Riona - singing, beating people up, and math

The popular girl was an angel. That was the only plausible explanation. Reaching for that book had been a test of worth, and since Riona had passed it, she now had divine intervention at her disposal.

That, or this girl had helped her twice for no reason, but that made no sense. She looked popular. She had that look—the heavy makeup, the cute accessories, the manicured nails. It took a certain kind of person to wear braids after grade school. Riona had tried twin tails a few times, but her friends kept making fun of her.

A block away from the coffee shop, the girl stopped. “I’ll just make a call real quick,” she said. “You go ahead.”

To her boyfriend, probably. “I can wait.”

“Uh, why?”

Riona shrugged. Wasn’t it obvious? They were two teenage girls roaming around at night. Still, the girl leered at her, waving her off. All the more credence to her theory that the girl was an angel.

Riona vanished into the night—literally. The street lamp in front of her favorite coffee shop had been slowly fizzling out. She’d tried throwing a stone at it to see if it’d work, but no. Nothing. She watched it flicker for dear life until the girl came jogging back to her. Oversized sweater. Oversized hair. Black stockings. “Done. Do you have a notebook we could use to pretend like we’re studying?”

“...ehh…”

“Would you rather use mine, then?”

“I guessss...”

“Understooood.” The girl walked past Riona, poorly concealing a smirk. What she didn’t know was that Riona was good at exactly three things: singing, beating people up, and math. The girl would probably try to tease her with high school math, and it would BACKFIRE.

As Riona trailed behind her she, too, smiled evilly.

The coffee shop had a few groups of students scattered around. For the most part, they wore the same uniform as Riona. She knew the names of some of them. She knew better than to talk to them. The shop itself was cozy, orange, perpetually warm. Riona used her larger body to shove the girl around until they reached her spot.

While the girl sat, she squirmed, looking around judgmentally. “I’ll buy you juice,” Riona said, “but if you want anything else, you’ll have to buy it.”

“Sure. Yeah.”

One of the workers was a classmate who hung out with Yuu. When she showed up to take their orders, she asked, “Tsukishima, is it true that Niwa rejected you?” which was not only unprofessional, but also depressing: was her generation so doomed that people sought entertainment through inane events of the sort? Apparently so. “Heh, that face looks like a yes.”

“It’s true,” Riona responded, resting her ankle on her knee. Menacingly. She wore modesty shorts, so it was fine. “You gonna take my order or what?”

“Ah! Sorry!”

The girl’s eyes flickered between Riona and the rude waitress as they spoke. The thick mascara highlighted how light they were—lighter than caramel, matching her hair. If she ended up not being an angel, it wouldn’t surprise Riona to find out that this girl was actually a quarter European, from a family of nobles, speaking five languages fluently, and eating horses.

Riona ordered beef jerky juice for both of them. “That sounds revolting,” the girl said. “Just tell me to die at this point.”

“It’s good. You’ll see.”

“...right… I’ll just order something on the side as well.”

“It is good,” the bad waitress opined. She gave the girl a once-over. “Is that Hamaoto’s uniform?”

“Yeah,” was the girl’s response. She was looking away now, elbow on the table, cheek resting on her hand.

Awkwardly, the bad waitress left. Riona had to find a way to turn this stifling silence into girl talk. It was easy to talk to her friends. Because they were her friends. But this girl was a stranger. Riona picked on her ribbon. She scratched her nail against the edge of the table. “So…”

The girl glanced at her from the corners of her eyes. She had a beauty mark under the left one.

“Your, uh. Um.” Riona gestured in her direction. The girl raised her eyebrows. “Favorite… uh… band?”

“Glin Ositet IgureS.”

“O-oh, I like them too. They’re very nice. They’re very… wait, is it because they sang the opening from that cannibalism anime?”

This made the girl blink. “Eh?” So Riona sang the first few verses. “Ah, that one… I guess?”

“You don’t like it?”

“I didn’t say that. It’s just. It’s the only song people know about them, you know?”

It was the only song Riona knew from them. “F-favorite animal?”

“Box jellyfish. You?”

“Horses.”

The conversation died after that. Again.

…seriously, why had this girl even followed her if she’d be like this? Or was this Riona’s fault for relying too much on her friends? She wasn’t that much of a talker, but she wasn’t this bad at it, either. It could be another divine test.

The girl sighed. “Favorite book?”

“Juju—”

“Of course. Favorite movie? Movie. Not franchise.”

Riona found herself picking on the table again. She shrugged. “I don’t watch them that often. Favorite ship?”

“...ship? Huh?”

“Yeah. Doesn’t have to be straight.”

“Ohh, that kind of ship.” The girl smiled again, at last. “I don’t have one. I’m not a degenerate.”

“So you’re not a cannibal?”

“Oh, I am. Just not a degenerate one.”

“That makes no se—thanks.”

The bad waitress had shown up with their drinks, plus some water. The girl recoiled at the sight, which made her criminal bluff all the more obvious. A true flesh-eater would’ve found the reddish-brown liquid appealing. Riona waited for the bad waitress to leave before taking a sip from her beef jerky juice, mostly because she liked to eat the orange slice they stuck on the glass as decoration, but people often judged her for it.

“This is revolting,” the girl said. “I’ll try to drink it only because you’re paying for it, but I can’t promise to finish it…”

Riona drank half the glass in one breath.

The girl straightened. She stared at the beef jerky juice before her. She squinted at it. She sniffed it, then gagged, holding her nose.

“How melodramatic,” Riona mumbled. To be fair, she’d also been a skeptic at first—everyone had. It was a rite of passage. And that wasn’t even close to the strangest drink in this place. “Have you ever been rejected before? No, right?”

The girl looked green. She was fanning herself with her hand. “Not… really…?”

“Yeah, thought so…”

“Are you asking because of Ni, uh… what was his name again?”

“Niwa.”

“You like him?”

“Nah.”

The girl’s constant expressions of disgust were doing wonders to desensitize Riona. Wonders. “So you got rejected by someone you don’t even like? How does that even happen?”

As the girl spoke, Riona drank the other half of her juice. “I’ll tell you once you help me find a boyfriend.”

“What.”

“I’ll tell you once you—”

The girl held a hand in a ‘stop’ position. She looked green again. “Let me see if I understand: when you were asking me for advice earlier, it wasn’t because of Niwa, but because… you want a boyfriend?”

“Yup.”

“That’s it?”

“Yup.”

“Any boyfriend?”

“Y-yeah…”

“That’s pathetic,” the girl said. “Have some standards. Come on now.”

Though Riona tried to bite back her expression, her pulse quickened anyway. She gripped her hands under the table. “That’s none of your business.”

“No, it is.”

“Fuck you. It’s not. You said you’d help.”

“And I am,” the girl said, sitting down. “Dating someone just to say that you have a boyfriend will just end up in heartbreak. You, or him, or everyone involved. Imagine if he actually liked you and found out that you’re using him.”

Riona nibbled on the orange slice. She glanced out the window now. She physically could not look away.

From the corners of her eyes, she caught the girl crossing her arms. “If you absolutely have to go out why a guy, why not try mixers?”

“I’ve tried.”

“And?”

“I get rejected.”

“Why?”

Riona shrugged. “Not pretty.”

“Oh, shut up. Please. Who do you think gets more attention in those things, the prettiest one, or the one with the most personality? Exactly.”

“...so… you’re experienced with these things?”

“You could say that.”

“Can you train me?”