{ Checking out the scene } (1,277 views)

“Ohh, Chance. Sorry! I got you mixed up.” Chad apologized, waving his hand. “Why do people give twins such similar names! I would have named you Alexander and Rufioh! Completely different!”

Chad listened to the two talk, barely following the conversation. He didn’t know this ex, after all. Their discussion of her was pretty interesting, though. He sighed at the mention of dating a girl and then breaking up with her peacefully.

“I wish every relationship ended like that.” He sighed. “But some girls get really bitter… I’ll have to see how the girls act. I mean, I’m not an idiot. I’m not going to ask out a girl in my house if she’s crazy, or if she’s one of those… really protective… like… gets jealous over everything girls. Or angry about her ex… I don’t even know where i’m staying… I should probably find out though!”

Chad stood up off the bench, his hands back in his back pockets. “Oh! You two in any sports?”

“Hey! Rufioh is a great name!” Chad defended himself. “I heard it on the history channel, once… or was it the discovery channel? Same thing. Right? Right!”

He laughed along with the others, though. Neither of them really looked like an Alexander or a Rufioh.

He straightened up with a grin when they both said they were into sports.

“Oh yeah! I’m a member of almost every sports club on campus—not the teams, just the clubs. The clubs are more relaxed than the teams. I kinda grew up with a mom who emphasized sports, and I love them! So I really got into them… If you want, just hit me up and I’ll show you the sports teams and clubs. Basketball’s great! Either of you got a cell phone?”

“Hey! Sometimes they have cool names! I mean, George was on there, right? George Washington? Paul Revere? Very generic names. Besides, someone famous people name their kids directions, at least Rufioh sounds cool!”

Chad pulled out his iPhone 4, booting it up.

“Well, you just give me your number, I’m sure you’ll tell each other about clubs and stuff. I’ll text you when there’s meetings and stuff, once I know the schedules!”

He took the phone offered to him, and programmed his number into it, once he figured out how to navigate the thing. He then did the same with his phone and programmed Chance’s number into it. “You’re Chance, right? I don’t want to label you wrong in my phone.”

“Since forever.” Chad huffed. “Okay, brace-face and acne-face. I’ll text you once I find out the meetings. Oh! You guys can join any clubs you want, doesn’t matter how many. But if you don’t attend meetings frequently, no one remembers you, you know?”

Chad stretched his arms with a sigh.

“I haaaaate dealing with the dean…” He whined. “But I better face the music, right? See you later!”

Chad offered the boys one last grin. “Text me if your roommates are hot, too! I mean, if you’re not gonna make any moves on ‘em, I might as well.”

Daphne had been on campus ever since the first day, but she’d generally kept to herself. She didn’t see the point in joining any clubs, because why should she force herself to attend meetings with groups of people she barely knew? She shouldn’t. She instead spent her time designing dance routines for herself and practicing them in the living room area of her house.

To Daphne’s great pleasure, she had learned that her house’s other residents would be late arrivals to the school. That gave her an entire house all to herself. She made great use of the space, avoiding practicing in populated areas like the dance studio.

Daphne had been informed that her new roommates would be moving in today, but she had not met them yet. They apparently hadn’t arrived. In actuality, they had, but Daphne had been asleep at the time.

So, Daphne was seizing the last of her alone time. She was in the living room area, a small blue radio on the coffee table, which had been pushed aside. So had the furniture, all of which was pushed towards the kitchen door. Sunlight was beaming in through the glass wall, reflecting off of the glass coffee table which was closest to the black rug. It housed not only the boom box but also a hand-drawn choreograph sheet.

Daphne had an upbeat instrumental playing, and she was practicing the dance she made up to it. She did this quite often when she was bored—she’d find an instrumental song on youtube and create her own dance to it. It was fun for her, as well as gave her more practice and routines to perform for auditions in the future.

