My Universe

27: “You told me that you’ll loathe her until the day you die.”

It was the same situation that Winter was in again as she was still not used to it even though it literally happens every day whenever she goes to the university. The difference was that she was not alone or with Aster this time as she was walking to university with Alice for the first time. Like usual, everyone was affected by her presence as if she was a parasite that must be avoided or else everyone would be infected with a so-called “Summer Kiara disease”, which meant that one’s life would hit rock bottom and be branded as a bad sinner with the worst reputation that nobody ever wants to be.

The raven regretted not wearing an oversized hoodie that she was supposed to use to cover her face with the hood for her to stop drawing attention by everyone as she despised the kind of stares that she kept receiving from the fellow students. At least for once, she just wanted to go to university to study in peace.

Noticing the uncomfortable facial expression of her roommate, Alice turned to take a glance at the people around that walked past them as she realized that they were the reason why Winter seemed to be walking on eggshells. A pout appeared on her face along a scowl as she secretly sent glares to the people who were throwing contemptuous stares at her roommate before linking arms with her, which made her look at her in surprise.

“Ignore the looks that they’re all giving you. They are just being insecure as usual,” Alice said with her eyebrows furrowed while nodding. “You are prettier, smarter,          and just better in general than any of them.”

“Well, I’m not really sure about that.” Winter let out a light chuckle. Her roommate looked like a cute small puppy that was trying to protect its owner by wearing a scowl to scare off everyone.

“It’s up to you if you don’t wanna believe it. Whether you like it or not, I myself believe that I am sure about the fact that people are jealous of a gorgeous woman who is a hundred times better than them.” The art student shrugged as she lightly swayed their linked arms while they walked across the campus without bothering to give any attention to the people around.

The short-haired woman started to talk about how she defeated the dragon that was one of the most difficult bosses to kill in the role-playing game that she plays last week. Even though Winter did not understand anything about what her roommate was happily sharing about, she pretended to understand and stay interested as she nodded while listening to her attentively since that was better to give her attention to rather than to the people who would not mind their own business.

It was sad as the both of them stood in front of the building, where classes of majors that were associated with art were located in, since that meant that they both had to separate from each other whether they wanted to or not. It was basically one of the disadvantages of being friends with a person that was taking a different major since there would be a lot of times where they would have to leave each other for a while after hanging out just to attend their different classes.

A sigh escaped the pink plump lips of the art student as she faced her roommate with a disappointed expression on her face. If people were watching the whole scene with their full attention, they would have thought that Winter and Alice were clingy girlfriends that do not even want to separate at least an inch from each other.

“I’ll go ahead now,” Winter said with a small smile on her face as she waved at her.

“All right. Good luck on your classes,” Alice replied with a sad smile on her face.

The hotel and restaurant management student just let out a chuckle before waving her hand once again and turning around to start walking away and toward the building where her first class would be in since it might take a long time if she would decide to reassure the art student; like a table tennis game, Winter knew that there was a huge possibility of their conversation to be like the sport with Winter saying that she would be fine alone and with Alice saying that she is concerned about her and that she wants to stay by her side for the whole day instead. Eventually, she decided that she made the correct choice to just leave without saying anything about the evidently concerned face of Alice, which Alice did not expect her to do.

“It's fine. It’s not like it’s my first time to go to class alone. Besides, I’m a grown woman,” Winter mumbled to herself as she tightly held on the strap of her backpack and hurried up to head to her class.

***

The time felt like it slowed down with each second becoming ten minutes. For some reason, Winter felt relieved when she noticed that she was not the only one who thought of that as she saw some of the people that were in the same class as her dozing off while the others, who were seated close to her, were quietly complaining to their seatmates about how the time seemed to be handled by a turtle that it felt like the class would go on until they turn 70 and gray.

It was as if everyone won the lottery when they all jumped and shouted in joy after the professor dismissed them and left the classroom. The class that was once filled with lifeless souls turned into a class that was filled with high spirited souls. Laughter that was loud and full of energy brought the colors to the room as everyone regained their energy once again with the others, who had been dozing off, actively moving around in an energetic mood.

It would have been nice if Winter was Winter Kali instead of Summer Kiara since she could not even join the other students in celebrating the dismissal of their class as Summer. Her bottom lip slightly extended forward to form a sad pout as she started to miss her two best friends while she fixed her things to return to her backpack so she could leave the classroom and have lunch already.

