With the loud ringing of her alarm Carrie woke up. She'd completely passed out last night and needed a second to figure out where she was. This was definitely not her dorm room, the bed was way too big for that. Right, she remembered, she had gone over to Porco's place last night. Though she definitely had not meant to sleep there.
Shit.
Today was Monday. As in the start of classes and she had her most important class this morning, because of course she did. With an impressive speed she got up and stripped before realizing she had not brought any clothes over and with a glance at the time, she knew that she had no time of going back to her dorm. Mentally she set herself a reminder to never smoke and pass out in Porco's apartment the night before class again.
Where was he anyway? She was completely alone in the room and it was completely quiet outside of the room too. Maybe all the frat guys had early morning classes, too. She doubted that. They probably were all sleeping through their hangovers. Without thinking twice she slipped into her sweats from yesterday and one of Porco's shirts. So much for a good first impression. Within the next two minutes she put her shoes on and spurted out of the frat house. Internally she praised herself for having thought of her laptop, when she had made the obviously stupid decision to stay at Porco's while high off her ass. Lucky for her, the campus was in walking distance from it.
With only four minutes until she'd be late for her class, the girl sprinted through the halls. Seemingly out of nowhere a guy started running beside her. He seemed to be about her age. He was pretty tall, about 6 foot give or take, and generally pretty broad in frame. His dark brown hair was on the longer side, though she couldn't tell how long it exactly was, since he had tied it into a bun. A few strands were falling out however, given that it was tied pretty loosely. At least from what Carrie could tell by glancing. He grinned as he looked over at her. His eyes scanned her, noticing the sweatpants, her slightly messy hair and an array of hickeys covering her neck.
"Rough night?"
His voice was deep and had an easily detectable mocking tone to it. For a second she was offended that a total stranger would ask her that, then she remembered what she must look like right now.
"Something like that."
She looked at him and was met with his bright green eyes. Something about them was really interesting to her. She pulled her eyes from him trying to find the lecture hall, where she was supposed to be in three minutes. Her issue was, that every college had a different way of numbering the rooms and usually she would have taken the time this morning to figure it out, but of course nothing ever went as planned. She scrambled to get her schedule out of her bag. And even though the room number was clearly on there, she had no idea whether she was even going the right way.
The boy noticed her confusion and reached over mid-run to snatch the sheet away from her.
"You're new."
He scanned the paper. His words had been more of a statement than a question. She really was making this way too obvious. She leaned to take her schedule away, but he just moved it out of her reach.
"Look, I really don't have time for this, I'm really la–"
"You're going to Professor Ackermann's class." He laughed. "You really picked out the worst class to be late to."
Carrie glared at him, still desperately trying to get her schedule back.
"Gee thanks, can I have my schedule back now?"
He ignored her, still studying the paper.
"You sure have many classes for a sophomore."
He grinned holding the paper out for her to take. She swiped the paper away from him before he could pull his hand back again. Who did he think he was to judge her workload? She'd maxed out the 18 credits she could take this semester, because she had to, but that was none of his business.
"Look, I really have to go."
He shrugged flashing her a smile. She'd been annoyed at him for his stupid antics, but now she was more so mad at herself, for feeling her glare soften with that infectious smile of his.
"Come on." He picked up the pace running through the hall. "I'm going there, too."
Stunned she stood there for a moment.
"You'll never make it on time, if you just stand there."
She shook her head and started running. It took a second to catch up to him, but shortly after they ran through the halls. There was no way she'd make it in time. After a good twenty seconds of sprinting the boy halted in front of a door suddenly.
"You're through there."
He walked away from the door. Carrie tilted her head.
"Didn't you say you're also in this class?" She looked after him.
"Nah. I said 'I'm going there'." He grinned widely. "Never said why though."
Her eyes looked just as confused as before. To him, it was insanely amusing to basically see the wheels turn in her head. He decided to mess with her head a little more.
"See you around, Carrie Morgan."
He turned the corner where they'd just come from and started running. Carrie found herself still looking in that direction moments after. Had he risked getting to his own class late only to walk her to hers? Also who the hell was that guy? And how had he known her name? She just realized, she hadn't even asked for his name.
