She stuffed her hand into her jacket and fiddled around with the folder she'd been given with the other, zoning out with every step she took. It was times like this where she really wished she'd brought her earphones out to listen to some nice ambience. But…in retrospect that was probably a huge mistake. Zoning out in a place she barely even remembered? That was just a recipe for disaster.
And so it was… the next time she opened her eyes she found herself somewhere unfamiliar, the walls of the buildings here were dreary and cracked, the sounds of dripping pipes and smell of rancid waste filled the surrounding area- it almost felt like an entirely new town in itself. Rubie turned around, just where was she? She couldn't see the dorms anywhere from here, but the school's main building was just in the distance… What turn did she take to get somewhere like here? She rummaged around her folder, trying to find the WIA campus map she used this morning in the dying evening light to at least try and pinpoint her location to see where she could get out from here.
But unfortunately, something worse came from this first, from the muddled shadows further up ahead Rubie could see the figures of two students messing about, smoke flowing freely from the lit cigarettes they held in their hands. And the moment she got close enough they seemed to be laughing and pointing in her direction…God… so WIA had these sorts of creeps around too…?
She was ready to turn heel and just walk the other way, but the figures up ahead had stopped her from doing so.
"Hey lil' girl! Where you headed?" the first one had said. "You sure you wanna be somewhere 'round here?" asked the next, and she cringed.
Their speech was slurred, they held themselves with the poise of rabid street dogs and, ugh- she could smell the tobacco all the way from where she was standing. It was clear that these guys were under the influence of some sort of substance. She sighed under her breath, just about to turn around to walk the other way before the two men found it fit to stride right up to her like they were playing a game of cat and mouse. The one on her left caught her by the shoulder, fingers curling to press into her skin in a way so vile it made her gut stir in mild disgust.
"Oh… Don't leave us hanging baby… say something at least…"
She could see them clearly up close, and they looked…homeless…for a lack of a better word. Not to mention just how much their breath reeked of hard booze. That notion alone set multiple alarms off in her head, just how'd these idiots even get into WIA? And with how wasted they were right now she'd genuinely applaud them for getting away with it too. Rubie tried to writhe her way out of his grasp, but his grip only tightened, taking a step closer towards her until their bodies were almost flush
"Hey! What are you doing? Don't run, shawty!" he sputtered out laughing, like he couldn't even take himself seriously. "We're nice, I promise! I won't bite…"
"Maybe she's just a quiet one, you like 'em like that don't you, Raj?" the other poked his head over her shoulder, dark curly hair coming right in her face.
The first one, Raj– she assumed, threw his head back and sneered "Nahh… y'think so? Well, I mean. This one's not so bad actually…"
Her brows furrowed, and she wondered how crazy you had to be to do this to a stranger– were they actually trying this right now? One of the guys tried to reach out to touch her face like she was already his property and in that moment Rubie had managed to garner all her strength to try to smack some sense into this guy– but before she could even try to fight them off, she watched as somebody's hand came to swat them away from behind for her.
"Oh my fucking god, dude- relax okay?"
Their voice came from right behind her. The smell of harsh smoke filling her nostrils as she spotted clouds of it pouring from her peripherals. "She's with me."
What was initially confusion had boiled down to shallow anger, again…so what? Was she being passed around like some rubber ball now?? Rubie wanted so badly in that moment to turn around and clock that guy in the face too, but that was when she realised how carefully he hovered his arm over her shoulder, never once daring to actually lean down on her. It was odd–. And his voice was loud and crystal clear, aside from the smell of rancid smoke that clung onto him, this guy was very obviously sober.
"yo…Dawn… did you finally rake in some game…?"
"HEYOOO!! D. KONG'S GETTIN' RIZZYY!!!"
She swore she heard him gag above her at the nickname, but the two guys in front of her ended up too busy celebrating Dawn's apparent successes to realise he was faking it– in their minds they must have not realised that the two of them barely even knew each other.
"Right, I did. So fuck off yeah?" he said, sharp words tinged with the easygoing smile on their face. "Something about not touching another hunter's game, or whatever. Lemme have this."
His eyes narrowed as he spoke, his inflection rolling off the tongue softer than she expected. For the second time that day, Rubie got a strangely familiar feeling from this person. It wasn't as vivid as it was with YV, but… it was such a coincidence. There was a Dawn in this town from her childhood too. It wasn't so much of a stretch to assume this could be the same person too, but–
She watched him talk to the others, she took in his heavily leaned posture and equally as crooked smirk. Everytime he took a little break to puff the cigarette he held in his right hand, clouds of smoke filled the empty space between the three of them, making the two piercings on his bottom lip all the more evident.
The Dawn she remembered was meek and polite– the type of person to have been scared of his own shadow. The person in front of her seemed to be everything but that. Tall, confident, snarky and vulgar. Not to mention just how unique he looked, outfitted in fistfuls of silver rings, a single necklace and bright pink hair with a dye job so bad it made his dark brown roots look like an explosion site. It really would've been expected at this point too with the jewellery and cigarettes and all, but the way his uniform sat unironed, wrinkled and untidy on his body made it exactly clear what type of person he was… Honestly- it'd really be a miracle if this Dawn was in any way related to the little boy who used to live across from her.
She didn't even know their little squabble was over until Dawn yanked his arm away from her, taking a giant step back almost to a comical degree. All the bravado and confidence he seemed to have while talking to those guys seeped out of his pores and back to the crevices of his mind. Dawn looked from his cigarette to the ground and back again almost as if he was hesitating deciding what to do before just…trying to hide the fact he'd been smoking at all, shoving his hand behind his back.
