"Hey, if you're jealous of Shushu, just say that. Let's stop talking about this. It's making me uncomfortable. Shuraina helped us last time, remember?"
"Well, thinking about it, she looks kinda mean, but she's good at a lot of stuff like magic and swordsmanship. It feels more like she just has a lot of people around her because of how talented she is."
"No, it's probably because of the girl she's always with. The pink-haired girl. The one that's super pretty? The guys around her must be using Shuraina to get some kind of in with that girl. She's always passing on love letters and stuff."
"Wow....you're right. I didn't even think of that. I feel bad for Shuraina. She's always to get compared to someone that's so much prettier than her."
I barely got the tangles out of my hair after a long time. Whew, thank goodness. It felt like a lot of my hair had been ripped out, but it all worked out in the end, so I'd just let it go.
"But that friend's name.... Oh. Hestia, right?"
I was just about to leave, but stopped when I heard Hestia's name. They finished talking about me and then moved onto Hestia. I wanted to leave because it sounded like the conversation was flowing towards something I definitely didn't want to hear, but I couldn't get myself to move.
It felt like the base of my head was slowly beginning to tighten, so I blinked rapidly. I licked my dry lips.
"You know, the one that's always smiling. The super popular one. She's the real coy one here."
"...is she?"
"Did you see Hestia smile at those boys last time? And look at her major. Isn't she basically here to become a bride? She's not here to study at the academy like the rest of us, she's here to find her husband."
I quietly listened to the conversation on the opposite side of the lockers, brows furrowing. I was wondering if I should leave or not just a moment ago, but just hearing these words made me angry so I just decided to stay there.
I hated how they judged Hestia so easily. It might have seemed like that to them, but she was so much more than what they saw.
Hestia tried her best within the boundaries of what she could accept. She had never failed a single class outside of magic classes. And sure, Hestia talked about marriage and boys often, but anyone who was close to her knew. Even if she talked about those subjects, she wasn't truly interested in it. On the contrary, she was suffering and absolutely sick of those two things.
"Did you hear what Hestia said to Shuraina last time?"
"Huh?"
"Like how women have to be modest, and how they shouldn't wield a sword. It's basically what my grandma says to me, you know? But the worst part is that the guys listening to it were super into what she had to say and agreed with it."
Laughter rung throughout the changing room. I started to get irritated. I scratched the cover of my blade. My hair covered my face and made me sweat. The bridge of my nose was sweaty, so I rubbed a finger over it. I was extremely uncomfortable.
"She might be popular because she has a pretty face and a nice body, but that's only because she looks good. She's basically a decorative flower, right? Hah, I wonder why she lives like that. It's like there's nothing in her head."
At those words, I couldn't help but remember what Hestia said. It reminded me of what happened yesterday. Of the exasperated tone she used when speaking the truth. She tried not to show me how she truly felt as she hid everything behind a fake smile, but she was desperately sad.
I always tried to look at a situation in the most objective light possible, but I couldn't do that right now. My emotions had taken over my judgment. Even as I listened to them talk badly about Hestia, I was thinking about why they were wrong. But when those strangers made definitive, conclusive statements about her, I couldn't breathe.
Something inside me broke. The rage that had been boiling inside of me suddenly stopped and stilled into a silent calm.
I pulled my leg back and kicked the metal locker door in.
With a loud bang-, a loud sound, one that you would hear in a construction site, rang through the air.
The students who had been talking about Hestia shrunk.
I took my sword and walked towards where the students had been talking. Right behind my lockers were other lockers and a place where students could change, and that was where the students were.
I stored each of their faces into my memory. They all looked stunned. Looking closer, I saw that they were the group of students I had helped last subjugation. All of them were frozen in place, blinking quietly. One of them quietly tried to leave, so I threw the sword in my hand towards them and blocked them from leaving.
"Shuraina. Your hair...."
"Hey, no. Don't talk about that. Read the air."
The students were surprised at my sudden appearance and were frozen in place. They just swallowed their saliva as they looked at my hair. When I just wordlessly stared at them, they began to open their mouths to say anything that they could think of.
"Shuraina! We, we weren't talking about you, just.... That…..!"
I sighed loudly as I stared at my nails, brows furrowing.
"Sounded like you were having a fun conversation."
"....we weren't talking about you. Really!"
"I know. You were talking about Hestia, weren't you?"
I slowly walked in front of them. I picked up my sword off the floor and leaned on it slightly. I put my head down slightly to control my expression, then breathed in and out a few times and looked back up.
