My Universe

26: “You will have to help me with that because I don’t know how to make friends.”

The realization that the brunette came into was about how it turned out to be that there was a lot of things that had not been discovered about the multiverse yet, which made her even more intrigued about how the multiverse worked since she used to think that she already knew about everything about it and her special ability to travel across different universes every six months.

With that, Aster decided to secretly learn more about the multiverse through Winter.

“Well, I’m a god but I can’t help humans in solving their problems. The best that I can only do is support you and swear to keep it a secret,” Aster simply said with a shrug.

“Are you sure?” Winter asked with her head hung low as she was too anxious to even raise it and meet the gaze of the latter.

“Yeah, I don’t think that you’re a freak if that’s what you’re worried about. I’ve met people who have been to other worlds too.” The brunette gave the latter a soft pat on the shoulder before starting to walk away. “Come on. Let’s go back to the dorm.”

Back to the present time, the raven let out a sigh while wiping her wet hair that was fresh from the shower with a towel. Now that the brunette already knew the truth about her, she had no choice but to give her trust to only her. Wherever her life would lead to, it would not be bad to try.

“Summer.” Winter flinched in surprise that she almost went into a karate stance.

Alice was batting her eyelashes with her eyes looking like a sympathetic puppy as she looked at her roommate while poking her index fingers on each other. Her bottom lip slightly extended forward to a pout to complete the adorable give-me-everything-I-ask-for look. Because of her memories in her original universe, Winter found it a bit unusual to see her acting cute when the image of Alice’s parallel self, who would always give her a deadly glare with thick black eye makeup in a terrifying way, kept appearing in her mind.

“Hey, Alice,” Winter spoke in an awkward tone as she forced a smile on her face while wearing a look that emphasized a huge question mark on her face.

“Summer.” The art student flashed a bright grin that colorful glitters and rainbows seemed to be appearing around her.

The raven let out a fake chuckle as she took a step aside to head toward her wardrobe. Unease was what she was feeling at that moment though she pretended to act like it was not a big deal; like the short-haired woman following her with a box-shaped smile on her face while her sparkly eyes was staying glued on her was a normal thing that does not make her uncomfortable. While scanning her eyes around the wardrobe, her roommate suddenly took a step closer to her side as she was obviously asking for attention.

“What is it?” Winter finally asked when she had enough as she took a step back and turned to look at her with raised eyebrows.

“Let’s have dinner together in the cafeteria,” Alice responded in an excited tone while batting her eyelashes at her.

The raven internally scoffed in disbelief about how the art student really thought that she could make her accept her invitation and have dinner with her in a place, where people who were from the same university as them that were likely to be one of those people who disliked her. Winter almost thought that Alice was pathetic for thinking that using cloying, adorable acts and voice would make her not have any doubts or hesitations to follow her.

Winter pinched the bridge of her nose as she let out a silent chuckle before shaking her head and turning her attention back on the plate of potato salad that was on the table in front of her. The raven looked up to meet the eyes of the art student who was seated across her while slurping her chicken noodles as the both of them shared smiles when a person in the background slipped on the floor while his tray flew up to the air.

The cafeteria in the dormitory was a safe place where no conflicts could be found as the people only cared about eating their meals in the cafeteria, which was fortunate for Winter that being anxious earlier was useless.

***

The hotel and restaurant management student took the lip tint in a small makeup pouch that she found in the drawer of Summer as she decided to apply a bit on her lips to not look gloomy first thing in the morning. If people were going to hate on her, she should at least look pretty.

“Hey, Summer.”

“Hmm?” Winter hummed in response while slowly applying lip tint on her bottom lip before smacking her lips and leaning back away from the mirror.

As the raven stared at her reflection, she realized that the peach shade of the lip tint looked gorgeous on her. It was the first time that Winter shared the same preference as Summer and she hoped that would not be the last since she really did not want to live with ugly things for the rest of her life.

The gray-eyed woman then stood up from her seat and turned around only to flinch in surprise again when she saw her roommate standing right across her with the same adorable sympathetic puppy look on her face from last night again while staring at her. At that point, Winter wanted to run away from her as she was unsure whether to find her roommate cute or terrifying.

“Let’s go to university together,” Alice said with a cheerful grin on her face.

“Y-yeah, sure.” Winter forced a smile on her face as she nodded, which made the latter hop around in excitement.

“Nice!”

