A/N: Happy New Year everyone! Did you know that I'm going into 2022 with over 15K reads?! Do you know how insane that is?! Extremely! Thank you SO MUCH!
Please look for mistakes. Thank you so much, and let's get into this chapter!
Jaxx:
When I was younger, I used to think that college was a magic place, where you could have the freedom to do whatever you wanted. You could move away, go to parties whenever you want to, choose when you have classes, and basically just get a bunch of freedom.
Now that I was here, looking up at the huge campus, trying to figure out where my dorm would possibly be, I felt that excitement surge through me again. I knew that I would have to work hard and still have a lot of work, so some of it diminished, but overall I was still super excited.
Not to mention that I had all of my friends with me here. We had all coordinated it so that we would go to the same college, and by chance we all got accepted into a pretty good one! Knowing that I had them with me would make the feat of more school easier.
So, once I saw them all gathered around something on the green grass in front of the school, I rushed over to them, a huge smile on my face. I didn't have a lot of stuff - just a few bags with clothes and small stuff from home, as well as school supplies. They hung from my hands as I came towards them, and the suitcase that I was carrying was rolling behind me.
I knew that I should probably find my dorm before this and try to set my stuff down, but seeing my friends got me too excited, and I knew that I had to say hello to them before I did anything else.
As I approached them, I heard yelling and screaming. They were huddled around something in a circle with a few dozen other people, and I curiously slipped in next to them, looking at what was happening.
When I got closer, I saw that there were two kids in the middle of the circle. One was on top of the other, punching him. He was bruised and bloody, and looked like he was about to pass out from getting hurt so much.
The kid on top of him had a busted up lip, disheveled blue hair, and looked livid. He was punching the other guy senseless, and I wondered why no one was doing anything about it.
"Hey, Levi," I whispered to my black haired friend, and he turned around, surprised to see me.
"Hey, when did you-"
"Will you help me separate those two?" I asked him, cutting him off. It was a potentially bad idea, but I didn't care. If he wasn't careful, the guy that was punching the other could seriously hurt him, or worse.
"Um, sure. I guess," Levi agreed, and we got our other friend, Light, to help us. With a deep breath, us three stepped toward the fight. Levi and I grabbed the shoulders of the punching boy, while Light tried to get the other one to respond.
"Let me go!" the blue haired boy yelled, struggling against Levi and I's grasp. We looked at each other hesitantly, trying to figure out what to do with him. I don't think either of us knew where to go in these circumstances, so we just held him there as he tried to get free of us. "I said let me go!"
"Why would you hurt him?" Levi questioned him.
"He's a jerk from my high school, that's why. Apparently he was going to be my roommate," he spat, and began to settle down a little bit when he realized that he wasn't going to break away from us. "I was just giving him a taste of his own medicine."
"What is going on here?!" an older adult's voice yelled, pushing through the crowd with multiple other people that looked like teachers.
The older adults took hold of the blue haired boy, taking him to talk with someone who could determine whether or not he stayed at the school. The other boy, the one he beat up, was left to be taken to someone where he could get cared for. He was groaning with pain, and barely looked conscious.
Well, that was one way to start college.
~
"That was insane!" Light recalled, walking with Levi, Luca and I towards our dorms. "I can't believe you two actually got a hold on him. He looked a little... crazy."
We all had dorms in the same general direction. I knew that Levi and Light shared a dorm, and it seemed as though Luca's wasn't too far away from mine.
"Yeah, well, I'm just glad he didn't get a chance to kill that other kid," Levi admitted, and stopped at a door nearby. "Light, this is our dorm."
"Oh, right!"
With that, we said our goodbyes, and Luca and I headed a little forwards to the place that our dorms were.
"That was brave, what you and my brother did," he told me, offering me a small smile. One that I couldn't return, being shaken up from the earlier events. The blue haired boy's look of pure rage stayed in my mind as I imagined how viciously he punched that other kid. The thought kept sending shivers down my spine, especially when I thought about what he would do if we saw each other again. He probably loathed Levi and I for breaking up the fight.
"I just hope I don't run into him again," I gulped, looking down at the floor.
"Yeah. That probably wouldn't turn out well," Luca agreed, then stopped at one of the doors along the wall of the long hallway. "Well, this is my dorm! See you tomorrow!"
