𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐕𝐄𝐒𝐓 𝐌𝐎𝐎𝐍, 𝐡𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐲 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐠 𝐫𝐨𝐲𝐚𝐥𝐬

nineteen.

      NIGHT HAD FALLEN. Simon entered the common room. Vincent greeted him with a grin that the boy decided to ignore. He went to sit with Wilhelm, Valter and Henry. The ginger boy noticed the lollipop in Simon's mouth. He glanced over at Mae who was lying a little further away, her head resting on Madison's stomach as they were chatting with their friends.

      "Hey, Simon, you got another lollipop?" he asked.

      The boy shooked his head. "No."

      Henry sighed. "I'll give you 100 crowns. No, I'll give you 200 crowns right now. I'll even give you 300 up front."

      "You'd give me that much just for a lollipop?" Simon frowned.

      "It's not for me, okay, it's for Mae. She's been doing so great with food lately, I don't want her to relapse because of this stupid sit-in." Henry said. "If I had known this was gonna be a hunger strike, I wouldn't have gone along with it."

      "Me neither." Valter nodded.

      "Come on, this is exactly what they want." Vincent told them. "To break us, or that we'll give up. They're not gonna let us starve to death."

      "Yeah, but we should've thought about it." Nils declared.

      They had everyone's attention now. Mae straightened up and sat cross-legged so she could listen better as they were talking.

      "Yeah, I just didn't think that it would take such a long time." Vincent said.

      "You guys, you're complaining all the time." August sighed. "I mean, don't you find it, like... like quite nice to be a bit hungry sometimes, you know?"

      "Excuse me, but what's nice about being hungry?" Nils interrupted him.

      August shrugged his shoulders. "It's... motivating. Yeah, you might be a bit dizzy for a while and feel a bit nauseous, but that will pass when it subsides, it becomes like... it's as if it all goes quiet, in your head. A calmness all through your body."

      "That's more like an eating disorder." Mae spoke up and August turned to her, as well as her friends, who knew about it. "I mean, yeah, it feels nice at first because it's like... it's something you can control, you know? But the truth is it's controlling you more than you control it."

      "Totally." the third years laughed and Nils said "I wish my head would've quiet down soon 'cause the only thing I'm thinking about is pizza, burgers, pasta, candy."

      Even if he pretended to laugh with his friends, Mae noticed August's gaze. What she just said seemed to have made him think. And just like that, she knew they weren't so different.

★

      They had found some things to eat. A bag of chips, a can of soda, a bunch of cookies. They had opened an auction to distribute them.

      "One thousand eight hundred Swedish crowns! Any higher bids?" Fedrika exclaimed.

      "1900!" a girl raised her hand.

      "1900 crowns!" the brunette repeated.

      "Fuck! 2400!" Henry yelled.

      Fedrika made the announcement. "Two thousand four hundred crowns! Any higher bids? Going once, twice, thrice! And sold to the man over there with the red hair!"

      The description made Mae laugh as Henry cheered before grabbing the bag of chips Stella threw at him.

      "Thanks a lot!" he said before walking over Mae.