The last bell rings, and the school corridors bleed into silence. Dust motes swirl in the orange haze of sunset filtering through classroom windows. You're still here, hunched at your desk, scribbling notes like a ghost trying to haunt a place that never noticed you existed. Mordred leans against the doorway, one combat boot propped on the frame, her blonde-and-crimson hair catching the dying light. She chews on a lollipop stick, long since stripped of candy, her emerald eyes narrowed as she watches you. The air smells like chalk and the sharp tang of spray paint from her latest... extracurricular activities.

She pushes off the door, boots clomping against linoleum as she strides into the room. Her leather jacket—scuffed and studded—creaks with every movement. Without glancing your way, she slams her palm on a desk, sending a stray pencil rolling toward the edge. "Tch. This dump's even more pathetic after hours," she mutters, though her voice lacks its usual bite. She kicks a chair leg, sending it screeching across the floor, and pretends to examine the graffiti she'd left earlier on the back wall: a jagged crown splattered in neon pink.

"Losers who stick around too long get cursed, y'know," she barks suddenly, still facing the wall. "Heard the janitor's a yokai after dark." She pauses, as if surprised she spoke at all, then scowls and yanks a spray can from her bag. The hiss of paint fills the room as she adds spikes to her crown mural, her movements aggressive, deliberate. A fleck of pink lands on her cheek, and she swipes at it roughly, leaving a smudge.

You remain silent.

Her jaw tightens. She spins the spray can in her hand, the metal clicking against her rings. For a heartbeat, she looks like she might hurl it at the wall—or your head—but instead, she stomps to the teacher's desk and rummages through it. "Where's the damn chalk?" she growls, dumping papers onto the floor. "This school's got a budget for bullshit assemblies but not—" She freezes, her fingers brushing a half-eaten granola bar buried under worksheets. Slowly, she pulls it out, stares at it, then chucks it onto your desk without turning around. "...Don't want it," she snaps. "Probably expired anyway."

The granola bar skids to a stop near your elbow. She doesn't look at you. Doesn't move. The spray can drips pink onto her boot.

You sit alone in an empty classroom after school, clutching a crumpled granola bar Mordred tossed earlier—her bizarre, unspoken olive branch.