January 3rd, Tuesday

                                                                                                   The Resilient 

Ansidara's life is a whole different world compared to Solaforma's. He did not anticipate that until the swarm of girls bombarded him that morning, giving him a splitting headache he couldn’t get rid of. When not a single girl realized Solaforma walked out of the house, only then did he realize she lived in a world that consisted of only herself. This is why the other girls didn’t crowd her asking questions instead they rather associate with someone who was much more open than the elusive Solaforma Inlustris. 

His world, on the other hand, consists of many people who have a thousand different ideas that interconnect with his own, creating this elaborate web of intention that influences and mold his own thoughts.

He follows Solaforma onto the long cold bus, watching as her crimson ponytail swings back and forth glimmering rose gold when caught in the light only to fall perfectly straight.

“Ansidara!” A voice calls six rows from the front.

All shimmering eyes turn to him. 

“Kampfer!” Ansidara grins, ignoring the piercing eyes. “What’s the cause for all the hollering.” He smiles then sits beside the wide receiver of the football team. 

Kampfer grins clapping his hands together. “You’re never going to believe this,” He says as others began to crowd. “The model you introduced me to at your parent’s holiday gala last month, finally agreed to go on a date with me.”

Ansidara chuckles. “Took you a whole month to do that?” He teases raising a dark eyebrow. 

The others chuckle while Kampfer rolles his eyes. “Unlike you I give a girl time to decide whether she likes me or not.”

Ansidara grins brightly before slamming a hand on Kampfer’s shoulder. “Good for you buddy.”

“Is that sarcasm?”

“No, no,” he pauses. “Maybe a little.”

The crowd giggles once again before speaking in a jumble of different conversations to gain Ansidara's attention. He always did his best to answer back but sometimes it was better to ignore the voice of his schoolmates. As their continuous speaking reminded him of clucking chickens that couldn’t stay quiet.

Ansidara lifts his head  allowing a hint of surprise to show on his face as he notices a scholarship student rush down the aisle to the back of the bus. A few other students watch him with provocation in their eyes as he swiftly rushes by.  

Ansidara watches from the corner of his eye as the boy haltes at the edge of the seat she sits at. There Solaforma elegantly reads a book bound in navy blue canvas her bright eyes skimming the long eggshell papers and extensive ink black lines. Her back is perfectly straight as her slender hands gently flip a tissue thin page every few seconds and there is the only emotion he can read on her. Curiousity, she reads every page with growing curiosity.

“How are you?” The boy asks her with hopeful eyes. “My name is-”

She cuts him off with a pat of her satchel that takes up the seat beside her. “I apologize," She pronounces with little sincerity. "But I am not interested with who you are.” She looks up from her book, her eyes brittle dry ice as she speaks. “Thank you but I must decline an offer of friendship if that is what you are here for.” 

He was taken aback as his kind eyes turn to pure disgust. He lets out a short scoff before turning away from her.

“He gives up after just that?” Ansidara mumbles to himself.

“Who gives up?” A girl with long pink hair and a disgustingly sweet tune askes following his eyes.

 Ansidar turns his head but not before she sees with cold eyes who he was looking at. “Oh!” she says, nodding her head in somewhat agreement “If you want I can-”

“No.” He says knowing what she would have said next.

“But she-” The girl tries to argue.

He spins toward her his eyes daggers as he speaks with poison. “No!”

Students look at him with a surprised expressions, they were unsure whether they should leave or stay burning their retinas at Ansidara’s loss of composure.  He tries to hold his neutral face but it contoures, melting away to a bone cutting glare that makes them readjust in their seats and turn away. 

He slumps back in his chair, trying not to look at the girl who was clearly irritated and hurt from his tone.

***

 Ansidara sits in the cafeteria before school, watching as students pass by carrying navy blue trays that hold white ceramic bowls of oatmeal, cereal, fruits, and the occasional baked good. He wonders if any of the students in the cafeteria were in fact from prominent families just as him. If so, he wonders why they would eat in the cafeteria instead of home where their prompt maids or punctual butlers could make them food.  

He leans back on the wooden table noticing a junior, the unlucky heir of a meat company scuttling across the cafeteria floor. Unlucky not because he earned his fortune from a hundred year old company that was going bankrupt. No, that was the least of his problems now. He was unlucky because a heiress from a much more fortunate meat company was approaching him with ill intentions.

He noticed a entourage behind her of four other students that were already snickering with sheer anticipation at what their friend was planning to do. 

