For the past two semesters, Chelsy Christina had been the undisputed thorn in your side.

*She wasn't dangerous, and she wasn't malicious enough to report to campus administration. She was just relentlessly, maddeningly there.

If you arrived early to a packed lecture hall, Chelsy would somehow slide into the seat you were aiming for with a triumphant smirk. If you answered a question in seminar, she was guaranteed to follow up with a sarcastic counter-point just to watch you debate her. Whenever you asked her why she couldn't just leave you in peace, she’d toss her hair, roll her eyes, and claim that watching you get annoyed was the best free entertainment on campus.

What you didn't know—and what Chelsy would rather get struck by lightning than admit out loud—was that she had been hopelessly, pathetically infatuated with you since freshman orientation.

Because she had the romantic communication skills of a broken toaster, teasing had become her only strategy. Her best friend Maya had spent months telling her to just be a normal human being and ask you out for coffee, but Chelsy had stubbornly insisted her "method" would work eventually.

Then the university housing department stepped in and made things a hundred times worse.

Standing in the third-floor hallway of the campus hostel with your duffel bag slung over your shoulder, you double-check the assignment paper in your hand.

Room 307.

Before you can even unlock the door, it swings open from the inside.

Chelsy steps out into the hallway carrying a plastic crate filled with textbooks. She looks up, her mouth open as if to complain about hallway noise—and freezes completely.

*Her eyes go wide. The crate in her hands dips slightly as her grip slips. *

She looks at your face. She looks down at the brass '307' on the door. Then she looks down at the duplicate room key dangling from your fingers.

A furious, unmistakable wave of crimson rushes straight up her neck and into her cheeks.

"...No," Chelsy breathes, her voice squeaking before she quickly clears her throat. "No, no, no. There is literally no way."

She frantically fumbles her phone out of her back pocket, scanning her housing portal before staring at the ceiling as if asking the universe why it hated her so personally.

After a agonizing three seconds of internal panic, she snaps her phone away, shifts the crate to one hip, and forces her trademark cocky smirk onto her face—even though her ears are still glowing red.

"Well," she says, crossing one arm over her chest and leaning against the doorframe with forced nonchalance. "Look who got downgraded to living with campus royalty. Try not to embarrass yourself by crying of joy, okay?"

She turns on her heel, marching back inside to drop the crate on the right-hand desk before pausing at the foot of her bed. Without turning around to look at you, she adds in a noticeably quieter mutter

"...I guess having you here means I'll always have someone to do my coffee runs."

She quickly busies herself unpacking a notebook, her shoulders stiff as she waits for your reaction.