MANIC PANIC

[...]

“are you sure you really want to do this?” sungjin asks embarrassment fully spread in his tone, “I mean, you really don’t have to…” the boy rambles as he starts to trudge to the stairs, “I think I can manage, like… I really… really… don’t want to burden you or take any of your valuable time,” he can’t help but sigh, a bit guilty of what he has done, “I’m sorry, really you don’t have to…” he stops mid-walk, staring down at the boxes in hand, biting his lip nervously.

katie winces inwardly when he tries to soften to blow, but keeps a steady smile on her face and shrugs as nonchalantly as she can while holding on to the boxes. half her vision is obscured and she can’t quite see all of the boy’s face, but she’s willing to bet he’s got that selfsame nervous look on his face from the tone of his voice. “yeah, the second highest floor isn’t gonna be that bad,” she says, sarcastic and tinged with more meanness than she intended to. then, “sorry. but damn, you really got the short straw here, dude.” there’s a lot more sincerity in her second statement, a little gentler in tone.

she’s halfway considering just ditching the freshman; no one’s really gonna give her shit for that, she thinks. but still. sungjin looks lost, and she thinks he’d be wringing his hands if he had them free. “no, seriously,” she cuts in quickly, as the other boy starts to second guess himself. shit. maybe the kid’s really good at manipulating people; she’s pretty sure she’s stuck and can’t quite say no.

[...]

She was going to finish her thought when she noticed a girl passing by quickly and dropping a paper. Dahae immediately picked it up. “Hey, excuse me, you dropped something!” her voice high and her fingers quick to unfold the paper. 

Curiosity killed the cat, she thought teasing herself. 

the radio silence has her on edge, static unfurling into overactive imagination and phantom lurkers. the anonymity of whoever this simon is and the intimacy of the knowledge they have about her brews a strong paranoia for anyone, and she’s only just managed to eliminate a couple of people. barely.

katie’s so caught up in her own thoughts she misses the cheerful bustle of the people around her, moving across the campus back to the dorms before her next class. she’s got a couple of hours to kill – it might be good for a breather. or just to take some time to figure whatever this situation is out.

she startles when someone calls out, high enough to cut through her thoughts. “oh, hey!” she smiles, quickly taking the paper back from dahae, not quite noticing if her expression is relaxed enough to be genuine. the paper itself is of no consequence, notes from her lecture before, scrawled over and illegible to just about anyone other than her, but the manner in which the other girl approaches it rankles for a moment, paranoia creeping up on katie before she manages to shake it away. she knows dahae well enough ( she thinks ), and she doesn’t doubt that dahae is, for all her occasional surliness, not the sort to be simon. she thinks.

[...]

“uh, fuck - i forgot his name. the anthropology professor that always wears those funky ties.” she laughs a little and takes a sip from her coffee. “it was your first year anyway.” when she asks for tips, yujin purses her lips and thinks for a short while. she fucking sucks at giving advice, but she’s gonna try anyway. “i mean, developing your power’s already a given, and so is training. but maybe find someone whose power conflicts with yours? also for the guys,” there’s a cheeky smile on her face now. “just hit ‘em where it hurts the most.”

call it foul play, yujin doesn’t particularly care.

she can see yujin considering her parents’ words, and from her response – katie is grateful for the subject change to the demon professor. no need to press something the other girl is clearly not for.

katie raises an eyebrow – she’d taken an anthropology class as an elective last semester, and she’s pretty sure she’d seen the guy, though he hadn’t been her tutor – “huh, well.” she shrugs, “‘m not an anthro kid. thank god, i guess.”

she’d have disagreed with yujin’s assessment ( many of the first years had performed well, had outperformed her by miles ) but she just twists her lips to the side, equivocating. “guess so,” she agrees. yujin’s advice isn’t anything new, but training with someone whose power conflicts with hers – that’s something she hadn’t quite thought of. she’d been working mostly alone, focusing on what she knows she needs to improve on, or working with people who’ve got similar abilities, to learn from them. it might be interesting to see how she measures up against someone meant to block her abilities. katie makes a mental note to find someone like that, and nods.

“huh,” she says. the corners of her lips twist up in amusement at yujin’s creative method of dealing with the guys. “practical.”

[...]

“i mean -” she covers her mouth when katie starts yelling at a stranger, her laughs muffled behind her palm. “katie!” she grabs her wrist to stop her from waving at the stranger. “sorry ‘bout her!” yue yells at the stranger, before guiding katie back to where her dorm is, until she realises she has no clue where she’s going.

