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Sharing a cramped dorm room with a gym addict, a sports addict, and a maniac wasn’t exactly what Parrot signed up for when he submitted his college application form.
So when he woke up to an abnormally loud alarm sound, Parrot was a little pissed to say the least.
Parrot sluggishly lifted his hands towards his ears in a poor attempt to shield them from the noise. He shut his eyes as well, as if it could help in some way.
Once he relatively adjusted to the sound, he peeled his hands from his head and slowly lifted his eyelids.
His eyes battered around their shared bedroom. In a frenzy, his pupils eventually landed on Flame, who looked just as dazed as he felt. His eyes landed above Flame’s bunk and saw Wemmbu. Unlike Parrot and Flame, he was sitting upright, and seemed to be staring daggers into the direction of the TV.
Parrot’s eyes made their way to the same direction. He saw Spoke, the maniac of the four, holding the remote to their shared TV and standing proudly in front of it. On the TV was a video titled “Alarm Sound”, and the volume bar on the bottom right corner of the screen said 96/100.
‘Holy shit’ Parrot thought, ‘I really thought there was something wrong’
After a sigh of mild relief he looked back towards Spoke.
He looked way too energetic, like it was early morning and he had just gotten ten full hours of rest. It’s not like it was not normal for Spoke to look that way, just off-putting when there was an intrusive noise that punched its way into Parrot’s ears and Spoke was clearly the reason.
Flame was the first person to say something.
“Spoke, I’m actually going to kill you bro.” Flame lashed, his voice raspy from sleep. He didn’t have his blindfold on since he never wore it to sleep, so his facial expression was on full display.
His eyebrows were scrunched together in anger, and his lips held a scowl.
Eventually, Wemmbu decided to chime in.
“You’re more annoying than Flame and that says a lot.” He muttered, sounding like he just really wanted to go back to sleep.
And at last, Parrot broke the small silence with his own thoughts about the whole situation.
“Spoke, what the actual fuck are you doing?”
Spoke breathed out a laugh and then quickly turned off the TV.
The change in noise was dramatic, almost as jarring as the alarm itself, but Parrot was definitely not going to tell him to turn it back on.
Spokes eyes batted back and forth between the four. His expression slowly turned from excited and cheeky to tense.
“L-Look guys! There’s really no need to be so mad!” Spoke stammered with a nervous grin. His black and rainbow hoodie bunched up at the sleeves as he put his hands up in the air, trying to mimic a surrender. “I just wanted to show you something and I thought this would be the most efficient way to wake you guys up!”
Parrot, Flame, and Wemmbu all dramatically sighed in unison.
“Spoke, I swear to god if this is about you cheating on a test with Mapicc or something I think I speak to myself when I say that we seriously do not care.” Parrot huffed. He truly felt like he was on that brink of a meltdown.
“No! I swear it’s like—way cooler than that.” Spoke said before shuffling to the other side of their bedroom to his and Wemmbu’s shared desk.
Parrot had decided to go along with it. He lifted himself out of bed, his hair was ruffled and his pajamas were wrinkled with sleep. Parrot looked over to the other side of the room to see the other half of the bunk beds and saw that Flame and Wemmbu were already dead asleep.
Guess I’ll have to deal with this guy on my own. Parrot thought listlessly.
“I got us a fish!” Spoke said proudly, splaying his arms out and slightly waving them in exclamation. Before Parrot could even process what he had said, Spoke was behind him and gently pushed towards him the desk. He looked around for a bit until his eyes landed on the fish tank that definitely wasn’t there before sat.
The fish wasn’t in a small tank—in fact, it was a large, proper, glass tank. Pebbles were scattered on the bottom and algae clinged to the walls of the enclosure. There was a light above the tank, along with what Parrot presumed to be a water filter. The fish itself was relatively small and reddish in color. Its scales gleamed slightly, reflecting the tank's light.
Parrot internally screamed.
“Spoke…Spoke, Spoke!” Parrot desperately pleaded his name like if he did it could undo all of this. Parrot started to pace small circles around their cramped room. “I have—I have so many questions—how—what!?”
Parrot eventually gave up on continuing his sentence and just plopped down back on the bottom bunk of his and Spoke’s bed in an act of giving up. When they were still moving into the dorm, Spoke insisted that he got the top bunk because he could ‘handle heights better than Parrot’—whatever that meant.
“Guess what I named him.” Spoke exclaimed, his energy clearly not faltering despite Parrot’s clear disinterest. “I bet you can’t guess!”
Parrot ignored his teasing and checked the time on their clock. It hung high on the wall across the room, and he had to squint a little to read it. It was 3:47 A.M.
Jesus Christ.
“Spoke, can you tell me why you woke us up at three—almost four in the morning for that?” Parrot asked bitterly, exhaustion slowly creeping back up on him from the previous adrenaline.
“Do you not like George?” Spoke stumbled. He sounded genuinely upset, which made Parrot actually feel a little bad.
“Oh my god” Parrot muttered under his breath. “Yes Spoke, I like George. It’s just, we’re not allowed to even have pets, we are probably going to get complaints from the people down the hallway, and it’s three in the morning.”
With Parrot’s small outburst, Spoke fell silent. He looked a little guilty, eyes focused on the floor and mouth parted slightly. In the silence, Wemmbu’s snores could be faintly heard across the room.
Spoke’s ears seemed to perk up once he actually heard one of them. He immediately jumped up, abandoning his and Parrot’s conversation and making his way toward Wemmbu and Flame’s bunks.
“Hey! You guys weren’t even paying attention!” Spoke whined as he simultaneously shook both of them awake.
Flame was the one that woke up first, locs tied up into a messy ponytail and red comforter thrown astray on his bed.
“Bro. I went back to bed for a reason.” Flame complained. Wemmbu still snored loudly in the background.
“You haven’t seen George though!”
“Who?”
Flame looked around the room and eventually his gaze drifted towards Wemmbu’s and Spokes desk. His eyebrows rose slightly in shock.
“Bro, we aren't even allowed pets.” Flame eventually notified. “And, where did you even get a fish bro?”
“DoorDash. Besides the point I think we shou—“
“Wait what?” Wemmbu’s voice was heard from the top of his bunk. No one noticed that he had finally stopped snoring amidst the gentle chaos.
“Oh hi Wemmbu!” Spoke clapped his hands together and sing-songed. “Anyway, as I was saying—“
“Woah woah woah.” Wemmbu interrupted, his tangled purple hair slowly revealing itself up from behind his comforter. “We are not just gonna brush over the fact that you ordered a fish from DoorDash at like—“ Wemmbu paused to look at the clock. “3:00 A.M.”
Spoke started giggling, and then Wemmbu, and the four eventually fell into a soft laughter.
They likely had to deal with complaints from their dorm neighbors in a few hours, and having a fish in their bedroom was definitely going to get them in trouble, but for now, Parrot found himself feeling carefree and comfortable when laughing with them.