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“Name?”
“Shadow Jupiter.”
An eyebrow raise. “Real name?”
“No, that’s my real name. Shadow Asher Jupiter.” Shadow rolled his eyes, tapping the handle of his suitcase idly in irritation. Honestly, he used to get that somewhat often, but not anymore. It caught him a bit off guard how, once again, he was being doubted on the fact that his name was real. It wasn’t exactly his fault, he didn’t name himself as an infant. “Just search it up, damn.”
“Alright, let me check…” the woman behind the desk typed his name on her computer, and sighed, handing him a keycard with an annoyed look on her face. “Shadow Jupiter, there you are. Room 403, here you go. These cost fifteen rupees to replace, so don’t lose it or break it.”
Shadow frowned. He glanced down at his side where his companion, Adalinda, was absent. He’d had to argue with more than one person to get permission to let her live in the dorms as well. While most smaller pets were not prohibited, dragons were another thing entirely. Non-shifting dragons, like Adalinda, didn’t count as pets, but they didn’t count as… well, people either. So he’d had to get special permission to bring her. It took a lot of paperwork. “403?” He asked again, and the woman nodded. “Hold on, that can’t be right. People with pets get the first two floors for easy access to the outdoors.”
“Well, I don’t see a pet with you,” the woman hummed condescendingly. Shadow’s eye sparked a bit. She was quite the mumbler. It took him leaning forward more than was probably considered normal and paying very close attention to even make out half of what she was saying for this entire conversation. “I didn’t assign the dorms. You’ll have to talk to someone else if you want to be reassigned, or just deal with it.”
Shadow huffed, crossing his arms and looking away for a moment. He didn’t feel like arguing for a different dorm room when he’d already had to do so much to even have permission for Adalinda to accompany him in the first place. He grabbed his suitcase again, snatching the card from the woman’s outstretched hand with a groan. “Fine, 403 it is,” he grumbled, storming off quite literally. Small sparks of lightning made some of his hair stand on end.
He disappeared around the corner, and then awkwardly poked his head around again after a second.
“Do you have an elevator? I have a lot of… stuff.“ Yeah, as in the multiple giant suitcases, two very full backpacks, and the empty much-larger-than-normal pet carrier that, instead of holding a pet, held a bunch of bottles and bags.
“Just keep going the way you’re headed, it’s at the end of the hall!” A new voice answered instead from right behind him. Shadow barely held in a shriek of surprise as he whirled around to immediately slap Green in the side. His adoptive brother winced, taking a step back and rubbing his hip where Shadow had hit. “Ow! Dude!”
“You’re not allowed to help now when you fucking ditched me earlier,” Shadow retorted, throwing his hands up at the end of his scolding. His shadow swirled at his feet at the movement and two pitch black, magical hands appeared, giant and clawed. They grabbed the handles of Shadow’s things, all gathered up to follow him so he, himself, didn’t have to pull a lot of weight. He worked out magically, not physically.
“I did not ditch you,” Green protested as Shadow sauntered off towards the elevators with his magical hands trailing his luggage behind him.
“Yes you did. You got your dorm card and immediately disappeared!”
“I wanted to say hi to a friend!” Green said defensively.
Shadow scoffed, pressing the button to go up on the elevator. “What friend? You don’t have any friends, and neither do I. We’ve got exes—“ He pointed at himself. “—and admirers.” He pointed at Green and then turned around to face away from him.
Green went silent, glaring holes into the back of Shadow’s head at that comment until the other glanced back again to meet his glare. Green caved. “Okay, fine, maybe I ditched you. I was just excited to see my dorm!”
“Fuck you.”
Green followed Shadow into the comically large elevator, the size made to accommodate larger than human-sized creatures. “Well, if it’ll make you feel better, I will tell you they’re really nice! They’re huge, too.”
“Like everything here,” Shadow laughed.
“No, there’s…” Green paused briefly before deciding to continue and describe the dorms. “Four people in a dorm, and each dorm has two pretty spacious bedrooms, plus a bathroom and a common room. That’s significantly more space than normal dorms, you know.”
Shadow raised his eyebrows, tilting his head back to actually meet the other’s eyes, bright green and hard to look to with how tall Green was in comparison to him. “That is nice,” he agreed. “Also, it’s weird to hear you ramble about anything other than yourself. Go back to being shallow and vain, please.”
Green stomped a hoof on the ground, insulted. “Hey!” The elevator doors dinged, and Shadow stepped out, walking away from Green and towards where he hoped his dorm room was. He didn’t read the signs nor did he want to look like a fool and go back again to do so. Thankfully, the numbers lowered as he got further away from the elevator, which meant unless the numbering system was severely jacked, he was headed in the right direction.
He checked behind him briefly, and saw that Green had disappeared. Maybe he’d already gone to his dorm room. Shadow shrugged, about to keep walking, when he was almost trampled over by something furry that barked in surprise. He pressed his back against the wall as the other person scrambled back again. For a moment, he thought their eyes were pitch black, but then noticed small bits of white at the edges. Okay, those were some very large irises.
