Chapter Text
“Come on, we gotta run,” aquamarine eyes flashed with concern.
Ugh. She was right. Lumine hated that she was right. Nodding in agreement and swallowing her pride, she hoisted her backpack up before she broke out into a sprint.
Why did she have to do this? Gods only knew. Venom teemed at her tongue as her hefty backpack sagged against her back with every heavy step she took across the university drill field.
“We have two minutes,” Nilou called out from beside her.
As the pair sprinted across campus to their first class of the day, surrounded by the reddening of late-summer trees, a solitary dead leaf crunched underneath her foot.
Heh. Fitting.
They would have ten minutes if not for him. It had only been a week into the semester, a single fucking week, and he had already put her in this position.
Regardless, the fact of the matter was that Dr. Kreideprinz had a strict no-late policy. One tardy meant one letter grade. An unfair rule, but what first year was going to argue against it?
Lumine would have sighed in frustration if she wasn’t already out of breath.
The doors to Rhinedottir Hall flung open and the two first-years climbed the steps to their Physics class. In the nick of time, she and Nilou were in their seats when their professor closed the door to start her lecture. Sweaty, but present. Good enough.
And now Lumine had room to swallow the spite that filled her mouth to the brim.
When starting out at Teyvat University, she thought that she would be able to start over. To leave the ghosts of the past in the past. But all she got was a new monster to haunt her waking hours.
Scara. Her stupid, annoying, arrogant roommate.
When choosing room and board as an incoming first-year, Lumine was over the moon when she learned that she had the chance of living in a suite-style dorm. Two rooms, one common area, one kitchen, and one bathroom. Instead of living in a cramped room with someone else, she could have her own room and a cool roommate. Easy choice, right?
“Disclaimer: Students who choose to enter the lottery for a suite-style dorm will be assigned a random roommate!”
She should’ve read the fine fucking print.
It wasn’t her fault that she was almost late. Scara refused to leave the shower. She waited for what felt like twenty minutes before she started pounding on the door. And even then, he had the audacity to say “five more minutes.” What kind of roommate spent almost thirty minutes in the shower at 9AM on a Tuesday?
What was worse was what happened after he opened the door. Steam rolled out of the bathroom, layering on the ground like liquid nitrogen on Halloween weekend. He took a step towards her—too close—as he secured the towel around his waist. Crystal droplets glistened as they rolled down the curve of his tattooed biceps.
But she couldn’t spare a glance. His cold amethyst sneer matched her hard gaze.
“Can you give a guy some time to shower?”
No, she wanted to say. But before she could even think of responding, he strode past her in a huff and slammed his bedroom door behind him.
Was he doing that on purpose or was he just vapid? If she didn’t have a week of experience under her belt, she would probably choose the latter. But, at this point, she knew better.
“Lumine?” Dr. Kreideprinz’s smooth, melodic voice pulled her from her thoughts.
“Y-yes?”
He let out a small sigh. “What do the m and v in the kinetic energy equation stand for?”
“Mass and velocity.”
“Good.” Before her professor turned away, a scrutinizing glance told Lumine that she was already on thin ice.
Ah, fuck. She held back a groan as her eyes fell to her empty notebook page. She could feel Nilou’s worried gaze planted firmly on her back, but she couldn’t stand to spare her a glance.
Because in reality, this situation was on Lumine. If she and Nilou were late to class, the guilt of being the cause of her loss of letter grade would send her into a different sort of spiral.
So instead of spiraling further, her pencil found her grasp and honey eyes raised back up to the lecture ahead of her.
Lumine set her bag down with a sigh. The orange-blue sunset beyond the window of their common area commended her day of hard work. All she wanted to do was go lay in bed, but the protest of her growling stomach won over her aching legs.
A quick check of the fridge yielded little success. She had picked up some sandwich-making materials over the weekend, so she wasn’t totally out of luck, but her stomach told her that she needed something more substantial.
At least Scara hadn’t stolen her food. Small victories.
Ah, speak of the devil.
As Scara emerged from his room, his ever-present arrogance seemed to permeate the space around him. He avoided her gaze as he moved into the kitchen, grabbing a box of mac and cheese from the cabinet next to her.
Ugh. Why did she feel unwelcome in her own kitchen?
As she closed the fridge in a huff, sandwich materials in hand, she noticed his impatient eyes scrutinizing the side of her head as he waited to get past her.
Without a word, she moved out of his way quickly, squishing up against the counter so that he could slide past.
But as the sleeve of his hoodie brushed against her arm, a spark jumpstarted her heart.
Ah. Surely it was out of anxiety, right?
