Hate Is Such A Strong Word

[Yugikun]

Well, tonight had certainly been more exciting than she thought it would be.

Jasmine King was lying on top of her bed, cat sleeping on top of her, tiredness creeping across the edges of her eyes. It was probably Sunday by now, sometime in the early A.M. She figured that most everyone would have gone to sleep at this point, with only a few stragglers keeping their watch on the city. She was currently in the latter camp right now, didn't really know why. Maybe it was the chocolate? Maybe. Memories of her when she was younger swam around her head, the faint shape of her parents telling her that she shouldn't have chocolate after 4 PM coming up to the forefront. It had some basis in reality, at the very least, most types of chocolate containing caffeine which was currently keeping her awake; making sure she was one of the people who stayed up, watching over the city or whatever it was they were supposed to be doing in that movie she watched last night. Last night? Could she still call it that, or had enough time passed that it had lept into the realm of it being more of a day ago.

She shook her head, the memory dissipating in front of her. If she was supposed to be watching over the city or whatever the fuck the people in the movie were doing, then she wasn't really doing a very good job at it.

She was staring at the ceiling of her room, looking back at what had happened the night before. She had gone to the Sadie Hawkins Dance earlier, mostly because her parents had forced her into it. Said something about how she should spend more time with friends. She found it fucking stupid that she had to go because of that, she talked to them basically all the time and if they even went to the dance they were going to spend time with whoever they asked out. It wasn't a formal, it was a dance. The girls asked out the guys and they spent the whole night dancing together in happy matrimony. Yay. Well, no, she shouldn't be annoyed at that. Really, it was a good thing if people admitted their feelings to one another and became couples. Good for them for what she hoped was an obvious reason, and good for her because it gave her so much more to work with.

Really, she shouldn't have been so annoyed by it. She had a fairly good time, even if she went alone. She just stood near one of the snack tables for the whole night and watched, probably snacking off the food more than she should have but still, wasn't like she could work it off if she accidently put it on. She was alone during the night, but that wasn't something she really minded. She had the music to listen to, and the dancers to watch. And it was so fun to watch the dancers. So many pairings that she didn't see coming that she had to take out her phone to take pictures about five minutes after she arrived. It was fun, really. Even aside from the pictures she got to dance with the freshman for a bit near the end and she got to talk to some of her friends as they exited. Really, tonight was great. She had fun and she got so much stuff for her archives. Really, nothing could have gone wrong.

But then Min-Jae came in with fucking Hazel of all people and Jasmine had to clench her fists to stop herself from rushing over there.

Because of course it had to be fucking Hazel who got to take the pretty boy to prom, because that's how it was in the movie. The nice girl who did no wrong got to go to the dance with the guy of her dreams without even having to work for it while the inconsiderate bitch who nobody even liked or respected was left to pout in the corner all by herself despite working for every little thing she had. It wasn't fair. People thought Hazel was nice, she got that, but that didn't mean that she should receive fucking awards for it. That was far from how the world worked, and it definitely wasn't how the world should work. Besides, it wasn't even like she was nice anyway; she was a two-faced, stuck up bitch who got everything she wanted handed to her on a silver platter and Jasmine highly doubted that she ever had to work for it. And don't even get her started on her previous flings. Jasmine could feel her hands clench, she should be the one reaping the rewards for what she did. Hard work pays off, right? So why was it that she was the one left to pout in the corner by herself while the bitch got to go to the dance with the guy with her dreams?

It wasn't fair.

Ugh, she needed to get her mind off of this. She sat up, or at the very least, began to move before she realised the cat was on her. Whoops. Sorry Molly, won't do that again. She reached her arm out to her bedside table, feeling through the darkness to try and find the machine that had helped make the night that much better. She felt the small rectangular shape, and soon enough she pulled her phone towards her, pressing the button to turn it on. The familiar green-white light soon glared itself towards her and she had to cover her eyes to stop it from reaching into her eyes. She kinda wished that she could skip this step of slowly opening her eyes so that she could get used to the light (it was annoying and too long to do, not to mention sometimes painful), but she knew that she had to get on with it if she wanted to get to the part she wanted to get to.

So eventually, she moved her elbow, opened her eyes, and allowed herself to look at the light emitting from her phone. The glare was still too much at this point, but she could still enter in her password while looking away. She entered the last number (a 6, part of a random combination of numbers that had a nice ring to it) and checked to see if she had imputed it correctly. She could see through the glare now to her collection of apps, and she pumped her fist slightly as she selected pictures. Apparently she could enter her password without even looking now, which was cool. It wasn't exactly the most useful or notable skill around but still, it was fairly neat that she could do it now.

