Akina's Reflection

I

It has been about three years since I moved into this country, and now here I finally am. I carefully put down my belongings, and carefully wandered the empty dorm room. It surprised me that there was not much, only two beds and two desks, but there was a balcony, and that at the least made me happy. I decided I won't begin unpacking until my roommate gets here.

I sighed, and sat down on one of the beds. three years of this new country. Three years since I fled, and three years ago I never thought I'd make it to college. My sister, Teri, would probably be at home now from high school, rooting for me. I miss her,but somehow, I am not too homesick. I'm know I'm leaving her forever.

I suddenly got up when the door opened. It appears my roommate is finally here. Besides other things, I had really wondered what my roommate would be like. Because my roommate cannot be the opposite gender, he would probably be taller than me. That's about as far as I had thought. There isn't really a "stereotypical roommate" or anything, he could really be anything. He could be mean, yet he might be nice. Fun to be around, or maybe boring? I've also had worse thoughts, but I guess those are best left untold.

The door swung open, and my roommate walked in. As soon as he walked in, I was kind of surprised. I expected someone taller than me, for I am pretty short, but this guy was actually about my height, if not shorter than me by an inch or so. He had kind of light auburn hair, and glasses. He had walked quickly past me, in the middle of saying something like

"...I don't need your help! Just go home or whatever!"

He crash landed onto the bed I wasn't sitting on. A man, probably the one he was saying all that stuff too, appeared at the doorway. He sighed, looking at the other boy, then turned to face me.

"Oh hello, you must be Sayoki." He pulled his hand out and shook hands with me.

" I am Charles Alstein, and I'm so sorry about Aubrey. He's just... He's been through a lot."

"No, it's okay." I replied, looking at Mr. Alstein. He was not a really old looking guy, maybe in his early forties. He looked kind of similar to Aubrey, they both had the similar auburn hair, but Mr. Alstein's was even lighter, and duller.They also both had glasses.

I glanced at Aubrey. He kind of just stared off through the sliding door to the balcony. So he is troubled, I can see that, but how?

"Been through a lot? What happened?" I asked, out of curiosity.

"Aubrey, well, he's was good kid, really. Just a little lonely, until..."

Mr. Alstein paused, then smiled, though a little sadly.

"Well, probably Aubrey would tell you. I think you two can get along. If you ever want to talk again, here is my number."

He quickly pulled out a notepad, wrote down the number, and handed it to me. As he was about to leave, I did hear him mutter, more to himself.

"...Make sure Aubrey is happy, Sayoki. That's all I ask of you."

Then he was gone, down the hall to the nearest elevator.

"Have you chosen which bed you wanted yet?"

Startled, I turned around. Of course it was only Aubrey, I almost forgot about him. Now that his dad was gone, he seemed way less aggravated, though not quite calm. Actually, by his tone of voice, it seemed Aubrey was suspicious of me.

"Um... This one." I said, putting my stuff on the bed closer to me. Aubrey shrugged, and put his stuff down on the other bed.

After that, we did not have much to say to each other, we just unpacked in silence. There were four shelves in the dresser, so we agreed that I will take the top two shelves, and him the bottom two. As I was putting some of my clothes into a drawer, I looked over at Aubrey's side of the room. On his desk, there was a nice laptop, as well as a few other things that belonged to him. A folder sat next to his laptop, with some papers inside. The wall against his bed he kept without embellishment, though what caught my eye sat on his bed.

Aubrey seemed like a pretty serious and grown up person, but on his bed sat a plush pony, with a cute green ribbon tied up around its neck. The pony was grey, with a black tail and mane, and large, cute black eyes. I've never seen such a plush toy in any store, in fact, it looked like it was skillfully hand made.

"That's cute," I said to him, pointing out the plushie. "did you ever name it?"

Aubrey stayed silent for a bit, and stared at it.

"I've had her for a long time," he replied. His voice still had that suspicious tone, but this time, a little sad as well. "A close cousin of mine made her. Her name is Stybba."

Then he went quiet again. I decided not to ask him where he got the weird name.

So at least I didn't get a mean roommate, but for some reason, I can't imagine us being friends any time soon.