My Roommate Drinks Blood Pt2

My Roommate Drinks Blood


--- The bed, Room 21-B, Lancaster Dormitory ---


Both by nature, and by inclination, Divya had never been much of a drinker. She had once been roped by peer pressure during a pre-term break to dry a shot of Jaegermeister, which in fairness had not been that bad. Unfortunately, it did not in the least agree with the cooking she'd learned from her mother, and consequently she vomited a bowl of spicy lentil soup all over the host's XBox in an effort not to vomit on his bed.
As she woke up to the sound of morning birds tweeting and people outside, she felt a lancing pain in her head that forced her back down with a groan.
"Good morning," said a voice practically bursting with amusement. Divya opened on bleary eye and looked up. Leaning over her, a grin as wide as July is hot, was Minako. For some reason the initial sight of her caused Divya to jump in alarm, but this made her head throb horribly again.
"Urggh..." Divya managed.
"I'll take that as a 'good morning' then?" Minako asked, still grinning. "Here, have some of these." she passed Divya a glass of water and two pills. "Oh, I'm so proud of you." she cooed fondly. Divya took the pills, her head throbbing too much to care what they were. Setting the glass down, she peered myopically at Minako, who was still beaming at her in a half-mischievous, half-amiable way.
"What?" she asked, warily. "Proud?"
"Don't you remember?" Minako looked behind her. "She doesn't remember." she said to the person behind her, as though they were sharing a private joke. The other person snickered. Divya fixed her eyes on the other person, and was immediately aware of a kind of lurching sensation in her chest. The person was a girl, paler skinned than Minako, black haired, and seemed to be in the middle of getting changed.
"Haven't I seen you before?" she mumbled. The girl gave a genuine snort of laughter after pulling her coat on.
"I should think so," she said, trying to repress a smile.
"You burst in on us last night," Minako said, also repressing a smile. Divya stared between them, feeling a deep sense of unease. A feeling stole over her, like the fleeting remains of feelings that she'd already had. She frowned slightly.
"Burst in...?" she blinked a few times and sat up properly.
"While we were in bed," Minako finished for her. "Yeah. I don't mind telling you it gave me quite a jolt. Which was just what I needed really, a little extra spark rounded off the night nicely." the other girl gave her a somewhat sour look.
"Well thanks for the good time," she said, a little coolly.
"Sure. We should do it again sometime," Minako said, absently. The girl left, looking a little huffy.
"Wait, I still don't get it," Divya said, moving her head experimentally. It felt like her cerebrospinal fluid had been replaced by weak acid. "What happened? How did I get in our room? I don't-" she had about to say "I don't remember," when an uncertain image flickered across her mind. She had a sensation like falling, and another of seeing someone standing on the edge of a building, looking down on her.
"Well," Minako began, evidently unable to control her own enthusiasm. "Oh, I'm just so proud of you." she said again, pulling Divya into a cursory sort of gruff hug, the kind that frat-boys do at keg parties. "Like I said, you burst in just at the end. Good thing too, since you put her right off her stride. You tottered in, dropped your coat," she pointed at a crumpled garment on the floor near the door, "almost tripped onto us, then kinda just fell on your bed. You still smell like booze."
"Booze?" Divya blinked. She leapt out of the bed, receiving a stabbing surge of pain from her protesting brain. "What do you mean?"
"You obviously went and got wasted!" Minako said ecstatically. "Oh my little Indian girl is growing up." she gave Divya a playful dig in the upper arm. "I'm guessing no one picked you up, since you came back here," she said, sounding a little come down. "You'd have been welcome to join in on us though." she snickered mischievously as Divya looked scandalised.
"I was drunk..." she muttered, all of a sudden feeling rather faint.
"Yep," Minako grinned, happily. "Boozed off your rocker. Completely off your tits, as I think the phrase goes."
Divya couldn't believe it. What on earth had come over her? She'd never gotten drunk before, ever. The actual notion of becoming drunk wasn't all that shocking to her, it was just a part of life, she supposed. Do everything at least once. But she'd at least like to remember doing it. No matter how much she strained her mind, she could not for the life of her remember what had happened. What if she'd done something embarrassing, and people in class laughed at her and she had no idea why? With Minako still watching her, she tried to think back to last night. Minako had left, and she, Divya, had gone shortly after to the library. She looked around for her book, and saw it on the table next to the laptop. She couldn't remember what she'd read last night. Well she'd just have to read it again. An icy feeling ran up her spine as she remembered Mr. D'Artre. She let out a horrified cry and dived for the laptop, sending Minako stumbling sideways. Her e-mail was already in one tab, and one message was open.
