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On a Tuesday Morning, In one of the bathrooms of Jinhao's College.
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The bathroom on the third floor of Jinhao's Business building was, on a normal day, just a bathroom.
Today it was an ambush.
Yun Jiao had figured that out approximately four seconds after the door closed behind her and she turned around to find five girls standing between her and the exit.
she looked at their faces, smirked.
Ah.
Yunjinna's fan club.
She had noticed them earlier — hovering at the edges of the common room, watching her with the particular expression of girls who had decided they didn't like something before it even opened its mouth. The kind of girls who had built their entire social identity around one person and treated any threat to that person as a personal attack.
Loyal.
Territorial.
And right now looking at her like she was something they'd found on the bottom of their shoe.
The one in front — tall, sharp bob haircut, the natural leader energy of someone who had been the meanest person in every room since middle school — crossed her arms.
"Yun Jiao," she said.
Not a greeting.
A declaration.
"That's me!" Yun Jiao smiled at her.
Bright. Warm. Completely unbothered.
The girl's eyes narrowed.
"You think you're something special, don't you."
"Hmm." Yun Jiao tilted her head. Genuinely considered this. "I think I'm pretty though. Does that count?"
Sharp Bob's jaw tightened.
Behind her the other four exchanged looks.
"You've been here one day," Sharp Bob said, stepping forward. "One day and you're already walking around like you own the place. Sitting with Sister Yunjinna's friends. Acting familiar with people you don't know."
"Sister Yunjinna invited me to sit with her," Yun Jiao pointed out helpfully.
"Don't call her Sister."
"She's my sister."
"She's too good to be your sister." Sharp Bob's voice dropped. Cold now. The performance dropping away into something uglier underneath. "You're an orphanage rat who got lucky. You think a Yun family name changes what you are? You think any of us don't know exactly where you came from?"
The bathroom was very quiet.
Yun Jiao looked at her.
Her expression hadn't changed.
Still soft... Still open... Still wearing the face of a girl who found the world mostly harmless and was mildly puzzled when it wasn't.
In her head she's like : Oh sweetie, You have absolutely no idea.
"I know where I came from," she said pleasantly. "Do you know where you're going? Because this conversation seems like it's heading somewhere none of us are going to enjoy."
Sharp Bob stepped closer.
"I'm going to give you some advice," she said. "Get lost ! Transfer back to whatever school you came from. Stop embarrassing yourself by pretending you belong here."
Yun Jiao said. "I'll think about it."
"It wasn't a suggestion."
"I know. But I'll think about it anyway."
Sharp Bob looked at her for a long moment.
Then she nodded at the girl on her left.
They moved.
Not to hit her.
Just surrounding. Closing the space. The physical language of people who wanted to make someone feel small and trapped and very aware of how outnumbered they were.
Yun Jiao stood in the middle of it.
Completely still and completely calm.
The way a very still pond was calm. With something moving under the surface that you couldn't see yet.
"You don't get it," Sharp Bob said, right in front of her now with her face close. "This isn't your world. You don't belong in Sister Yunjinna's family. You don't belong at this school. You don't belong anywhere near people like us." Her eyes traveled over Yun Jiao's face with deliberate contempt. "Your mother was probably some dirty slut who couldn't even keep her own child — that's why you ended up in an orphanage. Like trash that nobody wanted—"
The temperature in the room changed.
Not dramatically.
Not loudly.
Just — changed.
The way a room changed when something that had been very still stopped being still.
Yun Jiao looked at Sharp Bob.
The soft expression was gone.
Her Face changed instantly... Like a mask being removed. Her eyes chilled with crazed madness, eyes that had nothing to do with being seventeen years old on her first day of school. She looked at Sharp Bob with the quiet, patient, completely terrifying calm, you can some madness twinkling in her eyes, deciding exactly how best to kill her without causing much trouble afterwards.
Sharp Bob took a step back involuntarily....She didn't mean to....Her body just — did it.
"Say that again.....hm," Yun Jiao said softly. Her voice was very quiet with a tinge of smile. That was worse, somehow, than if she'd shouted.
"I—" Sharp Bob started.
Yun Jiao moved.
One step forward.
Sharp Bob's hand flew up — instinct, panic — palm open, swinging toward her face—
And then—Voices.
Outside the bathroom door.
Multiple voices.
And footsteps.
The specific footsteps of more than one person walking with purpose down a hallway.
Yun Jiao heard them.
Processed them.
Recognised one set immediately.
Even through a closed door.
Her brain made a decision in approximately zero point three seconds.
Her face made the same decision immediately after.
"WAHHHH—"
The sound that came out of Yun Jiao was the most devastatingly pitiful, heart-wrenching, soul-destroying cry that had ever been produced by a human throat.
Sharp Bob froze.
The other four froze.
Yun Jiao's eyes — which one second ago had been doing something that made grown men reconsider their life choices — were now absolutely, completely, genuinely-looking swimming with tears.
Both hands came up to cover her face.
Her shoulders shook.
Her whole small body trembled like a leaf in a storm.
"I just— I just wanted to go to school—" she sobbed, voice cracking perfectly on every syllable. "I didn't do anything— I don't understand why everyone— wahhhh—"
The bathroom door opened.