But anyway, she went into her pictures folder, selecting the most recent pictures since she hadn't had the time to sort them into the relevant folders yet. God, there was some great stuff in here. She tended to not look back on past pictures or Facebook conversations because they didn't tend to hold up very well but she could still appreciate what she got even after the fact. Maybe she still appreciated it because she was still on a high from the event but that wasn't something she was going to complain about. She had received so much new gossip from the dance, it was crazy. She thought that this was only going to be an event where only the super established makeouty couples went with each other but she was wrong and glad to be. She saw so many pairings that she honestly didn't expect that… she didn't know what she would really do considering how tired she was but she could probably do something good. Maybe she could take a break from trying to collect new things for a while. Well, not like she would considering the passage of time and how anything could happen within the next few days, but she had gotten more tonight than in the past two weeks.

Take, for example, the picture she had right in front of her. The kid from the year above who owned the cafe finally got the nerve to ask out the girl he had a crush on. It didn't really give her anything new because it was kinda the most obvious thing in the world if you ever saw the two interact, but it was good for them and it was nice to get some confirmation on that matter.

She flicked her thumb across the screen, the old picture temporarily moving to the side out of existence as a new picture took prominence. This was of an entirely different group. The student council member, the wrestler activist girl, the delinquent, and… Kizi, apparently. She knew what their names of the previous three were, of course (Conrad, Clarice, Aiden) but whenever she talked about these types of things she liked to give nicknames to everyone involved but she just… couldn't for Kizi. Why was she there? From what she got she went with Aiden to the dance but why did she go with Aiden to the dance? Was she actually into bad boys or something? She knew how bad it was to judge her for it because truth be told she was into a bad boy as well but god, the mental image in her head was the greatest thing ever and she was definately going to mock Kizi for it at the first opportunity.

Although, considering it for a bit now, she could use it as a little bit of leverage. Maybe not hold her too much on it considering this was a public event and anyone who could actually use their eyes could see it but who knows, maybe if she wanted to push Kizi towards someone she could remind her of her apparent love of bad boys. Just a thought, though. Kizi was her friend, she didn't want to use her too much.

So she flicked her thumb across the screen again, the picture changing to a scene of the ameatur comedian and…

...Irene.

She sighed, dropping her head back onto the pillow as she stared at the photo in front of her. Noah and Irene. That was a bit of a surprise. She hated him, last time she heard. If she remembered it totally correctly (which she did) it was because of the fact that he dressed up in drag. Something that Jasmine didn't really mind at the time or now, but it had certainly riled Irene up a bit; so the fact that one of the images she had was of  them dancing in the hall was certainly a bit of a surprise. Did he stop doing the drag thing? Did they make amends? Well, the actual question was whether Irene had made amends because if she remembered correctly it was quite the one-sided thing on her part.

Still though, they were dancing together. That meant something, at the very least. Maybe Irene had actually made some progress with her life since Jasmine left it. Maybe at some point she could progress to a point where Jasmine could come back. She doubted it, though. Given what Irene posted on tumblr she seemed to be doing better than ever without her. Although she seemed to be the same as ever she actually seemed to actually be doing something with her life.

She snorted, slightly, smirking. Not like it really mattered.

She was still better.

Because really, if you were an employer, who would you trust with the job you were giving out? The fake, washed up slut who had never worked a day in her life and had gotten everything handed to her on a silver platter? The baggy-eyed, lazy gamer who could only think of things in terms of what was right in front of her? Or the intelligent, talented, educated young lady who had worked for everything she had and who had actual aspirations for the top. It was going to be her. Not even a question. She was the one who actually had a future once she was out of here, and with her grades she was going to be an offer no prospective employer could refuse.

She could see it now. Eight years would be all that it would take. She'd be sitting somewhere, in an expensive office or bedroom or apartment or something, with someone at her beck and call. The specifics weren't in place yet - she hadn't really thought that far - but she knew that it was going to be something that she was good at and that it was going to be something that paid well. By the thousands per hour, hopefully. She'd have people do the things that she didn't care to do, and other people would need her to be able to do the things they couldn't. She'd also have someone by her side, not Min-jae, someone better. Someone who she meant the world to and who she liked back.

And all the people she used to know? All the people who just judged her as some uppity bitch and decided to get in the way? She'd be able to show them. In eight years time Irene would still be living with her parents, having failed her final exams, regretting her previous years and time so long spent playing games without a goal and wondering what could have been. In eight years time Hazel would be in some destitute house with whoever her newest fling happened to be and she'd still stick it up as true love despite the fact that the guy would likely forget about her in six months when he was done. There were others, too. Maria, Rea, Mary. They'd be somewhere in someplace (she didn't really bother to know or care) reading a newspaper where they would see her on the front page and they would realise that they were wrong all along. It was great. Was going to be, more like, but she knew that it was going to happen.

She sighed, somewhat, blowing all the air from her lungs through her mouth. As much as she knew that it was going to happen it was still far on the horizon.

Still, though, it was only two years. Finish school and enter college, and she'd be on her way to being the person she knew she'd be.

And believe it, she couldn't wait.

((Jasmine King, continued in Survival of the Fittest: Version 6))