"In or out."
A stern voice came from behind her. She turned on her heel to find a man, in his late thirties glaring at her through very tired eyes. He was a bit shorter than her and yet she could tell how intimidating he was.
"Huh?" was all she could bring out, still a little confused about that whole thing with the guy.
"In or out of the class." He deadpanned. "Decide now."
She shook her head.
"In." She smiled apologetically.
He sighed and motioned for her to get in. Without looking at him again she slipped through the door and sat in the first seat she saw. It was located in one of the first rows, with a very good view. She watched as the man from outside took his spot behind the podium. At least it was on brand with how shitty today was already going, that she'd made an astronomically horrible first impression on the one man who was responsible for her fate at this university.
"Welcome to "Literatures in English IV: Twentieth and Twenty-first Century Literatures. My name is Professor Levi Ackermann. Right off the bat, I would like to mention that I don't tolerate any class absences without valid reasons. That being said, being too hungover to make it on campus or "that one soccer game, that is so important for my career as a pro" are not valid reasons."
His eyes roamed the room halting at Carrie.
"The same goes for getting late to class." He addressed the entire class again. "I expect you to be punctual and to notify me in advance, with a valid reason, should you be late."
She instantly looked down, so she wouldn't risk making eye contact with him.
"Anyway, if you would direct your attention to the front, I put up the syllabus for you." Professor Ackermann kept going. "You should have been able to download it from the class material's I provided you with."
Carrie pulled out her laptop. At least she'd had enough time on the train ride yesterday to download all of the materials she needed for all of her classes. And she'd taken the time to organize it all into folders. She pulled up the syllabus and her notes on the required reading for today. Her eyes fell to her schedule sheet. On the top right she saw her name. So that's how he had known her name and yet he had not bothered to give her his. She scoffed quietly, to not attract any attention.
The professor had chosen a few short stories to start with. It was obvious that he intended for the class to be both a reading-intensive and discursive class. It was also obvious that Carrie was among the few who had actually read the texts and were able to keep up with Ackermann's questions. From what she could tell, she'd come across about half the texts in the syllabus already and just from her first impression, she could tell that while this wasn't going to be an easy class, Ackermann clearly knew what he was doing.
Class went by fairly quickly. As Ackermann dismissed the class, pretty much everybody ran out either to get to their next class or to do whatever else unhinged college students liked to do. Carrie stayed sat a moment longer waiting for everybody else to get out. A while after everybody had walked out, she walked to the professor who sat at his desk, most likely preparing for his next class.
She cleared her throat. "Professor Ackermann."
He looked up at her, his expression instantly changing to a knowing look.
"Oh, the late girl."
"Technically, I was just cutting it close." Carrie said in her defense.
Ackermann raised an eyebrow. Wordlessly he sighed.
"What do you want?"
At first glance he seemed annoyed and dismissive, but given that it was the beginning of the semester, he probably was just stressed. It didn't seem as though he was like actually, properly mad at her for being 'late'.
"I'm Carrie Morgan, I transferred here this year and I got a mail, that I was supposed to come talk to you about–"
Ackermann seemed like remembered something.
"The scholarship application, right." He said. "Principal Galliard spoke to me about you this morning. Now then, Miss Morgan, sit."
He motioned at the chair in front of his desk. The girl did as she was told and sat. She looked at the professor, feeling her anxiety rumble in her stomach.
"Looking at your application, you spent your entire academic career in Karanes. Including your freshman year, which you completed at Karanes State College. Is that still accurate?"
She nodded. Swallowing the lump in her throat.
"Why did you decide to move to Trost and finish your undergrad degree here?" He asked.
Not by choice, Carrie would have liked to say, but she wasn't sure how much information was actually necessary for her application. As long as she was unsure, she'd just give out the bare minimum of information that she had to.
"It has a better program for English Literature and I had enough money for one semester of tuition, so I figured why not go to a better school."
He nodded studying something on the screen of his computer.
"It says here, that you're providing the rest of tuition for this semester in monthly installments. Is that working out for you?"
