Fearless

Neighbors, Roommates and Constipation

Red

The room was doable. The walls were painted with different shades of blue. A bunker bed was placed at the end of the room. From the looks of the slightly crumpled sheets, the lower bunk was already in use.

A huge white wardrobe stood on the other side of the room, and right next to it was a dressing table, as wide as the wardrobe.

There was a desk and a spinning chair next to the bunker bed, and papers were bundled up and placed on the edge of it. The windows took up half the wall against which the bunker bed stood.

It was evident that this room was meant for two occupants. Both the cupboard and the dressing table seemed to have a sort of a divide in the middle, so sharing wouldn't be much of a problem.

It was fine, I guess. But given everything I'd heard about the CNC, I was expecting if to be a little more....lavish. I guess I should look at the room being dust-free as a plus. But other than that....ordinary.

I found my stuff placed next to the study desk. It was around ten minutes since I'd unpacked and was arranging my stuff in the empty side of the wardrobe, when there came a knock on the door.

I looked through the peeping hole and found two girls waving at me. "Hey neighbour." One yelled out, and I swear I could feel the energy oozing out of her from the other side of the door.

I opened the door. " Hey there."

"You're Honey's new roommate, right?" The energetic one said(yelled). She was kinda short, coming up to my shoulder. Her strawberry blonde hair were tied up in a high ponytail, and her blue eyes were wide with excitement, for some reason.

"Yes. That would explain why I'm in her room." I muttered as I let them in.

They plopped on to Honey's bunk like it was no big deal, so I figured they were good friends of hers.

"Need any help unpacking?" The other one asked. She was almost my height, with straight auburn hair reaching down till the small of her back, and I couldn't tell if her eyes were black or a dark shade of brown.

"Nah, I'm cool." I smiled as I lifted a shirt from the ground and had it fly into the wardrobe, and then willed it to close.

"Cool, telekhenesis." The non-noisy one said.

"Yep." I said as I sat backwards on the rotating chair.

"What are yours?" I asked.

"Oh." Miss-I-Shalt-Make-Thou-Ears- Bleed smiled. " I'm a medic in training. So basically healing is the gift. Same as your roommate. As for Tim here..."

"It's best if I show you." The other girl, Tim, said. She touched the bunker bed and closed her eyes. "Pick a colour." She told me.

"Um...red..I guess."

As I watched, the colour of the bed started to change from faint blue to brick red. She didn't color the whole thing however, and changed it back the very next minute.

"Wouldn't want people thinking it's blood." She laughed.

"That's a real cool gift." I smiled.

"Yeah I guess." She gave me a sheepish grin. "Kinda useless though."

" You kidding me?You could wear the same clothes in so many different colours." I said. Tim's friend squealed as if I'd just said something extremely exciting.

Tim rolled her eyes. "Lee here holds the same opinion about my gifts. A wardrobe blessing in disguise, she calls it. Anyways, we didn't quite catch your name."

"Red Carson. And you guys are Tim and Lee?"

"Timona Castle actually. I go by Tim though. And she's Leslie Laurent." Tim nodded toward her friend Leslie, or as she called her, Lee.

"So you guys live next door ?" I twirled a pen I had picked up from the table between my fingers.

"How'd you guess?" Lee asked.

Tim looked at her in exasperation. "Uh..Lee, you did say 'Hello Neighbor' even before the door opened." She said.

Leslie bit her lip as colour rose to her cheeks. "Yeah, It did hat."

"Say, Red. You been keeping up with the Amlisian syllabus?" Tim asked.

"Obviously."

"Great then. You couldn't have picked a better time to come. The new semester doesn't start for another three weeks. So you've got plenty of time on your hands."

"Well, no. Morgan still wants us to attend a few special classes to make sure we're up to date. Hopefully that'll only be for a week." I said.

"Us?" Leslie asked.

"Yeah. My cousin Andy just moved here too."

"Ah, you've got a cousin? How old is he?" Tim smiled slyly.

I laughed. "Just turned sixteen three days ago."

"He hot?"

"Meh...I'm not the right person to be answering that. You'll find out for yourself soon I'm sure."

"Yeah, I guess. So...Red, wanna hang out after lunch? We could show you around the place." Leslie gave me an earnest smile.