Just like that, I was left alone. Luckily my dorm room was only a few doors down, and before I went in, I tried to rid myself of thoughts of the fight from earlier. I should just be focused on meeting my new roommate, who I was sure was already in there. Taking a quick deep breath, I slowly turned the handle, trying to settle my nerves.
I stepped inside the room. There were two beds, a door leading to a small bathroom, and a bedside table with a lamp sitting in between the beds. To the side of them, there were drawers to put things in. On one of the beds, there were bags open, and someone was sitting on the bed, looking up at me.
"You?!"
"Um... Hi?" I said questioningly, my nerves coming back ten fold. Sitting on the bed, looking at me with an expression mixed with anger and confusion, was just the person I was wanting to avoid.
He stomped up to me, his blue eyes burning with rage. He grabbed the collar of my shirt, but he was quite a few inches shorter than me, so he wasn't able to lift me off the ground.
"What the Hell are you doing here?" he growled at me, and I avoided making eye contact with him. "Answer me!"
"This is my dorm," I told him, not making an effort to push him off. I didn't want to start a fight, especially not with him.
"Of course they had to put me with you!" he exclaimed, dropping his grasp on my shirt and walking back towards his bed. "Whatever. Don't bother me."
I was surprised he backed off, but didn't push it. Awkward silence hung in the air as we both unpacked our things. I thought that he was going to be rooming with that guy that he beat up... I guess the school just changed it around. You can't blame them though - there would've been serious injuries.
I'd assumed that, based on what he said, that kid that he beat up picked on him throughout high school. Still, I wondered what he did that would warrant that much beating up. Either the guy pissed off my blue haired roommate by doing something really bad, or my dorm mate was just a little crooked.
Either way, it was still intriguing. The questions I had about it threatened to spill out, but I refrained from it, knowing that it would just annoy him even more, and maybe earn me my own ticket to see the nurse. I kept my mouth shut through the long hours of sorting through items and trying to get everything on my side of the dorm as I wanted, and then tossing and turning, trying to get sleep.
Eventually, even though it took a while, I fell asleep. I had managed to get my mind off the other person in the room and began to think about my classes that were soon. They didn't start for another few days since we needed a few days to acclimate to the new campus, so I had a little while to prepare.
I had opted for only one to start, which was four weeks long, and I had already signed up for an astronomy club. My major was computer science, since I wanted to design games. There was a computer science class available, and it took up two hours each day. I was pretty excited about the fact I got to choose my own schedule, which was quite the contrary to high school.
With those thoughts in my head, I fell asleep, the quick thought about how my roommate and I would act around each other flashing through my head. Who knows, maybe he and I would learn to get along...
Maybe that was wishful thinking, but I smiled at the thought, letting myself doze off...
~
During the few days before class started, I spent it wandering the campus and the quad with my friends, trying to get a feel for the school. Whenever I was in the dorm, my roommate wouldn't say a word to me. He rarely ever left it though, so whenever I entered the room I felt like I was intruding, and constantly had to remind myself that it was my room, too.
It was always awkward between us. I felt bad that I didn't even know his name, but maybe it was better if I didn't. Talking to him would just make him dislike me more than he already did, and that's not really what I wanted.
Every time I was in the room with him, he acted annoyed. Maybe he did that when he was alone, but I'd seen him roll his eyes a few times when I entered the room. It made me feel uncomfortable and even annoyed with him, but I had to remember that getting into an argument with this guy would probably not end well for either of us.
To be honest, I was surprised he was even still at the school, considering he beat the shit out of someone his first few hours on campus. I suspected that the school officials decided to let him off with a warning since he had just started at the school, but I'm sure that if he was to get into a fight with anyone else, he would be sent home.
That would explain why he always stayed in the dorm room. He was probably aware that he was on thin ice with the school, and knew that his chances of getting into a fight were lessened when he was in the dorm room.
Although, I was convinced he hated me. Like I said, he always acted annoyed when I stepped into the room, and he didn't make an effort to acknowledge my existence beyond that.
That's why I was surprised when, the day before classes started, he spoke his first words to me. Beyond me initially stepping into the dorm room, that is.
I was just sitting on my bed, trying to get my books and supplies sorted out for classes the next day. I was aware that he was watching me, but I didn't expect him to do anything besides scoff. However, that was not the case.
"A computer programming book, huh?" he asked curiously, looking at the textbooks stacked on my bed. "What's your major?"
