[December 01, 1995]

SHE had said, "It's nice to meet you," upon introduction and received no response.

"Age fourteen, turning fifteen in January. Little friends and no hobbies. Relatively high grades. Your instructors note you as quiet, intelligent, and curious about your own abilities," the woman read the words with some amusement, looking up through her horn-rimmed glasses to say, "For a student of an institution such as St. Raphael's, this is quite the glowing review. A surprise, to be sure. Would you agree with those descriptors?"

"Yes, ma'am."

She noted something down. When she was done, she considered her for only a moment before she began, "Of those, quietness is not surprising or inspiring to me. Often, you will find quiet individuals the most worrisome. I'm sure you can find some of that ilk here. Otherwise, it is to be expected and not applauded. Intelligence is an entirely other thing, but it is something I wouldn't trust the faculty here to be able to gauge, frankly. I'm sure they find any mutant child here able to control themselves from burning another to death or what-not intelligent without it really having anything to do with such a thing." A scoff then. "But curiosity… and specifically, curiosity about your powers, well, that's promising. So long as you remember that curiosity is often a curse, of course." She smiled thinly. "Are you a curious child in general, Miss Monroe?"

Michelle Monroe shifted her weight, feeling the pressure of Ms. Zhou's black-eyed gaze boring into her and her nervousness.

Ms. Zhou was the only other person in the room, and yet Michelle felt entirely alone standing there in front of her, with nobody else to turn to for guidance. "I… I like to learn, yes, ma'am. But I'm not a troublemaker, if that's what you're asking."

"Is that what I'm asking?" she replied airily. "I don't recall."

She continued on as Michelle was left wanting to curl up into herself, and glanced down at her papers. "Not a troublemaker, you say. Your file almost supports this. It's so bland that it feels more fitting for a child of St. Michael's. And yet, you were admitted to St. Raphael's for a reason." She flipped a page. "You harmed a nonmutant child during the first year of your powers manifesting, correct?"

A pause. "Yes, ma'am."

"And do you regret that?"

Michelle was taken aback. She struggled for an answer that the woman would approve of, before finally settling on saying, "He was bullying me," and rubbing her arms uncomfortably.

"Don't fidget. Stand up straight. It was a "yes" or "no" question," she said crisply, Michelle just barely following, before she carried on, "But therein lies the issue. A nonmutant child bullies another nonmutant child and the worst thing that can happen is a playground fight. A nonmutant child bullies a mutant child or vice versa, and the mutant child can put them in the hospital as easily as breathing. And if both children are mutants, well, you may not have been present, but I'm sure you're familiar with the events that occurred two years ago."

Obviously. Even though she had enrolled during the fall of that year, people still talked about the events of the previous spring semester for a long while afterward. But this was different. She had been the one being bullied. "I do feel bad. I hadn't meant to," she said.

"No need for frivolous lies," the woman said with a wave of her hand and Michelle frowned - she wasn't lying, and she had no right to assume or say so. All she had wanted was for him to shut up. It had been an accident, that's all. Why did everyone act like it was her fault? She tensed up all over again, opened her mouth and—

Ms. Zhou continued, "It is only natural you'd feel righteous and superior, as would be your right for someone with your gifts."

Michelle stopped.

Gifts.

Nobody had ever called it that before.

The anger that had been swelling up at the woman's swift assumptions dissipated.

A gift, she said. Michelle swelled with pride.

Ms. Zhou smiled.

"Please do not lie in your answer for this question as well. Tell me, Miss Monroe, are you still affected by your older brother's sudden death one year ago?"

Michelle froze.

She could hear her own heart pounding in her body. The rush of blood through her arteries and veins, through her valves and chambers. Whack, whack, whack. Against her ribcage. Against the meaty muscles of her flesh. She could hear her own sharp inhale, the way her fists clenched and her shoulders tightened and her teeth grinded. Bile in her stomach, blood in her mouth.

