Long Time, No See - Levi x Reader (Modern!AU)

32 - Happy and In Love

Being a college student, lots of things about my life changed.

That should have been obvious. It should have been, and yet, the more that things changed, the more surprised I was.

For one thing, I was far more independent than I had been when I was in high school. That was one of those obvious changes. I had to do all my own shopping, had to take care of my classes, needed to make sure that I was healthy and safe, and I was at long last a real adult.

I needed to manage my own time, take care of my own problems when they arose, and all manner of other things that I had taken for granted, that I had never considered needing to ever take care of before. There were lots of silly things that I never really thought about before, but now I had to, lest they slip through the cracks.

Additionally, being away from home, regardless of how far, meant that I needed to learn for myself how to do everything and I had to grow up a bit faster than others. Some students had the joint blessing and curse of being able to live at home for school. While still being stuck with family, there is a certain level of comfort that comes with being at home and being around said family, being around places you'd grown up with and people you knew you could count on.

Being on your own... literally meant you were on your own. Yes, my parents would send money if I asked nicely enough, and yes, I was only a relatively short drive from home, but I was still on my own. And that meant I needed to grow up, or else risk falling behind in everything, not just in my classes. My health might slip, mental and otherwise, my time could slip away without me even realizing it, and everything between.

There were other changes, too. My existing relationships changed, as did the process by which I formed new ones. I had made friends in my lab, in my general studies courses, with some people that I just so happened to sit near late one night on a lawn outside, and those in the clubs I joined.

There were lots of people I knew from only brief encounters: a nice girl who accidentally bumped into me when we were each late to classes in the same building, and now we smiled at each other whenever we saw each other; a shy boy who didn't have the nerve to tell the dining hall staff at one of our restaurants that his order was wrong, and so he gave his extra side to the closest person to him at the time, which had been me; and a rather built girl who had, when she noticed me watching her form, given me some pointers on how to do some exercises a bit better.

And then there were the friends I'd kept since high school, though only few had conversations with me regularly and worked to maintain our friendships. A great many people I knew from high school hadn't reached out to me since graduation, and I couldn't say I reached out to them, either.

College just brought with it lots of changes. Many were obvious, yet many more were slight, the ones I hadn't anticipated having to deal with but was now forced to. There were good changes and bad changes alike, those for the better and those for the worse.

However... some things remained constant.

One such constant was how much I enjoyed the winter holiday.

Truthfully... I don't think anything would ever dull my love for any holiday, much less such a gloriously long break from classes. The spring semester would be a fresh start. And while this was a great chance to catch up with my old friends from back home and with my family, I realized how quickly I started to miss my new friends, those from college.

In the days leading up to the start of the holiday, I'd nearly forgotten to pack, for finals week had come in full force, sweeping the students along whether we were ready or not. And for the most part... I was prepared. Mostly.