Reincarnated as an Energy with a System

Chapter 2049: Room Change

Over the days, Ning had been making a point of trying to get closer to Jason.

There was no grand reason behind it. Jason had been the first person at the academy to speak to him honestly, even if what he had said was mostly a warning to stay away, and Ning had found that he simply wanted to be his friend.

Jason, for his part, did everything he could to avoid letting that happen.

He left the cafeteria early whenever he saw Ning approaching, took different routes between classes, and on more than one occasion turned around in the middle of a hallway the moment Ning came into view.

Unfortunately for him, it was very difficult to escape someone who always seemed to know exactly where he was going to be.

More often than not, Ning simply ended up sitting beside him anyway, falling into step with him on the way to the training yard, or waiting at the door of a classroom that Jason had been certain he would reach first.

Even then, Jason rarely spoke. He answered direct questions with as few words as possible and otherwise kept his attention on his food, his notes, or the floor, as if he believed that by refusing to engage, he could eventually convince Ning to give up.

Ning did not give up.

A few days after Jason’s simulation, as the evening approached and Ning was sitting in his room waiting for the dinner hour, someone knocked on his door.

Ning stood and opened it to find the soldier who had escorted him through the academy on his first day, wearing the same dark uniform with his helmet tucked beneath one arm.

"Evening," Ning said with a friendly smile. "I didn’t expect to see you again so soon. Is something wrong?"

"Nothing’s wrong," the soldier said. "I’m just here to drop something off."

He stepped slightly to the side, and Ning saw who was standing behind him.

Jason stood in the hallway with a large piece of luggage at his feet and several other belongings bundled awkwardly in his arms, including a folded set of bedding, a small storage case, and what looked like a handful of data tablets balanced on top.

He was looking at the wall rather than at Ning, and his expression suggested he would have preferred to be anywhere else in the academy.

"Jason will be your roommate from now on," the soldier said.

Ning blinked and looked from the soldier to Jason and back again, genuinely surprised for the first time in days.

"My roommate?"

"Administration approved the transfer this afternoon. You had the only empty bed in the building, so this is where he goes."

The soldier gave Ning a look that was half instruction and half warning.

"You’ve been here long enough now to understand how things work. Share the space, keep it in order, and don’t get into trouble with each other. I’d rather not have to come back up here for anything other than good news."

Ning nodded. "Understood."

The soldier gave Jason a brief nod as well, then turned and walked back down the hallway, leaving the two of them standing on either side of the open doorway.

Ning stepped aside to let Jason in, and Jason carried his belongings past him without a word, setting the luggage down beside the empty bed and placing the bundle in his arms carefully on the bare mattress.

Ning closed the door and leaned against it.

"So," he said. "Why did you come here? Did you choose to?"

Jason gave him a flat look over his shoulder. "Obviously not."

"Then what happened?"

Jason was quiet for a moment as he began unfolding the bedding, and when he answered, his voice carried a weary tone.

"My roommate doesn’t like me. He’s been trying to get rid of me for a while now, putting in requests to administration and complaining every chance he got. But every room in the building was already paired up, so there was nowhere to move either of us, and the requests kept getting denied."

He spread the sheet over the mattress and smoothed it down with more care than it needed.

"Then you showed up, and suddenly there was an empty bed. He put in another request the same day you arrived, and this time it was approved."

Ning frowned slightly. "So it was his idea, and you’re the one who had to pack up and leave. Why didn’t he move out instead, if he was the one who wanted the change?"

"We don’t get to make that decision," Jason said. "The staff does. They decide who moves and where they go, and they probably decided it was easier to move the one who wasn’t making all the noise."

Ning understood that well enough. In a place like this, the person who complained the loudest usually got what they wanted, and the person who quietly endured it was the one who ended up carrying their belongings down the hallway.

He pushed himself away from the door and walked over to his own bed, sitting down on its edge so that he could face Jason across the room.

"Well," he said, "welcome to the room, then."

Jason paused with a pillow halfway out of his bag and looked at him warily, as though waiting for some catch to follow.

"You can do whatever you want on your side," Ning continued. "Put your things wherever you like, keep whatever hours you keep, and don’t worry about me complaining to anyone. I’m not going to ask for you to be moved somewhere else."

For a long moment, Jason simply looked at him.

It was the longest Ning had seen him hold anyone’s gaze since they had met, and there was something in his expression that Ning could not quite read, a mix of suspicion, tiredness, and something that might have been relief if Jason had allowed himself to feel it.

Finally, Jason gave a small nod.

"Thank you," he said quietly.

Then he turned back toward his bed and began setting up his side of the room in earnest.