Meridian ◈ Seungjin

1 ◈ Brimstone

"Another one?"

"Over break?"

"Isn't it terrifying? It feels like nowhere is safe."

"You're being dramatic."

The girl sighed, elbow propping against the cafeteria table, her head against an open palm, the short pink locks of her hair pooling around the crunched ends of her fingertips as her friend watched her across the way. Their trays of cooling breakfast food, some half eaten and most placed aside, wafting the sweet smells through to the idle chatter venting in the cafeteria. Quiet laughter met their ears, gentle words, fast gossip, exchanged between friends, and glances shot from certain people to others.

The kind of eyes that tore down every bit of who you were, destroying your self, your confidence, your worth. It was hard to trust when those glares were flung underneath kind compliments.

By the lines waiting patiently to taste the freedom from the clutches of hunger via the form of breakfast, voices began to ring louder than those casual conversations. The source? The same people from the day before, and the day before that when the new year started, and the weeks before their temporary break before they were dragged back to this institution parading itself as a school. A familiarity was in one of the boy's laughter, in every pronounced syllable it was louder than the drudging mood of the shifty glares.

"Those boys are always loud," The girl with the short pink hair shot a pointed glare their way, "Can't the teachers tell them to quiet down?"

Her friend hummed a wordless response as she directed her line of sight to lock on to the people, once again those cheerful tones lifting the overall down mood of those surrounding them. As if they exist in two entire worlds; One forced to meet a realistic fright eye to eye, and the other allowed to dream of an idealistic fragility known only to a carefree nature. No matter how faked that carefree nature was and it's potency when laced with a unrefined brutal instinct, one that was uncontrollable when not kept in check. That was obvious. To anyone who chose to look at them, it was easy to tell, and a breeze to identify.

Her friend rolled her eyes at them, hands idly twisting the ponytail her hair slung into as she address the others sitting politely, "You really think the teachers would step in? Those three...

"They're vampires."

The pink haired girl scoffed. Waving it off, she snatched one of the complimentary juice boxes provided with their meal, slurping lightly on the chewed straw as she validated, "Half the school's population is made up of them, you figure the faculty would be used to it by now."

"Of course they aren't. They'll kill you if you get on their bad sides."

"That's a stereotype, they've been peaceful for a long time now."

"I don't mind most of them, the majority is nice," The last girl sitting at the table, another addition to their group of friends minus two who never showed to the cafeteria, peeped her head up from the fabric confines of her backpack as she told them. Her notebooks and condemning textbooks were strewn across the tabletop, the seat next o her, the floor, as she continued to dig in the compartments, her hands devoured by the wonderland of that black hole existing within the eternal void inside the book bag. She brushed her blonde hair to the side, carefully tucking it behind an ear as she continued to pack and unpack, pack and unpack, her bag for the hundredth time in the past few minutes, "The Hwang boy is a little weird, but he's kind."

Seemingly brushing off the comment and the aforementioned conversation topic, their friend with the ponytail scanned her over a few times before asking, "What are you looking for?"

"My class schedule, and dorm arrangement," The blonde responded, a heavy groan leaving her lips as her palms thumped mercilessly against the temples of her head. These hits were strong enough to rock the table they sat at, strong enough to rock the ground, to send earthquakes to the other side of their world with each disappointed and furious hit. Frantically, she pursued the expedition to find the designated paper among the mess crested by her own hand. Her voice cracked as the starting of what looked to be tears pooled in the inner corners of her eyes, "What am I going to do? I haven't memorized it yet and classes are starting on Monday. Should I go talk to the office?"