Jessica opened the door to her house with the little strength she could manage and right away heard the pitter-patter of bare feet against the wooden flooring. “Sis!” Krystal exclaimed the moment she turned the corner of the hall and entered Jessica's field of vision. “Thank god, you're ok,” the younger sister sighed with relief, “You are ok, right?” Her eyes seemed to almost beg Jessica to say that she was.

    The blonde nodded, brow already furrowing in confusion, “Why wouldn't I be?” Krystal wore an angry frown and Jessica mentally kicked herself for thinking she would be able to slip one past her little sister. Of course, the rumors would've already reached her. Of all people, Krystal would be the first to hear about anything scandalous involving her. “I'm fine, really,” she reprised in a reassuring tone.

    “It's already late, so I made dinner myself. We can eat and you can tell me what the hell happened at school,” the younger girl gestured to the living room and turned to go back to the kitchen. Jessica let out a deep sigh, finally removed her shoes and followed her sister.

    Their apartment was decidedly unimpressive; the two lived together in a tiny two bedroom, one bath, apartment painted a simple eggshell white with various mismatching sets of furniture. By the time Jessica had grown of age to enter high school, her father had already gotten offers to take up a more active roll in the school system (that just so happened to come with massive pay increases). In his new job, he rarely ever returned home, leaving Jessica to take care of her little sister to the best of her ability.

    From the corner of her eye as she made her way to the living room, she caught a glimpse of the train wreck that was the kitchen. Jessica stood in legitimate shock for a moment before continuing on so as not to draw suspicion. It was partly her own fault for coming home so late and leaving Krystal to fend for herself; there was no way she'd let Krystal feel worse than she probably already had worrying over her.

    As soon as Jessica had sat down at the table, Krystal slid a plate of food in front of her and plopped down in a chair on the opposite side. The blonde arched an eyebrow but her younger sister's expression remained firm. “Now get talking.”

~ * ~

    One explanation later, Krystal had a look of exasperation that closely resembled the one Jessica usually wore. “A slave, really? Isn't that a bit over the top?” The blonde shrugged indifferently at her sister's assessment, already having almost gotten used to the absurdity of the situation. “Next you're gonna say she dressed you up in latex, tied you up, and made you call her mistress.”

    “She did make me call her mistress, actually,” Jessica said with a smirk.

    “Then screw her. I can take care of myself, Jessi. She doesn't have anything on me.”

    “All I did was refuse to make polite conversation with her and she made up something bad enough to get everyone to trash my stuff.”

    “Oh, she said you molested her when she politely declined your propositioning her and somewhere along the line you hit her for not cooperating,” Krystal commented as almost an afterthought. At that statement, the two sisters sat in silence for a moment before Jessica slammed her head onto the dinner table with an extended groan.

~ * ~

    Tiffany plopped down in her seat a half hour before class was set to start and gave Jessica a warm smile, much to everyone's (save for Jessica) surprise. The blonde smiled in turn and she could have sworn there were a few gasps sprinkled through the classroom.

    Tiffany had made herself very clear on their walk home; the next day, they were to act as if they were the very best of friends. Jessica would adore everything about Tiffany and would wait on her hand and foot. In return, Tiffany had explained, the foreigner would act just as sweetly as she would to anyone else in public and make sure their classmates followed suit.

    “Good morning, Jessica,” the raven-haired beauty greeted, reaching out and giving Jessica's hand an affectionate squeeze. “Did you get home at a reasonable time last night? I know my house is a bit far...” Tiffany's hand remained on Jessica's as she gave a concerned look. On the surface, her face expressed concern, at least. The blonde saw something of a threat in her eyes, seeking compliance rather than an honest answer.

    “Morning, Tiffany,” Jessica struggled to keep her tone from dropping and revealing her disinterest. She wasn't an idiot; she knew people were listening and watching every last detail of their exchange. “I got home just fine. It's not something you should worry about. Getting home a bit late was well worth making sure you found your way home ok,” Jessica trailed off as Tiffany's eyes stared just a bit more intensely at her. She wasn't satisfied with that answer. “I'm just glad you forgave me. I hope we can be good friends from here on out,” the blonde finished and Tiffany smiled.

    “Of course!” Tiffany gave her excited reply just a touch louder than Jessica thought was really necessary, and wrapped her arms around the blonde (which Jessica thought really wasn't the least bit necessary). “We're going to be the best friends,” she stressed and brought her lips close enough to Jessica's ear that the blonde could feel her breath on her sensitive skin. “You did well,” she whispered so low that Jessica had almost missed it.

    Jessica soon found that classes seemed to pass much more quickly with Tiffany around. Though there were many negative traits Jessica could list off about her, being dull-witted was not one of them. The droning of their teacher's lectures were far easier to bear with the foreigner's occasional quips that never seemed to fail to make Jessica at least smirk. Sadly, though, the sarcasm that made her time with Tiffany almost enjoyable was gone the second the bell rang and the two became much more aware of the eyes of their classmates being trained on them. She thought, for just a moment, that maybe if the two were alone it wouldn't be so bad. But only for a moment.

    After fifth period had ended, Tiffany grasped Jessica's hand, “It's time for gym. I've never been, so I'm going to need a guide. I figured we might as well go together,” she beamed, but Jessica knew better. Tiffany's eyes made it clear that it wasn't a request.

    “I'd be honored,” Jessica managed a tired smile, moving to get up and deliberately avoiding Tiffany's dissatisfied gaze. A small rebellion would be necessary to keep herself sane.

    Their walk to the locker room was abnormally quiet aside from the indistinguishable chatter of the other students in the hall. Jessica's best guess was that Tiffany was starting to run out of ideas for polite conversation between the two of them. Which, as far as Jessica was concerned, was just as well; meaningless conversation was never her strong suit.