Sandwiches, she reminded herself. She laid her sandwich materials out on the countertop: bread, onion, lettuce, ham, and mustard. The next thing she needed was a cutting board.
But… hm. When she opened the cabinet next to the stove, it was nowhere to be found. Was that not the place she left it? Or did Scara use it last?
After taking a moment to scour the kitchen, she found it. She would have let out a sigh of relief if not for the way that the cutting board mocked her from one of the top shelves. There was no doubt that Scara left it there. She couldn't even reach the shelf, much less leave it all the way up there.
Fuck. She had to break the silence.
“Can you, uh,” she almost flinched at her own words, “can you grab the cutting board for me?” She pointed up at the shelf, turning to look at him as he filled a pot with water.
And then he met her eyes with the petulance that she had grown to expect.
A hefty sigh escaped his lips—it was like she was forcing him to paint her nails or something—as he closed the space between them. The light scent of his cologne heightened her senses as he stretched up beside her to reach the cutting board.
Too close.
His side brushed against hers for a fleeting moment. It had to be half a second at most, but it was long enough to send her reeling backward. When he held the cutting board out to her, she quickly grabbed it from his hands and murmured her thanks under her breath.
But as she moved back to her sandwich materials, a realization dawned on her. He had to have put the cutting board up there on purpose, right? Just to fuck with her. To cause an inconvenience.
Hm. Well, two could play that game.
Suddenly, she wanted to assemble her sandwich on the other side of the counter. So she walked past him, allowing herself to brush lightly past him as he waited for his pot of water to boil.
He straightened up ever so slightly as she walked by.
Perfect.
“So, how was your day?” She said cheerily.
Scara looked up from his phone at her, his eyes laced with unamused confusion. “Fine.” A single word, flat and dripping with venom.
She smiled as she turned to start chopping some lettuce. “Any tough classes so far? You’re a… biochem major, right?”
He let out an annoyed sigh. “It’s only been a week into the semester. If I had a hard class, I probably wouldn’t know about it yet.”
“That’s fair,” she nodded slowly. “What classes do you even take this semester outside of biology and chemistry?”
“Math.”
“Oof. I hate math.”
“Are you saying that because you actually don’t like math, or because you’re too stupid for it?”
Lumine’s eyes narrowed. “Are you saying that because you’re an asshole, or because you don’t know how to talk to girls?”
A beat of silence.
“I’m not interested in getting to know you. Point blank. Okay?” Scara’s voice was low and demanding. Spiny malice lined his words.
“Then why did you come out of your room when you heard that I was home?”
“You’re just making shit up.”
She just laughed wryly. “Okay,” she said as she sliced her sandwich in half and turned to grab a plate.
Footsteps crept up to her side, and when she looked up, he was right next to her. Within arm’s reach.
“Look,” he growled. She looked back at him, and—
Too close.
“I don’t care what you think. I don’t care to be your friend. Stay out of my way and I’ll stay out of yours.”
She said nothing. Her mouth had run completely dry.
A roll of her eyes was all that she could muster as she grabbed her sandwich, threw it on a plate, and beelined to her room.
“I’m not crazy, am I? Tell me I’m not crazy, guys.”
The dining hall was packed on this Friday night. And, gods, it had been a long damn week. All of Lumine’s professors had begun to get into the meat of their lectures, and after a summer of no learning, the wave of homework was already starting to stress her out. She needed a night off.
And by “night off,” she meant a girls’ night out.
Nilou picked at her salad absentmindedly. “You’re not crazy,” she mused, brow furrowed as she stared off into the distance. “Scara really does seem to have something against you.”
Lumine huffed a sigh of relief.
From her left side, Yoimiya hummed in dissatisfaction. “I mean, that’s pretty clear,” she stabbed a green bean with her fork, ”but why does he have it out for you?”
“He was like this from the start,” she grumbled. “Invited him out to lunch. Asked him for his class schedule. Tried to divide chores. Am I going about this ‘roommate’ thing wrong?”
Her red-haired friend shook her head tentatively. “When you tried to do those things, what did he do?”
“He pretty much ignored me until Tuesday.”
“And what did he say on Tuesday?”
“’Stay out of my way and I’ll stay out of yours,’” Lumine exaggerated his irritating, melodramatic voice.
Yoimiya guffawed. Nilou let out a soft giggle. “Sounds like he’s just a sour person in general.”
“An asshole,” Yoimiya added.
Lumine looked away. That was a fair assumption, but why was he so sour? She refused to take his behavior at face value. She had to live with the guy, after all.
Wait. Why was she even entertaining the idea of empathy when it came to Scara?
Because you can relate, a traitorous voice in the back of her head spoke out.
