talk to me ;)

“Oh? Well I honestly don’t mind. I am quite the affectionate person myself.” Olivia couldn’t help but raise one of her eyebrows at what she said, “Well thank you so much, you are quite sweet aren’t you?” She asked before letting out a soft chuckle, “Well I do, but that is saved for specific occasions with certain people.” Not being able to help but crack a smile herself when she saw her break her pout. She appreciated the girls charm and compliments, considering she could be quite forward and open with her charm as well. “Well I am sure some people will come to enjoy it soon then.” 

“I have dipped my toes in everything throughout the year. But I am mainly focusing on Ballet, Jazz and Lyrical in school. And outside of it I do hip hop and interpretive dance” 

“Well, I’m happy to hear that,” Jessie replied, her smile more genuine. “I don’t make a habit out of watching my behavior, and I hope to not have to, any time soon.” She waggled her eyebrows at Olivia(or at least attempted to, but she figured it probably looked a little goofy), and teased, “Ooh lala! Who’s the lucky person, Elfy? I find it hard to believe the position hasn’t been filled, what with,” she paused, gesturing to Olivia as a whole, “all this, goin’ on.”

“Well I have been told my accent can be quite charming.” She raised one of her eyebrows and gave her a smile. “Don’t be nervous, darling. I don’‘t bite.” Olivia stated as she noticed the girl drop her hand and step away. “It’s all good.” She comforted the other girl before continuing. “That is a good point though, we better be more safe than sorry.” Just the thought made her more than temtepted to reach in her bag and grab her phone but she knew she would rather save as much battery as she could. There were more important things she may need her phone for than to check the weather. A small chuckle left her lips, “Well it looks like you have so you deserve a much needed break.” She walked over to the chair and sat down her bag. “Most people would be wanting to just relax, not be useful so I applaud you for that.” 

“It really is,” Jessie chuckled airily. “Not nervous, really. Just have been told I get too... touchy-feely?” It was the most she could come up with without going further into detail, and it showed that she wasn’t confidant in her choice of words. Trying to brush it off, she offered an innocent smile at Olivia and continued, “Especially with pretty girls. I am disappointed to learn you don’t bite, however.” She almost finished her blunt statement with an accompanying pout, but stopped herself when she realized she wouldn’t be able to keep a straight face. Stretching out and putting her feet up, she sighed again, “Well, that’s what I’m doing. Taking a break. I’m glad I can make it so everyone who needs it, can relax. I know my sister wouldn’t normally be able to, in the pitch black.”

A laugh escaped the latina’s lips as she shook her head. “At this day in age, artificial intelligence is absolutely capable of caring about people.” she teased the younger girl with a smirk before shrugging her shoulders. “So you can read people too, hm? What can you read about me? I’m curious to know.” She wanted to know if it was what everyone else thought about her. she wanted to know if maybe she really just… let loose. Emilia wasn’t sure. “No matter how bad it is, I can take it.”

A slight grimace painted Jessie’s features, but only momentarily, “I certainly hope not. I hear they will most likely kill us all in order to save us from ourselves.” She smiled once more as she removed her keys from the clip on her lanyard, coming upon the entrance to her dorm building. “Well, I wouldn’t call myself an expert, but lemme see what I can come up with,” she accepted. After walking for a moment to let herself think, she came to a stop just outside her door, unlocking it, but leaving it closed, for now. Facing her cheer captain with a slightly competitive smirk, she took a deep breath before unloading her thoughts, “Okay. You wear a mask around people because you want them to think about you a certain way. That you’re confident and in-charge of everything. This is because you used to feel like a nobody, such as when you were a ‘shy, mousy freshman.’ Despite that, you can’t help but show that you care about others, which you think is a weakness. Maybe somebody, or several somebodies, hurt you and want to avoid letting that happen again. That’s not all though.” Jessie stopped and took a deep inhale, her eyes squinting in thought at Emelia. Eventually, she spoke again, in a voice just as much warm as it was accusatory, “Your facade is that of a Head Bitch On Campus, and yet, when you ask me what I see in you, it’s like you’re worried about that being all everyone sees in you. Almost like... You want to show who you really are but are afraid of doing so?”

An eyebrow arch was offered to the young girl and she shook her head. “On the contrary, I am not actually a human. I’m a robot only made with some sentiments of an actual human being. Ask any single person on campus - they’ll completely agree.” she smiled widely though it didn’t reach her eyes, much like she did when she spoke about the matter. It wasn’t that the people who said such things about her were wrong, but it was because Emilia was so… cold. Not on purpose. And it wasn’t even that she was cold, she was just driven and determined and that kind of made her seem a bit standoffish and derailed of all emotions when on the contrary Emilia felt more emotions than anyone. She just hid them a lot better.

“So something gives you a headache and you’re going to spread them all out around the campus? How selfless of you.”

