This was so fucking hard... 

I looked at the clock incessantly, noticing the cadence with which each hand moved, especially the largest one, marking each passing second. 

The classroom was silent —deadly so— and I couldn't do much besides focus on the cold, dry air and the feeling of the fabric on my arms, concealed from the world. The neck flap of the well ironed shirt beneath the blazer chaffing against my chest; the trousers constraining my thighs... the air drying my skin and lips. 

A sound —someone tapping her fingers on the wood— and then another one... wait no, that was just the collective sound of 15 girls and one woman breathing. I didn't include myself because I was thankfully so attuned to my own breathing that I missed it altogether. 

I glanced around, tensing up immediately. My own face twisted, my eyes glaring daggers in every direction... at the forest of blades emerging from all eyes glaring at me, then at each other, then at the Instructor, whose own glare fought off our collective own —yes, I was glaring at her too. 

As soon as we heard the wooden ringing, everyone sprung up, a flurry of steps and the flutter of 15 skirts as they all headed for the exit. I glanced back at the Instructor: we weren't the only ones in the blazers, shirts and skirts (pants in my case). She too, was dressed like a secretary from the olden days, complete with a pencil skirt that she clearly loathed. She glared still, but less so when she noticed me. 

The hashery was a lot more lively but also more silent. As usual, it was a multitude of glared daggers looking for their next target. My own eyes trying to stay on the doughnut I was munching on and not make eye contact with anyone lest I pick up a fight. 

Even then, something interesting made all stares head to the end of the self-serve turnstile. A girl had bumped into another. Now, something this generic might not raise eyebrows, but every girl here was a fucking Queen Bee! This meant even accidental bumping was serious business. This was bad no matter how you sliced it. 

For some, this was fairly eventful. Others considered this normal. 

When I heard the first screams, I stood up. Even though others could tolerate it, I couldn't. After all, I knew exactly what was going to happen. 

I heard the clanking of an steel tray and the sound of two bodies moving so fast they seemed to make the air whistle. They were followed by the sound of steel smashing——my eyes closed in internal self-agony—before the sound turned fleshier... bonier... 

Finally, I heard a loud gasp and the sound of someone hitting the floor. I felt a hand to my arm and almost ripped it off... 

Well, the thing is... I kind of didn't. This alone would nominally land me in hot water, but for some bizarre reason, the grip I shook of did not return. I opened one eye warily, seeing one of the girls—a black haired, blue eyed one who stared at me with a look between disapproval and amazement—standing beside me before whipping her head in the sound's direction, prompting me to do likewise. 

I regretted it almost instantly. 

In the floor was a girl who looked much to close to me appearance-wise for comfort. White hair was rare even here, so seeing a facsimile on the ground shuddering made me shake internally. Even with the rather unique advantage I carried over (height, if you must ask), I still felt oddly vulnerable when I saw her. 

Towering over the girl, was a taller, sharp-eyed girl with blonde hair cascading down her back, staring down at the girl before her, her sharp blue eyes seeming to rain daggers upon her prey's back. She moved her feet to stomp on her head and I instinctively turned away before my hair was harshly grabbed from behind by the hand from before, using my ponytail as leverage before jerking me off the bench and turning me in the direction of the spectacle. The feeling of being forced to do something filled me with rage. It wasn't just the kind of indignation that felt natural. This was burning, all consuming  hatred that almost made me zap the girl holding me. Regardless, I managed to keep my arms at my sides as she did so. 

"Go on, look. It's good for you, little king..." the girl spat sardonically, making me grit my teeth at the effort of not hitting back somehow. "Grow some sting, boy!" 

When she said that, I really felt something crackle inside, ready to 'sting' as she had put it. I also put that down just in time to see the spectacle in the room change. 

As the blonde jammed her boot down into the fallen girl's head, she narrowed her eyes, twisting her foot, before giving me an inkling of what she wanted. 

"Are you going to give up now?" she asked, her eyes fixed on her victim. 

"No..." the snowhead answered, whispering softly. 

"Excuse me? Did I hear a 'no' coming from you?" 

"Yes..." the fallen replied, and I could see the winner press down on her skull, forcing my facsimile to hiss. "If you think I'm going to give it up... just because of this... of what you've done to me now... Imagine what I will do to you, when I can finally get back up... because you don't have the stomach to finish me off right now..." 