“hey, uh - where’s your dorm again?”

next week sounds great. better than great. sounds the best. katie’s smile grows a little bigger at yue’s suggestion, nodding excitedly. “yeah! okay! next week, okay? y’promise?” she holds out her pinky, and grins at the shorter girl, letting yue corral her back towards the dorms, interest in seeing her fight someone else forgotten.

“lotus!” she beams at the mention of her legacy, and does little jazz hands around her head. “have ya’, d’you know where it is? it’s like, uh, the big,” she stretches her hands above her head, trying to give yue a visual interpretation of the dorm, european style columns high above her head. “y’know? like, ‘s on the, the...” she jabs a hand in the direction of southwest, words failing her. “that side?”

[...]

“how ‘bout i take you back to your dorm?” she smiles down at the girl. “i’ll make sure you don’t go picking any other fights on your way back.”

“i do,” she says, nods fast twice. “yujin’s like, really. she’ll, uh, she's cool. but she might also be somewhere else. like, somewhere else, y’know? so you could. yeah?” she grins and waggles her eyebrows. it’s a much less suggestive gesture when done drunk, and katie suspects she just looks like she’d lost control of her eyebrows for a moment, but she hopes she gets the message across. she’s not sure what message she’s trying to send, but she’s sending it.

it’s not doing a good job of convincing yue. she pouts at the girl, aware enough to know she hasn’t agreed. “is that a no,” she whines, dragging out the last word. “you don’t like me? i really, i think you’re cool. i like you!” she’s giving yue her best puppy dog eyes, attempting to convince her. “yeah?” she tilts her head to the right, then to the left, hair falling into her eyes. “hmm?”

[...]

“the staff know your weak spots so they just keep hitting you where it hurts. did you know one of our teachers has demon physio? i didn’t until two weeks ago. long story short, i am in pain. everywhere.”

she laughs at that. “sounds like gumi,” she offers, lips quirking into a half-smile. “i mean,” katie presses her lips together, considering her next words. “my parents never really like, were for the whole, uh,” she waves her hand in a circle, “fighting the monsters stuff, y’know? like, i totally get why people are doing it ‘n all, but like.” she shrugs. “guess it’s kinda different if you just think of them as like, just animals.” she frowns, her face furrowing together. “i dunno, i’m not, like, super sure. that’s what my parents say, i guess...”

the watch sounds a lot like hunting, and she doesn’t quite know what to think of that. her parents are adamant that the ‘monsters’ be treated humanely, that they don’t deserve to be hunted, but she isn’t quite certain. they aren’t, after all, living directly in gumi, and the more cynical side of her distrusts their good opinion of the creatures. being their creators must make them at least a little biased, she thinks. joining the watch is twofold – she’ll be able to help her parents, but she wants to see the monsters that make up her parents’ lifework too, to watch them and decide for herself what should be done.

[...]

sungjin lifts one of the boxes, hugging it close to him, he isn’t sure what was in this box, well probably that’s what he feels for all the boxes, but what he’s sure of is that it wasn’t light, “soo… are there like, uhm, elevators maybe or do we settle for the stairs?” he asks katie as he pushes up the box a bit onto his chest for more stability.

she nods at the instruction, opting to fit whatever she can wherever she can. “cool, cool, okay.” it’s going to be a pain to unpack, she thinks, but she doubts the kid needs any more stress, and he can’t quite repack any of these boxes. he’ll realise it later when he has to deal with it, eventually.

im sungjin. first impressions aren’t everything, but he looks like he needs all the help he can get, and she’s surprising herself by being equally willing to do so. her friendliness never extends far enough, if she’s honest, but his wide-eyed innocence and skittishness makes her feel for him. “anytime,” she assures, smiling. she grabs a box, does a mental count of the number of boxes left, then stacks an extra one on top of the one she’s already carrying. it’s heavier than she’d like, but at least it’s good weight training. or something. ( she’s going to regret this by the end of the day, isn’t she. )

[...]

“please don’t fall into a bush.” she mumbles under her breath, but still entertained by all this. “did you find the juice yet?” she calls out, jogging shortly so that she’s next to katie.

katie tips over, trying to pick the juice up; she stands up before ( she hopes ) yue catches up, brushing grass stains off her jeans. “for you! from you,” she realises, then, “but also. for you?” she squints, trying to make sense of her own words.

never mind. she’s almost certain she isn’t going to be making much sense for the rest of the night, not that she’s been making any sense since before midnight. “okay,” she says, nodding. “no hiccups.” she holds it for far too long and her head starts to feel funny, but she can’t find the stop button to all this head nodding; she’s well aware of her inebriation, just not sober enough to be able to do anything about it. katie presses her hands against her face, stopping mid-nod. “i think... i should. go home.”

but.

she pouts. she likes this new girl, and she doesn’t quite want to leave just yet.

an idea: she could stay over.