Ok, staying up late obsessing over random shit that happened was a huge mistake. I'm so tired this morning that I can barely sit still without nearly falling asleep, and my mouth feels like I stuffed about five towels in it overnight. I sit up and stretch, then look at the clock. About 6:45. I've got plenty of time to kill before I have to leave for school.

Once it finally IS time to leave, the bus I'm supposed to get on doesn't even get to my stop until about twenty minutes later than the schedule said it was supposed to. I flip the bus driver the bird while he isn't looking, then sit through the agonizingly slow-paced bus ride. We apparently got the dumbest bus driver on the planet to drive our bus, he gets lost at least eight times before finally figuring out where the school actually is. I mean, I know driving a vehicle as long as a small building full of ungrateful little assholes is hard, but come on, guy. At least TRY. I remedy the slowness of the ride by repeatedly falling asleep, then snapping awake again.

Once we actually GET to the school, I'm late for my first class. Of course I am. And, of course, because I have the shittiest luck on the planet, the teacher doesn't pardon me for the dumbass bus driver's mistakes. She practically stares bullets into my head while she tells me to sit down. Not even an "oh that's alright," or anything. She basically tells me to sit down and shut up and leaves it at that, while also creepily death-staring me. If looks could kill, I would have burnt up into ashes from that stare.

I slouch in my chair, reminding myself to forever hold a grudge with that retarded driver. I'm not even going to pay attention in class, though. I've stopped trying hard in math a while back. I've never been good at many things that are math-related. Recently, my mom actually figured that out and left me alone about the accursed subject. I "take notes", meaning I just doodle in my notebook. I've never been the best at drawing, either, but hey. It's something else to do. At least I'm not melting my brain out of my skull trying to figure out equations I'll never even USE. You don't need to know how to prove that two triangles are exactly the same to be a warrior.

Yes. You heard me correctly. That's what I ACTUALLY what I want to do with my life. Why? Well… first of all, nobody really thinks yoshies like myself are actually capable fighters. My race has always been kind of looked down upon in the fighting community. We're usually seen as pretty defenseless, when that's actually the complete OPPOSITE case. I should know. My father was a warrior. If only he hadn't ran off and died somewhere. Then he'd actually be able to train me himself. I wouldn't even have had to go through all of this other useless garbage to get to the actual fighting classes. I've trained myself as best as I can, but I've kind of reached the limit of what I can teach myself. Now, I'm at that point where I need to learn from other people.

I impatiently tap my finger on my desk while the teacher talks about shit I don't care about, glancing around the room. I almost start choking on the air when I see who's in class with me.

Rosalina.

Of course she is. I didn't even notice her yesterday until she helped me out with the whole Bowser-decking-me-across-the-face situation.

The girl herself is taking notes in a seat just diagonal from mine. We're actually relatively close. I don't know how I missed her before. I can see a few of her notes. Her handwriting is neat and refined. I look down at the one equation I've written out to fool the teacher into thinking I was hard at work. My handwriting is pure shit.

After that class I walk out quickly, not wanting the teacher to catch me and keep me after class for being late. I get spooked half to death when I feel a soft hand grab my arm. You can probably guess whose it is by now.

Rosalina smiles at me. "Sorry for scaring you," she says. I feel awkward again.

"Uh… it's fine…" I say. She starts finger-combing her hair. "I've been meaning to talk to you," she says. "I was wondering if you'd like to sit with me at lunch. You seemed pretty lonely yesterday."

I'm internally screaming with delight, but force myself to keep my wall up. I nod. "Sure. It would be way better than sitting around all by myself, anyhow."

Rosalina's grin gets wider. "I guess I'll meet you then," she says. "Bye, Yoshi."

She leaves. As soon as she's out of sight I immediately throw both hands up in the air, internally screaming with happiness the whole time.

When lunch finally comes around, I find her sitting alone. I'm shocked that she doesn't have any friends that she sits with or anything. Our little spot is just us two, sitting against the wall on the floor.

"So… this is where you sit every day?" I ask her. "I mean, it's nice, but… it's kind of lonely here. I would've expected you'd have some friends, with how you're so… nice and stuff…"

Fuck. I apparently CAN'T shut the hell up today. I feel my face grow warm. Rosalina just looks surprised. "I'm nice…?" she asks, as if she doesn't know who she is or what she's doing here. I don't think anyone who goes to this school knows both of those questions, anyway.

I nod like an awkward bobblehead. "I mean… yeah. You were the only one who actually gave a flying crap about me after Sir Douchebag punched me in the face."

She laughs hard at the nickname I gave Bowser. Her laugh is cute. I like it. I'm also shocked that she would ever laugh at something I say.

After she stops laughing, she says, "We should do this every day. You're a lot more fun than my books."

