The Brightmoon Institution (Catradora Boarding School AU)

Her.

The click of the door did nothing to soothe the uneasiness that burned in Adora's stomach. She wrapped her arms around herself, trying her hardest to be nonchalant while also protecting herself.

From what? Catra won't hurt you.

She moved to unhinge herself from the awkward position when her gaze caught on her emergency contact phone, the bright screen lighting up with a message from...Shadow Weaver? How had she even gotten the number. She skimmed it, momentarily diverting her attention from the sound of footsteps entering the room.

"I had the worst fucking day possible, you won't believe it-"

Her voice cut off but Adora barely even realized, deleting the message and turning it off before Catra's attention followed towards the message.

"Hey, Adora? You there?"

Her arms instinctively coiled around again, her grip tightening on the skin of her waist, the stiff fabric of the collared shirt.

"Yeah, yeah."

Her voice was too mechanic, she couldn't lie to save her life. Catra played along though, jumping on the couch while loosening her tie.

"God they're uptight. Lucky me, I had Prime as a sub for English."

This was perhaps the only piece of information Adora could distract herself from. She turned over to catch Catra rolling her eyes, leaning back on the couch. She looked hot, Adora couldn't help but marvel at the magnificent structure of her face for a moment, practically built like an ancient goddess or-

Zip it. Not the time.

Adora straightened herself, tuning in to hear the rest of Catra's complaints.

"You'd think principles would just sit up in their office and pretend to do work, but the bastard actually elected to be one of the teachers. He barely even taught actually, spent half the bloody lesson making me button up my shirt, confiscating my expensive custom made jewelry, doing all sorts of atrocious things to my uniform. I mean, honestly, the ugly thing is bad enough. I made it barely tolerable with my touch ups and the dickhead had to go and fuck it up!"

She was in such a state of pure annoyance she actually ripped the tie off her neck, scrunching it up like a measly wad of paper and shooting it across the room to bounce harmlessly off the wall. She made a huff of indignance, a petulant child fed up with the laws of a school.

"So, what's wrong with you then?"

Catra swiveled around to examine her, the eyes scanning over Adora's draping limbs on the sofa.

"Me? I'm fine, fine, completely cool."

She gritted her teeth at the words, in a slight struggle to get them out with a smile. Catra narrowed her eyes, leaning closer. Her face was so close to Adora's that the awkward girl moved back slightly, but Catra kept coming until she was backed into the pointy end of the couch. Adora looked at her wide eyed, flicking between the gold and blue in a bit of a frenzy.

"You are truly the worst liar on this planet."

Catra leaned back in a fit of laughter, Adora blinking as she shook off the butterflies having a party in her stomach.

How could she do that, and so easily too? Just lean forward and stare at her and suddenly Adora became a slushy pile of goo, pliable to Catra's will.

"Go on then, spit it out. Who pissed you off so much that you're sitting like that?"

Catra smirked as if holding back a snicker, waiting for a response.

"You, actually."

The clarity of her voice brought about an immense shock to Adora herself, who watched the shift in expression on Catra's face.