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“Shit….”
Sing digs into his toiletry bag for his lanyard, groaning when he comes up empty-handed. Of all the stereotypical, embarrassing mistakes to make during orientation week, he left his lanyard (and the attached room keys) on his desk, consequently locking himself out. It would probably be another three hours until his roommate would come back from the club mixer, which meant Sing would have to sit out in the hall, a towel wrapped around his head, and resign to a fate of boredom (and potentially a year’s worth of teasing).
Roughly thirty minutes later with less than 17% left on his smartphone battery, his saviour comes in the form of a bumbling senior who nearly trips over his legs.
“Oh god, I didn’t see you there. You, uh, do you wanna come in while you wait for your roommate?”
“Uh—”
“I’m Eiji Okumura!” The older student quickly introduces himself, pointing to the nameplate affixed to the door across from Sing’s room. Underneath hangs a tiny whiteboard that reads in messy handwriting: Hi! I’m Eiji, 4th Year in History/Media Studies! Come talk to me if you need help!
“I’m your residence don for the year,” Eiji continues with a warm smile.
Something in Sing, suspiciously close to his heart, twists a little painfully.
The first assignment Sing gets back from his history professor is graded a 60%. As frustrated as he is, Sing knows that he had not learned enough American history to provide an adequate analysis of the given topic.
Still, the results devastate him, and Sing doesn’t know what he’d tell his parents back home— which is why Eiji finds him stifling his tears in the junior common room.
“Hey, it’s gonna be okay,” the residence don murmurs, holding Sing against his chest. “It’s your first assignment, and you’re going to get better with practice.”
“I’m so slow with my readings…. I take twice as long to finish them compared to my classmates…” The freshman mumbles into Eiji’s shirt. It’s probably smeared with Sing’s tears and snot— god, Sing hopes Eiji doesn’t mind.
The older student merely chuckles, patting Sing’s back softly. “It takes time to learn how to read what’s important. It took me three years, Sing, and I had never formally taken history courses before I came to college.”
“But what if—”
But what if he doesn’t get better fast enough. What if this negatively impacts his grades, and he can’t get a good job, and if he can’t get a good job, how can he support his parents—
“Breathe, kiddo.”
The fourth year hugs him tight, and Sing chokes back a sob.
“Sing, you’re here to learn. Everyone has to start out somewhere. Say, how about I introduce you to a good friend of mine…”
Aslan Jade Callenreese— or Ash, as Eiji calls him— is a third year student, pursuing a double major in history and criminology.
Ash works as a research assistant every Thursdays with the Ethics, Society, and Law department of their college, and does coding on his spare time at the computer labs.
Ash has a 4.0 CGPA, is a regular on the Dean’s List, and maintains a handful of extracurriculars on the side— one of them being a peer advisor for history students.
Sing would like to hate Ash, who is the literal embodiment of a perfect, all-rounder student, but Ash is, despite his seemingly aloof demeanor, a really good mentor.
“You can understand America’s foreign policy when you trace back to its history of how it was created, and how it attained its riches. It’s a settler-colonial state, and the economic elite which control the government have amassed its riches through slave labor.”
“Didn’t America abolish slavery though?”
Ash sighs. “The Thirteenth Amendment of the American Constitution legalized involuntary servitude in imprisonment. It follows that Black freedpeople who tried to exercise their rights by demanding equal pay and quitting their work when their white employers tried to exploit them under the same conditions of slavery were incarcerated under a slew of vagrancy laws.
So yes, in short, slavery still exists, through incarcerated and immigrant labor— pick up Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow sometime.”
“R-right.” Sing flushes. “I’m not really connecting what that has to do with America’s foreign policy during the Cold War though.”
“Think about it,” Ash says, twirling a pen between his fingers. “Western mainstream history teaches us that the Cold War was a battle between democracy and communism. Actually, it was a battle between Western imperial states trying to protect capitalism, and a worldwide movement of marginalised people fighting against decades of exploitation and colonization.
If you made your riches through the cheap labor of people you enslaved, directly or through a series of unfair treaties you enforced upon nations with military power, and obtained your land and natural resources through a systematic genocide of the indigenous people— any movement that tries to take back the stolen land, any movement where the workers you exploited demand their rights, thereby cutting off the sources of your profit— is a huge threat.”
