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Nothing could leave her sight.
Everything was encompassed by the round rims of her glasses.
She twirled her hair around her fingers, like a bundle of wheat, twisting it into a braid identical to its twin, which fell on her shoulders neatly.
Her gaze was fixed on the dramatic scene occurring before her: a typical one, of a bully victim screaming her lungs out at her tormentors.
She found the setting to be awfully predictable, like an act from a theatrical play she watched dozens of times. The anguished little peasant breaks free from the shackles of injustice and screams at her imprisoners. Nothing was out of the gray ordinary with this one. Again.
Nothing seemed to go out of the ordinary, actually.
Everything happened in the same, repeated way. All numbers were reduced to the same origin. Nothing moved forward, but not backward either. Everything was still, and stagnant, and quite frankly, boring.
If even history repeats itself, then this must be just another imitation of an imitation. Just another reckless rebellion against some unfair social construction that was built on the focus on the physical and a dismissal of the mental and spiritual. Just another consequence of excessive comfort and a lack of challenge within this secure, stable bubble. Just another useless obsession.
She wondered why she was even standing there beside the double doors of the cafeteria, watching this ridicularity when she could be elsewhere, revising her notes or taking a look at future lessons.
The students kept snickering at the scene with shameless amusement, while the Ugly Duckling's vocal cords could probably crack at any moment now as she just screamed and yelled and whaled and whined, her equally revolting face flushing even redder than the pimples across her visage.
No, no, no. That was all she quacked about; some bumpkin insults; a few justice lines, and that was it. Nothing new, nothing interesting to stuff our minds with. Just another copycat of some movie's dialogue. The poor thing seemed naively unaware that her screams only contributed to add onto the students' entertainment; the realization that everybody was merely enjoying the show didn't cross her mind at all. She just thundered for help from the helpless themselves.
But then the Ugly Duckling admitted that she also hated her appearance.
Well... that could pique someone's interest.
The Ugly Duckling admitted to many things. She disliked her own face, and she didn't care about it either. And she didn't like those those who supposedly cower behind self-expression and freedom to flaunt evidently accentuated aspects of their appearance to exude a sense of increased self-worth and to basically feel pretty about themselves...
That could sound a little harsh for a certain amount of people, and it sure did seem to be the case if we look at Sakuragi Anjo's face, along with her copy-and-paste minions, who had the same expression as a flabbergasted goldfish in its natural habitat.
