Survival Of The Fittest

[[Fiyori Senay, continued from The Library is the powerhouse of the student]]

Fiyori looked down on the paper in front of her. She wrote something down. With a pen. She slid it across the paper and something blue came out. It seemed like there were words, but for some reason Fiyori couldn't tell. Yes, her mind knew, of course. Those were words she wrote down. Words because she had a task, a paper to write. And yet she looked down on those things her mind so reassuringly called 'words', and all of a sudden that confidence was gone. All her eyes saw was a bunch of blue scribbles and lines carelessly strewn across some sort of white background.

She sighed. She fucked this one up as well now, did she not? Couldn't help but fuck it up. No way anyone was ever going to see what she just produced and say 'Yes, this is a well-formulated response'.

So, what happened?

Well, for starters – Fiyori felt very angry and that all of a sudden. At a young woman whose name was Georgia Lee Day. She wanted to hear the name coming from Her own mouth, but someone else mentioned it as they reprimanded Fiyori. Couldn't help but learn it at that point, no?

She was very angry at GLD. Saying 'very angry' sounded childish and for some reason unable to truly encapsulate the true intensity of what she felt, but Fiyori said 'very angry' very often now. People asked her, asked them, and that is what she said. It felt odd. It felt like an understatement. But there was no other word she could use talk about her feelings without getting into even more trouble.

So yes, she was very angry. And she was so very angry that Fiyori tackled Georgia Lee Day from behind as they both left the Beale library of Cochise High. Fiyori may have called Her a cunt. She may have also bitten Her. In Her defense, GLD started punching. The punches hurt quite a bit. And She may or may not have stopped punching when Fiyori did.

It wasn't her brightest decision, no. It was actually pretty reprehensible and even Fiyori felt terrible. Not just because she now was stuck in detention. No, also because she was in shock. How could she'd be acting so recklessly, so violent? So emotional?

They said there wouldn't be more consequences. Their records had been pretty much spotless. Fiyori's and GDL's. Fiyori got in trouble here and there, but she was smart enough. She didn't get in trouble with cops. She didn't get in trouble with the teachers at Cochise. She was the rowdy, useless student, but she didn't register as dangerous or delinquent on the radars of the authorities. Still, when they said 'your spotless record', whom they really talked to was GLD.

After all, Fiyori Senay was just the deadbeat idiot who would be gone in a few weeks anyway. What reason was there to start something big if she even apologized? Granted, it was a fake apology. A small one. More mumbled. She could've given a more sincere one, but all things considered... apologizing would have felt wrong too.

[Georgia Lee Day continued from The Library is the Powerhouse of the Student]

It was the unfairness of the whole thing that really got to Georgia Lee.

The scrape on her cheek was ugly, but it hardly hurt and it'd heal. Her ribs were tender from where she'd hit the ground, and her elbows skinned from where she'd caught herself, but Georgia Lee had fallen before, and those minor injuries she could deal with. Even the bite mark on her shoulder - and really, what kind of child just bit someone - hardly bothered her.

No, it was the sheer injustice of the whole situation that bothered Georgia Lee. She'd avoided confrontation. She'd walked away, even, and what had she got? Attacked from behind, leapt on and bitten like a... like a darned deer or something. And then? And then? When the teachers finally pulled them apart, was she comforted? Was she told that it was okay, that she'd done well to protect herself, that everything would be okay?

Georgia Lee snorted, bitterly.

No, that would have been fair. Instead she was here, locked in a room with this animal, as if they were the same. As if what they'd done, as if anything about them was in any way comparable. She'd won awards for Cochise, she'd been innumerable teams and committees and groups, she'd spent hours, even days of her life working to make the school better, and how was she treated? At the end of it all, no better than some... some feral junkie.

It was just so unfair.

Still, she'd given as good as she'd got, if not better. The girl may have tackled her completely without warning, may have had her on the ground before Georgia Lee had even had an idea what was going, may have been... what? 3 feet taller than her? And yet, it wasn't Georgia Lee with an ugly, greenish bruise blossoming on the side of her face. It wasn't Georgia Lee who'd looked on the verge of tears, when the teachers' hands had grabbed them and lifted them, with Fiyori still struggling and scratching, away from each other. Georgia Lee's eyes had been wide and shocked, but they'd been dry.