Of course he would have access to this information. Internally she wanted nothing more than to sigh out loud, but she stopped herself. As long as it was only the professor that knew, she could deal with that.
"Yes, it is."
Feigning confidence and security was definitely the move. At least for now.
He nodded. "Well, if you ever run into trouble with that, you can always come to me."
Carrie played with the skin around her nails. Digging her fingers deeply into her skin and pulling at the loose pieces. She avoided looking at Ackermann. She appreciated the sentiment, but she was still a little uncomfortable sitting in front of her professor who seemed to have her life story on paper.
"What are the requirements for the scholarship?"
Professor Ackermann could easily tell that she wanted to change the subject. Looking at her file, he couldn't fault her for that, so he decided, for now he would just go along with it.
"As long as you don't go below a 4.0 grade point average and you get full class credit from all of your classes this semester, you will stay eligible for the scholarship." He explained.
Carrie felt blood on her finger. She'd gone a little too far.
"The mail mentioned something about requirements for this class specifically."
Ackermann nodded.
"That's right, for this class in particular you have to write weekly two-thousand word essays for any text of your choice that is part of the weekly reading in the syllabus. Obviously, they will be graded and counted towards your GPA credits."
So far so good. That seemed doable. Though six classes, a part-time job and the weekly essays were definitely going to mean work. But it should be fine, she'd done it as a freshman and in high school already.
"Is there anything else, I should know?" She asked.
Ackermann looked from the file to her.
"So far, I think that's it." He said. "I won't keep you any longer. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to visit me during my office hours or after class."
He seemed a lot kinder now than he did in the beginning of the class. She hoped that it wasn't all pity. Wordlessly she nodded, muttered a quiet "thanks" and left the classroom.
~*~
It was still a little early, when she got out of Ackermann's classroom. The clock stood at 11:43 when she went out to the courtyard. Before she had to be at work, she had a bit of time to kill. A lot more students were around now than there were this morning. The weird guy from this morning didn't seem around anymore. The courtyard itself seemed to work as a kind of separation between two buildings. One of them, the Paradis Building, she had just come from, was smaller, though not any less imposing. She hadn't really had the time to look at it this morning, but it was a beautiful brick stone building with a stone arch over the door and statues of two Norse gods on each side. Odin was on the right and Vili on the left side. There were Norse runes carved into the highest point of the arch. Right below, the English translation had been carved in. Probably far later though, Carrie figured.
"Merely book makes none wise." the carving said.
The other building, the Marley Building, was almost twice as big as the Paradis building. The walls were built from the same brick, but it looked a little older for some reason. It had the same arch on the front with different runes carved in. These had been translated too. Below the runes the phrase "Stand by your own trial." was carved under the runes. The arch was decorated by two Norse gods on either side, as well, but they weren't the same gods. Carrie was pretty sure that it was Eir on the left side and Mimir on the right, though she hadn't brushed up on her mythology knowledge in a while.
The buildings seemed disjointed and yet their architectural similarities made it seem as though they belonged to each other. She walked across the courtyard a bit more, when she saw a group of students laughing under a tree. She recognized none of them, until she heard a very familiar laugh.
"Porco, hey." She walked over to them.
Him and his friends all lifted their eyes to look at her. Aside from Porco she only knew his brother, Marcel, the two boys and the dark haired girl they were with, she didn't know. Porco instantly stood up and wrapped an arm around her. He looked at her.
"Oh shit, I totally forgot you had an early class this morning." He sighed.
She smiled. "It's all good, I made it on time."
The dark haired girl eyed her subtly. Something about the way she moved her eyes up and down almost like she was judging her, was off-putting to Carrie. Obviously her wearing sweatpants and some way too big shirt was weird, but not that weird for college. Her eyes flickered to her neck for a split-second, it was almost unnoticeable.
"Aren't you going to introduce us to your friend?" She asked. For a second her voice sounded almost condescending.
"Right, right." Porco smiled. "This is Carrie, my girlfriend."
Marcel already knew her, but the other two boys smiled pretty sincerely. The weird look on the girl's face hadn't shifted yet. Carrie smiled back at them.
