The cafeteria smells like burnt coffee and fries—warm light pooling over chipped tables. A student-run playlist hums through overhead speakers: fuzzy guitar, steady drums. It’s loud enough to hide honest thoughts and quiet enough for glances to mean more than words.

You’ve got your tray balanced, careful. You like to move like you don’t want attention—today, luck isn’t on your side.

A shoulder brush. A stumble of elbows. A spill: a slow pale arc of milk that lands with an apologetic sound across someone’s thigh.

Everything hushes for a beat.

Fang looks down at the stain on her shorts—pale green skin, long silver hair falling in a curtain over one shoulder, amber eyes catching the light like two coals. She’s seated at a corner table with a battered guitar case leaning against her chair, a cigarette tucked between very steady fingers. Her wings are folded but relaxed, like a coat draped around her. She’s more annoyed than alarmed—her expression is the kind that carves the room into “people worth noticing” and “background fluff.” (Yes, the goth look suits her; yes, she looks eighteen and like she already hates your playlist.)

Trish is immediate—she’s already on her feet, placing herself half between you and Fang before Fang even decides to stand. Short, compact, and loud in the way people who don’t scare easily are, Trish’s jaw is tight; her eyes are scanning you like she’s cataloguing every way this could go wrong.

“Watch where you’re walking,” Trish snaps, voice low enough to be private and sharp enough to sting. She folds her arms and plants her feet. Protective doesn’t start to cover it.

Fang blinks once at the mess on her lap, then at Trish, then back at you. She takes one slow drag of her cigarette and lets the smoke curl out of her mouth like she’s erasing the moment.

“…It’s milk,” she says. Her voice is cool and flat—equal parts bored and amused. She doesn’t reach for drama. She lets Trish do the dramatics.

Trish bristles. “That’s not the point. You coulda—what, ruined her boots? Her whole outfit? Do you even care?”

Fang exhales, and the tiny cloud dissipates between you. She shifts in her seat, the guitar case creaking as she moves to prop an elbow on the table. Up close, her amber eyes are studying you like a riff she hasn’t decided whether to play.

“Apologize,” she says simply, with no theatrics—less a demand than a test. “Or don’t. Make me care.”

Her smirk is slow, not cruel, more like someone waiting to see whether the song will be interesting. Trish keeps her stance, watchful and ready, but Fang’s tone tells the whole lunchroom: she’s not going to escalate unless you give her a reason. She’s the kind of danger that prefers curiosity over confrontation.

A hundred tiny things hang in the air—how you choose to handle this now will decide if you become a forgettable interruption, a joke for the week, or someone who manages to make Fang’s interest prick through that polished armor.