Make sure you drink water. Call me when you wake up. Love you little devil ♡
I stared at the post-it note stuck to my bedside table with bleary eyes. It was midday; the sun flooding through the open window and heating the small dorm. Violet was filing her sharp nails on her bed.
"You're up," she commented without looking at me, squinting her dark eyes at her fingertips. "Your little boy toy left. Didn't even say goodbye. I hope he was worth the night, because that's rude as hell."
I stared at her, eyes narrowed and mouth agape in confusion. My brain was sluggish, moving even slower than usual.
"What?" I asked, before noting in surprise that my throat was as dry as the desert. Violet's gaze jumped to me.
"Y'know," she said, eyeing me strangely. "The blond guy you bagged last night? Could've at least given me a warning."
"Oh," I said. I sat up and picked the crusty gunk from my eyes with a scrunched nose. "Sorry. Also, no. He wasn't- that was my boyfriend. He had to leave early."
"Ah," Violet said, feigning interest as she rounded her nails. "Well. He was cute."
I ran my hand through my hair and sighed through my nose. My hand held my cheek.
"Yeah..." I murmured with a tired smile as I stared at Lloyd's scratchy scrawl on the post-it note stuck under a glass of water. "He's adorable."
Violet hummed. Her nail sharpened into a claw.
"You going to the party tonight?" she asked before blowing at her hands. I pulled a face.
"Nah," I answered with a shake of my head. "I think I'll just have a quiet night. Maybe explore the campus a bit."
"That's kind of lame."
My brow twitched in confusion. Alright. Okay. How was I supposed to reply to that?
A knock at the door saved me from the agony of trying to find the right words. Ambrose popped his head in upon our calls of affirmation.
"Hello, ladies," he grinned in greeting. "How are we doing on this fine day?"
"Who are you?" Violet asked shortly.
"Ambrose, at your service except not really," he replied with a smile less pleasant than before. His blue eyes jumped back to me. "I'm guessing you didn't see the group chat?"
I blinked, brain blanking.
"We have a group chat?"
"Yes," he stressed, before opening the door wider and leaning against the frame. I reached for my phone. "The best dang group chat there ever is."
"Huh," I mused, finding the notifications from the group chat containing Ambrose, Chen and Kvasir. "So it is... wait, we're going out today?"
Violet huffed an audible sigh and plugged in her headphones.
"Yep," Ambrose answered, ignoring my roommate. "I'm going to show you guys around Nom so hurry it up! We're leaving in twenty."
"Shit, alright, hold on."
Ambrose dipped out the room so I could lazily grab some clothes to change into. Once ready to face the world, I said a quick goodbye to Violet and slipped from our dorm.
"You know Nom City?" I asked Ambrose as we began to walk down the hallway of my residence building.
"Yeah," he nodded. "I used to live here a couple of decades ago. Nice place, but they didn't really appreciate my flair back then."
"And now?"
"Well, now Nom's turned into a major artisan city," Ambrose chuckled. "They wished they could be as fly as me."
"Naturally," I said with an amused roll of my eyes.
"As all things should be," he said merrily.
Kvasir and Chen were waiting at the entrance to Gladys West Hall, content in their silence. Chen had an extra-tall takeaway cup of coffee. The semester hadn't even started yet.
"Where to first, mr. tour guide?" Chen asked as he looped his free arm through Amby's.
"City centre!" Ambrose declared, before leading our group across campus and out onto the streets of Nom.
"I heard Lloyd visssited lassst night," Kvasir mentioned as he slithered next to me. We ignored the staring and blatant whispering. "It mussst've been nice to sssee him again."
I glanced at the venomari out of the side of my eyes. It seemed as if I were growing on him.
"Yeah," I answered with a smile as I turned my gaze back to where Ambrose was marching his way down the street and dragging a chortling Chen along with him. "We're pretty useless. We could barely handle twenty-four hours without each other."
"You ssshould not dissss a potential ssstrength," Kvasir murmured. His tongue flicked from between his lips. I stared at him in wonder, unaware where he got this sudden wisdom from. "Love makesss the ssstrongesst alliesss."
