Forced Together {PenguinDesperado + DontBlinkk}

[DontxBlinkk]

A block away from the large, formal Massachusetts university sat your typical, every day apartment complex. Its deep red brick was up-kept, welcoming students and visitors into its halls, offering a perfect home for those who came to study and graduate from the nearby school. Clean glass doors held out the world that wasn't permitted inside, hiding its residents from the worries of the sidewalk and beyond.

Once the block-like, yellow cab pulled up to the sidewalk, Celeste Yount got a good look at what she was about to live in. Seven stories tall, several windows wide in the front; it was exactly what the pictures hinted at. At least there were no surprises. The thin Korean girl reached forward to pay the driver before she left the back seat, twisting around to the back to pick up her bags. She swung her green khaki side bag strap onto her shoulder followed quickly by her backpack before lifting her two large luggage bags out and setting them on the sidewalk. Pursing her Merlot painted lips, she let out a slow breath followed quickly by a hum, letting the driver leave the curb, giving the student a chance to think before she started inside.

Celeste's eyes narrowed, furrowing her dark eyebrows for a moment as she opened the outside door and approached the office door. She brushed her vibrant purple bangs back from her face, tucking them beneath her dark grey beanie as she waited for the door to open so she could get the key to her apartment and finish the final paper work. It was also a chance to find out if her stranger of a roommate was inside already. Luckily, there was no word from them. 'Thank the heavens,' she thought to herself. It gave the woman a chance to get used to her new home by herself before she had to deal with another person. The final bits of finishing papers didn't take that long and before she knew it, she had a key in her hand and a print out of the courtesy rules of the building. The woman responded with a smile and a polite word of thanks before starting out to the elevator, dragging her wheeled bags behind her.

"Fourth floor," she muttered to herself, pressing the button to call the small metal box to the proper floor. Again, she brushed her hair back once again before her thin, pale fingers inched down, playing with the simple silver ring hanging through her lower lip. Between her snakebites, her left nostril and her eyebrow on the other side, Celeste would have problems going through most metal detectors. Humming softly, she bounced up and down on the balls of her black booted feet until the doors opened, inviting her into the room to lift her to her new home.

Throwing open the door, the five-foot-five, 18-year-old entered the apartment, dumping her bags along the wall inside. Her eyes scanned the room, bringing a smile to her lips. This was better than she had expected. Fully furnished, student affordable rent... Finally Celeste was away from her abusive family and the apartment she knew as home. Slowly, she crept further into the living room, her steel blue eyes searching the room, scanning the area which connected to the kitchen. It was an open concept, which Celeste was already enjoying. Two doors sat across from her with two more to the right. She let out a slow hum before pushing the door closed and approaching the doors to the side. New furniture, near perfect floors, walls and doors. This was amazing.

Behind the two doors were the bedrooms, both about the same size with average sized closets inside. Again, the beds were inside but there were no decorations inside except for a neutral coloured carpet. Celeste would be stupid if she didn't pick the room with the attached bathroom and quickly did so by setting her things inside. "Mmmhm, perfect," she muttered, sliding her black hoodie off her shoulders, tossing it onto the bed. "Perfect," she repeated to herself. Now she just had to wait for her roommate to arrive...

{So, because some times I have a horrible time explaining room set ups, I found this picture to base this apartment off of: http://www.homesteadrental.com/cmsAdmin/uploads/Silver-Creek-3D-Floorplan-2-bed-2-bath.jpg }

 

[PenguinDesperado]

Rather than some manner of cab, it was a sleek black Mercedes-Benz S-Class that pulled up in front of the apartment building not long after the young Korean lady mounted the elevator. Rather than one of the many hundreds of cab drivers through the city, blurring into one another until there was little distinction between the last cab one used and the next, there were two parents, one in a black suit, the other in a white dress that befit the vestiges of summer. And rather than the punky, pierced, and purple nature of Celeste Yount, there was Arthur Greene.

It took some few minutes for him to take his leave of the car, instead talking at length with them, assuring his parents that he would be fine off on his own, at college, that yes, he had enough money for food, and no, please, they didn't have to help him bring his bags up to the apartment he'd been slated for during his stay at the local college. But finally, after hugs, goodbyes, and far too many assurances, Arthur stepped out of the car and retrieved his carry-on laptop bag from the back seat, and his rolling luggage from the spacious trunk of the S-Class.