An awkward silence drew out for longer than she expected it to but this time she could tell it was just because she'd been intently staring at him for the past few minutes… the more she looked the more it started to make sense… The Dawn she remembered had the same dark hair, pitch black eyes, and tanned skin as this one had. The more she looked the more his facial features reminded her of the person she'd left behind.
"Sorry" he started, voice blunt and monotonous. "...you…you new around here?"
He looked her up and down, probably taking note of her obvious lack of school uniform. There was apprehension in the way he spoke.
"Oh…yeah. Its my first day, sorry for…all that trouble"
He wasn't sure of what she was talking about for a second, but as soon as it came back to him he let out a mocking scoff. "Oh no, those guys?, don't worry about it. Those booze heads bother any female-looking object they see while buzzed." He looked familiar. It was something she literally couldn't shake off no matter how hard she tried to ignore it. It wasn't possible, surely "And, uh… sorry about how I handled that, if there was any…issue about…"
His voice trailed off the longer he left his sentence unfinished, at first Rubie thought it was just because he'd ran out of words to say but soon enough it became clear that the reason behind his silence was vastly different from just 'running out of things to say'.
"Do…Do I know you?"
The words were hard to pick up on with the way he mumbled under his breath. "I'm sorry, what…?"
The air was heavy and cramped in the way it was when there was something big in the room both you and the person you were talking to knew about.
"Rubie…that's… that's you isn't it?" his eyes narrowed to get a closer look at her, as close as a look he could get without imposing on her boundaries. "Dawn… well- Kaenphakdi… Dawn Kaenphakdi- kid across the street, we- um"
His words must have caught up in his throat, but even with that one name Rubie's mind was flooded with old childhood memories. Dawn…there was no way…this was that Dawn! The same childish excitement that filled her to the brim when she met YV again started to bubble up in her chest
"Dawn– oh, I knew I had it right!" a small smile formed on her face, any ounce of awkwardness dissolving from her mind. Her eyes shot up to their hair, admiring the nice shade of pink it was now. "What'd you do to your hair? I never tagged you as the type of guy to go for pink…?"
She laughed, and Rubie's outburst must have caught him off guard for a second, as his eyes shot open even with how heavy they were with dark circles.
"Oh… this?" He shook his head around and tousled it just a bit, the faintest ghost of a smile on his face as his shoulders relaxed. "I was getting a little bored of black last year– well, I guess we both were.."
He gestured over to her own bleach blonde hair, clearly he hadn't been the only one to change. But even so, her hair couldn't even match up to how much he'd changed through the years, Rubie was about to point out more, like how he'd went to the smallest in their group to a towering giant of a teenager, or how messy and unruly his hair and clothes looked despite being so proper as a kid, or how he got into smoking or why he hung out around these alleys now but all of a sudden he cut her thoughts off with a sentence of his own.
"Are you looking for your dorms? They're right over there past this shitty building. You missed the gate."
Oh, right- Her dorm! That was the reason why she ended up somewhere like this in the first place. Rubie looked behind her to where Dawn was pointing, back towards the gardens and to a gate slightly obscured by leafy foliage, no wonder she'd missed the gate- it was horribly unassuming…
"This is the entrance to the old dorm buildings, it's uh… not really a nice place. Full of drugs and assholes n shit. Newbie advice, steer clear of this place."
Huh…good to know… she hummed something in understanding, looking from the old building in the distance to the pristine one just behind her and back again. She didn't even know WIA had multiple dorms…
From the corner of her eye she could see Dawn shuffling awkwardly in place, unable to leave her there but also unwilling to add anything else to the conversation they'd started, all until he worked up the courage to actually say what had been on his mind.
"But uh…Hey Rubie?" he called out to her and her gaze trailed back to them, their expression oddly sombre. She raised a brow, "What's up?"
Amidst the chaos of their meeting, she felt like this had been the closest he'd felt to seeing the person she used to know. The sassy confidence and rude demeanour he'd exuded the moment they met was all gone, replaced with a quiet, awkward disposition.
"I- ugh… I know that we just met again, and it's cool you're here 'n' all…" He was stumbling on his words. She could tell something was up with him now, like there was something bigger, something much more serious hanging over their heads. "Don't try to talk to me. Not like we used to."
"…What?"
The growing sunset cast a cinematic light over him. While it wasn't realistic to think that they could all get back together again, Rubie couldn't help but be rendered speechless by what Dawn had just said…
"Uh… how do I say this…" he pinched the bridge of his nose, a pensive gaze stuck on his face as he avoided eye contact at all times. "Things are different. YV and Mitzi'll have you back just– don't bother with me."
"Don't bother..? Dawn what are you-"
"HEYO! DK! WHERE YOU AT!?"
The loud slurred shouts coming from further up the path broke off whatever Rubie was about to say, the two of them looked at each other equally as stunned before Dawn snapped back and yelled a half thought out response at them.
"JEEZ! Coming in a second you sick fucks– you ever heard of patience??" The aggression in his voice laced through his words, and once again Dawn had gone back to being a stranger.
He slipped the cigarette back in his mouth, clicking his tongue.
"God. sorry, Rubie." he cocked his head further down the path. "Idiots are waiting for me."
For a second her gaze locked onto the old dorms, trying to see if she could spot those boys from where she stood. "Uh– yeah, no that's fine. You… have to go?"
And without a word he nodded.
"S-so I'll see you around campus then, right?" Rubie asked, pulling a small smile with a tinge of lighthearted hope in her voice– but Dawn just scoffed, taking a drag from his cigarette.
"Yeah, I guess so."
With that, he turned tail and stalked back towards that dilapidated building, leaving nothing but the scent of smoke. The mood in the air had dropped almost immediately. She couldn't expect that nothing would change- in fact she thought that she'd never see them again. But… it just…
It was probably time to start heading back. She still had stuff to unpack.