But what was worse than the orchestral cacophony of noises clashing against each other in her own body was the sound of the steady, consistent heart rate of the woman across from her, of her unaffected breathing, and of her slow blinking as she looked at her calmly. Mockery veiled as composure.

"I asked you a question. Can students here not even answer a single question?" she sighed and noted something down again. Michelle could hear the scratch of pen against paper, an "x" somewhere. "I'll take that as a yes."

Her head was spinning. Scribble scribble scribble. Scratching in her eardrums. Gritting her teeth. The sound of Ms. Zhou tsking, tongue swiping against her lips, teeth clicking.

Ms. Zhou carried on.

"The incident following your phone-call from your mother resulted in minor damages to the reformatory and minor injuries to your fellow students, including shattered windows, ruptured eardrums, and the triggering of two of your fellow students' powers here at St. Raphael's, both of whom had hearing aids or damaged hearing already, which yielded its own unfortunate chain reaction of events. Yes?"

Her mouth was full of cotton. When she spoke, it felt like someone had pressed down on her tongue, so that the word came out slow and illegible, "...Yes."

"Yes, ma'am," she said harshly and Michelle flinched. But Ms. Zhou inhaled, settled, and then asked more neutrally, "And what did your instructors do when they found you?"

She didn't want to stay here in this room with this woman. She didn't want to answer any more of these questions. She didn't want to remember this.

It was her first time ever being disciplined. She had always listened to the wails of other kids, their sniffling and crying and screaming, how they'd ask to call their parents, and and and—

She had always been determined to not go through the same thing, because she wasn't the same as them. She wasn't loud. She wasn't a delinquent. She wasn't one of them. But she remembered bracing herself, expecting anything and everything.

Instead, she had been placed in The Dark Room.

Somehow, it was so much worse.

The adults called it something technical, a sensory deprivation room or something. But it was named by a student and that was one that stuck.

"They put me in a room. By myself," she whispered. "It had no windows." She tried not to fidget, but she couldn't help but look down at her shoes. Black Mary Janes. She had scuffs on the side of her left shoe. The buckle on her right was worn. "There was no light. No… No…" she gripped the fabric of her skirt. She paused expecting to be reprimanded for the stuttering, but there was nothing. She took a shaky breath, squeezed her eyes shut. "And…"

"And they gagged you," Ms. Zhou finished.

"And they gagged me," she swallowed.

"Like a dog."

Michelle looked up. Ms. Zhou had tilted her head.

"Like a dog," she finally said, and she felt defeated as she did so.

Suddenly, Michelle felt very, very tired. As if she could lie down and sleep and sleep and sleep. It was so tiring to remember, to remember Jackson and The Dark Room and the boy who called her names and told her she had no friends. So what, she didn't have friends? Friends wouldn't have helped her with anything. She was just fine alone. Alone in that Dark Room.

The woman looked out the window where drops of rain were beating down on it. The clouds had cast a shade of dark blue upon the room, making it gloomy and moody. Would it be better to be outside now, in the middle of a downpour? It was thundering and when it thundered at St. Raphael's, the school became entirely eerie, echoing and haunting. "I do the same when my dog misbehaves. I put a muzzle on her and I chain her to the post outside so she learns," she said, and she sounded very faraway. "That's how St. Raphael's views all of its students. Because that's what they are. Rabid, drooling dogs."

And then she looked at Michelle.

"Do you want to be a dog? When you could be so much more?"

Michelle's heart was thudding again, in time with the raindrops. Bump, bump, bump.

"I…"

The woman had a ghost of a smile on her lips again. "St. Gabriel's is for the best of the best. We know how to handle mutants, how to make them more than the outcasts that society says you are. We prioritize excellence. We find and nurture potential, not power and we reward those who are able to maximize that potential," she said. "We believe that's only fair."

"What we don't tolerate is instability. Uncooperativeness. Disruption. Bad dogs, if you will. But well, you say you're not a troublemaker, no? You're not like the children here?"

"No, ma'am, I'm not," Michelle said. Begging, pleading. "So, you're saying I could attend? I could really transfer?"