"It came earlier this morning," Minako said. "It said 'important' in the title, so..." she trailed off apologetically. Divya was too horrified to care about the impropriety of the action.
"I-I didn't find anyone," she said, faintly. Looking at the digital clock in the screen's corner, her heart froze over quicker than liquid nitrogen. "There's only an hour before class!" she shrieked.
"Calm down," Minako said. "You'll make your headache come back." Divya was too hysterical to give a damn about her head at that moment.
"My presentation!" she whined, pressing her hands against the sides of her head as though trying to crush it. Minako let out a noise of irritation and pulled her hands down.
"Listen to me," she said firmly. "Don't worry about it. I figured you'd need help, so I looked it over." Divya stared at her, uncomprehendingly.
"Huh?" she said, blinking back tears. Minako gave her a patient smile.
"I'll help you give your presentation," she said, slowly and calmly, just to make sure Divya heard her. Divya stared at her for several moments.
"You... know what...?" she glanced at the e-mail. "You read my e-mail"
"Well I was going to wake you up," Minako said, defensively. "Really, I was, but I saw who it was from and thought that with your hangover, it might be better to simply tell you what it said rather than you read it." Under normal circumstances, Divya would have found this explanation a little difficult to swallow. Whilst Minako wasn't exactly lazy or ungenerous, she had never so much as offered a tissue to anyone in all the time that Divya had known her. It would have seemed a little out of character to Divya if she had been in her right mind. But she wasn't in her right mind. Her head was too full of panic, pain, and burgeoning gratitude to at all pick up on it. She flung her arms around Minako's shoulders and hugged her fit to pop her head off.
"Okay! Okay!" Minako choked. "Get in the shower already. You can't go to class smelling like a hobo."
Divya had to admit the truth of this. Despite having no memory of going out drinking, and it being quite out of her character to do so, she certainly smelled like she had. A smell of cigarette smoke, body odour, and the stale scent of alcohol. She also had the dull, greasy sensation one gets when one has slept in their day clothes. Determined to take a quick shower, she grabbed an assortment of clothes from her drawers, leapt into the bathroom, cast off the clothes she was wearing in an untidy mess over the floor, and leapt into the shower. As she turned the water on, it must have been hotter than she thought. When it hit her outer thigh, she felt a burning sensation, and pulled out of the stream. She turned the cold on a little, but blinked down in puzzlement as a stream of blackened water spun down into the plug hole.
"Weird..." she thought, examining herself. She couldn't see where the darkened water could have come from. It had looked a little like ink. She shook her head, grabbed the shampoo, and ignoring all rules of domestic economy, squirted a dollop onto her head and lathered it up as fast as she could.
Once out of the shower, she towelled herself off and changed haphazardly into her new clothes, and gathered up the dirty ones. Through her frenzy, something pervaded her mind. A half perceived oddity. She smelt her shirt from the day before, and then frowned in confusion. She couldn't smell cigarette smoke. The shirt smelled unclean, certainly, like someone had slept in it all night, but there was no alcohol smell.
"Odd," she mumbled, but giving her head a shake she stepped out of the bathroom and threw the clothes into the dirty washing bin. Minako was sitting cross-legged on her bed, reading a print out. Divya got to the business of making her hair presentable, which was relatively easy since it only came to the base of her skull. She stuffed her phone into her pocket as she brushed, trying at the same time to slip her sandals on.
"Slow down," Minako said, not looking up from the print out. "You're making me dizzy."
"I have to practise," she said, distractedly, toppling sideways with a yelp as she tripped over her bag whilst trying to slip her bangles on.
"Then practise," Minako said, patting the spot on the bed next to her. Divya crawled up from the floor, and arranged herself on the bed, twitching and muttering and looking around frantically, until Minako stuffed a handwritten page into her hand.
"That's your bit, I think," Minako said, patiently. "You know the gist of it, right?"
"Yeah, yeah, I got it," Divya stuttered.
"Well I've pretty much got this down," Minako set the print-out down, and gestured for Divya to begin.
They practised for about half an hour, Minako smiling all the while as though mildly amused by Divya's panicking, until the latter happened to look up at the clock. Both of them ran pell-mell towards the George Building, where the history department was housed. Fortunately the halls were still full of people, meaning that they weren't late. To Minako's evident dismay, this encouraging detail seemed to have no effect on Divya's panic, as she was jumping up and down in agitation, almost knocking the diagrams and pictures out of Minako's arms.
