#didyouknowmadness

Shane didn’t really want to be here. All he wanted to do today was tofocus on his own things, instead of being pulled into being the messenger todeliver the homework into the girls dorm. But as it happened to be, they rotatedtheir turns in their friend group to take extra notes and bring homework tostudents who missed class, the turn unfortunate fell on him today.

Maybe Shane would have been alright with it, if it was anyone else butMads. He could have easily dropped homework and notes for one of his friends,maybe even one of the other girls, but this one? The transfer student with anoddly colored hair and a loud snarky roommate he couldn’t figure out. The kindof a duo he really didn’t want to have to deal with today.

And yet, soon enough Shane found himself standing in front of the door ofthe room 217, a pile of notes in his hand, contemplating for a moment aboutknocking on the door. He could just as easily slip the little pile of notesunder the door and leave it at that, or maybe there wasn’t even anyone in the dormroom, maybe they were both out for dinner or something. Anything that would giveShane an excuse not to step inside the room and just continue on with his daylike this never happened.

He took too long contemplating through his options though, as suddenlythe door was flung open, Shane just barely dodging it before it was able to hithim. Had they heard him out there, he had no idea, but as he got over thesudden scare Shane found himself standing face to face with a fellow Englishtransfer student instead of the girl he was looking for.

“…Did you need something?” Kit spoke up after a moment of silence, Shanejust looking back at them. They were clearly dressed to be heading out, with abag flung over their shoulder, a scarf wrapped around their neck, thick jacketon to keep the winter cold away while they were trekking their way to the artscenter most likely, indicated by the sketchpad under their other arm. Shanequickly glanced to his hand where he was still holding the pile of papers, Kit’seyes following his gaze before they let out a quiet “oh”.

Shane just stood there, watching them turn back inside the room, askingMads if she was going to be alright alone in English, Kit probably just beingtoo tired out of their mind to realize it was actually Shane standing in thedoorway, and being actually able to understand what they were saying. It wasn’ta usual thing in the Academy to have many students around that spoke English sousually Kit and Mads were safe from eavesdropping when they communicated inanother language, so Shane could forgive them for this one moment they forgotwho he was.

Kit turned back around, giving Shane an emotionless smile. Obviouslythey weren’t too happy leaving him alone with their roommate, but Kit clearlyhad somewhere else to be, and Mads seemed to be alright with this. Maybe. Atleast Shane hoped so.

“If I find anything out of place when I come, I’m holding youresponsible.”

Shane just nodded, remaining silent, watching as Kit pushed past himfrom the doorway and into the hallway. They gave Shane a little push, makinghim step inside the room, closing the dorm room door after him.

Now he was standing there, in the silence, surrounded by the pink wallsof Primrose dorm rooms that he didn’t like at all. They were too pink, not tomention the amount of fairy lights hanging pretty much everywhere he could seefrom his spot by the door where he was standing. And…

A soft meow?

With a raised brow, Shane glanced into the direction of the sound,spotting the little blanket burrito sitting on the bottom bunk across the room.She wasn’t looking at him, Mads was obviously way too focused on something elseat the moment, but the tuff of blue hair sticking from the blanket was a cleargiveaway that this was the girl he had been looking for today.

“I got your homework.”

She finally looked up towards him, the pair of green-grayish eyeslooking over him across the room, Mads nodding slowly. Shane walked deeper intothe room finally, lowering the pile of papers from his hands to the nearestdesk, not really bothering to check up which one of them it belonged to – as longas he left the notes somewhere inside the room, his job here was pretty muchdone.

Or it would have been, but another quiet meow reached his ears.

“What is that?”

Turning his attention back to Mads, Shane noticed that she wasn’t lookingat him anymore, but was more focused on something buried inside her blanketagain. She seemed to be really concentrating on something, but Shane couldn’t quiteput his finger on it.

Well, not before she seemed to lose her grip on whatever she was holdingunder the blanket, and a little kitty jumped out of her blanket burrito,quickly making its way across the room and hiding under one of the desks in theroom.

“Pasta!”

Shane looked at the cat for a second, his yellow eyes glaring from underthe desk as he meowed quietly, before he turned back towards Mads, a littleamused smile crossing his lips.

“Pasta?”

“His name is Pasta.”

“Pasta the cat?”

“Uh. Yes?”

Shane shook his head a little, turning his attention back to the cat, watchingas it slowly crawled back out from under the desk as Mads started calling forit by name. First out came a little entirely black cat head, being followed by…

“Is the cat in a onesie?”

Mads looked at Pasta for a moment, watching as he slowly made his wayback to her, sitting next to the bed with yellow eyes looking up at her,letting out a soft meow – indeed being dressed in a little Bubblesaur onesie.

“Uh, no?”

“So he naturally looks like a Nokemon?”

Mads leaned down from inside of her blanket, grabbing a hold of the catand lifting him to her lap, Pasta almost immediately curling up and starting topurr happily at her. Mads just shrugged a little before she looked back atShane finally.

“I guess?”

She didn’t really need to tell him, and Shane didn’t need to hear it,they both knew that wasn’t possible and the cat was indeed wearing a onesie.Did Shane want to ask for details about this though? Probably not.

