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WHEN you walk past Room 215 in the Plaza Verde housing community of UCI, it's not unusual to hear a playlist filled to the brim with Taylor Swift and Metallica muffled through the door. The door in question is also bedazzled with stickers of all kinds, and one small whiteboard that says "@maiahoa_ng & @angiedelrey LIVE HERE!!" hanging from the middle of it.

Maia and Angela have been roommates since they started at the university, and it was only natural that they kept living together after that. Now, as 2nd years, instead of being crammed in a small, one room dorm, they leveled up to a small condo in Plaza Verde. But still, even so, they always found themselves doing homework in the same room, just like how they did in their freshman year.

Today, Maia's room was the chosen homework spot, as Maia works away at her desk while Angela has found refuge on her bed.

"For somebody who's supposedly 'perpetually angry' with him, you sure do like hanging around him," Angela points out as she chews her pen, eyes laser-focused on the psychology textbook in her lap. "I can't believe all of your teachers said 'yes' to letting you take your finals early."

"I am still angry with him," Maia says, fingers clacking away on her laptop with her own open textbook propped up against the wall. She wants to begin some of her notes for her next unit before she leaves for Baku—and also distract herself from the inevitable. "I just want to see what he has to say for himself. I mean, no way he's just gonna sit through the entire event with me by his side and not say a word about the last few years, right?"

"God, I feel like this is partially my doing," Angela sighs as she crawls over her school supplies to get out of Maia's bed. Her feet hit the carpeted floor underneath and she steps towards the desk, where her beloved roommate is sat, teetering on the edge of slouching. "Just make sure he doesn't do anything crazy, and say 'hi' to any Mercedes or McLaren people you see at the event for me," she rests her head on top of Maia's, closing her eyes as she speaks. "I'm so, completely delirious without any F1 to look forward to on the weekends..."

Maia retorts, typing in her last word of the day, "Just means you can sleep in more, doesn't it?" Her hands find their way off the keyboard and on to the top of her laptop, shutting it closed. The shorter then spins in her chair, forcing Angela off her head. "Do you think I'm making a mistake?"

"I think you're either a masochist, or a sadist," her roommate jabs, flopping back to sit on the bed that she had just left.

"Ha," Maia says flatly as she closes her textbook and stuffs it away into her backpack. "At least I'll be getting free food out of my poor decisions. Oh, and you'll be getting a hat signed by him too."

Angela gasps, and suddenly it's as if Maia never told her about the way Oscar had treated her when they were young. "Really? Oh, you're the best!"

She giggles, shaking her head with fondness in her eyes. "You're so easy to please!"

Crawling back to her work-spot, Angela picks up a loose pen and prepares to start writing again. "It makes life a lot more fun."

After that, only the sounds of Taylor Swift's poppy tunes fill the area, and Maia is left tapping her feet to the beat she looks at her walls.

Angela has made it a small tradition to hide small things in Maia's room. First, it was a duplicate Sonny Angel figurine that Angela had gotten in a blind box. Now, it's evolved to doodles of cute animals or small stickers of Formula 1 references, in an effort to combat the blind box addiction Angela gained over the summer.

Above the Hoang girl's headboard, beneath her poster dedicated to Jordan Peele's Us, she sees a small McLaren sticker in it's bright orange glory (or hellfire, more like.)

"Really?" Maia scoffs, getting up from her chair. She pulls the sticker out from its spot, and waves it in front of Angela's face. "Way to choose a team for the evening."

"I thought it was fitting!"

"Fitting for the end of my life, yeah."

"You can cancel your confirmation, Mai," Angela mentions. "It's like you can't decide if making fun of him is the best thing in the world or the cause of your death."

Maia flops onto her bed next to where Angela is seated, legs dangling off the side. "I think I just want to show him up, like a 'I did perfectly fine without you' sort of thing."

Angela places down her pen and asks, "Will his suffering, like, cure you or something?"

No. "Yes."

"Jesus, you're like a cartoon villain."

Maia only huffs a laugh as Angela returns to her work, and she can only think about how, truly, seeing Oscar reap his consequences will simply just not be enough.

Why does she insist on doing this all over again? The games, the challenges, the bets? Sure, she thought they were good fun growing up but, with complete honesty, what would they offer her now?

It was difficult letting go of what-once-was her normal as she left her fourteen year old self behind. She moved on from having difficulties making true friends and having a lack of competitive friendships. She learned how to have fun in a way that didn't involve taking a gamble on facts and information, or insane amounts of effort to just be faster than someone else. Nonetheless, it's the pain in her chest that grows as she realizes that with all of the growth she's had, she still wanted just one thing; Oscar.

Nope. Scratch that. She wanted two things; Oscar, and to have him see what he lost.

Maybe Angela was right in how this was partially her fault, with the suggestion she made had of 'making him see what he's missing' the first time he sent Maia a text. Maybe Maia let it get to her head and now it's all she can think about, or at least what you get when you push aside the mass amounts of equations concerning population-impacts or what have you that reside in her head.

"Are you gonna get to wear a sponsored outfit again?" Angela chimes, scribbling down whatever notes in her purple notebook.

Maia hums, "Yeah. I think it's a black dress this time."

"And you'll show me?" She quizzes, knowing well what the answer will be since it's the same one every time.

"As always."

Angela shrieks, a grin beginning to glow on her face. "You're gonna blow Oscar's fucking socks off!"

And Maia can't help but smile at her dear friend, not just because her happiness is contagious, but also because of the prospect of having Oscar's attention in that way.

Make him see what he's missing.

Alright.

And that she will.

NOTES!

i love these girls so much

xoxo, cas