Hi everyone! Please review this. I spent a very very long time editing in proportion to writing, just to capture the right voice: manipulative, arrogant, and cunning. I hope you all like it and have a nice day.

PS: I also added footnotes

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Believe it or not, my Manipulations do have a few rules and guidelines. Just so you're not confused or deceived later on, I'll list them here for you.

Riku's Rules

Trust is a weapon. Anyone who gives it to you unconditionally is a fool.

Never get emotionally involved with the victim.

It's really better not to get emotionally involved with anyone.

Make the Manipulation last as long as it takes; the longer the prey runs, the more juicy the kill is.

Have fun. That's what this is all about.

Trust no one unless absolutely necessary.

Have as many people as possible trust you.

Keep contacts and many of them, however remain anonymous in all possible dealings.

Increase influence and power.

Make everyone continue to believe you care about them. Keep up the facade.

Seeing as classes today were long, boring, and brain-deadeningly easy, I won't bore you with the details. Mostly. Progress on all fronts regarding Manipulation 105 was made, however, and this made itself obvious during lunch and part of 4th period. Elena and Tristan did not sit next to each other, breaking their record of sitting next to one another every day for the past 684 days. This may be off by three days as I was sick with influenza last year but in all probability my eyewitness sources were correct and they did sit together for those three days.

During lunch Tristan sat with his athletic friends, eating a bag of Lays chips, one carton of French Fries(which are in fact not French at all), a small caesar salad, and packaged lasagna. I might add briefly that the food served by American high schools is completely repulsive and contributes massively to our obesity epidemic. I find it somewhat entertaining that Tristan's choice of lunch is labeled as the "Extreme Health" option at the lunch cart. But I digress.

Meanwhile Elena sat alone, looking quite unhappy. My hypothesis is that she didn't buy Tristan's excuse that he hadn't spent enough time with his friends and he had strategies to discuss about an upcoming football game(1). About midway through lunch, a concerned-looking girlfriend came over to her table, wearing a positively repulsive pink miniskirt with "Las Montanas High School(2)" stenciled in white on it. I guess that must be what the boys go for now. Disgusting.

She bent over Elena's table and proceeded to open her mouth. If one knows Ashley(the repulsive one), it is generally advisable to get as far away as possible when this happens. Either Elena did not know this(unlikely), she didn't want to hurt her friend's feelings(possible), or she was simply too emotionally conflicted to leave(optimal and highly likely.) Fortunately for our dear Elena's sanity, the girl only made some sympathetic faces that rather reminded me of a chimpanzee entertaining itself before leaving.

Aside from the above, the day was entirely devoid of interesting events, and so I entertained myself during the remainder of lunch imagining what schemes I would use on this new kid, "Sora." Manipulation 105, paramount as it is for now, is simply a distraction for me until then, to keep me sated.

Perhaps I would involve him in my love triangles(or rectangles, or any other many-sided shape up to a nonagon(3.)) Or, perhaps I would slowly arrange for his possessions to vanish one by one, and then frame someone who I dislike(4). Or maybe I would approach him as a potential lover and get close to him before completely breaking his heart. Yes, that sounded exquis-

"Riku!?" My head shot up and my eyes locked with those of my math teachers'. He looked somewhat exasperated, which was understandable considering the rest of my classmates behave somewhat like overcaffeinated, sailor-mouthed apes.

That made my scheming, contemplative state evaporate like raindrops on hot pavement. Scanning the whiteboard quickly and making a few mental calculations, I came to the conclusion. It took about three seconds(5).

"The answer is the square root of thirty-three."

Mr. Jansen sighed loudly. I braced myself for a mathematical counterattack and justification of why that was right. I was his star student, after all.

"Yes, Riku, that's correct, but I was actually asking you to close the blinds."

Oh. I walked over to the blinds as Mr. Jansen mumbled something about that he wasn't even going to ask me because he already knew I could answer it.

The rest of the school day passed quickly and I soon found myself at home in front of my laptop, with my customary cup of Twinings(6) Jasmine Green Tea sitting on the desk beside me, still steaming.