"Perhaps, yes."

"What do I have to do?"

"This was a preliminary assessment. Your responses have been satisfactory, so we'll have you reassessed before the next school year begins. This will include a full power and physical work-up, interview, and psychological assessment. If all goes well, your guardians will be contacted, and you will be transferred to St. Gabriel's immediately. If you would like my advice, I would suggest that honing your power be your number one priority from now on if you wish to impress the panel. This is not an opportunity we offer to everyone, Miss Monroe, but even then, we are selective."

Selective. She was special.

She shook herself out of her thoughts and focused on what was important. A panel. She didn't know if being in front of more people like Ms. Zhou was comforting or worrying. Although the atmosphere was less frosty than before, Michelle still felt the iciness of the interrogation she had gone through. But even more troublesome was the idea that she'd have to impress the Gabriel's Headmistress, who frankly, was terrifying. Michelle gritted her teeth nervously. "Will Headmistress Minerva be there?"

Ms. Zhou laughed and it grated on the ears. "Oh no, I'm afraid not. You will see Headmistress Minerva at the beginning of next year should you be accepted, as will everyone at the St. Gabriel's induction ceremony. However, she only involves herself in the assessment of extraordinary cases and I'm afraid you are…" she looked Michelle up and down and then hummed, "... not that. But, be grateful for now. I am far more cordial and lenient than the Headmistress. Now, go on, return to whatever they call an education here."

"I'll see you soon, Miss Monroe. Until then."

When Michelle left the room, she walked in a daze, and walked and walked and walked in those Mary Janes of hers. She stopped outside the classroom where the older girl with anger issues liked to play the violin, and she leaned against the wall outside, and she closed her eyes and listened.

God, she couldn't fucking wait to leave this place.

[October 09, 1991]

Autumn had come to Pennsylvania. She wanted nothing more than to be outside, in the crisp of the air, feeling the crunch of leaves underfoot, with a cig and a flask of that hot apple cider rum that her aunt drank at Thanksgivings. Instead, she was inside, within the chilled cobble walls of St. Raphael's, watching a girl that she didn't know, deciding whether she wanted to.

"You're really pretty," she said, after she was done staring.

The girl looked up with some surprise, pausing midway through her notes. She wrote with long loops and lines, dotted with hearts in glittery blue ink, the pom-pom of her pen wobbling as she did so. When she stopped, she craned her neck, revealing a birthmark on the side. "Oh, thank you," she murmured back hesitantly. "You are too."

She untucked the long strands of brown hair behind her right ear, letting them fall forward and cover the fleshy pink scarring on her tawny skin, the still-healing nicks and scratches. It didn't seem like she had even noticed she'd done it. The compliment appeared genuine too, although her eyes didn't seem to know if they were able to rest on her face or not.

Her eyes flickered back up, pretty too, green like hers, but more apple-green than bottle and the round, likable type; they narrowed slightly once she saw that her gaze lingered and she said somewhat defensively, touching her own neck, "They'll go away soon. They're from an accident."

She shrugged at this. "It's not like they make you ugly. You can barely see them." With her own cool hand, she touched her own face, her own cheek, where the skin was slightly raised and too warm to the touch and pressed down where she knew her blood vessels were swollen, red and angry. "This won't go away," she said.

"That doesn't make you ugly either," the girl offered.

"I know."

It was quiet and peaceful in the study hall again. The girl looked unsure of how she was the only one at the table that had brought anything, curiously glancing over at her empty hands a few times, but cautiously turning back to her notes regardless— or was it a letter? She had begun tapping her feet under the table, which was a little annoying but still fine.

She rested her elbow on the table, slipped her chin into her palm and watched the rays of sunlight stream in from the arched windows, touching the oak of the tables, the cobble of the walls, the books in the corner, all with something light and bright, and sighed.

She wanted to ask the girl if she'd killed anyone before.

