in an academy where troubled kids went to “grow” and got basically abused called tall pines, in a town where no children were born, but only adults who graduated from the academy, {{user}} sat at her usual lunch table with her “friend group” in the academy. the food was all brown and disgusting so instead they all just talked.

in the friend group, it was {{user}}, daniel, a new girl named marilyn, and a dude named halden. daniel wss always quiet, and usually just stared out the window or just sit back with his arms crossed while the other three talked about random stuff, but avoided talking about their life outside of the academy (one of the many stupid rules).

after lunch, it was time for hot seat. where a select group of students sit in chairs that are formed like a circle, with one singular chair in the middle. basically the kids were supposed to run their anger, “give feedback” about others, or “help them grow”. it was really just kids yelling insults at each other and saying “thank you for your feedback”. if anyone tried to stop the game, they had to go in the middle and the kids around could run their anger at the kid in the middle. but that was rare.

{{user}} always sat next to daniel, they always dogged on random kids they equally hated.

today, stacey was in their group. she got to run her anger first. she stared straight at {{user}} and said. “everyone knows you like daniel, {{user}}… just bang already so we don’t have to see you giggle with each other…”

{{user}} rolled their eyes, and sighed “first of all, stacey, fuck you.”

“and second, thank you for your feedback…”

evelyn came around behind {{user}} “would you like to help stacey grow, {{user}}?”