There was a loud knock at our door and I scrambled to get up from my bed. I looked to Angelo’s side of the room to find him face-first on his pillow with his limbs sticking out in every direction.

Dread pooled in my stomach and I quickly pulled on some pants before answering the door.

“Morning, just doing the weekly check-up,” Jeremy said.

His lanyard hung over his neck with a bunch of other keys and his ID card to let people know he was the resident assistant of the dorm.

“Who is it?” Angelo groaned.

“The RA.”

I half expected Angelo to say something else but he seemed to have drifted back to sleep as soft snores filled the gaps of silence.

“Yep, just the last one since you two seemed settled into dorm life now,” Jeremy said to Angelo anyways. “Just have to give a reminder that the kitchen area is a shared space so make sure to clean up after yourselves and all that. We found someone’s gym shorts the other day and that wasn’t fun for anyone.”

“Gotcha,” I was about to close the door and he stopped it with his hand.

“I also have been getting complaints from other students that there has been a lot of noise coming from your room the other day. Are you guys good?”

“What? Wha—” I remembered the horror movie marathon. "Oh, right. It was probably when we had a movie marathon. Sorry, we’ll keep it down.”

“It’s no worries, just keep the other dorm members in mind, yeah?” Jeremy said and I gave a thumbs up.

When he finally left, I let out an exhale. The last time he had done a check-up on us, he had given us a lot of flack for having a messy room since it was considered a safety hazard at one point. The dorm rooms are too cramped for what they’re worth and Angelo and I had brought more stuff than probably needed in all honesty.

I walked over to my side of the room to grab a shirt hanging off of my bedframe. I inspected it for any stains before I took off my shirt and began to put the other one on.

“What are you doing?”

Angelo was very awake now and the shirt was halfway over my head. My eyes were partially obscured and I attempted to look at him through the head hole of my shirt. When that didn’t work out, I yanked it over my head and one arm was successfully through the armhole while the other still needed to make the journey.

“Getting ready,” I said. “Why?”

He refused to look me in the face as he stared at the ground intensely and there was a faint blush on his face.

“I thought you would wear something nicer since this is romance practice too,” Angelo mumbled.

“I didn’t bring any nice clothes. I didn’t expect university life to be the height of society and that I needed to bring a suit.”

“You don’t have to bring a suit but a dress shirt would be nice.” Angelo’s gaze was still directed to the ground and his hands were clutching his bedsheets. “Or at least something with colour.”

“I express my individuality in black. This shade of black is a particularly cheerful colour too.”

Angelo’s shoulders slumped and it looked like he was physically deflating. “Alright, let's just get this over with.”

“Should I be the swooner, or the swoonee?” My shirt was now properly on my body and I quickly put on jeans.

“What?” He asked.

I scratched my head. “I don’t know, the terms of the people in romance books.”

“Um…like ‘your name’ and the hot guy?”

“What?”

“Right, that was a bad point of reference for you,” Angelo wracked his brain. “Um, the protagonist and the love interest. Better?”

“I still don’t like those terms. It feels like one of us is being objectified.”

“This is for a story. People don’t see the love interest’s perspective and if they do usually it’s a single chapter at the end or a sequel companion novel.”

“Which one should I be then? This is for novel research and whatever.”

“The protagonist of a romance novel usually has stuff happen to them so maybe you should be the protagonist and I’ll be the love interest. Then you can write down what you learned.”

“Are you sure you’re comfortable with doing this?” I asked him. “I can always find someone else to do all this.”

“I can do it!” Angelo’s voice went high and he cleared his voice.

“Alright, go get ready. I want to get there early. I don’t want to wait for hours if the event turns out to be popular.”

He groaned and pushed himself off his bed before trudging off to his drawers. I smoothed out my shirt almost obsessively and I mentally checked myself. This was just for the novel. This wasn’t a real date. The last attempts I had at romance were a disaster, it was better to keep it in fiction.