Karkat was determined to yell at somebody. Every single person in the room if he had to. He could tell they all thought they had problems. The three girls crying into each other like idiots in a little friendship-triangle proved that. It made him want to scream. What could they possibly know about problems? Even the blind one had nothing compared to him. Sure, she couldn't see, but that was it. One problem. Karkat couldn't even begin to list off all of his problems.
He relished the feeling of the anger growing beyond his control. The taste of battle in his mouth. The ability to lash out at everyone around him to relieve some of the self-hatred that beat at him until there was nothing but a frightened, bruised boy without a friend. He felt himself kicking into his old routine.
They fucking deserve to be yelled at. Look at them, with their perfect fucking problems lined up neatly on a silver fucking platter for their convenience. And then it's one little nudge and all the problems fall off into the fucking abyss.
At last the monument of happiness the three girls were forging for themselves grew to be too much. "Hey assholes. Could you please get your heads outta your fucking perfection clouds for a few seconds to remember that some people in the world have actual problems that require actually drowning in a puddle of self-loathing?"
"Are you talking to us?" Terezi's voice was layered between sheets of ice.
"Who else would I be talking to? Everyone else in the room has enough decency to shut the fuck up and allow everyone to wallow in their own stupidity while reflecting on the immense unfairness of the world. Now excuse me while I return to repeatedly jumping off my cliff of futility into the abyss of reality."
Nepeta ducked behind Terezi, trying desperately not to burst into tears again. Terezi turned to comforting her while Kanaya, her voice lost, could only glare at the boy.
"Nothing to say to that one? Well I'm glad I could be the one to remove the fucking clouds so you could see the goddamn light. Please, the praise is too much."
"Will you just shut the fuck up?" Terezi's inability to glare was made up for in full by her tone.
"Oh, sorry, did I ruin your day? Fuck, really, I'm sorry. I'll just stop. After all, it's not like you actually have real problems that are never going to be solved and there's nothing you can do about it except melodramatically announce the end of your existence and jump off a fucking cliff to relieve us all of your immense stupidity. Nothing like that." Adrenaline was racing through his veins as he finished. Why do you like this so much? Karkat quickly answered the small voice. Because I get to feel like I make a difference this way.
"Hey bro, you seem real uptight over there. Seems like you need to up and get your motherfucking chill on." Karkat froze. Oh for fuck's sake, not this guy. "You know how I get to be putting my chill on? Thinking about the motherfucking universe. Have you ever thought about how big it is? It's the biggest motherfucker I've ever had to up and get into my brain all at once."
"Gamzee, will you shut the fuck up?!" Karkat's rage had boiled over. "Not everyone is high on your fucking drugs, okay? Not everyone has the luxury of a problem that can be solved by fucking acid or whatever the hell it is you're on."
"Whatever, bro. Can't say I didn't motherfucking try." The tall boy shrugged absently, gaze already affixed to the ceiling fan above them. "Have you ever seen these things, bro? They just...spin. Like they don't have a care in the motherfucking world. Must be nice, being a fan. I should get my fan on." He slowly lay down on the floor beneath it, passing underneath Karkat's radar and out of sight.
Karkat turned back to the three girls. The two older ones were huddled protectively around the younger one, and one of the older ones was staring at him. She looked really familiar, and it took only a moment to place her. "Hey, you're the bloodsucker, aren't you? Kenya, or something like that." The girl stiffened, a hand instinctively rising to cover her mouth. "Why don't you take your friends away somewhere to go prey on somebody else and leave me the fuck alone to fester in my customized pile of shit until the final bell rings?"
Kanaya didn't dare respond. Instead, she quietly ushered Terezi and Nepeta to the corner of the room farthest from Karkat. Karkat smiled.
"I wonder what he thinks he accomplished in doing that?" The voice was soft and lilting in an almost eerie way. It was also about one inch from his ear. Panicked, Karkat jerked to his feet and turned. The girl that had been laughing to herself quietly in the corner was suddenly standing in front of him. Her wide, grey eyes seemed to look through him at something standing just behind him. He turned to look over his shoulder before glaring at her.
"What the fuck is your problem? Am I the only person on this godforsaken planet who has ever heard of leaving someone the fuck alone? Or let me guess, you are my personal torturer assigned to me by Satan himself and destined to follow me around for the rest of time until I'm driven so mad that I just fucking kill myself. That's what this is, isn't it?"
The girl laughed. "He thinks he's so clever, doesn't he?" She paused, her head cocking to the side slightly as if she were listening to something. "Well, obviously, yes. Don't worry. I won't."
Karkat could only stare at her, mouth hanging open. As he tried to formulate something to say, she smiled suddenly, and her eyes suddenly seemed to focus, staring directly into his eyes. Her hand shot out and grabbed his wrist.
"What the fuck are you doing?" He tried to rip himself from her grip, but she was much stronger than she looked. She forcefully guided him behind the desk of the secretary, who had been buried in a book for the past hour in an attempt to remove herself from the insane kids that had piled into the office. As the girl and Karkat approached her, she shut the book decisively.
"What do you want? You know you can't be behind the desk, right?"
"You're going to leave, now." Karkat shivered at the uncompromising simplicity of the statement.
The secretary looked confused. "What?"
"You're going to leave, now," the girl repeated cheerfully. The secretary gave them a suspicious look. Finally, she sighed.
"Whatever. Go back into the main part of the office, okay? I'm sure the bell will ring any minute." The girl's smile widened, and one of her fingers twitched on Karkat's wrist. He grimaced.