Georgia Lee wasn't the one panting, after the fight. Georgia Lee wasn't the one struggling to stand straight. No, Georgia Lee was the one who'd spent endless hours swinging at balls in the batting cages, who'd barely gone a day without exercise in nearly five years. She wasn't some spindly stoner who's idea of a workout was walking from the couch to the fridge. Georgia Lee could do seventy-five pushups without needing to change her shirt afterwards. After the fight she'd brushed her hair back, out of her face, and her face had been calm, and reasonable, and innocent.  

Fiyori's face had been... Georgia Lee didn't know. It wasn't a mixture of emotions she'd seen before. There was fear, and anger, surprise, hatred, she didn't know what else. The smug, self-satisfied smirk that Fiyori's face had seemed permanently set in had been gone, though. Despite herself, and despite her situation, Georgia Lee had taken some minor satisfaction from that.

She looked at the girl, over her shoulder. Fiyori's eyes were firmly afixed on the paper in front of her, and she was glowering. She looked furious, but for once she wasn't staring at Georgia Lee. Had she learned her lesson? Perhaps this had been what was needed, to show that Georgia Lee wasn't some meek little lamb, who'd allow herself to be pushed around and beaten. Perhaps now Fiyori'd move on to some other, weaker target.

The idea that the solution to her problem this whole time had been violence wasn't a particularly attractive one, but Georgia Lee was still hopeful that that might be the case. It'd make this whole ordeal worth it, if Fiyori would finally leave her alone. Standing in front of the teachers, her cheeks burning, being reprimanded for fighting, looked down on and told "she was better than this" like she didn't know that already. Being made to sit here, with these reprobates, on an afternoon when she should be at practice. It wouldn't go on her permanent record, they'd taken pains to assure her of that, and though that hardly made it any less unjustified, she'd accept all the unfairness, all the injustice, all the... the bullshit of this whole affair, if it finally got Fiyori to leave her alone.

Maybe word would even get around to Fiyori's idiot friends, and they'd back off too. Georgia Lee's frustration had turned, in the space of a few minutes, to a sort of quiet optimism. Who knows, perhaps things were looking up for her.

So, how did She feel? The star pupil brought down to hell with the common demon. No, that was wrong. Fiyori wouldn't dare to let herself be called 'common'. She definitely wasn't 'common' by any stretch of imagination. Still, the sentiment was there. Georgia Lee Day, in a room together with Fiyori Senay and there was nothing She could do about it.

She probably screamed about it. Injustice, She called it. Unfair. Horribly misjudged. Not out loud, of course. Fiyori would have heard it, and still kinda waited for it, but she was sure that those words were present in GLD's head. She wasn't the kinda person to admit any wrong-doing. She was the perfect girl. She was good. She was full of virtue. Well, in this particular case she was more or less in the right. More than less, even. Fiyori realized so, but she felt her assessment of Her general person to be fairly decent anyway.

She looked back, glanced. Maybe she was delirious, but for some reason, GLD carried herself differently. Less despair, and more an odd sense of triumph. Maybe Fiyori read her face and posture wrong, maybe She really felt good. About Fiyori being punished, not about them sharing a room.

Fiyori sighed. Leaned to the side and started rummaging through her bag. She thought she was all out of food, but then she remembered. The evening before, she was feeling kinda bored. So she went ahead and made some bread on her own. Spiced bread, of course. Stuff you could eat - or well, Fiyori could eat - all on its own. It's crunchy texture giving way to a soft inside, which coated the tongue with many exotic and well-known flavors. Had she remembered, she would have shared with some classmates.

She remembered now, so she would share. Now.

Fiyori left her place, the bread in hand and walked over to Her place. The bread, cold and yet free of it's containment, released a fresh odor. Fiyori looked to meet Her eyes, and offered the bread.

"A peace offering, if you will. And if you won't, you can have it anyway."

