Chapter Text
The freshman scavenger hunt is one of Sara’s favorite events in the fall semester. The campus is gorgeous in early September, and the students enjoy getting to see campus in the fall. However, it is also a competition, so there’s only so much time they get to explore campus. Sara would really like to keep her scavenger hunt winning streak alive. Arataki Itto has been trying to break the streak for the last two years, and if she plays her cards right, she’ll keep her scavenger hunt win streak.
“Okay guys, we’ve got a few more things to find for the scavenger hunt! Does anyone know where we might find the cherry trees on campus?” Sara asks, looking at her little gaggle of freshmen residents. She waits for an answer, because this game is first and foremost about making sure the new kids learn the campus, rivalry be damned.
“I think there’s some on the main quad? I remember seeing a bunch of trees with little plaques!” Someone finally answers.
“Yes, absolutely! Thank you, Sayu. Everyone follow me!” Sara says, leading the freshmen over to the quad. She stops under one of the larger cherry trees, glancing around to see if any other groups have made it over there yet. She sees Itto’s gaggle of freshmen under the tallest cherry tree, which means that they’re at least keeping pace with his group.
“What do we need to do to prove that we’ve seen the cherry trees?” Another freshman asks. Sara consults the paper she was given, and then gets out her phone.
“I have to take a picture of you guys underneath the tree. Would everyone get in front of the tree? Tallest people in the back, so I can see all of you!” Sara tells them, and waits for them to gather under the tree. She snaps the picture, and then checks the sheet.
“Okay, we need to go find the large fox statue. It’ll be in front of the student union building. Everyone follow me!” Sara tells the group. She puts her phone away and looks over and sees that Itto’s group is done taking their picture and is heading towards the statue as well. If they hustle, they can get there before his group and get their picture taken before him.
They’re keeping a pretty good pace until one of the freshmen manages to trip and fall over a piece of messed up sidewalk. Sara stops the group so they can make sure that Bennett is okay. He’s holding his knee, and it’s bleeding and already starting to bruise up. That’s not good.
“You okay?” She asks, bending down next to him, the concrete digging into her knee. Bennett looks like he’s holding back tears which doesn’t look good.
“I’m not sure. Does it look bad?” Bennett asks, and Sara inspects his knee. It looks pretty torn up, and is a pretty deep cut. She presses her fingers against his kneecap to make sure nothing is broken because he took a pretty hard fall. Nothing feels broken, which is a good sign at least. It would suck to break your leg during the first week of classes. She knows because she did it herself freshman year.
“It’s not too bad. I have some bandaids and wipes if you want to disinfect it at least.” Sara offers, turning her bag around so she can look in the front pocket.
“I don’t think I need the bandaid but I’ll definitely take the wipe!” Bennett says. Sara finds the wipes in her bag, and hands him a wipe. He wipes the blood off his knee, and cleans it up so it doesn’t look as nasty.
“Okay. You think you can stand up?” Sara asks, and Bennett nods. She helps him to his feet, and dusts herself off. They keep on heading to the statue, and pass Yae Miko’s group. She waves and they keep on going, finally making it to the statue. Itto’s group has already come and gone, but the front of the statue is clear so she gets everyone to stand in front and take their picture. They’re not going to catch Itto’s group but that’s okay.
They have one more thing left after the picture, but at least this is the easiest part. They need to go take a picture in front of their resident hall, so she leads the way. They make it there, and Sara takes the picture, and then they’re all done with the scavenger hunt.
“Okay, everyone, we need to go back to the student union building and hand our sheet in! Let’s go!” Sara tells them, leading them back the way they came. They get there right as Itto’s team is turning in their sheet, which means they win, but Sara’s okay with second place this time.
She takes the sheet up, and submits the pictures. Her team stands next to her, and she turns to look at them.
“Now that’s submitted, you guys are free to go back to the dorm if you want to. However, there are refreshments available in the multipurpose room over there if you want to get something! They have really good chocolate chip cookies so I would recommend it!’ Sara informs the group. Some of the students do leave, but some stay and head over towards the multipurpose room.
Sara plans on heading over there in a few minutes, but first she wants to talk to Itto. He’s sitting at one of the couches in the main lobby of the student union building so Sara heads his way.
“Hey, you guys did great.” Sara says, and Itto looks up at her, and he grins.
“Hey Kujou! Saw you came in second. I was surprised you didn’t beat me this year!” Itto tells her, standing up. Sara’s not short, but Itto towers over her. She looks up at him, and he’s still grinning like a dumbass.
“Yeah, we would’ve won but one of the freshmen in my group got hurt. He tripped and fell on that one piece of sidewalk that I tripped and fell on our freshman year, when I broke my leg. He just got a gash on his leg. He’s pretty lucky.” Sara tells him and Itto can’t help but chuckle.
“That’s just your luck. Glad he’s okay though! You wanna go get some cookies?” Itto asks, and Sara nods. They walk over to the snack table in the multi purpose room. At this point, most of their peers have made it through the scavenger hunt, and now they’re all milling around. Some of the freshmen stayed too, and most of the cookies are gone. Itto and Sara grab the last two chocolate chip cookies and munch on them while they wait for the last groups to get in.
“So, are you on duty this weekend?” Sara asks, looking over at Itto. He nods, and sighs.
“I wish I wasn’t. This is seriously the worst weekend to have duty. All the frat parties this weekend. It makes me a little nervous.” Itto tells her, finishing off the last bites of his cookie. It’s their third year being RAs on campus, so they’ve gotten used to all the campus shenanigans but the first weekend on campus is one of the more nerve wracking weekends.
