"You dickhead!" Hitmoi shouted, drawing a few stares from the few students milling about the central area. But she wasn't really paying attention to that at the moment. "Take it back right now! Don't just stand there and insult something you don't even know anything about! You can't put everyone down just because of a few sleazy examples! Apologize right now!"

Hitomi was staring him down and not even realizing what was happening, she was just really on edge at the moment and spurred to address the man with her thoughts. And it didn't seem to be backfiring, James was obviously caught off guard with the wide eyed look he was giving her.

"I mean, were you really just waiting to ambush and bitch at me? That's creepy! And journalism is actual work! Unlike… Unlike prancing about in fancy clothes on a stage, or posing all starry eyed in front of a camera!" It was like a dream, in that Hitomi would never shout or confront anyone while awake and therefore this couldn't be real. Certainly, if it was real the cocky James wouldn't just be standing there taking it.

And yet after her little fit there wasn't an immediate retort. James looked like he was thinking about something important while Hitomi huffed in exasperation while standing there. In fact, they both seemed to be frozen in frame, just lingering in the aftermath. Slowly, realizing that, yes, this was indeed real, Hitomi's face began to heat up and flash red in extreme embarrassment. She clutched her face and held back a squeal.

It looked like James was about to say something when both of them were caught off guard by an interruption from their side. An older man in a turtleneck had come up to them and was looking at them in a disapproving way, eyebrow raised. "Ahem, excuse me, is there a problem here?"

Hitomi went totally flush. Oh god, what had she just sounded like? How loud had she been? She quickly braved a look around the building and a few heads were turned, but doubtlessly everyone had heard her yelling. How many were just looking like they weren't paying attention?

"What, there's no problem." James said to the man, looking to the side in… shame? It had to be shame, that was the only explanation that Hitomi could come up with.

"It doesn't sound like nothing." The disapproving man turned to Hitomi. "Miss, was this man giving you trouble?"

"...no." Hitomi squeaked under her breath.

For a second she wasn't sure if he had heard her as he just stood there. But he soon gave a despondent sigh and crossed his arms. "It doesn't seem like this is just a spat, you don't have to cover up for anything, Miss."

"Hey!" James turned on the interloper. "She was the one hollering at me, and you think I'm the bad guy?!"

The man turned to face James. "It seemed like she had something very personal to say to you, that's all."

James ground his teeth and stared the man down.

The little confrontation, whatever was going to happen, now seemed like the perfect moment for Hitomi to escape. She slowly creeped back from the situation and when she had made enough space with the slow approach turned and bolted.

She didn't turn around to see what became of all that mess, she was much more concerned with getting somewhere else. It didn't really matter where. Just somewhere. Anywhere to think.

She curled up behind a pillar in the pavilion outside. What just happened? Yes, she had a bit of a passion for journalism and yes, his rampant disapproval and smack talking of it had made her mad but she had never gone and yelled in public before. She barely yelled at all.

Maybe she was just agitated, maybe she was sleep deprived. It could have been any number of things but…

She pulled out her phone and checked the notification she had received. On checking it, the Weakness Tracker screen opened up and listed the first entry as "???"

Hitomi clicked it and after a small animatic of confetti blowing onto the screen the window changed to Jame's profile.

Wait, Jame's profile? He had one of those? It was listed under NPC's, not allies like Juli, and it didn't have all of the same info. But it did have a text field with a single entry.

"Weakness: Abuse?" Hitomi read. And that was it. "What does that mean?" Hitomi questioned the program but there was no answer. With that her hopes sank for a second, and then she remembered the strange word above James' head. It had said the same thing.

Were they… were they connected? Had she read his 'weakness,' whatever that meant? And if she had and this was it, wasn't it too generic? Wasn't everyone weak to abuse? How would that be significant, and why would she need to know any weaknesses if this was a social game?

Hitomi had a billion questions, and the stupid AI didn't seem to be around at the moment. Where would it go, anyways?

But if she wasn't going to get answers, she had places to be at least. She looked around the corner of the pillar and seeing no one she recognized, she made her way to class.

She stopped at every door and corner on the way to peer through to make sure it was safe. Safe from what? She didn't know, people? But regardless, it seemed smooth going. Only upon actually reaching class did she encounter any problem, as creeping in through the door she spotted James already sitting down. It didn't look like he was looking for her anymore, but just to be sure she waited for someone else to enter to creep through behind them.

And it worked. Sure, she couldn't help the anxious feeling that made her constantly look over in his direction all through class, but that was just nerves. At least rather than fuming, or scheming he looked lost. Kinda troubled? Certainly not like the kind of person that would jump her after class.

Certainly.

So she started packing her things up along with the rest of the class when the last few minutes started winding down. Their professor did make them pause in their ritual clean up with the announcement that they would need to pair up into teams by Thursday to work on a joint report.

Hitomi sighed, but was already resigned. She would just get paired up with whoever couldn't find a partner or do the project herself.

As the teacher dismissed them and everyone started shuffling out, Hitomi lingered to avoid the rush.

However, she wasn't the only one. Brushing off some of his friends, James was heading towards her, looking none too pleased.