SPIKE ; juric

chapter 1

Eric didn't know what to do with himself.

Transferring to a university randomly in the middle of a semester was not the most ideal situation both academically and socially. Academically, because he quite literally had half a semester of work to catch up on whilst simultaneously trying not to fall behind and socially because by then, everyone had their friend group solidified.

This wasn't something that he expected to happen to him, after all, he was scouted to be the replacement libero for one of the best Universities in Seoul after their own libero had gotten injured and would be out for the season that was supposed to begin the next week. Eric jumped at the opportunity, because he knew a chance like this was hard to come by. There was nothing more Eric loved than being on the court; so to be offered a spot on one of the most elite volleyball teams in the country, he would have been stupid to deny this opportunity.

Eric began to feel anxious as he stood in front of his dorm room. Was he supposed to knock? He had the key to the room but was it rude to just barge in? He didn't know anything about his roommate, other than he will probably be upset he has to give up his single room space and share it with Eric. That much was expected, as he would probably feel the same way if that were to happen to him. He wanted to try as hard as possible to start off on the right foot with the person he would essentially be living with for the entire academic year.

"Come on Eric, you can do this." Eric muttered to himself, focusing on his breathing and trying to hype himself up, hoping it would make it easier for himself to walk in confidently. He had to go into the dorm eventually; he just felt awkward introducing himself to his new roommate on a Saturday afternoon. As much as Eric tried, he found it extremely difficult to be in awkward situations, never knowing what to do with himself.

Eric decided it was more polite to knock, so he did just that. He knocked three times, not too hard or too soft, although after he knocked he was worried the person on the other side of the door would think he was being too aggressive. He didn't want his roommate to assume anything negative about him before he even got the chance to introduce himself.

It felt like ages before the door opened, revealing a boy who looked like he was just awoken from a nap. His under-eyes were a light shade of purple and his hair, stuffed in the hood of a light grey hoodie, seemed messy. His jawline was evident under the hood, and his eyes seemed to be half open. He was wearing matching grey sweatpants, and looked kind of annoyed. The boy looked at Eric, clearly unaware of what he was doing at the door of his dorm.

"Is there anything you want?" The boy asked, shifting his weight to his left foot. "What's so important that you need to wake me up from my morning nap?" Eric can tell the boy was aggravated, and Eric didn't blame him: if someone woke him up from a nap, he would have probably reacted the same way.

"Oh, yeah, hi! I'm Eric. I uh, just transferred here and this is the dorm they told me to move into? I guess because you live in a double room as a single-"

"They said what? Yeah, that's not going to work." The boy groaned, wiping his eyes as if to get rid of the sleepiness. "You're going to have to go and tell the student housing people that you can't stay with me."

Eric looked at the boy dumbfounded. What did he mean he wasn't able to stay with him? He looked down at the piece of paper he was given to by the housing department, and it very clearly wrote 'Room 812'. "What do you mean? Listen, I'm sorry to bother you on a Saturday but look at this paper they gave me! It says room-"

"With all due respect, I'm sorry, but I really couldn't care less about the fact that they told you this was the room you needed to move into. I told them multiple times that my friend Hyunjae is staying with me to fill up the other bed and they still placed you here. That's not my problem, it's yours and the housing departments so please don't wake me up from my nap again and go speak to them." The tired boy didn't say anything and shut the door once more, leaving Eric in shock of the interaction that just happened.