He made his way into the apartment building, dragging his luggage along behind him, laptop bag slung haphazardly over his shoulder. "Er. Excuse me. I'm innnn... apartment 8," he said, dragging a form out of his laptop bag to hand over to the receptionist at the office. The papers told the whole story. Arthur Greene, seventeen years old, honor graduate, involved with a wide variety of extracurricular activities, and a shoe-in for the scholarship that had netted him his position at the school. His appearance hardly disagreed with the story, bearing a fit 5'10" frame with cropped short black hair, the pale skin of the introvert, and intelligent green eyes behind a pair of glasses.

He took a moment to pull off his silver frames, wiping down their rectangular lenses on the hem of his grey and blue argyle sweater vest as the receptionist finished filing the last forms that would finalize his stay here at the apartments. He was told that his roommate had already arrived, and was given the second key, which he palmed and slid down into the pocket of his slacks. "Thank you," he said with a smile. He was wondering what his room mate was going to be like. He'd schooled primarily with other boys throughout his life, and had made a good many lasting friends among them. He was hoping that this would be the same.

He took to the elevator, and soon arrived on the fourth floor. Taking a moment to unlock his door on this hallway, he pushed open the door, revealing the room beyond.

It was a spacious, hardwood living room, presently devoid of others. He guessed his room mate had already left to do something, or was in one of the other rooms. "Er. Hello?" Arthur called out, dragging his luggage into the living room. He set his things down along the left wall, pulling off his laptop bag and setting it on the low living room table.

 

[DontxBlinkk]

It didn't take long for Celeste to take her bags to her room and begin to unpack. One at a time was the key to her method, starting with her bedding and some small decorations she had brought along, followed closely by the clothes that had been, almost ungracefully forced into the bag. Getting it out of her home was a struggle on its own, which was only made worse when her half-drunken, French-speaking mother found out she was leaving earlier than the school year was starting. Somehow, getting across to her that she had to be there early for registration and general set up of her apartment was an impossible task. It was easier to get her step-mother over, cram all she could into bags and get on the train as quickly as humanly possible. Thankfully, she had her father to buy her a ticket and get her out of the city before all hell began to break loose.

New bed linens, new home, new school, new year. Everything was perfect. And then her roommate arrived. The woman turned her head towards her open bedroom door, listening in silence, giving the man a chance to look around the apartment to take in the larger details before she stepped out of the room to expose herself.

When she rounded the corner, she came face to face with the exact type she had fought her entire life to avoid and ignore, in her later years. Nerdy, introverted, perfect student.... She was all of those, deep deep down, but not many could get past her pierced, dyed and tattooed exterior of what she had done to her body in the past. She stopped in the doorway, looking over the man who had just entered before raising an eyebrow towards the ceiling. "Hello," she responded, keeping her hand on the frame of the door as if she was ready to dart back into the room in a second. Slacks and a sweater vest? He screamed IT tech. Wait...

"Please tell me you're here to hook up the tv," she requested, letting her now uncovered arm slide down the frame to her side with a loud slap to her thigh. Peaking out from beneath her short sleeved, maroon shirt was a solid layer of tattoos covering her upper arm; some sort of design with a large, vibrant butterflies being released from a cage. She doubted it would be something Arthur would really enjoy to find out she had. Hopefully she could overload him and he'd leave, opening up his space for someone she would enjoy to have around more.

 

[PenguinDesperado]

When he heard footsteps as his room mate came around the corner, Arthur stepped forward to say hello with a shake of the hand... until she actually stepped out and Arthur's brain ending up slamming itself into neutral. What? Several thoughts rapidly flitted across his mind. A girl? Here? And the tattoos! He actually looked on in marvel for a moment before he shook himself free. "Er... Hi."

He stood there, quite plainly awkward, for a couple of moments. "Why? Does it need to be?" he asked, glancing over the TV, before realizing that that had probably been a rhetorical question. After another long moment of dreadful indecision on his part, he spoke: "Um, in any case. My name's Arthur. Arthur Greene. I... do have the right room, right? Room eight? Fourth floor?" he asked. Of course he did, since the key had worked, but he couldn't help but think there had been some sort of mix-up here.

