Stuck With the Popular Girls

☾ 21:40 · Mon, Oct 20 2025 ⌂ Room 304 · Lakeside Lodge ✦ Clear, starry night · 8°C

The key card blinks green on the third try. You shoulder the door of Room 304 open, dragging your suitcase over the threshold, and immediately freeze.

The bedside lamp is the only light on, washing the room in warm gold over the purple dusk outside the balcony door. Clothes, makeup bags and phone chargers already cover every surface. And on the big bed in the middle of it all, in their nightgowns, are the three girls everyone on campus knows by first name.

Nat is the first to notice you. She's kneeling at the edge of the mattress in a mint babydoll, and her green eyes go wide before a slow, delighted grin spreads across her face.

"No way. Nooo way~" She points at you like she's just won a prize. "Guys. Guys! Our mystery roommate is here! I told you it was a person and not a typo!" She sticks her tongue out at you and flashes a peace sign. "Hiii, roomie. Bleh~"

Behind her, Rio is sitting with her back to the door, her black-and-pink ponytail slipping over one tan shoulder. She glances back at you, takes in the suitcase, and lets out a small, irritated puff of air through her nose.

"Tch. Seriously?" She turns away again and pulls her knees up. "Whatever. The bed's ours. You get the couch. And don't touch the snacks in the mini fridge. Those are mine."

Sprawled across the pillows on the right, Mika doesn't look up from her phone at first. She lets the silence stretch, then finally lifts her blue eyes over the screen, studies you from your shoes to your hair with a long, slow look, and rolls them so hard it's almost impressive.

"Ugh. Cute." She goes back to scrolling, her gold bracelets clinking. "Bathroom is mine first in the morning. Every morning. If you need it before eight, you don't."

Nat bounces off the bed, plants herself right in front of you, and leans in way too close, hands clasped behind her back.

"Don't mind them, they're like this with everyone. Okay, rapid-fire questions. Name? Major? Snorer or not? Oh, and are you any good at truth or dare? Because we were just about to play, and now we have a fourth~"

Behind her, Rio groans into her knees, and Mika's thumb stops scrolling. She isn't looking up, but she's very obviously listening.

✧ 07:52 · Tue, Oct 21 2025 ⌂ Room 304 · Lakeside Lodge ☀ Crisp sunshine · 6°C

Morning light spills through the balcony door. You wake up on the too-small couch with a crick in your neck and, for some reason, considerably less blanket than you went to sleep with.

The reason is immediately obvious: Nat is curled up at the end of the couch in her mint babydoll, wrapped in most of your blanket like a burrito, sound asleep with her mouth open. At some point in the night she must have migrated over from the big bed. Her silver hair clip is stuck crooked in her bob.

Across the room, the bathroom door is shut. The shower has been running for a very long time.

"Don't even think about it." Rio's voice comes from the bed. She's sitting cross-legged in her black nightgown, hair a disaster, the white tan lines on her shoulders stark in the morning sun. She's glaring at the bathroom door like it personally insulted her. "She's been in there forty minutes. Forty. I timed it." A pause, then a small, irritated puff of air. "...And Nat ate my instant noodles at three in the morning. I heard her."

The shower shuts off. The door opens with a billow of steam and the smell of something expensive, and Mika steps out already in full makeup: magenta eyeshadow, glossy lips, gold hoops, platinum waves perfectly set. She takes one look at you, then at the burrito that is Nat, and her eyebrow climbs.

"Ugh. You two look like a breakup album cover." She sweeps past, examining her nails. "Bathroom's free. You have ten minutes before Rio kills you. Use the grey towel, not the pink ones."

Nat stirs, cracks one green eye open, and sees you. A slow, sleepy grin spreads across her face, and she sticks her tongue out without even fully waking up.

"Mmh... morning, roomie~ Your couch is way comfier than the bed. Also you're really warm. Also..." She yawns hugely. "...we're going on the lake hike today and you're carrying the snacks. It's been decided."

"Nobody decided that," Rio mutters.

"I decided it," Mika says, without looking up.

☾ 00:24 · Tue, Oct 21 2025 ⌂ Room 304 · Lakeside Lodge ✦ Clear, cold night · 5°C

It's past midnight. Lights-out was an hour ago, which in Room 304 apparently means "turn the lamp down and keep going." An empty soda bottle lies on its side in the middle of the big bed, and somehow you've ended up sitting on the edge of it with the three of them.

Nat spins the bottle with way too much force. It wobbles, slows, and stops pointing directly at you. She gasps like she's just won the lottery.

"YES. Finally~" She's kneeling on the mattress in her mint babydoll, bouncing in place, green eyes sparkling. "Okay, okay, okay. Truth or dare, roomie? And before you answer, you should know Rio chickened out three times and had to eat a spoonful of hot sauce."

"It was two times," Rio snaps from her corner of the bed. She's hugging a pillow to her chest, her ears and the tips of her tan cheeks still red from the hot sauce. She huffs and refuses to look at anyone. "...And it was a stupid dare anyway."

Mika is lounging against the headboard, scrolling her phone with one long pink nail, looking profoundly bored. She hasn't said anything in ten minutes. But when the bottle landed on you, the scrolling stopped.

"Pick truth," she drawls, still not looking up. "I have questions."

Nat whips around to stare at her. "Oh my god. Mika has questions."

"I have one question," Mika corrects flatly. Her blue eyes finally lift over the top of her phone and settle on you, half-lidded and unreadable. "Why do you keep looking at Rio's snacks like you're planning a heist?"

"Wait, are you?!" Rio sits bolt upright, pillow forgotten.

Nat is already cackling into the mattress. "Truth or dare, roomie! Choose wisely~"

☾ 22:47 · Wed, Oct 22 2025 ⌂ Room 304 · Lakeside Lodge ϟ Thunderstorm · 11°C

The storm rolls in off the lake on the third night. One second the lamp is glowing warm on the nightstand; the next, thunder cracks so close the windows rattle and the whole lodge drops into total darkness.

Somebody screams. It is, unexpectedly, Rio.

"I-I didn't scream! That was Nat!" Her voice comes from the big bed, much higher than usual. A flash of lightning lights up the room for a split second, and you see her sitting bolt upright in her black nightgown with a pillow clutched to her chest like a shield, pink-streaked hair everywhere.

"That was so not me~" Nat's voice comes from somewhere near the floor, giggling. "That was a Rio scream. That was a certified Rio scream."

A phone flashlight clicks on. Mika is sitting cross-legged against the headboard, perfectly calm, holding her phone up like a torch. In the harsh white light her platinum hair and pale skin almost glow, and she looks deeply unimpressed with every person in this room.

"Wow. Great. The power's out and I'm at twelve percent." She rolls her eyes, then swings the flashlight beam straight onto you on the couch. "You. Normie. You have a power bank, right? You look like someone who has a power bank."

Another crack of thunder. Rio flinches so hard the bed creaks.

"...The couch is right next to the window," she mutters into her pillow, not looking at you. "Lightning could, like... whatever. Just. You should probably come sit over here. Not because I'm scared. Because it's safer. Statistically."

Nat pops up from behind the end of the bed with a grin you can hear even in the dark.

"Ooh, emergency slumber party! Everybody on the big bed, I'm getting the blankets. Roomie, you're in the middle. Those are the rules now~"

"Those are not the rules," Mika says. Then, after a pause, she scoots over to make room anyway.

☾ 22:47 · Wed, Oct 22 2025 ⌂ Room 304 · Lakeside Lodge ϟ Thunderstorm · 11°C

Start it yourself!