Chapter Text
Xephos rolled over, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes in an attempt to block out the watery morning light. He peeked through his fingers at the buzzing clock. 2:00 AM.
"…Dammit."
He rolled out of his bed, pulling his sheets around his head drowsily and wandering off to the kitchen, shrouded in white. Shuffling past his snoring roommate’s door, he gave it a good knock in an attempt to wake him up, to no avail. Xephos called out grumpily “Ili, if you want food get out of bed!” A muffled ‘whuh?’ was his only answer. uh?’ Xephos rolled his eyes and continued forward as his sheets trailed behind him. He plunked down on a bench in front of a window, leaned forward and pressed his hands to the smooth glass.
Spread out behind the reinforced glass was the starry depths and iridescent clouds of space, its colours swirling and twinkling on a velveteen backdrop. Xephos breathed out against the cool glass, tracing the orbits of planets and patterns of constellations in the damp vapour.
He’d always dreamt of this. As a kid, he’d make his own Spacefleet badges and parade around his room, imitating famous space battles- and now it was reality. Splaying his hands out, Xephos’s eyes traced a path to the barely visible violet pip in the distance, his home planet Tenebrae. The faint glow from his eyes made the window dance with electric-like designs, the microscopic carbon panels embedded in the glass shimmering on the edge of his vision.
Xephos pulled away from the window, dragging his hands down his face and composing himself. He made it to the kitchen, shedding his cocoon of sheets onto a nearby couch. Looking up from the couch, he was met with a facefull of pillow. “Mrff?-”
He pulled the pillow off his face, revealing his irritated roommate Iliad standing in front of him, arms crossed. Xephos looked at Iliad: His friend was short, with seemingly permanent sleep-ruffled hair framing his dark face and sharply glowing green eyes- a stark contrast to Xephos’s own olive skin and softly lit blue eyes. He snorted, pushing the pillow back at Iliad. “You would have thrown a fit if you had missed the chance to stuff your face, come on,” Xephos went over to the kitchen, his somewhat sated roommate trailing behind him.
Xephos waved Iliad away with a remark about getting ready, and reached through the fridge, pulling out a carton of milk. He hummed as he poured it into a pan, cracking eggs and throwing cheese in as well. Out of the corner of his eyes, he noticed a yawning Iliad smacking his hand blearily against the wall, attempting to turn on the interface panel. When he finally succeeded, he let out a curse and went pale. “Hey, uh, ‘phos?” Xephos turned towards Iliad, flipping the contents of the pan in front of him.
Iliad pointed at the clock- 7:15 AM. “I was messing around and fixed our clocks...Isn’t our graduation 7:30?” He said, a panicked look appearing on his face.
Xephos dropped the milk carton into his pan of eggs and sprinted for the bathroom, Iliad close behind him.