Georgia Lee took the bread, wary. Peace with Fiyori? It sounded too good to be true, and in her experience things that sounded too good to be true, tended not to be. Georgia Lee considered.

It seemed ridiculous that Fiyori would be carrying some sort of poison bread around, and Georgia Lee was reasonably sure she'd've noticed if Fiyori had tried to sabotage it - spitting on it, for example, or covering it with some kind of inedible hot sauce. It certainly didn't smell disgusting either - in fact, it didn't smell half bad, and this was the time that Georgia Lee would be eating. Were she not trapped in here like a criminal of course, and at the thought of who's fault that was, her mood darkened.

No, it seemed safe enough, but there was certainly no point in taking chances.

Georgia Lee took the bread, with a grateful nod to Fiyori, and broke it in half. The inside of the bread, once she'd torn it, looked moist and delicious. She took one half for herself, then handed the other back to the other girl, who was looming over her expectantly.

"Thanks. You uhh... you didn't have to do this. I appreciate it."

That was true. Fiyori hadn't had to do that, and Georgia Lee was, quite genuinely, appreciative. The gesture touched her, and the idea of being able to walk the halls of Cochise without having to worry about Fiyori's taunts, or worse, the girl attacking her again, filled Georgia Lee with excitement. It was all very positive, but that didn't mean Georgia Lee was going to be careless.

She wasn't taking a single bite until she saw Fiyori try it first.

So what was going to happen? What was She gonna do? Fiyori offered her bread. Special bread, made by none other but her masterful - or at least her not-catastrophically-fucking-everything-up hands. It was such a sweet gesture, wasn't it? Besides, no way GLD wasn't hungry.

Still, Fiyori expected one thing, and that thing was for GLD to make some point. Some dumb stand that mattered to no-one but the little miss perfect she was in her own head. To see Her reach out for the bread and actually take it took Fiyori by quite some surprise. She raised an eyebrow, almost suspiciously eying the girl in front of her. GLD broke the bread in half, and offered the other half back to Fiyori.

Fiyori's eyebrows relaxed, despite the fact that she found this somehow even more sketchy. Odd, no? She was all about sharing her food and when GLD actually indulged her she was taken back.

Some seconds passed. Fiyori didn't say anything. She weighted the piece in her hand. She looked at GLD, and She looked back at Fiyori. A few seconds passed indeed, and Fiyori couldn't help but feel as if She was waiting for something.

...some sort of arcane dinner or snack ritual? Something stuck-up bitches learned at home so that their fathers won't punish them with their disappointed eyes?

Oh, wait. She was overthinking this.

So instead she snorted once, and just laughed out loud.

"Alright, alright~ It isn't poisoned, man!"

She took a deep bite into the loaf, ripping out a good chunk of the bread. Some crumbs flew here and there. Some even on Her desk. GLD's probably going to rip Fiyori's throat out for that. Oh well. She bit her tongue, figuratively, to stop her laughter.

"Could be that it won't be your taste, but I don't think you could fault me for that one, right?"

Fiyori ate, Georgia Lee realized, exactly how she would have expected her to. The girl held the bread in two hands and then tore at it with her teeth. Like a praying mantis would.

A fountain of crumbs showered down onto Georgia Lee's desk, and all over her work. A sweep of her forearm pushed most of them onto the floor, though some remained, hiding in the valley made between the open pages of her book. Georgia Lee resisted the urge to pick up the book and blow along the spine to clear them. Fiyori might, she thought, take that a slight. Georgia Lee was loathe to leave the mess in her reading material, and knowing it was there needled at her, like an itch. She tried to put it out of her mind.

Giving what she hoped appeared to be a grateful nod, Georgia Lee bit into the bread, cupping one hand underneath it as she tore at the tough crust with her teeth, to catch and mess. It was edible. It was good, even. She chewed, then gave Fiyori a little smile and said as much.

"It's good, mmm-" she put the back of her hand to her mouth, and swallowed.

"Thanks."