They were watched more carefully; the ones who had killed people before. Everyone stared as they walked by, and crowds would part, and the adults would hesitate. It made sense. In a place where nearly everyone had blood on their hands, the weight of someone's life was an almost palpable presence on the backs of others. That's what she had gathered in the last few months.

Jeanne Bernard walked through the halls with lowered eyes and a clenched jaw, a chip on her shoulder and an eye on her at all times. She was never seen during thunderstorms.

Ibrahim Naguib, whose hands always shook, whose face was always creased into a smile, was never allowed to be alone, but he always ate separately from everyone else.

Nobody talked to Scary Carrie.

But then again, they were all mostly upperclassmen, due to leave in a few years and known murderers— not like this girl, who was just about her age. She had taken notice of her from the hearing aid she wore, and then had kept taking notice when she saw the adults had as well. This girl was watched. Not as closely, not as carefully, but she was.

Not that she could understand why. She was about as normal as any of the other Raphs here. She hung around that blindfolded freak who scared everyone who crossed paths with him. She had freckles. She was in an accident.

Accident. Probably her power manifestation.

"What's your power?" she asked.

The girl looked up again, brows raising. "You're not supposed to ask that."

"Boo. We're not supposed to exist either and yet here we are," she sighed, leaning back in her chair. "Besides, everyone wants to ask it, it's just that nobody wants to answer it."

"What's yours, then?" she asked back.

Ha! She pretended to think about it, tapping a finger against her chin before she grinned, "Mm, I don't think I want to tell you."

"I don't think I want to tell you either."

"Well, fuck."

The two of them locked eyes and burst into laughter, and the girl seemed surprised, but the smile remained on her face and her guard was gone, and it was almost nice to see.

Everyone was so fucking serious here at times, it was suffocating. Why did anyone care about anything when the scrawny, studious girl studying at the other end of the hall could snap a grown man's neck with her bare hands? She had glared at the two of them when they had laughed, but had otherwise returned to her textbooks like a regular bore.

She reached out and grabbed a strand of the girl's light brown hair, curling it around her finger with a hum. She didn't seem to mind. "Your hair's so long. I can barely stand having mine as long as it is."

"Why don't you cut it?"

She shrugged. She didn't want to answer that, so she didn't.

The girl had dimples when she smiled and said, "I've been thinking about cutting mine, actually."

"Really?" she grinned again. "Let's do it."

"What, now?"

"No, tonight. Let's do it," she said, already mimicking scissors with her fingers. "I can help." She was shit at cutting hair, of course, but shitty haircuts were more fun. It wouldn't ruin her appearance anyway. "We'll give you bangs too. I've always liked bangs," she crooned, already imagining how pretty the girl would look with short hair all chopped up.

But the girl ignored her comments and repeated, "Tonight? After lights-out?"

"Yeah," then she leaned in a little, mouth curling, "Why, you scared?"

The girl stopped. Then her face scrunched up. She said definitively, "No." Of course she wasn't, ha! Killer or not, killer or not?, she wondered. No, no, probably not. She supposed that was a good thing. She knew she wouldn't be scared thouhgh. She had a sense for these things.

"Good. I don't like scaredy-cats." Her grin sharpened, satisfied. "And I want to like you. We'll come find you tonight then."

"We?"

"My friend and I," she said. "You'll probably like him since everyone does and he'll probably like you since he likes everyone. We usually meet up after dark since we have different classes." Gross. Oversharing. Stop talking. She offered, "You can bring your friend too. The weird one. So long as he isn't lame. My friend's actually bringing his weird friend too, so it'll be fun. His bites people."

"He's not weird," she said and then, after a moment of thinking about it, "he's not that weird. He doesn't bite people at least, I think."

She laughed. "Weird is fine, lame isn't, and that's just how it is. We'll so hardcore judge you if he is lame, but… if you're not afraid of that…"

"Alright," she said hesitantly, peering at her curiously. More firmly, "Tonight."

She smiled. "What's your name?"

"Birdie."

