Hard Times, Man.

So it was just like any other day when Richard had already grabbed a tray of food and was sitting down at a table. The only difference between today and any other day was the fact that he was absolutely exhausted. Ever since the whole attack on the school, he hadn't exactly been able to sleep, always worrying that something might end up trying to kill him. In complete honesty, he was sure that he wasn't the only one that was having a hard time lately simply trying to cope with what had happened, but he did feel like he was one of the worst ones, even if he wasn't. The news had just been so awful-- so unreal. Why would anyone do that in a school for kids? Yeah it's a super power school, but a school nonetheless. Why would there be a need to kill the headmaster? What did he ever do? Not to mention the math teacher... Richard didn't exactly know what the math teacher had to do with any of this, but he must have been important to be killed.

"Ugh..." he grumbled before throwing down the fork he was using to play with a pile of mashed potatoes. With a loud sigh, he quickly propped his head onto his right hand, his elbow supporting all of the weight. He really wasn't very hungry either. He just wasted mashed potatoes and time to try to eat food he wasn't going to consume in the first place. And for a moment, Richard closed his eyes as if to rest for a moment only to find himself slowly drifting to sleep. In his half conscious state, it only took seconds for him to instantly find himself on the floor underneath the table with a loud, shocked cry as he smacked his chin on the cold tiles, taking a few seconds to realize that he had completely phased through the table and through his seat only to resolidify just before he hit the floor. "Damn it..." he groaned frustratingly while try to pull himself back up, desperately hoping no one saw his stupid incident.

Really, the incident came as a shock to everyone. When you’re a teenager you go through this awkward "it can't happen to me" phase and of course Verona was halfway through it when all of this happened. Which is probably why all of this occurring really hit Vera hard. Not "hard" in the sense that she was scared, but she was really shaken up. I mean teachers were being targeted and so was the headmaster… something fishy was definitely going on behind the scenes.  

But if we were all being honest here, Verona was sick AND tired of everyone being so sad. Sure it was freaky and all, but was it really worth everyone being too scared to do anything but mope around? So, Vera decided that she really needed a change of pace, so she called a few friends at home; yet even they seemed to be going on and on about some stupid boyfriend that broke their heart or something like that.  Which didn’t really help her case either. So it was back to the drawing board, but what could she do to spice this whole atmosphere up a little bit? I mean it seemed everywhere was so infested with this sense of fear and even the tension was thick enough to cut with a chainsaw- forget a knife!

That’s when she spotted Richard. (And since Dick is somehow the nickname for Richard- Vera is gonna’ give him a nickname c:) Sure things were extremely awkward between the two after that scratch incident, but this could be exactly the thing she needed.

“You okay there Dicky?” Verona asked with a smirk as she slid into the seat across from him. “You took a pretty hard fall there.” Despite the awkwardness between the two, Vera remained pretty calm on the outside, casually gliding her hand across the table.

Of course, hearing Vera's voice was completely unexpected so what did Richard do? He instantly tried to sit up and smacked his head on the bottom of the table before realizing where he was. Without saying a single word, he slowly and embarrassingly crawled out from under the table and stood to his feet, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly before even daring to look at Vera. But then what she said finally registered. Did she just call him 'Dicky?' That was definitely a first. It took him a second to finally be brave enough to lift his gaze off of the floor and look at her. "Oh, hey there Vera. What-What are you up to?" he asked, trying to completely avoid the subject. Maybe she would get it and just ignore his little incident. That would be peachy.

"I was just about to ask you the same thing," Verona replied coyly, "You hit your head pretty hard, is your pride okay? You seem a little flustered." She studied his face, her mouth pulled back in a mischievous grin. Boys were so easy and fun to mess with, it was one of her favorite past times. Second to kissing of course, and then there was bossing people around, yeah that was pretty fun too. Verona twirled a medium layer of hair around her pointer finger and stared at the boy. "You mind if I take one?" Verona asked, changing the subject to the topic of the grapes sitting on his tray. Without waiting she popped a medium green grape in her mouth and scrunched her nose up at the sour taste. "So Dicky, how's life been treating you?" Verona chatted as soon as the sour grape taste was gone. She stared up at him with what she hope came off as cool and collected.

Flusterd? Him? Pssshh, nooo! "Me, n-no! I'm not flustered!" he blurted without even thinking for a second before he cleared his throat and calmed himself down. While he apparently wasn't very flustered, he was pretty wired up from the small event. Thankfully while he was calming down she distracted herself with the grapes on his tray and he even got a good chuckle out of the face she made after eating one. "Hey, you can't trust cafeteria food." After the last comment, Richard sat back down at the table again, this time making sure he didn't lean on his elbow. Instead, he tried to just think of a way out of this conversation. Now that his mind was clearing up, he could feel the awkward moving and settling back in. "I've been fine. Not much to say, really. Uh, how's life been treating you?" he asked, still trying to get the subject off of him.

