Bruno embarrassingly covered his face with his hands and groaned. “Why do I have to room with someone as scary as you?” The faint moonlight bled through the window and reflected on his black skin.

Juro sarcastically brought his hand over his chest and gasped. “I’m so offended, Bruno. I can’t believe you’d say something so cruel.” He moved closer to a flustered Bruno and whispered into his ear, “Do you like Alyssa?”

Bruno threw himself against the floor and complained before eventually answering. “No,” he said, avoiding Juro’s eyes and instead facing the wall.

Juro looked at him quizzingly, rather surprised. “No?” he paused, staring at Bruno hiccup at a wall. “Do you need another shot?”

“No, I do like her,” said Bruno frowning while pulling down the bottom of his eyes with his fingers.

Juro’s mischievous smile lit up his face again. “Why? Is it ‘cause she’s hot?” He brought up his two hands and created a large vertical distance between the two of them. “She’s, like, this much taller than you! Are you into that?”

“Shut up, pig,” Bruno retorted, shoving Juro back, causing him to fall onto the ground with his legs in the air before he slammed them on the ground, signaling defeat. “Juro, did I ever tell you how Alyssa and I met?”

“No, but you’re usually not drunk out of your mind stuck in a room with me,” Juro replied, the intonation of his voice telling Bruno he must have been smiling even though the room was too dark to see. This was more along the lines of what Juro had been expecting from his conversation with Bruno.

Bruno was a pretty good musician — incredible, in fact. He played the piano and guitar, and each note resounded throughout the room like a tuning fork struck upon the stars. Managing to get a scholarship into an almost all-Leith school brought its difficulties.

“Fake progress feels better than the real thing,” Bruno began, now facing Juro as he excitedly told his story. “That’s why they have scholarships for kids like me. If there was none of this progressive reform stuff going on at all, we wouldn’t be so silent against the Leiths. But they do just enough, so here we are.”

Juro nodded his head tiredly, getting relatively bored as Bruno took a million different tangents to get through the first part of his story, but he slapped himself awake. “Do you want me to walk you home now? It’s getting late.”

Bruno looked at him in exaggerated shock. “After you cornered me drunk for information? No, you’re going to sit through the whole thing.” Bruno’s speech was becoming more and more slurred until it was barely audible, but he continued to talk.

“I was sitting alone in the music room practicing, because I wasn’t really popular given my background, but Alyssa just suddenly burst through the door and shut it silently. I crouched down behind the piano, but she just started talking to me.” His eyes glittered and wavered like the moonlight that was cast upon him as he excitedly looked at Bruno.

“And, do you know what she said to me?”

“Obviously not,” replied Juro, getting ready to lie down before Bruno grabbed his shoulders and shook him awake.

“Hold on, this part is actually interesting,” he said, desperately trying to bring Juro back into the conversation.

***

Bruno quickly ducked down behind the piano when Alyssa entered the room, not even bothering to peek up from behind the built-in music stand.

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“Fucking assholes… can’t they give me break already?” Alyssa put a hair tie in her mouth and started brushing back a ponytail when Bruno’s music stand suddenly fell on itself, slamming all his books onto the ground.

Bruno scrambled to fix his setup but Alyssa already spotted him and held open the music stand. “Pick up the books. I’ll fix the stand.”

His face flushed as he grabbed all his sheet music and placed it back on the stand. “Thank you,” he awkwardly replied, scooting further down the bench to create some space between the two of them.

“Hey,” Alyssa whispered, putting her hands on her knees as she bent her head down to Bruno’s ear, “Tell anyone about what I just said…”

Bruno nervously gulped and his hands balled the fabric of his pants. Alyssa was the most popular girl in school, even out of all the grades, and she could easily make his life hell. Even then, it was hard to ignore the melodic cadence of her voice and the way every single one of her words teemed with life.

“I’ll report you for eating in the practice rooms,” she said, pointing toward the bag of chips now strewn over the floor.

“What,” Bruno cried, “But, I throw it all away outside!”

Alyssa shrugged and walked over to the open window, shutting it. “Don’t tell anyone, then.” She rubbed her hands across her bare arms. “It’s way too cold in here. I hate winter.”

Bruno quietly whispered to himself, “it’s not like I have anyone to tell, anyway.”

Alyssa walked over and peered over at his sheet music. “You’re playing this?”

“I wrote it,” he replied nervously, rubbing his thumb across the back of his other hand.

“That’s really impressive,” she said, leaning back. “What division are you?”

“Oh, I’m not a Leith,” he said. While there were a couple of ordinary students in the school, they were far and few between. Alyssa was the only prominent one that he knew of.

Alyssa’s eyes widened in pleasant surprise. “Oh, so you’re a scholarship kid then? What’s your name?”

Bruno nodded. “My name is Bruno,” he said, extending a hand. “You’re Alyssa, right?”

“Are you another one of my fans?” she asked bitterly, but she still took his hand. “I’m going to kill some time here until lunch is over.”

***

“Wait,” interjected Juro, ruining Bruno’s storytelling, “are you even talking about Alyssa? That sounds nothing like her. Alyssa is the sweetest person I know, almost to a fault.” He gestured to the expansive bedroom they were staying in. “I mean, we’re even in her house right now even though she’ll get in trouble.”

Bruno smiled wistfully, and his solemn eyes seemed to travel beyond Juro for a moment. “Yes, that’s her. That’s the Alyssa I know.”

Bruno stood up and walked over to the window, peering outside. Small snowflakes fell from the sky and landed on the cold windowsill, melting on contact and forming small teardrops. “Just before you guys came, Alyssa and I got into an argument.”

“Okay, wait, hold on. You’re drunk, and you’re going to regret oversharing in the morning. If it’s snowing, I’ll get you home quick,” Juro said, throwing on his coat while grabbing Bruno’s. “We can talk tomorrow if you still want to.”

Still standing by the window, Bruno remained silent but eventually threw his coat on. The two of them headed out, but, after barely leaving Alyssa’s home, Bruno completely fell asleep. Juro slapped his cheeks a few times to try and wake him up, but Bruno finally succumbed to his single sip of beer.

Juro sighed and lifted Bruno onto his back, struggling as his legs violently trembled under him, but he eventually made it to Bruno’s place. As he walked back, Juro planned to meet up with Josephine the next morning. Josephine’s address was written on the back of the card, and it wasn’t far from Alyssa’s pristine neighborhood. He flexed his bandaged hand and was relieved to find it feeling much better, but he was left more curious about Alyssa than ever.

Exhausted, he finally entered his temporary room and jumped when he saw a figure sitting on the bed.

Morrigan looked up at him with apologetic eyes. “Hey.”