My Universe

49: “Stop making things gay.”

“All right. See you in the dorm.”

The two women decided to not approach the art student after seeing her with a man that they were not exactly familiar with since the university was literally filled with more than a hundred students, which made it impossible for them to memorize every single person studying in the university. Neither of them felt disappointed for being unable to approach the art student since they heard how the whole conversation went.

Winter felt excited for her roommate when they heard her accept the invitation of the new friend that she was going to be having. The raven knew that Alice had friends other than her, though she never knew who they were since she was always hanging out with her like they were the best of friends that the both of them had in that world. Though other than her having a new friend, she could not help but imagine her roommate having a boyfriend; the man was good-looking and he shared the same interests as the art student, so it was clearly not a bad thing to think about.

Still, the raven made sure to let her roommate know that she would be eating dinner with the brunette instead of her tonight through a voice call while they watched her and the man walk out of the campus. For the past days that Winter spent with Alice, she was able to learn stuff about her which included the fact that the art student worries a lot for her. Because of that, the raven always made sure to do things to not make her worry as she did not want her to look completely anxious because of her.

“Can we trust him, though?” the raven asked as they sat down on a bench for a while. “Because, you know, people sometimes act friendly on the outside while they actually have bad ulterior motives.”

“It seems that there’s something you don’t know about your roommate yet,” Aster said with a chuckle following.

“What do you mean?” Winter turned to look at her in curiosity.

The brunette threw a glance on her with a smirk on her face before answering her question, “Alice is a black belter in taekwondo.”

Winter dropped her jaw in surprise as she went speechless. It was not what Winter expected about Alice, though at least that fact about her which she just learned made her reassured about her safety. Tina, one of Winter’s closest friends, was a black belter in judo and Winter was one of the witnesses on one of the most iconic moments of her best friend. The raven almost got sexually harassed by a male stranger, but her best friend immediately saw it and used her judo skills to knock the stranger down. Being a witness to that, Winter thought that she did not have to worry too much about Alice as she could already imagine what she would do to Myles if ever he does try to do something bad to her.

“Oh, she can defend herself then.” The raven nodded after being stunned for a minute. It was one of the moments when she was genuinely impressed by the talents of her soft-hearted roommate.

“Definitely. That’s why you should just think about me since I’m your date for tonight,” Aster said casually as she got up from the bench.

Winter was astonished at how Aster was able to say that so easily and casually like it was nothing. But then again, the person in question was Aster, after all. It was not surprising anymore.

***

There were three things that Winter just recently learned about Aster: she has a black bicycle, she knows how to ride a bicycle, and that she works part-time every weekend at the restaurant owner by her aunt. At this point, it felt like the raven had been discovering a lot of new things all in one day and that fascinated her even though all of the new information were coming all crashing to a compilation in her head.

“Why did I only know now that you own a bicycle?” Winter asked. It almost felt like she was the only person in that world who had never known about things, which everyone had already known for a long time, until now; but then she realized that she really was literally the only person who knew nothing about that world.

“Maybe it’s because you just saw my bicycle today,” Aster replied after unlocking three locks for the safety of her bicycle.

The raven rolled her eyes in response as she watched her hop on her bicycle when she was done unlocking. All of the vehicles that the people in the dormitory owned were parked on a small open parking lot by the building. Most people thought that it was certainly not a safe place to leave their vehicles because anyone could literally use their stealing skills to get rid of the locks and take their vehicles at night; but they were proved wrong when someone got caught trying to lockpick the lock on someone’s bicycle in the middle of the night one day. It turned out that the owner of the dormitory put a very reliable security system just for the parking lot, which causes hidden speakers and cameras to make loud alarming sounds whenever someone tries to lockpick a lock.

“Hop on.” Aster grinned.

It was not the first time for Winter to stand on the pegs of a bicycle since she experienced doing that with Claire riding the bicycle when they went to another city together for a day. Even though it was bringing tons of memories that were making her bittersweet, the raven decided to not let her emotions get over her as she stood on the pegs carefully with her hands resting on the shoulders of the brunette. After all, it would be a waste to not go on the same fun experience again.

Approximately 20 minutes later, they finally arrived to the destination where they were going to have lunch at. The restaurant was not a fancy one as it looked simple rather. Observing the number of people that were coming to the restaurant, Winter could assume that the dishes were likely to be delicious enough to earn a good reputation in the city.

