Gaëbelle

The orange light of sunset shone through the only window of the room.
The girl with short-black hair and glasses sat in the desk, frown on her forehead as she furiously flipped through the pages of a notebook.
"I can't believe I forgot to take notes on this" She mumbled, not really conscious of the fact that she said it outloud. One of her teammates, a dark-skinned girl with a red afro held up by a dark cyan bandana, looked at her with a doubtful expression. She wasn't fit to deal with this. Where was Isabelle when you needed her?
"You need to relax. You're ready, Gaëlle, you've been preparing for this since... Well, I think you spent more of your time in here preparing for tests than actually speaking" She stated, going back to making sure her backpack was ready. "If you stress yourself up you might end up collapsing like last time."
Gaëlle didn't even bother looking back and snorted. "You wouldn't understand, Aira. Don't you have to go camping or something? Go ahead, I'll concentrate better when- AHA! I knew I had it here!" She suddenly exclaimed. Of course she didn't forget, she wasn't that careless.
Aira sighed, putting the backpack on. "I'm going. See you on monday. Luck with studying." There was nothing she could do. Once Gaëlle was in the zone, almost noone could get her out of it. The problem was the fact that she was in the zone ninety percent of the time.
Without getting even a miserable nod of aknowledgement, Aira left the room. That girl studied too hard, but there was nothing for her to do. Not now.
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When she looked up, the stars were visible through the window. If she calculated their positions right, she hadn't missed dinner. Smirking, she got up. At this rate, she would surely be able to finish all the studying she had to do before her next test, and she could use the spare time to study ahead of time. Yes, she had this in the bag.
Going to the cafeteria, taking a quick meal and coming back to coninue. That was her goal. Of course she wouldn't collapse again. No, last time she lost an entire eight hours of study because of that. It took weeks to catch up.
However, when she opened the door, she was surprised to find a brunette with a braid resting on her left shoulder.
"I-Isabelle, hi" She mumbled, stepping aside. The girl smiled gently. She was carrying a little tray.
"You missed dinner, so I asked permission to bring some, saying you were feeling bad" Isabelle said, setting the food on the desk.
Gaëlle was dumbfounded. No, the stars...
She ran to look outside the window again. She adjusted her glasses, ignoring the girl with the dark bags under her eyes and overall exhausted expression in the reflection, checking things more carefully. Now that she saw, yes, she had mistaken that star for that one, and in turn...
"Thank you" She said, sitting down, pride hurt. She'd study harder for astrology, though her focus was on Fish Lenguage as of right now.
She opened the tray. The meal was a bunch of fried potatoes and... No way, was that real meat?
In part because of the meat, in part because of the study she had to do, she ate fast. It was a nice meal, and she got right back to studying. This time, however, she felt more calm. Somehow, knowing that Isabelle was in the room helped her focus.
Now she could really study.
But, a few minutes after starting, something touched her shoulder. She looked back and the figure of the brunette was leaning over her shoulder. "Sorry to bother you, but we should take a shower while we can. Time's going to run out."
Slightly flushing after thinking of her teammate naked, Gaëlle ajusted her glasses once more and got up. A shower would take away from her studying, but she couldn't say no to Isabelle.
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Isabelle was the first to come back. She nodded, happy. Gaëlle studied too much, but she didn't have the heart to tell her to outright stop, so she tried her best at just helping out. It seemed to work, but she could never tell what the girl was thinking. Some times she wished she could be a little more assertive. Maybe today she would try to make her roommate sleep early. Those bags under her eyes didn't look healthy.
As she thought of that, the door opened, and the girl in question entered the room with her hair in a messy, humid state. Their eyes met for a split second, but Gaëlle looked away instantly.
She sat back in the desk, ready to continue studying. Isabelle, gulped, took a deep breath, and... Let it go. No, she couldn't do it.
Without thinking too much, she sat on her own bed, the top one in the bunk bed, and looked at her companion silently study, hearing nothing but the rustle of the flipping pages on the notebook.
Isabelle had come to appreciate Gaëlle early in the year. She wanted to be a linguistic, but had problems with Fish lenguage. Gaëlle was the one who helped her understand things better. But, since then, their interactions had been rather limited. She spent so much time studying, and she enjoyed being alone. Isabelle never found a way to approach her besides asking for help, but she was doing fine as of now.
But, well, she was happy just helping, for now. She considered Gaëlle a friend, even if the girl probably didn't feel the same way. One day she would surely come to talk to her, and until then, she would just do her best.
And then Gaëlle fell asleep.
She didn't exactly know how she noticed. Maybe it was the less rigid posture, or a change in breathing. But she noticed before the girl with the classes started falling forward. In a quick move, she jumped from her bed and caught the other girl by the head, making sure she didn't hit the desk.
Ok, that was it.
"Gaëlle, come on, time to sleep" She said, gently, helping her friend up.
"Wha-" The dark-haired girl woke up, surprised. "No, no, I'm fine, I just-"
"No" Isabelle's tone, still gentle, now had an edge to it. "You're too tired. Take it easy for tonight, ok? And tomorrow too."
Gaëlle didn't know how to answer. Yes, it was still Isabelle's gentle tone, but something had changed. It was not a suggestion, it was an order. Like those times when your mother warns you a couple times about something in a calm voice, but you know, deep inside, that you need to do whatever she told you or she's going to get mad.
"But I have an exam..."
"And I've seen you study very hard and I trust you can do it. If you wear yoursel out, you might end up just collapsing." Truth be told, that had only happened one time, but at this rate...
"But I- Just..." Gaëlle didn't know how to word it. She liked studying. She liked feeling like she was understanding things and being productive. Studying made sense, eventually. She didn't understand girls who didn't do it. Why wouldn't you want to understand more about the world?
While she thought of a reply, however, she was gently pushed into her bed. "Please, Gaëlle, just this once?" The brunette asked, with her best gentle face.
The german girl blushed and looked away, not able to make eye contact anymore. If she asked like that, who could refuse?
"F-fine..." She reluctantly accepted.
"Thank you" Isabelle, smiling despite the fact that the other girl was no longer looking at her, reclined forward and planted a soft kiss on Gaëlle's cheek. "Have nice dreams."
She climbed into her own bed, and with a flick of her wand turned off the lights.
Despite all her complaints, the dark-haired girl could only stay awake five more minutes, and only because of her racing heart thanks to Isabelle's kiss.