XXIV

LAIA WAS DEFINITELY SURE THAT THE ASSHAT had somehow become possessed by a kindhearted spirit who took notice of her jeopardy.

Jeopardy, of course, being the asshat's attitude.

But of course, good things always come to an end. Sometimes, abruptly. For the asshat, abruptly means returning to his ugly personality the moment they arrived at Laia's house.

A sneer on his face, the asshat wrinkled his nose. "Your place smells,"

Laia turned to him with a deadpanned stare. "You do realize you're standing next to the garbage can, right?"

Okay, maybe Laia did forget that today was the garbage truck's schedule to get their garbage. But did the asshat really have to call her house smelly?

He hasn't even entered the front door yet! Mind him, Laia had amazing cleaning skills!

Not that the asshat probably cleans his condominium, Laia thinks. The asshat probably pays someone to do it or maybe his parents do it for him.

And not that the short-haired girl was interested because she was definitely not.

The asshat covered his nose with a handkerchief. "Don't you throw your trash around here?"

Laia unlocks the gate with fast movements. "We do," She pushes it open and makes her way to the front door. "Not that it's your concern,"

"It may as well be mine if I decide to pass through here again,"

His statement made the girl turn to him with perplexion on her face. Did the asshat imply that he would be coming back?

And does that mean he wouldn't stay for dinner--

"What the fuck," Laia murmurs to herself, shaking her head in disgust at her thoughts.

Thankfully, the asshat was still quite far away from where the girl was and he didn't hear her words of disgust.

Opening the front door, Laia steals a glance at the asshat who was already on the verge of leaving.

Looks like he won't be biding her goodbye. Not that Laia minds, it's seriously the least of her concerns whether the asshat would have the basic decency to bid her farewell or not.

Laia closes the front door the moment she couldn't see the asshat's lingering shadow anymore.

The next day was... bizarre to say at least.

Unlike how Laia usually starts her school days with Brie welcoming her with open arms or even just with a smile, she saw no sign of the girl.

Well, more like a sign of everybody. Nobody was at their supposed line for the flag ceremony, which was weird because usually during this hour everybody would already be lining up.

Laia was even about to be late!

Scanning her surroundings, the girl tried to find any sign of any of her classmates but to no avail. Did they have a secret plot or something to be absent today?

She sighs heavily and started to lose her patience. She was about to just leave and make her way to the library to study (or just chill) when one of the vultures approached her with an excited grin.

"Heya!" Anna greets Laia with jazz hands.

Laia didn't even bother the frown on her lips which makes the other girl laugh at her reaction. "You don't seem very pleased to see me, Miss Perfect,"

More like anyone in the matter. All Laia wants is a problem-free day, thank you very much, but with the appearance of this vulture, she already knew something disastrous was about to happen or is already happening.

And the girl was right. Horribly right.

Upon entering her classroom, she was greeted by Brie's hair being pulled by a livid Vivi. The anger was obvious on Vivi's usually composed features and it was even more obvious that she had no plans on letting go of Brie's long hair anytime soon.

Brie was screaming obscenities as well. She was thrashing around, attempting to grab Vivi's hair as well but Vivi wouldn't let her.

"Get her, Vivi! She spread all those rumors about you!" Laia heard Claudette cheer from the sidelines with Sandra beside her.

Laia didn't waste time and immediately tried to pull Vivi away from her friend, but Vivi was adamant about leaving Brie bald, thus pushing Laia away.

"Go away, Laia! Let the girls fight!"

"Laia, don't be a spoilsport!"

"Don't ruin the fight, Laia!"

Laia turned to her classmates with disappointment on her face. Why are they like this?

"It's not my fault Jake doesn't want you anymore!" Vivi's straightforwardness only made their classmates cheer even louder.

Despite being shorter than Brie, Vivi proved to be extremely good at fighting. She even landed some slaps on Brie's already marked face, and even landed a few kicks on her knees, making her lose her balance and then fall to the floor.

"Get her, Vivi!" Anna suddenly appeared on Laia's side and even grinned at her triumphantly.

As if they had planned this all along.

Brie was already on the floor but she still continued trying to pull on Vivi's uniform in an attempt to pull the other girl down as well.

But to no avail. Vivi was able to predict the other girl's movements and would occasionally step backward and land another kick on the girl's body.

Everything was obviously running out of control and Laia shouldn't just standstill. She knew she shouldn't, but there was a voice on her head saying that Brie did deserve it.

Vivi, who seemed to be on the upper hand, suddenly fell on the floor. Brie didn't waste time and immediately crawled on top of her foe, pulling her hair roughly and with a sinister gleam on her eyes.

"You fucking deserve it, you piece of--"

"Brielle Maybelline Mae Chua, let go of Vivienne this very instead!"

The loud cheering stopped in an instant and everyone's eyes drifted to the door of their classroom on where their adviser stood.

Her face was a mix of a variety of emotions, but anger was the most prominent.

In an instant, she pulls a stunned Brie away from Vivienne whose fearlessness from earlier had disappeared and was replaced with meekness.

Laia had to give it to the girl, she was really good at acting.

Unfortunately, that's absolutely not good news to her friend who was still unable to react to what happened.

After helping Vivienne to a nearby chair, their adviser momentarily turned to Brie with disappointment and infuriation on her face and then to her whole class. "What happened here?!"

