#sc open

     Slender digits unwrapped a sheathed straw  in preparation to take on her third  smoothie of the day. Granted, Utena only wished to  purchase and consume one of them; however, a prolonged stay at the local smoothie bar meant that she would encounter the occasional person who would insist on buying her a smoothie due to winning a local fencing tournament. Honestly, she wouldn't have thought that there were people who kept up with fencing- not to mention that it wasn't even a victory at the national level. Although she would attempt to decline these generous offers, some people were far too uncompromising.

     ”Hm, it isn’t unhealthy to have this many smoothies a day, is it?”

     Crystal blue hues lazily scanned the papers on her table. Normally, she’d intentionally create a hectic schedule that didn’t allow for academics, but there was no avoiding the tedious act of studying on this rare free day. Still, her focus began wavering as she glanced around the establishment for a distraction. The student quickly locked onto a someone. in the front of the line, scrambling for money as the number of people waiting only grew larger.

     With no hesitation, the princely girl decided to be their knight in shining armor. Walking up to the counter, she handed a five dollar bill to the cashier while maintaining a benign disposition. “This is enough, right?” An act like that wasn’t so uncommon to her; she lacked an overwhelming sense of accomplishment, since it came naturally. She stretched one arm across the other as she decided to address the stranger to make sure they didn’t feel like charity case while they waited on the smoothie to be prepared.

Light blue. The sky above painted itself a canvas of a single color that day, as if making up for the previous dreary weather that afflicted the city. Puddles dotted the sidewalk on which Alma walked from his apartment to his place of work. Of course, the childish adult couldn't help but splash a few times into the small pools, much to the chagrin of those around him.

A few times he wet another person's clothes, causing some friction, but with one of his bright smiles, the situation soon dispelled. It was hard to be angry on a day as mild as this especially with another person brightening it up further.

Then something strange occurred. 

Alma misjudged whatever calculation of a jump he made in his mind (or didn't have a calculation to begin with-- a more likely possibility). One moment he was humming a upbeat tune as he played, the next he found himself face first on the ground.

He pushed himself up onto his elbows and rubbed his nose to see if it was still intact. As a natural reaction, small tears formed at his eyes from the pain. 

Satsuki sat down at an empty table with a steaming cup of coffee, being the unlucky Informant out of her unit stuck with the night shift. From first glance, she could already tell there was a lack of creamer and sugar in the coffee from the dark and foreboding look of it (at least to her). She stared over her shoulder forlornly at the creamer she had forgotten to pick up in her tire, yet due to that same tire she felt too lazy to stand up earlier than she absolutely had to for work. So instead, she opted for staring at her coffee for a few more moments before hesitantly taking a sip, as if that in a twist of events, she’d learn to tolerate plain coffee. Immediately, her face contorted into one of utter disgust because the mere taste of it was enough to wake her up. "How horrid," she muttered to herself as she finally gathered the energy to get up, trying to refrain from making a face at the coffee whilst simultaneously trying to ignore the lingering taste of it on her tongue.

She returned to her table with what she would’ve bet to be a dozen packets of sugar and a small cup of creamer. She added the sugars three packets at a time, almost as if desperate to get rid of the taste of the bitter coffee on her taste buds. Sliding her empty packets of sugar and the small cup of creamer to the side for the moment, Satsuki propped her head on her hand, absent-mindedly staring out the windows with the view of the city and occasionally sipping on her coffee (which at this point, the average person wouldn’t even consider coffee).

Smothering a yawn against the palm of his hand, Diarmuid stared tiredly at the accumulation of assignments in a folder on his desktop screen – essays on the structure of their society, notes on the application of the Sibyl system, constructive commentaries on the location of economic enterprises within the city – and suppressed the urge to slump that much farther into his chair. Years ago, when he first chose to become a teacher, he couldn’t have possibly predicted how wearisome it’d be, how many assignments there’d be, how such a broad spectrum of quality and quantity could exist among a student body that’d once seemed so intimate and enclosed. He had confirmed: the number of students attending the Academy had not increased significantly, not since his attendance, yet the sheer magnitude of same-named documents made it appear otherwise. He now empathized with the teachers’ complaints, shiftlessly guiding his mouse to the first of the multifarious essays and intending to start grading, albeit with half the usual enthusiasm he usually had.

Mouse left lingering on the title, Diarmuid squinted at the name of the student whose assignment this was, trying (and failing) to recall the usual quality of their work and whether or not it was worth deciphering nonsense written at absurd hours of the morning. He had just about successfully recalled their name – either they were a male student whose antics were far more trouble than they seemed successful, or a female student who was the quintessence of timidity – and resigned himself to not bothering regardless when the sound of the door opening startled him into action. Hurriedly clicking on the essay and skimming the first lines (his suspicions were confirmed, he shouldn’t have bothered), Diarmuid cleared his throat and composed himself. It was his classroom and his responsibility to attend to the concerns of his visitor.

ϟ ~ The clothes provided to her felt expensive: size perfectly tailored to her body in almost an eerie way, cloth study but giving off a certain sheen, providing ease of movement. It would be a shame, she mused, if it was dirtied. 

A shame if it were dirtied while on the field. A small disaster if dirtied while still in the building before a mission even commenced. Coffee stained her white shirt, liquid dripped off her black blazer, places that were stained no longer looking quite as shiny, and a very angry owner. 

Lightning didn't care if it was an accident; when mistakes are made, one must take responsibility for the consequences. Her blue eyes fixed onto the person in front of her, the one holding an empty can with all its contents spilled onto her. Though she held a neutral expression, her fiery anger could be felt in the air.

I hope that doesn't mean I'll be falling on my bottom more often than not. 

I can't believe I just did that. How    I am so ... clumsy.