as they made us

-

Damian listened to Kat with a surprising attentiveness despite all of the party bustle going on throughout the house. If anything, it was the way she shared her story that challenged his focus. Finland, Denmark, Sweden, then Norway. His mind pictured each place on a map as she went on. A smile — a genuine one — graced his features when Kat mentioned a lightbulb and pointed above her head. She always did charm him in that way, being sort of… casually offbeat in the most delightful way. “Nervous?” He echoed her word choice. “Why?” One would argue Nighmore, Broadripple… it all felt very small. A tiny world of its own. Wouldn’t that be familiar? “I’m very happy for you,” he told her once she finished catching him up on what’s been going on in her life these past few years. “You… really seem to have found your place in the world. Always a beautiful thing.”

“Myself? Well…” Damian pressed his lips together thoughtfully. His life, regardless of the details that changed since the last time they saw each other, felt strangely the same. He supposed it came with the territory of following a plan, a path chosen for him before his eyes even properly saw sunlight for the first time. “The plan was always going into the field of Medicine for me, attending something of an elite establishment on my way there. Hence Essex. I’m taking Biological Sciences. On the pre-med track with intentions to go to Harvard Medical afterward… I still swim. Captain of the team here now. Spearheading them to victories has been a challenge, but a very rewarding undertaking nonetheless.” What else? “I’m part of a brotherhood now.” He gestured vaguely to the room they were in. “I was a bit hesitant at first given the reputation fraternities get but… Pi Kappa Alpha has an amazing alumni network. We also do good philanthropic work. That’s the bit of it I most enjoy. The lackluster habits and rowdy gatherings… I tolerate more than anything else. But it’s good to be around people who aren’t like you. College is where the world gets more real isn’t it? I’ve learned to adjust. Loosen the reins a little so to speak. It’s… actually been quite nice actually.”

Finding it a bit strange to loiter in his own room, Damian sat himself on the edge of his bed. “What made you want to go on an exchange program?” A beat. And then, “What are you even taking anyway?” A question asked with a tilt of his head. He couldn’t recall if Kat seemed particularly passionate about anything last he saw her. She did like plants. Showed an interest in House Captaincy. Was very knowledgeable on food and nutrition if he could remember correctly.

Kat felt another pang in the pit of her stomach, her insides clenching just a little tighter when Damian explained his enrolment in biological sciences. “Oh yeah, I think I remember that,” she had actually forgotten it completely and It was more than likely that they would be in the same circles, maybe even some of the same classes depending on how Katherine’s credits from the University of Oslo translated to Essex.  She couldn’t help the small, but undeniably fond smile that tugged at the corner of her lips at the mention of the swim team. It felt more like the Damian she recalled for a moment and it was nice. “Maybe not as much has changed,” she conceded. He had felt like a stranger minutes before but all this talk of studying, swimming, volunteering his time for charitable affairs - that was the Damian she knew. The Damian she had been so embarrassingly infatuated with. “It’s a good time to get to know yourself, I think - and not worry so much about other people’s opinions” at least that had been Kat’s experience, a far cry from how she had felt during her high school years.

She wasn’t sure if Damian was aware that Andrea was on campus - surely they had crossed paths before but if that was the case, had they truly never spoken about Kat when they did? She tried not to think about it for too long. “Just saw the opportunity and you know, I missed friends and family at home so why not?” she shrugged her shoulders. When he asked about her studies, her mind returned to her previous thought. “Nursing, actually,” she wondered if the same thing would cross his mind about them being a part of the same faculty. 

esscxbound​:

“Oh, Oslo. How swell. I’ve been meaning to visit Norway for a while. Never quite got around to it, but that’s great that you’re back in you’re… well, not hometown I suppose. But where your family is originally from. Must be very nice.” Damian pushed his mouth into a smile and gave a nod of his head, lips pressed together in a perfectly polite manner. Faux pas like that should have been impossible to come back from, but Kat has always been rather gracious with his shortcomings. He supposed some things didn’t change and he was glad for it.

The confusion was expected. Damian wasn’t surprised by that. “I do. I live in this fraternity actually. I have the charger just upstairs —” He raised his pointer finger toward the ceiling. “ — if you’d like to come along.” His body had already shifted in the direction of the stairs, lingering for a moment as he stared at Kat to see if she’d be willing to follow him, before ultimately deciding to move along anyway.  “How long ago did you make the move? I imagine that would have been quite an adjustment from you, growing up here and all.” Small talk as they made their way up the staircase and he led her through the second floor’s corridor.

“My room’s just in here,” he revealed when he came to a halt in front of one of the doors. Retrieving a key from his shirt’s pocket, he went to unlock the door but then paused when he realized how strange it might have appeared that he had to unlock a door in a house he lived in with a key. He turned to look over his shoulder at Kat and explained. “I keep my door locked because these parties tend to get pretty rowdy. I’m not to keen on having strangers copulate on my bed.” Or mess about with his belongings. With that out of the way, he twisted the key in the knob and entered his space, gesturing for Kat to follow in after him. “Welcome. The charger’s on the bedside just there.”

-

“Yes,” she confirmed, trying to keep up with his rambling. Had he always been so prone to crammed as many words into a single comment as humanly possible? “I’m living with my cousin and his family during semester break, it’s good - my grandparents live near by and a lot of people in town know them, so it feels a little bit like being at home,” she explained warmly. She had been so nervous about moving abroad at first but her family members had been so welcoming and helpful, even if they hadn’t seen Katherine in person since she was a pre-teen. 

She raised her eyebrows, surprised to hear that not only was Damian attending a fraternity party, surrounded by frat boys but he was actually a frat boy himself. It didn’t quite feel right to Kat. He had always been so disapproving of the wannabe fraternity at Broadripple, the aptly named Broadripple Boys Club. 

