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ii. acrimony
 ✦ ✧ ✦
conflict caused by a clash of wills, temperaments, or opinions

ulesi mahamatra
twenty-nine / / head gamemaker
—

If there's one thing he can't stand, it's snorers. Call him obnoxious, or even plain needy, but Ulesi cannot possibly function without at least seven hours of slumber.

This wouldn't be a problem if it weren't for the engine-like sound that comes out of Karystos' nose whenever he's asleep.

Ulesi always tells him, "face the window when you sleep so I don't have to hear your snoring," but the man never listens. Instead, they face Ulesi then have the audacity to act shocked when—

"What was that for?" Karystos carefully peels open their eyes while Ulesi wipes his hand on the sheets.

"I repeatedly tell you to sleep on your other side but you never listen."

"There's no need to resort to violence, dickhead." Karystos stretches his arms and slides himself against the headboard. "Besides, don't ya want to see my pretty face?"

"I certainly don't want to hear the noises that come out of it."

"Oh, fuck off." They grab a pillow and smack Ulesi across the face, holding it over his mouth so he can't say anything. He coughs, the fabric irritating his mouth, then begins gasping for air. Once it's clear that Karystos won't budge, he reaches around the pillow and digs his fingers into their wrists. "Hey! What's wrong with you?"

Triumphantly, Ulesi shoves the pillow to the side. "You're asking that after you tried to smother me? Really?"

"I wouldn't have tried to smother you if you didn't slap me."

"Well, I wouldn't have slapped you if you followed my instructions and slept facing the window."

Karystos pouts then practically rolls out of the bed, scrambling for the blankets so he can cover himself. "You're a real piece of shit, you know that?"

"And you're a hypocrite considering you're standing half-naked in front of my bed."

"It's my bed too," they stammer.

"Just because you've slept in it the past three months doesn't mean you suddenly own it."

A few weeks after the ninety-ninth, Karystos showed up at Ulesi's doorstep like a blubbering fool, practically begging him to let them live here. Apparently his condo had a flood, but instead of renting a place like a normal person, Karystos of course decided to beg to stay for the time being.

Perhaps Ulesi is equally abnormal for letting them, but that's neither here nor there.

"You're insufferable," Karystos gawks as he walks away, probably in search of the little nuisance that came here with him. Though perhaps nuisance is a strong word, the dog, Chester, isn't nearly as irritating as Karystos is. He sleeps in another room and minds his own business ninety-nine percent of the time.

When Ulesi finally hears the door shut behind him, he too gets out of bed. He doesn't need Karystos to see anything more than what they've already seen, which is already too much. Hopefully he was too drunk to remember.

(Nobody is allowed to know how much Ulesi wishes otherwise.)

He's cooking breakfast, only wearing a bathrobe — he can't be arsed to shower just yet — when he sees Karystos next. They, of course, already look like they could've stepped out of a fashion magazine. His long blonde hair falls down his back in a slicked back ponytail, he's fitted in a loose white blouse with burgundy pants, and their eye makeup glistens in the subtle light of the range hood over the stove.

For just a moment, it catches Ulesi off guard. It almost makes him forget how much he's supposed to despise his overly-flamboyant, oh-so-eccentric, and practically impractical co-worker. After all, they're everything that he isn't. Karystos' mind constantly blooms with mesmerizing ideas, they walk like they don't have a care in the world, and even when they're stressed, they always see things through to the end. Fuck, it's so insufferable.

"What are you cooking?" They ask, stepping close to Ulesi's pan. "Bacon? No wonder you always smell horrible."

"I'm going to shower after this,"Ulesi responds, matter-of-fact. "I was going to save a strip for you, but your attitude is making me reconsider."

"You know damn well that I'm a vegan."

A vegan that orchestrates the death of twenty-five children every year. Sounds about right.

"Well then you can make your own breakfast."

"I was planning on it, thanks."

Ulesi doesn't miss the flush in Karystos' cheeks as he leaves their side, not before putting four strips of bacon on his plate. It's such a cruel game that the two of them play, pretending they don't give a damn about one another while knowing they'd take a bullet for each other. Or at least that's what Ulesi thinks is going on, it'd be ridiculous of him to ask Karystos about it.

He opens the apartment's thick white curtains so he can see the view as he sets down his plate and begins to eat. It's a clear day out, surprising for winter, but he's certainly not complaining. The Capitol looks so nice when it's early in the morning and people haven't started shuffling around the streets. Most of the time, the Capitol is the exact opposite of the peace and quiet Ulesi desperately craves, so he greatly enjoys times like these.

