My Universe

34: “I didn’t know you didn’t know about it.”

Monday came as fast as the speed of light—that was the exaggerated thought that Winter always has whenever it is Monday and she would never stop thinking of it like that because she hated how the weekend always seemed like an hour while a Monday always seemed like 168 hours. But today, the raven was not loathing Monday as usual as she woke up in the morning with no complaints leaving her mouth.

 Noticing how Alice was still in deep sleep on her bed after arriving back in the dormitory last night at 11 p.m., Winter could assume that she had no classes at eight in the morning which made her envy her a bit. Still, the raven already had plans to do that day which was why she was not mad at the thought of the day being Monday and having early morning classes. She almost had the same excitement that she had on her first day of junior high school as a freshman.

After tying her shoelaces, the raven got up from the chair with a hop as she took her backpack and everything she needed before running toward the front door in tiptoes; no matter how excited she was to leave, she was still never the type of jerk to make loud noises while a person in the same room was sleeping peacefully.

Her first class in the morning was going to start in 45 minutes so the raven still had time to kill. Instead of going straight outside the dormitory building to head to the university, Winter went straight to the only vending machine on that floor. Seeing how the brunette was not around, it had been confirmed that she does not sleep on the floor next to the machine. Aster was the first person that Winter needed to meet, so she patiently waited by the vending machine for the brunette while pushing the button for a can of iced latte after inserting a bill.

It was a good thing that the raven was in the same major and section as the brunette so they had the same schedule every day. Winter would always think why she never noticed her before when the both of them literally had the same class schedule every week. It was not like she was in the fault for that since she was still new with her surroundings on the first day that she went to university in that universe.

The thing that she remembered on the day when she first met Aster was one of their classmates having a seizure in the middle of a lecture. It was almost traumatizing to be a witness back then as she felt a bit of guilt for just staying seated on her chair while watching everyone surround the shaking woman. The raven knew that it would just make a person’s seizure go worse if people surround them yet she did not do anything about it, which was why she could still feel a bit of guilt until present. The woman was not in the same major as Winter anyway so that was the last time that she had seen her so far.

15 minutes had passed since the raven had been waiting as she was just patiently seated on the bench next to the machine while taking sips on her cold drink and playing an endless runner game on her phone to kill time. Winter had already tried searching for anything to know about Summer in her phone. From her notepad app to her gallery, there were no useful information that she could use or take notes as the contents were just related to her major. Not a lot of people were saved in her contacts as she did not have to guess who the people were because most of the people in her contacts only had important purposes related to school and food, like fast food delivery hotlines and a phone number to a local bookstore. There was only one mobile game and the raven was glad that it was not a match-three puzzle game like what her mother always played during her free time.

A familiar figure could be seen from the peripheral vision of the raven as she tapped the pause button on her phone screen before raising her head to meet the light brown eyes of the brunette. Winter threw a glare on her in response when Aster winked at her as soon as they met eyes while she walked toward her. The brunette was wearing a gray sweatshirt with doodles on the front as a design paired with black denim jeans and a pair of black striped sneakers. In the perspective of the raven, Aster would have looked like a nerdy loser if only she did not have an attractive face like a prince.

“Fancy seeing you here,” Aster spoke as she stood in front of the vending machine to get a can of iced cappuccino.

“Yeah, I’m here to give you a response to your suggestion last week,” Winter said without waiting any longer as she stood up from the bench and faced her.

“What suggestion?” A small smile of satisfaction flashed on the face of the brunette when her drink dropped to the pick-up box instantly. She could sense good luck coming with her for the rest of her day.

“Me dating Iris.”

The mouth of the brunette nodded as she remembered her statement from last week. After taking a refreshing sip on her first coffee for the day, she turned to face her with a smile of amusement forming on her face when what she said just sank in.

“Hmm. What’s your response?”

“I’ll do it,” Winter answered with no hesitation. Her lips were in a thin line as she kept a serious facial expression to prove that there were no lies in her response.

“What changed your mind? You realized that I made perfect sense?” Aster leaned her side on the machine while taking sips on her coffee without taking her eyes off the woman across her.

“I actually ran across Iris yesterday in the convenience store.” Winter bit her bottom lip to suppress a grin as she lowered her head while blushing a bit when she recalled how attractive the blue-haired woman was. “I was reminded on why I fell in love with her in the first place and I don’t mind starting over in baby steps.”

