My Universe

22: “It would be a waste to not stay for a bit, right?”

“Learn to mind your own business, oh my god.”

The raven eventually realized that making up and saying rushed excuses with no pause was definitely not helping her convince the brunette that she was not lying. All of the saliva and brain cells that she had to use to tell her lies to cover up the fact that she was truly an impostor of Summer went into waste as Winter started to realize that none of the things that she was saying was certainly working on Aster. She assumed that every word just entered one ear and exited to the other ear.

All of her thoughts were correct as the brunette just sat on her seat with an unreadable smile playing on her face while crossing her arms across her chest. It was as if she had expected to receive a backlash but from one person while she stayed on her spot calmly like it was a success to trigger the reaction button of the woman across her.

The sound of chimes from the front glass door made the two of them divert their attention as they saw a group of friends that looked like their age enter the restaurant while some of their faces looked familiar to the brunette. She turned to the raven seated across her as she returned her attention to her food and hurried up in finishing her meal, which the raven knew that it was because she did not want to be recognized by the students even though they did not seem to be in the same university as them.

“I told you that you should’ve asked her out, i***t,” one of the men told their semi-bald friend.

“Ask who?” another asked.

“Iris Skyler from Awe University.”

Like a dog having its ears perked up for having her attention taken, the raven slowly slurped on her noodles in the quietest way possible while she unconsciously leaned a bit to the direction where the group of friends were after hearing the name of their university slip out of their mouths even though she did not know who the person that they were talking about was. Winter did not have do anything to eavesdrop on the strangers’ conversation out of desperation as they decided to sit at the table next to them.

“I heard that she’s not into boys.” Laughter filled the table as the topic relating to Awe University ended there.

Aster let out a silent chuckle when she noticed how Winter went back to her normal pace in eating her meal when the conversation of the group of friends on the table next to theirs moved to be about how homosexuality existed among penguins.

Their lunch ended shortly after as the both of them stepped out of the restaurant with no desire to stay longer since the number of people that were coming in kept increasing, which was starting to feel suffocating in the crowded place. The time was already one in the afternoon, which meant that their first afternoon class had already started but neither of them knew that.

“Who’s Iris Skyler?” Winter asked as soon as they were already outside since it would be awkward to ask that to Aster next to the strangers that were just talking about her earlier.

“The popular hot 3rd year dance major in our university with short blue hair,” Aster simply answered when she noticed how the latter looked really curious while observing her facial reaction with anticipation.

“Oh, that person. I’m bad at names, you see.” The raven let out a fake laugh when she realized that she almost exposed herself again as she raked her hair back when the wind blew her hair to block her view.

“Of course, you are.” The brunette let out a chuckle as she faced her and wore a grin of excitement on her face. “So, where are we heading now?”

“University. We still have afternoon classes,” Winter blankly replied with no hesitation before starting to walk by the sidewalk.

The plans that Winter had for her remaining free time to explore more were ruined all because of Aster who just had to be the person to catch and follow her. Having any company was definitely not a part of her plan that she had no choice but to cancel it and start her exploration next time when she had made sure that Aster would not be around. Well, the raven definitely did not need someone who would know about her true identity since she must not trust anyone in the place that she was in, not even Aster.

Aster was supposed to put on a dramatically sad act to convince Winter to let her come with her to wherever she planned to go when she noticed that she seemed to be going to the opposite way of what she just said. Instead of asking any questions, the brunette stood there with her hands in her pockets and a huge question mark plastered on her face while she watched the raven walk away from where the university was supposed to be.

It took a short while before Winter came into realization as well as she stopped on her tracks and looked around the street to notice that she seemed to not have passed by there yet. She cursed internally as she realized that she almost forgot about her bad sense of directions; because of the jumbled memories of the places at that street, she started to blame Summer for making her suffer even at making decisions to which path to go. It was one of the things that was known about Winter ever since she was a toddler by the people that she was close with. The raven had experienced being lost as a kid multiple times and she also experienced going to the wrong places as an adult.

The raven ate her pride in as she slowly turned around and walked back toward the brunette who had not moved away from her spot, though that did not mean that she would let the brunette know about her bad sense of directions.

