You know what they say: "Crap A Dime"

A girl knows when she's unwanted. She possessed two eyes, two ears, and a brain between them all. So of course Lisa knew. Her Chinyan smiled for very few, but least of all for her. She knew that well enough. Dead stares bored straight through her skull and out the other side, allowing all her good sense and dignity to leak out. Because it was just easier that way, wasn't it? After all, annoyance, too, was a form of engagement. Whether he reacted or he didn't, she knew that, for the briefest of moments, she must have been on his mind and surely taking solid form there. 'That girl that loves me', 'that girl who gets on my nerves', 'I can't stand her', 'why won't she leave me alone?' For so long now she'd been chasing that sliver of perception from Tatsuya, someone so above herself. So she took whatever she could get and relished in knowing that at least his distaste for her was her own doing and not another thing outside of her own control. And she put on a damn good show of it, made all the easier when her co-star was short on words and possessed an iron tolerance. Maybe she even fooled herself, at times. But what did it matter? They'd all see that she was more than blue eyes now, more than the taunts and stares a little girl shouldn't have had to endure. At last she was fulfilled. Obviously. Of course she was. No doubt or question about it. She'd finally made it. Or so she told herself, until she really felt it. It lived in the easy chatter and bump of shoulders as she walked with her little group. It was in those rounds of "are you alright" pats after fights and glances back to check that she was still following. It was bickering, and bawling, and common goals amidst their conflicts.  It was "I remember yous" and "like we used tos". All those "Sorrys", and "thank yous", and comfortable silences between the lot of them. Every fight for their lives and every shared failure. It, she found, was four determined faces, eight kind hands, that had been with her all along, holding together a heart she thought was beyond repair. In all her attempts to dig a hole into Tatsuya's mind to make room for herself, she now found she'd only been tossing dirt back into the space he'd already made for her, his friend, ten years before. Were she to put down that shovel and turn around, she'd have found the very same in all the others who once played beside her. Everything else felt so shallow now in the face of these few friends of hers who loved her with a weight that rivaled the whole world's attention she'd once longed for. But it was clearer now than ever as she stared down her other self, twisted by the selfish desires of a sad little girl who knew not what she was after or what she already had. Lisa does know when she's wanted, when she's loved. She possessed two eyes, two ears, and a brain between them all. So of course she knew now. How stupid to have blinded herself for so long. She'd already been etched into every heart and mind that mattered.