“I just got around to drop your homework and notes from class,” Shanestated finally, hand motioning towards the desk where he had lowered the papershe had brought earlier. “So you just… Get to those when you’re free I guess.”

Mads nodded, watching as Shane took one more glance at the cat on herlap before spinning around on his heels and headed towards the door.

“Shane?”

Her voice stopped him, Shane just barely stopping himself from lettingout an audible sigh. But he turned back around, seeing Mads looking at himbefore glancing down to Pasta.

“Don’t tell anyone about him, okay? I’m sure you know we aren’t supposedto keep pets in the dorm, but he’s…”

She sighed, not really being sure how to word things so she couldconvince Shane not to rat out about them occasionally having stray cats in thedorm room.

“He’s too important to get banned from being around.”

Shane looked at the cat in her lap for a moment, watching as Pastayawned widely, snuggling his head against Mads’ leg, contently just layingthere. Finally he shrugged.

“He’s not my problem, so sure.”

“Thanks.” She looked down to the cat, smiling at it a little. “If youwant, I can show you the spot where we usually feed the local strays, maybe you’dlike to sketch them sometimes or something…”

That… Almost sounded like an invitation to hang out. Shane didn’t reallyknow how to take it, so he just nodded a little, being pretty much too stunnedto form proper words immediately.

“Sure. Sounds… Fun.”

As silence fell into the room, Mads being more focused on Pasta in herlap again, Shane took it as his cue to finally leave. As the door closed afterhim, Mads looked up briefly to make sure he had actually left this time, beforepicking up Pasta with both hands, pair of yellow eyes glaring at her as she hadclearly woken the kitty up.

“We got him now, Pasta.”

He meowed at her quietly, making Mads smile even wider.

Taking a quick peek from under the cap’s visor to make sure she was in the right classroom, Mads let out a soft breath of relief at the sight of the room being empty. She didn’t really want to run into anyone before class began, it was already hard enough to deal with her surroundings during lunch time, not knowing when someone was going to try to get her attention and ask her questions she most definitely wasn’t ready to answer yet.

Walking to the back of the classroom and taking a seat on her usual spot, Mads almost jumped out of her skin as she finally lifted her eyes up to scan the room, spotting Shane standing on the doorway. She hadn’t heard him come in, not that it was very surprising with how little the boy most of the time wanted to be noticed, but to her Shane wasn’t usually like this.

Especially not with such a frown on his face as he was wearing right now, looking across the room directly at her.

Her first reaction was to avert her eyes, quickly turning them back down to her desk. Not that it really helped though, Mads could still feel Shane staring at her as she heard him now moving inside the classroom, a seat rattling a little before silence fell back into the room. He knew this wasn’t usual behavior for her, the bright haired young girl was usually almost as bright of a personality as her hair was, and the whole day so far Shane hadn’t seen any of that from her, but the exact opposite. She stayed by herself, didn’t even sit with her friends at lunch, was clearly in classes for pure obligation.

She heard the chairs rattling again, just assuming more people had come into the classroom and were taking their seats. The room remained surprisingly silent though, so to see who had made their way in this time, Mads quickly lifted her eyes up again, hoping to go back to hiding her face soon afterwards again so she could avoid any awkward conversations that were going to be shot in her way eventually at least by Kit when she made her way back to the dorms.

But instead, she was met with Shane standing right by her desk, his hand quickly picking the snapback from her head, exposing her blue short hair.

“Hey!”

This was the curse of being so short, as no matter how hard she tried to reach up from her seat to grab Luke’s snapback to herself, Mads couldn’t do it, Shane just barely holding it up an arm length over her head. In the midst of all of this she forgot why she had been wearing the thing today in the first place, just furiously focusing on getting it back, until her eyes met up with Shane’s, the boy wearing a mixture of worry and confusion on his face.

“…What happened to you?”

Mads stopped, things finally clicking in her head that Shane could actually finally see the black eye she was sporting. She slumped back into her seat, arms crossing over her chest as she stared back down to her desk again.

“Did someone… Hit you?”

“Why do you care?”

Her words were a barely audible mumble, but she could hear Shane inhale sharply, the boy clearly preparing for a reply. Mads glanced back up at him, green eyes narrowing a little at him, as she was already able to see the judgment on his face.

“Did this happen last night?”

There wasn’t really a point in denying it anymore, so she just nodded her head a little.

“I told you I didn’t want to go wandering the hallways alone after curfew, but you were too busy with whoever else you decided to hang out with.”

“And I told you, it was a club meeting.”

“Well, Jared told me a different story, so there.”

Shane looked at her, but didn’t have an answer. As much of a ladies man as Jared was, he still wasn’t a liar, and they both knew that.

“This place might be a prestigious expensive academy, but just like any school, it surely still does have bullies who don’t like exchange students.”

Mads stood up from her seat, finally being able to grab the snapback back from Shane, as the boy stood there silent. She shook her head.

“I needed you. And you weren’t there.”

The words barely made their way out of her mouth, the girl inhaling deeply as she was trying to hold back the tears that started to sting in the corners of her eyes.

“I’m sorry –”