Took Too Long Ch. 01

Chapter 1: Party in Westwood

It is a lazy Wednesday morning, the orange sun bleeds into the cramped apartment room, her three individual fans hum along. and one Harmony Padilla is to soon wake up for Uni! Her alarm goes off, the Apple "Radar" alarm, very effective at having her wake.

And so she does, groggy does Harmony open her little eyes, she's wrapped within the warmth of blankets older than her, she wants nothing more but to stay right there... she heavily dragged her body up so her arms could reach the end of her bed, to turn off her alarm that is!

And so she does, her phone tells her the date and Time; "August 23rd, 6:02am" it read, she frowns, she lets out a frustrated groan and grovels out of bed. She wears a set of sweatpants and a baggy band tee for the hit band; "the Doozers" it is her favorite shirt. It is astrung with a variety of odd multicolored creatures!

She gives herself a little stretch, shakes her head, and begins her morning routine. On her nightstand she has her pills, Spironactone, those being her T-Blockers, as she is a trans woman. She's been taking these daily for almost 1 year now! Ever since moving out of her parents place that is... college has offered her such incredible opportunities.

Harmony never had a good relationship with her parents, she knew she was a girl since sophomore year of highschool, and had to hide for years until she could scrape by enough money to move out `with the support of a few roommates! She works full time at some Thai place in northridge... which is where she lives and attends school! CSUN that is...

Regardless she takes her Spiro with a bit of water, it is minty in flavor! She brushes her teeth, brushes her hair, does a bit of make up, and is happy that she need not shave! As she waxed a few days beforehand.

All her roommates are still fast asleep so she tries not to wake them, and she succeeds! She slips out of the apartment and Into the outside world! She feels fairly comfortable, in her cute cardigan and warm corduroy pants! Perfect for August weather! She makes her way down to the parking garage, where her 2012, Toyota Camry is parked.

She takes a seat and she tries to ignite the engine. It sputters and...'nothing. "Oh come on..." she mutters, she tries a few more times, the engine continues to sputter until... the car purred awake, and Mona let out a grand sigh of relief! "Oh thank god..."

She drove off carefully into LA traffic, thankfully it's a short commute to CSUN but.., it is still around 20mins. She moans in protest, sipping from her Metal water bottle, adorned with homestuck, band, and pride stickers, Harmony was always one to be herself with her full chest!

Once she pulls up to CSUN, taking a spot within the campus, because what else does she pay for parking for! She gets out of her car, grabs her book bag she had forgotten in her car, and begins her trek to her first class of the day! As she walks with her messenger bag at her side, she hums the turn of the music playing in her headphones! Harmony is very happy this morning!

She opens the door to the lower Mathematics building, heads up to the 3rd floor, and takes her seat for her trig class, as she still needs to work through her prerecs to graduate, so she listens with intention. The Professor, a one Ms, Gunkle, is an older German woman, and she is new to the roster of students as the school year had just started again, being August and all. She called out names as she pleased, it was a smaller class of 40, so this prof was inclined to try and keep tabs, especially since attendance was 20% of their grades!

And soon there it was Harmony's turn on roll call, unfortunately Mona was yet to actually like, change her name legally. She has the school acknowledge that her name is Harmony, it's written next to her legally mandated, deadname! But this old fart couldn't give less care in the world, and so it rung:

"Pedro Padilla?"

Harmony choked up, unsure of what to do. She presents as a woman, everyone in the class knows her as Harmony, but at this moment she has to out herself essentially. Announce that her name Harmony was in fact, not given at birth! Yes she's openly trans, but she doesn't want her deadname floating around naturally!

But Ms, Gunkle caught herself, "oh, wait, Harmony Padilla," she looked at Har, "sorry miss." She said with an earnest remorse. Harmony calmed down, and chirped out a little "it's fine..." with her best fem voice! And then class continued. It was long and uneventful. She does take good notes! But class soon comes to an end, and one of the boys in her class, a 20 something named Bruce, performs anger on her behalf. He grabs her hand while everyone is packing up and says how sorry he is for Harmony... what an injustice has been done to her!

He is what we call a "Chaser".

Though admittedly Harmony doesn't hate Bruce, he clearly does care about trans women, at least in this case, Though Harmony would be remiss if she were to say bruce has never come onto her. But soon bruce has a funny offer.

"So... Harmony." He began

"I have some friends up in UCLA and... they're throwing a rager! I already invited that friend of yours, Dani? Yeah her, she's coming to have some fun!" He announced proudly to Haru, "So... waddya say beautiful! Wanna go with me?" he asked, yanking her hand from her lap.

Harmony flinched and pulled back, she hasn't had good experiences with men in the past... "Um... No Bruce. I'd rather not go..." she admitted, "though, thank you for the invite!" he said as she scampered off to her next lecture.

Time flys and soon its around 11:24, Haru gets a phone call from her good friend, and one of her 2 roommates, Alanzo! She picks up with joy!

"Hi! Alanzo what's up!?" She peeped out!

"Hey Har... you at school?" he asked

"Oh uh, yeah?"

"Great! I'll meet you there! A friend of that bad guy is throwing a rager so like, I'm defo going! He invited Dani, and she invited me so..." he implied to her.

"Oh... You want me to be the DD, eh? She said with a giggle.

"Correctomundo sis!"

She pondered for a moment... Being the DD should be fairly benign... yes men have hurt her. But she wasn't in the party, if she just stays outside and minds her business it shouldn't be an issue! So after a solid 8 seconds of deliberation she lets out: "Uhmmm.... Yeah! Ill do it for you two no prob!" and like that the plans were made!

She continued her day without caveat, she got her morning text from Dani, just cutesy fluff and confirmation that Harmony is their DD for tonight. Harmony stopped by a boba shop to get some tea and was happy to, she always liked boba. And so, around like, 4pm that day, Harmony is finally home! She slips her key to open her apartment door and... Alanzo's home? She's a bit puzzled, she figured he had class today, no?

"Hey, Enzo... didn't you have class?" she asked sheepishly, "you said you'd come but I never saw you!"

He didn't even look up from his game he plays in the living room to answer her a swift, "Not today... The teacher got sick soo..." she smiled at him and let him continue his little game, Alanzo was always a rough looking kid, he never much cared for societal expectations of hygiene, which is cool on paper until he hasn't showered in days! Regardless, Haru never minded none, Alanzo was a good friend! He's just a bit smelly on Wednesdays.

She wanders into her small room, which has a twin bed, plenty of band and movie posters, a trans pride flag just by her bed. She has a small white desk where she does her schoolwork mostly, a laptop where she does everything! And her amp. A few guitars, and a few pedals on shelves and lots of figurines of all her favorite medias!

She unloads into her bed... a massive exhale escaping her. She looks at the ceiling fan above her. She found her hands rubbing against her neck, clavicles and growing chest. She dreamed of a body like this... and she's still blooming. Her eyes grew heavy as she drifted into Daysleep.