    Once they arrived, Jessica gestured in the general direction of their fellow female classmates who were already dressing and made an attempt to go about her own business. “I don't have a locker yet,” Tiffany stated, though it was more of a question.

    “You can use my locker for now,” Jessica explained after a moment's thought. “1280. The combination is 4778,” and she tried once again to leave.

    “Where are you going?” the blonde let out a sigh and turned to see a genuine questioning look on her classmate's face. She couldn't help but be a bit surprised. It had never occurred to her that Tiffany might actually be nervous or uncomfortable in any situation.

    “I usually change in a bathroom stall. I just washed my clothes the other day, so they're in my bag anyways,” Tiffany hummed in understanding and stepped to Jessica's side.  Immediately, Jessica understood what her intention was and huffed, finally making her way to the stalls so the two could finally get changed.

    Once in their respective stalls, Jessica heard the light clicking of Tiffany removing her shoes, then, not long after, the ping of her skirt and- Jessica shook her head, slightly in awe of her own inappropriate thoughts, moving to undress herself. It was quite a thought though, that on the other side of the thin wall to her right was the ruthless Tiffany Hwang, completely vulnerable; (Mostly, anyway) just like the rest of them.

    “If you needed to go you could just say so,” Tiffany teased as she waited outside of Jessica's stall. The door swung open with Jessica still tugging her gym shirt over her head. Once her face was in view, Tiffany chuckled at how bright a shade of red it was.

~ * ~

    At first, she was surprised that Tiffany had insisted on being on the other team in their game of dodgeball, since the girl had been glued to her all day. After a few minutes of play, though, her intentions became painfully clear. More than one ball whizzed past Jessica's cheek, narrowly missing her face, after leaving the hand of her incredibly sadistic classmate. At least she's not faking her happiness right now.

    Sports had never been her strong suit, but her desire to keep her face undamaged was a motivation like no other. She didn't dare try to catch one of them, but she became increasingly confident in her ability to keep from getting hit. Jessica did have to admit, though, that Tiffany's wide grin was a touch unsettling.

    More unsettling, was the grin leaving Tiffany's face. The girl glanced behind her, brow furrowed, eyes meeting their male classmate who raised both of his hands just slightly and smirked. She shook her head and snatched up a ball that had rolled near her feet and shot it full strength at a completely off-guard Jessica.

    She wondered why she had put so much effort into dodging all that time after she got hit. The impact only stung for a moment. Rather than that, though, her thoughts were on the boy who stayed close to Tiffany; overly close, in her opinion. Occasionally, Tiffany would frown and glance back at him, and soon Jessica realized what had happened.

    His right hand traveled up the girl's thigh, further up and Jessica could see Tiffany's face falter as she took a step away one last time.

    The class gasped. The boy was on the floor, clutching at his crotch and groaning. Tiffany took a moment to process what happened and snapped her gaze up to meet Jessica's. The blonde's face was flushed from her anger.

    Sports were never her strong suit.

    But apparently she had great aim with a dodgeball.

~ * ~

    A light sigh escaped Jessica's lips as the silence of their walk began to take its toll on her. Her 'mistress' wasn't the slightest bit pleased. “That's pretty rude, you know,” Tiffany remarked and shot her an unsatisfied look. It hadn't been long since Jessica met Tiffany, but she had already noted how expressive her face was. It seemed like there wasn't a single emotion the girl's face couldn't convey with absolute clarity.

    Through the classes that day, Tiffany had effortlessly guided Jessica to respond in the way she wanted without a single classmate catching on; if it hadn't been so helpful Jessica would have found it absolutely terrifying. Tiffany's skills of manipulation were honed to such an extent it left her to wonder if there was anything out of her reach. Aside from the events of that day's gym class, which were solved easily with Tiffany's explanation of the situation, things had gone very smoothly.

    “If you wanted to talk, it might make this extremely long walk to your home less excruciatingly dull,” the blonde said in her usual unamused tone. She was a bit surprised that her interactions with Tiffany had seemed to cool down so much to the point she hadn't been hit or called a for the backtalk. Tiffany just pursed her lips and turned her gaze elsewhere.

    “You must be awful close with your sister,” Tiffany muttered under her breath.

    Jessica arched an eyebrow at that. Was Tiffany actually starting a conversation? “I am. My family was always close and, now that my dad is always busy with work, I'm the one who takes care of her.”

    “I see,” was the only response Tiffany gave. There was a long pause. “You did well today,” she said, giving the first look of hers Jessica couldn't read. She had a feeling she wasn't meant to be able to, though.

    It took her a moment, but even then she couldn't find words to reply with. It seemed her classmate had figured it would be as such, because she spoke again. “Here is far enough for today. You can head home.”

    Jessica opened , but the rather than question it, mindless words fell from her lips. “I'll see you tomorrow,” she said. Something about the atmosphere felt oddly intimate in that moment. Her classmate nodded and continued on her way home.

    There was something puzzling about that girl.

A/N: Cliche extremely short-term conflict for the sake of character bonding go! Ahem. Anyways, I've rewritten the first part of this chapter so many times because either I lost the paper I wrote it on or lost the file I saved it in. Finally, I decided to just say f it and write it all out and get it done as fast as possible regardless of how awkward the writing was there. That said, it's unedited for the most part. I did a quick spell-check, since my writing program's spell-check is broken and ugh. Also, don't be surprised if it takes me forever to make chapter 3. Somehow I ended up getting into AKB/SKE/Nogizaka and now there is no time for anything that isn't さゆりんごパ～ンチ.