So far, no one had tried to do something to ruin the day of Winter as she cautiously walked across the hallway toward the exit while making sure to not bump on anyone. Her day was fine and she did not want to have the word “fine” replaced to a negative adjective.

“Summer!” Immediately, the raven turned to the direction where she heard her name being called.

“Oh, Alice.” A smile appeared on Winter’s face as she walked toward her roommate.

“Let’s have lunch together,” Alice said as she flashed a grin on her face and batted her eyelashes for additional convincing points.

“All right.” It was Winter’s loneliness that actually made her agree to eat lunch with her roommate and not because of Alice’s cutesy actions.

As if they were magnets, the art student linked their arms as they began walking away toward the exit of the campus. The campus gate was quite crowded as the two of them assumed that it was because the dishes that were served in the campus cafeteria were not what the majority students liked. As the two roommates stepped out of the campus, that was when Winter seemed to just realize that there were a lot of restaurants, some were cheap restaurants while the others were expensive ones, near to the university. It was almost like the restaurant owners knew that the students, who were studying in Awe University, are often picky in food that they decided to build their businesses close to it so the students had choices to run to if the served food in the campus cafeteria were garbage.

“Do you want to go for Chinese food?” Alice asked as their eyes stayed on the Chinese restaurant across the university that looked a bit fancy.

“Sure, why not?” Winter simply answered as she suddenly had a craving for dumplings.

Suddenly, the image of her wallet that was almost empty appeared in the raven’s head as she widened her eyes in realization. Before she left the dormitory, Winter remembered taking a peek in the inside of her wallet since that had always been her habit ever since she accidentally brought an empty wallet to university when she was a freshman; she bought a new wallet on the day before that day and transferred her cash and credit cards to the new wallet though she forgot about it since her old wallet had been wallet ever since she was a sophomore in high school.

The raven bit her bottom lip before turning to look at her roommate with a worried look on her face, which the short-haired woman immediately noticed.

“Oh, what’s wrong? Do you want to eat somewhere else?” Alice asked as they stayed on the sidewalk instead of crossing the street even though the green pedestrian traffic light was on.

“I didn’t bring a lot of money.” Winter pouted.

“Oh, it’s fine. I can just pay for both of our meals,” the art student simply replied like it was no big deal.

“Really? All right then. Thanks.” The raven smiled before the both of them hurriedly walked across the pedestrian lane before the timer for the green pedestrian traffic light reached zero.

The art student looked at her a bit longer in surprise before moving on and entering the Chinese restaurant. It was her first time to see her roommate accept her offer to pay something for her. Summer had always refused Alice’s offer to buy her anything expensive as she never ever lets her pay for her meals whenever the both of them would eat together in an expensive restaurant. Alice thought that it was unusual for her roommate to actually let her treat her to lunch in an expensive restaurant though she decided to just ignore it and think of it as a character development of Summer.

On the other hand, Winter was just thinking of herself as she did not want to waste the chance to get free food that included her craving.

The both of them sat at a vacant table for two people as the waiter came a few seconds after to take their orders. Soothing instrumental music was playing from the speakers which kept the atmosphere inside the restaurant calm that loud groups of friends must not come in since they would certainly ruin the vibe if they do come. After seeing the prices of the dishes, it was no doubt that the number of customers in the restaurant was not big enough to make the place crowded.

“So, why were you with Avery last night?” Alice started the conversation as she took a sip on the cold water that was served for each of them. “The both of you were damped too.”

“Oh, uh.” Winter took her glass of cold water to drink it as well while she thought of an excuse to tell the latter. “We just happened to run across each other on the way back to the dorm and a car unfortunately drove over a puddle in full acceleration, which explains why we ended up going back to the dorm in that state.”

“Oh my god! Really? You didn’t get hurt or anything, did you?” Alice reacted with concern evident on her face.

“Yeah, we just got wet. That’s all.” The raven let out a fake chuckle.

“Well, thank god.” The art student nodded. “By the way, are you two friends now? I mean, the two of you walked back to the dorm together.”

“What do you mean? We’ve always been friends,” Winter replied while taking a spring roll that the waiter served as an appetizer.

“Since when? You told me that you’ll loathe her until the day you die.”