Chapter 14: Amori's Dorm Room Part 3

The door opens.

Jasper dragged himself inside with the particular energy of someone who had lost a prolonged argument with the universe, shoes scuffing the floor, his neck frills becoming flat, the kind of exhaustion that had gone past being tired to something much closer to quietly furious.

"I cannot believe I have to rejoin that mutt tomorrow of all—"

He stopped.

Randell looked up from the corner of Amori's bed, still puffed, still only half-dressed with a towel wrapped around his lower half, a clean shirt bunched in one hand.

Jasper stared at him for exactly two seconds before turning to Amori.

"Why in all the gods is he here! “

" Calm down Jasper, I let him stay in our dorm room for a couple days, he'll be gone once the Entrance Test’s done. "

" You offered a complete stranger a bed! "

" Hey! He's not a stranger, he’s my friend. "

" Amori, you met him for about a day. “

" And what's wrong with that? “

Jasper's frills spread as it was about to go all over his head, but having his life drained all over him he doesn't have the energy to even be mad.

“ I am far too exhausted to even have this conversation with you.

And you. "

He turned back to Randell with the measured tone of someone establishing ground rules for a natural disaster.

“ Stay on that awful snake's side.

Don't cross my side, don’t touch anything on my side, and do not even breathe in the direction of my side.

Got it! “

" I already told him Jasper “

" Shut your forked tongue! “

He pried off his shoes without untying them, set them aside with considerably more care than he'd shown everything else, and collapsed face-first onto his red sheets with his jacket unkept.

Randell watched him for a moment before turning to Amori and asking.

" So… He's your roommate? "

" Unfortunately…

He can be difficult to talk to, and a bit of a whiny bitch if we somehow break the academy rules "

" I can hear you… " came an irritable muffled voice from the other bed.

“ Duh! you're meant to hear it!

Anyways, just get yourself on the bathroom and have dinner “

“ Kay, make sure to leave some for me Mhyv “

Mhyv, who was sitting on Amori's bed with one or two cupped meals on each of his five hands answered with a thumbs up on his other hand, before leaving out a cupped meal with plastic utensils for him on the floor while gorging on the beef stakes little by little.

Randell quickly found an orange shirt with black sides on the shoulder all the way to the armpits and five black stars, some pair of brown underwear, with some black pocket-heavy shorts and change in the bathroom. Coming out once again, fresh yet devastatingly hungry.

He dropped onto the floor beside the bed, pulled the cupped meal toward him, and peeled back the wrapper.

Steam rolled out immediately. Beneath it: two burger steaks sitting in a shallow pool of light brown gravy, thin-sliced mushrooms scattered throughout, a bed of white rice underneath holding everything together.

Simple. Cheap. The exact kind of food that had absolutely no right to smell that good.

He cuts a piece.

Burger steak, mushroom, a drag through the gravy, and a scoop of rice, everything put all in his mouth at once.

“ Purr~ Purr~ “

‘ God’s, that's good. ‘

He let himself sit in that for a moment before the thought crept in around the edges. Quiet, the way those thoughts always did.

‘ None of them can even see it ‘

He glanced up. Amori had migrated to his textbook at some point, one hand turning pages, the other occasionally reaching into the open box of chocolate strawberries beside him.

Jasper hadn't moved since his face hit the pillow. The room was calm, unbothered, completely ordinary.

His eyes dropped back to his meal.

" Hey "

He said quietly, tilting his head slightly toward Mhyv.

" Since you can make things invisible to others just by touching them, would you ever consider- “

" Only for emergencies “

" Why though. It would genuinely be useful once I'm enrolled "

" Oh, it would be.

I just don't want to.

Maybe if you're close to death I'll consider throwing myself over you~ “

" Ugh… why do you never explain things to me in full detail? ."

“ It's kinda like a principal thing.

I mean you wouldn't want me to know about what's on your second gallery- “

“ I-I think I get your point! “

Randell said, trying to hide his embarrassment by stuffing it all with food.