There's a stain on the otherwise clean floor. A small, nearly unnoticeable, ugly blotch of what seemed to be a spillage of some sort of a condiment—or something else entirely only Mikan wasn't exactly so adamant to venture the origin of—almost faded with signs of survival against numerous attempts of its removal.
It was bothering her, among other things.
"Ugh, don't even bother."
She looks up, startled, and sees the redhead from before. The events that had transpired after her mortifying momenthad been a blur, or at least she's somewhat desperately repressing the memory of it. Onlookers gaped at the disastrous scene before them, and she was vaguely aware of being shoved softly away from the peering eyes and led to the back. The crimson eyed boy she partly albeit secretly blames for the way her day had gradually depreciated to an epic proportion was boring holes at the back of her head and she barely registers the guy who had technically caused the whole thing mutter a series of apologies.
Suffice to say she'd been finding other things to settle her wandering attention on the moment she was away.
She was not, under any circumstance, going to cry here.
"What?" she blurts.
"The stain," the redhead jerks her head towards a particular area on the floor. "don't even bother getting rid of it. Believe me, we've tried everything but I guess it's here to stay." Misaki—the brunette squints at the name tag on her uniform—was carrying a folded shirt.
"Oh." the brunette says, slightly distracted by the awful feeling of her damp shirt sticking onto her like a second skin, before adding like an afterthought, "you're floor's still pretty though."
The redhead chuckles at that and Mikan feels like she's seen her before. "Thank you," she says once sober before handing over the shirt she'd been carrying and looks at the brunette apologetically. "It's all we've got that doesn't smell like sweat and shit apparently."
Mikan stifles a laugh at the mischievous look on Misaki's face and quickly shakes her head, promising her that it's quite alright. "Please, this is more than enough," she demurs and tries not to focus too much on the impending walk back to the dorms. She doesn't know how much tragedy she can take in a day.
It's half past midnight and Mikan Sakura is, well—
Mikan Sakura is trying not to cry.
It's midterms week and the university library is swarming with overworked college students who are either hoping to catch some much needed power naps in between exams or doing some last minute review, treading delicately on the verge of a mental breakdown. It is absolutely hellish.
Mikan opted to stay in her room, declining numerous group study invites from fellow financial management majors partly because she knew they'll gossip half the time, and she identified having to share worries and unconsciously pressure one another by disclosing the extent to which they have studied as a classic form of self-destruction (and mostly because she's still avoiding cafes like the fucking plague). God knows she's had enough of her anxiety skyrocketing whenever the memory of that one incident enters her head to do its own scheduled mental beating.
Now though—
She's hunched over her study desk in a way that would definitely result in an awful back pain come morning, pointedly ignoring her mother's disapproving voice in her head as Whitney Houston's I Wanna Dance With Somebody blares through her earpods. Her complete set of pastel Stabilo highlighters are scattered messily around her table, one of her Pilot G-Tec pens teetering near the edge and the extra-large fries she ordered from the on-campus McDonald's on her way back from her General Psychology exam had gone stale. She's constantly shifting from scanning her mind numbing books and barely readable printouts for reference to aggressively pressing the buttons on her scientific calculator in an attempt to solve the series of complex equations on fucking bond valuation using the formulas she sloppily wrote down on a torn page of her notebook. She presses the equal button and is a breadth away from severing her head when the calculator read syntax error.
She's literally one button away from fucking Losing It.
She presses the heels of her hands against her eyes and attempts to reassure herself that it's all going to be fine.
Glossing the fact that it was completely bullshit, the assurance did nothing to assuage her nerves. A quick scan at the questionnaire handed over to her was enough to conclude that she was utterly and royally fucked. She wills herself not to glance at her friend seated next to her.
She looks heavenward, to the classically vaulted ceilings of the lecture hall that always made her feel small.
They were intimidatingly huge with its fancy intricate design rich with history and shiny pitched floors so that those in the rear are sat higher than those at the front, allowing them to easily see the lecturer. The platform was wider and she loathes how distinct the distance between seats are and how bright the lights are, so extremely bright that she could almost see herself flunk her major with a horrifying, blinding clarity.
The air inside feels a little too stuffy which it's ridiculous because the room is obviously well ventilated, but then again she did sacrifice more than half of her allocated time to sleep just to study and still ended up with absolutely no fucking idea what to answer.
Faint noise of pages turning and hasty pressing of numbers on calculators drifts around the otherwise silent hall and Mikan anxiously shifts in her seat, the grip on her pen tightening quite nervously upon stumbling across series of items in the questionnaire that seems awfully foreign to her. The concepts and formulas she had drilled into her thinker disappearing within seconds and she feels sick. This is a fucking nightmare.