Verona rolled her eyes and drummed her fingers on the surface of the table. Yeah, yeah, not flustered? He looked pretty flustered to her, but hey I mean it wasn't her say on how he felt. Although, actually it was, but after that whole situation... she wasn't really looking to seduce him any time soon. Maybe make him squirm, but not seduce.
"I'd have to agree." Verona said with a shake of her head as she squeezed her eyes shut. Karma? Ahh, maybe. She did ask to have one of his grapes first though. That had to count for something. "Although I do have to say, red grapes have always been my favorites." She rolled her head around on her shoulders, in attempt to stretch her neck. You really get a crick in your neck from texting so much and scrunching it up at the taste of a sour grape didn't feel too hot.
"It's been... okay." Verona replied, shrugging and rolling around one of Richard's grapes across the table. "I mean other than that whole scare with the headmaster and all, I'd say things have been sailing smoothly." And while Verona remained in the same teasing tone she had before, it had a certain edge to it. Stuff like that you couldn't really mess around with. That was serious shit.
Trying to change the conversation, because she could feel it starting to sag Verona continued on."You can't tell me nothing with you is new, are there any girls you're interested in? Any girls interested in you? There has to be something interesting going on here. I'm tired of all of this moping around." With a slight pout of her lip, Verona stared at him pleadingly. She loved juicy gossip, and she could definitely use some amongst all of this tragedy.

Did this conversation really have to continue? While she spoke, he was reluctant to even look at her let alone converse. Yet, she kept talking... which overall wasn't a bad thing. At least she didn't seem to feel awkward about the whole situation anymore. It's not like it was her fault in the first place, but even still. Sighing and rolling his eyes, he could not even believe that she was trying to get him to bring up gossip. Especially when he really didn't seem to have much of a life. It was rather sad, actually. He didn't have many friends, he barely spoke to people in general... man, what did he do with all of his time? Basically nothing.

With the shake of his head, he tried to answer her questions. "Nope, nothing at all, actually. I'm a pretty sad person if you ask me," he responded. "I don't seem to hang out with people much, and with everyone all shaken up over this whole thing, antisocial activity seems to be spreading." He took a deep breath as he continued to think about it. Yep, he was beginning to go back into a slump before a yawn escaped him. "It's just hard to get over, I guess. I mean, you wouldn't think that would happen at a school. Everyone's just all shaken up." He didn't even dare to let her know that he was actually very shaken up. Actually still pretty scared.

Verona's upper lip pulled up and her eyebrows furrowed together. Nothing? Wow his social life was just about as depressing as this whole situation.(Except not at all) I mean sure, she didn't have a boyfriend; but she didn't need a boyfriend at the moment. If she really wanted to, she could, but granted even if she didn't have her ability she would never say that her life was sad. Actually that was offensive, Verona had totally come onto him, scratch that... two girls had come onto him and were fighting over him... AT THE SAME TIME. "I wouldn't say your social life was that sad." She snapped bitterly, looking away from him in a sniffy way.

Taking a deep breath, Vera tightened her scarf around her neck. She held her tongue to keep from sassing him more. Despite slowly realizing he probably didn't mean it towards her in a rude way and that she should probably feel bad for Richard, but for some reason she didn't feel any sympathy. "That's an easy fix Richie," The girl said to him plainly. "All you have to do is talk to people it's seriously not that hard. But can you just like, stop? Sure what happened was insane and all that, but I'm so sick and tired of people constantly being like depressed. Yeah, it happened, but you can't like keep living life in fear. It's getting so damn annoying." Slightly red with frustration the girl took another deep breath. Suddenly she didn't feel like talking to Richie anymore. He was only making her feel more depressed.

In some ways, Richard couldn't really believe what he was listening to. He couldn't just simply stop being scared or even saddened by the entire event. If it were that easy, his entire life would be just peachy right about now, but with no one really in charge and with everything being in chaos, it was really difficult to just forget about what happened and move on. Yeah, sure, there was a substitute headmaster, but that was just a bigger smack in the face that something terrible had happened. If Headmaster Wright were still okay and not recovering from stab wounds, maybe things would go a bit smoother. Maybe it would be easier to forget. But with so many reminders blatantly sitting in almost every hall of this stupid school, there wasn't a second that Richard wasn't paranoid about Spion coming back and trying to kill more people. "Oh boy, I'm sure glad that you can sure live that way," he retorted snarkily. "I'm sure glad that you think it's just that easy. But when you live in a land of 'It can't happen to me!' then I guess it is that simple. You can just say 'Oh, I don't feel like being scared for my life today, so it'll be all rainbows and sunshine!'" The more he spoke, the more his voice began to rise in volume. She made it sound like what happened never did happen, and that's what struck his nerve; that she could get over it as if everything was just fine. He was becoming aggravated and honestly didn't want to get into this conversation but if she was going to bring it up, then he was going to go with it.

