Chapter 25 | PoV: Sanya
Sanya walked into the dining room, staff held horizontally at her side. Students filled the dining room, given a lunch break from the teachers, it seemed.
No one else from Sanya's class had arrived yet. She had taken off prematurely.
Students turned their heads and gaped as Sanya crossed the room and towards the kitchen counter, where chefs placed lunch plates. Curious looks. Judgmental and critical looks. Shocked and surprised . . . Fear?
Sanya grabbed a plate of some sort of wrap, filled with mystery meat and various vegetables and flavor bits. It came with a side of rice. How they had enough water to grow rice in, Sanya did not know.
Sanya was half convinced the academy was materializing food from thin air.
With her hands now full, she could not grab a drink. She decided she would after sitting down or after the meal. Probably sooner rather than later. Her parched mouth screamed for liquid sustenance.
Sanya scanned the tables looking for Mai.
There she was, waving her hand at her. Sanya made her way to Mai without issue.
Sanya dropped next to Mai onto the bench-like seat, putting her plate on the table. She set her staff off to the side to lean against the table.
Sanya looked towards Mai, a grin stretched across her face, cheeks almost pushing into her eyes (an exaggeration).
“Nice staff!” Mai chirped. “May I touch it?”
Sanya glanced at her staff. “Um, sure. You can look at it while I get a drink.” Sanya handed her staff to Mai.
“Thank you! Wow, did you make this?”
Sanya nodded.
“You certainly made . . . choices! It's pretty though—you know, unsettling spatial warping aside!”
“Thanks.” Sanya stood and went to get something to drink.
She poured herself water like there weren't all those fancy juice choices a handful of paces away.
Sanya returned to the table with a stone cup of water. Just in time to watch Mai blunder.
“Ow!” Mai flapped her hand around like it grew wings. “Ow. Ow. Ow!”
“Are you okay? What did you do?”
Panic flooded Sanya before she could know what to do or think anything else. Her eyes darted all around Mai. She realized that it probably wasn't too bad and calmed down.
Should she give Mai her water? Was Mai bleeding? How much? Could Sanya find bandages—
Mai looked away, hints of red spreading across her face. “I may or may not have poked myself on that tooth.”
Sanya almost choked on air.
A bit of blood stained one of the shark teeth on Sanya's staff.
“You're . . .”
“Stupid? An idiot? I know.” Mai clenched her hand with the injured finger. Mai set Sanya's staff down. Was she . . . crying?
Sanya said nothing. What did she say? That Mai wasn't? Why was Mai crying over a little poke?
Wait . . . Why was Sanya thinking about this? Shame washed over Sanya. Of course Mai wasn't stupid. Of course she wasn't an idiot. Her crying at this could be valid, or it could be a release of other dormant issues.
“You're okay? No—wait—you're not stupid. You were just being curious—and did not care about the fact that a sharp tooth may or may not stab you.”
“My head is too full of thoughts about you to think about anything else!” Mai blurted.
Sanya blinked. She put her cup on the table and slid into the seat again, one leg on either side of the seat, body facing Mai. Mai sat the normal way, facing forward. Sanya wrapped Mai in a hug as best she could from the side like this. She burrowed her head into Mai's neck and above her shoulder.
After a moment, she took a hand and began patting Mai's head.
Should Sanya reply to that? How? “My head is full of you too?” Was that even true? . . . Well, she had looked for Mai to sit with at lunch. Yet, what else would she do, sit alone, sit by someone else? Blasphemous! Ah, and she had thought about Mai when she picked up the shiny gemstone.
What else? . . .
“People are staring, you know.”
Maybe because of what you just confessed to the whole room.
Anyway, that didn't bother Sanya as much as it used to—or should have. People were always staring at her for one reason or another. Better they stare at her display of affection than because she was too weird-looking or unsettling or had a wicked staff.
“I don't care,” Sanya said with a mischievous grin.
Mai sniffled. “I didn't realize you were such an exhibitionist.”
“Only for you, to show how much you're worth.”
Sanya could feel Mai's heartbeat. It thumped faster than Sanya's. It jumped and skittered. Mai's breathing was ragged.
“You're so easy,” Sanya said, full of endearment.
“You're teasing me,” Mai pouted.
Sanya squeezed her hug a little harder, and then broke off. She turned to eat lunch, glaring at anyone in her field of vision that continued to stare. Okay, maybe they still bothered her a non-negligible amount.
. . . Did that one guy just wink at her?
Sanya pretended she hadn't seen.
She savored all the yummy food. There were so many great flavors in this thing. Would Sanya ever get tired of the academy's food? It was, like, the best thing about this place, after Mai, of course.
Oh, or third, following lesbian literature.
“Sanya?” Mai asked, turning to her slowly. Mai wiped away the last of her tears. She was red like a ripe apple, not just from the crying but from an intense yearning.
“Mmm.” With a mouth full of food, Sanya braced herself for whatever was about to leave Mai's mouth. All that red had probably gotten to her head.
“Can you feed me?”
Sanya choked on her food.