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It is February, a bare few days after “the most romantic day of the year”. That doesn’t make sense to you- it never has, it seems more of an artificially constructed holiday, and thus you have never properly celebrated it. Still, the holiday specials stand in many cafés, and you’re working your way through a crumbling slice of coffee cake and pretending to read. Crumbling is a good adjective for your first semester of college. Vriska and you fell apart around August. Or, more likely, she grew tired of you and manufactured a way out. High school sweethearts almost never last, you reminded yourself, over and over. Even so, you crumbled. Just now you are beginning to pick yourself up, to reassemble the pieces of your shattered ego. The place is packed to the brim, every table but yours full. It is worth noting yours is also the only one without a power outlet within easy reach. Fellow students congregate here under the guise of study, irregularly timed waves of humanity. “Flocks” and “waves”- your mind is wandering and you sip at your (weak, American) tea, eyes on the middle distance. It is a passable impersonation of being enraptured with the rain outside, the precipitation at odds with the otherwise sunny day.
“Do you mind?” Your reverie is punctured by a woman’s voice and you nearly jump out of your skin, setting your drink down. She’s short, but she is holding herself like she were lithe and tall, regally. Her wardrobe is done almost entirely in blacks, in high contrast to her skin. Milky, is how you would describe it. Milky skin and dark, dark clothes, a purple headband tucked neatly into blonde hair. You move your eyes to her face and stare at her mouth, looking for puckering, for angry lines or hard sets, but she is relaxed.
“Not in the slightest,” you reply after a long moment. Then her lips purse, barely, mashing black lipstick. She thinks she’s annoying you.
“It is not a bother,” Wait, you forgot to soften your own face, held hard in a mask of neutrality. Splendid. The girl has a laptop, and she flips it open on her lap a bit more precariously then you would be comfortable with. You’re staring, waiting for her to respond to your assurance, the upward tick of eyebrows to indicate she heard you, or the crinkle of eyes to say it’s alright, but not in so many words. It is nearly impossible for you to read tone, but faces tell you everything you could ever need to know if you just look. Porrim gives you no end of grief about this, asking you why it’s so damn hard for you to understand when she’s being sarcastic. To be honest, you don’t know, and even face reading came only after hours of work, watching other’s faces with their corresponding emotions.
She glances up and her eyes hit you. They’re... they’re actually purple, bad fanfiction (dot net) purple, partially obscured by her half squinted lids. She looks like she’s in deep contemplation, apparently puzzling through the mysteries of the universe.
“...Can I help you?” Her expression is flat. If you want to read her you’ll need time, lots of time, she see appears to be consciously tying to flat her face.
“Hm? No I was simply attempting to see if you still thought I was annoyed with you. Which I am not.” This makes her smile, not touching her (brilliant, gorgeous, holy shit how are those real) eyes. A fake smile.
“I assure you I am fine. Are you an exchange student?” You must have spoken incorrectly.
“No, I am from here.” She nods, just barely.
“So your parents, then, are from some far off and distant land?”
“What about your eyes?”
“Excuse me?” Was that rude of you? She shifts like you just simultaneously insulted her, her family, and possibly any pets she may or may not own.
“We’re discussing our own history, are we not?” That was rude. You can see it in the set of her jaw, the way she taps her fingers- indexmiddleringpinkie- on her laptop. “My parents are Persian,” you explain. She blinks. You avoid saying ‘Iranian’ or ‘Middle Eastern’ as a rule, but she knows what you mean.
“And my eyes are a disability.” To prove it, she digs in her skirt pocket, producing a wallet embroidered with white cats, and pulls out a card, flashing it at you before the entire contraption disappears again.
“I apologize.”
“Don’t.” A half smile, one eye squinting further. What does that mean? “They are Mary Sue violet, I am aware.” Ah, so she’s a clever one. Probably a senior with a thousand clothing lines, or a fully grown woman who lives on her own and runs an independently owned bookstore or something equally improbable.
“Are you a junior, then?”
“A freshman, in fact.” She is your age. That’s a surprise. “By age, at least, By credits, I am closer to a first semester sophomore. And yourself?” You stare at her, scanning her face for any signs that she is in fact joking, but she looks sincere.
“A freshman by age and credit, I’m afraid.” Outside, the rain breaks all at once, sunlight bursting forward. Mystery woman turns, glancing at the shift.
“And it would appear the weather has cleared sufficiently for me to avoid soaking myself and my computer. If you don’t mind, I’ll try to race this back to my hall.” She stands, and you do too, almost compelled to follow her. At your full height, you’re almost a full head taller than her, like you could tuck her below your chin. She makes it a point to crane her neck too far back to look at you.
A hand is offered. “My name’s Rose. And yours?”
“Kanaya.” You accept the hand, feel the usually rough texture of her palm. She turns and you blink and she is gone. You close your hand, only to jump when you feel her hand again, in your palm. You jerk your head down, opening your fingers to find a crumpled scrap of paper which you mistakenly took for a hand in dire need of moisturizing.
Rose Lalonde
“tentacleTherapist”, Pesterchum
You tuck the scrap into your coat, twisting around to watch her go, rushing away through the brief moment of the sun.