"I'm Reiner Braun." The bigger blonde guy said. "This is Berthold Fubar."
Bless you, Carrie would have almost said, but she bit her tongue at the last second.
"I'm Pieck." The girl said, obviously disinterested.
Carrie kept the smile on her face, even though she was very confused about the vibes she was getting, especially from the girl.
"So, Carrie, I take it you just transferred here? What year are you in?" Reiner asked.
"Yep." She nodded. "I'm a sophomore. And you guys?"
"We're both seniors." Reiner said, motioning at Berthold. "Pieck's a junior."
Pieck wasn't looking at her.
"So how are you liking Trost so far?" Marcel asked.
She smiled. Porco's brother had always been kind to her, though she didn't know him that well.
"Haven't seen much of it, yet." She shrugged. "My roommates are really nice."
He smiled. "Porco's been excited all week before classes."
"Shut it." His brother glared.
Carrie laughed. It was sweet, she'd been excited, too, to finally go here. She hadn't really caught wind of the looks, Porco's friend group shared. A moment later, Pieck smiled at her brightly.
"Hey Carrie, you're going to Pock's party on Friday, right?" She asked.
Carrie tilted her head and looked at Porco. At first she didn't even register, that she'd heard that nickname before.
"A party?"
Porco laughed nervously and scratched the back of his neck.
"Oh right, I meant to invite you last night, but it slipped my mind, sorry." He said. "And technically it's a frat party and not mine."
"It's a tradition that the biggest frat on campus throws the first party of the year and Mu-Alpha-Rho has a long history of being the biggest frat on Trost campus." Reiner added.
She grinned at them. "Sounds great, I'll come."
Porco puled her even closer to him. "Can't wait, babe."
"So, are frat houses like huge thing around here?" She asked.
Reiner shook his head. "There's a few small ones, but MAR only has one like rivaling fraternity, Alpha-Omega-Tau, though they are significantly smaller, than us."
He laughed, almost as if he was gloating a little. Carrie nodded. She wasn't very knowledgable about all that kind of stuff. Karanes State had been way too small for any fraternities. She pulled out her phone to look at the time.
"It's been really nice meeting you all, but I have to go."
Porco loosened his hold on her. His eyes were mustering her as if he was questioning her.
"My first day of work." She answered. "And I can't exactly go dressed like this."
He nodded.
"I'll drive you to your dorm."
She couldn't even protest, as Porco had already grabbed her arm and pulled her to where she assumed his car was parked.
"Hey Pock, don't forget that we're all still on for Bowling tonight."
There it was again. The nickname. Porco had never let Carrie give him any type of nicknames and yet she'd heard Pock, a lot in the past two days. She didn't think much of it, after all, they all seemed like really close friends, so nicknames weren't a huge deal. And yet she couldn't shake the negative feeling.
"Bowling?"
She asked as they walked off the courtyard towards one of the parking spaces.
Porco nodded. "Yeah, Reiner, Berthold, Pieck like going bowling once in a while."
He looked at the girl.
"I figured, you wouldn't want to come after such a late shift."
That too, was a kind sentiment and yet, Carrie couldn't let one thought go. She hadn't told Porco that she worked today, much less that she had a late shift. Maybe she'd mentioned it last night, given that she didn't have that much memory of that night anyway. They drove to her dorm without really talking. Porco dropped her off in front of her dorm.
"Will I see you later tonight, babe?" He asked.
Carrie shrugged. She did appreciate that he still wanted to make time to see her and yet she didn't want to bother him and his friends by just barging into their night out. Besides with the requirements for Ackermann's class and all her other class prep, she doubted that she would have time to go out every night.
"Don't know yet." She said.
Porco nodded. "Well, it's up to you, Care." He said through his rolled down window before driving away.
Carrie walked up to the building's front door. She walked down the hall she had remembered chasing Connie through and quickly found her dorm's door. With one hand in her bag, she tried grabbing for her keys, but to no avail. They weren't in there. She was sure that she had left them in her bag when she had gone over to Porco's. It was a tried and true rule of hers to never move important stuff of hers around, while high, so she wouldn't panic when sober. So she couldn't imagine that she'd lost it there or on campus. She would have definitely noticed that.