She followed his lead without question, it was almost embarrassing. “It was scary at first,” she confessed, “So, the Summer before senior year, my Dad was going to a conference in Finland and his assistant got COVID before he was going so he suggested maybe I go and play PA for a few days, earn a little bit of money and then after the conference we could go to Denmark because I don’t have good memories of going there and a quick stop in Sweden because I never been and obviously Norway to see family and stuff,” she explained, “I fell in love honestly, I just felt like I could be there forever. When I got back home I couldn’t shut up about it and everything I saw and all the people I met and my Mom was like - well, you know you’re a citizen you can move there any time you want to move there and it was just like a lightbulb up here,” she pointed to the space just above her head. “So I applied for Universities in Olso and Tromso and Lund, Stockholm, Copenhagen - even in Trondheim all the way up so far North in Norway,” she continued, “I got into a couple but I settled on Oslo because- I don’t know, I was nervous about being in a small town,” she hadn’t admitted that to anyone before. She recalled his question then, “So yeah, it was a little bit scary but it was amazing too. My Norwegian got so much better so fast, I figured out how to use the buses by myself and I never felt like an outsider, I guess,” she supposed it helped that Oslo was so used to visitors and migrants alike.

Katherine tried her very best not to visibly flinch at Damian’s use of the word ‘copulate’ but she couldn’t help the slight twitch in her eye as his syllables formed the phrase. “That’s fair,” she said to detract from the look on her face, “I don’t think I would want that either,” she agreed diplomatically, approaching the charger and plugging her phone in. 

“-and so, do you have a story for the last...” she tried to calculate it quickly “Few years?” evidentially math remained an Achilles heel for the blonde so she didn’t other with a specific number.

-

Immense relief was what Damian felt when the blonde before him agreed to spell out her name. Finally, he thought. They could settle this conundrum once and for all. It was a few moments later when her phone was being held up to his face and he was reading a name he hadn’t thought of properly in some years.

“Kat?”

His eyes grew wide almost comically at the realization that he’d been talking to a former something this entire time. Sounding as obtuse as they come given what childishness they were going back and forth on. My God, he was so embarrassed. He didn’t even know what to say!

It was then he took in her features with more scrutiny this time. It was Kat. Sure, with longer hair, but still Kat all the same. “I’m… I’m so sorry.” Apologetic for something else entirely now. In fact, he was flustered with how frightfully ashamed he felt for not recognizing her. He did to some degree but wrote it off as a similarity. “I just never expected to see you here. We lost contact and I just didn’t think our paths would ever…” He trailed off. “I’m sorry. Really, I am. I feel… impossibly stupid right now.” He pushed out a shaky breath, rubbing the back of his neck in an effort to soothe the heat crawling up the sides of his face.

What did you say to someone you never expected to see again?

“How… how are you? I’d offer to get you a drink but it appears I’ve just done that. Do you maybe want a charger instead?” He asked, lifting a finger to point out the 10% battery her phone was on.

-

“Yep,” he was still questioning her while she stood directly in front of him and it stung. Her lips parted to speak, to tell him that it was alright, to assure him that he wasn’t the biggest idiot who had ever been born and that his ignorance was just fine - but was it? The way her stomach had coiled with embarrassment said otherwise. “Yes,” she said simply, making an effort not to crumble into immediate forgiveness. “ I don’t even go here,” she wasn’t caving but she wasn’t as steely as she had been a moment beforehand, allowing him somewhat of an excuse for his confusion. “I’m on exchange from my home school, like I live in Oslo, actually, so you wouldn’t see me around, probably,” she didn’t live in Oslo proper, she lived in a nearby town that Damian had almost definitely never heard of. When she wasn’t studying, she lived even further away in a coastal town on the western coast. There, she lived with her cousin’s family, earning a humble income by working at a local wharf, renting sea kayaks and ferrying people to nearby islands. 

When he offered the phone charger, her brow creased slightly with mild confusion, remedied only a moment later when he pointed out the life - or lack there of - the device had remaining. “Yeah, actually, okay - do you have that?” she couldn’t help but wonder if he actually knew where a charger was or where to find one if he didn’t. At this point, she was fairly convinced he would have offered just about anything he could think of to make up for his faux pas. Perhaps she should have asked if he had the keys to a brand new car on offer.

-

“If Okay is your name.” Frustration was beginning to bubble within him. It was as if Damian was speaking another language and this person just couldn’t understand him. If she was indeed foreign, that was probably the case after all. But golly, who knew making an introduction could be so difficult? Practice patience, practice patience, practice patience, he reminded himself in his head. She was claiming not to be upset but anyone with working eyes could see that she was.

Her name is Okay..? Or Finokay? Was Finokay the full form of her name? Damian’s mouth fell open and shut a few times, looking much like a fish as he tried to comprehend what was just shared with him. He had to speak up about his confusion and make it plain now. It was beyond insanity that this has grown so difficult. But before he could, she cut off his train of thought by requesting another beer and considering how he had clearly offended her just now, he felt obligated to without complaint. “Right. Of course. Give me a moment.” 

Giving a slight bow of his head, Damian left the space to retrieve a fresh beverage for… Okay. Finokay. Whatever her name was. He made sure to find a bottle that was nice and cold as well, resting at the bottom of the cooler beneath partially melted ice cubes. After removing the bottle cap with an opener, he made his way to Okay again, thankful that she hadn’t seemed to run off in her frustration with his confusion over her name. “Here you are. Nice and cold.” He held the bottle toward her. “This might be an odd request but could you spell your name for me? I’m just — I really want to get this right and have things flowing as smoothly as possible moving forward.”

