Ignite

Bright Sky

Venti's OOTD!! 
Brown graphic sweatshirt, pyjama checkered pants and those fluffy white slippers! 
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⸻ Wednesday, 10.56 am, 1 year ago

Beidou rapped on the door of Xiao's dorm. The man was sleeping in, while his roommates were doing their own thing. 

Heizou ran to get the door and was shocked to see Beidou this time instead of Ningguang. 

"Good morning!" Beidou greeted brightly. "Y'all received the information that a new guy will be joining your dorm, right? Well, here he is!" She gestured for the boy to step forward, which he did. Heizou grinned and nodded, ushering the guests to the the living room area. Kazuha woke Xiao up while Venti moved to the living room. 

Xiao emerged, messy hair and shirt backwards but nevertheless, pretty. A month had made him relatively comfortable in the dorm. He sat next to Kazuha while Venti plopped right next to the new kid. 

"Okay, everyone! This is the new guy, take care of him. Bye!" Beidou stood up after only a second of sitting down and left the dorm as suddenly as she had appeared. 

They sat in silence, until Heizou nudged Venti. 

"What?"

"You're the king of handling awkwardness. Say something!" Heizou whisper-shouted. Venti put on a beamed and introduced himself, then motioned for the rest to do the same. 

The new boy introduced himself as Aether. His long golden hair was tied neatly into a braid and his suitcase was plastered with travelling stickers. Damn, he had gone everywhere. 

Venti showed him to his room with white walls, and apologised for the basic-ness. But Aether shook his head and said he liked white walls. 

Xiao remained wary of the newcomer which he hadn't expected because he never checked his emails. Kazuha and Heizou prepped lunch while Xiao returned to his room. 

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"Hey, Venti?" Aether asked just as Venti was about to leave the white room. 

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for everything," Aether smiled and Venti's heart melted on the spot. What had they done to deserve such an angelic roommate?

But they soon learned that Aether was not, in fact, angelic. He got drunk easily, and when he did he was brutally honest. That night ended in Venti bawling in his room and Kazuha having to stop Xiao from throwing hands.
Aether was also a terrible cook. Not as bad as Venti, but terrible. Leaving him alone in the kitchen was asking for the dorm to be burnt down, and it wasn't funny. But Aether was still much loved by his new roommates. He was helpful in the sense that he would clear his schedule to buy groceries, or change his routine to teach Xiao the guitar when Kazuha was sick. In fact, his selflessness often worried his roommates. Sometimes, Aether would come home late after tutoring his classmate looking like a corpse. Once, when he was drunk, he complained that when he tutored them, they barely paid attention and made fun of him.

To Xiao, Aether looked like a pathetic slave to the requests of people. It was a Friday night when he told the rest of his friends how he felt. They were in the living room minding their own business while Aether was at his classmate's dorm again to tutor them. 

"Xiao, is something wrong?" Kazuha asked, closing his book. He was seated on the sofa next to Venti, who was mindlessly scrolling on his phone. Heizou was at the coffee table finishing his homework. 

"No," he responded nonchalantly. Talking wasn't his thing. 

"Come on, Xiao. Something's up, why won't you tell us?" Venti probed, putting down his phone. "You've been giving us an RBF all day. Not that it's uncommon, I mean."