And that was that, then? She beat Fiyori up, they shared some bread and then they were friends? It wasn't fair how Fiyori had picked on her, and it hadn't been fair how she'd been punished for Fiyori's violence, but this resolution, somehow, hardly seemed fair either. Georgia Lee wasn't sure exactly what she'd wanted, when she'd wanted the torment to end, but it hadn't been this. It felt so hollow. So unearned. No, she deserved better.

Georgia Lee put the bread down, and waited a moment for Fiyori to finish eating. Her family had a particular habit, that she'd always suspected might have been intentional, of asking her questions immediately after she'd put food in her mouth, and Georgia Lee detested it. After a pause, she cleared her throat.

"Fiyori this is... I appreciate this, but I need to know: why is it you're always picking on me? What, uhh, what made you attack me before, at the library? I do appreciate the peace offering, I really do, but I think I deserve to know."

A fair question, she thought, and she waited for a response, feeling her heart start to race.

Oh, thank you Rainy! It was a tiny detail, and Fiyori was just about to miss it, but She actually waited for Fiyori to finish chewing. She was definitely more used to eating something, being spoken to, and then being yelled at for not responding immediately. Oh, and if she did she was yelled at for speaking with a full mouth.

At least it was like that at home. Her fellow students asked her stuff just as she was chewing something too, but they generally tended to wait for an answer.

Fiyori looked down at the girl. There were some bread crumbs stuck just right besides her lips, and she licked them clean for a short moment. Fiyori looked into Her eyes, and then seemingly began to search Her surroundings for an answer. It wasn't a tricky question, to be honest. Fiyori just wasn't sure to answer.

"You are wrong, though."

Confrontational, eh? She was good at being confrontational, too. Though that would have been obvious by now.

"I don't know what you heard about me, but I can assure you that all the foul things people say about me are at worst the truth and at best an understatement.

You are not the only one I pick on, but I guess you are..."

Oh, now it got tricky.

"...special."

There still was some little crumb left. She could feel it sitting on the left side of her upper lip. It was a piece of the crust, and it tickled her. Just a bit, but enough to be annoying. If only because Fiyori was for some reasoning focusing on that one annoying crumb. She licked it clean, again. This time successfully.

"As for the attack, well."

She looked into GLD's eyes, but she couldn't keep the contact for long and averted her gaze. Fiyori shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant about it.

"I was hungry."

Their was something about the way Fiyori said that which filled Georgia Lee with a sense of horror. Out of anyone else's mouth, said any other way, it would have been ridiculous, like something out of some comic book. From Fiyori though, it was so matter of fact. There was no emotion, no affect, no hint that she was trying to provoke some sort of reaction from Georgia Lee: she wasn't even look at her as she said it. It was a simple statement of fact, said with the exact tone you would tell someone the time, or that it had been raining outside earlier.

She'd been hungry.

Georgia Lee hope she hadn't shivered, upon hearing that. Certainly the tone had been cold enough to chill her. It was the motivation one ascribed to a wild animal, not to a young woman in high school, practically an adult. A ludicrous thing to say, an insane thing to say, yet Fiyori said it like it was nothing, and Georgia Lee believed her. There was something so predatory about the girl in that moment, standing over her, her praying mantis frame made enormous by the poncho hanging off of it like a damp sheet draped on a hat stand to dry.

She wasn't scared, per se. Georgia Lee had known monsters, had lived with them in her house. Monsters whose hatred and torment of her and been completely, brutally personal; compared to that, Fiyori's casual, detatched cruelty was almost a blessing. At least Georgia Lee wasn't at fault, really.

No, Georgia Lee wasn't scared so much as she was informed. She could see, now, the kind of person Fiyori was, with those three, dreadful words. She wasn't someone who could be reasoned with, someone with whom any real peace could be made. Georgia Lee was hesitant to call her a psychopath - it was a medical term, she knew, no doubt with some precise definition that would escape a lay person, and Georgia Lee was loathe to misuse words - but it seemed to fit so well.

Just some lazy, drugged out, useless, predatory, creepy, mantis psychopath. Georgia Lee was embarrassed at how naive, how hopelessly, childishly naive she had been, thinking for a second that the two of them could even have become friends. No.