Caution: A slew of vulgar words.

Verona's blood was boiling, and much like the creature her gift was named after her temper was very, very short. "Excuse me?" Verona voice was so loud it bounced off the walls and slapped Richard in the face. "I KNOW THAT FOR SOME REASON YOU THINK YOU KNOW ME, DAMMIT! BUT HERE'S A NEWS FLASH, YOU CAN'T KEEP YOUR LIFE IN FEAR. I'M SORRY I'M THE ONLY ONE HERE WHO ISN'T GOING TO COWER DOWN LIKE... LIKE A FUCKING SMALL ANIMAL!" Her heart was pounding so hard in her chest she could here it in her ears. Suddenly the room was spinning and she had to keep hold of the table to keep from falling off her seat. Taking a deep, shaky breath she narrowed her eyes. "Now I know why your parents named you Richard. You really are a dick."

"Hmph," he replied with an unamused smile. "That's not the first time I've heard that one..." he grumbled, trying to keep himself calm. Was she really that oblivious to the situation? How could she not understand that there was someone out there running free ready to kill any single student on campus? They were lucky he was only able to get a hold of a few people rather than an entire classroom. "If that's how you feel, then keep on living that way. Keep on thinking that he's not going to come back. Keep thinking that all of us are safe. He had a plan, Vera. I'm sure of it. He wouldn't just try to kill the headmaster and kill a random math teacher and secretary for no reason. He's coming back. But, oh no, you keep on thinking that you're perfectly safe!" He waved his hands in the air at his last statement to further push the mocking tone in his voice. "When you're next on his list, I don't want to see a lick of fear. Because apparently you're too good to be scared or traumatized like everyone else."

"Oooh, I'm sure it's not Richard." Her tone was flat and she leaned in closer, with a look smoldering with frustration. Then he continued and her stomach dropped, hard. Did he seriously just say that? Shaking her head, Verona snapped back. "I'm not like saying that we're safe, okay? I know we're not safe, so stop attacking me by acting like you know me or something. And I'm sorry that people died, but there is nothing we can do about it? Do you not understand that? Can you not get that through your small little brain? So gosh damnit, pardon me if I'm not going to like sit around here all day and cry about something that I can't change." Her mouth was rambling and at the speed she was yelling at him, she couldn't slow down. "And here I am, trying to cheer this dark and boring place up from all of this 'woe is me' crap, trying to have a little bit of fun and you're trying to punish me or something like you're my mother? Who do you think you are Dick?"

And then he finished what he was saying. Verona's mouth dropped. Without even thinking the girl reached across the table and with all of the might she could muster, slapped him across the face so hard a sound echoed through out the lunchroom.

When she was done speaking, he quickly opened his mouth to respond only to be stopped dead in his tracks as her hand whipped across his face. Well, that was very unexpected. He barely even had any time to react... actually he had no time to react. So instead of continuing what he was going to say, all he could focus on was the jolting pain that shot through the entire side of his face. Quickly reaching up to try to feel the damage done, he could tell immediately that that slap definitely left a mark. Not to mention that all eyes were now on him. Great; Just great. That was exactly what he needed right now. At least now he knew that he apparently pushed things a little too far. He had plenty to say back to her, though, but at the moment he felt like talking was out of the question unless he wanted to get slapped again. And after just a little bit of thinking and letting her words settle in his head, he realized that she kind of actually felt the same way, the only issue was that they were looking at two completely different futures. She had decided not to worry about the past and hope for the best while he was freaking out over the worst that could happen.

Aaaanndd... that's as far as his thought process got... because dang that really freaking hurt. Massaging his cheek for a moment to try to get the pain to go away, he figured that the best thing he could do now was stay quiet. He didn't even look back at her. He had for sure pushed it over the limit. But he did move his hand away from his face and sure enough, there was a huge hand imprinted right on his cheek. Perfect.

Verona had a pursed look on her face. She tried to play it cool, but you couldn't really ignore the fact that his face was bright red or that the whole cafeteria had just seen her slap him across the face. So she panicked, looking around before grabbing her stuff. Verona quickly got up and stomped away, not sure of what else she could offer to this conversation. Mentally, she was kicking herself for not thinking of something clever to say to him, like "that's what you get for acting like you name" or whatever. Nonetheless, she was still angry and her blood was boiling; but now that she was thinking more rationally, what she did didn't seem too bright anymore.