Against her better judgment, a pang of sorrow resonated from deep inside of her. She felt like being sour sometimes, too. After what happened with her brother, she was sour every day for weeks. Months. It took a complete change of scenery and the distraction of classes to put those thoughts on the back burner.
She would admit, albeit begrudgingly, that she could understand his mood. But there was one thing that held her back from giving him the benefit of the doubt.
“Sure. Let’s just say that he’s a sour person. Would it kill him to do the bare minimum and be cordial?”
Nilou shrugged as she popped a cherry tomato into her mouth.
“You can always just move to a different room, you know,” Yoimiya waved her fork in the air.
Yes, she knew that. But that would mean two things.
Number one: she would be switched into a traditional-style dorm. She wouldn’t have her own room anymore. That alone was enough to oust the possibility in her mind.
But number two was what kept her solidly in place: moving out meant that he would win.
“That’s not gonna happen.”
“Why?” Nilou’s eyes widened.
“Sour people don’t deserve to have it easy.”
At this point, no matter how much sympathy played around the edges of her resolve, she refused to falter in the face of his acts of ill will. Was it immature of her to think that way? Maybe. Would she be better off moving? Probably.
But bitter vitriol made her narrow her eyes at the untouched plate of food in front of her.
When the girls got back to the suite from dinner, a bottle of vodka in tow, Lumine’s mood was at an all-time high. Nilou and Yoimiya were new friends of hers, of course, but she knew by the way they reassured her that they were keepers. That fact alone made her feel a type of giddiness that she hadn’t felt in years. She felt… anew. Eager. Gone were the ghosts of the past, at least for tonight.
But as Lumine opened the door to her suite, she found three people crowded in the common area. Ah. Scara must have beat her to the punch and brought some friends over. A slight inconvenience, but whatever—Nilou and Yoimiya could just drink in her room instead.
Lumine tried to avoid the inquisitive eyes that followed her and her friends as their heels clicked against the linoleum floor. But just as she was about to pass them, she caught the piercing azure gaze of an auburn-haired man. His freckled cheek lifted up in a sly half-smile.
She just rolled her eyes and kept walking.
“Yikes,” Nilou sighed as she shut the door behind them.
Lumine just shook her head. “Yeah.”
“That tension was insane,” Yoimiya grimaced.
“That’s my roommate for you.”
“It’s always that way?” Her friend’s grimace only grew as Lumine nodded. “How do you live with that?”
“I dunno, Yoi. Honestly, whatever that was wasn’t even that ba—”
“Shh,” Nilou cut Lumine off, raising her finger to her lips. Curiously, her ear was pressed against the wall that connected to the common area.
Huh. Lumine furrowed her brow as she tried her best to focus on the muffled conversation coming from the room adjacent to hers. It was just out of earshot, so she and Yoimiya joined Nilou against the wall.
“… all I’m saying is that the blonde girl could get it.” An unknown male voice spoke out. Lumine could imagine that it belonged to the man with auburn hair.
“That’s my roommate, you asshole,” Scara seethed.
“Yeah, and she’s hot.”
“Off limits.”
A female voice scoffed. “You can’t just go after your friend’s roommate, Childe.”
Childe? An odd name.
“Well, she doesn’t live in the same room as you, so it’s fair game.”
“Don’t try me,” Scara growled.
The male voice, Childe, just laughed at that.
And so a bright, shining opportunity landed right in her lap. A devilish grin grew on her face as she leaned off against the wall and turned to her friends. Yoimiya’s amber eyes were alight with a similar mischievousness. It was as if she could read Lumine’s mind.
Nilou was clueless, though. “What? What are we smiling at?”
“Operation ‘Fuck With Scara’ is underway,” Yoimiya sang. “I’ll start the first round of shots.”
Aquamarine eyes widened in understanding. “Y-you don’t think that’s too harsh?”
“I’m not gonna hook up with the guy or anything,” Lumine said in reassurance. “Just… you know, talk to him. In front of Scara. Maybe some light flirting?”
A small smile betrayed Nilou’s considerate eyes. “Okay, fine,” she allowed her concern to dissipate. “We can be your wingwomen for the night.”
“Just as the gods intended,” Yoimiya chimed, passing around shot glasses filled to the brim with raspberry vodka. She raised her glass, “To operation ‘Fuck With Scara’?”
“To operation ‘Fuck With Scara’,” Lumine and Nilou sounded out. The trio giggled as they clinked shot glasses and raised them to their lips.
Lumine just couldn’t wipe the grin from her face as she threw the shot back. The potent burn that seared down her throat and into her stomach told her that tonight was going to be an even better night than she had anticipated.
And so the planning commenced.