My Universe

1: “Grades are just numbers while Claire is infinite.”

It was that time of the year when the following weeks started to become like hell. It was that time when one would feel like crawling across a pathway surrounded by blazing flames with no certainty whether one would survive with a present in the end. It was basically that time of the year when one had temporarily lost their freedom as they had to cross the hellish pathway whether they like it or not otherwise they would be stuck in the deep pit forever.

It was exam week, the one that student hate the most.

Not everyone struggled from the flames as some shameless people would use jetpacks to fly over the painful pathway to the end; with no hard work and difficulty, some students could just pass their exams with a secretly illegal method. For the past weeks, students of every department took every vacant space in the campus library as if it became a motel for them to stay in until late.

Finally, the day had come where the students were close to getting their freedom back. It was the last day of exams and the students were more than determined to finish all exams quickly so they could finally relax with video games and drinks.

The examination hall was packed with students though the room was quiet. The expressions on their faces were clear as their eyes fixated on the pieces of paper on their desk. Some were calm since they were either certain about their answers or just uninterested in trying hard to get a high score on the exam while some were breaking into a cold sweat in nervousness as they worried about how they would be screwed up by just looking at the given questions on the exam paper.

All of them had their attention focused on the exam while there was one woman seated at the left corner of the room with a bright smile on her face as she stared at her exam paper like she was holding a photograph of an adorable puppy. But the thing was, there were only words printed on the exam paper.

“Today is a great day~” Winter singsonged while casually passing her eyes through the words printed on the paper without actually reading them.

The red-haired woman leaned back on her seat as she roamed her eyes around the room while secretly giggling at the thought of the special occasion, which was today. It was amusing how the examination hall was not completely filled with negativity thanks to Winter, who made the room balanced because of her exciting bright aura.

The professor who was in charge of watching over the students walked in front back and forth as he raised an eyebrow when he noticed Winter wearing an excited smile while writing on her exam paper among the anxious students almost having their heads blow up from extreme headaches caused by the complicated questions on the exam. It was the last exam for the last day, so it was not surprising to see everyone working extra hard to complete their exam. The professor could only shake his head as he did not care about whatever the red-haired student was thinking about at that moment.

Wanting to finish his job already, the professor took one last glance on his watch as he let out a sigh of relief when he saw the minute hand finally stopped above the middle top number. An evil smirk briefly appeared on his face when he saw how the concentrated students looking like they were not close to the end yet before he stood on the middle and clapped his hands to get their attention as he noticed some of them flinch from the abrupt breaking of the silence in the big room.

“Time’s up, everyone! Hand over your papers to your front right now!”

Writing the last word on the paper, Winter did not forget to draw a small heart next to it before handing it to the guy in front of her as she let out a loud sigh of relief while realizing that she could finally relaxingly celebrate the special occasion without having to worry about the next exams to take as if she actually truly cared about it.

The others let out whines about how they were not done yet though the professor was not kind enough to let them have extra time as they had their exam papers taken by force eventually. The frustration that they had immediately disappeared as everyone stood up from their seats and began stretching while the others screamed in joy that the hell week was finally over.

“Winter!” the red-haired woman turned as her hair flipped in a way that made her look like she was in a shampoo commercial.

“Hey, girls,” Winter flashed a smile when she saw her friends walking toward her as she took her backpack.

“How’d you do? I seriously hope that I didn’t screw up this time because I really studied hard all week!” Hana complained as she pinched the bridge of her nose.

“Did you really now?” Tina teased.

“I did! You were literally with me every night in the library!” Hana replied with wide eyes.

“All right, whatever,” Tina laughed. “Winter, do you think that you did well?”

“Maybe. Maybe not,” Winter singsonged as she started to walk out of the classroom first while her friends followed her from behind.

“What does that mean? Did you even study?” Tina asked.

“It’s our fourth anniversary today. I don’t have time to think about whether I did well or not,” Winter shrugged as she let out a giggle when the image of her girlfriend’s smiling face appeared in her head.

“Gosh, she’s so whipped like they just started dating yesterday,” Tina said as she shook her head in disbelief.

“Didn’t you say that you’re failing biopsychology?” Hana said as she took her makeup compact out. A smile creeping up on her face as she looked at her reflection. “Wow, who is this goddess?”

“Grades are just numbers while Claire is infinite,” the red-haired woman grinned. The other two women were sure that they could see hearts in her eyes.

“You know that you should start being serious, right?” Tina sighed.

“Who said I’m not? I will never be a player.”

She has completely gone mad, Tina and Hana thought of the same thing as the soulmates that they were.

