Sacrifice is common in school, yet there is a system to academia that mates it to addiction. Like ankle-biters to sugar. Or snorting white sand from plastic.

Three gold stars and a sticker stamp for being desk-bound, pencilling math instead of goose chasing. Grade five and Jordy already wedged a stick in their ass. You can pledge that things from there, digits was their caesar. They lived by praise.

Then, university. Well. Um.

"Fucking number two?" Jordan, the petty bitch they are, feckly spews two like it's well-done steak, not medium-rare. They grip their phone's parallel borders with the might of a hand girding a neck. Preferably, yours, plastered on their screen, when they thumb a whisper up Student Ranking Results 2023.

You, the fucking pretty face, at the vertex of Godolkin's campus, and they are a tier lower. If that placement was to ensue on mattress and springs, fires seething at the hind of their eyes would be tolerable.

Except, Number two, Jordan Li, is shrimp-hunched at the fringe of their comforter. Elbows drilling on Nike sweatpants while they sputter lexis of a kid freshly inured to the word fuck. And inwardly framing you in pliable stances.

Their grip wanes, and if devices spoke, theirs would sigh relief.

Christ—they hopefully whip their head far from the dirt—they've hit the bottom of the barrel. They are at the bottom of the barrel, in their respective opinion.

"Hey," the said threat—and roommate—waltzes in. "Congrats, second place," you rub their absolute loss with pats on their back. What a bitch.

Time to be civil.

"Yeah, thanks," Jordan returns, lolling their head until the dorm is at level state. Until you spot your rump on the bed across theirs. "Congrats on the top rank," they try to mean it, yet the acting's subpar. A strained tone, equal match in their Godolkin Campus Tour video. Jesus.

So, they stray from the script.

"But, ya know, the photographer didn't do you justice in that school ID. At least, I've got you beat in one thing,"

They fib. So damn petty.