My face of amazement did for once not feel out of place. I saw every other girl in the place wear similar expressions on their own visages... and when the slackened grip of my current captor confirmed she too was caught aback, I ripped myself of her, letting my fingernails slide through her wrist and slash through her blazer sleeve, leaving bloody lines on her skin. She instinctively pulled it back before glaring at me and backing away without saying a word. Good. At least she now knows I don't need more 'sting' than I already have. 

The blonde seemed to reach the same conclusion right as the horn announced feeding time was over and everyone trotted eagerly towards the doors. The 'boring' part of the day was over, and the 'fun' part was finally due to start. A part I dreaded and not for any shortcomings of mine... but for feeling like I was at an advantage in a place where even my existence was called into doubt. 

I saw as the blonde sighed, removing her foot from the girl beneath her and following most of the other queens out of the hashery and into the sinuous halls of the institute, leaving the fallen queen to pick herself up. 

After checking for any stragglers and finding it was just the two of us here, I moved over to her, apparently threatening her, since she immediately glared from her vulnerable position at me... at least until I offered her my hand. 

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She seemed to not know what to make of it—at least for a few seconds—before the expression of hostility vanished from her face and was replaced by an all too familiar mask of cool serenity as she finally picked herself up—me drawing my hand back—and blinked at me. This was definitely something I didn't expect. 

"She didn't... get you, did she?" 

"Not even close..." she stated, dusting herself up and running her fingers through her hair a few times. 

"Why?" I asked, even more confused now. "Couldn't you fight her off? Why didn't you?" 

"Why should I let her see what I am truly capable of? Especially with The Grafting so close now. We are going to end up against each other... and I'd sooner than latter look harmless than threatening." 

"That's... an strangely smart move..." I conceded. 

She seemed to take that as a compliment despite seeing me as hostile just a few seconds ago. She nodded in response—and I swore I could see a very small smile on her lips—before she turned around on her heels and started walking towards the door. 

Realizing I wasn't going to get out of this one so easily, I ended up swallowing my fear and  stopped putting off the march towards the fighting hall. 

The sensation of freedom offered by my usual clothes was extremely enjoyable, the feeling of my arms finally being able to breathe, the ability to stretch my legs as wide apart as I could and the fact my torso was no longer covered up as if I had some nasty wound helped—as did the change in temperature from the unnatural chill of the facility's frosty halls—with making me feel like myself once more. The girls around me seemed to feel likewise as they too dumped the overly stuffy uniforms in favor of more... unrestrained... outfits. 

I did, as was usually the case, notice more eyes turned in my direction as I stripped than they did towards each other. Likewise, my own eyes had a harder time focusing on myself as they wandered about. Thankfully, the tension from before dissolved for a while as the release from the cold fabric and dry air cheered everyone up, mellowing our disposition a bit. However, the fact I used the same tainted, white tank top, cropped and with the straps reduced to threads—so dampened and dried it (and the many others I choose shared this fate) eventually turned almost diaphanous—along with the black boyshorts that had been so distressed that they had been kept together by straps on both sides... and that this somehow always triggered an spike in the interest of every soul in the changing room... was a bit jarring. 

Even more jarring was the fact the girls also used the same and I couldn't keep myself from looking. Since the garbs were no different—the same collection of tanks and tubes, skirts, boyshorts, thongs, boots, et al—the notion that I would find them interesting despite seeing them every odd day really went beyond me. 

As I finished tying  the thigh-height knot on my boot, fastening the black sock a little higher to protect from abrasions, I saw the instructor enter the room. Though normally silent, whenever she showed up, the room would feel even more silent. She was, after all, an ex Grafting Veteran. That kind of rep commanded respect whenever she went despite the Grafting where she got sedured being her worst one—after all, Instructors weren't terribly exemplary or prominent... at least not at the Mandatory Instruction level. 

"Alright all..." she highlighted, the telepad in her hand casting an eerie glow on her features as she spoke. "Today we will gauge your performance against partners. Every Queen here must try their best to shock and impress everyone. This applies to the King as well." 

At this, everyone turned to me, as expected. 

I was used to that at this point. The fact I was essentially a needle stuck in a haystack. The fact that I was blue when they were pink. The fact that they had large round stingers and I had a large, long one. 