As they entered the classroom, Mr. D'Artre looked up from his desk, and smiled at Divya, who did her best to smile back.
"I assume this is your replacement presenter?" he asked, giving Minako a polite look of inquiry.
"Yes, sir," Divya said.
"Minako Hoji," Minako held out her hand. Mr. D'Artre shook it warmly.
"Well, Ms. Jahal, you're up after Mr. Bennet and Mr. McIntosh. If you'd take your seat."
Divya and Minako sat down together. Almost instantly someone at the back of the class called over.
"Hey Minako," Minako looked round.
"Oh, hey Christine,"
"Minako!" someone down their line of tables called in a carrying whisper. Divya looked over to see another girl waving in their direction. She looked all around the class, and was somewhat astonished to see that a number of girls were all either looking at Minako, or looking determinately away. One feisty looking young woman with a hairband gave Minako a sly look, and ran her tongue between her index and middle finger. Divya gave Minako a look of incredulity. Minako was looking determinately down at one of the diagrams they'd brought with them, her expression stony, but her cheeks beginning to flush a little. Quite apart from the fact that Minako had had sex with each and every one of them, Divya was more surprised that there were so many lesbians in one class. She had never considered the idea before. As though Minako had read her mind, she mumbled out of the corner of her mouth:
"It's not how you're thinking," Divya looked at her sidelong as Mr. D'Artre called for silence. "Some were just trying it out."
"Oh," Divya said. A handy, noncommittal answer. "And they all came to you?" as soon as she said it, she realised how rude her tone of disbelief had been. "I-I mean, well, you must be really good I guess, and-" which only made it worse. "Wha-what I mean is, maybe they heard about-" Minako propped up her hands and rested her chin on them, not looking at Divya as she dug herself deeper and deeper into a hole. As the class quieted down, Divya let her drivel die away, and she lapsed into red-faced silence. Not exactly tall to begin with, she almost disappeared as she sank down into her chair.
"Mr. Bennet, and Mr. McIntosh," Mr. D'Artre called amiably. "To the front, if you please."
Divya barely heard any of the presentation. Her ears buzzing from humiliation, she found herself looking discreetly around at some of the girls who, despite having to take notice of the presentation as well, couldn't seem to help themselves glancing every so often at Minako.
"Sorry to interrupt, lads," Mr. D'Artre whispered, before saying in a loud voice, "I hope you're all taking notes on this. It may or may not be on the next test." He looked at the class, meaningfully. The class gave a quiet but collective groan, and those who hadn't been taking notes speedily took out pen and paper. Divya took out her notebook and a pen from behind her ear, and began trying to pay attention, but every so often she shot a side-ways look at Minako, who was still looking stony faced.
Once the boys had done, and it was Divya and Minako's turn, there seemed to be a greater round of applause than for their predecessors. Divya looked around at the many faces all looking suddenly attentive, not at her, but at Minako. She herself was looking fixedly forward, her expression now blank and empty of emotion.
"Ms. Jahal?" Divya looked around. Mr. D'Artre was looking at her with a raised eyebrow. "I said that you may begin." he said, clearly. Divya stared at him for a moment, and then stammered to attention.
"Oh, yes... err, um..." she looked out at the classroom, at the sea of faces looking expectantly in her direction. After a short pause, Minako elbowed her discreetly.
"Florence," she whispered.
"Oh, right," Divya cleared her throat, and began the presentation.


"I didn't think it went too bad."
"No. Thanks to you. You saved me stepping in like that."
"Meh. What are roomies for?"
They stepped out into the cold sunlight, students milling around them. They stopped over by the fountain where a semi-circle of benches stood beneath a pillared ceiling. Divya set the diagrams and pictures down, whilst Minako leaned against the nearest pillar.
"Hey, Minako," Divya looked over her shoulder to see the feisty-looking girl from history class. She was regarding Minako with a mysterious sort of light in her eye, stuffing her mobile phone into her back pocket. Divya knew the girl by sight, but had never really taken notice of her before now. Getting a good look at her however, she registered the numerous earrings, the dark liquid eyes, her slim and elegant frame, her long sheet of rich, wood-coloured hair.
"Hey." Minako said, casually. She looked off passed the girl, and following her gaze, Divya spotted two or three other girls standing and watching, apparently waiting for the one talking. It was at this point that Charles and Kelly showed up, greeting Divya under the pillars.
"Minako gave the presentation with you?" Kelly asked, looking for some reason alarmed.
"You got her to do something for you?" Charles asked, sounding equally disbelieving but grinning and holding his hand up for a high-five. "Dude, total favour score."