She took a tissue from a packet that sat in the side pocket of her skirt, folded it, placed the bread on it and then pushed it away from herself, in a gesture of completion. There was a brief, awkward moment of silence. Georgia Lee broke it.

"I guess I'm grateful for your honesty?"

She hadn't meant it to come across as a question, and hated herself for it, a little bit. It made her sound weak, like she was asking Fiyori to validate her statement. She didn't need Fiyori's validation, or anyone's for that matter. Georgia Lee had learned long ago that anyone who'd ever be impressed by her wasn't anyone worth impressing. Her own standards were the only ones that mattered, and the last thing she wanted was some... creature like Fiyori thinking that Georgia Lee was actually invested in her opinion of her. She steadied her voice, pitching it a little lower, to sound more authoritative.

"I'm... less hungry. You can have the bread back."

It wasn't exactly the crushing put down she'd've liked, but it would do.

It seemed to have killed poor Rainy's appetite. Her little joke. She thought it was a good one, though. Like, she could see some high-class (er...) sitcom or other comedy with a huge following of fans. It would be loved by fans, it's lines of dialogue quoted everywhere and it's character deeply submerged into the general field that was pop culture. Then that show would be cancelled after three seasons because too many middle-aged women liked it, and you cannot really sell toys to those, apparently.

Anyway, she thought her joke was great. GLD apparently did not. Maybe She took her serious? As if Fiyori Senay would resort to cannibalism. The only way she ate people was very erotically and everyone more or less intact after the experience. Hm, perhaps She thought of that innuendo, too? Would probably ruin Her appetite as well.

She chuckled, reached for a vacant chair nearby and placed it so that it faced GLD across the table.

"Eh, keep it for bad times."

Besides, that was just pretty rude of Her. To offer the bread back after already taking out a bite from it. It was just one of these little moments where She had to make some dumb point. Like she was saying 'I disapprove of your person, and that is why I disapprove of your bread even harder'.

Fiyori seated herself firmly into the chair, and leaned forward to support herself with her elbows on the table. Now, that was making a point. Fiyori decreasing the natural height advantage she had, so that GLD would be able to meet her eye to eye.

Though that probably made Her uncomfortable just as well.

"Then, if you are so gracious to answer me... why are you such a stuck-up bi-... why are you the way you are?"

She smiled at Her. Genuinely, but that wasn't very comforting.

Georgia Lee made a gesture, a combination of a shrug and a nod, that served to draw her shoulders and head together, shrinking her. It wasn't the effect she'd wanted, and it annoyed her. She folded the tissue over the bread, then tucked in the sides, so it was wrapped in an enclosed package, and tucked it into an inside pocket in her jacket.

"For bad times, then."

Fiyori settled into the chair opposite her, folding her ungainly limbs together, the poncho flapping about her obscenely. It was like a bat, settling itself in to to roost at night, and Georgia Lee resisted a sudden, perverse urge to crane her neck an look at the girl from upside down. Fiyori leaned in close, close enough for Georgia Lee to smell the bread on her breath.

Why did Fiyori even care, why she was the way she was? It wasn't her business. It wouldn't make a difference to her life, the reasons for Georgia Lee making the decisions that she did. She didn't tackle Fiyori from behind. She didn't taunt her, insult her, mock her. She left her alone. She'd leave her alone forever, given the choice.

Or was she jealous? Did this insect, in some part of her, want to be like Georgia Lee? Want to be Georgia Lee, even? The huge, bulging lenses of Fiyori's glasses made her dead eyes massive and unreadable. If there was envy in there, Georgia Lee couldn't see it, but it seemed ton be the only reason that made sense. Reflected in the glass, she noted, the teacher's desk behind her was empty. Fiyori no doubt saw this too - was she going to try something? Was she planning another attack?

No, if she was intending to do that, she'd've stayed standing. Stay calm, Georgia Lee. Don't get hysterical. She knew that seeing her riled, seeing her agitated was exactly what this delinquent wanted. Georgia Lee wasn't given to excessive displays of emotion. She didn't cry, when she got a poor grade. She didn't get poor grades of course, but even failing wouldn't be enough to bring her to tears, she was pretty sure. Georgia Lee had never in her life jumped for joy, or howled in rage or any of those other cliche, animal reactions to feelings. Georgia Lee didn't wear her heart on her chest, or open it to others, or do anything with it except pump blood. She prided herself on her practicality.

