Chapter 1
Dahyun had woken up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. Her icey toned hair refused to tame as what she described as it finally conquering all her hair products that she used to battle the fact that her hair had in fact been abused by bleach a couple hundred times too many.
Apart from looking like the witch from snow white, her grief didn't stop there, not only did her roommate Nayeon, wake her up at an ungodly hour of the morning lipsyncing to her hair brush as she packed for a trip into the city to crash every single night club but she hogged the bathroom, the lock secured tightly which lead Dahyun no faith in reviving her disaster hair day and her body, just to top off the punishment, refused to let her return to sleep.
Maybe it was the fact that she had been awake too long or the fact that Nayeon hadn't dialed down her volume even once entering the bathroom. Usually things like this didn't bother Dahyun and she'd come back to the dorm all pouty faced waiting for Nayeon to apologise and buy her takeaway food as compensation for being such a pain to live with but today was just different, Dahyun was restless. Dahyun just assumed that because she knew she'd be coming back to an empty dorm that maybe she'd be upset without Nayeons outrageous actions being justified in the form of a food peace offering.
She opened her cupboard and scanned what little reminence lay there. She cursed herself as It dawned on her that it was laundry day, the only clean pair of sweatpants lay helplessly behind that closed door where the unholy volumed concert was being performed. Dahyun couldn't help but chuckle at the fact that all her misfortunes had happened in the space of half an hour and it wasn't even 6am yet.
She pulled her hair out of her face as best as she could and doused herself in perfume, hoping if any soul were to cross her path this early in the morning that they wouldnt smell any potential 3 week old pizza stench waft from her pyjamas. Sighing, she pulled open the door of their dorm and was met by the cold, dark emptyness of their dorm hallway. Dahyun had never appreciated her tiny and seemingly useless convection heater that sat dangerously close to the 2 girls pile of dirty clothes quite as much as she did right now when the reality of the cold winter morning hit her exposed toes as she hurried to shove her feet into her slippers.
The world was seemingly dead to Dahyun at this hour and she cursed Nayeon's over the top excitedness for such little things being the reason she woke up hours before Dahyun knew she'd actually have to leave for her wild weekend. But Dahyun also knew her so well and if the girl didn't wake up practically a day early for an event she'd still be doing her makeup or getting distracted even on the short walk to the train station, whilst Jeongyeon, who she is supposed to meet, would be blowing up her phone wondering where she was.
The slight tap of Dahyun's slippers doubled in volume in the emptiness of the halls, the sun hadn't even woken up yet and the flickering hall lights did little to lighten the hallway that was engulfed in darkness. The further down the halls Dahyun walked the more she grew uncomfortable and an eerie feeling loomed in the pit of her stomach. Her irrational thoughts got the better of her and she let out a squeak as she began to speed walk to the exit door, it had never felt more far away when she needed it the most. By the time she had made it to the door she was running, her head whipping back to check the hall behind her.
Her gaze stayed on the hallway as she shoved the exit open hurriedly, her body colliding with something hard. Dahyun let out a blood curdling screetch as she tumbled onto the uncomfortably frozen pavement.
A scared gasp was heard above her and she slowly began to realise she had run into a person, not a demon, not a monster, not a knife weilding pyschopath, but a person, a girl. Her heart rate didn't slow at this realisation but her feelings shifted from scared to utterly overridden in embarressment. She scruntched her face and silently prayed to disappear as she heard the girls shoes shuffle towards her.
"oh my god! Are you alright? I didn't mean to scare you!" She said, her tone laced with worry.
Dahyun's face slowly lifted as she chuckled awkwardly.
"uh... yeah, sorry, I just didn't expect anyone to be awake this early, I- my roommate, uh..." she stared at the girl, her brows knitted and her lips were pulled into a concerned pout, "oh, I'm sorry for running into you!"
The girl smiled and held out her hand, Dahyun shifted to take it but winced as a stinging pain stopped her from moving. She looked down at the hand she had previously had firmly planted on the concrete.
'really dahyun?' she thought, 'as if you weren't dramatic enough.'
The girl gasped again and squatted down to Dahyuns level, craddling her wrist in her hand, observing the wound as it began to trickle blood.
"I have first aid in my dorm, come and I'll clean this up." She said pulling Dahyun from the ground.
"It's nothing, I'll be fine, I don't want to inconvenience you."
"inconvenience me? it's 5 in the morning, I have nowhere to be, besides it's my fault anyway, I should have been paying more attention to you leaving." The girl babbled on.
It only made Dahyun more guilty and embarressed. If she hadn't of been so stupid, imagining monsters chasing her down the hall she would have seen the girl at the door and wouldn't have run into her, essentially waking up the whole dorm with her scream.
Before Dahyun could attest she was being pulled back down the dark hallway. Except this time the company of the peppy girl eased the eeriness. The girls hair was long and pink, she was petite, long limbed and she bounced on her feet as she walked, a little too bright for someone to be at this god awful hour of the morning. She wore the brightest smile as she turned her head to Dahyun, her puffy eyes smiling too. Dahyun wasn't blind, the girl was stupid pretty and she swore she'd never seen someone who suited pink hair so much in her whole life.
Dahyun didn't know many of the occupants of the dorm, she had her small group of friends and never tended to stray to anyone else, she wasn't one for socialising, she kept her distance unless necessary and was generally quiet, so this lead to her not knowing the pink haired girl in front of her along with about 100 other girls that lived in her vacinities too.
"This is my room." Dahyun felt the taller ones hand detach from hers as she bent over to put the key in the lock.
