Chapter Text
Ryu Rumi considered herself a pretty resilient person. She had survived advanced calculus, overly-intense mock trial, and a weeklong Model UN conference on two hours of sleep and an ungodly amount of sugar-free Red Bull within the last year alone. But nothing—nothing—had prepared her for the storm that was Sung Mira.
Their mentorship sessions were scheduled for the start of fifth period—11:50 a.m. sharp, every Tuesday and Thursday. By 11:53, Rumi had already straightened out every crease in her uniform blazer, running her hands along her skirt to do the same. By 11:57, she’d rearranged the chairs into a perfectly symmetrical triangle, stacked the worksheets, and rehearsed her opening speech.
By 12:02, she’d talked herself out of emailing Bobby that this just wasn’t going to work about three times over.
At 12:06, Mira finally sauntered in.
“You’re late.” Rumi said tightly. “You were the one telling me not to be late.” She breathed out exasperatedly. Mira just rolled her eyes, pulled out a lollipop, and unwrapped it with a dramatic flourish.
“You’re obsessed with me, you know that?” She drawled, grinning wickedly when the purple-haired girl balked at the statement. “Was helping a freshman find his teeth in the gym. Sorry I didn’t bring a note.”
“I am not. I just value structure.” Rumi snapped, ignoring the implied violence of Mira’s excuse for now. “Unlike you.”
“Aw…” Mira said, leaning over the back of her chair with a pout Rumi’d like to smack off her face. “You missed me.”
“I have better things to miss.” Rumi muttered, flipping through the worksheet packet she’d printed out last night. “Today’s focus is balancing chemical equations. Unless you’d prefer algebra?” She offered, trying to at least be diplomatic.
“You know, you’re a lot hotter when you’re mean.” The taller girl said, tilting her head in amusement as she finally sat down. Rumi groaned in anger, grabbing the first equation sheet she set her eyes on.
“Fuck you. Complete the first five. And no doodles.” Rumi shoved the worksheet across the table harshly, fingers white where they pushed heavily against the paper.
“There she is…” Mira smirked, but (annoyingly) obeyed. She picked up a pen, eyes skimming over the problems.
After about twenty seconds, she snorted.
“What?” Rumi demanded.
“These are too easy.” Mira said. “Are you trying to bore me into good behavior?” She levelled the younger girl with a questioning stare. It felt like a dare she shouldn’t accept.
“You’re a senior in high school, not university. They’re aligned to your grade level.” Rumi scoffed, offended.
“More like the grade level of a golden retriever.” The pink-haired girl rolled her eyes. “I mean come on, Ryu. Really, you’re better than this.”
“Then prove me wrong.” Rumi challenged, doing her best to regain any sort of upper hand.
“Gladly.” Mira’s eyes glinted daringly, and it made a tingle shoot up her spine. She did her best to ignore it.
“This isn’t a joke. I don’t want to do this either, but Principal Han says I’m responsible for getting you on track!” Rumi bristled, not willing to have ‘failed tutor’ on her otherwise spotless record.
“On track?” Mira echoed with a slow grin. “You think I’m failing, don’t you?”
“I know you are. You're you. You don’t—”
“You’ve looked at my grades?” Mira asked, one perfect eyebrow tilted in a way that made Rumi want to rip her own hair out. The shorter girl blinked.
“They’re… It’s part of your file.” She offered. Admittedly, she’d only skimmed it. She knew enough about Sung Mira already—the last thing she was interested in was learning more. Mira leaned back in her chair like she was settling in for a movie, its front legs leaving the ground as she balanced on the back two. Her face regained its usual stoic demeanor.
“Oh, then you know I’ve got a 3.96 GPA, earn the top scores in math, have an English writing scholarship, and I finished the advanced biology final last year in just under twenty-two minutes?”
Rumi froze. Mira grinned devillishly.
“That… Can’t be right.” She let out slowly, eyes scanning Mira for any sign of deception. She found none.
“Want me to recite the periodic table backwards? I’ve got a few Nietzsche quotes in the tank, if you’d like. Ooo, or maybe I should solve your little practice problems in non-erasable pen, just to piss you off?” She said, slamming the legs of her chair back down and tapping the end of her own highlighter against Rumi’s pencil in an aggravatingly smooth movement. Rumi just stared at the pink-haired girl as she continued to flip the pink highlighter hypnotically around her fingers.
“Then why—why do you keep getting into fights? You're not stupid.” She asked, a genuine curiosity in her voice that she instantly regretted exposing. Mira’s expression shifted, just for a second. Something darker passed over her face before she masked it with another lazy smirk.
“Not everything’s about grades, Ryu.”