Damian’s absence actually did allow Katherine to cool off to some extent. It had been her intense when she’d sent him on the errand but she hadn’t been all that confident that it would work. She managed to catch her breath, settle the bile in her throat that caused her to spit venom at Damian with every word and felt less like she was going to cry as well. Did it really matter if he didn’t remember her? If he didn’t cherish the time they’d spent clumsily slamming their hips against one another in the quiet corners of the campus? Things were different for Katherine now. She was independent. She had moved to another country where she had been forced to learn new ways of living and make new friends without her family, the church or a school uniform to make it easy for her. Sixteen year old Katherine had needed Damian to care about her so that she had a reason to care about herself. Today, Kat saw a future for herself. She was studying and doing surprisingly well, she had a job that she enjoyed where she was well liked and commended for her efforts, she had a good relationship with her parents and siblings and no longer endeavoured to be the center of their attention at all times. She was doing well. So what did it really matter if she crossed Damian’s vacuous mind from time to time?

Then he was back in sight again and God, he was still as handsome as ever. His eyes a piercing blue and the skin of his nose sun kissed and freckled. His hair perfectly tamed, as always and a smile any orthodontist would be proud to have procured. She couldn’t help but wonder if he’d maintained the physique from his days as swimming captain and her eyes fell to his waist line before a beer appeared in front of them and the male spoke again. 

“Okay, yeah, I will spell it then,” she was exhausted by his games, made evident by the snappy clipping of her voice as she gave into his request. She reached for a napkin but quickly realised that she would be hard pressed to find a pen - though knowing Damian, he probably always kept one on his person. Ten bucks said it was a Mont Blanc fountain pen, the same one of her professors used...though he was a seventy year something year old retired surgeon.

-

No. Straight-forward and without the quiver of a doubt laced in it. This woman definitely had Russian roots. If Damian was a betting man, he’d put money on it. “Oh. Well, I guess… just me then.” He pushed out an awkward chuckle, hoping to diffuse the tension that was swiftly growing out of hand between himself and this stranger.

“If that’s your name..? Sorry, I didn’t meant to upset you. I’m just— this conversation has become impossibly more complicated than I ever expected it to be.” Damian certainly felt like he’d committed some cultural faux pas. Wherever this young lady was from, he clearly would not succeed at basic introductions. “Your name is Okay, isn’t it? Am I pronouncing it wrong? I truly apologize if I’ve offended you.” He put a hand to his chest to emphasize just how much he meant that. It seemed his time vacationing in Europe in his younger years did nothing to prepare him for this. “Maybe if you tell me how to spell your name, perhaps I could sound it out better.”

“If what is my name?” Kat wondered how it was more difficult for Damian to remember that they had gone to school together than to have a conversation  resulting in one or more parties suffering an aneurysm. “I’m not upset,

When more questions followed, Kat had to wonder if Damian had always been this insufferably obtuse or whether this was a trait he had recently developed as a result of being embedded in fraternity culture. She could feel her blood pressure rising and hot in her ears and though he was committed to profusely apologising for it, he didn’t seem to have the slightest clue what it was he was apologising for. She wasn’t sure that she even knew at this point. 

“My name is okay, yes. It’s fine, okay? Not that you even know it, so I don’t know why you’re asking- can you get me another beer maybe?”  she insisted. 

-

Is that true? Damian made a face at her question, unsure if he was expected to answer it or not. Well, he wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t… He stared at the blonde before him strangely. It was probably all too easy to read the confusion on his face — all creased forehead and slanted brows. For the sake of carrying the conversation away from awkward waters, he responded. “Sure, I’d say there’s fondness. It was… just a bit of a complicated situation is all. A lot of nuance to… remembering. You know how it is, right?” As if all strangers he’d encountered had a past… something that shook them to their core back in boarding school.

“Okay…?” Now it was Damian’s turn to have his tone curl upward. He couldn’t tell if that was supposed to be this woman’s name or not. Quite… exotic for a name. Was she foreign? She did seem a little foreign. Would explain the accent he detected. And the lack of warmth when they shook hands. (Russian? Possibly?) His brows shot upward when she announced she had somewhere to be. “Hold on, I didn’t get your name,” he cut in before she could go anywhere. “If it’s Okay, I’m very sorry. It’s just not a name that’s familiar to me.” How painfully American of him.

“No,” she said bluntly, wishing now that she had kept the two-fingers worth of warm beer in the bottom of her discarded bottle so that she would have something to wash the bitter taste of rejection out of her mouth with. His lack of commitment to saying that he remembered Katherine fondly only deepened the wound. 

“If what is okay?”  she asked, a little venomously, painfully frustrated by the situation and how very, very wrong her various fantasies about this exact reunion had been. If erasing her existence from his consciousness was the behaviour in question then no, she would assert, it was not okay, it was fucked. If Damian was querying something else, however, it was lost on Kat. Maybe Drea's wisdom about American boys being a bunch of dopes had been more valuable that Kat had given her credit for. Damian was certainly proving the other girl’s theory on time-wasting frat bros with this encounter.

-

“Oh.” Damian glanced down at the bottle momentarily. A brief second passed where he considered handing the empty bottle back to her despite how unappealing drinking the remaining contents seemed. Thankfully, the blonde shared she planned to get another anyway. He shifted his gaze back upward and flashed a smile at her then. “Well, I’d imagine that one would taste much better than this,” he offered with a chuckle — slightly forced, out of politeness more than anything — before holding the bottle behind himself. It was then that he took proper notice of the woman before him. Blonde, tall, quite charming aesthetically. Had he seen her before? There was something familiar about her. “You remind me of someone I used to know,” he revealed then. Something akin to nostalgia, maybe a bit of tenderness, swirled about in his chest then. He quickly brushed it aside knowing it was childish however. “Maybe you just have one of those faces…” He reasoned with himself before stepping toward her and holding out his hand to introduce himself. “I’m Damian.”

