Between 505 and 513 (Hallways)

Dmitry was enjoying being in the dorms, at least for the time being. His roommate hadn't shown up yet, and it was still a week-ish before classes started, so it was almost like living on his own. He cooked most of his own meals at odd hours, played whatever the hell music he felt like, read for as long as he wanted, and had been successful at completely avoiding any significant contact with other sapient beings for two days straight.

Sure, he would get lonely eventually, but he was also pretty sure his brother would hunt him down and puppy-dog him into hanging out before that happened. Right now all he cared about was laying back on his bed, listening to stuff on his laptop, and living in introvert heaven.

Of course there was screaming in the hallway. Why the fuck wouldn't there be.

Alex kept glancing back to make sure he had closed the door behind him, and that the thing wasn't trying to claw down the door. It hadn't, yet. Maybe it had been asleep? Laying there on the bed. A giant bear. Asleep. Sometime between when he'd left to go check out the laundry facilities and come back, a giant bear had snuck into his room out of nowhere. He could've sworn it was wearing a little vest, too.

Was he expected to live with the bear? Did bears just show up here? Had he wandered down the hallway the wrong direction? Was the bear a person? Were there emergency instructions in his dorm information packet, now somewhere on his desk under all his other things, reading in case of bear, do not panic and follow these instructions?

He had made it most of the way down the hallway before collapsing into a little ball against the wall. It probably wasn't far enough away from the bear if it tried anything. Alex couldn't bring himself to care.

He heard footsteps behind him and turned, expecting anything. It was- relatively normal- an older boy, tall and sort of attractive, outside of the surly look on his face and the fact he was wearing pajamas at 3pm. He was also clearly some kind of elf. Alex felt like he was in a movie, and not in a good way.

"The hell is going on out here?" asked the magical, violet-eyed elf, who actually had earbuds hanging around his neck. Earbuds and pajamas.

He started to laugh until he started to sob. Embarrassment hardly seemed to matter anymore.

Dmitry took a moment to stare at the ceiling and wonder if there was anyone else he could conceivably bribe into dealing with this. Hitomi, maybe- no, she was probably off doing stuff and enjoying the end of the summer. Rudeth would probably make it worse. ...Yeah, that was the end of his options.

"Goddamnit," he muttered, hopefully under his breath, then crouched down in front of the kid.

"Hey. You're new here, right?"

The kid looked at him, then just started rubbing his eyes. He didn't look that young, or obviously fae outside of being really pale, but that didn't tell him much. Mostly, the kid looked angry.

"Hey." Dmitry put a hand on the kid's shoulder, lightly; he didn't flinch. That was good. "Calm down. What happened?"

The kid hissed something. It sounded like "bear" and "laundry". Dmitry frowned harder.

"What?"

"Said I went to the laundry and now there's a bear in my room."

Dmitry had the feeling he wasn't going to be able to get back to his music before dinner.

Alex was tired, and gross, and now one of his contacts was falling out. The elf, or whatever he was, was looking at Alex like Alex was a particularly annoying math problem.

"I didn't ask you to help, you know." His voice was resigned. "If you know how to get the bear out, I'll take it, but I'm not forcing you to be here."

"Was it a big brown grizzly?"

The contact finally settled, and Alex frowned. "Yes? It was huge, and sleeping on one of the beds. Have you seen it before?"

The elf stood up straight, rolling his eyes. "That's Kuma-kun. He's probably your roommate, and you should probably apologize for being rude or something."

A sinking feeling dropped through Alex's stomach. "The bear is my roommate?" he hissed.

"Probably." The elf shrugged. "I mean, that's the most logical explanation. Look, kid, are you gonna be okay? You're kind of glowing."

Alex's head snapped down to his hands. They clenched. The glow increased, red and blazing like fire, and he jumped to his feet.

"RrrrGGGH! SCREW THIS STUPID PLACE!" Alex screamed, then stormed off at a rapid pace towards anywhere else.

Dmitry watched the kid with a passive expression, his mind not really making it around to what he should say or do here. The shadows on the walls flickered into high contrast with the glow, and for a second, Dmitry thought he saw something weird in them.

Then the kid stormed off and it was gone. Dmitry sighed deeply to himself. Maybe he should ask Hitomi if he screwed that up? He didn't really care- the kid was fine and could probably take care of himself once he dealt with whatever it was- but it seemed like the kind of thing that could have gone better.

...Maybe later. Meanwhile, he was going to get back to chilling. Being a shoulder to cry on or whatever was not his strong suit.