A smirk appeared on the face of the brunette as she stared at the woman across her who had a small tint of red spreading on her cheeks while she tried hard to stop her smile from spreading across her face. Even before Winter even told her about what she planned to do with Iris, Aster already knew that she would definitely choose to start a new love story with her just by observing her expressions and actions from last week. It excited her to think that she was partly the reason why a love story of hers was about to begin. She could not wait how it would start and end.

“That’s cool. I’ll do my best to help you if I can.” Aster gave her a wink and a playful smile.

A smile of excitement flashed on the face of the raven as she thought about meeting the blue-haired woman again.

***

There were 15 minutes left before the professor arrives as the burning determination was what the raven could only feel while moving her hand in an uncontrollable speed. Next to her was the brunette who could not hold back a grin while scrolling on her phone for her.

If only Winter did not overhear their classmates talk about the essay assignment that was due in 15 minutes, she would have still been relaxing on her seat in the classroom in oblivion that she would get a drop in her grades. Of course, the raven did not like the thought of failing in that universe as well as she immediately brought her phone out to search for ideas and answers to write on her essay since she did not have the time to think by her own. Fortunately, Aster was there to help her search for ideas and scroll on her phone while she wrote down what was typed on the website.

“…a broad field that encompasses all forms of communication,” Winter mumbled while reading the article and writing it down on a piece of paper at the same time.

Her handwriting became messier than usual but she did not give any attention to it since it was better to finish her essay before the professor arrives instead of missing the deadline just to write in a neat, beautiful font. Her head was feeling even more hot when she could hear how loud the other students were being from the other seats since they were done with their assignments, and Aster just had to join in being the reason why she was feeling exasperated by letting out a soft laughter while watching her panic.

“Your handwriting looks like trails on a kart race with your ballpen being the kart,” Aster said in amusement while staring at her hand move in an incredible speed as she was able to reach the end of a line on the paper in less than ten seconds.

“Shut the hell up,” the raven hissed with her eyebrows furrowing deeply.

“Yeah. It’s really like hell when you’re burning in determination to finish the essay before the professor comes.” The brunette let out a chuckle as she felt proud of herself for her amazing remark.

“This is all your fault. I’m clueless about what happened before I came to this universe yet you don’t care? You didn’t even bother to update me about this essay that’s supposed to be done before today?” the raven spoke with no pause as she let out a scoff in disbelief without taking her eyes off on her phone screen.

What made the assignment worse was the fact that they were supposed to count all words manually and make sure that the word count was over 500. It was a good thing that Winter was not completely ignorant about the topic of the essay as she was able to add some ideas that she managed to come up with while writing.

“I didn’t know you didn’t know about it. Everyone’s literally talking about it since last week.” The brunette shrugged.

“Even if you didn’t know, you could’ve asked me! That way, you’d know that I didn’t know.” The raven groaned as she waited for the latter to scroll down for a second before continuing to write.

“In the present time, I didn’t know you didn’t know because I didn’t know about you.” A cheeky grin appeared on her face when the latter stopped writing for a second just to shoot her a glare.

The other students gave them weird looks as they continued to bicker because of the brunette would not give up being sarcastic and annoying. They went back to their business eventually as they did not care about them anyway, which was a good thing since Aster was already enough to be a disturbance to Winter.

“I swear to God, I wouldn’t bother studying or working so hard for someone who isn’t me if only I was ruthless.” The raven let out a heavy sigh.

“You are you, though. Also, I know you’re working hard right now because you don’t wanna look dumb in front of Iris.” The brunette leaned her chin on her palm while wearing a teasing smile.

“Mr. Rickroe is coming!” one of the students announced after taking a peek outside.

A sigh escaped the lips of Aster before she abruptly took the paper and ballpen away from Winter, who immediately cussed at her for it. The raven stopped herself from hitting the latter when she saw her continue writing her essays without glancing on the phone in a calm manner. Surprisingly, everything that the brunette was writing was creative and relevant to the topic.

When the professor arrived, he immediately told everyone to hand over their papers as Aster gave Winter a wink after giving her paper back when she was done. Hopefully the essay reached at least 500 words.