I looked up at him with surprise. He didn't look annoyed with me for once, but I could tell him speaking was partially forced. He was wincing slightly, waiting for me to respond.
"Oh, um... I major in computer science," I told him, slightly awkwardly. To be fair, I hadn't spoken to him at all yet, so it was natural for it to be... Well, awkward. "It's for designing video games. How about you?"
"Aerospace engineering," he said, holding up one of his books. "I'm learning how to engineer spacecrafts and rockets and stuff, so more on the aeronautical side of things."
"I didn't peg you as an engineer," I admitted, "but that's really cool!"
"Thanks," he muttered. "I wouldn't be building them, just designing them, but..."
"It's still really amazing! I mean, that's got to take a whole new level of patience, not to mention smarts," I gushed, and saw him blush a little from the flattery.
"I'm not as glorified as you make me out to be," he chuckled, and it was then I realized how beautiful of a smile he had. I hadn't seen him smile since I knew him, so it was a nice change of pace.
"Y'know, a smile suits you," I blurted out, and immediately blushed after saying that. I could see his cheeks go pink as well.
"Th-thanks," he stuttered.
Trying to gloss over that, I asked, "So... Where do you wanna work, then?"
After that, we just started talking. For hours we discussed our majors, and then shifted to just our plans in general for the whole year. Apparently he was going to take a variety of different engineering and aerospace courses, just so he can be really experienced in his field of expertise.
I was planning on doing a number of different coding and technical developing classes, for the same reason. I thought that what he was doing was really interesting, and just like that we went from enemies (sort of) to friendly.
When we called it a night, it was already one in the morning, and we were regretting staying up so late. Especially me - my class was at eight in the morning, and I still had some preparations to do. His was at one in the afternoon, so he got a chance to sleep in.
"Oh, I'm Jaxx by the way," I said sleepily, already dozing off.
"I'm Sora."
~
The next day, I had woken up at six in the morning to eat at the school cafeteria and try to get myself ready and awake enough for class. Although, class that day wasn't that hard - it was mainly introductions and trying to slowly bring me and the few other people in my class into what the curriculum had planned for us for these upcoming four weeks.
Like me, everyone else there were all a bunch of computer nerds. Like I said, it was a pretty small class, so that made it easier to ask questions and get to know people better. When I got back in the dorm around ten-ish, Sora was in the shower, since I heard the water running. I decided to drop my bag onto my bed and go visit Levi and Light in their dorm, since I didn't have much else to do and knew that both of their classes didn't start until twelve.
I wandered down the hall a little ways and into their dorm, to find that both of them were sitting on Light's bed, discussing something that was in one of their shared textbooks. They were both majoring in nuclear engineering, so it was good that they were sharing a dorm.
They were so invested in their discussion that I didn't want to interrupt them. I was about to leave when Levi saw me.
"Oh, hey Jaxx," he greeted, and gestured for me to come sit over by them. I sat on the foot of the bed.
"Hey, ready for class?" I asked, and they both nodded, Light grinning.
"Yeah! I was just explaining to Levi here-"
"Nope, he doesn't need to know," Levi cut him off, obviously a little annoyed by whatever Light was 'explaining' to him. "How was your class?" he questioned, turning to me.
"It was all prep stuff, but it was good," I told him, shrugging slightly.
"How's your roommate?" Light asked. "Or, I should be asking, who's your roommate?"
I guess I forgot that I hadn't told them that I was roommates with Sora, AKA the guy we had to pull off another that he beat to a pulp. I put a hand behind my neck and smiled sheepishly.
"Um... His name is Sora," I told them, trying to avoid the part about him being the guy we stopped just a few days before.
"Oh? Is he nice?" Levi asked.
I had to debate that question in my mind for a second or two. On one hand, he did beat someone up, but on the other hand, we had talked and joked for hours the night before, and it turned out he was a pretty nice guy.
"Yeah," I said with a smile.
They both stared at me for a second, waiting for me to continue, before inquiring further.
"And...?"
"Well, we talked for a while last night. He's majoring in aerospace engineering, and he's really cool," I explained.
"Is he cute?" Light questioned, batting his eyelashes innocently at me and getting an elbow from Levi. I laughed a little at them, which rested into a smile.
"He is," I admitted, "and I accidentally told him that a smile suits him, but I mean, it does."
Light was grinning at me, and eventually said, "Awh! That's adorable! How did he react?"
"Um... He blushed and said thank you."
