The Awkward Silence Ends?

                Roz was quietly sitting on her bed. She and Kurt hadn’t spoken since she smoked him and the other guys from the floor in Call of Duty. She glanced at him, absently wondering what to say. She wanted to end this eerie silence between them. After all, she only played because she wanted to be friends! She hadn’t expected to win three times in a row. How was she to know that he would be so bad at the game? Kurt was the worst of the four that played.

                She looked back at her computer, and saw that someone had commented on her blog, saying that she shouldn’t beat him until their friendship was more solid. Maybe they were right. Not playing until Kurt was comfortable with her. Roz checked her other random social sites, and didn’t find anything useful. One of her friends had even said to just ask Kurt out! They hadn’t known each other that long, and Roz was almost positive that Kurt didn’t like her much. The videogame fiasco probably didn’t help in that front.

                Roz got up to grab some water out of the fridge, and wanted to go to bathroom too. Before she left the room, she quickly brushed out her hair. It was grown almost to the crook of her back. Maybe it was time to cut it. Shoulders maybe? Or should she leave it a bit longer? She glanced at Kurt on her way out the door, just in time to see him glance at her too. Crap! She thought, and she quickly trotted to the bathroom.

                Roz got up off her bed, and Kurt glanced up from his computer, to see where she was going. She grabbed a water, and brushed out her hair. Kurt buried his face in his computer again. But when the door creaked, he glanced up and saw her looking at him. He blushed, and shoot his head back down as the door slammed shut.

                “Shoot, eye contact is dangerous…” he murmured and turned back to his computer. He had blogged earlier about the silence in the room, and someone commented. “Just say ANYTHING, huh?”

 Easier said than done, he thought. What should he say? He was aware that his silence earlier was probably rude, and Roz was probably a little annoyed with him. When it came down to it, her beating him didn’t bother him much. ‘Course, it may have bothered the other guys playing, but he didn’t care about them much anyway. He didn’t like most of his floormates- they were too much of the partying type.

                Suddenly, Kurt had an idea. Why not try to break the silence with an activity instead of just idle chatter. He got up, and rummaged through his games. Obviously Roz liked to play. He may as well take advantage of that. He wasn’t sure what she liked, so he was trying to figure out what to offer when the door opened and Roz came back in. Where he was hunched over his games was kind of in the way of her getting to her side of the room, so he shuffled over.

                She slid by him, but stopped to glance over his shoulder at the games. The air was stale for a moment as the moment dragged on for Kurt.

            “Hey! You have some good games!” said Roz. “Vesperia…and Soul Calibur…those are my favorites. Want to play one?”

                Kurt sighed. She’d picked two of his favorite games. “Sure,” he said, “have you played all the way through Vesperia?”

                “Yep.” She smiled. She’s so cute… he thought. “More than once too.” She glanced at the clock. “It’s already 10, so we probably shouldn’t try Vesperia.”

               “I agree.” Kurt said. “Once I start Tales games I can’t put them down. Did you want to try Soul Calibur?” She nodded, and Kurt put the game in. Before long, the two of them were having a great time, laughing and chatting. They both sighed inwardly- the awkwardness was gone.

Changing things a bit.

So after some more thinking about this set up, and the lack of input so far, I've decided to change how things work a bit. The character blogs will be where the most action is, but when something important or funny happens, I'll write it out on here as the traditional narrative. I'm really looking forward to getting this going!

Move In Day

            Kurt was excited, though he would never admit it. Moving into a college dorm was comparable to moving out of your parents’ house, right? And who wouldn’t be excited for all that new freedom. His dad was in the process of parking his car near the dorm he would be living in. Kurt couldn’t wait to meet his roommate. The college wouldn’t disclose who your roommate was until you met them in your room today for the first time. He thought it was weird, but supposed the college just liked to keep the excitement up.

            Once his dad found a parking spot, they walked into the dorm. Before the move-in itself, Kurt had to check in. The process was smooth, just giving his name to the CAs (Community Advisors) so that they could provide his new college ID, and his room key. He was in room 154.

            With his key in hand, Kurt headed back to his dad’s car to get his first box of stuff. He wanted to take the things least likely to break first. That also meant the lightest boxes, like clothing, bedding, and such.

            His dad put the fridge on the wheely thing they brought. The online application asked whether you’d prefer to supply the fridge or the microwave. Since they had an extra fridge at home, he opted for that.

            Kurt and his dad slowly made their way to his room. With so many people around, it was hard to maneuver anywhere, let alone to the hallways with the rooms- everyone’s destination.

