Chapter Text
New semester had just started, and Emily's head was already aching.
The first friday of the semester was chaotic because of the Club Fair. The main yard was filled with tons of people walking around from booth to booth to find what club would suit them.
Emily was taking a small break from encouraging freshmen to join hers, it was exhausting, and she needed to cool her head for a bit.
"Bloody hell—" she cursed under her breath when one of those fresher bumped into her.
"Oh my god, I'm so sorry," the girl said as she got up from the ground and grabbed her phone. She looked like a mess. Wearing a really huge bag and eyes still locked on her phone for a seconds before finally meeting Emily's.
Emily could hear something, some kind of background music coming from the phone and narrowed her eyes for a bit.
"Are you always this observant?" Emily said while brushed off her clothes as if the girl has somehow left dirt clinging bto her designer blazer.
"I was on my phone, I'm really sorry about that," the girl continued with slightly embarrassed tone, she rubbed the back of her head.
"I can see," Emily took a quick glance at that loud ass phone and finally realized something. She realized why the bgm sounded so familiar, it was from a popular game. "Huh, were you playing Pokémon?"
The girl quickly shut her phone and shoved it into her pocket, clearly embarassed at being called out. "Uh, no," she looked away from Emily.
"Andy! Come here, I found a club that might suit you!" Someone from the crowd called out, probably this girl's friend whom Emily didn't bother to look at nor remember.
"Oh, I gotta go, sorry for that," Andy quickly stormed off from the awkward moment and blended into the crowd.
Emily just let her go without saying anything, she took a quick glance at the girl, and then her eyes widened when she saw the girl's backpack. It was filled with Pokémon pins. Emily couldn't count exactly how many they were, but she saw a lot of the brown fox-like creature with a tail.
"Grown woman," Emily mumured and she shook her head as she headed toward the restroom.
When Andy was finally with her friends, they looked around from booth to booth.
"I think this one might suit you," Andy's friend called Lily stopped in front of a booth with magazines scattered across their table.
There was a handwritten sign on top of the booth: "The Kaleidoscope recruiting members!!"
One of the seniors quickly opened a copy of their magazine and showed it to the group. "It's a student magazine, we often share what's really happening on campus, campus events, and even stories about talented students."
She flipped through a few pages, pointing out different sections as she explained. Andy found this surprisingly interesting.
"I think this one's gonna be so serious," Andy whispered to Lily, but loud enough for that senior to hear.
"Well, it's not that serious because it's a magazine we create by students for students. We usually use casual language, even slang to keep it entertaining."
Andy's cheeks reddened because of that, she hadn't realized she was speaking loudly enough.
"What's the difference between this and Journalism Club?" Andy asked.
"We're pretty similar, actually. We sometimes work alongside, Journalism Club is more news-focused—campus events, interviews, that kind of thing. While us is more.. everything else. Features, culture, fashion, opinion pieces, et cetera."
Andy considered this as she flipped through their magazine, looking at the neat designs and creative writing there.
"So basically this is more fun and less serious?"
"Absolutely!"
"Pff, less serious—ouch." One of the seniors there got elbowed when she joked that by the one who had explained everything to Andy.
"Journalism certainly more serious because you need to upload something whenever there's news, while we usually publish monthly. So consider this less serious."
Andy looked at Lily once, then back at the magazine.
"Uhm. One of our members got an internship at a popular magazine because she showed them our magazine. Uhm." The other senior flexed their successful member, clearly trying to convince Andy to join them instead.
"Oh, not to mention our magazine got praised by a popular journalist. Uhm." He grabbed something from underneath the table and purposely showed Andy a news article featuring Anderson Cooper saying something nice about their magazine.
"No way!" Andy took a closer look on that article. "I'm joining!" She said excitedly.
"Perfect!" The senior earlier grabbed their clipboard filled with names, and handed it to Andy while the others high-fived behind her.
Andy quickly wrote her name down.
"Andrea, then? My name is Serena, by the way, don't forget to show up at our first meeting this Saturday. We'll chat and get to know each other. You can join our group chat, here's our QR code." Serena took the clipboard back after Andy signed her name and showed her their QR code on their poster.
"Cool, just call me Andy, I'll definitely come." Andrea said with a bright smile as she scanned the QR code with her phone.
"Take this, our Editor-in-Chief made these for the fair." The guy at the back said and give Andy five cookies for her and her friends.
"Thanks, bye then." Andy took the cookies and leave the booth just like that with her friends.
"Alright, bye!" Serena waved at them.