Light squealed a little in joy, and Levi elbowed him again.
"Awh! I ship!"
"Light!" Levi exclaimed. "They just met!"
I blushed, hiding my face as they argued about shipping me and Sora. We only had one conversation, and although I called him cute, that was... Well, it was a little too much to ship us. He was just cute.
"Have we seen him around?" Levi asked me, trying to get off the subject of shipping Sora and I, even though Light was still giggling.
"Um..." I hesitated to respond, but knew that they were likely to find out at one point or another, especially if they stopped by my dorm. "Yes."
"What?!" Light yelled, sitting up and looking at me. "Where?"
"He may or may not have been the one Levi and I pulled off that other kid," I muttered, wincing as their expressions turned from smiles - well, Levi's more or less - to confusion.
"What?! But he was a psycho!" Levi exclaimed.
"That's what I thought, but we got to talking, and... He's actually really sweet, and kinda nerdy," I admitted, smiling at the thought of what we talked about last night. "He just doesn't have tolerance when it comes to bullies."
"What did that guy possibly do to make him get beat up that badly?" Levi asked skeptically.
I shrugged. We hadn't gotten to that last night, and I didn't want to really ask. We had finally gotten on good terms, and I didn't really feel like ruining that.
"I dunno."
"Well, who knows, maybe he's all you say he is and not a psychopathic fighter," Light shrugged it off, the smile reappearing on his face. "Either way, from what you've told me, you already have at least a little bit of chemistry with him. Just... use caution."
Again, I blushed. Soon after, I ended up leaving Levi and Light, knowing that they would spread the news about Sora to our other friends without me having to do much else. It was a little embarrassing that Light shipped us, but I tried to ignore it, knowing that he was just trying to tease me for calling him cute and saying something about his smile.
When I got into our dorm, Sora was out of the shower. He was sitting on his bed and flipping through a testbook, his hair still slightly damp. It was messy and fell over his face in heavy chunks from the water.
"Are you excited for class?" I asked him, entering the dorm and flopping down onto my bed. All he did was look up at me wearing a confused expression.
"Did you just ask me if I was excited for school?" he inquired, though I could hear playfulness in his tone.
"Hey, I was excited!" I argued, and he chuckled.
"Then you aren't normal," he laughed, a grin resting on his face. Although he was teasing me, I couldn't keep a smile off my face because of him. Like I said, a smile suited him, and it made me smile seeing him do so.
"I know," I responded with a widening smile, placing my bag that was on my bed onto the floor and allowing myself to get comfortable, facing towards Sora. I saw a few books about engineering and aerospace, and thought his major was really cool, even if I didn't know much about it. "Y'know," I started, breaking our short silence, "you should meet my other friends. They're both majoring in nuclear engineering, and I know it's not the same thing, but you're both working on the science behind engineering."
He gave a thoughtful smile, and said, "Yeah, I'd like that."
After a while, I got really bored as we sat in comfortable silence. I thought about Sora, and how quickly his attitude towards me was able to change. Not only that, but how quickly my outlook on him changed. I wasn't complaining though - I liked this version of him a lot better.
I picked up my phone and began scrolling through social media to pass the time, not knowing what else to do. A little later, Sora left for his class, which is the only time I looked up in a while.
"Good luck!" I gave him an encouraging smile, one that he responded to with a smile of uneasiness.
"Thanks," he said before leaving. Once he left, I knew that I would be on my own for two hours, so I decided to take a nap, since I was tired anyways. I let myself doze off, laying my head back on my comfortable plush pillow.
~
I awoke with a start when there was a loud bang of an opening door, and I blinked the sleepiness out of my eyes to see Sora come in with a bloody nose, quickly swelling eye, and a tear-streaked face.
I quickly got up from my bed, rushing over to him and pushing his hair back. He had bruises all over his face and a cut that was spilling blood from his head.
"Oh my God, what happened?!" I asked.
"The kid that I beat up was back for revenge," he mumbled, his voice quivering.
"Did you... Did you fight back?"
"I couldn't!" he exclaimed, and I led him over to sit down on his bed. "If I get into another fight, I'm expelled... I had to sit there and not do anything."
I studied his beat up face for a second more before pulling him into an embrace, one he returned and began to cry into my shoulder. We stayed like that for a while before he settled down, and I knew it was okay to ask him a question.