When she was younger, Georgia Lee would have cried had she got a bad grade. She'd've cried at the drop of a hat, but she'd cried her eyes dry then, and now she had no times for tears. Georgia Lee kept very, very busy. She didn't have time to wail, or to telegraph every feeling that flitted into her brain at whatever asinine nonsense was happening in front of her. What she felt was her business, and to their credit most people respected that. Even her parents, begrudgingly, had grown to accept it.

Some people, though, saw it as a challenge. Georgia Lee had worked hard to make herself the way she was, but like grasping children, some people's instinct upon seeing anything that hard work had gone into, was to try and break it. She could appease Fiyori, she supposed. What would the girl respond to? Something lazy, probably. Something degenerate. Saying she didn't really try, or blaming someone else, saying her parents made her work this hard. Saying she needed a good job to pay for all her cocaine - Fiyori'd love that, no doubt.

But no, Georgia Lee wasn't a liar. Any sort of deception made her uncomfortable, and besides that, she was bad at it. She wanted to say it was that she was naturally truthful, though if she were being honest, which of course she always was, she would probably have had to admit that a lack of imagination also had something to do with it.

Besides that, Fiyori wasn't worthy of a lie. Georgia Lee did not have to diminish herself, for the sake of this girl's approval. To hell with Fiyori, and her opinion. Georgia Lee resolved to tell her exactly why she was the way she was.

She gave an almost-smile, drawing her lips taut, in a straight line against her teeth, her mouth closed. It was an expression that could, she supposed, have meant anything. Here it was almost apologetic.

"I guess I'm just trying to be the best me that I can be."

Fiyori bit on her lip. The best She could be, then. That was the answer Georgia Lee Day went for. The answer for the question that inquiered about all that was and had been Her life, Her experiences, Her hopes and dreams and all of the disappointment.

It was a nice answer, Fiyori guessed. Simple. Brief. On point. Fucking delusional.

Fiyori closed her eyes. She bit down on her lips. Harder yet then let go. Took a few of her fingers and gently rubbed them. Took a small bite, a nibble even at one of her nails. Then she placed her hands down on the table. Just as gentle, and opened her eyes.

She waited. She inhaled. She exhaled. She looked GLD into the eyes, lingering for a few moments only for her to take her glasses off, placing them carefully at the side. She rubbed something out of her left eye. A piece of bread, no, but likely a speck of dust. Or maybe something in her imagination. She grasped for words, and she grasped for time to find those words. Fiyori looked  back at GLD. Not longer directly in her eyes, as She was blurry and though even Fiyori would still be able to find GLD's eyes, she knew it would be very difficult, and a great strain on her. Instead, her eyes jumped all over the smaller girl.

"And? Are you succeeding?"

She couldn't help it. It was supposed to be a simple question. Neutral, soft-spoken, perhaps with a hint of playful curiousity. But it sounded mocking instead, and Fiyori realized immediately. She didn't bother to say sorry.

"Because..."

She trailed off, looking around the room. She raised her arms in some sort of half-shrug, attempting to point out the surroundings to GLD. As if the girl needed a remainder. But it was a rhetoric gesture – a gesture meant to convey a certain sentiment and it was necessary. It was a statement, a statement of 'look where we are'.

"...because here you are, in the detention room."

"Oh, I know what you are thinking – 'this is just your fault' – but," Fiyori caught herself. Her voice was getting agitated. She was getting agitated. It was so unusual, but now that she recognized it, she managed to calm herself down with just a few deep breathes.

"Is that not the point? You aimed for the stars, and now for no fault of your own you landed at the bottom."

Georgia Lee felt a little unsettled, seeing Fiyori take off her glasses. She seemed so much more human without them. No longer behind the lenses' distortion, her eyes were pleasant and shapely.

