Chapter Text
The debate hall of Blackwood City Municipal Auditorium had been tense long before the winners were announced. The air itself felt tight, stretched thin by competition, pride, and the kind of rivalry everyone in Blackwood Academy had long since learned to expect whenever Jane and Amy were placed in the same room.
On one side of the stage stood Jane—sharp-eyed, composed, and unreadable in the way people became when they spent too much time trying to stay in control. She was the kind of student who never raised her voice unless she already knew she would win. On another end of the booth stood Amy, equally brilliant and equally dangerous in entirely different ways. Amy smiled more often, spoke more smoothly, but there was always something edged beneath her politeness, something sharp enough to cut if someone leaned too close.
They were both sophomores. Both ranked at the top of their year. Both too ambitious to comfortably exist beside someone equally capable.
And, unfortunately for everyone around them, both hopelessly in love with the same girl.
Nano sat near the front row with the rest of the school press team, a notebook open on her lap that she had barely written on for the past twenty minutes. Pretending to take notes was easier than acknowledging what was actually happening in front of her. Jane’s eyes kept drifting toward her every time she delivered a strong argument, searching for approval without meaning to. Amy, meanwhile, unconsciously softened every time she addressed a point Nano had researched for them. It was subtle enough that most people missed it completely.
But Nano noticed.
Maybe because she was involved.
Or maybe because she was the only one willing to admit there was something real underneath all the hostility.
When the final round ended, defeat settled over the Blackwood team before the judges even announced it aloud. The atmosphere shifted instantly. Shoulders tightened. Teammates stopped making eye contact. Somewhere in the audience, someone exhaled heavily.
The silence that followed lasted only a few seconds before Amy finally broke it.
“This happened because someone didn’t follow the structure.”
Jane didn’t even look at her. “No. It happened because someone kept interrupting my points.”
Amy scoffed, crossing her arms tightly over her chest. “Your points? You mean the ones Nano literally fact-checked last week?”
That did it.
Jane turned so quickly her chair scraped violently against the floor, the sound cutting through the auditorium sharply enough to make nearby students flinch. “Don’t drag her into this.”
Amy tilted her head slightly, eyes narrowing with immediate understanding. “Oh? So now she’s yours?”
Something in the room snapped then—not loudly, not dramatically, but quietly, like a thread finally pulled too far after being strained for too long.
Their teammates moved instinctively, trying to calm them down before things escalated, but the fight had already stopped being about the debate. Weeks of irritation, jealousy, competition, and things neither of them knew how to confess came crashing together all at once. Voices rose over each other. Accusations sharpened. Every sentence carried the weight of ten others left unsaid.
Jane shoved her chair backward hard enough for it to nearly fall.
Amy stood immediately after.
Someone shouted for them to stop.
Neither listened.
And then the argument became physical.
Down the hallway, far from the noise of the auditorium, the restroom felt unnaturally quiet.
Too quiet.
Shisha had only gone there to breathe for a moment. Losing the debate already felt humiliating enough without the rest of the team imploding afterward. Even from inside the restroom she could still hear muffled shouting echoing faintly through the walls, but it sounded distant now, detached from reality somehow, like it belonged to another part of the building entirely.
Then she heard something else.
A weak, broken whimper.
Shisha froze near the sink, her heartbeat stumbling uneasily in her chest.
“Hello?” she called carefully.
No answer came back.
For a second she considered leaving. Finding a teacher. Pretending she never heard anything at all.
But the sound came again—quieter this time, painful enough to make her stomach tighten.
Slowly, cautiously, she moved toward the last stall and pushed the door open just enough to look inside.
A girl sat slumped against the tiled wall.
College-aged at most.
Her skin looked frighteningly pale beneath the harsh fluorescent lighting, and one trembling hand pressed desperately against her side where blood had soaked through the sleeve of a white laboratory coat. Around her neck hung a crooked science fair ID, stained faintly red near the edges.