"Can we go talk to someone about this? Maybe get you bandages?" I questioned, and he nodded slowly. We got up, and I followed him to the center building that loomed over the quad. Everyone we passed gave Sora odd looks, probably because he was covered in blood and had various bruises and a black eye, and that was just on his face.
He knew where to go because of that last time he was in trouble, and I helped explain to the adults that he really didn't do anything wrong since he knew the consequences. That was going on while he was getting bandaged up, and the people in charge decided to check the security cameras to make sure my story was credible.
Turns out that Sora was being truthful. I was in the security room, and watched the tape with them. Sora was just walking through an empty corridor when the kid he beat up and two of his lackeys appeared in front of him.
The tape wasn't in sound, but I didn't need it to know that they were teasing Sora and making fun of him. He looked like he was really trying to keep his composure, and then he got grabbed by the shoulders by each of the lackeys. The kid he victimized now became the offender, and began punching Sora repeatedly, over and over again.
I had to look away, tears welling in my eyes. He said something about payback, which is why he beat up the other guy. Did he really have to deal with this kind of bullying and abuse all the way through high school? Why?
Now I kind of wished the tape had sound, just so I could know why those people were such jerks to him. They had to have a reason, even if it wasn't a very good one.
I resolved that I would ask him once we got back into our dorm. I figured that he would be okay with more questions now that I had helped him out in catching the idiots that hurt him. Once we were done in the security room, I left the office to find Sora waiting for me in the hallway.
"Are you alright?" I asked him. I knew my concern showed through strongly in my voice, but I didn't care.
"Yeah, thanks for helping me," he said with a smile, but there were darker undertones behind it. Fear, sadness, frustration. All of those things I could just read from his eyes and expression.
"Of course. If those guys hurt you again, they're getting expelled. They're being brought to the office to have the same talk they gave to you a few days ago," I told him, and we began walking towards the dorms.
We walked in silence for a little, all the questions I wanted to ask him dying in my throat. Should I really ask, or would that make him upset after everything that's happened? I didn't want to make him cry again, or make him mad at me, so I decided that I would wait a little until the situation diffused a little.
Eventually, I heard him sigh. I looked over at him, and took notice of the bandage wrapped around his head, going under his hair. He had a large patch-looking bandaid on his cheek from a cut I hadn't noticed until then, and his eye had taken to a red-ish purple color around it.
"I'm guessing that you have questions," he spoke quietly, making me look at him in surprise. Before I could say anything, my mouth opening to speak, he cut me off. "It's obvious." He paused for a second, letting silence set in before speaking again. "What do you want to know? I don't mind answering."
"Um... alright," I muttered, still asking myself if it was okay. "Why did those kids pick on you in high school?"
I could see him frown at the memory. He was obviously not very fond of his high school years, since all he seemed to remember was getting beaten up.
"Well," he started, taking a short and almost unnoticeable deep breath, "I guess they thought I was nerdy. I used to join every club and participate in class, and I was always fascinated with how things worked and the science behind it. Apparently that was something to get picked on for.
"Honestly, it was really dumb, but they started by humiliating me in front of people, like laughing at me in class or leaving signs on my locker. Eventually I just stopped answering anything, and tried to drop my interest in how stuff worked. At least, I stopped expressing it at school.
"Then of course, when it began to get better and they started to lose a reason to pick on me, they saw me staring at my high school crush, and just because I was crushing on a guy, they began to publicly make fun of me. That's when they started beating me up. I guess they're homophobic," he explained. He shrugged like he didn't care, but I could tell he was bothered by it more than he wanted to admit.
"So... Basically just because you were smarter than them and liked guys they severely bullied you? For real? I thought people would be past that," I said, not bothering to hide the disgust in my voice.
"Yeah, so... I've been learning how to fight for a while, and when I saw him he began to make fun of me. I guess I wasn't having it that day, and his goons weren't with him, so I decided to take my new skills out for a spin," he told me, staring at his knuckles. "It wasn't a great way to start college, but hey, I sure made an impression."
I chuckled at him, letting a smile rest on my face. I didn't know how he was able to make jokes after being beat up, but I appreciated it.
"You sure did."
We walked in silence, eventually nearing our dorm. As we did, I opened the door for him to let him inside, but before I could close it, he walked directly up to me. When I say that, I mean he was really close. I could feel his body slightly brush against mine, but I tried to stay composed.