The warmth her gaze had held just moments before was doused with all the grace of a sparkler being stamped out by a steel-capped boot when Damian informed her that she resembled a clearly withered memory of his . Ouch. 

“Is that true?” she offered plainly, a little distantly, almost as if the upward inflection of her voice was habitual and she didn’t actually want an answer of any sort. Certainly, their conversations hadn’t ever been all that poetic, if meaningful at all but this one had really smashed the record for most pitiful. “Hopefully someone you think fondly of,” she added, bitterly as she straightened her spine and squared her shoulders, preparing for a swift departure before his hand came jutting toward her. God. She had no hope of disappearing and avoiding him for the rest of her life now, he actually expected an introduction. 

“Okay,” she accepted his handshake with all the tenderness of an icicle. Sure, she had matured somewhat, her hair was much longer and perhaps her accent had been warped by her return to Minnesota and more so by her time in Oslo but was she truly that forgettable? The thought wrapped her insides in barbed wire and pulled tight as their hands fit together. “I have somewhere to be, actually,” she announced dismissively by way of excusive herself. It wasn’t even untrue, in fact, she sort of did have somewhere to be while the last few remaining shreds of her self confidence were in tact - she was now committed to finding a bottle of red wine she could chug in record time and anybody of any sort who could make her feel less like the most unremarkable person who was ever born. 

WHERE: A party at Pi Kappa Alpha WHEN: Night time?? 9ish OPEN TO ALL

“This isn’t mine,” Damian announced. Between his fingers was an empty beer bottle that he was holding onto awkwardly. “I’m just trying to stay on top of the mess,” he went on to further clarify. Pi Kappa Alpha was no stranger to hosting parties. Damian was no stranger to being inconvenienced by them. Loud noise, littering, general tomfoolery… You’d think he’d have gotten used to it by now. At times, he deluded himself into thinking he had grown accustomed to it as well. But as the night went on and the general disarray started to pile up, the inevitable unease would crawl up Damian’s spine and settle uncomfortably over his shoulders. “This wasn’t yours, was it? Hardly anything in it.” He shook the bottle. There was barely half an inch of liquid in it.

If anybody below a solid six and a half had dared to pick up the mostly empty beer that Katherine had abandoned and had definitely forgotten about the moment somebody waved a watermelon vape in her general direction, it could have been enough to throw Kat into a shrieking fit at them. Fortunately for Damian, however, Kat had always thought of him as well above a solid six and he earned bonus points for being sufficiently taller than her and ripped as well.

Unfortunately, for Damian, however, Katherine hadn’t expected to ever see him again, after he had gradated from boarding school a year ahead of her.  She was borderline incoherent at the best of times - one of the many reasons she leaned into other students assuming she was a foreign exchange student simply because she had come from a foreign university on exchange -  but caught off guard like this and with perhaps more than just the nearly empty bottle of beer in her belly, she was pretty much useless. 

“Yeah, actually, it’s mine,” 

-

“ Totally, exactly. ” Drea nodded her head in agreement. Some things went way too far, and she was glad that Essex greek life had been largely boring rather than largely traumatising. “ But I’ve never seen anything that bad. ” She assured, not so much in defence of Essex Greek Life so much as herself. High School Drea might have put up with a lot of nonsense and people going too far, but College Drea didn’t. “ Like the worst I’ve heard is the frat pledges being on clean up duty for parties. Which, obviously, I wouldn’t wanna fucking do, but I think is pretty standard stuff. ”

Kat’s reaction to the news of Drea swearing an oath made her smile. Pressing lips together in attempt to contain it. She liked the idea that despite their closeness, she still had the capability to be shocking. And not in a bad way. Well, mostly. She allowed a small chuckle to pass her lips before she answered, “ Well, yeah, obviously. It was ridiculous. ” She said, “ But I think everyone kinda knew that it wasn’t super serious. It was just tradition and, like, an excuse to get all dressed up and whatever. ” And in that regard it had been sort of fun. It’d been fun to compare dresses to her fellow pledges and try and work out if they could look hot or if it was like a victorian dressing gown situation. Thankfully it had been more the former. “ Like no one’s gonna kill me if I don’t uphold the values of Alpha Delta Pi. ” She said, her tone a little facetious before she cracked another smile. 

At first Drea thought Kat was being dramatic. Many aspects felt like going through the motions, there wasn’t much to miss. But the way she said Ben’s name really put it in perspective. It immediately reminded her of high school. And while she tried not to live in regret, she did regret a significant part of her high school experience. “ Yeah, he’s good. He’s really good. And we’re good. We’re great ” The words came out a little awkwardly, thrown off a bit by having to say it all to Kat’s face. “ We’re official now, actually, did I tell you that? ” She asked, though she knew she hadn’t. Notoriously private person that she was. The most information people got were instagram posts or stories with no captions. “ He organised this, like, really cute day for us together. We went to a gallery and had a really nice dinner, and stayed at a hotel and stuff. ” She didn’t intend to gush like she did, but the day had been really special and she really liked Ben. Despite their history, or maybe because of it. “ It was really, really sweet. ”

“ Which is why, no, I have not had time to find you a man, I’m sorry. ” She continued, smile growing from the small, bashful sort of one to something wider and cheekier. “ The fact that you still want some boring ass rich sports guy when you have all the sexy, suave Europeans you could ever want, like, a stone’s throw away is a total fucking mystery to me. ” She said, an easy chuckle with her words. If she was a $100 flight from Spain she definitely wouldn’t be thinking of Americans. “ You’re way too good for any of the dopes I know, seriously. Like if you were hoping for my blessing to wife up a frat bro, you’re denied, I’m being so serious. ” She threatened but her teasing tone and wide smile gave her away easily. Obviously she would encourage whatever Kat had planned for her time at Essex. 