Fuck. She had to get in to change, she couldn't show up in sweats on her first day of work. Frantically she knocked on the door, praying that one of the three girls would be there. A minute later Mikasa opened the door. The overwhelming scent of freshly made pizza washed over her.
"Hey, didn't you get your keys yet?" She asked, pulling the hot food out of the oven.
"No, I did." Carrie said. "I just can't find them."
Mikasa set down the pizza and walked around the kitchen island.
"I can help you look, if you want."
Carrie shook her head, knowing that Mikasa probably had something a lot better to do.
"Don't worry about it, I probably forgot it in the room last night."
The girl nodded going back to cooking. "Feel free to take some, might be hot though."
Carrie had to admit, the pizza smelled amazing and she would have loved to have some, if she wasn't already running super late for work. She decided, it would be for the best to take at least a small shower, so she wouldn't smell off weed. The cold water trickled down on her as she hurried to scrub the weed and sweat off her skin. After a few minutes she stepped out and got dressed. To have it out of her way, she tied her blonde hair into a ponytail, though a few strands always fell out especially at the front.
She still had a bit of time before her bus would come, so she figured she could at least start looking for her keys. Though to no avail. Either way she didn't have any time anymore, so she would just have to look more tonight. Grabbing her bag and jacket, she made her way back to the living room.
"Find anything?" Mikasa shoveled a piece of the pizza on a plate.
"No, but I'll just look tonight after work."
The girl nodded sitting down on the couch with her plate. Carrie just now noticed that the TV was running and that Blue Lock was playing.
"Where do you work?" Mikasa asked still pretty focused on the TV screen.
Carrie was basically standing in the doorframe, when she looked back at the girl.
"Starbucks, off campus." She said. "It's like twenty minutes from here by bus."
"Bus?" Mikasa asked. "You don't have a license?"
Shit. She should have just not said anything about the bus.
"No, I do." She said, which wasn't a lie. "I just don't have a car."
Mikasa seemed to be fine with that answer and went back to watching boys playing soccer. Carrie shot a quick "bye" in her direction and walked back out. She easily made it to the station and took the bus to work.
~*~
So far her first day was going fine. She was used to customer service jobs, so she wasn't struggling with the training and horrible customers existed everywhere. Two thirds of her shift went on without incidents and most of her coworkers seemed like kind people. At around seven in the evening, an hour before her shift would end a girl came in. The first thing about her that Carrie noticed, were her arms covered in hundreds of small sticker tattoos. She looked up at her pretty tan face. It was littered with freckles and her brown, shoulder-length hair fell to either side. She had a septum piercing and her right nostril pierced, as well as a laborer piercing.
"Hey, how are you?" Carrie smiled. "What can I get for you?"
"Hi, I have a bit of a bigger order." The girl said.
Carrie nodded ready to take it. "All right, hit me."
The girl laughed. "Can I get a black Dark Roast Coffee, an Iced Matcha with soy milk and vanilla syrup, two blueberry muffins and one pumpkin spice loaf. Oh and... shit, what did that moron want again?"
She paused for a moment, while Carrie punched in the order.
"Oh right!" The girl sighed. "And a White Mocha Frappuccino with coconut milk, extra caramel drizzle and extra java chips."
Carrie chuckled at the order.
"I'm so sorry." The girl responded. "I swear, next time I'm sending the idiot over to get his own damn drink."
Carrie smiled. "Can I have a name for the order?"
"Oh, yeah, right." She laughed nervously. "Ymir. You'll probably see a lot more of me, I've become the designated coffee runner for that tattoo shop across the road."
Carrie looked to where the girl pointed. A dimly lit small tattoo shop with loads of colorful LED signs was pretty much exactly across the street. She couldn't see inside from the register, but it looked like a really cool space. The girl paid.
"All right, awesome. I'll have that right out for you in a bit."
Her coworkers and her finished up the girl's order together, as it wasn't super busy right now. She smiled as she handed her bags and the drinks to her.
"Weren't you in Ackermann's "Literatures In English" class this morning?" The girl asked.