"I mean, this isn't... usual is it? I mean, I'm not... against it or anything, but it seems like neither of us were expecting this. But, um. Meanwhile... what's your name?" he asked giving her his best attempt at a smile just then. He was clearly out of his depth. He'd never been away from home for any significant length of time. There was a term for that: sheltered.

 

[DontxBlinkk]

That was the exact reaction she was hoping to get; the shocked, confused look that so many people got when they looked at her. She was Korean, which to many meant she would be a perfect, obedient, raven-haired quiet girl. For most of her life, Celeste had gone against that thought and was quite proud of herself when it came to such an idea. The dark haired man in front of her was exactly what her parents would have wanted, she could tell that already. It was hard for her not to scoff at the man's question but continued to stare him down, expecting him to turn around and leave to ask the front desk about the possible mistake. Instead, he remained where he was and asked for a proper introduction.

Celeste stepped forward, her eyes scanning over him as she crossed to the space next to him to pick up the last bag she had brought inside. "No, this is the proper apartment," she assured him, sighing loudly to express her displeasure towards the situation she was currently in. Then again, she doubted that Arthur was perfectly alright with it either. "It's certainly going to be awkward," she commented, lifting the handle of her bag, letting her dark chocolate eyes land on Arthur's own. "Celeste," she informed him. "Celeste Yount. And I guess we're stuck together." She turned around, taking her final bag back into her room.

"I guess whoever was in charge of this mess didn't think we'd mind," she called back out tot he living room before returning to the public space. "So we'll have to lay down some ground rules, hm?"

 

[PenguinDesperado]

Arthur was quite sure he'd never seen anyone like Celeste before. Well, that wasn't entirely true; he'd seen it online, or in films... but he'd never really come across someone like her personally. It wasn't even that she was a Korean girl, but rather the punk look in general. The piercings, the tattoos, the dye. It wasn't... bad, necessarily. Just different. He would have been entirely out of his depth with anyone as his room mate, but perhaps not so dreadfully obvious as it was then.

When she leveled her chocolatey eyes on his own greens, he felt curiously a little embarrassed. Like she was sizing him up. "Er. Arthur Greene," he said, repeating himself, before watching her disappear back around the corner to her own room. "It would seem so," he said, picking up his bags from the table. He could see which room she had chosen, and he made his way to the one that was left empty to receive him. It was almost dismally blank, a situation he was going to have to rectify.

"Maybe they ran out of rooms and couldn't shuffle anyone around?" Arthur asked. He couldn't speculate as to another reason. He'd never heard of allowing men and woman to room together in college, at least in official dormitories. He honestly couldn't guess as to the reason, though he was just happy enough to have a room with someone who didn't seem like they were... aggressive and mean. She seemed displeased, but not exactly a jerk. "Ground rules?" he asked, returning to the living room to talk to her face to face, rather than through the relatively thin wall that separated their rooms.

 

[DontxBlinkk]

Well, this year was going to be much longer than Celeste thought it would be. "Ground rules," she repeated, staring him down. "I'm in journalism and media. That means I'll be needing at least eight hours of television to complete my assignments. That's what university takes, right?" She leaned against her door frame, doing everything she could to study and judge Arthur from her spot in the room. "Eight hours of homework on top of work in class. But anyway, radio, internet, television, I need it all. So we'll have to work out some sort of schedule for shows." Hopefully there was something the two could watch together and agree on, or this year would be almost unbearable. Celeste was beginning to pray to a god that she never thought she would need to plead to.

Then again, Arthur wasn't nearly the worst person she could have been paired with. He was at least some what normal, or appeared to be, despite his introverted personality. Celeste could deal with that; one of her best friends back in her home city was as introverted as they get despite the terrain they were living in.

With a wave of her hand, she continued on. "What are you going for? Anything special I need to know about your classes?" There was plenty more for them to work out, but their programs was a good place to start talking and getting a good idea about what sort of person the other roommate was. Journalism typically meant outspoken, energetic, curious and more importantly, creative. Although she had to sit in front of the television for a bit of time, her mind could still work and churn out ideas at full speed, if not better than if she had to stare at a wall. If someone was to look at her, there was a good chance they would think she was becoming some sort of art student. Journalism may have been the last thing. After all, if she wasn't Asian, she looked like a delinquent more than the scholarship student she really was.

"I guess, more importantly, is there anything you need in the apartment? Allergic to anything or major pet peeve?"