Then, Emily came back to their booth, looking grumpier then before. "I can't believe a college girl would go around campus playing Pokémon GO," She said as she plopped down onto the chair.
"Isn't that normal? Charlie loves Pokémon too," Serena nudged at the show-off guy from earlier.
"I mean, I don't play it in public?" Charlie defended himself.
Emily rolled her eyes as day went on.
Andy was standing near the student publication room after getting lost twice. She was fidgeting with her Mew keychain, making a soft click-click in the quiet hallway. She paced back and forth until Serena approached her.
"You're Andy, right? You're so early," Serena looked down at her phone, it was 2.33 PM, while their meeting wasn't supposed to start until three. "Why don't you come inside?"
Andy jumped a little bit, startled by the sudden voice. "Oh, um, I was nervous." She said.
"Just come in, it's not as scary as you think." Serena opened the door and let Andy come inside first. "Have you filled out the form I sent yesterday?"
"Yes, I have."
The room was far from small, but it was a little messy, with papers scattered around and a board completely covered in pinned notes.
"There are still some seniors here, since you're early. Everyone, welcome our new member." Serena said, loudly enough to draw everyone's attention.
Andy awkwardly waved her hand as she looked around, there were at least seven people inside, and based on what Serena had said, they were all juniors or sophomores.
Emily looked up from her laptop, her eyes immediately caught the blue sweater girl who bumped into her yesterday. Andy was staring at her too. Emily was sitting on the edge of the table, Andy suddenly looked pale as she remembered their first encounter. Her first impression of Emily wasn't so nice, she literally judged her for playing Pokémon.
They stared at each other for a few seconds, the air feels like it was charged with some kind of strange energy.
"You."
"You."
The two said at the same time.
Serena laughed, "So you two know each other? Perfect." Serena pushed Andy toward one of the empty seat.
Emily simply shrugged and focused on her laptop screen.
Andy awkwardly sat down, and Charlie casually took the seat beside her. "Based on your bag, I can guess you like Pokémon." He said as he pulled out his phone to show off his Pokémon GO collection.
"No way!" Andrea exclaimed, "You have so many Eeveelutions!" She grabbed Charlie's phone and scroll through his Pokédex.
Andy opened her bag and take out her Pokémon binder. She collected cards too.
The two immediately started talking about Pokémon.
Serena sat near Emily, watching the two excange words. "I guess she was the girl you talked about yesterday," Serena whispered, loud enough for Emily to hear.
"Yeah, crazy, now Charlie has someone to yap about his Pokémon bullshit and this room's even louder than before." Emily shook her head, she still had a terrible first impression of Andy.
As the time went on, the room started to fill with new faces. Emily took a great look around the room before standing up.
"Hi everyone," Emily begun, opening her presentation about the meeting today.
After receiving a chorus of hellos from everyone, she continued.
"How's college? Fun, right?"
The freshmen nodded, answering yes with enthusiasm while the older years just rolled their eyes, knowing Emily was being sarcastic.
"My name is Emily Charlton, I'm a third-year student in Fashion and Apparel Design, and I'm the Editor-in-Chief here." She introduced herself.
Andy furrowed her brows knowing the fact that she'd eaten a cookie made by this intimidating woman, she was strangely impressed.
"Me and my friends explained briefly about our magazine at the Club Fair yesterday, I'm here to explain deeper about what we actually do." Emily changed her presentation slide. "We're pretty chill here, you can have snacks or drinks, but don't play Pokémon GO while I'm explaining this."
Andy immediately felt that jab was directed at her, she stared at Emily for a few seconds longer than necessary.
The meeting continued with Emily explaining their magazine, how this club actually worked, what they would do, just some basic introductions.
She mentioned that each new member would be paired with a senior mentor for their first main feature. A trial run to see where their strengths lay before they officially split into writing, design, and photography teams.
Someone raised her hand slightly, keeping her voice low. "How are mentors assigned?"
"Good question," Emily's gaze shifted directly toward the girl. There was an unreadable expression on her face. "Remember the form we asked you to fill out yesterday in group chat? There was a specialty section, right? Writing, design, and photography."
She clicked to show the next slide of her presentation, which showing list of names and their assigned mentors. "We've already paired all of you with your mentor based on that form, if your name isn't here, please contact Serena."
Andy's jaw tightened slightly as she scanned the list of the names. She was matched with the person who thought she was a childish nightmare because she'd choosen the "not sure" option on the form yesterday. She should've choosen writing.
Beside her, Charlie gave Andy a sympathetic wince, leaning over to whisper, "Good luck. She's a perfectionist. But at least she bakes when she's stressed."