When the both of them were done fixing their things and appearance, they stepped out of their room with their backpacks as they made sure to lock the door before closing it. It turned out that Alice had a class that starts five minutes before Winter’s class starts, so it was a good reason to walk together.

It was a usual morning with the dormitory building being noisy and crowded with students walking around the building. Winter was still actually not used to seeing the emo convenience store worker near her dormitory in the universe that she originally belonged in though she was trying to be since she did not know how long she would stay in that universe anyway; besides, the art student was a sweet and kind woman so it would just make her guilty to try not to get along with her just because of the image that she had of her.

“I’m craving for strawberry milk. Let’s go to the vending machine for a while,” Alice said as she turned to her roommate for approval.

“Sure.”

As expected, Winter met the gaze of the brunette, who was standing next to the vending machine while arguing with her roommate, as she was starting to think that she might be sleeping on that area instead of an actual dorm room every night. A few seconds later, the conversation that she just had with her yesterday came flashing in her mind again which made the raven look away immediately.

“Stop being a b***h and let me—” the person was not able to finish his sentence when he turned to see Winter and Alice coming close to her, which made her fix his posture immediately.

Seeing the action of her roommate, Aster let out a chuckle as she turned to face the two women who just arrived with a friendly smile on her face and waved at them as a greeting. Winter was looking away from the brunette as she pretended to be interested at the dust particle that she happened to see which was falling down from the ceiling in a slow manner.

While Winter was avoiding Aster who had been staring at her, their roommates were having their first interaction with each other as it turned out that the sculpture major student recognized the painting major student.

“Hey. You major in painting, right?” Gabby spoke as she buried her hands in her pockets to not look awkward.

“Yeah, I do. How did you know? I don’t think we’ve ever met,” Alice replied in surprise.

“Well, I have a friend who majors in painting too and I happen to see you around sometimes.” He shrugged as he kept a straight face.

“Oh, really?” The shorter woman let out a light chuckle as she clasped her hands behind her while only throwing glances at Gabby across her because of her inability to hold eye contact for a long time with a person whom she just met for the first time.

“Yeah.” Gabby nodded before raising her hand to offer a handshake to her. “I’m Gabby, by the way. Gabby Adams and I major in sculpture.”

“Oh, yes. Nice to meet you. I’m Alice Casper and I major in painting.” Alice flashed a friendly smile as she accepted the handshake and let the latter shake their hands in a gentle manner.

“Yeah, I know.” Gabby flashed a small smile on his face when he saw how the shorter woman widened her eyes in realization and nodded.

While the two of them were busying interacting with each other, Aster turned her gaze away from Winter, who was enjoying to watch the interaction between the two art students, as she sneaked her hand down to the pick-up box of the vending machine to take the last can of cold cappuccino which was the cause of her argument with her roommate earlier because they happened to be craving for the same drink at that moment. A smirk of victory appeared on her face when she saw how her roommate had not noticed it yet. Winter then suddenly turned to throw a glance at her, which made Aster wink at her and place her index finger on her shushing lips.

“Oh, so you’re a trans man.” Alice nodded with her mouth slightly left ajar, which made the taller man let out a chuckle because of how visibly fascinated she looked after receiving the information.

“Yeah—” Gabby was speaking when he happened to glance at his roommate with his eyes immediately dropping to the can that she was holding, which made the smile on his face drop in an instant. “Hey!”

“See ya!” Aster smiled at Winter and Alice before turning to run as fast as she could away from her roommate with the last can of cappuccino.

The two women who were left by the vending machine watched the two roommates run down the stairs that made the other people look at them as well because of how noisy they were being. The raven pursed her lips in as she sort of wished that she did not know Aster for a second because of that. Once the noise was gone which meant that the two roommates were already out of the building, Winter turned to face her roommate whose face was evident with awe.

“What’s with that look?” Winter chuckled.

The art student suddenly turned to face her while grabbing her arms before she spoke, “Summer, I badly want to be friends with Gabby. He seems like a really cool person!”

“All right. You can go befriend him anytime since the both of you are art students.” The raven shrugged.

“You will have to help me with that because I don’t know how to make friends,” Alice simply replied.

“Sure.” A pat on the shoulder was what Winter gave her roommate for her to let go of her.

The art student then remembered about the reason why they went to the vending machine as she immediately went to get her strawberry milk before they even become late to their class.