I smiled contently and opened up Adobe Photoshop. I had work to do. Hmm....

Earlier that week, I had obtained some pictures of Elena and Travis, one of the more popular students at school, using the excuse that I was in Yearbook Club and needed them for the yearbook. As a matter of fact, I was in Yearbook(7) so there was no way I could be caught lying. I opened the pictures separately before placing them in the same workspace.

Then I switched over to my internet browser with a quick key combination and arrived at the Google Image Search page. Smiling slightly to myself, I typed in 'lockers' and hit enter.

The list of results took less than a second to load, and suddenly the screen was flush with various images of school lockers. To anyone but me, this looked like a page full of pictures of school lockers, but to me, this was a page full of opportunities.

Let me explain. Each and every one of these images presented a different mood, feel, and overall environment for me to work with on my next masterpiece that I was creating for Manipulation 105. To an artist such as me, who creates drama, beauty, and pain on a palette of real people by swirling the paintbrushes of love and hate, all tools are useful.

Even and especially Adobe Photoshop, and more specifically 'photoshopping' images. I can leave these around on the ground to be discovered, inside a backpack, or post them to Facebook or Myspace. The possibilities are endless.

I must say, not many would have thought of so many different weapons to use against people. Then again, I am uniquely creative and talented. But anyway, on with the story.

Carefully, I browse through the images, one by one, taking at least a minute and a half to analyze each one(8), until I find one that is suitable for my needs. The lighting needs to be fairly dark, indicating a kind of secrecy and intimacy, but not so dark as to clash with the images that I have of both Elena and Travis. Additionally, the lockers need to be perpendicular to the camera, as the pictures I have of the two of them are both front-facing and back-facing, respectively.

Most important are the little details, such as the color of these lockers. It is all to easy to paint a masterpiece and then ruin it by having some idiot realize that Elena and Travis, are not, in fact, making out in front of the correct set of lockers(green at our school), and thus raise some interesting and rather unwanted questions. Once all of these individual pictures are perfect, then begins the hard work: putting them all into one piece of artwork that looks seamless and real. The emotions must be captured perfectly, channeled directly into the viewer as if it is taking place before him or her.

But, after all, it is an art and I am the one and only artist, so this does not present much of a problem. Less than an hour and a half after my initial search begins, I sit with a finished image printed out in front of me on the carpet. I examine it closely, and upon finding no discernible errors, print out several more copies. Then I stroke each and every one gently(9), and delete the file that has been the object of my attention for the last one and a half hours.

I close the lid, smile, and look towards the ceiling. Completing hard work on my Manipulations gives me a joy and sense of accomplishment that none of the joke-called-schoolwork can match. And it also makes me wish for the one thing that I can never, ever have; recognition for my work. I yearn for it constantly, all the while berating myself for wanting something dangerous that I cannot under any circumstances have. Due to my complete lack of trust and faith in the human race, I can have no confidants or partners-in-crime. No, I work alone.

It is at once a blessing, a curse, and simply a fact of life.

1. Oddly enough, she would have been quite correct in assuming that Tristan was lying to her. There were, in fact, no football games scheduled for the next month and a half due to heavy snow.

2. One can only assume that this is the anglicized(and misspelled) version of the English translation of the Spanish plural noun "The mountains." It should be "Las MontaƱas High School."

3. Two years ago I successfully created a sort of a "love nonagon" involving nine people simultaneously. It was a bitch to pull off, but after 5 weeks of continuous hard work, manipulations, and various unsavory encounters, pull it off I did. It remains among my top 5 accomplishments to date.

4. Quite a few people fall under this category.

5. I mention this because this particular math teacher has a habit of asking questions by rows until he finds a student who knows the answer. The previous 14 students had not been able to answer this question in the 30 seconds allotted to each one.

6. I only drink Twinings. All the other British wannabes taste like dirty dishwater.

7. I make it a point to infiltrate all significant clubs in the school. I find it gives me a much larger source of excuses of why I'm not doing what I'm supposed to be doing.

8. This is an art, and a very delicate one at that.

9. Because of the nature of my art, I will never see it again, and thus must cherish it while I can.