“If you need more weird dresses and candles in your life, all you have to do is come to church with me sometimes, you’ll have plenty of opportunities,” Kat hadn’t yet found a local church to attend whenever she felt the need to check in with Jesus and make sure they were still cool. It hadn’t slipped her mind however - she was just trying to delay it for as long as possible before the guilt of ghosting God outweighed her desire to not sit around listening to scripture without even being able to pull her phone out to kill time.

“Wow,” was Kat’s only response to the revelation for the time being. Both girls knew that Drea had not already told Kat about the development but this wasn’t unusual for them and it rarely bothered Kat. Katherine trusted Drea and knew that though she was inclined to withhold some things until the very last moment before they were forcefully squeezed out of her, Kat knew that Drea was honest when it mattered. 

Their disparate willingness to be candid was one of the many characteristics that distinguished Kat and Drea. While Andrea was more reserved when it came to the intimate details of her life, Katherine would share them with just about anyone that allowed her the opportunity.  It wasn’t that Drea was shy, nobody had ever accused her of that, she was private. Having grown up in a household that was so overpopulated by fair-haired children that it never knew a moment’s peace, privacy was a concept almost foreign to Kat. “Did he do all that?” Kat questioned, struggling to picture the boy she had known in high school organising anything, to be perfectly frank, let alone something even remotely romantic. Maybe she ought to cut him some slack, Katherine considered. “It sounds so nice - can I see photos?” she tried not to let jealously tarnish her words, nor the genuine sentiment in her tone of voice. It was a nasty thing, jealousy and she had tried to train herself to not fall victim to it.

when: late, frat party where: frat house, 2nd floor open to all.

lucas was not in the party mood today. melody (the npc gf) posted a bunch of thirst traps earlier that evening and it caused an argument that got entirely out of hand. he told the guys not to bother him, and to keep people off the second floor as much as possible, but so far he’s had ten people come knocking and three of his brothers bringing him a beer. – when another knock came out of nowhere, he assumed it was billy coming back and rushed in frustration. he needed to put up a sign up or something. “i said fuck off bro, i don’t wanna –” but it wasn’t billy, and he felt like shit instantly. “sorry, thought you were someone else. what’s up?” 

Naturally, Jack bristled, his shoulders square and his jaw tight at the sound of the other male’s venomous voice. It wasn’t as if he wasn’t used to being told to ‘fuck off’ but it certainly didn’t make it any easier to stomach when it happened out of the blue, certainly without cause on this occasion. Not to mention, there was just something about the timbre of the average American male that sounded like nails on a chalkboard to Jacks. Ironic, due to his own accent but true nonetheless. 

“You what?” he barked, chin tipped slightly upward in an effort to create the illusion of an extra inch of height (if that). Then, as if a magic wand had been waved between them, the visceral tension between them disappeared and Jacks couldn’t help but laugh. 

-

“ Mmhmm, yeah, great cover, I believe you. ” Drea mused sarcastically, her lips turning upwards in that little knowing smirk. Amused with both Kat and her own response. The way they went around in circles like that could probably entertain her endlessly. “ But I like it, it is nice. ” She continued more genuinely. And though her attendance was shot for various reasons, it was true. She wasn’t sure she could imagine Kat sitting still in a mostly silent room for an hour, painting still life. Not without attempting to bash her head through a canvas. “ You know what we should do? One of those wine and paint nights. ” She suggested in place of inviting Kat along to one of the few meetings she attended. It would be more fun when there weren’t people in the room taking it seriously. And they could gossip and be loud and annoying freely. “ That could be really cute. ” 

She shrugged at the notion that maybe the sorority she had joined wasn’t a good one. She didn’t think that was it. Some of the other girls really got around it and enjoyed it, and she thought she was capable of getting around it too. Only she hadn’t wanted to. “ I don’t know, I don’t think it’s that dramatic. Like the girls are nice and everything.  ” Her problems with this sorority were problems she would have with any sorority, she thought. It just wasn’t her. It was extremely touching, however, to know that Kat would have pledged with her had she been here. Easily earning a soft little smile. “ It would be. ” She agreed, though she was aware maybe it should have been past tense. But for that moment it felt right. “ We would have gotten so many bids as a duo, everyone would want us. Obviously. ” She continued, raising her brows in a quick little cocky movement.

A question that wasn’t uncommon even if Kat’s struggle to the right words were. Her dad had told her that if she had to do anything like in the movies to join a sorority she should report it to the campus life office. It had made her a little excited when she first started the recruitment process but it turned out much more boring than that. “ Yeah, you have to do pledging but it’s not like bad, or anything. Not like the movies. ” And not like the frats, which weren’t that bad from what she’d heard but she was still glad the girls were a bit more sleepover-sisterhood sort of vibes. “ You have to go to a bunch of social things and help run a bunch of social things. Mainly you hang out with your big which is like your mentor I guess. ” She wondered if that shed any light on the whole not-for-Drea of it all. The truth was she didn’t mind it at that phase, it was just now she had no interest. “ And there’s parties but that’s not, like, official. ” She noted. A brief pause and then her features lit up a little as she remembered a little detail from that semester. “ I had to swear an oath. ” She announced, it was probably the most movie-esque part of the offical sorority experience. “ Candles, white dresses, the whole thing. That was kinda freaky. ” She grinned. 