“This isn’t a game, Mira. You could get expelled if you keep it up. I mean, I’ve referred you to Bobby like five times in the last month alone.” Rumi folded her arms.
“And yet…” Mira said, swapping the highlighter for a pen. “Here I am. Ready to be tutored by my moral superior.”
Rumi opened her mouth to retort, then closed it again as Mira turned her attention to the page in front of her with a pointed huff. The older girl scribbled answers onto the sheet with mechanical ease—fast and accurate, like she’d done it all before. Rumi watched, stunned.
“You’re… Actually doing it.”
“No.” Mira said with annoyance, not looking up as she continued with far more than just the first five questions. “I’m showing off.”
She finished the last problem, flipped the paper towards Rumi, and gave the junior a dangerous smile.
“Next?” There was a smugness in her voice as she put down her pen that Rumi couldn’t stand. Still, she checked the answers. All correct.
“Why are you like this?” She finally asked, after another moment of that intense, almost dangerous stare. Mira tilted her head.
“Like what?”
“You’re clearly capable. You could do anything. Apply to top universities, be a model student, maybe even be on the council right now. But instead, you get into fights, skip class, wear non-uniform earrings, terrorize the staff, vandalize the lockers—”
“They’re stickers!” Mira interjected through her overly-long rant. “Removable.”
“Still against policy!”
“And yet, you’re still sitting here. Prissy little teacher’s pet. With me.” Mira said, smiling dangerously. She did another annoyingly perfect flip of her highlighter.
“That’s because I have to.” Rumi asserted.
“You sure?” Mira asked, her voice low. “Because it kinda seems like you're having just a little bit of fun. You like telling me what to do, don’t you?”
“Don’t flatter yourself.” Rumi grunted.
“Not flattering anyone. Just observing. I’m kind of an expert at it.” The taller girl shrugged, leaning back in her chair once again.
“You’re infuriating.”
“You’re uptight.” Mira quipped.
“I’m responsible.” Rumi corrected.
“You’re a control freak, is what you are.”
“At least I’m not constantly trying to get expelled!” The purple-haired girl finally let out, slamming her hands down on the table.
Mira laughed, loud and full, like Rumi had told the best joke she’d ever heard. It echoed through the empty classroom. Rumi hated that it was actually kind of pretty.
“I’m not trying to get expelled.” Mira said, leveling her with that signature dead stare. “I just don’t like being told what to do by people who’ve never earned it.”
“You think I haven’t earned this?” Rumi frowned deeply. Her whole life, she’d worked to get to the top. Her whole life.
“You’ve earned something…” Mira drawled, resting her chin in her hand. “But the way you act like you’ve got it all figured out? That’s not real. That’s fear. That’s your need to be so fucking perfect for everyone else.”
The words landed like a slap to the face. The purple-haired girl froze, locking her jaw to keep it from dropping in horror.
“You don’t know anything about me.” Rumi pushed back from the desk, eyes narrowed. Something shifted in the taller girl’s gaze just then, and Rumi was suddenly reminded exactly why so much of the student body feared Sung Mira—the blaring red warning signs that were her sharp tongue and constantly-bruised knuckles.
“Not yet…” Mira said, voice quieter now. Just as threatening as it was teasing while she leaned forward to poke that damn highlighter straight into Rumi’s chest.
Their eyes locked. A beat passed. Two.
And then the bell rang—sharp, shrill, and entirely too welcome.
Rumi stood quickly, gathering her things with more force than necessary. Mira didn’t stand. Didn’t even grab her backpack. She just watched Rumi make her way towards the hallway. It was a power move, and they both knew it.
“We’ll continue on Thursday.” Rumi said over her shoulder, pausing at the door before slamming it behind her.
Outside, Rumi leaned against the wall and exhaled, clutching her planner to her chest like it might keep her panicked heart from punching through her ribcage. After a moment, she pushed off into the crowd, weaving through the masses of students on their way to class in a numb daze. She was still shaking when she finally made it to sixth period history, sitting down next to Zoey. And somehow, Mira’s voice—teasing, intimidating, low—was suddenly replaced with another.
Faults and fears. Never let them see.
__________
“So, how was delinquent duty?” Zoey asked later, hiking her backpack a little higher on her shoulders as they waited for the bus. “Did you cry? She made Abby cry during eighth period. Has she corrupted you, yet? Ooo, did she draw a skull in your planner?”
“It’s not funny, Zoey.” Rumi scowled.
“It’s a little funny.” Zoey said, giggling a bit at her friend’s visibly annoyed state.
“She’s impossible!” The older girl snapped, her voice louder than intended. A few students nearby glanced over. She dropped her volume, flustered. “She acts like everything’s just a game to her, and she’s not even failing! She’s actually…” Her hands flailed midair in frustration before she huffed and yanked at the end of her braid. “…Infuriatingly good at everything.”
