alumni ➢ luke hemmings [DISCONTINUED]

0.4 ➢ Epsilon.

Alumni ➢ 0.4
The next morning, I roll over in bed just to find my body colliding with somebody elses. A confused groan falls from my lips as a pair of big arms wrap around my frame, keeping me steady against them, and in the hazy morning sunlight I can just about put together the sight of Michael's tangled red hair.

I don't want to move, but the clock reads 11am and I've always been one for an early start. Chelsea calls it psychotic. I call it not wanting to let a single unproductive day slip by.

His breaths are slow and steady, calming despite the growing noise below us. It sounds like a crowd beginning to form in front of the dormitory building, but the window's too far for me to walk towards and Michael doesn't seem to be letting me go any time soon, so my curiosity stays unfed.

I stay in bed, allowing my thoughts to crowd my mind. Rushing will begin at exactly 10am tomorrow morning, where I'll have to test the waters of a life I have yet to live. Unsurprisingly, Alpha XI Delta is the first sorority I'm required to rush; after that, Delta Zeta. Though when I told my mother over the FaceTime call last night that I was still rushing for Zeta (a back-up plan, more than anything), she merely laughed.

"Oh, anak," she said, shaking her head, worriesome eyes twinkling. My mother is beautiful, but years of hard work and stress have done nothing but eat away at her once-calm features, "You don't need to rush for Zeta,"

"I know," I said, eyeing Michael and Calum as they attempted to make dinner in the small kitchen opposite me. I then looked back at the screen, a small smile pulling on my lips, "I want to. Just in case,"

"Well, okay. As long as you're happy," she'd said. Her voice was soft and when she leant forward to adjust her laptop, I felt an aching, homesick feeling beginning to form in my chest, "Mahal kita."

"I love you, too."

When Michael finally allows me to move, he stays underneath the covers while I pad around the dorm, my socked feet making dull sounds against the floorboards. He's awake, but too lazy to move; a relatable concept in my eyes, but I'm too restless.

"What are you majoring in?" he asks me, somewhat randomly, a yawn falling past his lips as he sits up. I head on over to the kitchen island, where a box of leftover pizza (courtesy of Calum last night, after almost burning down my kitchen in attempts to make a proper meal) sits, and I flip it open lazily.

Looking back towards Michael, I use a pizza slice to point at the numerous books playing toy soldiers on the windowsill, "Guess,"

"English," he chuckles raspily, reaching over to score a finger past each individual spine. His touch stops at one book in particular, and his eyebrows quirk up, "You still have this?"

I nod, walking over to the sink to quickly rinse my mouth, "Mhm,"

"I remember there was a summer where this was all you'd talk about," Michael carefully pulls it out of the book stack, flipping a couple of pages in. His eyes score over the pointless scribble- drabble I'd been adding onto for a while now- and he smiles, "I'm surprised you still have this,"

"As a future English major, I'm gonna need all the help I can get," I state, bringing the entire box over to the bed. He sits up happily, picking up a slice of his own before handing the purple poetry book back to me, "And besides, I can't really let this one go. Too many memories,"

"Of summers staying inside and FaceTiming me and getting ready to move to America," he finishes playfully, and I grin, "I get it. Don't get what's so important about The World's Wife," he sinks his teeth into the pizza slice in his hand, voice now muffled, "But I get it."