There was little to no discussion regarding the exam when it was finally over.
Anna Umenomiya, a fellow financial management major whom she shares a few minors with and befriended over a short awkward conversation about her striking bright pink hair and awesome hair dye choices which quickly spiraled down to a rather touchy subject of changing hair colors as a means to cope during an episode, had dragged her immediately out of the building. There was a silent agreement on not mentioning their impending doom.
"I'm craving for some pizza," Anna says once they were out of the stifling walls of the building. A cool breeze blows pass them and the trees planted neatly across the campus street rustles noisily with the wind, faint voices of their blockmates discussing exam related shit filling in the silence between them. They increase their pace, eager to get away from their correct answers and perfectly memorized formulas.
It's half past eight in the evening and there were barely cars left parked in the student parking lot. A few medicine upperclassmen students loitered in groups around kiosks by the edge of the soccer field, hardbound books and portable thermos with environmental awareness and straw ban and save the turtles campaign stickers plastered on its smooth stainless surface scattered around the table, laughing boisterously at something someone said.
"Pizza sounds perfect."
They did not get pizza that night.
It was anarchy. Both girls eyed the disastrous scene warily. The only pizza place in the campus was annoyingly full of loud engineering students, taking gibberish over one another with their mouth full and disgustingly messy. There were ketchup packets on the floor with its contents splattered across the black and white tiles and tragically crushed pineapple tidbits scattered everywhere as if someone had taken it upon themselves to pursue a vendetta against pineapples on pizzas.How convenient, truly, for them to sit their exams the same night the business students did.
Take out was not an option too, for obvious reasons. Surely once they were back in their respective dorm rooms, they'd forgo dinner altogether and just cry themselves to sleep (not that sleep would easily come to them with all the overthinking that they were bound to do) because it had been an extremely stressful day and sadness is so much closer than it appears. So—no.
After their hasty retreat away from the ruckus of the bustling campus town, they found themselves standing right outside the dimly lit walkway across the closed university library, brain storming for possible places to have dinner in when a voice called for Anna's attention.
Both girls turned. Mikan eyed the incoming person in confusion, squinting at the dark just as Anna's face immediately lit up in recognition.
"Mochu!" Anna exclaims almost too brightly Mikan had to bite her tongue to avoid slyly voicing out her observation that she seemed awfully happy to see him.
The guy, very bald and very charming, slides next to Anna and Mikan feels awkward in their presence. She was teetering to the side, hoping that the bulletin board behind them would swallow her up and never spit her back. With all the bullshit that's been occurring recently in her life, disappearing from the face of the earth was the least worst that could happen. She can hear bits of their god awfully dull conversation about their mountaineering organization or whatever business they were mutually bound to and she shifts impatiently. She really doesn't care. She's tired and hungry and she doesn't know which one is eating away her patience that she swears if Anna doesn't end the talk anytime now, she was going to lose it.
She realizes, in hindsight, that she'd been often losing it for the past days.
"—this is Mikan by the way,"
Anna was gesturing towards her general direction and the brunette quickly snaps out of her retrieve.
The guy—Mochu was it?—was smiling at her, his dimples and twinkling eyes in full exposure and she almost forgets her manners. She waves her hand awkwardly because she's naturally awkward like that and offers a quiet Hello.
"I was just telling Mochu how we literally have no idea where to eat and he's invited us to join him and the guys—"
"Wha—the guys?"
"—and I thought it'd be great—"
"Oh I bet it is." Mikan mutters drily.
"—because they already have a table reserved and I heard the food there is great, you know—"
She purses her lips in a thin line.
"—and I also need to discuss some stuff with them, like, Alice Mountaineering Society stuff. You know how ridiculously busy we are next week and this could be my only chance. What do you think?" Anna looks at her pleadingly, her eyes had suspiciously gone wide along with an adorable pout to perfect the look of a manipulating wench.
Mikan decidedly was not amused.
"Fine," she concedes with an eyeroll but only because she really doesn't have the energy to argue and just desperately want to get things over and done with and the expectant look on Mochu's face was also kind of pressuring that she felt the need to say yes.
She will later reflect on her decision and conclude that the cosmos definitely abhor her.
A/N. hi im back ive been busy processing my documents all the while searching for any possible job which really just means wasting away my life in isolation and a lot of 1975 lol anyways im trying to set an update sched or whatever. pls enjoy n tell me what yall think about mikan verging towards a breakdown every second of human interaction
also! ! ! ! thank u onigiri misaki for leaving a review! that was so sweet