The following morning before he'd arrived at the training Centre, Cato'd told himself that studying his new District partner would be priority number one. In order to gain the upper hand on her, he knew he'd have to learn just about everything there was to learn about the girl. He didn't for one second believe that his task would be boring, Clove was just so frustratingly intriguing, that the thought of being bored on his mission never once crossed his mind. Cato had given the matter more thought that he'd have liked to, over the last twenty four hours, only one thing had been on his mind and that was a Clove and the upcoming games. Himself and Clove still had many months to go before the reaping, but understood that in order to have a chance at winning, they'd each need to come up with their own strategies and would somehow need to flawlessly execute them. The first few hours of that particular Saturday morning consisted of Cato perfecting his strategy, he'd once again taken an ample amount of time to consider everything and came to a conclusion. He believed that studying her would be the key to his success, from this, he'd gain the necessary information needed to eventually overthrow her.
Cato was a narcissist and that wasn't a secret. People optionally chose to ignore the fact, except for Clove, this is what let Cato know what he was dealing with. Clove was clever, undeniably clever and Cato knew that killing her would not be an easy accomplishment. He needed to be smarter than her in order to receive his rightful title as Victor. How he was going to outsmart her? He didn't yet know. That was something which would required more thinking and more planning. Realising this, Cato couldn't help but let out a scoff of frustration. All he'd done for hours on end was think about Clove and how he could beat her, and now he'd have to think about her some more. Turned out this whole partnership thing was causing him more problems than he'd anticipated.
"What's the matter with you?" A voice quipped, cutting Cato's train of thought. Cato didn't have to look to identify the voice, he instantly recognised it to be the voice to be his best friend. Lysander Cran.
"Nothing." Cato grumbled in response.
"Bullshit." Lysander retorted, as he continued to push stray bits of food around his tray using his fork. "You've been in a bad mood all day," He continued, setting his fork down. "That almost never happens." Cato sometimes forgot how well Lysander knew him, he'd known him for almost four years, could read him like a book and vice versa. Cato briefly glanced up at his friend who sat in the chair opposite his own, staring daggers
into the top of his head. Cato took a quick pan of the cafeteria in search of his two other best friends, it was odd to him that they hadn't yet arrived, they were almost never late to lunch without good reason. Cato scanned the room so quick, he almost could've missed, a figure had just walked into the cafeteria. Unfortunately for him, it wasn't anyone he'd been looking for. Cato felt as though the unseen forces of the earth were in the mood for a little bit of a show. If matters weren't already bad, they was made much worse, when he realised that the person who had just walked in was in fact the very last person he wanted to see. Cato felt an uncontrollable scowl overtake his face, as his eyes landed on her, the very girl that had given him nothing but trouble over the last twenty-four hours of his life.
"Who are you glaring at?" Lysander asked with a frown of confusion, however, non of his words had registered through Cato. Instead, his sentence sounded more like a string of unintelligent mumbles. Lysander took it upon himself to follow Cato's eye-line, confusion was the best word to describe what Lysander was feeling. "Clove?" He asked with a slight chuckle. That got his attention nation quick, Cato instantly tore his eyes off of Clove and over to his best friend, looking at him as though he'd just insulted him.
"What about her?" He said defensively, not realising that all he was doing was causing his friend to become more and more suspicious.
"You tell me." Lysander quipped, grinning from ear to ear. "You were the one that was leering at her."
