The university.

As soon as you start getting close to the university, it’s like seeing the whole environment change. The area stops being a busy city and becomes a university neighborhood. More restaurants and bars that cater to the different budgets of students, office supply stores for pens, notebooks and the like, the streets change to have wider sidewalks, and in the middle of it all, the university itself sitting on a hill surrounded by green grass and green trees.

There’s a large parking lot near the foot of the hill meant mainly for students, but there’s also one right next to the main building at the top that’s for teachers and students with disabilities, because after parking in the general parking lot, you have to climb a very, VERY long set of stone stairs. Grace and Noelle weren’t particularly happy about that.

“Look at this place. They could totally afford to put an elevator somewhere,” Grace said as we began the climb.

“You’ll survive,” Sarah told her. “Though I do wonder why they haven’t.”

“There are parking spaces for people with disabilities at the top AND a bus route that leaves you right behind the university,” Alice said. “I suppose they don’t really need to.”

“My legs will either break from this every day or grow stronger,” Noelle said.

“They break and THEN they grow stronger,” I told her.

Once you climb the long set of stairs, you’re almost immediately greeted by the main building. An elaborate construction of mainly some sort of polished white stone. It’s a tall building yet a single story tall, with nine tall, panned windows along its width, and three entrances in its front, too.

The amount of people was kind of staggering. Students our age and older came and went, some groups stayed outside sitting on the stair steps, catching up with friends after the summer.

It already felt different from high school, especially since at ours we used to have to wear a uniform. Here everyone dressed how they wanted and dyed their hair how they wanted, making for a very colorful sight. Not to mention that there were plenty of students older than us, which felt kind of weird after a year of being the oldest in the school.

“Isabelle wasn’t at the bottom of the stairs,” Alice said, checking her phone. “I told her we’re at the entrance, but she isn’t answering. Wait, no, there she is.”

Right. I did tell my sister we’d meet her before going to the entrance ceremony. “What did she say?”

“That we took too long to get here and she’s already made friends. She’s in the auditorium already with people in her major.”

“How like her…” Noelle and I said in unison. But yeah, we did arrive a little later than I said we would.

We went through the middle double doors and into a huge, spacious lobby of marble floors and pillars with an incredibly high ceiling. On the floor, carpets with the name of the university, and on the walls a spread of paintings, photographs of professors and alumni, and even displays of trophies won.

There were more doors at the very back leading to long hallways with even more doors, but what we were looking for was the door in the upper right corner, the one leading to the main auditorium.

From what I’d seen already, I expected the auditorium to be huge, and yeah it fucking was. Long, wide and deep, with each row of seats in a different step and with the scenario at the very bottom with the podium and a large projector screen ready. People were already here, of course, waiting for things to start. It was loud, with everyone talking over each other as they formed new groups and met new people.

I looked around, trying to see if I could spot Isabelle or any other familiar faces, but it was really difficult in the sea of people. Instead, we were the ones who got found, likely because we stood out as a group.

“I thought you’d all be here earlier,” Thomas said, walking up behind us with a smug smirk. “I never thought I’d beat you in punctuality.”

Alice seemed to take that personally and crossed her arms with a pout. “It hasn’t started yet,” she told him.

“And besides, I bet you’re only here early because Maria kicked you out of bed,” I told him.

“Look, what matters is that I’m here, alright?” he said, not denying it.

We greeted each other with a strong handshake, bumping shoulders and a hard pat on the back.

“So? When’s the house inauguration?” he asked me.

“I was going to say this Sunday, but I remembered that…”

“Oh yeah, Ben’s fight is this Sunday,” Thomas said.

The sound of someone tapping on a microphone interrupted us. Someone was standing at the podium already, testing and fixing the position of the mic.

“Let’s find some seats,” Sarah said, already on the move.

We followed, sat down on a nearly empty row and went quiet. The ceremony started only a minute later, and to be honest, I… don’t have much to say about it. They talked about the history of the university, which wasn’t very long since the whole institution was only like 15 years old. They showed us pictures and plans of the infrastructure, with a quick overview of where most things were.

This one, the main building, was mostly offices, meeting rooms and a few classrooms. On the east side were the buildings for most of the science majors, so of course that included labs. On the north side, past the giant yard and the olympic pool, were the buildings for humanities and social sciences as well as the extensive library. There were a plethora of specialized rooms and classrooms, including tennis and basketball courts and a soccer field. And then, off in the west wing, past said soccer field, away from all the other buildings and almost falling off a cliff… was the single, small building dedicated to art majors.

Next to me, Thomas snickered. “It’s also next to the gym and the basketball court, so we’ll be seeing each other often, fellow outcast.”

“Hey, I’m in my element here,” I told him, shrugging.

I did know that the arts were far from a priority here, so I was kind of ready for something like this. Still… It annoyed me a bit.

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