Chapter Text
Mary Saotome was seventeen when she met Yumeko Jabami and boy what a meeting?!
The girl was beautiful but that didn't register to the blonde until later on when she stopped acting like Yumeko was a nuisance.
Their first encounter is something that will forever be etched on Mary's mind.
Back then the transfer student seemed to be an easy kill but she dashed all of Mary's expectation of her.
The girl managed to do what needed to be done.
You see Mary hated this school's system even from the beginning but she had to succumb to it to survive and so she did. What she hated more is the people who took advantage of the system and forced her to become the person that she was on her second year on this school.
Yumeko Jabami showed her that she has turned into the people she so despised and Mary will forever be grateful to the gambling addict for it.
Her loss to Yumeko was like a very hard slap on Mary's face that woke her up and also set her free. It brought her back to acknowledging what really mattered to her even from the beginning.
Not losing herself to this school's bloody system.
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Her first day as a sophomore at Hyakkaou Academy was something she would consider a wonderful beginning.
Yumeko Jabami loves gambling. She yearns for it. The thrill, the play of emotions but most of all the connections that gambling ignites between the players.
And oh what a lucky girl Yumeko really was! To be given the opportunity to gamble with the best in her year on the first day.
Looking back to that fateful moment Yumeko can't help but feel giddy.
Mary Saotome was already the most aesthetically pleasing girl in their class that it was impossible for Yumeko not to notice her.
But what made the blonde really special was the way she carried herself. She walked with such confidence, like the world should bend to her every whim because she said so. How the whole class acts around her already proved that.
The students seemed to look at Mary with both fear and resentment, as if the slim girl was someone so terrifying.
She was obviously the top dog and there's nothing more exciting for Yumeko than fighting against that.
But being the only capable member of her family pushed Yumeko to learn the ability to read people in just a short time. It allows her to determine who are the possible allies and threats.
And what she saw was that Mary Saotome was a girl out of place. The blonde had the eyes of a person who lost something or someone and she was desperately trying to get it back.
Yumeko wanted to help her but most of all Yumeko wanted Mary, the real Mary whoever she was, to see her.
Mary Saotome obviously has a lot of layers and it's not hard to admit that Yumeko was automatically attracted to her.
The heiress of Jabami clan knew at first glance that the shorter young woman already deemed her as no one, someone she can just disregard later on like everyone else in the class and Yumeko lived for the challenge of proving her wrong.
Yumeko wanted to be the first and only one who the person inside the heavily guarded walls that Mary built will see when said defence went crumbling down.
It was a gamble of whether she will be lost in the crowd for the blonde or she will be the main focus.
Surely enough that day she got what she wanted. After all Yumeko Jabami never lose when she gamble with herself.