"Birdie?" Come to think of it, she had looked a bit like a bird when she had walked in, perched at the table in all that sunlight, ready to take flight at a moment's notice.

Too late now for her to run though. She was her friend now.

"It's short for Bernadette."

"Well, Birdie, short for Bernadette, I'm Andy, short for Andromeda," she smirked. "It's nice to meet you or whatever the fuck adults say. Ha!"

[March 03, 1995]

An older ex-classmate of hers, (only by three years, mind you!), Jack Yamaguchi, once said that the only things you'll find Saints doing after dusk during cross-school events was partying, sneaking out, or hooking up. Oftentimes, all three at once.

She had listened with much the same awe and admiration as had everyone else that had followed him and his friends around at the time, but still hadn't really believed him until she came face-to-face, or rather, face-to-back, with an upperclassman sticking his tongue down someone's throat.

"Ohmygosh! I'msosorry!" Eun-Ae Hyun's hands flew to her mouth as she gasped, then to her eyes since she shouldn't be seeing that, and then generally put her arms up in front of her before peeking through, and the boy— hey! He was the one from the sporting event! God, he was scary up close. He turned and scowled horribly, all pointy sharp teeth and bruised lips, mussed hair and wrinkled uniform.

When he met her eyes with his own dark narrow ones, he cocked his head and said clearly, lowly, "Fuck off."

Eun-Ae didn't have to be told twice, for she had already begun to turn around and walk away as soon as she had come to her senses, thank you very much! However, being as flustered as she was, she only got a few feet ahead when she indignantly gathered up her courage, pivoted, and yelled back, "You don't have to be rude! This is a public place, y'know!"

And then, having said that, she really turned tail and ran.

"Gabbies are the worst," she huffed to herself, pressing her hands to her warm cheeks in order to cool them down. Even if she hadn't seen the green tie loosened around his neck, they all had the same rigid posture and clenched jaw and bad attitude, mouth twisted like they had just sucked on the world's most bitter lemon and expected to be congratulated for it. They think they're better than you, so don't even bother with them. Well, that was right!

She steamed a bit more.

...

Ugh, no, that wasn't right or fair to say.

She had just intruded on their… umm… moment… after all...

Her cheeks were warming again.

She shouldn't have said anything. She should have just run off quietly and politely. She should have apologized again, maybe.

All she had been trying to do was use the walkways to get to the arboretum! Now she was forced to walk across the large fields that separated the buildings of St. Michael's from each other, which had been made muddy from the rain and from all the other students that had stomped their way through it earlier today. Now, there were still a few students mulling about in small pairs or groups that she could see traveling in dark shadows through the fields, likely taking advantage of the lack of adults anywhere.

Eun-Ae walked silently in the dark, hoping nobody recognized her and if they did, that they didn't think poorly of her for being out there, and out there alone.

The night made the fields pitch.

Even though she'd sometimes tried to follow older kids when they snuck out, she always snuck back into her room, too afraid to travel the blackness at night, far away from the lights of the breezeways or buildings. It was scary. Shouldn't there be more stars out? She looked around glumly, but she couldn't see much of anything. A shiver ran down her spine. It was cold too. She had forgotten her jacket in her room.

A shriek of laughter from far off in the distance made her jump. A silhouette of a skeleton, vibrant in the night, was glowing.

She was entranced by the sight, that light in the dark. All she could do was stare at them as they jumped up and down, look as they dashed and rolled, watch as they cartwheeled and tumbled, once, twice, and the third time into their friends who all fell down and laughed and laughed and laughed.

When they got up again, they turned, stark against the night. And they stopped. And they stood. And they stared.

Were they looking at Eun-Ae?

Their light went out.

And she was left in the dark.

Another chill at the back of her neck. She held her breath, frozen where she was by something indescribable, completely rooted to the ground. She squinted her eyes at where they had been, but she could see nothing anymore, and could hear nothing. Eventually, the fear just settled into loneliness.

"Hey."

"AH!"

