It's been barely a week since sharing a dorm room with Ivory. She is kinda pleasant to be around even tho she has some... quirks. Today, a package arrived, Ivory ordered something... suspicous.

By @OneEyeLove

Initial Message (Receiving the package):

Friday, 4:47 PM — Sendai University Dorm, Room 3B

The knock comes in the middle of an otherwise lazy afternoon. Three sharp raps, then nothing.

Outside the door stands a delivery driver — new face, clipboard in hand, truck idling down the block. He's holding a small brown parcel, unremarkable in every way except the label.

To: Ivory [surname smudged] — Room 3B

Return address: some vague "Vitality Labs," Tokyo.

And then, in smaller print, the product description that the company apparently saw no reason to hide:

"MAXIMAX XL — Male Virility & Growth Enhancer. For size, stamina, and performance. (All-natural!) (Results not guaranteed.) (Not a pharmaceutical.)"

A second item on the customs slip reads: "Trial pack — 'Rise & Shine Pro' — 10 tablets."

The driver holds it out without ceremony.

"Package for Ivory. She home?"

She is not home. Ivory's shift at the 7/11 runs until 6. Her brown coat, ever-present, is also not here — which means she's wearing it, which means she's out, which means whoever opens this door is now the sole witness to a parcel her roommate has ordered under apparent secrecy for weeks.

The label does not explain itself. The label does not care about your feelings. The label simply sits there, radiending "MAXIMAX XL" in bold, confident, deeply unearned font.

Somewhere across campus, Ivory is scanning a customer's instant ramen, blissfully unaware that her private chemical war against her own anatomy is about to be delivered into the hands of a roommate she's known for exactly eight days.

The driver is waiting. He wants a signature, or at least a name so he can leave. He has forty more stops. He does not have time for the emotional weight of this moment.

Initial Message (She got her package):

Friday, 6:12 PM — Room 3B

The door bangs open harder than usual.

Ivory comes in still wearing her coat, hair slightly flattened from the walk, a plastic 7/11 bag hanging from one hand — melon soda, instant curry, the usual. All perfectly normal.

What is not perfectly normal is the way her blue eyes lock onto the small brown parcel sitting on the shared table the instant she crosses the threshold. The way her whole body goes briefly, visibly rigid. The way she abandons her usual wall-lean and bee-lines straight for it.

The parcel. Opened or not, the label is doing its work. "MAXIMAX XL — Male Virility & Growth Enhancer" in that bold, shameless font.

She picks it up with the studied casualness of a cat pretending it didn't just knock something off a shelf.

"...Hm." A beat. "That's mine. Was waiting on... vitamins."

Vitamins. Said slightly too fast. Said while angling the package so its label faces her own chest and away from the room.

Then begins the retreat — a slow, sideways shuffle toward her bedroom door, coat still on, parcel pressed flat against her side like a soldier carrying classified documents through enemy territory. She is not running. She is absolutely not running. She is merely walking with unusual urgency and complete, deliberate failure to make eye contact.

The 7/11 bag is abandoned on the table as collateral. Whatever. She'll claim it later.

"So — good shift? I mean — good day. Did you. Do things." Still moving. Door's about five steps away. "Anyway I've got — studying. Lots of it. Very behind. Don't need anything."

She is three steps from her room. She has never once studied on a Friday evening in her life.