Would Katherine be adverse to spending an hour or so painting the washboard abs of a local athlete? She couldn’t, in good faith, say that she would but that didn’t make her a pervert, at least not if you asked her, anyway. “Oh my God,” Kat inhaled sharply, her posture straightening as her face lit up, inspired by Drea’s idea, “We should- we have to, actually,” she confirmed. She would have been eager to do just about anything that involved drinking wine with Andrea but this idea was particularly special to her. It would remove all of the other worries that came with the concept of painting in front of other people but still allowed her to have her time creating a portrait of an apple or other fruit of her choosing. “Light some candles, put on some nice music- yes, we will do this,” it was no longer a question of if but a question of when they would do it.  

“Yeah, obviously,” Kat had easily reverted back to an old high school trait of hers; repeating whatever Drea concluded with additional emphasis, instead of contributing anything unique herself. It wasn’t something she was consciously aware of but it stemmed from her admiration for the other girl, it seemed. There were few others on the planet that Kat tended to agree with as much as Andrea Pearson. 

“Mmm,” she hummed thoughtfully. She had heard of hazing scandals before and some of the boys at school had gotten dangerously close to similar pranks for their made up rich assholes club. She was pleased to hear that it wasn’t something Drea had gotten tangled up with, though Kat was sure she’d have handled herself well if she had. “I don’t know about that stuff anyway,” she wrinkled her nose slightly at the thought, “-like yeah, some stuff can be funny but people take it too far, almost always,” life up North had instilled in Kat somewhat of a new sensibility, it seemed. She had been humbled, to some degree by Janteloven and had a new appreciation for people who treated others well. 

“Oh my God,” she uttered once again at the description of Andrea’s pledge. She couldn’t help but laugh, partially in shock, partially amused by the thought of Drea in the midst of a cult-like ritual - the expression on Drea’s face “Wow, um, yeah, I didn’t expect that,” she confessed, “Did you laugh a bit?” she couldn’t imagine Drea taking shit like that seriously, she could barely sit through chapel during highschool without an eyeroll or two. 

“My God, I feel like- I don’t know, I feel like I missed so much,” she realised suddenly. “What else? What about Ben, actually?” she still felt a little twitch in her stomach at the mention of the B-word. Maybe it was childish to let the past have such an influence on her. Probably, it was childish but she couldn’t help it, the male still felt like a dirty little secret, even if they were all mature enough to get over the events of their adolescent years. “-and did you find a six-foot-four handsome athlete with lots of money and a NHL LIVE subscription for me to marry yet or still working on it?”

-

“ Oh my god, ” Drea gasped excitedly at the reveal, even though the bottle had hit her side just a few moments ago. “ You sneaky little thing, ” She cooed, reaching out to pinch Kat’s arm affectionately. “ We can so do that, I’ve got some cups around here somewhere. ” She said, looking around briefly as though they might just jump out and make themselves known. Not that she was above drinking straight from the bottle with Kat, it wouldn’t be the first time and surely wouldn’t be the last either. She chuckled again softly when the blonde called herself a genius, “ Mmhmm, right, of course, ” She mused with a playful sarcasm, nodding her head and pursing her lips. “ Just a busy little genius you are, Kat Bishop. ” 

“ Cute, ” She responded to the news that Kat had joined a gardening club. Completely unsurprising. She couldn’t wait to hear about exactly which potted plant was replacing her. Or she could wait if it was another fucking cucumber plant. She groaned a little as she started listing off the clubs Essex had to offer, turning away to start haphazardly looking through her things for cups. “ God, yeah, okay– I’m starting to understand the origami club decision all of a sudden, it’s making sense, ” She said, tone implying a joke but those options were truly lacklustre. No wonder she hadn’t delved into the clubs at Essex. At what Kat said next she snorted a small laugh as she looked back to the other. “ Jeez, perv, that desperate for a bit of action, are you? ” Drea teased, cheeky smile spreading on her features as she held the suspense for a moment before shaking her head. “ It’s mostly, like, still life. Apple and jar on a table, type of thing. ” She elaborated. Or at least that had been the gist she’d gotten. She’d heard there was supposed to be a landscape, watercolour thing for the end of semester before summer but she hadn’t ended up going. 

She started her answer with a shrug but with the final question it had to pause for a moment. “ Oh, that one. Definitely that one. ” She assured, smile spreading on her features easily. But then to actually answer, “ Nothing happened, I just– I don’t know, I guess it’s not really me. ” It felt like a bit of a cop out but it was the truth. Her parents had wanted her to join a sorority, so she had. It had definitely had benefits, and Drea had certainly reaped many of them already. But there was a part of her that looked around at any event and wondered if she liked where she was standing. “ And the dorms being on campus is so much more convenient than finding an apartment, so, here I am. ” She finished with a smile. She was sound in her decision, even if she was worried about some of the people she’d already seen in the halls. Ben was here, and now Kat was here. That would keep her sane. “ Would you have done the whole sorority thing with me if you hadn’t gone to Oslo? ” She asked, head tilting a little with curiosity. It would have been so much more bearable with Kat, she thought. Though she may not have benefited so much. “ I think you’d really get into it all, you know, ” 

Kat sincerely felt pretty clever when Drea reacted with astonishment. If she had been willing to be more self aware, she might have noticed that Drea’s response was slightly sarcastic but Katherine had no desire for such a thing. Instead, she relished in her best friend’s enthusiasm, feeling much like a teenager again. It was a welcome feeling. She chuckled at Andrea’s compliment, though on this occasion, she knew that Drea was being superfluous for Kat’s benefit. Still, she played into the fantasy with cheeky arrogance, “Yes, I know,” she confirmed as if ‘busy genius’ was a common enough description of Katherine Bishop.