"WOAH! Woah woah woah now," Yezda Sloane slowly kicked her legs in the air as she awkwardly floated a few feet above the ground, her arms waving around in the empty space a bit like a chicken's as she did so. She was instantly recognizable from the way she wore her hair and uniform, how she acted casual even as she was completely levitating, her expression more surprised than concerned as she looked around. She flicked a floating pebble and it went flying through the night. Sloane just laughed. She had almost been about to begin spin to the right when, oh, right! Eun-Ae remembered; breathe in, breathe out, clench all your muscles and then release. Sloane's gravity came back all at once and she plummeted into a hop and a skip and a step-stumble, ending up standing almost straight with her hands on her hips once she steadied. She rocked forward on her heels once and then smiled like nothing happened. "Wow! That was weird."

"I'm so sorry!" Eun-Ae rapidly apologized, guilt dripping from her words. This was the worst night ever! Her face was surely bright pink again. "You scared me and—"

Sloane waved off her apology, settling into a more relaxed stance now. She laughed easily even though Eun-Ae hadn't said anything funny. "You're good, don't even worry about it," she said, and Eun-Ae supposed that that was something that she regularly said from how naturally it came.

Yezda Sloane was only a year above her, a gangly, lively fifteen-year-old, but she had all the coolness that came with being a fifth year and none of the scariness. She was still smiling and it made her cheekbones look even rounder, her eyes look even sleepier at night from what Eun-Ae could vaguely see. Her tamed hair bounced around her, even as short as it was, and curled around her shoulders in a frizzy halo. That and her pristine uniform, the one that she was smoothing the wrinkles out of even now, never seemed to suit her given how free she seemed.

Eun-Ae was about to apologize again when she said, "Eun-Ae, right?"

She nodded and was surprised the older girl remembered. They had only really spoken in passing, had known each other through Jack, but otherwise had never talked. Everyone knew Sloane but nobody knew Eun-Ae.

"Sloane," Sloane said, even though she didn't need to. She was hard to forget! She also had said Sloane, not Yezda. Was her first name Yezda? Eun-Ae was pretty sure it was. She hated when people misremembered her first name. Nobody would call her Hyun if she asked. "What are you doing out here?"

Eun-Ae licked her lips which had ran dry. "I was looking for Jack? I couldn't see him earlier today and so I snuck out thinking he might be by the arboretum, but then I ran into a couple that was making out…" she said as she slowly trailed off, going pink again.

"It is Makeout Midfield," Sloane said. When she first met Sloane, she spoke perfect, practiced English. It was still perfect now, there wasn't a bit of an accent or anything, but she had relaxed the pronunciation slightly. That being said, she still answered things without saying things like, "yeah", or "well", or "uhhh", the way Eun-Ae was used to hearing in the States, or the "ahhhs" and "ohhhs" that Eun-Ae had grown up with in Seoul, and the straightness of Sloane's statements always made her blink a bit.

"Huh? I've never heard of that."

"It's only for when the schools crossover here at Michael's. Otherwise, it's not a thing." Sloane turned sideways and raised her arms, gesturing first towards the buildings in the distance and then back as if to divide a line. "See? Midfield. We are in the middle of a field, but I think it has more to do with the fact that people like to go to second base here or something. (— actually, that was too much information, thank you very much!) Or maybe they just like alliteration."

"Usually, people just bring blankets out here, but it must be too muddy for that. They have spots at Gabriel's and Raphael's too. I'm surprised you saw just one couple. I saw a few on my way through here," she laughed again.

A bit of jealousy arose in Eun-Ae. Sloane was only a year above her and yet she knew so much. Everyone liked her without her even trying! Even the scary older kids who never even really glanced at second-years like Eun-Ae liked her somehow. She made it all look so easy and she was so terribly, terribly envious of that.

"Just the one was enough," she said, frowning a bit. "But, um, have you seen him, then?"

