The Metropolis Series #3: Quinn and Cassandra

I SPENT MOST OF THE DAY feeling anxious. That new girl may look, act, and talk like Harumi, but with physical attributes aside, I would be sharing a room with a stranger.

I told myself to calm down, but I remembered how nerve-racking it was the first time we moved in together. As an only child, it was my first time having a roommate, and you could say that I was a spoiled loser for feeling like my personal bubble had burst. To add to my uneasiness, the old Harumi had settled in before I did. Her skincare products cluttered the bathroom, her clothes were already in the dresser, and her laptop took the only desk in the room. She was also eating when I came in—because of course, she was—and when she saw me, she decided to mess with me by pretending to not speak any English at all.

But the initial culture shock on my end did not last very long as Harumi had proven to be a very dear friend. I knew that version of her was long gone. I had brought her back, but she didn’t have any memories of me.

I guess that was where the fear came from. How was I supposed to deal with that?

Thankfully, I didn’t have to meet her until later in the afternoon; she’d said in her text that she was skipping classes to prepare for her move into the dorms. That meant that I could focus my energy on another thing I needed to do: leave the art club.

There was a certain apprehension about quitting or breaking away from a group in general, especially since I was raised in an environment that subtly conditioned me to please others and avoid conflict. I was afraid of how the moderator would react given that I was a fairly new member of her club.

I arrived early to get it over with. Only the moderator was in the room. Taking a deep breath, I walked toward her as she drew samples on the blackboard. I had my portrait with me, the one that had brought Harumi back to life. I thought that I’d still turn it in to add something positive to my parting.

“Excuse me, Miss,” I said. “May I talk to you?”

The moderator turned to me. “Sure, Vasquez. What is it?”

“I’d like to turn in my portraiture activity.” I lifted my artwork.

“Ah, I’ll be collecting those later. For now, you can go to your spot and set up your materials.”

She was about to return to drawing on the blackboard when I cleared my throat.

“About that,” I began, struggling to find the right words. “I’m leaving the art club.”

“Oh,” the moderator said. It worried me how forlorn her expression appeared. “And why is that?”

Without going into the pain of discussing my newfound powers, I went with: “I just realized that painting and art may not be my thing. Sorry about that.”

The moderator smiled. “I understand. Sometimes, we just fall out of things. It’s normal, especially at your age when things are uncertain. But I do want to remind you that being in a club is one of the requirements for graduating.”

“Thanks, I know,” I replied. “My previous club is resuming their sessions, so I’ll be joining them again. Oh, and here’s my portrait.”

“Okay.” She took my artwork. “Just remember to get it back here by next Tuesday. It should be graded by then and will count as credits to your extra-curricular activity. By the way, you can get all of your finished work from that shelf over there. Just look for your name.”

“Thank you.”

As I walked to the shelf, I wondered when I was going to paint again. I didn’t want to keep worrying about bringing whatever I’d draw to life. Nevertheless, I’d definitely consider doing art again once I get a hang of my strange powers.

I collected my artwork and said goodbye to the moderator. My short stay at St. John’s art club had ended.

Later that afternoon, Harumi waited for me in the lobby of the girls’ dorms. She was on her phone with her luggage tucked under a bench. With all that had happened the previous day, it took time for her presence to sink in. If she hadn’t noticed me first, I probably would have stood there longer, looking like a freak.

Harumi emerged from her seat and waved. “Hello, Quinn.”

Only one thought surged through my brain: Act normally, Quinn. Act normally.

“Hi,” I said. “You didn’t need to wait for me.”

“I thought you could bring me to the dorms,” she replied. “We can also get to know each other along the way. Settling in before your arrival felt kind of weird.”

“I see. That would have felt weird for me, too. I’m not used to roommates.”

“Oh, so you’re an only child, then?”

I wondered how well this new Harumi could read through me. The old Harumi had always been pretty spot on.

“Actually, yeah,” I replied. “You?”