As the secretary reached for her book, her elbow slipped to the side a bit, nudging a conveniently precarious coffee cup off the edge of the desk. The coffee splashed up off of the ground, soaking the right side of the secretary's skirt. The woman breathed in sharply.
"Shit." Carefully taking stock of the room, she came to a split second decision. She turned to the smiling girl in grey. "I am going to be gone for five minutes. If anything is wrong when I get back, I'm blaming it on you. Is that clear?"
"You're going to leave, now."
"Ugh, whatever." The secretary gave the girl a last, suspicious look before leaving the room.
Before Karkat could reel in his slack jaw, the mystery girl was pulling him down into a sitting position. The desk was the perfect height such that his short stature was easily completely concealed. After the initial shock at the absolute gall of this mystery girl, Karkat ripped his arm out of her grip. Unlike before, it slipped away easily. Even though she hadn't actually touched his skin, thanks to his long-sleeved shirt, he felt an icy cold where her fingers had been. Her grey eyes levelled with his, peering deep into them as if she were studying something hidden within. Karkat had to suppress the almost overpowering urge to shiver under her gaze.
What are you even doing? Tell her to fuck off, moron.
Karkat swallowed, allowing his anger to take control once more. "Look, I have no fucking idea who you are, but I'm pretty sure we've never met. Even if we have, that doesn't really matter since I don't fucking care. And in case you hadn't noticed, I was just fine fantasizing about all the wonderful ways to kill myself before you dragged me back here with your voodoo powers. So if you don't mind, leave me the fuck alone and go back to your witchcraft."
"They tell me you're sad."
Karkat was taken aback. "What?" he spat.
"They tell me that you don't show it anymore because you think it makes you seem weak. But deep down inside, you are very, very sad." Her eyes seemed to glaze over once more, although they never moved from staring at him. "So sad...it must be so cold, all alone."
Karkat tried to sustain his customary glare, but his insides were frozen. His thoughts raced ahead of his protective grasp.
How could she possibly know?
Don't be an idiot. She doesn't know anything. You're not sad. Any inkling of shock and acknowledgement was dashed into a million pieces as his confusion sank back into its usual place behind the iron bars of the anger that masked everything. "What the hell do you know? All of your problems are so small and insignificant! Everyone's fucking problems are fucking small and insignificant! But do I get that luxury? Do I get to eat the fucking cream tarts of non-existent problems while I idly ponder the immense beauty of my smooth, perfect life? No, I don't. Instead I am the one saddled with actual problems that actually, permanently ruin my fucking life! And the rest of you slack-jawed, brainless clusterfucks sit there and laugh at me behind my back because my skin is fucking wrong! Do you know what that's like? No, you don't! Because you were born with normal fucking skin and eyes! You weren't born a mistake!" By the end of his tirade, Karkat was screaming, and when the blood stopped pounding in his ears, he realized with a slight drop of his stomach that the entire room was silent.
Even though he likely wouldn't be able to see much, he didn't dare look over the edge of the desk. He knew what would be waiting for him. The blank faces and the staring eyes. He didn't want that. He didn't want any of this.
But you were born with it, and you can't fucking change it now.
As gracefully as a falling leaf, the girl in front of him rose to her feet. She addressed the room calmly, he voice completely even. "Go back to talking among yourselves, please." As she finished, something that couldn't be seen but that everyone knew existed flared up around the girl. Something ominous and powerful, something that struck just a small flame of fear into the heart of everyone present. Then, cautiously, the conversations resumed. The girl smiled and sat once more. Her gaze returned to Karkat, and her eyes were no longer glazed over. In fact, they were perfectly, clearly lucid, more than he had seen them be in the five minutes he had known her.
"I know your life is hard. I know that no one else understands. But you must let others help you. You must let these others help you. They all have problems, too, and although you may not realize it, their problems are just as serious as yours. Not because they are the same level of problem, but because the same amount of their life is spent obsessing over it." She lowered her voice, bringing her mouth close to his ear to whisper into it. "And do you know what they tell me? They tell me that you have to be the leader in this. You have to be the one to make everything happen because no one else will. They will find an excuse why they can't, won't, shouldn't, mustn't. I don't imagine that you understand why you of all people must lead them. I can't even say I understand. But they have never lied to me before. So believe me, you must be the one to help these people. Because no one else will."
For the first time Karkat could remember, his anger abandoned him. He was left weak, defenseless, and broken, with nothing to hold back his confusion. All he could manage to respond to the strange girl was a shattered whisper. "And what if I don't? They don't mean anything to me. Why should I care?"
"Because if you don't help them, then what you are now is what you will always be: a confused, self-loathing albino who wants the solace that only comes in death."
The complete honesty in the girl's voice reawakened Karkat's previous urge to shiver, and this time he had nothing left inside him to restrain himself. The girl continued, her eyes slowly returning to their half-glazed state.
"My name is Aradia. If you decide to help these people, find me." The glaze returned completely. She stood up in her peculiarly unearthly way. "You have to go now."
As if on cue, the last bell rang. The motley crew of students slowly rose from their various levels of self-pity and shuffled out the door, re-entering the hectic current of the hallway. Karkat looked away from Aradia for a moment to collect his thoughts, but when he turned to throw a final, biting remark, she was gone without a trace. Slowly, unsure of exactly what had just happened, he wandered cautiously into the hallway, one hand tracing the wall. As if part of an incurable routine, his shell of anger reasserted itself, drowning him in its easy, artificial relief.