Not hiding the roll in her eyes, Jessie looked over her shoulder at Emelia as she walked, “You know, somehow, I don’t believe you. You’re saying there’s no one you care about? Like, nobody at all?” Jessie certainly wasn’t fooled. Emelia had already showed her hand, and she wasn’t planning on letting her live it down. “Remember you aren’t the only one who can read people,” she teased, weaving around a corner towards the dormitories at a brisk pace. She was ready to bundle up into the snuggest blanket she she could get a hold of, once she got home.

Olivia quickly accepted the girls hand and shook it, smiling softly when they parted. “Oh yes, I mean I may be a bit biased of course, but it is wonderful. The country sides, the suburbs and even the cities.” She let out a sigh just thinking of what it was like to be back home. Honestly whenever she talked about it she missed it greatly. “Traveling is a very important thing, it gives you great perspective.” Watching the other girl count over everything. “It is going to get worse at night? Goodness gracious. Not too bad so far. Just rambling and feeling very glad I have no papers due. How about you?”

A sigh escaped Jessie’s own lips as she watched Olivia speak so fondly of her home, “It sounds wonderful. And I mean, not just because your accent could make anything sound wonderful.” Her toothy smile tempered slightly as she looked down and realized she had yet to release the redhead’s hand from her grasp. She quickly let go and cleared her throat awkwardly, stepping back for good measure. “Well, I hope not, Elfy. Checking the weather forecast is a bit difficult at this point in time. I know night time always makes everything appear more frightening than it would otherwise, however.” Leaning down, Jessie folded the top of her box of lights together and placed in on a nearby table, deciding she earned a break. “I’ve got no assignments either, so I’m just trying to make sure I’m useful,” she answered, flopping loudly into a comfy seat.

Lexi always had this habit of sneaking off to the Newspaper office and spend at least 12 hours without any breaks. She was jamming to Make Me Feel and took a sip of her coffee when the lights went out. She furrowed her eyebrows as she grabbed her flashlight, grabbed her keys after covering up her work and headed outside. “Hello?” She called out, kicking herself in the butt, because no one in their right mind would call out.

It only took a couple minutes to jog towards her destination. Her short shorts and sleeveless top allowed the cold air to cut into her skin as she traveled, but she didn’t mind too much. At least, not yet. Approaching the office, she heard the voice from the entrance. “Tina?” Moving closer revealed a different person than she had sought out, but it still eased her mind to know that Tina was most likely,. not alone. “Oh, hey. Lexi Puckerman, yeah? Lights out for you too? Wowzer, it’s cold!” It was all rushed out at once, her breath slightly clipped from running.

“One thing many people will learn about me really fast is I’m very adamant about my appearance. I like to be as sophisticated and put together as possible, and not really let anyone see me crack if that makes sense.” Standing up properly now, she smoothed out the wrinkles in her dress before taking in a deep breath as she listened to Jessica explain her electricity situation. “That’s very sweet of you, thank you, Jess.” she smiled in appreciation to her words and shrugged her shoulders. “Sure, I’d be okay with that in all honestly.” It would be a lot nicer to get the paper done as fast as physically possible, that was for certain.

“LED lights are very soothing, so I certainly don’t think it would be the worst thing to have scattered around the area. I think people are just so upset about the unfortunate timing of the power coming out.”

A contemplative, yet skeptical look adorned Jessie’s face as she listened, before speaking, “Sure, it makes sense, but you can be adamant about your appearance without disguising your vulnerability. Little known fact: we’re all secretly human with real cracks in our interior.” Her voice dropped to a whisper at the last part, conspiratorially. At Emelia’s acceptance, Jessie turned on her toes and motioned for her captain to follow her, “Perfect! Right this way, Madame,” she exclaimed, using a faux aristocratic accent that was only vaguely European. Not having had company in her huge-ass dorm for a while had left her lonely, and she was glad that she didn’t need to get too pushy.

“It is nice to finally meet you as well.” A small smile grew on her lips at her words. “Well thank you, I am am very glad to meet up to your very kind expectations.” Olivia admired the girls bouncy attitude and nodded before she continued. “Yes, born and raised in Dublin, Ireland. Came here last year as a freshman, thought it would be fun to have a fresh start.” Her eyes wandered around the room to admire the lights again. “Oh no, not at all. I admire your determination to get everything all set up. A lot of people will appreciate any kind of light that they could get.” 

Feeling another wave of triumph at guessing Olivia’s accent, Jessie grinned widely and approached her with her hand out to shake, “Ireland. Is it as beautiful as the pictures make it out to be? I’ve always wanted to visit. Though, to be fair, I’ve always had a wanderlust, so traveling always interests me.” The bubbly freshman glanced at her box of lights and quickly counted the remaining cords, out loud, taking inventory for the umpteenth time, as if their number would just magically dwindle while she wasn’t paying attention. “That was the hope. Especially at night, when the storm will seem like it’s at it’s worst. How’s the power outage treating you?”

