Room 733: Frog & Jaymie's Room

Frog loved living in the dorms. It meant he got to meet new and interesting people, and it also meant that he could jump on his bed without anyone yelling at him, except occasionally his roommates, and even then it was usually if he did it while they were sleeping. (Frog had long since determined that, since sleeping wasn't a necessity for him, beds were far more useful for jumping on than sleeping on.)

It did mean that he would get to see his brothers less now, though — Himmel and Blaise and even Sam (who was like, a brothersister) were in the university now, which meant it was just Frog and Tebryn in the high school.

But he did manage to get a room right next to Blaise, how was that for lucky? He could visit Blaise basically any time he wanted to!

Frog glanced to the left. Then to the right. Confirming that he was, indeed, alone in the dorm room for now, Frog took a running leap at the bed before somersaulting onto the duvet...

...and landing with a soft, squishy, not-so-bouncy feeling.

"Aw, man, who even uses foam mattresses!" Frog rolled over onto his back and gave what couldn't be construed as anything other than a pout. "Now what am I supposed to do with a bed?"

It was Jaymie's third year in the dorms, and he'd gradually begun to get used to sharing a room with someone. It was his second least favorite part of Dunehelden, right after still having to take chemistry and read books written before 1960. He'd found ways to survive, though. He spent a lot of time out with friends, tried to befriend his roommates, and made sure to bring noise-cancelling headphones and a few sets of hanging shelves.

This year, his roommate was some kid named Frog. He thought he might have seen the guy before, but he didn't know him. Jaymie gave the door a cursory knock and shifted the boxes in his arms to get room to open it.

Frog kicked his legs over his head and rolled back to land on his feet, facing the door, at the sound of the knock at the door.

"The door's open!" Frog called. It was probably his roommate, since anyone else that might have been coming to the room would probably have just let themselves in. Well, except maybe Tebryn.

Jaymie came in, overloaded to the point he could barely see. He walked immediately over to the desk and sat the pile of boxes down. Standing up straight again, he wiped a bead of sweat from his brow and tossed his hair back; it fluttered glitteringly over his shoulder and landed in a wave.

Jaymie gave Frog a little wave and a confident smile. "Hey. I'm your roommate, unless I've got the wrong one. So annoying to get everything down the hall, right? My Dad's coming with more in a minute, but I'm Jaymie. You're Frog?"

Frog considered his roommate for a moment. Jaymie was loaded down with a lot of things. Frog had maybe a third of what Jaymie was carrying in the room, and had come to Dunehelden originally with even less, but now he also had a room at Vero's that he used to keep anything that wasn't necessary for school.

He also kind of ran away the first time, so he didn't really have the chance to take all of his things with him. He was still a little sad about leaving all of his books behind. But supposed they weren't actually his books, either.

"That's what they call me," Frog replied. "Do you need any help carrying things?"

"Sure, if you want to. Don't feel obligated, though. I won't make you carry anything heavy but I have like four storage containers of clothes..." Regular clothes, anyway. Anything he was working on was with his sewing stuff in the boxes he'd just carried in, or with the container of bedsheets and towels, or one of the "Misc" boxes.

Which reminded him. "Hey, does our room have a closet? It seems to be kind of random whether these have closets."

"Uh — sort of?" Frog responded. He gestured to the door adjacent to the entrance. "Sometimes that's bathroom, sometimes it's a closet, and sometimes it's the kitchen pantry. One time I opened it and it was the roof."

To demonstrate, Frog bounced over and opened the door. The other side held the bathroom. He closed it, waited a few seconds, then opened it again to reveal a large walk-in freezer. "Ooh, I've never gotten that one before."

Jaymie blinked at the door, paused, and blew a lock of bangs up off of his face.

"Don't keep anything in there I want to get to quickly. Got it." It was pretty cool, he had to say, but not very convenient.

Frog reached in and grabbed a pint of Chunky Monkey before closing the door. "Some people can get it to do what they want it to," Frog said.

"Gussu can always do it right on the first time, and so can Véronique. I think she said it was supposed to save space to put all the closets and bathrooms in the same place and just connect them with portals. It's pretty fun if you ever want to explore random parts of the castle, though."

"I... am not sure whether that sounds more dangerous or more awesome, but it sounds like the kind of thing that would happen here. Do you do that a lot? Where can you get to?"

Jaymie's mind started whirling with possibilities for dramatic entrances and/or pranks. His Dad started calling from down the hall, and Jaymie waved out the door for him.

"Sometimes. Mostly at night, it's a good way to get around the hall patrol if you want to not get in trouble." Frog wrinkled his nose. "It's not good if you really have to pee, though."

He stuffed the pint of Chunky Monkey behind his pillow (he'd have to remember that was there — most of the ice cream was enchanted to stay frozen for at least a day after being removed from the ice box but it still wouldn't be pleasant to lay on) before scrambling back over beside Jaymie.

"I like to think of the door as like ... the Room of Requirement, except with a kind of mean sense of humor."