Since Louis’ arrival, Rosie notices a huge change in Lisa’s behavior.

It takes her three weeks to realize it, with classes and their responsibilities with their respective student organizations and extracurricular activities, but when the realization finally does dawn on her, she feels like she wants to pull her hair out.

Or smack Lisa. Or whine at her. Or all of the above.

Because after Louis’ arrival, Rosie is suddenly not Lisa’s favorite anymore.

Rosie realized that she’s been replaced with a cat.

And, well, Louis is honestly the cutest, sweetest little bean, but really? Four years of a beautiful friendship just completely trampled on by little Mr. Whiskers and Paw Prints?

Okay, maybe Rosie is being dramatic. She still is technically the favorite person. But in the overall ranking of favorites, she’s suddenly number 2.

And to be honest? Rosie secretly doesn’t like being number 2. She’s too competitive for it. Why else did she not stop in her political career in the university until she got elected as president? She isn’t the girl who would happily settle for vice president, that’s for sure.

So everytime Lisa is cuddling Louis in her bed or on the floor and cooing dumb sweet gibberish at him, Rosie can’t help but throw her best friend a little glare and then slam her books a little harder against the table.

Lisa, of course, being Lisa, wasn’t all the wiser.

And it’s not like Rosie can go and tell Lisa outright that she’s jealous of a cat. Louis isn’t just any cat, too - he’s a baby kitten that needs so much attention. So her being jealous of an innocent little baby is just too absurd and she doesn’t wanna be Ms. Possessive Crazypants.

But Louis isn’t the only one that needs attention in their tiny dorm room, too, Rosie thinks with a pout. She also needs a little tender loving care from her best friend.

Especially now since classes are starting to pick up pace and becoming more and more demanding, what with midterm exams being only three weeks away. Professors are cramming to meet the deadlines they set for the class in their class syllabus, even if they spent the first few weeks of the semester missing lectures and giving away free cuts like those were little grocery store coupons.

So Rosie is stuck with feeling frustrated for over a week now. Lisa is nearly always home right after classes or dance practice or crew meetings. She’s also taken to going back to their dorm room for lunch just so Louis isn’t left by himself for too long. Despite that, she and Rosie haven’t really spent much time together. Rosie is always called on for meetings and there’s always some activity or event that needs her supervision or presence. She could delegate the work, but Rosie isn’t really the type to do that. She likes being hands-on, and she likes making sure that if anything goes wrong, she’d be there to fix it. Or at least answer for it.

Lisa’s taken to bringing Louis to dance practice, too, sometimes. Or to hangouts with the crew. Sometimes she and the other dancers would meet up after a tiring week just to talk and eat tteokbokki and Louis would be tagging along with them in her arms.

And the other dancers absolutely adore Louis because he’s such a friendly cat.

So with all the frustration from her feelings of jealousy and the fact that she can’t tell Lisa about it just amplifying all that, Rosie ends up spending more time studying at the library instead of their dorm and busying herself with council duties.

And council duties meant spending more time with Jaehyun.

He’s nice, Rosie thinks. They spend much of their time talking about music, if they’re not both busy with council work. He also brings her food sometimes and that always makes her happy. He also makes her laugh with his jokes and silly little antics. And he tries to make her laugh especially after a particularly exhausting day, sending her memes and funny videos. She once woke up to a text message of “Good morning! :)” followed by a captionless video of a little monkey speeding on a little motorcycle then grabbing a little kid.

The video made absolutely no sense to her but she laughed for a good while over it, anyways.

Jaehyun is nice. He is a good person. And Rosie likes talking to him.

So when Jaehyun asks her to have coffee one day, she doesn’t say no. She has no reason to.

And when Jaehyun asks if he can sit with her anytime he’s at the library, she agrees.

And when Jaehyun offers to walk her home whenever Lisa isn’t there to walk with her, she accepts. His company is nice and it’s always nice to have someone’s complete attention when you’re with them.

One day, when Jaehyun and Rosie are walking home, they run into Lisa who is just about to open the entrance to their dorm room building.

The sun was shining and the birds were chirping. Rosie has had a good, easy-going day and was in quite a bright mood. So she instinctively calls out for her with the biggest grin.

“LISA!” She waves happily, excited to see her best friend.

Lisa was in an oversized hoodie with the hood pulled over her head, gym shorts, and running shoes. She had a paper bag held close to her chest with one hand, the other about to push on the door.

When Lisa doesn’t respond, Rosie knows that Lisa probably has her earphones in. And judging by what she was wearing, she probably went for a run and stopped by the grocery on her way home. So she ran up to her best friend to catch her and threw her arms around her, nearly tackling her with such force like a little labrador puppy - all blonde hair and excited energy.

Lisa yelps in surprise.

“AH!” The photography student stumbles a little, but catches herself and her ‘attacker’. She pulls out an earbud and turns, ready to fight whoever it was, but then she realizes it’s Rosie.

Rosie who was happy and excited to see her. Lisa breaks out into a grin.

“Hey! You surprised me!” Lisa laughs. “I was ready to fight whoever it was, I thought I was being mugged or something.”

Rosie scoffs.

“You don’t look expensive right now, you know? Who in their right mind would mug you? If anything, you look like the mugger with that hood over your head and those running shoes, ready to bolt.”

Lisa laughs.

“Well, I went  for a run.” She smiles at her best friend fondly. “Did you just come home for class? No council stuff today?”

Rosie shakes her head.

“Nope, no council stuff today.”

Lisa smiles.

And then Jaehyun steps into her line of sight. And suddenly her sunny disposition is washed away by a dark, gray storm.

Rosie sees the change in expression and turns behind her. She almost forgot about Jaehyun.

“Oh, Jae offered to walk me home today.” Rosie gestures to him.

Jaehyun smiles politely and waves. Lisa gives him a tight-lipped smile in return, one that doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

“Hey,” she greets, out of courtesy. An uneasy feeling settles in her stomach.

So, he’s walking her home now, huh?

Then Jaehyun hands Rosie her books.

And he’s carrying her for her. me, Lisa thinks.

“Here are your books,” Jaehyun says.

“Oh, right, thanks!” Rosie smiles at him.

“I’ll  see you tomorrow, then?” He asks with a boyish grin.

Lisa gets the sudden urge to just wipe it off his face with her fist.

“Yeah, I’ll see you!” Rosie nods.

“I’ll, um, text you later?” He puts a hand behind his neck shyly.

Rosie nods again.

“Yeah.” The blonde loops an arm around Lisa’s and waves at him. “Bye!”

“Bye,” he waves back before walking away.

The two roommates walk into their dorm and go up to their shared room. Lisa’s mood went from hearts and flowers because the sweet greeting from her best friend became sour and rotten after seeing Jaehyun.

He’s like a fly that won’t stop lingering around Rosie. She just wishes that he’d go away.

But all the way up the stairs to outside their dorm room, Rosie doesn’t take away the arm she has around Lisa’s. The blonde even tightens her hold and rests her head on Lisa’s shoulder along the way.

That, and the memory of Rosie telling her that she’s her favorite person in the whole world gives Lisa the comfort she needs.