It was a weird sort of looking around for Emilia when Maximilian saw the lights being strung up in order to help people see. It wasn’t a terrible idea, but it also was something that the ever so responsible and always concerned for others’ type of idea, so assuming it’d be Emilia, he continued to follow the trail.

However, once he ran into Jessie, Maximilian lowered the flowers and balloons with a sigh. “This whole lights out thing has been complete bogus. Also, you know those probably won’t last as long as they need to, right? Not to throw a wrench in your plans, but I heard from my phone that half the city is without power because the winds screwed like… half of the power lines and trees around the university.” he commented, leaning up against a door while watching Jessie continue to scout things. 

Looking up from her task, Jessie crinkled her brow as she eyed the flowers and balloons, but fixed a relaxed expression on her face as she addressed his words, “Yeah, I’ve been getting that a lot. It’s why I’m tryna fix it.” The petite Korean shoved the large box over to this new, poorly-mooded individual, “Well, I have enough lights to cover the gym 3 times over, so I’m thinking I have enough replacements.” She tried keeping the snark out of her voice, but it’s taken her almost an hour to put up the amount of lights she did and had already conceded to the possibility of doing it all again but the time the power’s back, and she didn’t quite appreciate the lack of appreciation.

After realizing the lights went out she knew there wasn’t much more she could do then see if she could find some company or for something to do. After wandering around one of the buildings on campus she saw Jessica putting up lights. She stepped into the room and saying a soft hello not wanting to startle the other girl. Olivia glanced around the room before bringing her eyes back to Jessica. “Well after this I think anyone who is would be just fine.” She sat down her bag on the floor before continuing. “Where did you manage to find all of these lights? Because this is an amazing idea.” 

The youngest Cohen-Chang had a concentrated look on her face as she stretched her body upwards, attempting to hang a light high up on the wall, when she heard the greeting. “Be right with ya,” she called with a strained voice before finally achieving her goal. Jessie raised her fists into the air in a sign of triumph, finally turning towards her visitor, “Yes! Oh, hey there, Olivia! Nice to finally see you in-person! You are definitely as Elfy as I was expecting you to be. However, I wasn’t expecting you to sound so exotic! Irish?” The sight of the redhead had improved her bouncy mood as Jessie trotted over to get a good look at her work. Cocking her head to the side, she questioned, “It’s not too much is it? I had the janitor unlock the multipurpose closet and stole them.”

“Guess I need to be more careful then.” Sucking in her lower lower lip for a moment, she stared and shook her head. “It’s totally okay, I don’t know want you to waste any of your battery life on me.” she smiled gratefully though.”I don’t know if I’m going to be able to get all of this done. I’m hoping that the auto-save feature had my back at least only slightly.” she shrugged and cleared her throat. “Think the LED lights will help?”

“Aw, damn. I was hoping you’d just move on to using ‘fuck,’ instead. Hearing you curse is more entertaining than I had imagined.” She aimed her flashlight at the windows of the house, as if the lights inside would miraculously turn back on if she looked for long enough, “Well, I’m really not worried. I have my phone, a portable battery for said phone, and a bluetooth speaker that’s fully charged and that’s all I tend to need to keep myself busy. And I don’t have any pressing papers the way you seem to, so that’s obviously more important. Seriously, my dorm’s one of those 4-bedroom ones and I pretty much have it to myself, so you can just use the couch in the living room.”

Emilia was usually far more put together. She never cursed often and more often than not she never let her stress visibly overwhelm her in the way she was letting it show now. “I tend to curse in spanish because more often than not people have no idea what I’m saying anyway.” she laughed a bit and shook her head. “It definitely did, and on top of that i ended up losing a five page paper because I didn’t have my laptop charging when the power was on.” she sighed a bit. “So now I’m off to try and handwrite it so i can quickly type it up later.”

“What are you up to?”

Having collected everything off the ground, Jessie straightened it out and handed it back to Emelia. “I kinda figured. I’ve not taken Spanish since Sophomore year of high school, but ‘mierda’ stuck out rather potently,” she acknowledged, no longer hiding her smile, “It was pretty funny.” Moving to stand-up fully had once again exposed the majority of Jessie’s body to the cold winds in the air, and she shivered. “Well... If it would be easier, you could come back to my room and use my laptop. It’s still charged because I’ve avoided using it, and until I set up some LEDs around campus, there’s not gonna be a lot of light to use for hand writing, and you won’t have daylight forever.” It probably wouldn’t be a perfect fix because Emelia would have to start from the beginning of her paper, but at least she’d have the ability to write faster and actually SEE what she was writing.

What can I say? I’m very good at reading people.

Well.. I suppose I could break my strict diet for a muffin. Those can be considered on the healthier side.

Really now? Another bold claim. Okay, I’ll bite. What is it that you read off of me, Captain?