It was like she'd pulled a plug, when she'd taken them off, and everything about her had drained away. All her prickliness, all her venom, everything that made her dangerous. She seemed vulnerable, even weak. Georgia Lee'd read somewhere that cats closing their eyes around you a show of trust, letting you know that they had enough faith in you to take their eyes off of you. Was this something like that?

The glasses were sitting on the table, not six inches from her book, with it's thick spine and hefty weight. A single hit from that would have shattered the eyewear, and what would Fiyori do then? Who could she tell? There wasn't a single teacher in the school who'd believe her, if she went and told them that Georgia Lee had done that. The amount of power was almost overwhelming.

She ran her finger along the spine of the book, but didn't pick it up.

Everything about Fiyori just seemed so much lesser without her spectacles. She couldn't keep her eyes in one place for more than a second, and Georgia Lee could actually see her trying to calm her breathing.

It was almost pathetic.

Fiyori's question was meant to be hurtful, she supposed, but in her current state it just came off as desperate, and Georgia Lee realized, in that moment, that she pitied the girl. She pitied her weird, insect body; she pitied her inability to commit to anything of scholastic value, or anything at all besides a nicotine addiction and a death, alone in her mid 40's from lung cancer; and she pitied the girl's hopeless, wretched envy that forced her, upon meeting someone who actually had a modicum of control over their future, to lash out at them like a little boy with a crush. Georgia Lee almost wanted to laugh, it was so sad.

She hoped Fiyori's eyesight was poor enough that she couldn't see her smiling.

"The bottom's not so bad. Good reading. Free bread." She tapped her pocket. "And in... 45 minutes I'm gone." She'd motioned at checking her watch, but hadn't actually taken in the hands. Georgia Lee's internal timekeeping was almost always accurate.

"What about you, Fiyori?"

It was the first time she'd actually spoken the name. It had a strange, exotic taste, and Georgia Lee wondered where it was from. Was it common, in whatever place it was that Fiyori hailed from? She tried to picture that name fitting anyone else, and failed.

"I mean, the bottom? Come on. No way this is the bottom for you. You're in here, what? Four, five days a week? There's no way this is the worst thing in your life. Not. A. Way." With each word, she tapped a finger on her book in emphasis.

"I mean, there must be worse than this in your life, right? There must be!"

Georgia Lee was going too far, she knew it, knew that there was nothing to be gained from taunting the girl like this. A voice in her head was telling her to stop, to apologize, to just turn around and ignore the girl, but there was a louder voice in there too, and it was Fiyori's. Shouting after her as she tried to cross the grounds to get away from her. Calling her names. Baiting her in the library. No, there was no way Georgia Lee was stopping now.

"I can't even imagine how bad things must be, outside of here, for you. You probably look forward to being in here, is that why you act the way you act, Fiyori? No, I wanna hear about the what the bottom is for you. My goodness, what is that like?"

Was GLD smiling? Or was Fiyori just imagining it? Obviously, she would see worse without glasses, but she never figured she would not be able to discern these details even so close to Her face.

Fiyori was smiling, though. At first, at least. GLD could make a good, snappy line. Fiyori would have never imagined at first how good the girl was at provoking her. Well, of course that was a given, but Fiyori was genuinely surprised at how good her intentional efforts at provocation were. Not that she liked the fact much, but it deserved a smile. Fiyori thought it was funny, perhaps she also wanted to acknowledge the barbs on GLD's tongue.

At first, at least. Then GLD used Fiyori's actual name and something was off. It wasn't wrong, per se. But it could be that that had been the very first time GLD used Fiyori's name. At least, to address the girl directly. Yep. Odd. Definitely odd. It wasn't even as if there was some mocking tone behind it. Or some play at how foreign it sounded, how exotic it was. No, when she thought about it, it probably was just the fact that she used it for the first time. And she used it to open a direct attack on Fiyori herself. Delicious, no?

Fiyori listened. Listened as GLD talked. Fiyori tilted her head to the side, and rested it on the left palm of her hand. Her eyes were, if not really fixated, looking over to where GLD was sitting.