"Hey, um... Are you really okay with me being gay?" he questioned, looking at me with confusion and apprehension in his eyes.
I didn't really expect this question, and did a double take before saying, "Of course! Why wouldn't I be?"
He pondered my question for a minute, and I could tell that he didn't have a lot of people accepting him in the past. I guess that was weird to me. I knew a lot of people that didn't have accepting families, but mine had always been okay with me liking people that weren't the opposite gender.
"Besides, I'm pansexual, so I'm not really one to judge," I confessed, with a reassuring smile. One that he returned with a happy grin.
"Oh," he said, smiling from ear to ear. "That's awesome! Finally, I don't think anyone at my old school was even remotely gay, so this is a nice change of pace."
My eyes widened at what he said. A good portion of the school used different pronouns and identified differently than they did even in middle school, at least half the school was gay in some way, shape or form, and the few homophobic kids there were got laughed at and not taken seriously at all.
"Then you haven't met my friend group. They're all a little bit gay," I joked, but even then that was true. Everyone there liked more than one gender, even just a little bit.
"Maybe I can meet them sometime then!"
"Yeah," I agreed, "you should."
For a second, our eyes met, and I felt my knees go slightly queasy at the reminder of just how close we were. He seemed to realize it, too, and his cheeks turned pink as he backed away.
"Ah, s-sorry," he mumbled.
"It's fine," I told him, trying to act like I wasn't affected, but I definitely was.
"Um... Any other questions?" he asked me awkwardly, going to sit down on his bed and fiddle with some textbooks.
I shook my head no, going to sit down on my bed. We sat in silence for a while, a little awkwardly before I left to go for a walk and to go get dinner off campus. I needed to get my emotions in check - I had just met this guy, and yet I had butterflies fluttering around in my stomach already.
Every time I told myself I was feeling absolutely stupid, another part of me told myself to let my feelings slide. Eventually I had kept arguing with myself so much that I gave up, and was walking absentmindedly through the campus for what I didn't realize was hours.
By the time I actually noticed the passed hours I had spent wandering around, the sun had just about set, and I hadn't even gotten to go to dinner. Not that I really cared - I wasn't that hungry, anyways.
When I got back into the dorm, Sora was curled up in his bed, the lights off. He was fast asleep, a book open beside him. I smiled a little at the sight of him, and climbed into my own bed, letting myself succumb to drowsiness.
~
Over the next many weeks, I found myself insisting on walking next to Sora as he went to class, just in case those idiots really tried to mess with him again. At that point it had been without incident, but I was still a little timid to leave his side, even if he made fun of me for it from time to time.
I had started waking up too late to get breakfast in the mornings, so Sora would bring me some every day after my class ended, and we would go eat together under a tree out on the quad. I had run into Levi once while I was there, and he and Sora both recognized each other.
I expected Sora to have a similar reaction of, "You?!" like he did when he saw me, but instead he actually apologized to Levi for the trouble. Levi, who had heard me talk more and more about Sora as the weeks went on, ended up accepting that maybe he wasn't a complete psycho.
After spending enough time with Sora, from going on walks together after dark now, to walking to class together, and then eating breakfast together, we had basically become inseparable.
He had started to rant to me about high school a lot more, and how he hid the nerdy part of him for so long since it was always something he was teased for around bullies.
Honestly, nerdy Sora was adorable. That's all I'm going to say.
Soon he knew me better than anyone ever had, and I had the same for him. College with Sora felt like it was flying by, and soon I had already known him for four full months. With that approaching fifth month came the new year.
It was still two weeks away from New Year's Eve when Alex had already told me and Sora about a party going on at one of her new friend's houses.
"It's gonna be so fun, no parents and a few bottles of champagne!" she cheered, in which I urged her to keep her voice down, seeing as we were all still under 21.
At this point, all of my friends had at least been acquainted with Sora. Like I had anticipated, he, Light and Levi all talked about the different parts of scientific engineering. I knew nothing about it, but seeing Sora so excited about a subject made me captivated in what he was saying.
Alex and him had hit it off talking about me, and Charli got along easily with just about anybody. Luca liked anyone Charli liked, so that was that.
All in all, everything was going great. New Year's Eve approached at a fast pace, and it seemed even quicker as we had gotten on winter holiday. It was New Year's Eve when, of course, everything had to go wrong.