“I’m so sorry!” The stranger said, reaching out towards Shadow but immediately thinking better of it at the hostile look on his face. “I, uh, I didn’t see you there! Ha, whoops…” They shoved their hands in their pockets awkwardly. Instead of acknowledging the apology, Shadow decided to address the much more important matter.
“Are you wearing swim trunks?”
“Huh?” The other blinked, and then nodded, tugging at the fabric a little. “Oh, yeah. I swim a lot.”
“With a… fur coat?”
They reached up to hug themself, leaning away a bit and tugging their coat tighter around themself. “You’re not dressed normally either, you’re wearing a bathrobe!”
“Hey!” Shadow pushed himself away from the wall, moving to leave at that comment. “It’s not a bathrobe, it’s a witch’s robe!” The fabric wasn’t even the same, his robe was more silky and flowy, bathrobes were fuzzy.
“It looks like a bathrobe.”
Shadow, thankfully, got to bolt from the conversation by finding his dorm and swiftly entering, slamming the unreasonably heavy door behind him. Green was right, this dorm was nice. There was a couch, a coffee table, and a TV in what was definitely the common room. There was an open door leading off on one side to the dimly-lit bathroom, and another two doors leading to opposite bedrooms. Shadow went to the first door, labeled with his name on it along with his roommate’s, to settle in. One half of the room was already filled with suitcases and boxes, significantly more than Shadow’s own, actually. Which was saying something. The other half was bare, and Shadow dropped his luggage next to the blank bed— the one not surrounded by things already, as in reality both beds were bare— and spent some time digging through his largest suitcase to find the dressings for his bed. He was making his bed before anything else.
He’d just finished setting up the sheets, some blankets and pillows still stacked aside unused, when he saw the door creak open out of the corner of his eye. He turned to greet his roommate, named ‘‘Red’ according to the sign, and promptly scowled instead. The swim trunks guy from earlier was on their phone, talking in another language that Shadow only partially understood. English classes were mandatory a while back, but Shadow didn’t remember more than the basics. Red didn’t look that happy, their nails sharp as they hit the end call button harder than necessary and threw their phone on their desk with a clatter.
Only then did Red seem to notice Shadow, halfway done with making his bed and staring at them.
“Oh, shit, it’s you!” They said in surprise, brushing their hair out of their face. The half that wasn’t pulled back in a ponytail looked like it was definitely blocking out some of their vision. “Hey!”
Shadow huffed, going back to making his bed and flatly ignoring his roommate. He smoothed out multiple blankets on his bed as Red approached slowly behind him, staying silent.
Eventually, Shadow rolled his eyes and decided to initiate conversation if the other wouldn’t. “Did you need something?”
“Can I have your bed?”
Shadow couldn’t help but laugh at the sudden and absurd request, finally straightening up and looking at them. “What?”
“Sheets! Bedsheets. I need bedsheets,” they corrected quickly, awkwardly fidgeting with the pretty-looking clasp of their fur coat. Or, it would be pretty, if they didn’t pair the coat with swim trunks.
“You didn’t pack any?” Shadow asked, contemplating hitting his roommate upside the head with the throw pillow currently in his hands, with how dumb they seemed to be.
“Uh— well, no, not really,” Red answered. “I forgot them? And now my parents are saying I should have gotten them before I left, and it’s too late now and I’m not allowed to go back and get them, so.“ They paused. “Please, Shadow, just for a little bit!”
Shadow was about to question how they knew his name, before he remembered the nametags everyone was given, and of course the sign on the door. He checked the other’s nametag, just confirming in their head that their name was, in fact, stupid. “…No. Is Red short for something?”
“Nope,” Red answered. “I get that all the time. My, uh, my family is from America, and they thought—“
“I don’t care about your name story,” Shadow snapped quickly and Red glanced away. “Being American explains your weird accent.”
“Well, that’s mean… Don’t you have any extra bedsheets?” Red sighed.
“I do, but I need those for when I’m washing these ones.”
“No you don’t, you can just have a naked bed for a while. You’re not going to be sleeping the whole day.”
“Maybe I am, you don’t know,” Shadow mumbled. “Buy your own bedsheets.”
“I don’t have money for that! I’m saving it.”
Shadow snorted, rolling his eyes as he patted down his blankets one more time and moved to arranging Adalinda’s things by the foot of his bed, turning the giant pet carrier on its side to dump out all its contents, then shoving the carrier itself under his bed. Adalinda didn’t actually use the thing, Shadow used it as a carrier for her things only. “Sure, fine. I get saving. Still not giving you my bedsheets. Just beg your mom again or something.”
Red made a face of disgust, shaking their head. “Hell no, I’m not doing that!” they huffed, turning on their heels and swinging the door open with ease. “I’m going to the pool, it’s supposed to be good,” they announced and left before Shadow could respond, the door slamming shut behind them from its weight.
Shadow sighed. He was avoiding that pool at all costs, anyway, he didn’t need to respond.