“Yeah, me too. Me and Yae are splitting duty nights though, but I have Friday night and Saturday. I’m not excited.” She replies, taking a sip of water.
“That’s not so bad. I have the whole weekend because Diluc’s got the flu or something. Yuck.”
“Gross.”
“I know. Also did you hear that his little brother’s a freshman here this year?” Itto replies, and Sara raises an eyebrow.
“Diluc has a brother?” She asks, because she seriously had no idea. Dude is so quiet about personal stuff.
“Yeah, his name is Kaeya, I think. You wouldn’t know they were brothers at all. They’re completely different people. He’s staying in our residence hall so I ran into him during move-in day. Diluc still has the flu so he wasn’t able to help so I had to run check in for most of the morning.” Itto explains, and Sara nods.
“That’s wild. What’s he like?”
“He’s very smart, but kind of a dickhead. So I guess he’s a little bit similar to his brother. He’s on my floor.” Itto says with a chuckle.
“Sounds like fun. How’s everyone been the last few days?” Sara asks. She’s had to deal with a roommate disagreement already and it has only been two days. Hopefully Itto hasn’t had to deal with anything crazy yet.
“It’s been alright. Someone did try to sneak their cat in though. That was an interesting conversation with their parents. They were trying to say it was an ESA, but no paperwork had been filed anywhere.” Itto tells her. That sounds worse than the roommate debacle, for sure.
She’s about to say something else, but Itto pulls out his phone, grimacing when he checks the time.
“I gotta be somewhere at 8 so, I’ll see you later?” Itto says, before pocketing his phone.
“Yeah! Let me know how your weekend goes. Good luck!” Sara says, waving as Itto heads out the door. He grins, and waves back, before making a beeline for the stairs.
She stands there, contemplating her next move as she leans up against the wall. There’s not much else left to do this evening so she makes her way back to her dorm as well.
***
The first weekend on campus is wild. There’s a frat party that half the dorm is going to, and Sara watches from the front desk as students leave the dorm, some of them already tipsy from alcohol that they must’ve sneaked in while one of the other RA’s was on duty. Sara’s not going to call them out on it because there’s no open bottles, but she does make a mental note of it.
One of the freshmen that was in her orientation group comes by the desk at around 9:30, looking sheepish. Sara looks up from her book to see that it’s Bennett, and there’s another guy around his age standing next to him.
“Um, my boyfriend is staying the night, do I need to check him in first?” Bennett asks. Sara puts down her book and turns to the computer.
“Yeah, you do. It’s just a form, I can print it out really quick. Your knee any better?” Sara asks, as she pulls up the form to print it off. They don’t keep paper copies of the files in the office, due to “storage reasons”, but Sara always thought that was dumb. They have plenty of space.
“Yeah, my knee is feeling better. I ended up finding a big bandaid for it in my first aid kit!” Bennett informs her with a smile. The printer whirrs to life, and the form slides out. Sara hands it over to him, along with a pen.
“That’s good to hear! If you’ll just fill out the form, with your name and student ID, and your boyfriend’s name, and the both of you sign it, you should be good to go! If you have any questions, just let me know, okay?” She informs the two of them, and waits as they both fill everything out.
Bennett hands her back the form and the pen. She glances over the form, making sure nothing is missing from the form. Everything is good, so she puts the form away.
“Alright, you two have a good night. If you need any, uh, condoms, there’s a basket over there.” Sara informs him, blushing a little bit. She’s been an RA for three years now, and cares about her residents but it doesn’t make it any less awkward talking about sexual health. Bennett and his boyfriend both turn bright red, and she regrets mentioning it now.
“O-okay, um, have a good rest of your night too!” Bennett says, trying his best to diffuse the awkwardness of the situation. She waves goodbye as the two of them leave. They’re past the doors and in the hallway when Sara hears laughter. She’s way too much of a virgin for this shit.
***
Her first day of classes goes well, as well as a 16 hour course load her senior year would go. She heads towards the library to go get a coffee as a reward for making it through the day. She grabs a seat at one of the couches near the cafe, pulling out her laptop so she can get started on homework due next week. After getting a few equations done, she pulls out her phone, checking her notifications.
There’s a text from her dad asking about how classes went. She goes to reply to it when a snapchat notification shows up. It’s a snap from Itto, and it’s a picture of a crow he saw on campus and he captioned it with “Saw your cousin today”. Sara rolls her eyes, and sends him a text.
From: Sara
Okay, very funny itto
From: Itto
thanks! u think i could be a comedian?
From: Sara
Please don't
From: Itto
:(
From: Itto
anywho, how did ur classes go today?
From: Sara
They were whatever, just syllabus rn
From: Itto
laaame. i got to hold a baby cow today :)))))
[one image attached]
From: Sara
That's so cool wtf
From: Itto
perks of being an ag major :D
Sara looks at the picture Itto sent her. It’s a calf, with a white nose and a brown body. It’s absolutely adorable, and Itto looks like an absolute idiot with a dumb grin on his face, holding the small calf. She reacts to the picture with a small heart, and puts her phone down so she can get some more work done. She’s got an event to be at later this evening, something for RA training, so she needs to get as much done before she has to be there at 7. She types away at her assignment, trying to keep her mind off Itto holding that tiny cow. She would be lying to herself if she said she didn’t think it was at least a little cute.