#okay granted it was at a school library I would hope it wouldn’t be biased

[candy-ac3]

Remembering how I’m 5th grade our history teacher let us do a PowerPoint presentation on literally any historical person (when I say any I mean any) and so I decided to do mine on Mr didn’t get into art school and hated Jews, and younger me explaining how he was an awful person and what his history was like, and when I was done my teacher made a small joke that was like “well they better let you into art school”

Tbh I don’t know what was worst, a 5th grader explaining the guy behind WWII to a bunch of other 5th graders, the fact that the teacher was cool with it, or that the teacher even made a joke

[evilkitten3]

no words to spare

AN: So I asked if I should write something for my OCs, and… people seemed to like the idea! So here goes nothing, I guess. Let me know what you think! Kitty out.

Title: no words to spare

Summary: The hardest – and easiest – part about hating Mai, Hector thinks, is that she's too cruel to even pretend to hate him back.

Main Characters: Hector Stonefield, Mai Wakaba

Pairings: Implied Hector/Kotomi, implied one-sided Mai/Akiko

Extra Note: The majority of this story is told almost entirely from Hector's point of view, and is thus very biased. Mai is an extremely complex character, if only because I've put more work into her than most of the others (though I still have some issues with her that need to be sorted out), and Hector is one of the ones I have the most trouble writing. I hope this doesn't through anyone off of the characters – I do intend to write more, especially for the others, but I made a draft of this one a while back, so I figured I'd make some touch-ups and share it. I hope you like it!

For the most part, the others don't interfere. Katsuya and Kotomi have both known Mai long enough to know that befriending her is generally either something you do immediately, or never at all. That wasn't to say befriending her later was impossible, of course – just a year before beginning at Central Academy for the Magical Arts, Mai and a boy from their old school, Noah Dubinsky, had mended a previously antagonistic relationship that had been going on for about three years prior, and the two were now relatively good friends.

But every time Noah had been anywhere near their friend group – particularly Emi, who'd once been brought to tears by Noah's blunt and insensitive nature – after befriending her, Mai had been there as well. There had been no difference in her demeanor, and even people who'd known her all their lives couldn't explain how they knew, but there had been a threat there.

You are a friend, Mai's presence has said. I like you now. But you are not as important to me as the people you have hurt in the past. You have the opportunity to make thinks right. Waste it, and there will be consequences. The group had for the most part not noticed, but Katsuya had because Katsuya knew Mai, and he made sure to be as close to Noah as possible without being weird in case things got out of hand.

Hector Stonefield had never met Noah Dubinsky, and it was unlikely that he ever would. He'd never heard of him either. The two had absolutely nothing in common aside from one tiny thing: both had gotten off on the wrong foot with Mai from the start. In Noah's case, he'd said something that he hadn't realized could be seen as offensive, Mai had interpreted it as an insult towards someone she cared about, and the two had spent the next few years glaring at each other, slipping snide remarks across the room, and smirking when the other got in trouble. When exactly that had become friendship was unclear, but it had happened. Hector was a different case.

For starters, Mai had never once done anything to offend him, as far as anyone could tell. He was rooming with Katsuya and Jaren (or he had been, until Nikolai had arrived at the school and Jaren had agreed to room with his sister to keep things simple), and thus inevitably met their friends. Their first meeting had been fine. Hana had waved politely, Mikasa had nodded and gone back to her book, Emi had winked, Akiko had given him a beaming smile, Kotomi had blushed and shyly mumbled out a 'hello', and Mai had been as friendly and welcoming as she could be.

And Hector had looked her in the eye as she grinned widely at him, and he had realized that he hated her. He'd tried to be quiet about it – Kotomi was a sweet girl, and he liked her a lot, and Katsuya and Jaren were nice enough, and the other girls were fine, and he didn't want to offend any of them. But he could not stand Mai Wakaba and he couldn't for the life of him figure out why. Even after realizing that she had survived the explosion at the CETMUD facility, the one where his mother had died, he knew that wasn't why he hated her.

He figures it out when their group is watching Akiko run with the track team, and they're all cheering and clapping (well, Mikasa is reading a book, but every now and then she glances up to watch with a tiny smile, which is probably as much support as she's comfortable with giving), and out of the corner of his eye Hector sees Mai. She's wearing her huge grin, eyes shining as she calls out words of encouragement, and it all seems perfectly fine until–

Until someone trips Akiko. It might have been intentional, maybe not, but Hector sees Mai's face change. The crowd boos as Akiko hits the dirt, but Mai has no expression on her face that Hector can identify. Her eyes are just a little wider than usual, but her knuckles are stark white against her tanned skin as she grips the bleachers. Mai is protective of her friends, especially Akiko, and everybody knows it.

Just for a moment, Hector sees murder in her eyes. He sees the girl who so often jokes about her uselessness in terms of both practical, everyday things, and in most combat scenarios, and he sees that girl replaced with someone ready, willing, and 100% able to kill any and every living creature between herself and Akiko's safety. For just one moment, Hector thinks he might be about to die.

And then Akiko's back on her feet, and Mai smiles again. Only this time, her mouth stays flat and her eyes soften and it occurs to Hector that he's never seen her smile like this before. He wonders if he's ever really seen her smile at all.

