of losers and lesbians

It took a lot to startle Tessa, and even more to actually hit her. Somewhere in the back of her mind, a voice that sounded startlingly like her mother sneered at her for only narrowly avoiding the hit. She pushed that thought further away and turned to the culprit instead. “You have terrible aim,” she stated dryly, as she kicked the ball of paper away from her feet and it settled on the edge of the trash can. 

“Yes!” Rohen jumped up and yelled in excitement, something rather unbecoming of him. “I submitted a seventy-five page thesis and didn’t break down more than twice!” He burst to tell the nearest person.

No matter how it may seem, given the years she had spent in it and the career she had chosen in it, Lio was not all that enamored with academia, even hated it to an extent. She wanted to be in her lab. “Exciting.” She said in a monotone, more her default than anything else. “I barely survived my own thesis.” 

“Please don’t mind my mess — what can I do for you?” Kon says as he looks up from where he had some of his stuff spread out. He picks some of it up — always making physical plans for fitness schedules. The man took his life as a trainer very seriously after all. 

Lio drummed her fingers against the table. In front of her, android schematics forgotten and a latte rapidly cooling in front of her. Too much was going. She heard the hum of the air conditioning. (There was to find air conditioning unit and take it apart, either to find out what was wrong or make it better if nothing was.) She watched the queue. She smelt the sugar and the syrup they used. Frustration built within her. (You need to get out more. You can’t just live in the lab.) 

Turning her attention back to the paper in front of her, she forced her hand to still, grabbed her discarded pencil. Still nothing. She groaned in frustration. After a moment, she grabbed the schematic, crumpled it into a ball, and threw it towards the garbage, only a few feet away from her, and right into someone.