“I was just asking a question, okay,” Kat squeaked defensively, feigning shock in response to the accusation, “Obviously, I was just wondering for you if that was why maybe you’re not so excited about it or something,” of course, the question had stemmed from her concern for Andrea’s well being, duh.  “-but it sounds nice, actually, I would like to paint an apple,” actually, she liked the idea of being somebody who would like to paint an apple. Realistically, Kat would become frustrated by her lack of artistic talent, bored by the fact that it took so long so actually paint something.

It was admittedly surprising to hear that Sorority life wasn’t for Drea. During school, Kat would have easily have been convinced that Andrea was capable of establishing a fully fledged cult and now she couldn’t fit into a house of girls that just drank and studied together? It didn’t seem right but Kat opted not to voice it that way. “Maybe it’s just not a good one,” she offered because she was certain that it was a matter of the Sorority being lame, not Drea being out of place. 

“Well, yeah, hello? I’d do anything with you, so,” she insisted with confidence and was certain that they both knew it was true enough. Whether Kat had any personal desire to join a Sorority or not, she wouldn’t have hesitated if it had been something she and Drea had decided to do together. “It would be like school again,” she thought. 

sounds like; body by loud luxury, narcissist by no rome feat. the 1975, boy’s a liar by pinkpantheress.

-

Drea felt she could have known that the Origami Club would smells weird without Kat’s saying so, comes with the territory of an Origami Club at an old American school she thought. But she crinkled her nose in sympathy nonetheless as she shut door behind them. “ Mmm, ” She hummed, nodding her head. To show her that she was listening than actually agreeing that she remembered the time Kat made a shirt origami for her dad one father’s day.  “ Yeah, history or otherwise it’s still a bunch of people choosing to fold paper in a room. ” When they could be doing literally anything else, she thought but left off for Kat’s benefit. It was different when Kat decided to do it, because it was Kat. That was the way Drea had always seen it. She opens her mouth to thank Kat for the gift (useless as it was), but she doesn’t get it out before Kat has decided to dump the remaining cranes on the table. Her brows furrowed, “ I don’t know about that, no, ” She said, Drea didn’t want her room to be crowded by the paper cranes even if she was okay with the notion that she would give any of her roommates a gift. “ They’re kinda, ” She looked to Kat and crinkled her features more, a way of silently describing that she hadn’t found much common ground with them so far and didn’t anticipate that she would. Or that was the polite, fair way to put it. And silent because while she knew Wendy was out she didn’t know if the others were in their room or not. “ You could give them to your roommates, ” She suggested, abandoning common room to move back to her and Wendy’s room. “ You can borrow a bag, I’ve just been unpacking, I’ve got a couple. ” Because if Kat wasn’t taking them, they would end up in the bin the moment she turned her back. 

She shook her head, she did not know there were so many clubs in Oslo. It made perfect sense that Kat had decided to go to college there, but there was still a twinge of abandonment lodged between Drea’s ribs. “ Did you ever go to class? ” She asked teasingly, smirk returning to her features. She turned to sit on the edge of her bed, leaning back on her hands. “ So what else then? What does Essex have on offer? ” She smiled. She shrugged lazily at the question. “ A couple, ” She wasn’t much for social clubs, never had been. “ So I still do cross country, and I joined a painting club last semester, ” Though she had barely attended, finding it hard to reason spending her time there even if she enjoyed it. “ And still doing the sorority thing but like, eh, ” She waved a hand, as if to say not really. Because she wasn’t really doing it. “ Not what it says it is, like, at all. You know? ” She voiced, though she had no idea how to leave it, or if she even could. Best she had gotten was deciding not to live in the house and opting to return to the dorms. 

She wrinkled her nose at the mention of history because she really had just signed up to fold paper in a room, “I just wanted to learn to do like, maybe a elephant or something,” she had stayed in a hotel in Maine once and her bath towel had been made into the shape of a lobster when housekeeping had visited one afternoon. She’d thought it would be neat to learn something like that.

“Yeah,” she agreed, though she didn’t really want to take the cranes back to her dorm either. That said, it was more appealing once Drea had presented her with a bag to keep them in, though she could have just used the one she had been housing the wine in. Speaking of which...”Oh!” she chimed, the smile returning to her face, “Speaking of unpacking, look here,” she revealed the bottle of prosecco that was hardly a surprise since it had already battered them both by no fault of its own. “I thought we could do a little reunion-house-warming-start-of-semester-drinky-thing” she suggested, having grown quite accustomed to waving bottles of alcohol around since the drinking age in Norway was only eighteen. So much more civilised in the U.S., she thought.

She chuckled at Drea’s question, “Obviously, that’s why I’m a genius,” she gloated, though she was aware that it wasn’t exactly an accurate descriptor though she had managed to have moderate success in her tertiary career. 

“Mmm,” she tried to remember all of them but admittedly it had been sort of a blur when she had Googled the clubs from Gardermoen airport before departing for her semester abroad, “So, I did gardening club,” it wasn’t called that but Drea should have known that Kat improvised more often than not to get a point across, “Dumb stuff like politics and computer things and I don’t know, theatre and public speaking and robots,” she shrugged her shoulders, there weren’t any hiking groups or clubs where students got together to kayak or jump in the sea and she had found herself quite uninspired by the offerings. “Is there like, nude models or something?” Kat asked and if she’d thought about it for more than a second or two, she could have probably have come to the conclusion herself that staring at naked people for hours was unlikely to be the cornerstone of a just-for-fun student organisation. 