The sight of it struck Shisha immediately. There had been science fair participants all over the municipal building since morning. Different schools. Different competitions. She vaguely remembered seeing students carrying lab boards and cages earlier in the lobby.
Now one of them sat shaking on a restroom floor like she was trying not to fall apart.
“Tissue,” the girl whispered weakly. “Just... tissue... please…”
Shisha’s fear gave way to instinct almost immediately.
“Okay—okay, I’ll help you. Don’t move.”
She hurried toward the sink counter and grabbed paper towels with trembling hands, but the closer she got, the worse the situation looked. The girl’s breathing was shallow and uneven. Sweat clung to her forehead despite how cold she looked. Her entire body trembled like she was trying to fight something happening beneath her skin.
“It’s okay,” Shisha said softly, kneeling beside her. “I’m going to get help—”
“No.”
The response came too quickly.
Too sharply.
The girl’s head snapped upward with sudden intensity, her eyes wide in a way that made Shisha instinctively lean back.
“No help,” she whispered again, almost pleading now. “No people. Please.”
Something about her felt wrong.
Not just injured.
Wrong.
Her eyes kept unfocusing strangely, drifting in and out like she was struggling to stay present inside her own body. One second she looked terrified and aware, the next completely empty. Like something inside her was flickering.
Shisha slowly lowered the tissues. “I can’t just leave you here.”
For a long moment, the girl only stared at her.
Then she laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
Not even emotionally.
Just hollow.
Empty.
And then suddenly she lunged forward.
It happened so fast Shisha barely processed the movement before fingers clamped painfully around her arm. The girl grabbed onto her like she needed support—but the grip tightened unnaturally, violently, and before Shisha could pull away, sharp pain exploded across her skin.
A bite.
Not deep enough to tear flesh apart.
Not monstrous.
Not cinematic.
Just human enough to feel real.
Shisha gasped sharply and stumbled backward, staring at the blood beginning to bead around the crescent marks on her arm.
“What—what is wrong with you?” she whispered, horrified.
The girl blinked slowly.
For one strange second, clarity returned to her expression. Confusion. Fear. Shame.
Then her body collapsed weakly against the stall wall again like nothing had happened.
Shisha didn’t wait another second.
She ran.
By the time she burst back into the auditorium hallway, the situation outside had deteriorated into chaos. Students crowded around overturned chairs while teachers struggled to regain control. Voices overlapped loudly enough to blur together into noise.
Amy was on top of Jane.
Jane covered her face while Amy tried to lunge forward again despite several students attempting to pull her back.
“Stop it!” someone shouted desperately.
Shisha shoved her way through the crowd, panic overriding everything else. “Ms. Namtan! Something happened—there’s a woman in the restroom and—”
“Not now, Shisha!” Namtan snapped immediately, too overwhelmed to properly look at her. “Everyone, just get in the bus please.”
Shisha stared at her in disbelief. “But—”
“I said not now!”
And just like that, the moment disappeared beneath the chaos.
Dismissed.
Ignored.
As if everything was still normal.
As if the world had not quietly shifted somewhere inside that restroom stall.
The bus ride back to Blackwood felt longer than usual.
The air inside smelled faintly of sweat, disinfectant wipes, and the stale tension left behind after public humiliation. No one spoke above a whisper. Even the usual post-competition chatter was gone, replaced by an uncomfortable silence that pressed heavily against the windows and settled between the seats like fog.
Jane sat near the middle of the bus, staring blankly ahead while a bruise slowly darkened beneath her cheekbone. Across the aisle, one of her hands remained clenched tightly against her knee, knuckles pale from the force of it. Several rows behind her sat Amy, arms crossed tightly over her chest, jaw locked hard enough to ache. A thin scratch marked her wrist where someone had grabbed her earlier trying to pull her away from the fight.
Neither of them looked at the other.
But both of them were painfully aware of where the other was sitting.