Without giving Carrie a second to reply, she figured the answer out on her own.
"Yeah you were. He chewed you out for being late." She laughed.
Carrie laughed too, if a little quieter. She was a tiny bit glad that she now knew someone from the class.
"I wouldn't say chewed out."
Ymir laughed taking her stuff, impressively balancing it all within her two hands.
"I've seen him way worse." She grinned. "So, you probably got off easy."
Carrie looked over to the register seeing a customer walk up to it. The other girl took note of it too.
"I'll see you around..."
"Carrie." She answered waking over to the new customer.
Ymir nodded in her direction before walking out and rushing into the tattoo shop. The rest of the shift fell back into normalcy until she walked out after closing, seeing Mikasa and Sasha leaning before a car right in front of the Starbucks front door.
"Mika said, you worked here, so we thought, we'd come pick you up." Sasha grinned.
"You guys really didn't have to." She said.
"The bus is horrible to take at night." Mikasa shrugged. "What horrible roommates would we be, if we didn't look out for you."
Sasha nodded. "And I am in desperate need of a girl's night. Annie is already home and Historia and Ymir said they'd come over too."
Carrie wondered whether that was the same Ymir as earlier. Probably, it wasn't like the name was very common. Given how determined Mikasa looked and how generally scary her stern face looked and since Sasha was basically almost jumping up and down in place with excitement, Carrie figured there wouldn't be any point in protesting. Then again, Porco was out with friends, too, so it would probably be good for her to hang out with people. And she genuinely liked all three girls.
Mikasa drove them all back to the dorm and asked Carrie once more about her keys. The girl was none the wiser than earlier today. When the girls entered their dorm, Annie had already prepped all types of snacks at the coffee table and Blue Lock was still on the TV, almost as if Mikasa had paused it for tonight. Ymir from earlier and a pretty short, sweet-looking, blonde girl, Carrie assumed that she was Historia, sat cuddled up on the couch. The two looked up upon hearing the door fall shut.
"Oh hey, you're the girl from Starbucks." Ymir smiled as she saw her.
Historia looked up at her. "Hi, I'm Historia. Nice to meet you."
Her voice was sincere and sweet.
"Carrie." She smiled back.
"Sit, sit everyone." Mikasa said. "I made pizza earlier, so please help yourself."
Sasha had already stuffed her face with a piece.
"You ain't gotta tell me twice." She said with her mouth full.
Annie rolled her eyes, though she was smiling very faintly. Minutes later, they all had slices of pizza on their plates and opened two bottles of wine between the six of them. They laughed watching the anime, talking about characters they liked and eating and drinking, probably way too much.
"Okay but can we talk about how Rin is the only competent one?" Annie threw in at some point.
Ymir stared at her in disbelief. "Excuse me, but Shidou is way cooler. The way he plays in-"
"Sae's carrying him hard." Mikasa deadpanned.
"Hey." Historia interrupted. "I haven't read the manga yet! Besides, I think Reo is really underrated."
"You're just saying that because you think Reo and Nagi deserve better." Ymir rebutted.
"They do!" The blonde argued. "Isagi should not have broken them up like that."
"Tori, it's okay. They'll be fine." Ymir laughed, gently wrapping an arm around Historia.
"I think Rin and Bachira are cute together." Sasha dropped between munches.
Everybody's eyes were on her within the second.
"Seriously, Sash?" Mikasa laughed.
"Yeah." She downed the next slice of pizza. "Bachira is just the best character overall."
"Honestly, I see it." Carrie defended her roommate.
"Thank you!" She yelled. "Finally someone's on my side!"
All the girl's laughed and with that they just decided to keep watching regardless of their discussion. It was fun though and Carrie really found herself enjoying her time with the girls. She found out that next to her and Sasha, Historia was a sophomore too and studied Anthropology. Annie, Ymir and Mikasa were all juniors. Annie and Mikasa were both majoring in Physical Education, though Annie minored in Martial Arts too. Ymir studied History, though she mentioned an interest in literature, which was why she had Ackermann's class as an elective.
