Chapter Text
Bloomie woke up bright and early at 7 O’clock, a rarity for her, especially ever since she’d started college. But she knew that if she wanted a spot on the volleyball team, then something would have to change. She switched into some athletic wear… or atleast, the closest thing she had to athletic wear. When she moved out, she never actually packed anything to work out in, why would she? There was no mandatory gym class, so why even bother?
But that was alright, her current attire would do just fine. She ate a quick breakfast before leaving her dorm room. Of course, Circle was still sleeping, it’d probably be a few hours before she got up. Which gave her plenty of time to go for a jog. She’d have to train both her endurance and speed, and that was a great way to start.
She felt the warm, fresh air of the outside world on her face as she started to jog. However, after only around 30 seconds, disaster struck.
You see, ever since birth, Bloomie has had these weird, spiky legs. While sure, they did look pretty cool, it made movement rather difficult. It took her quite a while to master walking, and even longer to be able to run. Even then, she still despised gym class, as having to switch directions all the time caused a lot of accidents for her. So for her senior year, she just stopped participating altogether. It must’ve been a few years since she had last gone any faster than a brisk walk, and it showed.
Bloomie came crashing down, landing face first on the pavement. When she got up, she did a quick look around her, seeing nobody else. She sighed in relief, “Thank god nobody saw that,” she thought to herself.
Of course, she had just jinxed herself. She had failed to check behind her, and heard a voice calling out. “Oh my god, are you okay?!” … Fuck, it was Thavel, what were the odds? Bloomie brushed herself and turned around to face her.
“Y-Yeah, I’m good. Don’t worry about it.”
“That was quite the fall, wasn’t it?”
“Heh… yeah. These damn legs make it a little hard to run sometimes.”
Thavel looked down at Bloomie’s legs, which made her panic a little bit. Is she going to think she’s weird? That she’s some kind of freak? What if this is the nail in the coffin tha-
“Well, you might not be able to run all that well, but something tells me you could get a pretty great vertical.” Thavel remarked.
Bloomie thought for a bit, it had to have been a couple years since she’d last tried to jump, but she did remember being pretty decent at it. Still, she was curious what led Thavel to that conclusion, “What uh… What makes you say that?”
“Well they look hard, so I feel like they’d be pretty strong. Am I right?”
“I uh… I think so.”
The taller girl held her hand up a little bit of her head, “Here, try and reach my hand!”
Given how Thavel was already around 2 feet taller than Bloomie, the average person would have absolutely no way of reaching her hand in this situation. But Bloomie decided to give it a shot anyways, maybe Thavel was right, and her legs really were built for jumping. She focused herself and leapt as high as she could, and surprisingly enough, she was actually able to reach Thavel’s hand.
Thavel smiled, “That’s impressive! You didn’t get a running start! I don’t even think I can jump that high.”
“Oh… uh t-thanks.”
“Although we should still definitely work on a few other things first… here, let’s go on a jog, I’ll pace you.”
Bloomie took a breath, she was certainly going to fall a few more times… but Thavel didn’t judge her earlier… so maybe it wouldn’t be all too bad. She gave a quick nod in agreement.
“Alright! Let’s start with a quick lap around campus!”
Did Bloomie hear that right? A lap around the entire campus? Bloomie was only planning to jog for a few minutes… Now, their college’s campus was rather small… but it’d still probably be at least 30 minutes of straight jogging… She was cooked. Even if you ignore her tendency to fall, there’s no way she’d have enough stamina for this. But before she could say something, Thavel already started to move past her, “Cmon, let’s go!”
Bloomie started to run as well, and Thavel noticeably slowed down to match her pace. Yet again, after only a little over half a minute, Bloomie fell over. However Thavel wasted no time at all helping her up, and the two were back on the move in seconds. They kept this cycle up for a while, but every time Bloomie fell, she could feel herself getting better.
After about 15 minutes of this, Bloomie could feel her legs starting to give out. She stopped running and bent over. She was entirely out of breath, she couldn’t remember the last time she had been so exhausted. “I… I’m sorry… I don’t know if I can keep this up…” she muttered. She couldn’t help but feel bad, like she had just failed her friend… But when she looked up at Thavel’s face, she saw her smiling.
“Aw, don’t worry, you did great! Honestly, I didn’t think you’d make it as far as you did.” She pointed over to a nearby bench, “How about we go take a break?”
Bloomie nodded and slowly shuffled over to the bench. All the while, Thavel stayed by her side, keeping an arm wrapped around her so she didn’t fall. When they finally made it and Bloomie got a chance to sit down, it felt like heaven. She let out a sigh of relief, her legs still definitely hurt, but it felt good to not put any pressure on them.
Thavel sat down next to her and for the next few moments there was nothing but the sounds of the wind rustling the leaves of a nearby tree. It wasn’t an awkward or tense silence, it was peaceful. After a while, the taller girl spoke, “So, I’m kinda curious. What’re you studying for?”
“How about you guess?”
Thavel thought for a little bit, “Are you… a science major!” She pointed dramatically, like a lawyer making an accusation, almost hitting Bloomie in the process.
“Close, but my major’s in education. I take a lot of science classes though, I think that’s what I want to teach.”
“Oh no way! That’s my major too! I’m gonna teach languages!”
Bloomie tilted her head, “Languages? Which ones?”
“All of them!”
“All of them?”
“Yep! I’m already fluent in Spanish and French, I’m working on German now!”