"You really don't like me all that much," Mai says one day, when Hector is in the library studying because the Common Tongue isn't the one he's most familiar with, and even if he speaks it fluently, his writing is always marked with spelling problems and grammatical errors. "Right, Hector-kun?" He doesn't get why she uses honorifics from the language spoken in the Far East of Lux to CAMA, the center of the Seven Kingdoms, when the Common Tongue is the one she grew up speaking. He knows she doesn't speak that tongue with her extended family either – she uses the cultural language, with hard "ch" sounds and backwards writing. He only knows that because he's seen her use it with Katsuya, when annoyed or frustrated, and he knows because she punctuates her Common with words from that tongue that can only be curses. He doesn't know who she speaks the Far-East Luxian too, except Kagura and Kotomi, but both speak Common just fine. In fairness, she does have heritage from that area – most of their group does; it's obvious from their names alone. Hana is the only one who's ever been there, as far as Hector is aware (not counting Kotomi, who's lived there her whole life, and Kagura, who's been all over the place but isn't really from anywhere), but most of the others don't speak the language at all. Mikasa and Akiko know a couple words, and Katsuya and Emi probably do too, but even Kotomi and Hana keep their languages separate. Mai… doesn't. Her speech is filled with every language she knows, and the lack of reaction from everyone else makes him think that's normal for her. He's met her little brother once – he doesn't talk like that.

And then there's "Hector-kun". He knows what it means, of course. Kotomi told him about both of her native tongues before she brought him to meet her fathers, and he knows about the honorifics of the Far-East of Lux. But Mai doesn't refer to anyone else like that. She likes nicknames – like "Koko-chan", "Ai-chan", "Emichi", "Mikami", "Katsu-chan", and the like. Hana is "Hana-senpai", but that seems like an inside joke between the two. Hector can't tell if it's because she knows he hates her or if she just hasn't thought of one yet. Not that he wants one, of course – he hates her nicknames, and he doesn't know if he'll be able to stop himself from punching her lights out if she tries to call him something so childish and silly.

"No, I don't," he agrees, because he's an honest person and because Kotomi isn't anywhere nearby. "I don't like liars." Mai nods.

"I figured as much," she says cheerfully. He wonders if she actually thinks he buys it, or if she just doesn't care enough to drop the act. "You're pretty observant, for royalty." Hector chokes then, because he's never told anyone where he came from. He doesn't lie about it unless absolutely necessary – he really hates liars – and there's really no way Mai should know about it. Granted, he hadn't bothered to change his name, but he shouldn't have had to – he knew his elder brother well enough to know that his name wouldn't be brought up after he left. At least, not without a swift and almost certainly deadly response. "We really don't have much in common, you and I," Mai notes. "Aside from our friends, I mean." She laughs, and the sound makes Hector feel ill.

"What do you want?" he demands. He isn't going to be polite to someone who's been lying to his face, who is lying to his face as they speak, but she doesn't seem bothered. Her infectious grin – like a terminal disease, he thinks, that no one else seems to want to acknowledge; a plague smile – widens.

"I just thought you should know," she says, bouncing on the balls of her feet. "I really don't mind. There's no reason to pretend you like me when you don't; Koko-chan knows that not everyone can be friends." Does she? Hector wonders. He cares about Kotomi a great deal, but she's always been a bit naïve. "Besides," Mai adds. "You hate lying, and you're really not very good at it. So don't lie, okay? I think it makes the others more uncomfortable when you pretend everything's fine instead of acknowledging how much you hate my guts." Hector's jaw clenches.

"I don't want to be lectured about honesty by you," he spits out, glaring at her.

"So you want to keep lying?" Mai asks, feigning surprise. "I didn't think you were that kind of person. But honestly, I don't mind." She beams at him, and he wonders how it's possible to hate a single person so much. "If you hate me, that's fine. But there's something I should tell you." Hector slams his book shut, stands up, and turns on her.

"What?" he snarls. "What the hell do you–" she pokes his nose.

"I don't hate you," she tells him, smiling. It's not her real smile, but it's not a fake one either. Her lips are turned up slightly, and her eyes are crinkled at the corners like she's laughing, but there's a glimmer of something else behind the amicable mask that's laughing at him. You really thought I'd hate you too, the smile taunts him. You really thought you were worth at least that much. "I don't hate you, Hector-kun. If you were in trouble, I'd do anything I could to help."

Mai wraps her arms around him in what Hector feels is less of a hug and more of a coil, a snake wrapping around its prey to choke the life out of it – a venomous snake, no less, one that could kill him quickly with poison but was too sadistic to let him die so simply. "That's what friends are for," she whispers in his ear. Hector tears himself away and sprints out of the library, away from Mai. He doesn't realizing he's going to his room until he gets there, flinging the door open and throwing himself on his bed. Katsuya isn't there, and that's a relief, because he doesn't want to explain to his roommate why he's crying into his pillow.

When he leaves, nothing will have changed.

In the library, Mai calmly hands Hector's abandoned book to the librarian, asking him to hold onto it until Hector realizes he forgot it. She walks out with her hands in her pockets, wandering aimlessly through the halls of the school. Dinner will be in a couple of hours, and she thinks she might want to go for a swim first.

When she next sees Hector, she'll smile at him and he'll glower at her, and Kotomi will laughed and shake her head, and it will be like nothing ever happened.

And, as far as Mai's concerned, nothing did.