[h3][b][color=blue]Alina Sanford[/color][/b][/h3]
Alina was quite lucky to live on the ground floor of the student accommodation. It meant she didn't have to spend long stretches of time climbing up and down stairs with a heavy bag - and with a relatively late class today, she could afford to relax a bit. Great. She needed some time to herself, after that weird half-remembered dream left her in a state. And she... didn't feel much like talking to the other people in the dorm right now, either. She'd do a bit of interacting later, probably.

So today was gonna be a bad one, huh? Wonderful.

She couldn't stay in bed forever, though. She had coursework, and she had a class just before lunch at that. At about ten, she finally dragged herself out of bed, and made a quick meal for herself. Cornflakes in milk, a banana, glass of water. Simple stuff. She tended not to spend much on food; she physically didn't need a lot, did she? Didn't want to get fat. After that, she brushed her teeth, got showered and dressed for the day - a simple yellow dress, this time - and pre-made lunch in the shape of a Marmite sandwich, a peeled carrot, and a bag of Walkers Prawn Cocktail crisps. Again, light fare. She'd make something heavier for dinner, perhaps. Pasta? A salad to go with? Maybe.

She didn't pass anybody on the way out.

[hr]

'Hey Aliiiinaaa!' Mary called out, running up behind as she did. Ah, Mary. Tall, blonde, friend to everybody. Alina's closest friend, funnily. Embarassingly better at Chemistry than Alina. And they were right outside the gates by now, too, mostly devoid of other students.

'Hey, Mary. How's coursework going?'

'Ah, pretty swell, actually!' she replied, tossing her hair back behind her ear. 'I'm mostly done on the latest assignment; I could probably help you with it, if you wanted to come over later?' There was the ask, the request for her to come over.

'...maybe. I still need to think about dinner, too.'

'Yeah, perfect! We'll have something solid to fuel us, and crank it out in no time!' she cried, pumping her fist energetically. She hadn't said it yet...

'And then?'

'And, uh... and then we can, um, play some of this new game... it's, uh, pretty fun, you're a girl in an all-boy's school... they, uh...'

There it was. The perverse part of the query. Because, turned out, Mary was also very into pornographic games.

'Why do you keep asking me to play eroge games with you, Mary?'

'It's not ero-! [i]It's not smut,[/i]' she whispered back intensely, blushing a little after her initial outburst. 'These are highly story-intensive visual novels with a lot of depth and plenty of paths to follow, like TellTale did before they went under. Sure, these ones involve some, you know, plot-based intercourse, for the sake of advancing the story and stuff, but you know that's not the sort of thing I'd show just [i]anyone,[/i] Alina!' Yeah, like she hadn't asked- well, to Alina's knowledge, Mary really hadn't asked anyone else to play those sorts of games. Rumours spread like wildfire, and she suspected even she might have heard something about it.

'Besides,' Mary continued with just a hint of either mothering or smarminess, 'you'll get behind on the work again if you don't get on with it. Remember last year, with the second-to-last project?'

'Yeah. That was right after grandad died.'

'Mm. Not to remind you of that, I'm sorry. You were in a right state, though, and I've seen you slowing down even after that. I do care about you, Alina, you know?' she uttered, hugging the girl affectionately. 'I want you to do your best work, and why not get help from somebody close to you?' Well, that did make sense when she considered it... she shrugged the arms away as they continued walking, they'd been there a while now.

Alina stiffened up a bit as she stopped. Close to her? She cared about her, the hugs? She- no. No way. How had she not seen it before?

'...Mary?'

'Yeah?' Mary asked, already sensing something was up in Alina's head.

'Do... do you have a crush on me?'

Mary's expression fell like a rock. Or rather, it expanded like a cloud. Or an explosion? The point being, it went from smiling and slightly worried to pure, unadulterated panic in less than a second, and less than a second after that-

'Wait a minute-!'

'OKAY I'LL SEE YOU IN CLASS ALINA BYEEEE!' Mary yelled behind her as she sprinted, full-speed, into the building and out of sight, leaving her on her own again. Then either the very thought of being attracted to Alina was deeply disturbing; or Alina was exactly right, and Mary was crushing on her something bad. She suspected the latter, and sighed deeply over the idea.

'Well, shit.'