GLD was going far. Very far. Too far, for some she guessed. But for some very odd reason Fiyori enjoyed it. Maybe she enjoyed it because at some points GLD was wrong. All humans liked being right, and they all loved it when their rivals are so obviously wrong, for it was such a great way to commend themselves on their superior wits and intelligence. Actually, no. She listened, and she found enjoyment. Not because of some point at the side that was factually incorrect. But because GLD asked Fiyori a question.

She asked Fiyori a question and she – even if only it seemed as if – was ready to listen to whatever Fiyori said.

GLD finished. Fiyori raised an eyebrow, reached for the glasses of hers and motioned to put them on. Ah, how lovely. That momentary feeling when the unclear edges and blurs of her surroundings became clearly defined. Fiyori adjusted her glasses, and then went over to meet GLD's eyes again. She put a smirk on her lips.

"For the sake of the little honor I have left I must say this is just the second time I've ever been in detention."

She bared her teeth. Not a smirk, exactly, but at least it was a smile. Still, it was true. Fiyori Senay never had been in detention except for two times. One, of course, being the current detention time she was doing together with GLD. The other one happened way back, in her Freshman year at Cochise. A matter of 'forgetting' to do her homework. Nothing really drastic, but it was a lesson. A lesson on how to do her homework well enough to be get a 'close enough' call by the teachers, while actually doing as little work as possible. It wasn't difficult, of course. All of these tasks, assignments, papers and essays. Few were actually tricky. Just time-consuming and tedious. Honestly, she was actually pretty proud at how good she got at bullshitting. Or maybe, and she figured that was also just as likely, most teachers simply gave up on the case of Fiyori Senay and gave her a pass as long as she pretended to work.

"You think I am some dumb kid, and I am sure as fuck not a genius. But if my goal is to 'enjoy my time', I would be wise to not act in a way that will bring me 'times I do not enjoy', right?"

Fiyori pointed at her temples in some weird gesture to point out that this was, yes indeed, the place where her brain was located. Then, her smirk vanished. She lowered her fingers and carefully rested them on the edges of the table.

"That aside, that's a pretty good question actually. What is the bottom for me? I mean, all things considered – I've been very happy these past few years.

I'd even say that every today I experience is a better day than the tomorrow that comes next."

Fiyori's smile returned. She tilted her head to the right. She tilted it to the left. She wondered how much she could and should reveal of herself. How much of her own feelings she would lay bare before Georgia Lee Day. There was something so absurd about talking about them with someone so absorbed in their own little perfect world, but c'est la vie or something. Instead, she shook her head. Softly, but firmly.

"No, I know that the bottom of my life comes after high school. I have no illusions about my prospects, Georgia."

Goosebumps. Georgia. It was such a nice name now that she said it. Maybe because she said it. Fiyori looked Her deeply into the eyes, and pointed her finger on her. For emphasis, of course. And, with a sterner voice, she continued.

"But don't you dare think this is envy speaking. Being 'good' at something is a curse. Either you are a nail that stands out, and deserve to be hammered down. Or you are nothing but a useful tool people feel entitled to use and then put aside.

Honestly, that stress is something that I could never bother with."

[Fiyori Senay, continued in It's Raining, It's Pouring]

The glasses went back on, and the armour went back up. The vulnerable, anxious girl who Georiga Lee had gotten a glimpse of disappeared, and with her went any hope of this conversation going anywhere worthwhile.

There was the sound of heels in the corridor outside, as the supervising teacher made her way back to the detention room. Where, frankly, she should have been this whole time. Teachers wandering off, Fiyori only having two detentions: this whole experience, Georgia Lee reflected, had been a scathing indictment of Cochise's disciplinary system.

As Fiyori started to get up, to return to her own desk, Georgia Lee touched her hand, her fingers just brushing over the other girl's knuckles. The skin was surprisingly, soft, far softer than Georgia Lee would have expected. It was hard to imagine Fiyori moisturising.

Fiyori whirled back to face Georgia Lee, eyes flashing.

"My name is not Georgia. It's Georgia Lee, Fiyori. Georgia. Lee.

[Georgia Lee Day continued elsewhere]