Daphne was dressed simply yet fashionably, in a white summer dress that reached her knees with a pair of light blue leggings underneath, lest she trip or fall while dancing. Her butterfly necklace was on her chest, and her hair was pulled back into a high ponytail, to keep it out of the way while she got the basics of her steps down.

She stumbled slightly, which caused her to curse under her breath in French. She then stopped moving and rewound the instrumental mix on her cassette, beginning her dance again.

She was hoping her new roommates would not want to use the living room much. If so, she could keep this setup.

Daphne heard voices coming from the main entranceway, and paused her dance routine, the music playing continuously. Soon, laughter drowned out the music, and Daphne slowly walked over towards the main entrance, making sure to pause at the tiny mirror on her way by, pulling her hair out of its ponytail and feathering it lightly.

When she finally saw the two, her lip pulled down into the faint ghost of a frown. They were clearly half and half, and though Daphne didn’t think any less of African-Americans, she was more for the purity of every race keeping to themselves rather than mixing.

However, she didn’t want to cause a problem, so she didn’t comment on it.

“Parlez-vous français?” She asked in fluent French, her brown eyes trained on the laughing heap on her parlor floor. It was worth a shot, after all, to see if the school had assigned her with other French-speaking students. If not, she’d have to continue to practice her English.

Daphne stared down at the two boys as they straightened up, her face still in her usual uninterested pokerface. When one of the clones asked if she could understand him, her eyes drooped slightly. So she hadn’t been assigned with as French speaking roommate. What a pain this would turn out to be.

Regardless, Daphne knew she would thrive here. She’d just need to practice English much harder than she desired.

“I can understand you.” Daphne said, her thick accent mincing her words. While she could write English fine, speaking it was still excruciatingly difficult with her accent. “I would not be at an English school if I could not, a mon avis. Do you have names?”

Daphne’s expression never changed.

Daphne listened to the boys talk, blinking being the only change that her face experienced. She stared at the offered hand, as she took in their names, trying to think of ways to tell the clones apart.

One seemed to have acne problems—he had introduced himself as Chance. Wasn’t that a noun in English? It hardly sounded like a name to her… and then the other introduced him as Chase. That was a verb.

“It is French. I am not very fluent in English.” Daphne said, offering her hand and shaking Chance’s hand. She brought her hand back to her side. “My name is Daphne La'Rochefoucault. Where are your things?”

“You can just call me Daphne.” She said, hardly expecting either of them to successfully say her last name. “And no. But... when did you get here?”

Her accent actually made the end of her sentence a bit hard to understand, because she spoke to fast her accent grew thicker. She realized she'd spoken a bit fast and purposely slowed herself down to get better pronunciation. “I did not hear you arrive.”

That was a bit unnerving, to think that two boys who were by no means quiet had come and gone into her house unbeknownst to her. Of course she’d locked the door when she went to bed, so they’d been given keys… still.

So, they’d been here an hour or so ago? Daphne was sleeping in, so she probably had missed them because of that. She had locked her own door, but to think that she hadn’t heard… that was a moot point, though. Surely, they’d locked the door on their way out.

“I was here.” She said. “I have been here since the beginning of the year. I was asleep while you were here. You locked the door on your way out, didn’t you?”

“You didn’t lock the door?” Daphne asked. Well, that was frustrating. All of her things were in this house, and they’d just left it unlocked…? How annoying. She hoped they learned to kick the habit of forgetting to do important things like that. “You never do that again, and nothing will happen.”

Even if her sentence was a bit jumbled, Daphne believed her point was made: If they kept doing that… surely someone would steal something. Daphne would not put that past the total strangers attending this school.

“I did not come to America to have some batard steal my things, after all.”

“I do not know. But there are greedy people here, I am sure.” Daphne said. “As long as you remember next time, it is fine. There was no damage done. My room locks, so I was not in direct danger.”

She’d have to be sure to be the last one to bed, though, and ensure that the lock was clicked shut. Unless the last housemate was better about locks than Chase and Chance were.

“Why are you here?” She inquired. What talents did these two have, that prompted them to study at Metric?