Ulesi is well aware that his desired simplicity is a far cry from what he's supposed to want with the title of "Head Gamemaker," but the way he sees it, the paycheck will eventually be able to buy him serenity.

He's so focused on the world outside of his window that he doesn't notice Chester, brushing against his leg with his paw. A scraggly thing with straight black fur and streaks of gray, he's always in need of something, and it would appear that now he wants a strip of bacon. Ulesi obliges, hoping it'll keep him occupied for at least a few minutes.

It does, however, mean that he now has one less strip for himself. With a sigh, Ulesi calls out toward the kitchen, "Please make me something to eat."

"What happened to the bacon?" Karystos shouts back.

"I gave some to your dog."

"He's also a vegan!"

"That's ridiculous; dogs can't be vegan." Especially not Chester, considering how excited he is at the moment, his crooked tail wagging like crazy.

"You're ridiculous."

Karystos does wind up making Ulesi some oatmeal. It's delicious, but he pretends otherwise, just to piss them off. Of course, it works, Karystos calling him a "degenerate ingrate."

"Takes one to know one," Ulesi says, smiling as he puts a spoonful into his mouth. "By the way, you never told me what you were up to last night." They didn't come home as late as they usually do, and that left Ulesi with a lot of questions. Did he have a bad time or something? Are they ill? "Please tell me you didn't do anything stupid."

"Nothing stupid at all." Karystos awkwardly chuckles, eyes locked on his oatmeal so he doesn't have to look Ulesi in the eyes. "I went to the club with Vangelis, that's it."

"You what?" Ulesi nearly spits out his food. "You were with the President's brat?" Lord, he cannot stand that kid. He doesn't care that they're only five years younger than him, they're absolutely insufferable and he has no idea why the Hirohitos decided to adopt them. Then again, little about Arisa and Senna makes sense to him. At least they pay him on time, sometimes even early.

"I don't see what the issue is." Karystos rolls their eyes. "We actually had a lovely conversation."

"I sincerely doubt that." He's heard them complain about Vangelis a few times, though it's always in a joking manner. "And why the fuck were you conversing in the club?"

"We had a great time talking about the Games!"

Ah yes, those. Ulesi has never seen them as anything particularly interesting, just a job to get over and done with so he can get paid and relax until the next year. Most of the time, Karystos is the one who does all the big thinking. All he has to do is rein him in, and he gets a certain pleasure in that.

Karystos always bites off more than they can chew and it occasionally makes Ulesi sick. He remembers back in school when he'd spend forty-eight hours straight in the library at times, probably on methamphetamines or something of the sort. Still, the work would get done, and Ulesi would be there to catch him when they fell. If only they were more realistic with what they are and aren't capable of.

"What did Vangelis have to say?" Ulesi asks. "Please don't tell me th—"

"They agree with all my ideas! The Quell should be exciting and different and unlike anything that anybody has ever seen!" They pump their fist in the air, then look under the table to see Chester running around in circles. "That's right, Mister C, somebody agrees with me." To that, the dog just starts licking his ankles. What a freak.

Just when Ulesi was getting sentimental and remembering he tolerates Karystos, he fucks that up. He's been hearing their rants about making the Games into a spectacle almost every day and they're getting more and more exhausting. "I don't know why you're still going on about this. I already said it was a bad idea."

"Yeah, but you never said why it's a bad idea. Do you just want less work for yourself or something?"

"Well yes, but that's not it."

"Then what is it, Ulesi?" Karystos' face is practically red. "Do you just get a hard-on from watching me get fed up?"

"No, I just think you're being unreasonable."

"You're the unreasonable one. Why don't you have any creative ideas, ever?"

"That's your job! Besides, we can just be creative with the arena. We promised the districts six months of training and that's what they're going to get."

"But that's not what the Capitol wants. They're getting bored, Ulesi."

He turns his head away from Karystos and rolls his eyes. "How is that my problem?"

"Because it's our job. And if we fuck it up, we get fired." Of course he mentions Ulesi's biggest fear. Fucking bitch. They laugh in his face and continue, "If we get fired, we get a firing squad and we die. You saw what happened to Erevan."

"But that wasn't because they were bad at their job, it was because they let the outer volunteer win."

"You saw what happened to Lucien."

"That was because he let somebody from Twelve win."