“What are you waiting for? Let’s go,” the gray-eyed woman said before walking to the opposite direction this time.

That was when Aster realized that Winter was bad at directions as she thought about how interesting the differences between Winter and Summer were because she knew well about Summer having a good sense of directions that she could get any job related to having a good sense in directions.

I’ll just let her lead the way back to the university in a lowkey way, Winter thought as she slowed down her pace to walk next to her instead.

But the both of them were thinking totally different things.

Noticing how the raven was clearly just pretending to lead the way when she was just following the brunette, Aster thought of an idea to skip attending their afternoon classes as she casually took a turn that was the opposite direction to their university and it had been confirmed that Winter was certainly clueless about her plan when she did not react or notice anything wrong.

Some stores that the raven did not remember passing by made her a bit suspicious on the directions that they were going to though she decided to not do or say anything at that moment and just trust the brunette since she believed that the brunette cared about her attendance records in her classes as they were both supposed to be in the same class at that moment.

Ever since Winter came to that world, she had been feeling a lot of déjà vu in all situations that she ended up being and she knew that it was because of the vague memories of Summer that stayed in her subconscious mind though those memories were certainly not helping her get the answers and solutions that she was looking for. She could not help but feel annoyed since the memories that were flashing in her head were just messing with her head instead of helping her find her way back to the university; but then again, directions had always been a problem for Winter even when things were still normal for her.

“So, do you have a class in…” Winter took her a phone out to check the time before continuing her sentence. “Ten minutes?”

“Yep,” Aster answered without throwing a glance to her as she silently hummed on a tune while leading the way.

The raven nodded in response before returning her attention to the way that they were going to as she then realized that something was a bit off shortly after. Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion when she noticed that the sidewalks were starting to get vacant with the stores not filling in the space tightly anymore while the other residents that were walking along with them on the sidewalk were get less as well. Trees were coming into sight as the busy atmosphere was turning into a serene one that she was thinking of only one thing, which she hoped that she was wrong.

The assumption that Winter had was correct as the both of them stopped on their tracks and turned to look at the direction where the calming sound of waves was coming from, which gave her mixed feelings while seeing the peaceful waves greeting them.

Swallowing a lump in her throat, the raven turned to the brunette with a glare as the taller woman just looked back at her with raised eyebrows and a small smile that looked like square bracket on her face.

“Why are we at the beach?” Winter asked in frustration.

“Hmm? I don’t know. You were leading the way, remember?” Aster answered with a cheeky grin on her face, which made the latter because she knew that she was right.

The raven raked her hair back aggressively as she let out a loud sigh in exasperation while shutting her eyes tightly. She felt stupid for giving her trust to the brunette and depending on her when she literally knew that the person that she was depending on was literally the kind of person who liked to play around for her amusement. Now that Winter was in another world, she was supposed to use her time there to move on from her ex-girlfriend yet here she was, being in situations that reminded her of the special moments with Claire.

“Just call a cab and let’s go back to the university. We’re way too far now.” Winter let out another sigh as she rubbed her face with her palms in annoyance.

“Nah, I don’t want to,” Aster casually replied as she stared at the ocean waves that were stealing their attention and pulling them closer to stay.

“What do you mean you don’t want to? We have to! I’ll fail if I skip a class!” Winter almost yelled in panic and frustration.

“You’re so dramatic. You have high grades and perfect attendance records, remember? You won’t fail a subject just because you skip one class.” The brunette chuckled as she lightly shook her head and turned to meet her eyes.

“Oh.”

The raven’s mouth was left ajar as she remembered that she was not the student who failed her subjects for giving more focus to her ex-girlfriend at that world. She felt ashamed as she realized how Summer was even academically better that she thought that Summer sort of deserved having a bad reputation in university for it to be a flaw in her almost perfect life.

“Come on. We would still be late for class anyway even if we do go back now.” The brunette placed her hand on the shorter woman’s shoulder and gently moved her body to face the beautiful beach. “And we’re here at the beach already. It would be a waste to not stay for a bit, right?”

The beach barely had any people as it was just the calm waves, though none of that mattered because what Winter could only see was a figment of Claire calling her to join her to the beach that only lasted for one second.