"She offered, actually," Divya said, allowing Charles to smack her hand.
"Just wanted to say," the girl was meanwhile saying. She had one of those confident, cheerleader sort of voices, as though whatever she said, she was confident that it would happen. "Really enjoyed seeing you in class today," she went on, giving Minako a sly smile. "That presentation made my day, I tell you."
"It was Divya's work," Minako said, jerking a thumb at Divya. The girl glanced towards Divya, running her eyes up at down.
"Oh yeah, your roomie," she said, evidently not much interested. "Are you doing anything right now? I got my pay-check in yesterday and I'm just dying to go into town."
"We're going to Choca-Mocca," Kelly said at about the same time. "You want to come?"
"That sounds great," Divya said, absently giving her stomach a rub. "I didn't have breakfast."
"Seriously," Charles observed, poking her jovially in the belly button. "I know thin is in, but anorexic chicks totally don't do it for me."
"Choca-Mocca?" Minako seemed to perk up a bit here. "They do, like, the best cakes ever,"
"Oh my god," Charles said, putting on a voice similar to the brown-haired girl and gesturing daintily with his hands. "They, like, totally do."
"Then we totally need to go, bra," Minako grinned crookedly, putting on a surfer-dude accent. Divya noticed that the other girl didn't seem to be taking being ignored that well. She gave Minako a narrow, searching look, and then looked distinctly at Divya. Divya looked back at her, somewhat perplexed at the distinct look of dislike the girl was now directing her way. She didn't attempt to wrest back Minako's attention, but scribbled down something swiftly on a piece of paper.
"Call me if you change your mind," she said to Minako, stuffing the paper into her trouser pocket. With a last flirtatious sideways glance, she strolled away towards the girls waiting for her.
As they made their way across the street and down the road, Divya found herself thinking about the girl and that glare she'd given before leaving. What had that been for? It wasn't until they rounded a brick wall that she noticed that Kelly was also wearing a discourteous expression. For reasons best known to herself, she was directing a guarded, suspicious look at Minako, as though she had some kind of disease that she didn't want to catch.
"Is Sheldon coming?" Divya asked, mounting the pavement to the line of shops.
"Nah, he's got a project due later and needs to get his conclusion finished." Charles answered, breezily.
"Wasn't he doing that yesterday?"
"Yeah," Charles said slowly. "But then someone got him to play Secret World instead."
They all sat down, Kelly and Divya on one side, Minako and Charles on the other. Charles waved for a waitress, who came over and took their order. As soon as she was gone, the table lapsed into an unnatural silence. An uncomfortable stare triangle was going on, as Kelly looked at Minako, then to Divya, and back again, whilst Divya looked anxiously between the two of them. Minako, after catching Kelly's eye, raised an eyebrow, and began looking between Divya's concerned expression, and Kelly's smoothly inscrutable one. Charles, who despite being a huge nerd was really quite handsome looking, was shooting a pair of finger guns towards a nearby table and making the two girls there grin and shake their heads, and so caught none of this.
"You know, Minako," Kelly said, suddenly and in what was obviously meant to be an amiable fashion, "you didn't have to come here with us. Wasn't Vicky inviting you to go shopping or something?" Divya coloured up a little here. She couldn't tell if Minako had picked up on the forced civility in Kelly's voice, but she certainly had. Minako shrugged indifferently.
"I don't like shopping much."
"Oh," Kelly replied, still in that forced tone of politeness. "If you don't mind me saying so, that's a little strange in my opinion. I love to go shopping." Minako looked directly at her then.
"I don't have the patience for hobby shopping," she said, idly. "Going from one shop to another, and then back again to look at the same stuff would just annoy me." Divya, now feeling a little warm under the collar, didn't dare look up from the little picture she was drawing in the greasy table top with her finger.
"I suppose we all have our different interests, don't we?" Kelly said with a smile. "Different tastes. Different hobbies."
"Very true," Minako said, a little coolly. "If I'd known you had any interest in going, I'd have introduced the two of you. I'm sure you'd have gotten on together." Kelly's face went pink.
"Vicky and I don't get on," she said, a distinct note of anger entering her voice now.
"I'm sorry to hear that," Minako said, smiling for the first time. "She can be a little clingy, I admit. Not that she knows it herself." Divya felt it necessary to cut in at this point.
"So has everyone finished their end of term projects?" she asked, her tone a little desperate. Charles looked round.