"I heard that, Charlie, thanks very much." Emily said smoothly, not even looking away from the screen. "It was just a smaller section to make things easier, but we still worked as one."
And then came the last slide after everyone had asked their questions. The meeting lasted just an hour. "Welcome to The Kaleidoscope, everyone." Emily said, ending the meeting.
As the meeting wrapped up and the room dissolved into chatter, the new recruits began scanning the QR code for their group chat with their mentors.
Andy stayed in her seat a moment longer, zipping up her binder. She nudged Charlie with her elbow to get his attention. "Why's everyone in a group while I'm alone with her?" She whispered quietly.
"Because she will be busier than the rest of us. Usually, our Edior-in-Chief randomly chooses a name from 'not sure' section, probably Emily did that too. And apparently, you're lucky." Charlie said with a giggle.
Andy slunk down slightly in her chair, glaring at Charlie's soft chuckling. "I don't call getting trapped with the tyrant 'lucky'."
"She's not a tyrant," Charlie said, gathering his Pokémon cards into his desk drawer. "She's just intensely detail-oriented. Seriously, as long as you hit your deadlines and don't misalign your margins, she won't bite. Mostly."
Before Andy could reply, a crisp sheet of paper landed on the desk right in front of her.
Emily was standing over them, her arms crossed, looking down at Andy with that same cool, unbothered expression.
"If you two are done ridiculous cards, Charlie needs to go prep the camera gear for the photography workshop," Emily said smoothly. Her eyes flicked down to Andy. "And you, Andrea, have your first pitch session with me. Now."
Charlie gave Andy a dramatic two-finger salute behind Emily's back and hurried off toward the storage closet.
Andy cleared her throat, pulling her notebook out of her backpack. "Right now?"
"Unless you have another bloody creature to catch, yes," Emily said, taking a seat at the head table and tapped the empty chair beside her. "Let's see what you've got."
Andy took a deep breath, clutching her notebook tight. She walked over, pulled out the chair, and sat down right next to the Editor-in-Chief. "I was actually interested in writing." She said, showing Emily the writing on her notebook.
Emily scanned the page, Andrea's writing was actually good. It was detailed and beautifully written. "So why did you choose 'not sure'?"
"Because I wasn't sure."
Emily sighed, "Right." She shook her head when her eyes landed on a drawn Pokémon in the corner of the page.
"So, since you said you're interested in writing. Can you write at least five hundred words about something you care about? I'll read it at our next meeting, probably on Monday." Emily said, giving Andy her first assignment.
"Anything?" Andrea repeated as she wrote it down in her notebook.
"Yes, anything."
"Pokémon?" Andrea asked as she looked up to meet Emily's gaze. Emily could feel her eye twitch slightly.
"Whatever," Emily leaned her back in the chair, resting her chin in her hand. "Write about a blue rock if you want. But if it reads like a middle school diary, I'm sending you to layout formatting."
Andy grinned, taking that as an absolute win. "Five hundred words. Got it."
"And make sure it's printed out," Emily added, already pulling her laptop closer to review the layout schedules. "I don't do digital reading for first drafts."
Andy nodded her head, and there was a notification from her phone that made her jumped slightly and opening it almost quickly.
"No way," Andy scrolled through her phone. Her friends want to raid a nearby gym with dynamax Eevee and asked if she was interested, of course she is. "I need to go," Andy packed her things inside her backpack.
"Is this about the creatures again? We're not done here," Emily rolled her eyes.
"It's not creature, it's Eevee, he's my favorite," Andy pointed at the brown fox-like creature on her bag which apparently has a name to Emily. Emily didn't care about it, she would just call it creature like how Charlie always talked about his trading cards.
"This is so childish," Emily shook her head.
Andy just scoffed and taking off one of her Eeveelutions keychain, the black one, and slide it toward Emily. "Take this, it's Umbreon, one of my favorite Eeveelutions."
"Why would I want that?" Emily furrowed her brows and slide the keychain back to its owner.
"Because, ugh, just take it!" Andy slide her Umbreon keychain back to Emily. "Your cookies was amazing, by the way, call this an exchange."
"But I don't want it," Emily repeated, but Andy quickly stormed out of the room. Emily slumped against her chair, looking down at the said Umbreon keychain. "It's ridiculous, I'm throwing it away."
Emily grabbed the keychain, she took a good look at it for seconds. She really wanted to throw it away, but seeing how excited the frosh had been about it, maybe she'd just leave it here.
"Stupid creature."
Emily stood up and hung the keychain on their board to make it more lively. She look at it for a moment and grabbed it back and secured it inside of her bag.