Chapter Text
Genya
Genya stares at her nails, her vision slightly blurred in the way that it only gets if she’s thinking extremely hard. She pulls on a loose edge of a finger nail and her left index finger stings in pain as a hangnail emerges.
“Saints,” she swears under her breath then immediately freezes.
Wrenched from the pit of her thoughts she un-hunches her shoulders and peaks her head above the walled wooden library desk, swiveling her neck in almost a full circle to be sure no one unsuspectingly heard her outburst, unlikely as it was considering it is still only the first week of the semester and well before the time most of Ravka College’s student body wakes up, she wanted to be sure she was alone.
It wasn’t that swearing loudly was odd for Genya, it was the irregularity of what had caused it. She was the most outgoing person in her friend group and was constantly moving her mouth, sometimes rather aggressively. She would often find herself addressing complete strangers, going on about the new coffee swirl flavor they added to the campus coffee shop or giving them analytical breakdowns of the book she had most recently finished.
Genya thought of herself as an example of hyper organized chaos. She might be blunt with her whirlwind of opinions but she herself was wearing a constant mask of perfection. Picking her nails was like chipping on that armor, her mannerisms, like her outfits, were groomed into perfection upon leaving her apartment every morning. For her to be resorting to hangnail level destruction before noon on a Tuesday was practically unprecedented.
After surveying the area around her corner desk on the silent floor (or the floor of despair, as Nikolai liked to call it) she slumps back down into her chair letting out an enormous sigh. She supposed her unfortunate run in this morning had shaken her more than she’d realized.
Honestly it was hilarious that she was even still dwelling on this. It wasn’t like she wanted to be in the stupid Linguistics class anyway she just needed the credit in order to finish up her Communications minor it wasn’t anywhere near her true baby Fashion Journalism. There was absolutely no use getting so riled up over a snide comment but for some reason she couldn’t get the look on her face as they had said it out of her head.
Genya didn’t even know their name. It was the second semester of Sophomore year and Genya didn’t even know her name? What was that about? Genya knew everyone and if there was any doubt she was sure that one of her friends would at least have known of this subtly, illegally, gorgeous person who thought she had a right to make Genya feel like an idiot. Saints just because she wasn’t majoring in STEM didn’t mean she had to get shit for asking a simple clarifying question, it was absurd really especially considering syntax could have multiple meanings, she had just been feeling flustered, it was an off morning…
“GENNY!” someone shouts. Genya’s eyes snap up from her hands, the clouds of her spiraling thoughts clearing suddenly leading her to find Zoya Nazyalensky herself waving a perfectly manicured hand barely a foot away.
“Shhh, Zo!” Genya whispers back, her brows furrowing. “It’s the quiet floor!”
“Oh damn that,” Zoya huffs, pausing for a brief second to glance at Genya’s nervous fingers and then up at her face. Upon registering Genya’s brief bout of fidgeting Zoya’s eyes soften slightly.
Zoya’s piercing blue eyed gaze was terrifyingly capable of dismantling emotions in seconds. Fitting for a woman who in just a year and a half at RC was the shining star of the Robotics Engineering department, something along the lines of “basically unimaginable in the male dominated STEM world” Genya had heard whispered on numerous occasions as she trekked across campus.
“So,” Genya prompts, uncomfortable with even her best friend analyzing her so intently, “What’s up?”
“I tried to text you,” Zoya says, frowning. “Then I remembered, for the umpteenth time, you’re the world's worst texter.”
“Okay, okay, I like face to face convos, we get it, your point is?” Genya half heartedly retorts.
“We found our mystery girl!” Zoya grins mischievously. “She’s a transfer student from Kribirsk University and their name is Alina. Alina Starkov.”
“Alina…” Genya breathes, carefully rolling the name off her tongue, her mind immediately straying to the heated interaction from a few hours prior.
“Yes,” Zoya responds, looking quizzical, “that’s what I said.”
When Genya doesn’t react she continues, “so what do you want to do about it? It seems like she really got to you, what exactly happened anyway? All you gave the group chat was a physical description that said, and I quote, ‘might have another rival to add to my list.’ A bit dramatic don’t you think?”
“Nothing,” Genya nods, more reassuring herself than Zoya, “we do nothing, I just wanted a name. It felt weird not knowing someone and I wasn’t about to ask right after they chided me. She wasn’t even on the online roster I tried there first, they must have literally just transferred.”
“Really?” Zoya humphs. “I was kind of in the mood to rough someone up a bit, verbally of course,” she adds when she sees Genya’s slightly horrified expression.
“Yeah, really,” Genya replies. “I’m not even mad anymore, I hear shit like that all the time, especially in classes for my minor because it’s the only time I’m beside you entitled tech nerds,” Zoya feigns disgust at this but nods for Genya to continue, “It’s just weird how much it shook me.” She pauses, shaking her head. “Anyway, sorry for the false alarm in terms of excitement but thanks for the info I really appreciate it Zo, nobody can extract things from Google quite the way you do,” she smiles, mask falling back into place, and glances at the clock on the library wall, “wow time flies, want to get food?”
“Sure,” Zoya says, “Chipotle? I’ll text Nikolai, he can probably pick us up.” Genya nods and starts to shove her untouched laptop back into her bag.
She is grateful for the change of pace, no matter how she spins this morning’s events, good or bad, she can’t get Alina Starkov’s face, her slight frown, their piercing eyes and dark locks, all framed by the glow of the lab’s computers, out of her head.
When she looks up, Zoya, still typing furiously, has already begun to head for the stairs. Genya jogs after her, glancing around the floor one last time to ensure that they haven’t disrupted anyone who might actually be trying to use the floor of despair for work, when just as she is about to spin towards the exit she glimpses a head of dark brown hair duck down behind a desk only a few away from the one where she had just been sitting.
For the second time in a single hour, the warm and bubbly Genya Safin, freezes.