"Pfft, you kiddin'?" he scoffed. "I handed mine in a week ag-" he stopped, noticing for the first time the dark forces stirring between Kelly and Minako. Divya shot him wordless pleas for help.
"I just don't much like the company she keeps," Kelly said, her tone entirely friendly, but her brown eyes burning with dislike. Minako's cool demeanour rippled with malicious amusement.
"That's something we can agree on. None of her friends liked me when we were going out."
"They didn't like you for the entire day?" Kelly inquired sweetly. Minako's amused smile flickered into something like a leer.
"If you've got something to say to me-"
"You're damn right I do." Kelly snarled, her thin veil of disingenuous friendliness falling faster than a stage curtain. "What makes you think you can invite yourself here with us?"
"In case you didn't notice, Divya and me were already standing together when you came butting in." in contrast with Kelly's angry voice, Minako's was becoming quieter and colder like an overnight freeze. Divya gulped as Minako's colourless eyes flared with cold fury. She blinked, staring at Minako for a moment as a kind of silent thunderbolt ran through her. For a second, she thought she remembered them being blue. Whilst she was pondering this strange thought, Charles interceded.
"Whoa, whoa, ladies." he leaned across the table and tried to break their eye contact. "I'm all for a cat fight, but seriously, if we get thrown out of here I'm going to make it my life's goal to take everlasting vengeance on you both." neither of them seemed to pay him any attention. Divya, breaking from her distractedness, noticed several people all looking around at them. The waitress who'd taken their order was standing with a tray, looking somewhat uncomfortable.
"Err... here's your um... yeah." she set the tray down. Minako snatched her coffee from it and drank it down in one, then slammed it down and gave the waitress a cursory thanks. Divya and Charles gave the waitress a more earnest show of thanks, Divya looking apologetic, and Charles a wink. The waitress went away looking marginally happier. Kelly, glaring at Minako the whole time, sipped her coffee with tight lips as Minako attacked her strawberry chocolate cake.
Once they had finished in deathly silence, even Charles knew that to say anything might trigger a meltdown. Minako put the last nail in Kelly's coffin by paying for the order when the waitress came with the receipt.
As soon as they exited the coffee house, Minako had apparently worn out her desire to argue, and so had told Divya that she was heading back to their dorm, but offered an invitation to come to her volleyball club later that day.
"You don't have any more classes then, do you?" she asked, ignoring Kelly as she stood apart from them, pointedly looking at her watch and directing sour looks at the two of them.
"No," Divya said. "I just have English, then I'm off for the day." Minako smiled.
"See you then?"
"Sure." Divya smiled.
"Fucking bitch." Kelly barked, the minute Minako was out of sight and Divya had rejoined her and Charles. "Where does she get off?"
"In fairness," Divya said, frowning slightly. "You were the one that started it."
"She started it by inviting herself along!" Kelly snapped. Divya stayed silent, conscious that to argue on would only invite Kelly to shout louder. Kelly seemed to understand, and lowered her voice. To Divya's consternation, she didn't stop going on about it. "Why are you even defending her? She's insufferable."
"How?" Charles asked. "I don't get what your problem is. I like her."
"You only like her because she paid," Kelly spat. Charles sighed, ostentatiously.
"You're being stupid," he sighed. Divya tried to make it look like she wasn't part of this as they all walked down the street. A woman in a suit with her hair in a tight bun, looking at her phone, glared at them as they passed, Kelly still ranting.
"She'd just better not pull anything like that again." Kelly summarised.
"What're you gonna do if she does?" Charles asked, smirking.
"I'll rip her damn hair out!" Kelly snarled. "And inviting Divy to volleyball." she gave a scathing laugh. "Like she doesn't know Divya doesn't do sports." Divya said nothing as Kelly gave her a smile, as though inviting her to share the joke. After a few moments, her smile slid off her face. "You're not going, are you?" Divya cleared her throat, not looking at her.
"Well, she did invite me, so I thought I'd..." she tailed off as a look of disgust grew across Kelly's face.
"Ugh!" without looking either way, she stormed across the road, turned around the Lancaster building, and disappeared from sight.
"Too bad it's light traffic," Charles observed, hands behind his head. "I foresee a friendship dilemma here."
"I'm just going to watch her play volleyball," Divya said, quietly. "She acts like I'm going to sleep with her or something." Charles didn't say anything in reply to this, and after a few moments, Divya looked at him. He had a thoughtful expression on his face. She narrowed her eyes and glared at him. "You're imagining me sleeping with her aren't you?" Charles' "No!" was a little too hasty to be entirely believable. Divya rolled her eyes. "Boys..." she muttered.