Making Stars

her for the win

Prompt: A first meet with a busybody piques Mikey's curiosity and urges him to move with consistency—he doesn't believe in backing down from challenges, after all. [ COMPLETED: 11/22/22 ]

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Song Inspo(s): Give You What You Want - Lil Tjay
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Mikey was aware of who Tui and Jhene were. Girlfriends to his teammates, cool people who knew how to crack jokes. An education major and a graphic design major both heavily involved in campus organizations, and he only knew this through the early stages of when his boys had first met their girls.

Jhene oversaw the school's media department with athletics, so she and Issac connected in that way. Tui worked alongside the College of Education with an athletes-exclusive tutoring program and eventually came across Rocky.

But that wasn't his focus. Tui and Jhene were for the most part gonna be there, that was expected. What he wasn't expecting was a third party to be present.

The stranger's face was vaguely familiar, one he'd recalled scootering past in the food court on multiple occasions. Mikey never spared second looks to strangers, but the girl silently seated beside the duo was one that he just happened to notice and remember.

She urgently tapped away at her laptop and adjusted her glasses, direly intent on completing whatever was on the screen. Mikey noted how small she was alongside her friends, her cardigan swallowing a good portion of her body save everything from the thighs down. The sunlight made the ginger hue in her hair gleam, along with the gloss that he just realized was on her lips.

"Ayo, Money Mike!"

The young athlete was shaken out of his thoughts upon hearing Tui call him by his nickname. Immediately the smaller woman's eyes shifted upward to Mikey. He pretended not to notice the sudden attention as he walked up. "If it ain't T-Munny in the cut."

"Sh'ardy know what it is," came Tui's reply as he dapped her up, repeating the action with Jhene. "What are y'all out here doin?"

"Nothin' really," Jhene shrugged, "just finished finals so we're trynna relax before we do anything else."

Mikey hummed in understanding; his eyes then fell back on the stranger seated beside the duo. Tui appeared to catch on to his unspoken words. "This is our friend, Raeni, she's a business major and works with me in the tutoring program. She's usually with the math department."

Before he realized what he was doing, Mikey stuck his hand out. "Michael Carter. It's nice to meet you."

Raeni's eyes slowly left her screen to meet his. She pulled back her cardigan sleeve before meeting the outstretched hand halfway. "Nice to meet you as well." Her voice was firm and leveled, felicitous to a business major. Mikey could smell whatever lotion she'd applied before and decided it was a likable aroma.

Almost immediately Raeni's ambience shifted back to focused, her acrylics hitting the computer keys in an unclear pattern. He noted how thin layered her glasses were and held a circular mold, giving her a docile look. The cardigan and half-up half-down hairstyle appeared to amplify the aesthetic, but it was fitting for some reason.

Mikey shrugged off the odd analytical thoughts. "Well, I'll see y'all around. Nice meeting you, Raeni." The young women all waved him goodbye, and it wasn't until he reached his apartment door that he realized he gave his government name to the ginger haired girl.

~

The second time he'd seen Raeni he was late for study hall. As he shuffled into the school's library and checked into the athletic tutoring program, his eyes caught sight of ginger braids pulled into a low bun. She stood at a promethean board with a tablet in hand, her mouth moving and most likely discussing something relating to mathematics if the digital graph was anything to judge from.