The third-year folds his arms. “You can start off with America’s direct involvement in the 1973 military coup in Chile to overthrow Salvador Allende. America is extremely consistent regarding who it chooses to strike down— and it will always be nations trying to decolonize and fight against exploitation from America’s corporations.”
Credit given where credit is due— Sing is a little starstruck, to say the least.
Midterm season rolls around; by now, Sing has established a routine with Eiji, studying with the residence don on select days after his classes.
On this particular day, however, Eiji excitedly motions the first-year over.
“Sing, Sing, come look!”
On Eiji’s bed are scattered photos— pictures that Eiji had taken on his old SLR. Taking a closer look, Sing recognizes they are photos of orientation week.
“I finally got around to developing them— what do you think? It’s good, right?” The fourth-year picks up a photo with a grin, and hands it over to Sing. “Look at this one!”
The photo in his hands is a group shot with all of the first-years in their dorm. What catches Sing’s eye is his short figure standing next to Eiji— but instead of his trademark scowl, he has a bright smile on his face. A warm feeling spreads across his chest; he didn’t even know he was capable of making such an open expression in front of the camera.
Sing isn’t sure what expression he sports on his face, but something about it makes Eiji ask him softly, “Do you want to keep that one? I have more copies for the bulletin board anyway.”
Swallowing down the lump in his throat, Sing nods, the photo clutched in his hands.
Shorter Wong is a third-year who happens to be in one of Sing’s first-year classes in the East Asian Studies department. Apparently, he’s a friend of Ash, and having heard that Ash was mentoring Sing, has made it his personal business to take Sing under his wing as well.
Which, when all is said and done, Sing appreciates, except Shorter has a tendency to be extremely annoying.
“I’m going to go early to study,” Sing repeats for the upteenth time.
“That’s what you’ve been saying the past two months, Sing— midterm season is over, you can live a little.”
The first-year scowls. “Midterm season is over, but I still have to prepare for my courses during winter break.”
Shorter stares at him, crossing his arms. Sing fidgets, uncomfortable from the silence, when Shorter suddenly prods with a mischievous tone.
“You sure you’re not just going back early so you can hang with the cute residence don?”
“Shut it, that’s none of your business!” Sing hisses.
The third-year looks flabbergasted. “No way, you actually have a crush on Eiji Okumura?”
A part of him wants to deny it, but Sing gets the feeling that Shorter would wheedle the truth out of him anyway.
Kicking at the floor, Sing snaps back a little sharply, “Is that gonna be a problem?”
Shorter rubs the back of his neck. “Nah man, it’s just…”
The younger boy narrows his eyes when the third-year places a hand on his shoulder.
“What are you doing.”
Shorter only shakes his head, giving him a sympathetic pat. “It’s good to be young and in love, isn’t it.”
Sing scowls, brushing off Shorter’s hand and stomping off.
Everything made sense.
It was so obvious in retrospect, but it doesn’t hit him until he spots Ash leaning down to give Eiji a kiss— and Eiji, laughing softly, cards his fingers through Ash’s hair.
The moment is soft and intimate; Sing flushes, unable to tear his eyes away from the scene. He knows he should walk away, but he finds himself rooted to the spot— it is only when Ash lifts his head and their eyes meet through the small crack of the door, that Sing jerks from his position and bolts.
It’s not fair.
It’s not fair that when Sing comes down with the worst flu of his life, Eiji comes by to nurse him back to health.
He wants to object, but his traitorous heart still flutters when the fourth-year checks his fever with his steady hands, and twists so painfully tight when Eiji strokes his hair in comfort.
It’s not fair, that when Eiji is off to grab cold medicine, Ash drops by to change the wet towels on his forehead, and places a thermos of warm soup on his desk.
Sing wants them to leave him alone so he can cry himself to sleep.
“You didn’t tell me they were dating,” Sing grumbles to Shorter.
The older student offers him an apologetic smile. “Sorry, kid, I didn’t think it was my place to tell. Ash and Eiji kinda wanted to keep things on the downlow.”
Sing sniffs, looking to the side. “It just sucks that I never even got to figure out my feelings first.”
Shorter chuckles. “Well, you’re only in first year. You’ve got time to figure things out as they come.”