At the front, Ms. Namtan remained standing even though the bus had already started moving. One hand gripped the overhead rail while disappointment radiated off her more heavily than anger ever could.
“I’m not angry that you lost,” she said firmly, her voice cutting cleanly through the silence. “I’m disappointed because you embarrassed yourselves. Blackwood expects better.”
No one answered.
Some students lowered their heads further.
Others pretended to sleep.
The silence itself felt guilty.
Namtan exhaled slowly before continuing. “I already called your parents. They’re coming to Blackwood to get you two straight.”
Amy’s stomach tightened instantly.
She stared harder at the floor, trying not to react outwardly, but her fingers curled tighter against her lap anyway. The thought of her mother arriving filled her with a strange mixture of dread and longing she never fully knew how to untangle.
Her relationship with Love had always felt incomplete somehow, like trying to hold onto water with open hands. Her mother was there physically, always composed, always graceful, always trying in quiet ways Amy sometimes wished were louder. But there was still distance between them—an invisible wall neither of them knew how to cross.
At home, silence lived everywhere.
In the separate bedrooms.
In the untouched dinners.
In the way her father’s affairs stopped being secrets years ago because nobody cared enough anymore to hide them.
Love had tried to love her properly. Amy knew that.
And somehow, that made things hurt worse.
Because effort meant expectation.
And Amy had spent most of her life feeling like she was failing at being someone easy to love.
Several rows ahead, Jane sat perfectly upright.
Unlike Amy, she didn’t look angry.
She looked ashamed.
Not because of the fight itself, but because she knew exactly what expression her mother would wear when she arrived. Jane could already imagine the disappointment hidden behind understanding, and somehow that was far harder to survive than yelling ever would have been.
Milk had always been her safest place.
Not strict.
Not distant.
Just overwhelmingly there.
Jane had grown up feeling like she and her mother moved through life as a pair rather than separate people. Milk had chosen motherhood alone, built her entire life around it, and loved Jane so openly that sometimes it felt unbearable to disappoint her.
They weren’t just mother and daughter.
They were a team.
Best friends, even.
Which made guilt feel sharper somehow.
Because Jane knew her mother would forgive her almost immediately.
And that kindness always made her feel worse.
Near the back of the bus, Shisha sat quietly against the window with her arm wrapped clumsily in gauze from the first aid kit. The bite underneath throbbed steadily beneath the bandage, each pulse feeling hotter than the last.
Not just painful.
Wrong.
She kept replaying the restroom scene in her head over and over, trying to force it into something rational. An injured science fair student. Shock. Delirium. Panic.
But the girl’s face kept returning to her in fragments.
Those empty eyes.
That strange flickering expression.
Like she had looked at Shisha and forgotten, for one terrifying second, what being human was supposed to feel like.
Ms. Namtan eventually crouched slightly beside her seat, frowning as she examined the bandage beneath the dim bus lights.
“You said it was metal?”
Shisha swallowed hard before nodding too quickly. “In the restroom. I slipped.”
Namtan studied her for a moment longer than comfort allowed.
Shisha forced herself not to look away.
The lie sat heavily in her chest, but somehow the truth sounded even more impossible.
“I’m fine,” she added quickly. “It’s nothing serious.”
Namtan finally sighed and straightened again. “Okay. Don’t worry. Nurse Film will check it again once we get back to Blackwood.”
Shisha nodded once.
But her stomach refused to settle.
Outside the windows, the familiar gates of Blackwood Boarding School for Girls slowly appeared ahead of them, tall iron bars rising against the evening sky like the entrance to somewhere untouched by the rest of the world.
Safe, in theory.
The team stepped off the bus carrying something heavier than defeat.
Not just embarrassment.
Not just suspension.
Something else lingered beneath it now.
A strange feeling none of them could explain yet.
Like something had quietly gone wrong somewhere beyond their understanding.
Something that had started inside a restroom stall.
And had not stayed there.
Shisha headed straight toward the clinic without another word.