“So she’s hot and smart. Devastating.” The shorter girl said, nodding solemnly as the bus came into view around the corner.
“Zoey.”
“What?” Zoey said, holding her hands up innocently. “I’m just observing the facts. You wouldn’t be this wound up if she were boring and dumb.”
“She doesn’t take anything seriously. She constantly goes off topic. She rates how hot I am on a scale of polite to mean!” Rumi raved, ignoring Zoey’s last jab. She crossed her arms tightly over her chest, scowling into the middle distance like the sidewalk had personally offended her. “And then she just says stuff—these random little digs about fear and perfectionism —like she’s psychoanalyzing me or something. Out of fucking nowhere.”
“Mhm, mhm. Such a dangerous combination. Hot. Smart. Emotionally perceptive. Classic heartbreaker archetype.” Zoey said, nodding like she was diagnosing a patient.
“She is not —” Rumi started, then stopped herself. Her cheeks burned. “I don’t care. I just want to get through the semester without stabbing a pencil through her smug little—”
The bus groaned to a stop in front of them, brakes hissing. The doors clattered open.
“Sounds like you need a drink.” Zoey said, hopping onto the first step.
“It’s 3:15 on a Tuesday.” Rumi muttered, following behind her.
“Water.” Zoey deadpanned, tossing a wink over her shoulder as she moved to the back of the bus. “You need water. Too keyed up from caffeine, you dehydrated little disaster.”
Rumi dropped into the seat beside her with a heavy sigh, arms crossed as her forehead thudded lightly against the cool glass of the window.
__________
By the end of their Thursday session—thirty-seven minutes of Mira refusing to stop stealing her pens, making offhanded comments about Zoey being ‘kinda cute’ just to piss her off, and somehow still answering every single practice question correctly—Rumi had had enough.
She stormed down the hall, her shoes clicking against the linoleum over the sound of Mira’s final little wolf whistle. The paper folder clutched in her hand was bent slightly from the intensity of her grip as her braid bounced with righteous fury. She didn’t even knock before pushing open the door to the guidance office.
Bobby looked up from behind his corner desk, his hair tussled from whatever stressful meeting he’d just held. Papers and half-empty coffee mugs surrounded him like a fortress, but his face still lit up the second he saw her.
“Rumi! How are you?”
“I need a new mentee.” She said, voice flat and barely concealing the fire behind her words. “This pairing isn’t working.” Bobby just blinked.
“Trouble with Mira?” He asked, pushing his papers aside and leaning forward on his elbows.
“She’s always late. She’s distracting. She doesn’t take anything seriously. And she-she twirls her highlighter —” Rumi rattled off, pacing in a small, furious circle in front of his desk. “And she’s not even failing!” She wanted to collapse into the couch against the wall, but her body was too energized by stored aggravation to rest. Bobby tried to suppress a smile but failed, a soft chuckle escaping as he leaned back in his own chair.
“I know. She’s straight-As.” He said. “That’s not why I put her in the program.”
Rumi stopped pacing and turned to stare at him, aghast.
“She got a perfect score on the last practice test. She corrected my math. I’m pretty sure she just likes tormenting me.” She accused, sagging her shoulders.
“That sounds like progress.” He offered a sympathetic nod, folding his hands together.
“Progress?” She sputtered, eyes wide. “In what universe is this progress?”
“Rumi…” Bobby said gently. “You can’t control everything. Plus, she hasn't shoved you in a locker yet—so... Yes. Progress.” She crossed her arms, posture stiff as a board.
“I’m not trying to control her. I’m trying to tutor her. Which is apparently impossible.”
“Mira might be... Aggressive.” Bobby continued, choosing his words with obvious care. “But that doesn’t mean she’s beyond help. Maybe she just needs something different. Not remediation. Connection. She needs a support line. Maybe then, she’ll stop prowling the halls like a predator.”
Rumi stared at him like he’d just suggested she perform open heart surgery.
“You want me to bond with her?”
“I want you to try.” Bobby said, tone kind but firm. “This is a challenge, Rumi. A chance for growth—for both you and her.”
“I don’t need growth.” Rumi deadpanned. “I need sanity.”
“Same thing.” Bobby chuckled, then picked his discarded paperwork back up.
“You sound like Han right now, you know that?” She stared at him, exasperated, but there was a crack in her armor now—a twitch of her mouth, a slight wavering of her glare that she could physically feel. He just smiled that all-knowing, Bobby smile. She huffed and turned toward the door, muttering something under her breath that may or may not have been this is why I hate days that start with T.