Did I want to be hanging around with them? I wasn't sure. If Leslie was going to be just as hyperactive the whole time..but they did seem like an easy way to make friends before school started...They seemed like the kind of girls who were part of big social circles....

"Don't worry, you can bring ear plugs if you like." Tim winked as she nodded toward Leslie. Leslie glared at her friend, who pretended not to notice her.

I laughed. They were okay. "Sure, I'd love to. When is lunch again?"

"Well, the dining hall serves lunch

for students from noon to two. But we usually go down there at around one. So we could meet up then?"

"Sure, that works." I smiled.

"It's a date then." Leslie bounced on the bed, earning a glare from Tim.

"Remind me not to let you go near caffeine ever again." She said.

We turned to the sound of someone unlocking the door. Tim smiled. "That must be Honey."

A petite girl with long braided black hair stepped in. When she saw us, she smiled.

"Hey guys." She put her bag on her bed, seeming out of breath.

"Hey, McClain. Your roommie is here." Tim nodded toward me.

"Oh yes. I'd heard you'd already moved in. I'm Honey, as I'm sure these girls might have already told you." She gave me a nervous smile.

"Hi, uh...hi." No way in hell was I calling her by that name. "I'm Red."

"Did you get a tour?" Hon- my roomate asked as she took of her overcoat and hung it on the rack.

"We've offered to give her one. After lunch. You coming?" Tim asked.

"Oh I'd love to. But I'm supposed to meet Senior Medic Wallace in less than an hour."

"You're going again?" Leslie looked concerned.

"Yeah, she needs an assistant for the afternoon shift..so I kinda volunteered." McClain ( I decided the last name wasn't all that bad) shrugged.

"Hun, why would you volunteer? You've already got your hands full." Tim furrowed her brow.

"She asked me..I couldn't exactly refuse."

"You could, actually. You just don't know how to." Tim said. Ah, a people pleaser.

"Hey, that's not fair-" McClain started to say, but Tim cut her off.

"Never mind. Just eat something before you go." Tim hopped of the bunk and Leslie followed.

"Guess we'll see you downstairs, Red?" Tim looked at me.

"Of course."

After Tim and Leslie left, McClain offered to help help me with the unpacking. After I insisted I'd do it myself, she started to frantically make her bed (bunk, whatever) and then proceeded to clean up her mess on the study table and then reorganised her side of the wardrobe, all without pausing for a second.

She wasn't all that chatty either, and the room was flooded with awkward silence, only broken by us moving about. I made an attempt at small talk, asking her about how the medic life is. Broad ended question. Could've led to an interesting conversation. But all I got was a shrug and a distracted 'it's alright'. No way was I going to try again. She was supposed to be welcoming and nice to me, not the other way around.

About an hour later, my roommate had freshened up and was about to leave, when we heard a knock on the door.

It was Andrew and Eric. "Um...Andrew and I were going down for lunch and I thought I'd invite you too. Since its your first day I figured you'd need some help around the place." Oh jeez. Was it bad that I've never been as captivated by anything as I was with Eric William's smile?

I looked at the time. It was ten minutes to one. I could meet up with the girls there. "That'd be great."

"Honey, you could join us too?" Eric said.

"I wish I could, but I have to meet Senior Medic Wallace at one." She said.

" Again? You need to slow down." Eric said.

"Yeah, I know. I know." McClain gave him a small smile.

This is Andrew, by the way. He is Red's cousin." Eric said. Andrew gave her an absentminded half-smile.

"Shall we?" Eric smiled.

"Of course."

As we walked, I shifted my attention from Eric to my cousin. He seemed awfully uncomfortable, and looked as if he wanted to tell me something. He'd open his mouth, then his eyes would dart to Eric and he would shut it close again. He looked more like a fish than anything.

"Andy, you cool?" I asked. His green eyes widened slightly, as if to say 'Not right now'.

Eric looked at him. "Yeah, I've been meaning to ask that. You alright? You look a little..."

"Constipated?" I offered, earning a glare from Andy.

Eric stifled a laugh. "I was about to say troubled."

I shrugged. "Yeah, that works too."

We made small talk on the way, and Andy would try for a smile every now and then, but something was definitely troubling him. Every time Eric and I accidentally (yes, accidentally) touched each other, he'd flinch. After sometime, he moved in to stand in between us. As much as he tried to make it seem casual and incidental, it was obvious he was trying to keep a distance between the two of us.

What was his deal?