"Trepe? You can't expect anyone to fall in love with her. I mean, she's pretty enough, but... Hyne, she is so pathetic."

Quistis almost dropped the book she was selecting. The voice on the other side of the Library bookcase was easily identifiable--Bendon, whom most of the Garden knew simply as "That Arrogant SeeD." He was obviously unaware of her presence, but... ouch.

"I dunno," answered another voice--a female. "She does have that scary fan club."

"Oh, you mean the Trepies,the only group in Garden more pathetic than her. Don't you get it? They're all losers who look to her as Queen loser. You think that any of them have the brains to look past her pretty exterior, anyway?"

"She's smart, at least."

"Smart? Ye Gods, I used to have her as an instructor. Let me tell you, if that's smart I'll eat my brains. There's a reason she got fired."

A small, vengeful part of Quistis urged her to step out from behind the bookcase and give Bendon a good tongue-lashing, but the more powerful part--the one that insisted she stay and listen--won out.

"She does have some friends, I know," responded the girl.

"Oh, yeah? Like who?"

"Well...." there was a pause. "Commander Leonhart, for one."

"The icecube? Sure, and I have a pet Hexadragon named Fufu. Leonhart doesn't have any friends."

There was a sigh and Quistis slid weakly to the ground, her ego somewhere in the back of her mind, traumatized. "So I guess you don't want to ask her out?" asked the girl.

"I... what?" Bendon sounded surprised. "Why in hell would you think that I wanted to do that?"

"Irvine is trying to set her up," the girl responded. "He says that she really needs a date."

"Ha! That's funny," Bendon retorted. "Look, I don't date losers. Go ask one of her fan club."

There were the sounds of footsteps receding, and a long sigh. Then, a lighter pair of footsteps moved off.

Quistis was left on the floor, leaning against a potted plant with the a copy of Pre-Centran Faith and Fanaticism gripped numbly in her hands. This was certainly one of the worse ways to spend an afternoon--to have what could be the opinion of the majority thrown in her face like a bucket of cold water.

Does... does everyone think like that? she couldn't help but wonder. Am I really that... pathetic?

At once, the gears in her mind set to work picking apart every piece of social interaction she had gone through in the past week or so, analyzing even the tiniest details and usually blowing them out of all proportion. It wasn't her fault that she was a tad suggestible--if Bendon had proclaimed her a goddess, she might have walked around with her head in the clouds for weeks.

Had she been in any reasonable state of mind, she would have remembered that Bendon wasn't exactly the most reputable source for this kind of information. As it was, she had been pushed into self-critical mode: she would continue like this until she either reassured herself that she wasn't a complete social failure or, the more probable option, she convinced herself that she was.

Quite some time passed, Quistis completely oblivious to it. She could hear laughter approaching from the entrance to the Library, and hoped beyond hope that it wasn't Bendon or anyone else who would come and make her feel worse.

In the corner of her peripheral vision, Xu and Kadowaki appeared. There were in the middle of a conversation, but stopped as the saw her.

"Quisty?" Xu asked, surprised. "Are you all right? You look like you're caught in headlights."

Quistis looked up, the face and the voice seeming too disconnected from her reality to impact her. She gaped.

"Quitsy," Xu said, kneeling down and putting a hand on her friends arm. "What's wrong?"

The concept of friend pierced Quistis's self-imposed cloud of gloom like a spear. With a small whimper, she toppled forward into her friend's arms.