"Exactly," Karystos scoffs, scraping at the edges of his oatmeal bowl with his spoon, like he knows the noise is gonna piss Ulesi off. "We on the other hand, had an outer victory, and we didn't get killed about it. People like us; we keep them entertained. Or at least we used to."

"I think Raptor's Games were plenty entertaining."

"They were the same story we see time and time again. A trained brute loses his shit. It happened with Vanya too. They want something different."

"I fail to see how turning the Games into a 'reality show' is going to be different." Sound reverberates off the windows and walls and it's then that Ulesi realizes how loudly he's raised his voice. Karystos' fault. It's all Karystos' fault.

"You'll change your mind. I'll make it so you change your mind." They're equally loud, so much so that Chester starts barking at an equal volume. So now everybody is loud and it's an entire mess, fucking splendid.

Ulesi just wanted to have a peaceful morning and not have to think about work. Karystos may think he's getting under his skin, but he won't let them. For once, he will be unwavering in his beliefs.

He won't let that idiot stop him.

(So why is there a mounting fear in his stomach that Karystos is actually right?)

zenith stavarakis
twenty-eight / / secretary of defense
—

The protests are getting out of hand.

Every second that he spends in the Pantheon, overlooking as people shout in the streets for no good reason is a second he'd rather spend doing literally anything else. These teenagers and early twenty-somethings have no idea what they're talking about.

"MGFA - Make Games Fun Again," one of their signs reads. It's held by a girl with bright blue hair and a rainbow flag on her back like it's a cape. She looks ridiculous; all these snowflakes look ridiculous.

All of them are so fucking privileged. They don't understand the horrors the way Zenith does.

He wasn't even four when he came across his father's body, rivulets of blood pouring off the front porch and into the streets. If it weren't for one of his eyes rolling on the ground, he'd have a hard time believing this heap of flesh was the man who'd been raising him since his mother left.

Zenith doesn't think he'll ever understand why this happened. Yes, his father was a soldier for the Capitol's army and yes it was wartime, but that doesn't mean he deserved to get shot right on his doorstep.

His older brothers were next to fall, whether it be by their own hands or those of rebels who got too cocky. They're all gone and they left Zenith to rot in an orphanage, forcing him to crawl his way out until he got here — a room with marble columns and ivory floors that at times feels like a prison.

Fucks sake, Zenith has got to stop sounding so melodramatic. It's damn annoying.

But that's also a difficult task when people are shouting outside and he has to pretend he's unperturbed by them so he can get back to doing his work, which ironically involves ensuring this doesn't escalate into another war. He gets that people are pissed about the Games, but that's literally none of Zenith's business. It shouldn't be their business either considering they're not the people dying, but what does he know?

(Despair. Death. Ruin.)

He's the newest member of President Hirohito's cabinet— he's not supposed to have opinions yet. Maintaining a neutral expression and nodding is all that he can do.

And neutral his expression is as his boss collects him from his office and leads him into hers. Zenith doesn't bother asking what for, he knows Hirohito doesn't like to talk much. Fine by him, since he clearly feels similarly.

Her office is perhaps the most extravagant place Zenith's ever seen — a far cry from the streets he idiotically thought he'd be permanently bound to. While his office only has a few marble pillars, the President's has at least a dozen. Her main desk is on a raised platform, almost serving as a lectern for her to sit behind as she judges the entire nation.

They sit next to one another at a mahogany table in the center of the room with two empty seats. With a sigh, Hirohito pulls black the sleeve of her burgundy blazer and looks at her watch. "Where are the other two?"

"Who else?" Zenith asks.

"The boys." She nods as if he should know exactly who she's referring to. "They're always late these days."

"I'm still unclear who you're referring to."

A pregnant pause, then the heavy wooden door swings open. "We're here~!" Head Gamemaker Vane enthuses as he steps inside the room, Head Gamemaker Mahamatra trailing behind them. "A meeting with Zenith? Oh, this is a new one!"

"That's Secretary Stavarakis to you," he mutters under his breath. Drats, that sounds like a stripper name.

The two gentlemen look askew, Mahamatra wearing a white blouse that hardly fits his muscled figure and strands falling out of Vane's ponytail. The latter's face is also burning red, even though the sun was only out for an hour this morning. It's best Zenith doesn't ask questions.

"Sit down," President Hirohito instructs them. Mahamatra does so immediately but Vane flashes her some finger guns first. Of course he thinks he can make a joke about guns, like the ones that killed Zenith's father and turned him into the wretched creature he's now become. He doesn't care that Vane's three years his senior, they're just as bad as the juvenile snowflakes marching around outside.

