she went down the stairwell. The two girls stepped back into their room, both looking amused. Aki fell onto her bed giggling, Sherry catching the laughing disease within seconds.
"That was hilarious!" the Asian managed to say as she struggled to stop laughing. "R-remember that story that Crow told about how Jack once-!" Aki didn't complete her sentence, deciding to laugh instead.
"I wouldn't be surprised if that was true," Sherry replied, her face a bit red from laughing so hard. "This was quite the evening..." The atmosphere of the room calmed after a while. The blonde stood up and stretched, throwing their empty ramen bowls into the trash can. She turned to look at the Japanese girl who was calmly looking through movies on her laptop, the light causing her face to glow in the growing darkness of the room. Whatever light had come out from the window earlier, it was slowly disappearing from more clouds.
"Sherry, sit over here," the redhead requested, patting the spot next to her on the bed. Sherry walked over and sat down, the mattress creaking under her weight. "Do you want to watch a movie?"
"Sure. Anything you pick is fine. I'm not a cinema person," the young Frenchwoman replied as she leaned back against a propped up pillow and threw the blanket over her lap.
"Great! Let's watch Finding Nemo!" Aki said enthusiastically, reminding Sherry of an energetic puppy. She immediately found the film on her list and put the window on full screen mode, letting Netflix do its magic. The blonde couldn't pay attention to the first few minutes because Aki kept shifting next to her and bumping elbows. She managed to settle back and relax, her eyelids slowly closing as she attempted to pay attention to Merlin's crazed chase after Dori. Sherry blacked out, her head lolling to the side and resting on Aki's shoulder.
"Ah, you're asleep," the Japanese girl whispered, pausing the movie and closing the laptop. Very carefully, she moved Sherry into a more comfortable position on the pillow and placed the laptop on the floor. The redhead then leaned back and snuggled into her friend's side, the both of them taking a very long nap.
Okay so like the next chapter will probably be uploaded sometime around the end of the year (or like in twenty years, idk, my updating is really shitty I know). I hope to by then be able to introduce the rest of the main characters and get on with the main plot (which is just more shenanigans).