The absense of her grip was soon forgotten as it returned and she pulled her lightly into the room. Dahyun scanned the room, it was admittedly a lot cleaner than her and Nayeon's dorm but once her eyes fell on the other side, she was overtaken by familiarity when she saw the candy wrappers and piles of dirty clothes. The light flickered on and a groan came from the lump that occupied the unkemt side of the room, the lump dragged the charcoal covers over their head and the pink haired girl giggled.
"Sorry, Momo." She smiled at Dahyun before leading her to the bed to sit.
She pulled open her cupboard doors, searching inside hurridly. Everything was sorted neatly into small containers and drawers and her clothes were folded and hung so intricately. The room was like good meets evil, Momos side was doused in black and littered with rubbish much like Dahyun's, like a normal college students room should be, not top to tail spotless and smelling of strawberries. The only similarity Dahyun saw with her room and the girls was they both shared an unhealthy obsession with my melody, her bed was littered with the pink plushy and Dahyun found it endearing.
"It's in here somewhere." She mumbled before shouting an 'ah-huh', pushing up on her toes to reach the little red box wedged on the top self.
She placed the box on the bed and climbed on, crossing her legs and pulling Dahyuns arm towards her as she popped the lid open.
"Does it sting?" She said as she felt Dahyun's arm jerk a little as she gently swiped disinfectant over her wound.
She brought her gaze up to meet Dahyun's, who only smiled and shook her head.
"It'll be over soon, just need to put a bandaid on it and voila!" She smiled up at Dahyun, rubbing her bandaged hand reassuringly.
"Thankyou..um.."
"Sana! Minatozaki Sana!" She smiled, Dahyun watched attentively, repeating her name in her head.
"Thankyou, Sana. oh, I'm Dahyun, Kim Dahyun." Dahyun smiled shyly.
"Dahyun," She smiled a little, nodding as if confirming her likeness of the name, "that's a really pretty name, it suits you."
"You weren't heading anywhere were you, Dahyun? You seemed in a hurry, I didn't hold you up by dragging you here did I? I'm so sorry." Sana said, her face worried, a million thoughts running through her mind.
Dahyun's felt her cheeks heat up./> In a hurry? yeah, to escape the dark hallway because I was scared like a 5 year old of the dark.
"oh no, I wasn't going anywhere, my roommate, she woke me up and was being too loud so I just left to take a walk."
Sana mouthed an 'oh' as she stood up from her bed, placing the first aid kit back into her strategically ordered cupboard, before closing the doors.
"I mean, as you said, what would anyone be doing at 5am." Dahyun awkwardly chuckled looking down at her lap, becoming rudely aware of the food stained sweats that covered her legs below her.
She internally cringed as she recalled the appalling state she was in and hoped she wasn't stenching up the beautifully smelling room with her college kid stench. Dahyun in that moment vouched to never leave her room in dirty clothes again, atleast not ones that had chinese food stains and 'oh my god is that snot on the sleeve of my sweater.'
"I mean it's so cold and dark, so dark, even for 5am." Dahyun shivered, once again recalling her daunting treck to the dorm hall exit.
"I know! it's like an ice cube out there, I had to drag myself to the store because I was rudely awoken by my period coming a day early." Sana groaned as she pulled a packet of tampons from a plastic bag she had been holding, placing them into a drawer.
"Is your roommate insane? What's she doing up so early?" Sana returned to the bed, her eyebrows quirked up with a questionable look on her face.
Dahyun sighed, "Insane? yes. She's going on a weekend bender in the city with our friend and is terrible at time management, I regret encouraging her to plan ahead."
Sana chuckled and Dahyun joined as she reminisced on just how many times Nayeon had drove her insane.
"She sounds like a handful, she must be a whole lot of fun though." She smiled and Dahyun hummed in agreeance, nodding softly.
Sana gestured to the lump on the other side of the room, "this one, on the other hand, not even the end of the world could get her out of bed before 10am"
She began the giggle again, her eyes curling at the corners as she tried to speak through the giggles.
"She slept through a fire alarm, luckily it was a false alarm or I wouldn't have my favourite grump, the only way I can get her to wake up is once she musters up enough energy to punch me for jumping on her and showering her with my love and affection," the girl held her hand to her heart, "that kid is so ungrateful to me."
Momo moved from within her doona cave and groaned in a dissatisfied manner. Sana placed her hand on Dahyun's thigh as the two girls stilled, like they were waiting, listening for her to jump from the blankets and tear them apart. Sana stifled a laugh and the two began to giggle again. Dahyun fought back a yawn but Sana caught it, yawning in response.
"I've still got plenty of time until I need to be out, you are welcome to crash with me here," Sana said, searching Dahyun's face for a response "or I could walk you to your dorm."
Dahyun worried, she didn't want to leave the confines of this warm room, she didn't want to see the halls that she knew were still dark and eerie, she couldn't handle that again.
"Um, I mean, it's pretty dark still and cold." Sana continued, further trying to convince Dahyun.
Dahyun gave in, "Could I stay here? I mean, the halls are kinda.. scary when they're empty."
"Sure, come here, we'll use eachothers body heat to fight off the winter." Sana laughed as she sunk under her covers, pushing her plushies to the end of the bed and pulling the covers over to invite Dahyun in.
Dahyun worried as she climbed into the bed that Sana would smell her dirty clothes. Perhaps she was just worrying too much, as always.
The smell of strawberries once again wafted as the duvet engulfed the two, it had become quite a comforting scent to Dahyun now, the scent of a new friend. One who she now lay next to in her bed, it didn't feel like they were strangers just an hour ago. Dahyun didn't know the time, but she soon felt herself growing heavy lidded.