Sora and I were sitting together under a tree, the sun going down. We had just gotten dinner and were just talking, mainly about the party tonight. That's when the someone I didn't want to see the most walked right up to us.
"Hey dipshit, are you with your new boyfriend?" the kid asked. He was the same one that Sora beat up, and then beat up Sora in turn.
"Go away Kane," Sora grumbled, trying to shrug him off and turning to me. His eyes were just begging for me to get up and leave with him, so I stood up and offered him a hand. We began to walk away without another word to 'Kane' when his voice rang out from behind us.
"I've really been wanting to talk to you, you blue haired loser. You turning me in got me in trouble," he called after us, and I heard his footsteps trailing behind us.
"You did that to yourself," Sora told him, not even looking back as he and I walked along.
"That's rich, coming from you. You can't pretend you didn't do the same thing."
"He's trying to make you mad. C'mon, let's just keep going," I told him.
"What, does your boyfriend not think you can hold your own?" he teased. Sora's jaw clenched, and I felt myself tense up.
"Mind your own business," I called back to him. A few seconds later, I felt someone shove me from behind, making me stumble slightly forward, but not fall. Still, I heard a reflexive gasp and hand grab onto my wrist from Sora.
"You okay?" he asked, ignoring the guy obviously looking for a fight behind us.
I nodded, and he dropped his grasp on my wrist, walking again with me towards our dorm building.
"Hey, dipshit!" Kane, still following us, yelled. I saw Sora stop, and stopped beside him to see Kane with a hold on his sleeve. "Hit me."
Sora looked him up and down for a second, eliminating the rage from his eyes. He just looked skeptical of this guy, and scoffed.
"No," he said blatantly, and grabbed my arm, pulling me away with him once again.
We walked for a while without disturbance, back down the corridors. They were empty, probably because people were either visiting family or inside their dorms. That was until Sora disappeared from beside me once again, and I heard a loud noise.
Whipping around, I saw Sora pinned with his stomach against the wall, struggling as his hands got held behind his back.
"Fight back you wimp!" the guy shouted in Sora's ear. I went over to him and moved him carefully away from Sora, but still forceful enough to pry him off as Sora turned back around, and he did not look happy.
"Please back off," I told him, and turned back to Sora. "You alright?"
Before he had a chance to answer, he shoved me as Kane sent a punch to the back of my head. Luckily, since Sora got me out of the way, he missed, punching the wall.
"Son of a-" Kane swore, and swung a punch at Sora, hitting him in the face.
Sora didn't want to hit back, but at this point, he was just mad. I could see it on his face - he was mad that Kane had even tried to hit me, upset that he had just gotten punched, infuriated by the fact that he wouldn't leave us alone. Everything boiled over into one, powerful punch that sent Kane to the floor and groaning in pain.
"Shit," Sora muttered under his breath, his anger fading into fright. "Shit, Jaxx, I didn't mean to!" He looked at me with desperate eyes, terrified with what he just did. "I'm going to get kicked out! B-but, if I wouldn't have he could've hurt you, a-and-"
I walked towards Sora and wrapped my arms around him, embracing him tightly. He returned it, and I felt him trembling.
"It's okay," I whispered to him, "you won't get kicked out. I won't let you."
~
Trying to be responsible, he and I took Kane into the nurse's office, and faced the consequences. People were yelling at us, telling Sora that he would be expelled. They told me to leave, but I refused. He stood there and took it, his head faced towards the floor.
"You're going to get kicked out of the school!" one of the main office people yelled, and I clenched my teeth.
"No, he's not! Check the tapes, Kane was following us throughout the campus terrorizing us! He incited the whole thing! Sora was just fighting in self defense, because either of us could've been hurt more if he didn't fight back! C'mon, check the tapes. I can prove that what I said was true! Sora doesn't deserve to be kicked out," I argued, yelling loud enough to leave everyone else in the room dumbstruck, but only for a moment.
"We gave him a warning. He hurt another kid, he's out. That's fi-"
"If anyone, Kane should be out!" I shouted. "Please, come on. It wasn't his fault!"
There was one beat of silence. Then two, then three. It carried on to the point where it was starting to become uncomfortable before someone said, "Maybe we should check the tapes."
There was a murmur of agreement, and Sora and I waited outside in the hallway while a handful of school officials were in the security room. We sat in silence before there was any conversation between us.
"Thanks for what you did back there," Sora said quietly.