"I wonder why Hestia's life matters so much to you guys."
My heart hurt like it was going to rip. It felt like I had gotten hurt instead. They didn't understand Hestia at all, and my mouth itched to correct them.
"Who was the one that said she was a decorative flower?"
I asked, voice quiet. There were a few girls who were avoiding my gaze, and a few who were stunned, staring blankly at me. But nobody opened their mouths to answer my question.
Angry, I asked them again.
"I said, who was it?"
I raised my voice only to find that my voice was gone. Hylli seemed to be waiting outside. I heard him calling out, "Shushu?" from outside of the room.
When I raised my voice, the girls who were stunned slowly began to scowl.
"What, we weren't talking about you so why are you so angry?"
That voice was the one that kept dropping weird comments earlier. When I saw her face, I kind of understood why she said all of those things. Isabel Twisel. She was known around the school for having a different crush every month.
Out of all the people she liked, she liked Hylli the longest. So when she heard rumors about how Hylli had a crush on Hestia, she was so shocked that she didn't come to school for a while. After that incident, she had joined the swordsmanship classes.
When Isabel began to respond angrily, a friend of hers grabbed her sleeve.
"Isabel, we weren't on the right side either so just stay quiet."
"Why? What, did we say anything wrong? I honestly don't care if Hestia hears what we had to say, and I don't care if you heard it either. I'm confident, you know? It's true, right?"
Isabel, who looked like she had quite an attitude, stood face to face with me and looked at me with an arrogant look. This was why I didn't like being short.
I grabbed Isabel by the collar and dragged her line of sight to match mine. Isabel couldn't fight against my strength and stared at me, eye to eye.
At my look, Isabel looked slightly scared. I didn't know how I looked right now, but it probably wasn't too pretty.
"...."
"W, what."
When I quietly continued to just stare at her, Isabel stuttered slightly and forced herself to smirk. She seemed like she was trying her best to look calm.
I turned my gaze away from Isabel and looked at the rest of the girls there. Then, I looked back at Isabel and tilted my head in a question.
"You talked about how Hestia's head was empty, right? Then yours must be, what, full?"
I wanted to do nothing more than ask for a duel, but I just clenched my fist. Now wasn't the time. Instead, I just raised an eyebrow and tauntingly asked her a question. Isabel's pride seemed hurt that she was scared of me. She scowled.
"More than y, you and Hestia!"
Isabel seemed angry as she shouted, spit flying and face burning red.
Isabel's friends began to mutter amongst themselves about how she was saying this to a student at the top of their class. Isabel's breaths grew rougher. She seemed like she was at her wit's end as she tried to think of a taunt, then smiled as she seemed to think of a response.
"I thought you were pretty okay, but you're worse than Hestia, Shuraina. You match well with her, you know? The two of you are exactly the same."
As if she had thrown the comeback of the century, Isabel proudly finished speaking and put her hand on her hip. I had still been thinking of a way to respond, but frowned.
I knew what the point of her comment was, but it felt more like a compliment more than anything. I pulled a corner of my lips up into a smirk and tilted my head.
"Thanks."
Isabel huffed out a fake laugh and put her hand in her hair. She had seemed scared up until earlier, but now it seemed like anger had clouded her fear.
"Aaaaaagh!"
At my response, Isabel stretched out her hands and grabbed my hair. I was surprised at the sudden attack, but I didn't like the feeling of my hair being grabbed so I just pulled my head back and let some of my hair get ripped out. Isabel looked stunned at the hair in her hand.
Okay, she's the one that started the fight, right? Great. Everything's going the way I wanted.
Keep holding on to that, Isabel. Those hairs were going to be plenty of evidence when I was going to be pulled into the office later on. I was going to have to ask Yves how to act super wronged later on.
Hylli heard the sound of fighting inside and ended up bringing the teachers over. If Hylli didn't stop us right then and there, I would've kept on fighting. Hylli saw the bald patch on my head and quietly put the blanket I stole from Cory over my head.
Hylli seemed like he was going to say something to Isabel, but he saw that she was worse off than me and just let it be. Then, he pat my shoulders a few times and told me good luck.
In the end, I skipped my afternoon class. For the first time in my life, I was called over to the office and was given a punishment, too.
Thankfully, the hairs that Isabel held in her hand was sufficient evidence to show that Isabel had started the fight first, so my punishment became a lot lighter.
I glanced at my reflection in a window as I headed back to the dorom.
"....what do I do…"
It felt great to get revenge against the girls who were talking about Hestia. My scalp also felt plenty great when the wind blew against it.