"𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁'𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗲?" Snow asked as curiosity coursed through his veins. In the past three months, he had seen her around the Capitol often and wanted to know more as the days passed.
The girl hesitated for a moment before speaking. "𝗖𝗮...
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┌─── ∘°❉°∘ ───┐
"Tigris, where did you put my Academy uniform?" Coriolanus called from his room, his closet in a complete mess as he had been trying for hours to find his uniform. He remembered perfectly well that the last day before winter break, he had tossed the cornflower blue shirt into his closet, along with the red pants and suit jacket that the Academy had given to all the students to wear during their daily lessons, and never took it off.
The winter break was officially over, and all the students were returning to the Academy, ready to suffer the circumstances of being taught by teachers who made you wonder who had even considered them as the ideal people to teach. Coriolanus' hatred for Highbottom, though, couldn't be compared with his antipathy for the other teachers. A man— with a last name that didn't even come close to the slightest of his appearance as he was shorter than any toddler but had the age of a parent — who hated most of the teenagers in that building, and no one seemed to understand why. However, Coriolanus, by doing nothing, had won Casca's hatred.
He never understood why Casca hated him so much, but as they say, the aura that the other gives off, you adopt it, and then you behave accordingly. So, since Casca Highbottom didn't like Coriolanus and had made his days in the Academy a living hell, Coriolanus felt nothing more for him than disgust. He remembered last year, while Coriolanus was talking with his colleagues, the Dean had joined the conversation— only because it had happened to overhear — by saying, "You sure you can afford this, kiddo, because I doubt".
The group of students had been talking about Christmas and what they would buy for their families, so Coriolanus had told them he was thinking about buying his cousin an expensive necklace with some money he had collected, like he had done in the past, and Tigris had loved it— she wore it until now. It was clear that Highbottom knew about the circumstances the Snows lived under, as he used to be friends with Crassus when they were at the age of Coriolanus; as a result, he was the first person to learn about the downfall of Coriolanus' family.
Nevertheless, this didn't give him the right to offend one of his students that way, when he saw how embarrassed Coriolanus was about the reality and how hard he was trying to cover it. Lying about the biggest part of his life had never been the safest choice, as once the truth came out, things would be even worse, but being encircled by rich people and trying to fit in such an environment gave him no other choice. He already felt like an inferior and weak as hell, so why show them the truth and be an easy victim of manipulation and control?
Sometimes he questioned himself if his father and Casca had an ugly argument in the past, and that was the reason Casca Highbottom hated him so much. On the other hand, for how long would he pay for the messes Crassus had left behind?
Weren't there enough issues Crassus had caused Coriolanus? Why did he have to face the figure of his father and the mistakes he had made all around the city, and in the people he met? Crassus' actions had taken away from his family the title of "good people" as the rumors flew in the air like mockingjays, which spread the news faster than a person whose only hobby was gossiping about other people's lives.