"Who? No. Yes. I think I saw him with his friends earlier, but they were off doing their own thing. I almost wanted to join, but," and this is where Sloane shrugged, smiling a bit, "I figured they wouldn't want me hanging around. Besides, I'll see them tomorrow."

"Oh," Eun-Ae shifted from foot to foot. She couldn't imagine them not wanting her around. "I haven't seen him since he transferred." She drew shapes in the mud with the point of her shoe that she couldn't see, planets and moons. "I heard he hangs with bullies now."

When she looked back up, Sloane was still smiling, always-smiling, but it did slip a bit. "They're cool," was all she said, which was a bit of a nothing statement.

Despite that, she nodded. Sloane was probably right. She shouldn't repeat what others say, anyway. It's not like she knew them. "What are you doing out here then?" Eun-Ae asked.

"Going to the woods," Sloane said, as if that was a normal thing to say. And then after a long silence following that, "To meet people. Going to the woods to meet people. Want to come?"

"What? No, that's okay," Eun-Ae shook her head. "I think I'll just return to the dorms."

Sloane frowned for the first time and Eun-Ae felt like she had kicked a puppy. Why did she look so sad! "Why not? I'll look out for you and everything— be your big sister for the night. Big cousin? Big sister sounds better, but I think I'm more of a cousin person," she said. Eun-Ae wouldn't know. She had neither sister nor cousin. Not even parents, anymore, really. Sloane continued on with, "What's that thing Yamaguchi used to say? 'Immigrants have to stick together?'"

That made Eun-Ae giggle a little, "I don't think he said it that cornily."

Sloane laughed too. "Maybe I made it corny. But the point stands."

Within Eun-Ae, something like admiration bloomed like a flower within her chest at how kind Sloane was being. But something within her sunk in her stomach, she had swallowed a peach pit of sadness at how she had no friends to call her own and had to be pitied to be invited.

Sloane looked at her then and smiled a different smile. "Hey," she said warmly. "Watch this." And so, Eun-Ae did, watching as Sloane held up her brown hand, squarish and slightly-callused. It was a friendly hand if she'd ever seen one.

"Pop."

A cone party hat appeared out of nowhere, pink and yellow striped, a thin white wire laying delicately on her hand as if it had been there all along. Eun-Ae gaped, but Sloane just took the hat, stretched the wire, and popped it right over Eun-Ae's head. Then, she did it all over again! Hand out, "pop", and there it was. This one was blue and yellow, and she put it on her own head happily. "Now it's a party."

"Where'd you get these?" she asked, in wonderment. She knew Sloane could get things, but she didn't know she could just think of them!

"From Max and Esme's birthday party earlier today, but they won't mind," she laughed. Eun-Ae didn't know who those people were, but she hoped that they had a happy birthday, and that they wouldn't miss these two hats for she rather liked the one that she was wearing. "So, you coming?"

"Yeah, alright," Eun-Ae said softly.

Even though she knew that this was just for a night, and she wouldn't come out of this with any friends, not really, she was content with that. She'd let Sloane be a big sister (— cousin?) for a night and she'd be the younger one, as always. Then, she'd fall asleep and wake up and she'd still be silly, simple Hyun Eun-Ae, no, Eun-Ae Hyun. She was American now, and an immigrant, and a mutant. So many things and yet nothing at all.

"That's what I'm talking about," Sloane grinned that lazy, warm grin of hers, satisfied and tucked a cigarette behind her ear. "Let's go."

But then she remembered! "Wait!" Eun-Ae said, feeling entirely ridiculous but stopping all the same. "Aren't you... friends with... I mean... is..."

For a moment, Sloane didn't seem to understand what she was saying, which was understandable since she was speaking nonsense, but then she laughed. It was a laugh that came from deep within her stomach and when she stopped, she grinned with all her teeth and it made her face glow.

"Are you worried about Vega? Vega's about as scary as I am, Eun-Ae. Don't even worry, I'll introduce you."

Then she slung her arm over Eun-Ae's shoulder as if they'd known each other their entire lives and off they were walking, friends for a night, classmates in the morning.