Ymir was a simple girl with simple observation skills and wants.

Historia Reiss looked hot in a skirt, and she wanted under it.

Not that complicated. Most people with eyes in their school thought along the same lines, only they went and made it weird. They always made it weird. The way to get a girl's attention was not ducking around corners and jamming unsigned letters into her locker. They had four years in this particular hellhole before they moved on to the next one. That wasn't enough time to play out a twenty-season soap opera plot. If you wanted to get down and dirty with someone, you had to jump on them. Carpe diem, seize the day, get in their face and be specific about where you want theirs.

That was the master plan.

No one had time for all the hemming and hawing just getting a conversation started. Ditch that noise and go for the jugular. Screw invisible social boundary lines, if she wanted to talk to a cute cheerleader, all she needed was a pair of lungs loud enough.

There was nothing to it. Get an in, get close, then charm the girl silly until they're making out under the bleachers. No muss, no fuss, and a fuckton of fun.

Porco stared across the cafeteria table at her, mouth in aghast horror, crumpled milk carton and mangled straw passing the most extreme of judgments.

"That," he said, "is not how you do romance."

Ymir held up her hand, resplendently lounged on the opposite bench. Her eyes were perfectly level with the main prep table, where there was so much concentrated blond a legit, ethereal glow shimmered in the air above. The main contributor, esteemed object of all her carnal lust, and perpetual smartphone addict, wasn't in the realm of noticing. Historia never noticed anyone. It was great. While everyone else was busy crying over their castrated egos, only one brave soul remained to swoop in and fill the obvious gap in the queen bee's social life.

Porco was an amateur killjoy still struggling to make it to the majors.

Ymir was a straight-A student with a drama elective. This was her party.

"That's not how you do romance," she corrected. "We're also not doing romance, here."

"We are not a we."

"We're not?"

A tray clacked down next to Porco's spot, freezing him and gaining their table three levels of respectability. Pieck maneuvered her crutches around the bench smoothly, sighing.

"That's a shame. We've all been getting along so well lately."

Making the grave mistake of counting his best friend as an ally in his misguided quest, Porco puffed up his chest and sharpened up his glower. Like immediately scooting over and being primed to say thank you if one of the crutches clubbed him in the head didn't mark him as a pushover. He said, as ominously as Tree #3's understudy, "Ymir wants to bang a cheerleader."

"Does she?" Pieck popped the lid off her pudding. "Good for her."

Ymir offered Pieck a thumbs up before pretending Porco had enough of her attention to deserve a response. "See? This is what being supportive looks like."

Porco ignored her. "No, not good for her. She's after the pod person."

Locking him in the A/V club room on movie day couldn't just be good for a laugh, could it? He had to be a nerd about it. Ymir rolled her eyes. "Like being an alien replacement makes her any less hot."

"Oh, Historia? We were lab partners last year." Pieck craned her neck over to share Ymir's sightline. She slurped her milk calmly. Observing the popularity black hole for a solid few seconds that should've been spent not eyeing Ymir's girl, she said, "She has marvelous bone structure."

Those capillaries in Pock's cheeks were not going to make it to middle age. "She's a cheerleader who doesn't know how to smile."

That was the truest fucking truth to enter the school's halls since conception. Every routine, without fail, the second Historia transferred in, was missing one important—doubtless radiant—smile. The haze of the field lights and the regular chanted cheers tried to hide it, but they fell shorter than Jaeger's football tryout.

Ymir had a bet going with herself that the only reason Historia joined up was so no one would bitch about her being an ice queen. Everyone knew that pretty blonde cheerleaders were happy about everything. Absolutely everything. They were built to bleed glitter.

Historia had been staring at her phone for the last five minutes with the same deadeye stare, ignoring every sparkly, peppy person in her vicinity with such palpable force that Ymir didn't know how they didn't all puff into dust. There was a goddess among them, and she had no time for wimpy mortals.

Ymir had been accused of a demonic, corrupting presence since she was five. Mortality was for losers.

"It's freaky."

Hell, had Pock kept talking?

Ymir shrugged. The bench rolled her shirt uncomfortably. "Biblically, angels are supposed to be terrifying," she said.

"She's not terrifying, just creepy and weird."

"I'm sure they had that rep, too."

"She's also not an angel," Porco bit out. He was in the unfortunate stage of his life where his voice was refusing to take puberty's suggestion to stop cracking.

"Then explain how every time she walks by I have a religious experience."

"Are you fucking—"

Pieck interrupted what was surely going to be an epic comeback, full of broiling puritan indignation. "Her uncle was arrested last year for starting a cult."

Ymir lifted her head off the bench. She looked at Pieck. Porco probably hadn't stopped since she sat down, but he was usually more subtle about how far down his jaw slipped. Pieck continued to slurp her milk.

"They let him go," she added helpfully.

While Porco rediscovered words and mumbled about the normally very appealing part of that (the Reiss family had more money than most countries—busting a cult leader or two free was child's play), Ymir focused on the important things.

"Where'd you hear about that?" she asked.

"I told you," Pieck said, smiling serenely. "We were lab partners."

Ymir's interest rose with her hackles. "She talked to you?"

"Not especially. But it's hard to spend time with someone without deepening your relationship." She sent a brighter smile Porco's way, and he blushed. Because they were disgusting. With whatever perverse goal she deemed a success in that flyby interaction tallied and notched, she turned back to Ymir. "You don't have any classes with her, do you?"

Ymir slumped back on her bench. Her arms folded over her chest. Letting them dangle to the floor meant that her fingers would touch the infested linoleum. "I'm on the honor roll. The only people I have classes with are dorks."

"And you're both heading home early today."

If she were Pock, she would complain about being grouped up with him. For the continued joy of everyone, she had more class. She complained about their landlord. Foster parent of the decade was ditching them to go on some nature hike with a felon he'd hooked up with, and they had to make nice with his sister before he was all the way out the door.

She watched Historia's legs cross themselves under her table. How was that legal.

Pieck's traded her carton out for her untouched pudding. Licking the spoon thoughtfully, she said, "I suppose this is your only chance to talk to her today."

Ymir's crossed arms bulged a little. Marcel's barbells came in handy for some things. She could see Porco perk up out of the corner of her distracted eye.

"Yeah," she said, "so?"

"So you're sitting over here," Porco said. "Not talking to her. When you said this was going to be simple."

"It is going to be simple." Had they seen her? Either of them? It was going to be the easiest thing in the world. Even if anyone was blind enough to call themselves competition, the intimidation factor was playing in her favor all day long. Historia sitting at a crowded table full of sycophants, a whole room of people staring at her, could go a whole lunch hour without the burden of a single conversation.

She'd never be expecting Ymir to waltz in.

"I'm sure she would welcome your company," Pieck said kindly. Porco snorted.

"Damn straight," Ymir said.

"If only lunch didn't end in forty minutes."

"Where'd your manners go? Interrupting people while they eat is rude." Historia had inhaled her lunch in the first five minutes. She looked pretty consumed with her phone, though. What kind of jerk got in the way of that? There was a lot of behavior people as stunning as her could get away with, but taking advantage of that was wrong. Wasn't that what Pock kept railing on about?

Pieck sighed. "I suppose you two are doomed to wait for another day. Fate can be cruel."

Six tables away, Historia tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Shining like the sun and blinding everyone in the building. Ymir was the only one to keep her eyes wide open, following that magic hand lingering in the air before it dropped back to her phone.

All she had to do was walk over and say something.

Simple as fuck.

But as like… a tomorrow thing.