Starry

Chapter 1

"Cheers!" the glasses of beer clanked against each other, but rather than chugging it down like the others did, I just put mine on the table and went back to scrolling on my phone.

Sophie, my bestie, then elbowed me, "Hey! If you don't drink now this whole mixer will just be a waste"

We were at an old but popular and cheap bar not too far from our dorms, it was a group meeting event, or is this a group blind date? for college students, that Sophie invited me to.

"It's about to end anyway, I'll just take my time while you all talk" the others were already hitting it off as loudly as they started as soon as they finished their glasses.

"What about you then?"

I closed in and whispered, "It's not like I'm looking for true love here"

"What?! Then why did you even tag along for??" they all looked at us as Sophie raised her voice,

"Ah..." Sophie uttered, there were a few seconds of awkward silence, but they all moved on as if nothing happened. Except for one guy, but never mind him.

The mixer ended earlier than I expected at around 10:30 pm, maybe because we all had classes the following day.

"Did anyone catch your eye?" I asked Sophie while we sat in the train.

"They didn't look bad, there was a cute guy, a hot guy, and a handsome one, but nothing really 'clicked' for me. Anyway, why did you agree to going if you weren't gonna take it seriously?"

"Well, I was worried you'd get with a troublesome guy"

"And the real reason?" she asked.

I broke into a smile, okay, you got me, "I think true love or love that you meet on mixers like those is just fictional. I was looking for something more like a casual relationship with someone smart who can help me study."

"Wasn't there anyone like that?"

"Dunno, you guys never even talked about your college life aside from the start when we all introduced ourselves and our courses."

We arrived at the dorms shortly after, and I went right to sleep, "Good night" I told Sophie, who was laying down on the bed above mine. Meanwhile she was still using her phone scrolling down through reels and clips for minutes like she does every night before going to sleep, "Good night" she told me.

And after a dreamless night, another day began,

"Sera, did you do the assignment?" Sophie asked me first thing in the morning, as in she's just woken up. I calmly got up and got ready at my own pace, telling her "No, but I found someone to copy from yesterday before we went to the mixer."

"Nicee!" Sophie cheered with a fist up, and lied in bed again, even though she takes more time getting ready than I do. "I'm not waiting for you, you know." "okayy..."

Sigh, someone's gonna be late again.

When I arrived to the room my pal Kev was already there, he always comes early as he wakes up even earlier to jog everyday like I could never do.

"Hey Kev," I showed him my hand, and he handed me the notebook, you could say he understood the assignment.

But as I was copying, I noticed something was off, the words chosen, the paragraph arrangement, there was something odd about it that didn't seem to be so Kev-like. It wasn't as if I knew or could recognize if something was written by Kev, but I would know if something was NOT written by him.

"Did you copy this?"

"How'd you know?"

"There's just no way you'd write something like this, it's just not your style."