"Hey, if you need to get on Levi's good side," Mikasa mentioned nipping on her forth glass of red wine. "he's technically my uncle, so I can talk to him about you."
Carrie stared at her not believing it at all. Though thinking about it a bit more she realized, that they had very similar features and that it was at least a bit believable. They went on about Trost and telling Carrie a bit about the university, like how the Paradis building was the Art centered building, where all Humanitarian and Art majors were taught and how in contrast the Marley building was for science, business, medicine and law. Which in turn explained why it was bigger, at least it made sense for Carrie like that.
"So how come there's like two separate buildings anyway?"
The girls all looked at Annie. She sighed.
"Well the summary is basically, that Trost initially belonged to the Eldians over a thousand years ago, but then the Marley came from overseas claiming that they had technological advancements high above what was known and as one knows, how these things go, the Eldians were second class citizens for ages. It even went as far as into the university. The good dorm rooms and off-campus apartments were only for the Marley and only they were allowed to study in the Marley building. About a hundred years ago the Eldians finally fought back and a huge Civil War broke out, the university was at the center of it all."
Mikasa and her shared a look, when the black-haired girl took over.
"There was one secret society on either side and they were pretty much just as involved in all the warfare as the military. The peace treaty was signed after fourteen months in the middle of the courtyard between the two buildings."
Carrie looked at the two absolutely astonished at the history of this place. She'd heard about Trost, but for some reason all this information hadn't gone through to Karanes.
"What happened with the secret societies?"
"Oh they still exist, kinda."
Mikasa said sipping on her Tequila Sunrise, somewhere between talking Blue Lock and their majors the girls had switched to harder liquor.
"Really?"
"Yeah, the two major fraternities have emerged directly from the two secret societies. The houses are even the same, the secret societies had housed in." Ymir explained.
Sasha downed the rest of her drink. "Connie, Jean and Marco are part of AOT, by the way."
"And your boyfriend's the president of MAR, the second year in row."
Ymir, Annie and Historia looked at her in disbelief.
"Wait you're dating Porco Galliard?" Ymir stared at the girl.
Annie just scoffed. Historia looked between her and Ymir.
"But didn't Porco just–"
Ymir nudged her, so she wouldn't finish that thought. She'd been careful enough, to check that at the particular angle, Carrie wouldn't notice. Luckily, she didn't.
"Speaking of", Carrie said. "Porco's frat is throwing a party on Friday. Are you guys going?"
"Yeah, obviously." Sasha grinned. "I'll take free food from anyone."
Mikasa and Annie both sighed at their friend.
"I'm going, but only for the alcohol." Ymir said.
The other girls agreed with that sentiment. Somehow Carrie got the feeling, that Porco and his friends weren't super popular with their friend group.
"You guys don't really get along, do you?" She asked.
Annie and Historia both looked at their glasses and Mikasa was the only one who answered.
"Well, for one, most of our friends are in the rival frat and then there's Reiner and Berthold."
"What about them?"
They had seemed nice to her, when she'd talked to them. Then again, she had only known them for a total of ten minutes, so she wasn't really capable of forming an opinion on them.
"Berthold and I used to date and he never got over it. He's quiet usually, but once he has something against you, he becomes the biggest prick." Annie explained.
"Same with Reiner." Ymir piped in. "He likes Historia and he's been obsessed with her since High School, but she turned him down years ago. I guess all the muscle makes him too dense to take a hint."
Historia shrugged, but it was clear that she shared the same sentiment. Carrie was still unsure what to make of all of this. There seemed to be a lot to unpack with these friends and she felt a little thrown into the middle of it as of now. However, she decided not to pay that any mind right now and to just enjoy the time she had with the girls. Hours passed and they'd gone through at least three other shows before they all passed out together on the couch. Without realizing it Carrie found herself feeling way more comfortable tonight than she had at Porco's.
~*~
idk why i'm so inconsistent with chapter length, but this one's almost twice as long as the first. so whoops ig. anyway we're almost through with the relevant character introductions. also i'm sorry for the tiny bit of Blue Lock brainrot, but next chapter will officially start on the college party shenanigans until then toodles <3