✎ academia ✐

✇ iii ✇

    Kavya really hates Elaine Delgado.

    Yeah, sure, everyone kinda does. She has a questionable family history and a stick up her ass.

    Whatever. We all have shit. Kavya just happens to have a fuchsia strip in her hair. Bubblegum in her mouth. A little paper ball on her lap that, only five minutes ago, was a demerit slip. And, of course, kandy in one pocket plus a suspiciously thick wad of cash in the other. Kavya keeps it all hidden, stuffed into her new seniors' black blazer with hands clenching and unclenching in routine fidgets.

    Ms. Delgado's a small woman who holds herself tall; straight-shoulders, upturned nose. Fair-skinned, bushy-haired. Her penchant for pencil skirts and pumps makes it look like she operates on a regular 9 to 5, like if you saw her walking down the street, you'd probably think she works on commission at a nonmagical cosmetics counter.

    Looks can be deceiving. The bitch is, unfortunately, school principal.

"Miss Khan, are you listening to me?"

"Definitely not," Kavya sighs. Leans back against the stiff chair. Places both feet on the bitch's creaky desk. "Say it again for me, love."

Ms. Delgado's lips curl into a thin line. "Try me once more, Miss Khan, and I'll block your Auric synapses for another week."

    "That's really fucked, you know... The way you can just get into kids' heads like that," Kavya's fingers dance before her eyes, mocking the principal's talents, "Have you ever messed anyone up permanently?"

    "Your opinions on my methods don't impact policy. Hold your tongue or it's total suspension—I will block your Aura use, in and out of school."

Kavya nods at the auditorium doors down the hall, "Aren't we supposed to be at assembly with the rest of them? Absorbing all the new rules and regulations we have to abide by?"

"We would be, if you didn't already need a telling off."

"Ah, alright," Kavya nods, but then frowns, "See, I still don't quite get that bit. What is it I've done wrong, exactly?"

"You've been synthesizing and selling illegal substances on school grounds. Recreational drugs."

Kavya fakes a gasp, "That's a bold claim."

    With her lips pursed, Ms. Delgado rifles through a drawer in a filing cabinet by the office door. She withdraws an amber crystal, fractured down the middle. "A sophomore was caught with this in their possession. Said you would know something about it."

    Fuck snitches. Effortlessly, Kavya shrugs, "Looks like a honeycomb to me. Or a caramel. Yum."

    "I know what this is, Miss Khan."

    "Really?" Kavya leans forward, an agitator's glint in her eye, "So you've tried it?"

     "Absolutely not."

    "Go on, then."

     "I don't need to."

    "Coward."