Winter sighs contently as she ruffles out her freshly dyed sandy-blonde hair. Despite the constant revolving door of papers and exams, the girl is proud that she was still able to squeeze in time today (of course, after classes) to go remove her showing roots.

After a few more strides down the residence hallway, she reaches the navy blue door, marked 1117, and immediately reaches for the handle (and not her key) when she knows that her roommate is waiting for her before they go for dinner together. And as expected, the silver handle turns and Winter pushes the door open to see her roommate, Karina, seated at her desk, waiting for her return.

“Honey, I’m home~” Winter sings.

Karina straightens up in her seat. “Hi, darling!” She’s dressed in a loose cream knit sweater, with her lengthy dark hair pushed over right shoulder, and with her long legs pulled up onto the computer chair. She smiles at their shared silly spouse-like behavior. “Oh my god, your hair looks so good! I love this ashy-blonde on you. So cute~”

Winter smiles, but rolls her eyes at the other girl’s excessive compliment. “It’s the exact same shade as before,” she laughs.

“Well, it looks even better than before,” Karina continues to gush. “So, how was class?”

Winter whines. “Same old. Boring.” She sulks as she drags her feet through the door. “Now I’m sneepy,” she slurs.

Karina gives a sympathetic pout before bringing her legs back to the ground to open her lap to the other girl. She waves her roommate over as she coos, “Come ‘ere.”

At the offer, Winter gladly drags her feet towards the older girl before plopping down on Karina’s lap. Smaller than her roommate, she comfortably nestles into the open arms that welcome her.

“Aw, baby,” Karina affectionately coos, patting the blonde’s head and tucking Winter’s head under her own. “Are you hungry? We can go down to the cafeteria and go grab something.”

“Mm, five minutes,” Winter groans, not ready to leave the comfort of her friend’s nurturing hold yet.

“Okay,” Karina replies as she gently rubs the other girl’s back. “You smell like ammonia.”

“Oh, sorry,” Winter apologizes as she starts to pull herself away.

Karina though tightens her hold to keep the blonde from moving. “No, I like it. Maybe I’m weird, but I like the smell of freshly dyed hair.”

“Careful, you might be killing what little brains cells you have left,” Winter teases. In return for the silly jab, Karina sharply whines as she shakes the girl around on her lap.

Now in her second year and second semester of university, Winter is so thankful that she and her roommate are this close—which is definitely not the same thing that she could say about her devil-child roommate from first year. Even though she and Karina have only known each other for only a little over a semester, they feel like best friends. The kind of friends that understand one another with few words spoken between them. Which honestly really surprises Winter because the two of them are quite different, yet click together so well.

Karina is a year older, as the girl had taken a year off after high school to work and travel, but even though it’s only a one year difference between the roommates, Winter still finds the older girl more mature—maybe too mature on some occasions. Like when the older girl is yelling at the younger one for being too loud, she may as well be a grandma yelling, ‘Use your indoor voice!’ But the contrast in their personality is for the best. While Karina is definitely more composed compared to her hyper counterpart, it also makes her incredibly nurturing and doting—which Winter will always complain about, but it honestly makes being away from home much easier when she has someone here who cares for her like family.

“Win, whenever you wanna go though, we should probably text Ningning and Giselle. They said they wanted to eat together tonight.”

Winter hums at the mention of the pair of roommates three floors below them. “Okay, text them in five minutes then,” she says as her eyes start to slip close.

“You said that five minutes ago.” Karina can feel the weight on her lap slowly growing heavier as Winter sags into her. “You better not be falling asleep. You’re going to make my legs go numb.”

“Five minutes,” Winter mumbles again, now feeling the full wrath of her tiredness take her.

“Okay,” Karina replies, gently rubbing the girl’s back. “Just five minutes.”

***

Thirty minutes later, the roommates text their friends to meet them at the dinner hall as they make their way downstairs. On the way down the hall towards the elevator, Karina and Winter are stopped by one of their neighbors.

“Hey, ladies!” a tall brunette boy greets.

“Hi, Johnny,” the girls politely reply back. Expecting it to be a quick greeting as they pass by, they’re both surprised  when the boy stops to add, “Hey, Karina, there’s this guy—Mark’s old roommate—he’s throwing a big house party next  weekend. It’s just a few blocks from campus. You wanna go?”

“Oh…yeah, maybe. I’ll keep it in mind,” Karina politely replies.

Johnny steps away as if he’s leaving, but suddenly turns back around to address the other girl too. “You should come too, Winter.”

“Cool,” Winter sweetly smiles. “Thanks for the invite! We’ll see you around.”

As the blonde and brunette enter the elevator, Winter mashes on the close door button, and when the doors do finally shut, she slouches against the railing and grumbles, “God, I hate you.”

Karina dramatically gasps. “Rude,” she replies, blinking her stupidly big, pretty, shiny eyes at her roommate.

“Okay, I’m cute af, but I’m like totally invisible when I stand next to you.”

“Oh shut up,” Karina seriously tells the girl. “Guys are lined up for you every time we go to the bar.”

“Yeah, they come to me after you shoot them down!” Winter corrects. “Seriously, I was a hot commodity back in high school. Can’t believe I got friggin’ model as my roommate to step on my game,” she whines.

“What’re you talking about? You’re gorgeous,” Karina seriously replies, slightly irritated by the younger girl putting herself down like that.

Winter reaches over and cups her hand over Karina’s annoyingly small face. “Look at your stupid face. My egg face looks giant next to this quail-egg,” she sighs, giving the older girl a playful slap on the cheek right before the elevator doors ding open.

“Don’t be so grumpy,” Karina whines as she chases after the blonde out of the elevator, trapping her in a hug from behind. “My girl is the prettiest girl on the entire campus,” she says, smothering her roommate with compliments.

“Mommmm, you’re embarrassing me!” Winter jokes, struggling in the long arms binding her.

Despite the struggling, Karina doesn’t let go. In fact, she keeps clinging on and forces them to awkwardly waddle the whole way to the cafeteria together. And by the time that they line up for food, Winter’s struggle has been snuffed out. Instead, she grabs the hands that are crossed over her shoulders and intertwines their fingers as they read the menus. The only reason that they even part from one another is so that they can latch onto their friends in big bear hugs when Ningning and Giselle arrive.

The four girls pick up their meals and make their way to a table in the back corner, next to the window. While Karina gushes over Giselle’s new top, Ningning whines to Winter about classes and the only reason why the girls’ conversations stop is because of a figure that approaches their table. A very tall handsome figure in fact.

“Hey.”

Looking up, Winter feels her eyes widen at the sight of Kai, a ridiculously good looking fourth-year student who is well known for being an incredible dancer across social media. But seriously, what is this tanned, pouty-lip, cutie doing at their table?

“Karina, did you hear about the party next weekend?”

Oh. Makes sense.

Winter tries not to r