            After some time, they made it there. As he took out his key, and fiddled with the lock, someone said, “Oh, you must be my roommate.”

            Roslyn sighed aloud while she waited in line for her check-in. She had wanted to get here earlier so that she wouldn’t have to deal with long lines, but her parents insisted on eating breakfast. Of course, that was fine- she liked breakfast (usually). It was the dealing with her younger sister that came as an annoyance. The 15-year-old Samantha was complaining about her hair endlessly, and her even younger 10-year-old sister, Felicia, wanted her mom to stay home so she could drive her to the movies today.

            So, after lots of debate, Roslyn and her dad were allowed to leave. Her mom did, indeed, stay home for Felicia, while her dad took her to college. She couldn’t wait to be free of her two siblings, specifically Sam’s constant need to borrow her stuff. It didn’t take too long to physically get to the school, only about 15 minutes, but she planned on rarely going home. Probably only for a day every month or so do get shampoo and such.

            After check-in, Roslyn got her ID and key and promptly headed to her room. Instead of trying to carry stuff to her room, Roslyn would rather meet her roommate first, and see what the room was laid out like. As she made her way down the hall, she read the dorm doors for numbers. 148, 150...

               "Ah, here it is." She said. Someone was at her door, struggling with the lock while holding boxes. She couldn't see a face, the boxes were in the way. "Oh, you must be my roommate." She said. The person with the boxes finally got the door open, and swung it wide. "My name is Roslyn. Everyone calls me Roz."

                Her roommate stopped, and put down the boxes. It was a boy. "My name's Kurt. It's nice to meet you Roz, but are you sure you've got the right room? I'm in 154." Kurt shoved the boxes into the room with his foot, and produced his key. It did, indeed, say 154 on it.

            "I'm in 154 too." She said, holding out her key. They looked at each other, very confused. "Are we supposed to room together?!" Roslyn was speechless, more or less. 

            "Well, this is awkward..." Kurt mumbled. "What do you think we should do?" Roslyn's mind was going a mile a minute. She wasn't at all sure that she could just deal with this situation. No one warned her that these dorms were co-ed, let alone same room co-ed. 

             "I guess we tell someone at check-in." She said, as level-headed as she could. "Someone should know what to do." Kurt put his boxes down, and the together they headed toward to the check-in room. Some kids were still in line, but it was mostly empty. One of the tables had no one at it. Roz pointed to it, and they went there. 

             "Um, hello." Roz said, nervously.

             "Hi. What's up?" 

             Roz wasn't entirely sure what to say now.  "Well, uh..." She pointed at Kurt. "Me and him got paired as roommates. Is it some sort of mistake?"

             The worker looked almost amused. "No, it's not. It's done completely on purpose. You see, the college had to do something a little different this year. One of our professors, Professor Kirie, is doing a social experiment as part of his First-year writing course. The co-ed living is part of the course you picked."

             Roz and Kurt looked at each other, still confused. Then Roz remembered. "Oh...that waiver I had to sign online when I signed up for that course...I didn't actually read it."

             Kurt nodded. "Me either. I've gotten in the habit of just skipping those things. Terms of Service, Waivers. I never read them."

             The CA laughed a little. "Well, it;s nice to meet you two. I'm Stephen, your CA. If you guys have any problems let me know, but for now, just move in. After all, you signed up for it."

             Roz and Kurt glanced sideways at one another, then said in unison, "I have to live with 'em?"

So, let's get this story started...

Okay everyone let me explain how, exactly, this is going to work. I'll write short chapters of the actual story twice (or once if I can’t manage two) a week. Between these posts, the character blogs will be updated and checked consistently and told from their point of view. The readers (that's you guys) get to talk to the characters and give them advice on what's going on, and just generally interact with them. You can even be their friend! Those bits of advice and comments will have a direct effect on the story. We'll see how this goes, but I'm looking forward to working with all of you!

The story will be posted one short chapter at a time, and hopefully twice a week. My plan is to upload chapters on Tuesday and Friday. I also want to check the character blogs twice a day or more, so the characters can respond quickly enough to get in full conversations before the next thing happens in the story. After all, if the characters don’t get enough advice, things may go poorly for them, or the story just won’t progress much. The whole story is reliant on people chatting with the characters!

As for the story itself, I don’t want to spoil my ideas quite yet, but the first chapter will be plenty to start with. While it is a “romance” story, I plan on making it quite entertaining and fun to read. I promise there will be some good comedy and awkward moments. I mean, if I’m going to be making relatively long posts, they have to be fun to read, am I right? 

Oh, and the characters' blogs are started, so please comment! But please, keep it clean!