Bloomie was taken-aback upon hearing that. She took a few seconds to wrap her brain around it. Not only was Thavel hot, fit, and charismatic, but she was also a fucking genius?! Even if she did like girls, there’d be no way she’d take an interest in someone like Bloomie… right? Well… maybe there’d be a chance… Bloomie shook her head, “Wow… I uh… had no idea you were that… smart.”
“Hehah, yeah most people don’t.”
“So… when you say ‘all languages’, do you mean you’re learning just the big ones?”
“Honestly I’m not too sure just yet. I think I’ll just try to learn as many as I can, but I’m shooting for ten!”
“Ten languages?! Heh, I uh… I don’t think I can even name that many.”
Thavel gave a look of concern, “That sounds like a problem.”
“I don’t really think about foreign languages like that I guess.”
A few seconds went by before Thavel spoke again. “So, how about we head down to the volleyball court and get some practice in? It doesn’t really matter how well you can run if you can’t actually hit the ball, y’know?”
Bloomie nodded, “Alright, sounds good.”
The two got up from the bench. Right away Bloomie could feel her legs shaking a little, but she wasn’t going to let that stop her. They slowly made their way to the volleyball court.
Thavel grabbed a ball, “Alright, have you ever played before?”
Bloomie shook her head, “No, not since… uh… I think the last time I played was in my sophomore year.”
“Alright then, we’ll start with the basics!”
Thavel taught Bloomie the fundamentals of volleyball, including how to bump, pass, and set. Thavel would perform the move a few times before letting Bloomie try. It took a while (mostly because Bloomie’s hand eye coordination wasn’t the best), but in the end she had a basic grasp on how to play.
“Now usually, our newbies would be closer to the back, so they wouldn’t need to know this right away. However, I think you’d do great up front, so I’m going to teach you how to spike and block.” Thavel said, taking a few steps back.
Bloomie nodded. She remembered seeing some videos of volleyball… frankly she was too busy looking at the players to tell what they were doing, but she’s seen people spike before. Frankly, she didn’t have much confidence she’d be able to hit it very hard, but who knows?
Thavel set the ball high into the air before leaping up slamming it down. Unfortunately, her set veered a little further left than she thought, and the ball ended up flying right towards Bloomie. The short, inexperienced woman had no hopes of dodging, and was struck right in the head.
Bloomie fell flat on her back, hitting the floor with a soft thud.
Thavel gasped, “Oh my god are you alright?!” she cried, dashing over to Bloomie.
Bloomie groaned in discomfort, “Ugh… my head hurts.”
“I’m so sorry!”
Bloomie did her best to look at least a little cool, “Hey, don’t worry about it, things happen.” She started to get up off the floor, but immediately came back down. “That being said… I uh… think I’m just going to lay here for a bit.”
Thavel sat down next to her. Bloomie noticed that despite all the activity they’ve been doing, she hadn’t broken a sweat. Or at least, if she did, it had already dried up. She looked so elegant and beautiful… while Bloomie probably looked like a hot mess. She gave a short laugh.
Thavel was an anomaly, nobody is supposed to be perfect. But here she was, kind, smart, incredibly athletic… all while being the most effortlessly elegant person Bloomie had ever met. She’d probably want somebody perfect too, wouldn’t she? Bloomie was anything but perfect…
Her mix of admiring and self-loathing was interrupted when she heard someone calling her phone. She pulled it out of her pocket, and saw it was Circle calling. She answered the call, “Oh, Circle, what’s up?”
“Where are you? I’ve been waiting for like ten minutes!” Circle complained from the other end.
“Oh, I’m by the volleyball net.”
“Well get over here! We still have work to do!”
“Alright, I’ll be on my way.”
Thavel got up, “Oh, sounds like we’re leaving! Do you think you can walk?”
Bloomie stood up as well, “Yeah, I’m good.” Admittedly her head still hurt, but she was otherwise fine.
The two girls made their way back to the dorm room common hall, where Circle was waiting for them. Thavel walked in front, while Bloomie kept her gaze firmly locked on the ground… Okay, maybe she caught a few glances here and there, but her gaze was mostly locked on the ground.
When they made it to the common room, Circle was not hard to spot at all. Thavel waved to her, “Hey Circle! Are you feeling better now?”
Circle looked confused for a moment, probably forgetting about the excuse she made yesterday. “Hm? Oh! Right, yeah I’m feeling better.”
“Well that’s good to hear, it kinda sucks you didn’t get to hang out with us the other day.”
“Oh, I didn’t even know you two were hanging out, how’d it go?”
This led Thavel into another one of her yapping sessions. She recounted some of the dares she had to do. She talked about the man Bloomie had a crush on, much to her dismay. Circle definitely shot a few incredulous glances towards her when Thavel wasn’t looking. Then, Thavel talked about what happened today, and how much potential Bloomie had.
Once she was done, an alarm went off from her phone. “Oh, shoot! Sorry, but I have to meet up with my boyfriend, we have a date today!”
Bloomie tried not to look crushed when she heard that. She had almost forgotten, Thavel had a boyfriend. And seeing how great Thavel was, her boyfriend was probably equally perfect. Circle and Bloomie waved goodbye as Thavel strutted out of the building.
Once she was gone, Circle turned to her cousin, “You should try to someone else just for somebody you love, y’know?”
“Uh… what are you talking about?”
“You were talking about having a crush on a guy. If I know one thing about you, it’s that you’d never do that. Plus, you hated playing volleyball, remember?”
“Well… maybe things are different.”
Circle sighed, “Just don’t lose yourself, alright?”
“Yeah sure, I won’t. Let’s just get this work done.”