And like what was mentioned earlier, that was when the raven realized why the brunette brought them there to have dinner.

“Oh, hello there! You can just call me Debby,” a middle-aged woman in her 30s with long bright red hair said with a friendly smile on her face.

“Hi. I’m Summer Kiara,” Winter introduced herself politely and accepted the handshake of the latter.

Debby stared at the raven with squinting eyes and her hands resting on her hips as her eyes scanned her from head to toe, which made the raven nervous and begin to overthink about the older woman possibly having negative thoughts about her. Winter awkwardly stood next to the brunette with a forced smile on her face while scratching her jeans with her thumbs.

“Okay, I approve,” the older woman suddenly spoke while snapping her fingers, which made the raven more confused than usual. “Avery, I’m proud of you for not being blind in choosing women.”

Aster let out a groan as she rolled her eyes. “Aunt Debby, it’s nothing like that. We’re literally just friends.”

“You must be a loner then since you’ve only brought a friend here once, which is now,” Debby replied, adding emphasis to the word ‘friend’. “Anyway, there’s a vacant table by the glass wall there where you can see the sunset. Go get your asses there before anyone takes it. You may be my niece, but that doesn’t mean you’re more important than my customers.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Aster chuckled before waving at her aunt who turned around to head back to the kitchen.

“Why didn’t you tell me that this restaurant belongs to your aunt?” Winter let out a heavy sigh in relief when it was just the two of them again.

“You didn’t ask.” Aster shrugged before gesturing her to head over the table next to the glass wall where her aunt suggested for them to sit.

“All right, fine. Is there a reason why we’re having dinner in your aunt’s restaurant of all places?”

“Yeah, I guess. Since I also work part-time here at weekends, I get a big discount for the dishes,” the brunette answered as she took a seat on the chair by the table.

It was a good thing that they went to occupy that table immediately because it was the best table in the restaurant at the moment because of its position next to the glass wall where they could clearly see the bright sun descending below the horizon. Sunsets were satisfying to watch, especially when food was present along the person that one has a close connection with.

“You have a part-time job?” the raven asked in surprise.

“Yeah, I just said so.” The brunette chuckled at the expressive reaction of the latter. “Just at weekends, though.”

“No wonder I barely see you around at weekends as if you don’t exist on Saturdays and Sundays then come back to life after the weekend.” The raven nodded as she finally got the answers that she had about her whereabouts and what she was always doing every weekend.

“Wow. So, you miss me every weekend?” The brunette rested her elbows on the table and leaned her chin on her hands while staring at the latter with a confident smirk on her face.

“Stop making things gay.” Winter rolled her eyes as she lightly moved her face away to stop her from staring at her, which caused the latter to laugh.

“Oh yeah. Did you miss me during the days when you were ignoring me?” Aster raised her eyebrows as she stubbornly stared at her once again.

“I don’t,” the raven answered with a straight face. The both of them stared at each other in silence before the raven let out a sigh. “All right, fine. I guess I did miss you a little.”

“You’re finally being honest. I know you were lying when you said that you didn’t miss me.” Aster grinned.

“Between us, it seems that you’re the one who was missing me the most.” Winter squinted at the latter.

“Well, okay. I admit.” Aster shrugged and gave her a wink before turning to the waiter that arrived to get their orders.

Even though the brunette was never hesitant and embarrassed to say things like that, she still never failed to fascinate the raven because of her bravery. Winter could not even tell Claire that she liked her even though the architecture student was literally showing signs that she was interested in her; basically, Claire was the one who brought their romantic relationship to existence by swallowing her pride and confessing first.

Another 20 minutes passed until their dinner was finally ready. Since it was a chicken restaurant, the dishes that were served were all chicken. Neither of them complained though since the both of them loved chicken anyway.

“I want to know a logical explanation of your special ability to travel to different universes,” Winter said after taking the first bite on the fried chicken.

“I want to know too,” Aster answered with a chuckle followed. “Unfortunately, I still haven’t found out why I was chosen to have this special ability. I mean, there’s like more than a billion of people out there.”

“Are you the only one with the ability?” the raven asked.

“I don’t know. There might be some other people out there who has the same ability as me, but I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I don’t even know why and how you got dragged into this universe after I saved you from getting hit by the truck.”

Winter widened her eyes in surprise as she learned another new information for today. This time, it involved her herself and not Summer.