Claudette started sobbing dramatically. "Oh my gosh, Ma'am Anne," She points to Brie with a shaking finger. "Brie came out of nowhere and tackled Vivi to the ground! It was so terrifying!"

As if on cue Anna started acting all scared as well, even holding onto Sandra. "It's true, Ma'am Anne! Gosh, we all wanted to help but we were so scared!"

Laia couldn't restrain a scoff. These harpies!

"That's not true--"

"Oh my gosh, she's gonna hurt us next!" Sandra wails emotionally.

Ma'am Anne, unfortunately, seemed to believe the lies of the harpies. Shaking her head, she turns to Brie. "What is the reason for all this madness? Why would you let your emotions get ahead of you Brie? This is high school, not a fighting ring!"

Some of their classmates chuckled in response, but their laughter died down when their teacher turned to them with a frown.

She was obviously not joking despite how her words sounded to them.

Brie couldn't do anything. Every time she opens her mouth, one of the harpies would dramatically wail, therefore stopping her from defending herself.

Even whenever Laia raised her hand or would try to speak, their adviser would simply shake her head.

It was obvious that the woman thinks that Laia was simply being biased, but she wasn't! Sure Brie had a huge fault on the whole scenario, but it wasn't just her!

Everything happened due to the harpies!

Attempting to get her adviser's attention once again to defend her friend, Laia shakes her raised arm wildly in the air to no avail. The harpies even seemed to grin even more at Laia's futile act. Laia was about to decide to just scream out her adviser's name but she was interrupted by the classroom door creaking.

The door opened to reveal the asshat and Jake, both looking like they recently had a good time. However, the moment Jake's eyes drifted towards a roughed-up Brie and a sobbing Vivi, the boy honestly looked torn on who to approach.

Brie's caramel brown eyes lifted from the ground and met Jake's own. Laia watched as her friend silently pleaded to the boy through her eyes to approach her and promise her that everything would end up alright, but the boy walked towards Vivi.

The long-haired girl looked at the scene unfolding in front of her with a dumbfounded look on her face. It was as if her face was drained of all the colors.

"I don't think you should continue the play, Brie," Their adviser's eyes remained on Brie's frozen state, waiting to see any sort of reaction from her student and failed when Brie didn't even say anything.

"I hear no disagreement from you," She makes her way to Brie and lightly pats her shoulder. "You are a good actress, but I think your performance might be affected by your personal issues, and don't even get me started with how you acted just now--"

"Yeah, whatever," Brie interjected. Her student's response caught the older woman off guard, even making her step backward and retract her hand. "May I be excused? I have to go to the bathroom and fix myself. You know, since someone decided to pull my hair the moment I arrived in the room. Not that you'll believe me,"

Laia watched how their whole class, even the harpies, were genuinely surprised at how Brie responded to losing her major part in the play. Most probably thought that Brie would throw a fit, or even just sob uncontrollably.

But Laia knew her friend well. She wouldn't be best friends with Brie for four years if she didn't at least know that her friend was barely keeping it all together.

"A-alright then," Their teacher was barely even able to stutter those words out and Brie had already grabbed her bag and left the room.

Laia was quick to glare at the harpies and at Jake before following her friend immediately.

And yes, she didn't even bother to excuse herself. But it's not like their adviser would listen to her right? She's obviously focused on writing her own narrative of how things happened despite not even bothering to check the classroom's CCTV camera.

The short-haired girl quickens her pace when her friend started running towards the stairs. She's probably going to the rooftop, Laia notes, and starts to run as well.

She was right. Her friend did indeed decide to stay on the rooftop for a while. Closing the door as quietly as possible, Laia slowly made her way to where her friend was.

Surprised would be an understatement to how Laia reacted to her friend smoking. She had never seen Brie smoke before!

Laia reaches for the cigarette resting on top of her friend's bottom lip. "Give me that--"

"Let go, Laia!" Brie scowls at her, cocking her head to the side to avoid Laia's hands. "God! Can't you leave me for once?"

"I can't," Laia successfully pulls the cigarette from her friend's lips and threw it. "Anyway, don't smoke. If you can have mercy on your lungs, at least have mercy on me--"

"You don't have to act as if you're not thinking that I'm just a stupid, emotional, careless bitch," The long-haired girl turns away from her friend's intent gaze. "Ugh, don't even look at me--"

"Shut up and listen to me," Laia leaves her friend's side and sits behind her, pulling her friend's disarrayed hair to a ponytail. "You made a mistake. A huge one,"

"I know--"

"Shut up," Laia pulls her friend's hair a bit rougher than she should, effectively shutting her up. "Yes, you did a mistake. But you can fix it. You know you can, you just choose not to,"

Her friend's silence motivated Laia to continue. "You knew that Vivi didn't do anything wrong alongside Jake, but deliberately you let those harpies spread such vicious rumors so can you really blame Vivi?"

"But Jake--"

"Do you seriously think we're in a teen romance movie, Brie?"

Brie turns away, cheeks flushing in embarrassment. "I just--"

"No," Laia returns to her friend's side after deeming her friend's new hairstyle adequate. "He is not your knight. You are your own knight, and you will fix everything, starting from apologizing to Vivi."

The look on Brie's face was obvious contempt from what her friend suggested, but after letting out a heavy sigh she nods. "Okay."