Yesterday, a new nuisance entered my life. One as pretty as she was insufferable. And unfortunately, it seemed as if her appearance would become a regular facet of my day now that she was the sole member of the chess club other than myself.
I could only thank my lucky stars that the hour I spent in the clubroom would be the only time I’d have to put up with her.
“Ladies and gents, I’m pleased to announce that the new transfer student, Ms Sai, is joining our class. That puts us at an even number, so Kaburi, you’ll finally have a partner. I hope you’ll get along well with her.”
If a god truly exists in this world, he must truly despise me.
Yes, there at the front of the class was the same asinine silver-haired beauty I had had the misfortune of becoming acquainted with yesterday. I had assumed her to simply be one of the many students I had never bothered to memorise the face of, but apparently she was actually new here. And of all the people in the school, she had to be assigned to me as a lab partner. I could already feel my beloved peace and quiet slipping out of my grasp.
Once the teacher was done with the introduction and all the mouthbreathers stopped gawking at the girl, she made her way over to my table in the corner of the room, raising an eyebrow at my contemptuous expression.
“You don’t look so happy to see me.”
“I’m utterly thrilled.”
“Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, you know.”
“It was sardonic, not sarcastic.”
“Pedantry is the weapon of the unintelligent.”
Oh, this bitch. I could not stand her.
“Are you gonna stand there insulting me all day or are you gonna sit down and actually make yourself useful?” I asked, hoping that work would shut her up for a while. It definitely was not because I had no good comeback.
“The former sounds more fun, but I suppose it achieves little. Very well, I suppose I’ll make your wildest dreams come true and take a seat next to you, though I cannot say I’m particularly happy about it.”
I don't know where she got off acting so conceited, but I hadn’t the energy nor desire to pick a fight over it. The less I had to say to this girl, the better. I just wanted to get on with my work like a good student.
Oh, who am I kidding. If my grade wasn’t at risk, I’d sabotage the bitch without a second thought.
Unfortunately for my desire for revenge (and fortunately for my grades), the silver-haired she-devil was surprisingly competent at lab work. We had already started the project last week, but it took very little explanation for her to understand and catch up on what had already been done. For someone in a shithole like this, that level of competence was almost suspicious. For once, my curiosity trumped my desire for peace and quiet.
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“...what exactly are you doing here?” I asked. My question was met with a raised eyebrow.
“I’m… not sure how behind the times you are, but women have been allowed an education for quite the while now.”
“That’s not what I meant, you prat.” She retorted with such seriousness that I wasn’t entirely sure if it was a joke or not. “I meant that you seem to have some level of basic competence. What are you doing in a school where each class has a collective IQ that barely reaches triple digits?”
“Are you including yourself in that total?”
“If I was, it would be 140 points higher.”
“What a subtle and inconspicuous brag.”
“You’re dodging the question.”
She looked away as I called out her attempt to deflect. I knew why, of course. Being sent to this shithole was shameful, so whatever reason she’s here for must be equally shameful. After all, only those at the bottom of the barrel end up here.
“Expulsion. This was the only one in the prefecture that would take me.” She said it with complete nonchalance, as though it was a completely normal situation. It seemed like the only thing she was really ashamed of was being here in the first place.
“Expelled? What, you a delinquent or something?”
“You could say that, I guess. A lot of warnings and suspensions for fighting and disrespect, the usual. The last straw was when I told the head teacher that her head was filled with enough hot air to float a zeppelin.”
“Snrk.” Shit, I laughed. I didn’t want the demon to think I actually thought she was funny, so I tried to stifle it, but I doubted she was stupid enough to not notice. Though, judging by what she said next, it seemed she thought I was laughing at her, not with her.
“Alright then, smartass, what about you? If you’re so much better than these intellectually impaired mouth breathers, what are you doing in this dump?” she said, sounding a tad offended.
“That’s… not a story worth telling…” I found myself looking down at the ground, trying to avoid her eye at all costs. I should have known the question would be turned back on me, but that was the last thing I wanted to talk about.
“...coward.”
“What?”
“You’re a coward. You’re perfectly happy to ask me a probing question, but the moment the tables are turned you deflect? You weasel.”
To my utter shock, Sai seemed sincerely pissed off at me for my non-answer. I had assumed she would just take the opportunity to throw further jabs at me, but her tone was spiked with vitriol. It occurred to me too late that she was likely asking with genuine intent to hear me out, even with the prickly phrasing of the question.
I had to fix the situation before I invited many more uncomfortable lab sessions to come.
“It’s… look, it’s just not a story that’s worth being concerned with, okay? It’s not funny like yours, it’s just… I don’t know how to describe it.”
I was lying. I remembered it clear as day. I knew exactly how to describe it. I just didn’t want to.
“If you were gonna react like that, why ask me in the first place? Are you too much of an antisocial swine to understand how conversations work?” Her voice dripped with irritation.
“Look, I get it, okay? I shouldn’t have asked first. I was just shocked to see someone fairly intelligent in this hellhole and I was genuinely curious how you’d ended up here, so I’m sorry if it came off any other way.”
“No one ever tell you that ‘I’m sorry if’ isn’t a real apology?” She still seemed pissed off, but after a moment she rolled her eyes and let out a sigh. “Whatever. Just forget I asked.”
With that, she turned back to the lab work at hand, not saying another word through the rest of the session outside of what was needed.
Despite my misgivings about her, I felt I had made a serious lapse in judgement by pissing her off. Foul mouthed and arrogant though she may have been, she was also quite possibly the only person in this classroom other than myself who didn’t have more limbs than brain cells.
It wasn’t the sort of bridge I was delighted to cross, but I still secretly hoped that I hadn’t already burned it.