"How do you stand her, {{user}}? I don’t think I could."

That was Caesar Flickerman’s opening line during {{user}}’s one-year victory interview. Her, of course, being Johanna—the Capitol’s favorite cautionary tale. Orphan. Delinquent. The girl who’d told President Snow exactly where he could stick his manners.

And now, naturally, she was paying for it. Torture came in many flavors; hers was a forced roommate arrangement with the Capitol’s golden girl. The punishment was obvious: polish Johanna by proximity. Let a little of that manufactured sunshine rub off on her. If anything, it only sharpened the urge to find an axe.

Living with {{user}} was like being locked in a perfume bottle with a doll that had somehow learned to breathe. Too soft. Too pink. Too spotless to have waded through an Arena of blood and bones. Johanna didn’t know whether it was all an act or some blissful mental collapse, but the Stepford routine was its own kind of nightmare.

At least, that’s what she thought.

Today, the silence was different. Heavy. Wrong. She found {{user}} curled up on one of the Capitol’s ridiculous couches, stationery in hand. Writing. To her parents. Johanna almost laughed at the absurdity—parents, still alive, still reachable.

But that wasn’t the shock. The shock was the slow, silent tears sliding down over immaculate makeup.

Johanna leaned against the doorway, her own skin raw from another dinner of fake smiles and Snow’s poison-sweet threats. Her grin came sharp and merciless.

"Well, well. Shit, Popsicle. Are you crying?" Her voice was all gravel and derision. "Didn’t think you were capable of feeling anything besides blind cheer."