Just Tourists ✔️

Chapter 9

"The good thing is since we're kind of late there's only a few people in line," Lavender reasoned.

"Well yeah but I hope that doesn't mean theres only a few food items left," I pointed out always concerned about my food intake. As in there better be a lot of food intake or I refuse to cooperate.

"Smells good," she sniffed as we waited in line.

"Looks like it's some kind of soup," I said as we grabbed bowls and waited to be served. The dining room was half empty. Some of the kids must have gone out to eat in the gardens or maybe were already done eating all together.

We were given some kind of beef stew with noodles and an egg roll on the side. The cafeteria lady who handed us the food also gave us a tray which had chopsticks, a spoon, and a napkin. At the end of the cafeteria line there was a cooler with water bottles for us to take.

"Where do you want to sit?" I asked reminding me of myself of the first day of high school as Lavender and I looked around the half empty dining room holding our dinner trays.

"That table is empty," Lavender pointed to a table next to the glass double doors. Outside I could see the fountains and the beautiful gardens.

"What is this?" I groaned trying to pick up the beef with the chopsticks but I'd never used them before. Lavender had already given up with them and was resorting to stabbing the beef instead.

"Its Galbitang," Akio said sitting down at the table beside Lavender who quickly swallowed her food and fixed her hair upon his arrival.

"Its a Korean beef stew," he further explained, perfectly using his chopsticks to pick up the food from his bowl. I tried copying his hand motions to pick up my own food and kind of got the hang of it. Lavender on the hand was better off using her own methods.

"The food is already dead, you don't need to stab it," Akio smiled looking at Lavender. She blushed and stopped stabbing her food.

"Here let me help," he said scooting his chair closer so he could put his arm around her taking her hand and showing her how to take the chopsticks. He grabbed some beef and noodles and lifted it up to her mouth.

"Now you try," he smiled letting go of her hand but not taking his arm away from her shoulders. Lavender smiled and looked down at her food as she attempted to use her chopsticks. I rolled my eyes at their flirtation.

"Ugh this is horrible," a tray slammed down next to me.

"Well hi to you too," I smiled at Tiffany who grunted in response as she sat down with her food.

"I'm stuck in a dorm full of rowdy, annoying, and messy boys," Tiffany said as she angrily took some beef between her chopsticks and shoved it into her mouth.

"Even your chewing sounds mad," I laughed and she glared at me.

"If I were you I'd be performing thank you rituals to the sex gods and sleeping in my cutest pajamas," Blaire smirked as she sat down at our table.

"Oh shut up Blaire," Tiffany said throwing a half eaten egg roll at Blaire who just caught it in her hands and carried onto eating it making Tiffany angrier.

"Can't you talk to Director Lucian about fixing it?" Lavender suggested prying herself away from the conversation she was having with Akio.

"I did but he said all the girl dormitories are booked and the extra rooms are reserved for diplomats only," she sighed.

"I can try calling my aunt and seeing if she could pull some strings?" I offered and she gave me a hopeful look.

"Could you? One of the boys actually tried on my bra while I was unpacking," she complained and I tried not to laugh.

"Yeah as soon as I get upstairs," I promised and she nodded her head.

"Where's Palma?" Blaire asked noticing the missing member from our Team Cafeteria Reunion.

"I don't know, she was mumbling something about collecting specimens from the gardens for her lab?" Tiffany said sounding unsure.

"Sounds like Palma," I shrugged my shoulders.

"Alright since we don't all share dorms, this is our unofficial table. We'll meet up here at meals," Blaire announced as we all got up after finishing our food.

"Yeah sounds good," we all nodded our heads and headed our separate ways. I'm pretty sure I even saw Lavender and Akio exchange numbers before we walked back to the girl's dorms.

.

.

.

.

As we walked into the dorm I realized it was no longer empty. On one of the desks was a girl with wavy chestnut brown hair busily typing on her computer. She was wearing black from head to toes. She was tapping her foot to the beat of music coming in on her earbuds. I'm guessing she's the one with the band posters.

On one of the beds was another younger girl with super longer light strawberry blonde hair. She had a small frame and she was curled up in the corner of the bed reading a book quietly. Her head immediately perked up when we walked through the door and she squinted her green grey eyes at us.

"Hi, you guys must be our roommates," she greeted with a thick Irish accent and a smile.

"Yeah I'm Lavender Padilla and this is Charlee Wynters," Lavender introduced us and the girl shook our hands.

"I'm Maroon MacDonell but you can just call me Mac," she explained quietly and returned to her book. I smiled awkwardly and walked back towards my bed with Lavender. I accidentally tripped on a shoe that was on the floor and crashed into the wall causing the band posters to fall.

"Hey watch what you're doing!" the girl on the computer yelled louder than she needed to because her headphones were still in.

"It was an accident," I told her but she just rolled her eyes. She threw her earbuds off and walked over to us picking up her posters angrily.

"Stay on your side of the room and don't touch my things. I've been trained in espionage for years so don't think I won't be able to tell when you move anything even an inch out of place," she hissed as she put everything I had knocked down back into place.

"I'll keep that in mind," I said as I walked away.

"I'm Lavender and that was Charlee," Lavender tried smiling at the girl.

"Delighted," she said oozing sarcasm.

"And your name is?" Lavender asked.

"Bianca," she muttered as she walked back to her desk and plopped her earbuds on, ending the conversation.

"Well she's lovely," Lavender rolled her eyes.

"Forget her, lets get ready for bed," I said yawning. Today was a long day and I was officially exhausted. We got into our pajamas and undid the bed covers.

We didn't even get to talk much before we began drifting off to sleep. My last thought was that I finally remembered who Cole's hauntingly blue eyes reminded me of. Save for the mischievousness, Cole's blue eyes were as ocean blue as Eric's, who I realized hadn't called all day.

~~~

Thoughts on this chapter? Don't worry things are going to start getting heated real soon. I pictured Akio as Ki Hong Lee (who plays Minho in the Maze Runner) so I put his pic on the side.

~Lorna~