Preparing For The Winter Wonderland Ball

The Riverdale Winter Wonderland Ball was to take place on 16th December this year. Aside from planning and organizing the event, the student union members had to personally take up a job for the ball. Aiden was given the task to serve drinks to the guests.

A day before the ball, Aiden was busy decorating the venue with a few other student union members. His phone dinged in the afternoon and he abruptly checked it for any important notification.

It was Angela, who sent him a train ticket to his mail for 17th December at 2 PM.

After Aiden was done with the decoration of the venue, he still had some work left to do for Rosaliá. There was no one waiting at home, so he decided to work late into the night to finish recording Rosaliá's data. The 16th was reserved for the ball, and then he was free to board the train to Dominion the very next day.

By the time Aiden finished tidying up everything and submitted the data to Rosaliá's e-mail, the clock already showed 11 PM. He yawned and stretched himself in the empty work station. After shutting down all computers, he went out of the laboratory and locked the door.

It was snowing heavily outside. Aiden pulled the hood of his coat over his head and walked to the student dormitory to ask for a room. Unexpectedly, all the rooms were booked for the night.

It seemed that Aiden was not the only person who had to stay late to finish assignments before winter break. The others were smart enough to book rooms before night arrived.

While Aiden was pondering about secretly finding a remote corner between the book shelves at the library to sleep at, a familiar face showed up.

Aiden had not seen Jerry Tanner ever since they spent the night together in the dormitory's single room. That morning, Jerry looked exhausted. Judging from the dark circles around his eyes, he seemed to not have slept well for the night. Aiden had a slight suspicion that he snored at night and thus felt guilty.

When they met again, Jerry looked puzzlingly terrified. He had his mouth open for a few seconds before a single "Hey," escaped his mouth.

"Hey," Aiden said in response.

"Staying late tonight?"

"Yeah. Um."

Jerry scratched his head.

"I pissed off one of my tutors for being tardy in a seminar group for the whole year. He banned me from joining the mid-semester exam. After I begged and begged, he asked me to hand in half semester's worth of assignments, else he would not allow me to take the supplementary exam in January. So yeah, here I am," he ended the story by raising his arms over his head in resignation.

Aiden chuckled.

Jerry turned slightly red when he saw Aiden's smile. After parting from Aiden that morning, he had a severe sexual frustration episode. He thought that meditation and cold showers helped, but as soon as he saw Aiden in front of him, the sexual frustration returned like churning lava inside a volcano.

Just like Aiden, Jerry also did not expect the dormitory rooms to be fully booked.

"Oh, blast it," he cursed. "What now? We can't sleep outside, it is too cold!"

Aiden laughed.

"I plan to sneak into the library and find a quiet corner to sleep. Wanna join me?"

Jerry raised an eyebrow.

"Magnificent idea! I am coming!"

The two students thus headed in the library's direction.

The huge library in Riverdale was open 24 hours a day to cater for poor students who often had insomnia as exam time neared. It was possible to rent small cubicles for concentrated learning within the library. Often, students ended up sleeping and eating in the cubicles. Naturally the cubicles had long waiting lists and were not available for sudden booking.

Aiden and Jerry sat in a narrow passageway between two shelves and chatted a little.

"Have you ever come to visit our club? I haven't seen you around."

"No, unfortunately no. I have been a little busy these days."

Grandma Thompson's sickness, his part-time job, student union activities, and the trips to Dominion had indeed drained a lot of his free time.

"Oh, I see. We are starting to plan for our yearly summer flower exhibition. I hope you can come."

"Sure, I will do my best to make it."

Jerry smiled as he snuggled closer to his jacket.

"Mmm. That would be wonderful. Oh HEY."

Jerry suddenly sat up straight and stared at Aiden.

Pressing his lips together, he asked the young man one very important question.

"Tomorrow is the winter ball. Are you… are you going? Are you going with someone? Anyone?"