My Universe

18: “I know that you’re not actually Summer.”

“A bunch of students who used to stay in this dormitory around four years ago did something which made the owner forbid anyone from going to the rooftop so no more accidents happen again.”

The brunette nodded as she took a sip on her cola before turning her eyes back to the steel door that did not look difficult to lockpick since there were no additional locks on it. The blue-eyed guy, who had been staying in the dormitory at the same time as her in three months already, continued to talk about the whole story with specific details about the incident that occurred on the rooftop which he gathered from the other students that had been staying in the dormitory longer; though the hazel-eyed woman only paid half of her attention on him since she was busy thinking about when everyone would be already in their rooms.

Ever since Aster learned about her special ability, she thought about how cool it really was to be one of the exceptional people to exist that it became a favorite thing to do for her to go to the rooftops of every building just to enjoy the serene and relaxing atmosphere with the dark sky above while drinking a can of a cold drink; her cold root beer that she used to drink when she was still a minor had improved to real alcoholic beer.

Since Aster loved going up on rooftops, it did not matter whether there were locked doors to block anyone from wanting to go upstairs or not as she was able to think of ways to still get herself on rooftops even though it was dangerous and prohibited to. After all, it was not like Aster was going to live as the same person after six months.

The clock struck midnight as the brunette turned her head to look over at her roommate who was in deep sleep on his bed at the opposite side of the room, which gave her the chance to carefully get up from her bed without getting caught for trying to sneak out of the room at late night when she was supposed to be sleeping like what most of the students were doing. Taking her sweater and can of cold beer, Aster walked toward the door as she threw one last glance on her roommate.

A sigh of relief left her lips when she saw him not flinching from her quiet movements before leaving the room to be greeted by the dim and silent space that looked unusual since the brunette had always been used to seeing the hallway being filled with people either passing by or just hanging out on one spot. Though the eerie building did not frighten her even a bit since Aster had literally been in situations that were way more terrifying than the current situation that she was in as she began walking to the direction where the door to the rooftop was with her hands buried in her pockets without feeling fear of any possible scary nonhuman creatures appearing around her.

Using her lockpicking skills that she learned from one of the universes that she had been to where she was the daughter of an infamous thief, the brunette pulled the two black hair pins from her hair and let the bun freely fall as she began to do what she had to do to unlock the door that would lead her to the place that she enjoyed going to.

Once she was done with lockpicking, Aster slowly shut the door behind her as she took a step forward and took a deep breath while her eyes closed when she felt the satisfying cool wind touch her as if it was congratulating and greeting her for successfully getting on the forbidden place without being caught by anyone. Everything looked dirty and there was literally nothing around except for the door that would lead her downstairs though she still felt in peace and comfortable as she decided to sit down and lean her back on the wall while opening her can of cold beer.

A few nights later, an unfortunate thing just had to happen that temporarily stopped Aster from her relaxation every other night. When the brunette decided to study at Awe University that was away from the province that she and her family lived in, she did not expect to meet someone that she knew in the same university and dormitory. Nothing happened between them as they were not friends anymore though it annoyed her when her acquaintance just had to be a jerk.

“Because you trespassed a restricted area, you are temporarily not allowed to stay here for a week.”

“But sir—” Before Aster could even finish her sentence, the middle-aged man raised his index finger in front of her face to stop her from uttering any more words.

“I repeat, you are not allowed to stay here for a week; which means that you have to stay in your home in the province for a week,” the older man said before walking away from the shorter woman as he did not want to hear any more complaints.

“Sir—”

“You will do what I said and stop whining to me.” He continued to walk without looking back at her.

“Damn it,” the brunette hissed under her breath as she raked her hair back with her fingers before her attention went to the woman that was placing her trash in the trash bin, who was the reason why she got into that situation. “Summer.”

Summer stuck her tongue out before leaving back to her room as Aster let out a sigh of exasperation while watching her walk away.

While Aster was enjoying one of her usual nights on the rooftop, Summer just happened to be awake at that time to get a can of coffee in the vending machine to keep her awake while she studied. Apparently, she was the first person who saw the brunette go to the rooftop. And since Summer hated Aster, she decided to follow her up to the rooftop and briefly looked around the wide area before telling the brunette that she would not tell anyone about her secretly going to the rooftop every midnight as she decided to report it to the owner of the dormitory building as soon as she woke up in the next day.