I would've smiled, but all I could do was grimace. I was so annoyed that they would even suggest kicking Sora out, much less intending on acting on it. It wasn't even their fault though - it was all Kane's fault. If he had been able to mind his own business, then maybe we wouldn't be facing this on New Year's Eve.
"It's no problem," I muttered, not being able to keep the bitterness out of my tone.
"Hey," he spoke, moving so he was in front of me. "Don't be upset, okay? Please. You most likely talked them into letting me stay!"
"What if I didn't though?" I snapped. "What if you're out of the school, and then you're banned from campus, and then we don't get to walk together or eat breakfast or-"
"Stop thinking like that," he told me, stepping closer towards me, getting close again. "It's going to be fine. Even if I do get kicked out, I'll still see you."
"Yeah, but..." I muttered, looking at the floor, "it won't be the same. I don't want to lose you, okay?" I asked, a little defensively. I heard his breath hitch in his throat, and I looked back down at him.
His lips were slightly parted, and he stepped a little closer, one of his hands going into mine. I grabbed his hand, leaning down to kiss him...
The door to the security room opened down the hall, and we both quickly separated, trying to appear nonchalant. We had already taken up two hours of our night with the nonsense, and the party had started thirty minutes before.
"After reviewing the tapes, we're going to let you slide," an official said to Sora. Both of our faces lit up. "This is your final warning."
Sora and I walked out of the main building, cheering and grinning like idiots. I wanted to kiss him like we almost had before, but I knew that we missed the chance. I tried to not leave room for us to talk about it, and instead rushed us immediately to our dorm to get ready for the party and rush over to it.
When we got inside, we were swarmed by our friends, all asking about where we were. We each recalled the story, going back and forth between the two of us. It was only half past ten once we were done, so we had a long time to party.
Light ended up shoving me onto the dance floor, and our whole friend group danced together and had fun, sipping champagne and wearing New Year hats and headbands. I hadn't noticed it, but we had all been dancing up until five minutes to midnight, and I needed a place to sit in silence before the screaming began.
I found my way down an empty hallway, and sat alone in it, resting my head back against the wall.
"Hey," I heard someone say, and realized that it was Sora. He sat down beside me. "That was pretty fun!"
I knew what was coming, and all I could do was nod, dreading the conversation that lay ahead of us. We both sat into awkward silence before he insinuated another conversation.
"Look, I know we both don't want to talk about what happened back at the school," he started with a sigh. He turned towards me, his side leaning against the wall. "And it's almost midnight, so I'll make this quick." He got closer, putting his hand on mine shyly. "It's obvious after that, so I'll just say it... I like you, Jaxx. Like, a lot."
My face spread into a grin, and I kissed him on the cheek, squeezing his hand happily.
"I like you, too," I admitted. He and I were leaning in once again to kiss for real when we heard chanting from out in the living room.
"Ten! Nine!" they chanted. Sora and I's eyes grew wide as we got interrupted for the second time. We both knew we should be there with our friends when the clock hit zero, so we rushed hand in hand back into the living room. "Five! Four!"
The chanting grew louder as the final three seconds in the year reached us. He and I stood together on the dance floor. My hands went around his waist, and his around my neck.
"Three, two, one!"
Just like that, we both closed the gap between us, bringing our lips together tenderly as the new year arrived.
"Happy New Year!" everyone yelled, and we pulled away, smiling before kissing each other again.
Behind us, I heard squealing and fangirling from our friends, but I ignored it as we kissed more, relishing the moment.
Who knew that the first time I met the love of my life, it would be removing him from a fight, where me and the rest of my friends thought he was a psychopath. I was so glad he got into that fight though, because if he hadn't, we would've never become roommates, ergo we would've never gotten closer.
To keep us close, I came up with my new year's resolution - To not let Sora get kicked out of college, since he seemed to be really good at close calls.
Word Count (Not Including A/N's): 7,785
A/N: That's a wrap for holiday stories! Thank you so much for all the reads and support throughout 2021. You guys have single-handedly cured my sadness in many times. Reading all the funny and supportive comments left on the chapters never, EVER fails to make me smile and laugh. Seriously, it means more to me than words could express.
Hearing that I cure depression (even if that was a joke it was still amazing) or inspire people with my writing or how people reread my chapters, plus all the other fantastic comments you leave just make me so happy. Thank you so so so much, I hope that everyone has a fantastic 2022!
Happy New Year!