The new student body president is terrifying.
That's as much as Jellal knows about his new school, and it's not particularly comforting information. He idles in a secluded corner of the school while waiting for class to start, leaning against the wall and glancing around the compound. The school's homely, for sure, with the endless student artwork covering the walls and way people seem to be able to turn to anyone in the vicinity and strike up comfortable conversation, but its certainly not well kept. Almost all the benches in the school are snapped in half, looking like they were caught in the crossfire of a fight between students. In fact, that's the reason why Jellal waits for class to start standing up and not sitting down: simply because there was no place to sit.
"Hey!" A voice says. "Cool tats, dude."
A pink-haired girl strolls in his direction with glinting eyes and a canny little smirk resting on her mouth. She's got pink stockings pulled all the way up to her knees and her hair done up in sky-high ponytails that seem to cascade down endlessly.
Her gaze rests on the red markings that run down the side of his face, over his eyelid, just as most people do when they first meet him. Jellal remembers Ultear, laughing and red-cheeked, pulling him to the tattoo shop in the dead of the night and pointing to a random design in a magazine.
"Bring it on," Jellal said, unsteady with alcohol, flinging himself into the seat and tilting his face up for the kiss of the needle.
Those were days when he relished the feeling of invincibility that felt woven into his bones, when he could afford to do anything he wanted in the world, laugh as loudly as he wanted, when his mind was hazy and languid and toppled with the gentlest shove by a slim, nail-painted finger.
Jellal shrugs. "Thanks."
That smirk on the girl's face persists and Jellal can't help but read signs of foreboding in that pink curve. There is something about her, bright-eyed and guileless, that gives off the impression of an artfully flowered rose, replete with its own arsenal of thorns.
"The name's Meredy," the girl says, her voice high and fluting, traveling like a leaf on a breeze. "You're new here, aren't you? I saw you skulking about here like a loner, which you are, of course. Why the long face? And shouldn't you be out there trying to socialize? It's your first day, you really shouldn't blow this by being a block of wood. And if you're scared, you don't have to be. The people here at this school are kind of nice, all you have to do is get past their, well… eccentricities."
The speech flows out of Meredy without pause, nor does she wait for him to answer the litany of questions that appear to have been rhetorical. She quirks her head to the side, waiting eagerly for his response, bird-like.
Jellal raises an eyebrow. "I didn't come here to make friends."
And it's true. This isn't another chance for him to lose himself in the quick of the moment; it's something along the taste of redemption, of finding a new start. The thought of Grimoire Heart still stings bitterly.
"Ah! That's gotta be a problem," she chirps. "Because I'm your friend now. You're my friend now, too. That's how friendship works, you socially-stunted party pooper."
Jellal bristles at the title. "I'm not socially stunted and I've had friends before."
"That's great then. So you don't need me to go through the basics with you. Smile, greet people, maintain eye contact, don't fling shit around, that kind of stuff? Brilliant."
Jellal wants to say something more, to object to this whole proposition, but ends up replying with a long-suffering sigh. His own will seems useless when pitted against Meredy's, and besides, the girl did seem to have good intentions aside from her ironclad adamancy.
"I like the sound of that." She flashes him a toothy grin. The strident sound of the bell reverberates through the entire compound, eliciting a flinch from the both of them. "Yeah, that darn bell's too loud. Anyway, class is starting. I'll meet you on the rooftop during lunch, alright?"
Just before they depart, Meredy catches his arm. "Oh, and if you do have to know something, don't break any rules. Your tattoo makes it seem like you have some rebellious streak. Do not act on it. The new student body president is absolutely terrifying."
Meredy shivers comedically, casting a haunted glance out of the window as if recalling a particularly bad incident.
"Anyway," she says, snapping back to her usual exuberant self. "See ya later, alligator! And don't forget the rooftop!"
With that, Meredy flounces off and disappears into the throng of students bustling about in the hallway.