When Aster came back to the dormitory after a week of the struggle that she faced for commuting from her home to university every day just to attend her classes, she made sure to not get in contact with the raven in any way as she was still annoyed at her for making her suffer for a week. But what happened did not stop her from continuing to do her hobby as she made sure to be extra cautious to her surroundings when she went back to sneaking up to the rooftop three weeks later.

A smirk crept up on Aster’s face when she remembered what exactly happened a year ago as she intently stared at the same person who instantly reported her for going to a restricted area because of her despite toward her last year. The surprised facial expression of the raven just made the situation even more obvious that it was starting to get less amusing for the brunette since it had not been long yet and she was already caught.

“W-Well, you see,” Winter spoke as she tried to come up with an excuse to defend herself.

“Mhm.” Aster nodded as she nodded her head to let the latter continue speaking. She took a sip on her cold beer while a small smile of amusement played on her face, enjoying how she was internally panicking on her seat.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve been here, so I forgot how it was like to be up here,” the brunette continued and took big sips on her beer while avoiding the gaze of the woman whose hazel eyes were directed on her like she was under the spotlight.

Aster did not respond as she just crossed her leg over the other while observing the latter’s actions and continuing to take sips on her drink. She had a lot of questions stacking up to throw onto the raven though she decided to keep the silence in the atmosphere for a while to calm the inner panic of her since she remembered that it was possible to make a person experience a panic attack which could result to fainting if they get too pressured from being bombarded with questions that they do not want to answer.

She’s obviously suspicious of me. Why do I have to be so stupid? Winter thought as she faced the opposite direction for Aster to be unable to see her face that was expressing her annoyance at herself. Since she was not able to verbally speak to herself at that moment, she could only use her mind as tons of thoughts clashed against each other to make her mind a mess because of the situation that she was currently in.

Her thoughts stopped tangling around each other in her mind when the raven heard the brunette spoke.

“What’s your full name?” Aster finally broke the silence.

“What?” Winter was flustered as she furrowed her eyebrows when she turned to meet her gaze again.

“What is your full name?” the brunette repeated with calmness in her voice as she never took her eyes off the latter.

“I-It’s Summer Kiara, of course! Why would you even ask questions about my basic personal information?” Winter answered in annoyance.

“When is your birthday?” The brunette remained unbothered as she continued to calmly throw every question that she had stacked in her mind to her.

“No—no more dumb questions! I don’t need to answer those,” Winter huffed.

“Really?” A smirk flashed on the face of the latter as the raven internally panicked because of it.

“H-how could you not know that my birthday is on September 11th?” the raven eventually answered as she looked away from her.

The situation was getting even more thrilling for Aster that her excitement was rising like water particles jumping around in a kettle as it was getting boiled. The crushing sound of the aluminum can could be heard as the brunette tightly grasped it when it was empty and dropped it on the ground, making the raven flinch from the brief loud noise. The brunette then kicked the wall to push herself up from leaning on the wall.

“What is my full name then?” Aster asked with a smirk of amusement playing on her face.

“Avery Levine, can you stop being annoying?” Winter casually said as she let out a sigh of annoyance after while glaring at her.

Fortunately, the raven was paying attention to everything in the first class with the brunette earlier in the morning that she found out her name and kept it in her mind when the professor was checking the attendance, knowing that a situation where she would be calling her name would come anytime. That was one of the moments where she was proud of herself for thinking in advance.

“Hmm.”

“Look, you’re being really obnoxious—”

“I know that you’re not actually Summer,” Aster cut her off as she walked toward her and stood in front of her.

“W-what are you talking about? If this is a game—” Again, the raven was not able to finish her sentence when the brunette suddenly took a step closer and leaned in to her.

Winter widened her eyes and froze on her seat when Aster raised her hand to tuck her hair strands that fell to her face behind her ear. Her touch was gentle and her sweet citrus scent surrounded her as it almost seemed like she was trying to hypnotize the raven. Winter knew that she could just literally push her off and get up from the chair, but she just could not understand why she could not bring herself to do that.

“See? You’re even reacting differently right now.”

The husky chuckle that the brunette let out after was satisfying.