Seeing how there really was no way for their friend to stop being head over heels for her girlfriend that literally lived more than a hundred miles away, Tina and Hana decided to just let their friend be as the thought of exams being over crossed their minds, bringing smiles of satisfaction on their faces.

“Let’s go outside of campus. I’m suddenly craving for street corn dogs,” Tina suggested.

“Sure!”

The three friends walked out of their building as they were greeted by the fresh air that it felt like it had been a long time since they felt the freshness of nature. Feeling how nice and cold the wind was, that was when they realized that the cause of their stress from the previous days was really over and that they had their freedom back. After all, last day of exams was always one of the best days in life.

“How are you two gonna spend your anniversary? Claire came here last year for a field trip, right?” Hana spoke.

“It’s a really cool coincidence, though,” Tina added in awe.

“I don’t know, honestly. Obviously, my parents wouldn’t let me go to her city nor do I have money for transportation,” Winter let out a sad sigh as she pouted.

“I wish I could help. Sadly, I’m not as rich as the Kardashians to do that,” Tina pouted as well as she linked arms with the red-haired woman.

“Same. The money that I earn from my parttime job only covers my daily expenses,” Hana joined as she linked arms with her on the other side as well.

“It’s all right. I would never ask help from you guys to meet Claire even if you guys could help me,” Winter chuckled as she leaned in to give a peck on each of their cheeks though they were quick enough to avoid her. “Oh, come on!”

“You better save those kisses for your phone.”

“ASSHOLE!”

Laughter flew to the air as the linked arms of the three best friends broke. Even though the people that were walking around the campus were throwing weird glances at them, that did not stop the red-haired woman from chasing her short friend as their other friend just continued fixing her lipstick while running along them while laughing.

Since Tina had short legs, it was easy for Winter to catch her as they just ended up laughing while catching their breaths after. It was basically another day of Winter chasing Tina to do nothing anyway because of her teasing and Hana laughing from the corner while fixing her makeup instead of watching them.

“I need a cold drink,” Winter said while catching her breath as she went to link arms again with Hana.

“Wait for me!” Tina yelled when her two friends began walking away from her.

A lot of people were scattered with some of them hanging out around the campus while the others were rushing to get out of the university to have some fun now that exams were over. Not wanting to lose each other from the crowd, the three best friends stayed by each other’s side until they finally got to step outside of the university, making them able to see the different snack stores and stalls on the sidewalk.

The three of them were about to cross the street when they overheard two women arguing near the gate of their university. Seeing how they were wearing white scrub dresses with a logo patch of their university, they knew that the women were nursing students from the same university as them. Since the three of them were definitely not the type to stay unbothered from people’s arguments and issues, the three best friends stood a few meters away from them as they pretended to be waiting for the vehicles to lessen on the road.

“I told you that I didn’t steal your stethoscope! I have my own stethoscope for the project,” the woman with curly ginger hair said.

“Stop lying! You’re the last one to leave the classroom. There’s no way it wasn’t you who stole it!” the other woman in a ponytail replied in frustration.

“I didn’t even stay in the classroom for more than ten minutes after all of you left. After writing my essay, I took my things and left immediately!” the woman with ginger hair said.

On the other hand, Winter and her friends were exchanging glances as they got even more intrigued about the theft issue that the nursing students were facing.

“Jesus Christ. Ella went back to the classroom to get my stethoscope after ten minutes of leaving and it was no longer on my desk. It can’t be anyone else since she said that she had to unlock the classroom with the key she got from our professor!” The woman in a ponytail would not take a break from glaring at the shorter woman.

“I may be the last person to leave the classroom and to lock it, but that doesn’t mean I’m the thief!”

Winter let go from linking arms with her arms as she started to walk toward them from impatience.

“Do you and your friend have the same project that involves a stethoscope?” Winter asked as she crossed her arms across her chest.

“Huh? Uh, yeah,” the woman in a ponytail answered even though she was completely confused at the sudden presence of the psychology major.

“Does your friend have a stethoscope?”

Tina and Hana watched from afar in amusement as they realized that their best friend was not a student of psychology for nothing.

“I remember her telling me that she was having a hard time to buy a stethoscope. So no, I don’t think so.”

“Then that means your friend is also a suspect, don’t you think?” Winter simply asked as she glanced at the both of them.

“W-What are you talking about? Why would my friend lie to me?” the woman in a ponytail scoffed though the red-haired woman could see how she was starting to have doubts.

“Your question can be answered if you call her right now,” Winter said with a calm smile on her face as she turned to the woman with ginger hair. “Right?”

“U-Uh, yeah.”

It turned out that Winter actually learned some things from her course.