"First of all, Karystos, thank you for hanging out with Vangie last night." The President flashes a rare smile. "They said that they had a really good time with you."

"Please." Vane playfully shoos the air. "I had an even better time with them." Meanwhile, Mahamatra clenches his jaw as if he's trying to stop the muscles in his face from making him roll his eyes.

"Now, onto more important business." Hirohito pushes her chair closer to the table, straightening her posture until it's like a ruler. "You may have noticed there's a bit of turmoil going on at the current moment."

"How could I forget?" Zenith deadpans.

"I saw the protests outside," Head Gamemaker Mahamatra groans.

Immediately, Vane cackles. "I think you mean we saw the protests."

"How does that make any difference?"

"I just want Lady President to be aware that I also saw the protests."

"You could've just said that as a separate sentence." He puts his head in his hands. "Why did you need to get involved in the fact that I saw the protests?"

"Because we saw them together, didn't we Ulesi?" There's a playful smirk on Head Gamemaker Vane's face and Zenith doesn't know what to make of it. "Would you like to share with everybody what you said when you saw them?"

"No. I would not."

Zenith looks over at President Hirohito and mouths, "do something about them."

She nods, then slams her fist on the table. "I don't care who saw the protests with who. Would it kill you to stop bickering with one another?"

Vane huffs. "Yes."

"Don't joke about being killed!" Mahamatra nudges him in the shoulder.

"I'll ask you this then." Zenith has no idea how Hirohito maintains a neutral expression when speaking to these fruity clowns. "What did you think of the messaging behind the protests?"

Vane raises their hand and bats their eyes like an oblivious schoolchild. Again, Mahamatra shoves him. "You can just answer the question."

"Okay welllll…." They drawl. "I think that the protestors' points were exactly what Vangie and I were discussing last night. Did they happen to tell you what we talked about?"

"How the Games are getting boring, yes." Hirohito shakes her head. "I didn't agree with them at first, but…" Her voice starts to trail off and she rapidly blinks. "My wife said that they made some good points, and the two of them have made me start to reconsider how I feel."

"So you agree with him?" Mahamatra asks. "Here I was, thinking this meeting would be all about how Karystos is full of himself and needs to lay off and calm down."

Zenith doesn't understand what his business is being here and listening to all the rancorous shouting that makes little sense to him. The Hunger Games aren't supposed to be his business; is he really only involved because people are angry now?

Why the fuck did he take this job offer again? He sighs. It's what his family would've wanted for him before they all tragically died in horrific ways. Maybe he's a bit of an edge lord, but the fact he outlasted them means he has to have some sort of purpose in life. That purpose can't be watching these homosexuals argue about whatever they're arguing about now — he's stopped paying attention.

"You didn't even throw out Chester's shit last night," he hears Head Gamemaker Vane say.

Head Gamemaker Mahamatra shouts. "He's your dog; not mine."

President Hirohito's eyes widen. "The two of you live together?"

"No we don't."

"I could never live with him."

What does this even have to do with the Hunger Games? Fuck if Zenith knows.

Eventually, the room falls silent, and Hirohito places her hand on his shoulder. "Stavarakis, please get together a squadron of Peacekeepers to dissolve the protests. If they complain, tell them that I'm working on addressing their issues."

"Without my consent," Mahamatra adds. This time, It's Vane who does the slapping, aiming at his colleague's cheek.

"Everything is going to be fine," they chide. "Pretend we're back in our school days."

Zenith doesn't care if it's fine or not. He just can't believe that of all the people who have been granted the blessing to survive in the world, it was the two of them and not his family.

"Thank you for your cooperation," Arisa says. "These Games should be good for us, just try not to get too outlandish."

Somehow, Zenith doesn't think that's possible.

"Linds, don't you have a dog named Chester?" Stop asking questions.

Yay; we've ended the conflict on whether or not the Quell should be fun! Now that the politics schmolitics are out of the way, the prologues can be even more entertaining. Next time, we will hear from my special boys who won the Hunger Games. Two of them you already know and one is new to you!

It is not September 15th which means submissions are still open so get on that if you haven't and you want to. Lot's of you have interest so go put your money where your mouth is or whatever. Let me know what you thought of this.

Still not doing questions yet, even though this prologue shows I'm not beating the abnormal allegations. Thank you Erik (who now has all 10 fingers!) for beta-ing. You're so hot for that.

Linds. Laugh. Love.