Jane and Amy were escorted separately toward the Guidance Office, walking several feet apart despite moving in the same direction. Neither girl looked at the other, but the tension between them remained alive and breathing.
Inside the office, Counselor Jingjing sat waiting at the center desk, posture straight, expression unreadable. The room immediately felt smaller under her attention.
“Sit,” she said simply.
Jane and Amy obeyed without argument, lowering themselves carefully into the chairs across from her desk like sudden movements alone might worsen the situation.
“You’ve risked the school’s reputation,” Jingjing said flatly. “Do you understand that? I could expel both of you.”
The threat hung heavily in the air.
A pause followed.
Then she sighed quietly.
“But I won’t. Because both of you are academically exceptional. And apparently incapable of acting like it.”
Amy stared at the floor.
Jane looked out the window.
Neither trusted themselves enough to speak.
Then the office door opened.
Jane’s mother entered first.
The shift in Jane was immediate.
Milk moved quickly toward her daughter, concern overtaking everything else the second she noticed the bruise forming on Jane’s face. Tall and composed despite the obvious worry in her eyes, she crossed the room like someone whose first instinct had always been protection.
“What happened?” she asked immediately, crouching slightly to inspect Jane’s cheek. “Are you hurt?”
Her hands moved gently across Jane’s shoulders, checking her arms, her face, the side of her jaw with practiced care.
Jane visibly softened beneath it.
“I’m okay, Mom,” she murmured quietly. “I’m sorry.”
Across the room, Amy looked away almost immediately.
The tenderness between them felt too intimate to witness.
Too effortless.
It made something ache unexpectedly inside her chest.
Then the door opened again.
This time slower.
Calmer.
Amy’s mother stepped inside.
Love entered the room with the kind of quiet elegance that naturally made people adjust themselves without realizing it. Her posture remained composed, her expression unreadable, but there was exhaustion hidden beneath her eyes that Amy recognized immediately.
Jane’s mother still hadn’t noticed her yet, entirely focused on Jane.
But Amy did.
And the second she saw her mother, her body instinctively tensed.
She lowered her gaze automatically, already preparing herself for distance, disappointment, polite concern delivered too carefully to feel real.
Instead, Love walked directly toward her and rested warm hands gently against her shoulders.
“I’m here, Amy,” she said softly.
The words hit harder than they should have.
Amy’s throat tightened painfully.
Because her mother sounded sincere.
Not obligated.
Not detached.
Present.
Across the room, Milk froze.
Completely.
The change was subtle enough that only someone watching closely would notice it, but the entire atmosphere shifted around her anyway. Her hands stilled against Jane’s shoulder. Her breathing caught almost imperceptibly.
Slowly, like someone turning toward a ghost they never expected to see again, she lifted her head.
And saw Love.
For a moment, nobody spoke.
Not Jane.
Not Amy.
Not even Counselor Jingjing.
The silence stretched tight between the two women, carrying something far older than awkwardness. Something unfinished.
Something alive.
Milk stared at Love like memory had physically struck her.
And Love looked back the exact same way.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
The dangerous kind.
The kind that came from once knowing someone too deeply.
Counselor Jingjing finally cleared her throat softly. “I didn’t know you two were Jane and Amy’s mothers,” she said carefully. “Now I understand why they act like this.”
Jane and Amy exchanged confused looks before glancing back toward their mothers.
Suddenly, the rivalry between them felt smaller than something neither of them understood yet.
Because the way Milk and Love were looking at each other wasn’t casual.
It wasn’t polite.
It wasn’t even nostalgic.
It looked like old heartbreak forced suddenly back into the room before either of them had time to prepare for it.
Milk spoke first.
“Love.”
The name left her mouth quietly, but it landed with enough weight to change the air completely.
Love didn’t look away.
“Milk,” she replied softly.
And for the first time in her life, Amy heard her mother sound like she was feeling something she could no longer hide.