I'm about to ask, "What books?" when she pats a novel next to her. Oh. She's a bookworm. She smiles at the book. "It's about two kingdoms that are war with each other. It's getting SOOO good…"

She goes on and on about the book, but quite honestly, I just like listening to her talk. It's nice to have somebody to talk to that will actually talk my ear off. Unlike all of my other friends, who, now that I think about it, probably weren't very good ones. One of my so called friends would constantly belittle me and stuff. She wasn't a very nice person, despite being royalty and being built up as "the nicest and sweetest a girl can get". Her name? Princess Peach Toadstool, heir to the Mushroom Kingdom.

Speaking of the bitch herself, here she comes now.

Peach herself struts over towards us with an entourage of other bratty, prissy princess-wannabes. She takes one look at Rosalina and says, "Still reading that dumb book? Why don't you do something a NORMAL girl would do and go get some makeup for those zits you have, honey?" she says mockingly, grinning like the bitchy brat she is. She probably gets everything she wants. And… pimples? On Rosalina's face? I hadn't even noticed she had any.

Rosalina looks down at her book, it's on her lap and she's holding it. "Yes," she says matter of factly, "I AM still reading this. What's wrong with reading a little?"

Peach puts a hand on her hip. "Whatever… and you're hanging out with HIM?" she jeers while pointing at me. "You really ARE pathetic…."

I chime in with, "Maybe YOU should read some." Peach turns to face me. "Excuse me?" she says, blinking at me.

I grin. "This IS a school that we're in. Fill that empty void in your head with something," I continue. Rosalina's face is going red from her trying not to laugh. I can hear itty bitty snickers escape. Peach is too dull to notice anything except me right now. Her posse is speaking amongst themselves in whispers.

Peach snatches the book out of Rosalina's hands. She holds it between two fingers like she's holding a bomb, or a rotten orange or something. "Ugh, how OLD is this?!" she asks. "Was this book made at, like, the creation of the world?!"

Rosalina stays silent, staring the bitchy princess down. Peach holds the book haphazardly and throws it in the trash just as somebody throws their food away. "Oops," she says, in mock concern. "Sorry. My hand slipped."

"Bitch."

I say the word coldly, with conviction. Because it's the cold, hard truth. Peach turns to me. "Did I ask you?" she asks. Her voice itself fills me with rage. "What did she ever do to you? You're nothing but a little bitch. I'm guessing after this you're going to go run home to 'King Daddy' and 'Queen Mommy' to tell them that the BIG MEANIE Yoshi is TELLING YOU THE DAMN TRUTH. Go ahead, princess. Tell them. I don't give a shit if they behead me or some medieval shit like that, but LEAVE ROSALINA ALONE," I say, before purposely dumping my chocolate milk all over her stupid shoes.

"MY HEELS!" Peach cries, then runs off with the rest of the bitch squad to go clean them off.

Rosalina just stares, flabbergasted. I look back at her. "What? She wrecked your book, I wrecked her shoes," I say. "I'm not going to let her pick on you like that because you're not like her dumb, brainwashed minions."

Rosalina digs her book out of the garbage can. Some of the pages are wet and gross, the book's ornate cover is covered in food and some of the other pages are ripped.

"I'm sorry about your book," I say, as though I did it. Rosalina smiles sadly. "It's... fine…" she says, and I can tell it's not. She sighs. "Another book gone."

"Wait… another? How long has Peach being doing stuff like this?" I ask. Rosalina shakes her head sadly. "Since middle school. When she got popular," she replies. "I've lost so many of my favorite books this way."

I feel horrible. She's probably spent hundreds of dollars on new books because of Princess Bitch's antics. I clench my fist hard and crush my empty milk carton. Rosalina sits back down with the book in her arms. "I really should stop bringing books to school… but I can't really help it," she says, her voice kind of wavering a bit.

I sit down next to her. "You shouldn't have to stop reading just because Princess Bitch thinks she can-"

Rosalina's giggling. Apparently, the nicknames I giver random assholes from around school are hilarious to her. I smile again. "Maybe Princess Bitch should get together with Sir Douchebag. I bet they'd get along great."

Now we're both laughing. At least until the damn bell interrupts us. "Well, see you around," Rosalina says.

I wave and say goodbye. I'm definitely sitting next to her at lunch every day. I'm going to make sure that Peach never destroys another one of Rosalina's books ever again. It seems to hurt her quite a bit, and, believe it or not, I HATE seeing people hurt like that.

The rest of the day carries out like normal. Later at night, while laying awake and staring at the ceiling, I start to wonder… what does she REALLY think of me? Am I just some rando to her, or am I actually gaining some ground here?

That question keeps me awake for awhile. Then I fall asleep.