I can’t believe I have to give work to HER. I don’t even know why they’d choose me of all people to give this to her, I’m clearly stronger than her if I’m not the one getting sick enough to miss an assignment, so why must I have to give it to her? I guess I would be better than everyone else at giving it to her, since I’m sure no one could handle how obnoxious someone like her can be.’

These were the thoughts running through Jades head as she strolled through the college campus to her dorm. Alex had emailed their teacher asking for any material to be sent to her dorm, and to impress the teacher (No other reason in Jades mind, why would she ever want to see her and her stupid small hands and delicate body and soft face! She wasn’t worried about someone like her getting sick at all, despite knowing her bad habits of forgetting to eat and sleep due to her getting lost in her experiments! She really didn’t care at all!) she volunteered to give her the papers, much to everyone’s chagrin. She could see why having to watch her put down this girl a peg in confidence could get tiring, how could someone not learn their lesson that many times! It couldn’t be because their arguments make them both look like overconfident fools, even Jade and Alex could agree about that being a silly reason.

In her being deep thought, Jade ended up walking face first into Alexs door. Hoping no one saw, she knocked on the door, ready to give the work. It simply creaked open.
“Hello? It’s me, Jade! I know my genius can be frightening compared to yours, but at least answer the door! Besides, its reckless to leave a door unlocked and slightly open!”

Silence.

Now she was really starting to get worried (as she completely wasn’t before). Where is she if she’s sick enough to not make it to class? As she walked in clutched the papers and looked around the dorm.
“Jeeze, you could’ve cleaned up this place before you got sick, or at least repaired the cracks…”
This came out as a murmur as Jade wandered into the dorm. Jade had been raised in a wealthy family and never witnessed such poor conditions in real life. The walls were gray, and all the furniture was damaged in some way or another. The kitchen was dirty despite not being used for anything other than ramen noodle cups (she could deduce that by the large pile of them in the trash) and the entrance to Alex’s room was cracked.
She gently opened the door to her room.
An even messier bedroom was right in front of her, trash bags of clothes instead of a closet and a bundle of blankets on the bed. The only organized and clean part of her dorm was her damaged desk, immaculately keeping her experiments safe.
“How does anyone live like this?! This is a pigsty!”
Jade immediately went to Alex’s bed and tried to make it, but was met with a red, sniffling face.
“GAH!”
Both yelped when they saw each other, and Jade stumbled back onto a trash bag.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING MY perfectly clean and sanitized DORM!!”
Alex must have heard her commentary about her dorm, as she muttered that part under her breath. She sounded like speaking was hard for her, sniffling and straining to even go below her normal yelling voice. It seemed she was too sick to be her default of angry.
“Good god Alex, I knew I was better at you at cleaning, but I didn’t know you were bad at it!”
“You of all people thought I would’ve been good at it?!”
Alex’s question, despite her disbelief, sounded almost… flattered at the idea of her thinking she was good at something.
‘Being sick must make her more suspectable to showing emotions other than rage and superiority.’ Jade noted.
“I don’t know, but I didn’t except THIS! How do you find anything, this home is a wreck?!”
“Anything I need I can find, for the most part. I did lose my journal the other day, so I suppose you’re right about it being a bit messy…” The fact Alex was admitting to being wrong meant that she seriously had her guard weakened by her illness. Even Jade knew she needed to be gentler (she was even a morally better person then her, what wasn’t she better at?) They sat in silence for a minute, Alex not even noticing what she said, until Jade broke the quiet by dropping her packet onto Alexs desk.
“Look, I just came here to give you your work, I can’t compete against your grades next test if you aren’t caught up. It just isn’t fair, even if you probably wouldn’t play clean.”
“You’ve always been a good opponent huh? Ah, well I suppose that means you can continue your day and leave here. It was nice to see you, Jade.”
Alex never refers to Jade by her name, preferring to call her nicknames such as “My rival”, “adversary”,” foe”, “bane of my existence”, “dunce”, and even on the instances where she’s feeling particularly flustered at her greatness, “idiot”. She has never been this genuine before.

She’d never let her guard down this much.

“A-ah, well, I suppose I can stay a bit longer… What kind of rival would I be if I didn’t help you out? To keep you at my level of course, haha!”
Jade practically choked that out, sounding so flustered that anyone nearby who heard would’ve cringed. Alas, both are bad at understanding social ques, and Alex wasn’t at her normal levels anyhow, so she didn’t notice.
“I’ll cook you chicken noodle soup. NOT the ramen noodle cup version, but the real one, so I’ll be right back! I’ll probably have to clean your house too…”
“Don’t bother cleaning, you’d probably mess up my order.”
“Just for that, I’ll prove that I’m better at setting up an order for you than even you!”
“Of course, you would. I’ll be sure to prove you wrong about that…”

Alex drifted off at that sentence, the lack of comment on dinner meaning she didn’t have a problem with it. Jade waltzed off to the kitchen, hanging up fallen clothes in Alex’s old wardrobe on the way. She wondered why Alex didn’t choose the honors dorms, before realizing that everyone living that close to her and occupying the common room with their conversations would start trouble. As she started to clear the kitchen counter after ordering groceries online, she noticed something. A bag full of notebooks, each labeled a different number. There was one outside the bag, it was labeled “Documentation #3”. It seemed to be new.
Jade opened the book.
It had every interaction they’ve had in the past month and every feeling she had about her. They all tended to be angry, but in a confused way, as if she did not understand her feelings towards the tall girl, and why she enjoyed bickering with her.
‘We’ve known each other for threee months, yet the other notebooks look at least a few weeks old…’
Jade pondered that as she flipped through the few pages that were made this month. She dabbled in journaling on occasion, only being consistent with her plant tracker and random notes that’d she write on her phone when she was feeling especially emotional (which had been happening a lot more recently with how Alex gets on her last nerves), but she didn’t realize how much the reddish-blonde kept logs of her life. The rest of the notebooks contained things about experiments she had conducted and different series or labels. Curiously enough, she never had a diary for day-to-day life it seemed. She’d only felt it would be appropriate more of her days once meeting Jade.

She didn’t realize how much of an effect she had on the other.

The last thing she read in that notebook was “While this nuisance may be overly sure that she is better than me (something impossible due to me obviously being the smartest on campus, especially due to my lack of fraternizing with my peers, an obvious waste of time), she is still extremely intelligent, socially diligent, and well-rounded in all skills, even physical ones I do not possess. I’ve never met someone this close to my level. I know I must keep my eye on her, just so I do not get surpassed on the student rankings here and keep my top grades.” Jade wondered why she wrote so awkwardly in her logs. “However, I’ve found myself… missing her company? I miss debating with her and proving her wrong when I’m alone. It’s distracting. I want it to stop. I’ll figure out how to stop it once I wake up and argue with her again. I figure out everything, and I’ll figure out her.” The rest of the page had angry faces scribbled on and doodles of her and jade arguing and Xs slashed across Jades’ face on headshots that looked especially detailed compared to the rest.

This was the deciding factor that made her pocket the little book. She had to analyze it more of course! Just to see what she was planning, and nothing more. The noodles arrived, and she started to cook the noodles, pondering what that book could hold. Wondering about Alex.

Thinking about her and her stupid, stupid way with words.

This was based on the prompt; Someone finds something another person lost and doesn't give it back.