And We Are Heroes

1.1 ; tiffany

"They said, all teenagers scare the living shit out of me."
chapter i ; part i

    "You cannot go out dress like that. Change. Now."
    "Mom, I'll dress how I like," Tiffany Chiu retorted, annoyed. "Just 'cause you think I'm obese doesn't mean everything I wear is against the dress code."
    "Shuhua," Tiffany's mother screeched. "Tell your daughter go back change!"
    "Listen your mother!" Tiffany's father agreed from the kitchen. Something crashed, and he shouted again, "Liwen! Dui bu qi! Just broke old teapot from Hubei Province!"
    "Ai-ya!" Tiffany's mother exploded. "All of you, no sense!"
    Tiffany took the opportunity to dash out the door and hop into her dusty Honda Civic. As she raced out of the driveway, she could hear her parents shouting after her, but she just turned the radio up louder. She had twelve hours until she had to face them again. Until then, she decided to make the best of her badass black leather ensemble.
    She pulled up at Bayview High School five minutes before the bell and parked her car in the juniors' lot, among her classmates' glossy new BMWs, Fiats, and Teslas. As her parents constantly reminded her, it was only her laziness and pure lack of a sense of responsibility that barred them from splurging on a new car for her. She sighed, slinging her backpack over one shoulder and starting toward the campus. At least she had a car. She couldn't imagine letting them have total control over her transportation.
    She hopped up the stairs to the main building. She found herself falling in the next instant, face-planting onto the concrete. And she thought today would be good. Groaning, Tiffany rolled over and saw the culprit. In her hurry to leave her house, she'd forgotten to tie her shoelaces. "There's a first for everything," she muttered. She picked herself up, wincing.
    "Hey, Patricia," a boy called from a group of his snickering look-alike friends. "Are you okay? Did your fat cushion your fall?"
    She ignored them, hoping she'd come up with a snarky one-liner within the next five seconds. That was the expiration zone for comebacks, she'd learned. The faster you could get it out, the better the impact. At four to five seconds, the comeback would sound forced and lame, no matter how good it was in theory.
    Luckily, someone else knew this rule as well. "Why don't we test out that theory, Donald?" a girl's sharp voice replied. "Let's take each of you and kick you off the Golden Gate. See who hurts less."
    The boy backed away, shrinking. "My name's not Donald."
    "Maybe you should remember that next time you wanna call someone out, douchebag. Have some class." The girl offered Tiffany a hand. "You okay?"
    Her cheeks flamed up and she nodded. "Yeah, totally. Happens all the time." She shot to her feet and dusted herself off.
    "Really?"
    "I mean-"
    She laughed, her black hair glimmering in the morning light. "Yeah. I got your point. You're Tiffany, right?"
    She nodded, ready to start walking again and forget this embarrassing incident. "What's your name?"
    "Ryung," the girl said. "Ryung Boo." The name rang a bell. Wasn't she class president or something? "Oh," she added, "Before you start to walk again," she nodded toward Tiffany's shoes, "I think you'd better tie your laces."
    "Oh," she said. "My laces. Right."

A/N: What do you think so far? Love it or hate it? (Also, I swear I wasn't thinking about Donald Trump when I wrote this. In retrospect, the name does work.)