room 411 | Winrina

Chapter 10- Attention

Winter had spent the last week in the comfort of Aeri's near empty apartment. Somi and his brother, Jake, had gone home together for break, and Aeri was nice enough to pretend to invite Winter to stay and keep her company.

She liked it at Aeri's. There was a large window in the living room that faced the street, during the day she would sit on the arm of the couch and look out, sometimes drawing, often people watching. It was quiet without Jake there to bring in friends, too. At night when she and Aeri would curl up on the couch to watch netflix, it almost felt like she was supposed to be there, rather than that she was avoiding her own place.

Winter sat on the couch, Aeri on an armchair across from her, sipping coffee from a mug. It had been a relaxing Saturday so far, the pair of them woke up at a respectable ten thirty am to watch the Harry Potter movies from the beginning.

"See, now this is so dumb," Winter pointed at the tv. "First of all, who decided that they were all gonna wear muggle clothes around school suddenly?" Winter asked. "And secondly, why did they make Hermione wonder what her hair looked like from the back? That's so not Hermione." 

Winter glanced to Aeri for back up.

"Preaching to the choir, kid," Aeri chuckled.

"It's like the director didn't give a shit," Winter sighed.

"He probably didn't," Aeri shrugged. 

Winter watched as Aeri checked her phone, looking slightly alarmed. 

"So uh, as much as I like you hiding out here, I kinda need you to take off for a few hours." Aeri said.

"Booty call?" Winter asked. 

"You know it," Aeri smirked.

"How is the demon these days?" Winter asked.

"Oh come on, she's not that bad," Aeri said.

"Uh, did you forget that time she tried to fight us? Because I didn't," Winter said.

"She apologized for that," Aeri said. 

"Not to me!" Winter said. 

Aeri laughed.

"Well, you'll just have to take my word for it," Aeri shrugged.

"To be fair, you don't have a great track record of vouching for people," Winter shrugged.

"Yikes, true," Aeri pulled her lips back, miming pain. "No but really you should probably go because she's supposed to be here any minute."

"Why did you wait until now to tell me?" Winter asked.

"Would you believe I didn't want to be alone?" Aeri asked. 

Winter rolled her eyes.

"It's fine," Winter sighed as she stood from the couch. "I should probably head back to my room anyway. It's inspections week. Gotta make sure there's no contraband lying around," Winter said as she disappeared into Aeri's room to change out of her sweatpants.

"Don't you just love living in the dorms?" Aeri teased.

"As soon as next semester ends I'm out of there," Winter shouted loud enough so Aeri could hear. "No more inspections or dumb alcohol rules or temperamental RA's—" Winter stopped short hearing a violent knock on the door. 

"Shit," she muttered, grabbing her shoes and pulling them on. 

Aeri had already opened the door by the time she returned to the living room. Ningning looked just as intense as ever, standing stiffly near the door.