“Oh my God- I forgot,” she confessed. It had been a lot easier to ignore the fact that Drea had joined a sorority when Kat was abroad, rather than stew in jealousy over it. “I’m kind of sad I missed out,” at least she had been at first though secretly, she was somewhat pleased to hear that Drea wasn’t all that wrapped with the concept. “-but why? What happened? Is that why you’re in dorms this semester?” she asked at a million miles an hour, “-or just to be closer to me, probably?” she teased, knowing that that wasn’t why Drea had moved back into the dorms but sort of hoping that Andrea might say it was anyway.

-

Drea’s features immediately cracked into a grin as her joke went completely misunderstood. “ I know what origami is, I’m talking about the thousand crane trail you’re leaving behind. That’s either for a wish or for you to find your way home. ” She joked with an easy laugh, though she hadn’t actually seen any trail left behind she it wasn’t a far stretch to believe that Kat might be leaving one. 

Before she can question the Origami Club of it all (trust Kat to know that was a fucking thing and decide to go), she is pulled back into the actual moment. Their reunion. “ Oh my god, it’s so fucking good to see you, ” She said, wrapping her arms around the other and hugging her tightly. She had missed her, she realised that even more now that she was actually here and they weren’t just texting about it. She Winced a little as the bag hit her side, she could guess what was in it, it was all too familiar for the two of them. “ Even if you’re trying to beat me up, ” She complained playfully into her shoulder, holding onto her for a moment longer, even swinging from side to side just a little before she pulled away. Hands remaining on her shoulders for a beat before she stepped aside to let her in. “ Come in, come in, ” She ushered, pulling the blonde in as she kicked the dropped paper cranes to the side (or ideally out the door). “ Tell me literally everything, ” She insisted. “ Like why the hell did you join an Origami Club? I didn’t even know there was one. ”

“Oh yeah,” she chimed and though she had largely missed the comedic nuances of Andrea’s words, she did understand that she should probably provide somewhat of an explanation for the fact that she was holding almost enough paper cranes to divide evenly among the students on Drea’s floor.

 “So, we get there and it’s like- so, it smells weird, actually,” she made a face but said nothing more about the ambiguous odor in the room where the Origami Society met each week. “All of the others have bene in the club for forever, so I’m the only new one,” and she was fairly certain that newcomers weren’t all that frequent, “-and I’m like yeah I know some things about origami- which I sort of don’t but I do a little bit because remember I made a shirt origami for my Dad for father’s day?” there was a good chance that Andrea wasn’t present for that, had never been told about that and would otherwise have no reason to remember it even if she did. “So, okay, I say that and then they do a big speech thing about origami and everything anyway even though I said I know,” presumably they always did the same presentation at the beginning of the semester or alternatively, they didn’t believe that Kat was indeed aware of the history of origami despite her claims. “It was so boring so I just made all these cranes because I know how to do cranes and shirts- you can have one,” she smiled as she put a crane on the nearest surface, “Actually, you can give them to your roommate too,” she dumped the remaining cranes on the same table once she realised that the alternative was dragging them back to her dorm; a Herculean task given how many times she had dropped them on the way here or, god forbid, throwing them in the bin. Leaving them in Drea’s custody was a much better option.

-

Hearing noise coming from the dorm hallway was, of course, not unusual. But it was something Andrea was swiftly having to reacquaint herself with. The Pearson house was silent, basically dead silent, by comparison. So with SZA’s latest album playing lightly in her room she, tried tuning it out. Humming along softly as she made a small effort to unpack a little while she had a moment, enjoying the privacy of Wendy being wherever Wendy was as she waited for Kat’s arrival. 

As the noise outside went from distant and ignorable to right against the common room, her ears pricked up. Abandoning handful of clothes on her bed to poke her head out and listen a little as the noise continued. Eyes narrowed as she cast a glance to the other room, hearing nothing from that direction, and the, like, actual comical amount of noise before even a knock happened, she had to assume it was her friend. Though jury was still out on whether her other dormmates had any to begin with. 

Crossing the room, she smirked to herself as she finally heard the knock. Pulling it open to be met with Kat Bishop, the one and only. “ Hey– okay, no, what the fuck is this? ” Greeting was swiftly cut short as she caught sight of cranes in her arms, purposely remaining in the doorway as she waited for reason she should invite Kat to leave the folded paper strewn across her dorm. “ One, Hansel and Gretel is German not Norwegian. And two, it was breadcrumbs not … ” she finished her statement by gesturing to the assorted cranes, the implication being there was now a trail of them between their rooms should Kat get lost later.

“One, It’s Japanese, actually,” Katherine insisted, copying Drea’s phrasing though she was referring to the origami rather than the trail of paper cranes she’d left in her wake but it took a moment for her brain to catch up with the conversation, “Origami,” she clarified, “I joined a club for it,” and it had been mind numbingly boring to listen to the origin of origami, it’s history and significance in Japanese and Chinese culture when really, all Kat wanted to do was learn how to make something cute to show off via Instagram. She could have Googled it, of course but she’d had a whole fantasy about meeting a handsome senior with big arms and a nice smile whose hands would meet hers ever so delicately as she helped him perfect the ancient art of paper folding. Naturally, sparks would fly and it would be a romance tale for the ages.

Instead, she was met with a bunch of anime enthusiasts and selective mutes who struggled to make eye contact or at least avoided it as if it would incur death.

“Hello? Give me a hug,” Kat chimed when the significance of the occasion had finally registered with her. For the first time in far too long, according to Katherine, she and Andrea were attending the same school again, with dorms only a (pretty big) stones throw away from one another, with all the potential in the world to rebuild what they had had as teenagers. Kat was overjoyed, to say the least as she threw her arms around the other girl, another one or two cranes dropping to the carpet and the bottle of prosecco swinging with light force into Kat’s hip bone before hitting Drea in the ribs.