“My previous school also had a dorm,” Harumi explained, “so I’m used to roommates. I also have two brothers, and we shared rooms when we were younger. They’re annoying, but at least they don’t take your shoes without asking.”

Two invisible brothers, I thought. Shortly before the old Harumi disappeared, she had claimed to be going on an outing with her mother. Takahiro once explained to me that the Author usually never materialized any of the character’s immediate relatives. I would hear about them, but I might never see them. (I then hoped that I would never get to meet Curtis’ parents amidst the mystery shrouding the party. They seemed like scary people.)

I offered to take one of Harumi’s bags. Because new Harumi was moving in for the first time, we were allowed to take the dorm building’s squeaky old elevator to the fourth floor. (They never bothered to fix or renovate it. They just banned students from using it regularly.) There, I talked about how I was a new student, as well, and that St. John’s was my mom’s alma mater. Harumi nodded at this, adding that St. John’s was the only school around the area that accepted late enrollees like her.

After talking about her brothers and her former school, I was astounded by how new Harumi had an adequate amount of backstory attached to her, and that was considering the fact that I had brought her back to life. She was just so lively, so real that I kept forgetting that she was around because of my abilities.

Once we were out, I led her down a skinny, dimly lit hallway with a fire exit looming at the end. I stopped midway and pulled out my keys from my pocket.

“Here we are,” I said, unlocking the door.

I stepped into the room as Harumi followed behind me. After placing her luggage by the dorm’s entrance, I motioned toward a door to our right and opened it.

“The perks of a double dorm: an en-suite bathroom,” I explained. “Single dormers have to share common bath and shower rooms, but having our own bathroom means that all the cleaning is on us.”

Then, I approached the closet. One side had my clothes on hangers, while the other side was empty.

“You can put your clothes here. Feel free to take all the empty spots. Also, the bottom bed is mine. You okay with sleeping up top?”

“Wow,” Harumi said. “This is the first time I won’t be fighting for the top bed. My roommates always wanted the top bed.”

I sat on the desk chair. “Well, today’s your lucky day.”

“So, you’ve been living in this double dorm all by yourself?” she then asked.

Her question darkened my mood, and I could only hope that a smile was enough to mask my sadness.

“No, actually,” I decided to say. “I had a roommate.”

Harumi furrowed her brows. “What happened to her?”

“She decided to transfer schools,” I lied. “And I never heard from her again.”

“Ah, she might just be busy settling in. She’ll reach out to you eventually.”

All I could do was nod. “Yeah. Maybe…”

Harumi bent down and opened the luggage she was carrying. “By the way, I brought snacks. You want some?”

I basked upon a layer of chips, sweets, and biscuits sealed in a variety of colorful packaging. When my stomach growled, I knew that I had snapped out of my somber state.

“We should bring these to the common area, though,” Harumi then said. “I read that we weren’t allowed to—”

“Eat in the dorms?” I cut her off. “Nobody follows that rule. Trust me. My roommate and I used to eat right here all the time—”

I told myself to stop. I didn’t want the new Harumi to be curious about my former roommate. I imagined the pain of telling her that I once shared this dorm with her old self, who had been wiped from existence by my evil twin.

“I figured,” Harumi said about the eating rule. “Back at my old school, all sorts of rules were broken.” She opened a colorful bag of chips, which exploded with a strong smell of honey. She then reached into the bag, sat on the floor, and began eating. “That no boys in the dorm thing? Broken multiple times.”

I cleared my throat. “So… you—”

“Me? No. Sorry, I meant that my roommates broke that rule multiple times. I didn’t want anything to do with it.”

Slowly, I nodded. “I see.”

Then, Harumi began taking out the snacks from her bag. “Here, have some. Get whatever you want.”

I was a bit shy at first, but I mouthed a thank you and reached for a bag of chips. It was bright orange with a cute little onion character on the packaging.

“Nice to meet you, Quinn,” Harumi said, smiling at me.

As usual, my mind raced. All sorts of thoughts shrouded my head, but for once, I ignored them.

I smiled back. “Nice to meet you, too.”