The fact that, since ever, I was the only King in the entire Hive. A Hive filled with Queen Bees... and I was the only King Bee. 

Leaving aside the allegory, the truth was that I was still a male surrounded by nothing but females. I stuck out, despite my long hair, pent up in a ponytail high in my head... despite the softness of my facial features, my large yet sharp eyes and the slender body... which was still significantly more built up than any but the strongest, tallest Queens. 

Who had decided to model our society on an extinct insect species I will never know, but it was everywhere: the usage of the term 'Queen', short for 'Queen Bee' was an eternal reminder of it that made the 'King' tag seem almost arrogant. In the distant past, Queen Bee had also been a term used for some women back before the creation of augmentation protocols. Women who were in charge, women who were assertive... women who were aggressive, especially towards each other... 

It made the term 'Queen Bee' make sense today... but a 'King Bee'? Primitive men were never compared to bees, presumably because there were no actual King Bees. The Queen ruled the hive and was attended to by workers of both genders. Knowing that I was an exception felt like I was an antinatural creation—as if scientists in the past had engineered a worker bee into a male replacement for a queen; a bee that would mate with several queens on a hive, as my caretakers had initially alluded to. 

In short, I hated that word. I wasn't a King of anything! Hell, I didn't even meet my own mother! The only family I had was a younger sister who seemed too eager to enter The Grafting; also known as 'that butchery where Queens fight each other to determine who they can or cannot be in life' and even seemed to be bent on becoming a Veteran Queen—entering all Grafting events to build a life out of her fighting performance. The fact that in this world, fighting everyone everywhere all the time was not only desirable, socially speaking, but also personally enjoyable and looked up to as a way to lead a 'glamorous' life was scary to the point I shuddered whenever I thought about it. 

But even more dreadful was the fact that as I told you all this, I felt an increasing itch to fight... because... almost certainly for worse... 

I enjoyed it too. 

As the girls finished up and started marching towards the arena, I felt a pair of eyes staring at me—turns out the Instructor was staring at me, being the only other person left in the changing room now besides me. That couldn't possibly be a good sign. 

"Miss... is there a reason you singled me out? You almost never do that... Unless you have a good reason, that is." 

"Well, I do have a good reason, you see..." she started, staring at me with an oddly mischievous glint in her eyes. "You've spent nearly two fortnights without training with a partner. I want you to train with one now. No ifs or buts." 

I perked up at this, feeling the heat and rush of the fight boil inside me, doing my best to suppress it. 

"Look, I know I don't normally fight with a partner, but that's because..." I trailed off, looking at my boots, suddenly feeling unsure of what I was saying. Because I'm stronger than them and afraid I might hurt someone. 

Never mind that if someone heard that, I would be everyone's prey, no questions asked. 

"I am well aware of that," the woman declared while crossing her arms, sighing before letting a very small smile grace her lips. "That's why I will be your partner. That way you won't have to hold back." 

"Wait, how did you-"

"Know that you held back?" she cut in, snapping into the question faster than I could blink. "I am a Veteran for a reason. I've seen others hold back. I've held back myself. I've seen enough signs to know when a fighter is giving only some of their all. You weren't all that discrete." 

I sighed, shaking my head at the fact she was aware of the main reason I didn't fancy fighting a partner. She then put a hand over my shoulder, her eyes suddenly as hard as stone. I didn't need words to understand what she was trying to convey with her gaze. 

I reflected her expression—halfway in resignation, halfway in reply—and saw her walk into the brightness of the training hall. I closed my eyes one last time, letting the endorphins overrun my system and feeling a current of power crackle, dancing around my fingers, sharpening my nails into deadly talons, making my hearing sharper—and upon opening my eyes again, making the world much more colorful and vivid than any primitive human could have envisioned. 

I stepped up and started walking, the aromas of perspired pheromones, the torrid heat of the enclosed bright space, and the rumbling that resounded through the whole building beckoning me, like the song of a siren, before I stopped at the three steps leading up to the hall. 

Shaking my head to dispel any further thoughts, I shook off my reservations and insecurities and let myself get lost in my own primal urges—like a Queen... or indeed, a King should... 

I stepped up and tread towards the light.