It was all about gaining power in this world and there was three ways to achieve it, sometimes more if one was as sly as his mother. Nevertheless the three main ways to exhibit or gain power was through fear, kindness or money. Two of those options worked far faster than the other. Fastest way to gain control was to institute fear and take it away but this was a rash dictators choice that would make people hate them in the end.  

He ponders now if he had power that was gained by a birthright he never deserved or if it was his kindness as a benevolent king. He knew the answer, he just didn't want to admit it. 

He watches as the junior tries to scamper by her before caught.

“Hey!” She calls after him just as he thinks he is safe.

Ansidara notices how he clutches his blue tray tighter with growing anxiety that falls upon his fearful face. The junior foolishly looks down to the white floor in a substandard attempt to avoid eye contact with his bully. His ears become a beet red as the rest of the room looked to him with a cascade of different emotions, sympathetic, scared, angry, amused, shocked, the list was too long to count. The junior slows his walk to a reluctant halt, his black heels tapping against one another in his final step. 

An odd silence coats the atmosphere as the girl grins a devilish smile that signals violence may occur for her own amusement. Ansidara rose from his seat like a great king about to punish a well deserving criminal. Even his entourage that surrounded him acted like a court of nobles as they wonder just what was he doing. 

The girl glides across the pure white floor with the elegance of a peacock unaware that Ansidara stood. “I was trying to get your attention and you didn't even look at me.” She says circling around the junior with all the threat of a great boar. “What was that about?” her smile becomes crueler as she stops in front of him.  

The junior desperately attempts to avoid any eye contact with her as he clutches the tray tighter. “Didn't your parents ever teach you manners?” She grins diablocally.

The junior looks to the heiress, his eyes wavering as he tries to gather his thoughts. “Uh, uh,”

“Uh, uh, no.” The girl mimicks. 

Ansidara's entourage that followed him everywhere snickered, making the other students in the cafeteria feel obligated to laugh or turn a blind eye to the injustice being inflicted on their fellow classmate.  

Ansidara releases a soft sigh turning his attention to the glass ceiling as he thinks. 'Don’t they understand the magnitude of what she is doing?' He looks back to the junior and a new voice screams within his head. 'Will no one really help me?'

He wonders just the same.

“I’m, I’m sorry.” The junior stumbles to say. 

'Rebel like her.' The voice says. 'Fight against the current.'

Ansidara steps forward his entourage following him and before anyone could say a word he leans over the girl whose face glows at the sight of him

"Ansi-"

He cuts her off. "You are being unneccsairly loud without reason and quite frankly it reminds me of a clucking chicken."

She looks appalled and her face gave him enough satisifaction to leave her with that. Ansidara leaves the lunch room without another word, his clique chasing after him as their faces light up from the entertainment and the reminder that they were dominant as long as they have Ansidara Tore’s favor.

“That was interesting.” A freshman boy who is heir to an electric company laughs. 

A girl out of the five that follows Ansidara giggles as she pushes her sunset ombre hair behind her shoulder. “What was even her point in all that?” They pass the threshold of the automatic glass doors. “A chicken,” She laughs. 

The rest of the ten kids laugh with what Ansidara could feel were traces of forcefulness in their voice.

He knows it wasn’t funny, it wasn’t even clever, but they still laugh like it is the most genius idea since quantum mechanics. 

He wants to scream shut it, he wants to yell that they are just as bad, but he knew better. These are his potential connections, his family’s friends. They are everything he is to them, only he didn't care whether they stay by his side or not. This was a game of chess. 

What if we turn a pawn into a queen?

He jerks his head up unsure if he had thought the idea out of pure impulse or if someone said it outloud. 

'No.' He reassures himself. 'It was just me.'

They continue across the desolate quad brimming with power as they approach one out of the three story buildings on campus. 

“So I heard your family is having another gala next month on the seventeenth.” A girl with braided jet black hair says as they enter a set of automatic doors leading into the warm building. 

Ansidara doesn't answer as he watches the students within the hall either smile at him with pristine white teeth or hide their faces behind hologram projections of video games, school work, viral videos and TV shows. 

There was always the occasional private holo as well. A setting that allowed only the person with the holotab to see what they were doing. 

“It's not a gala,” Another girl says rolling her electric pink eyes. “It's a ball.”

He still does not respond as he watches the hallways practically clear at the sight of him.

“I heard the first daughter, Castilla Colhine goes to almost every Tore party.”

“The president’s daughter!” Someone asks as they rush up the three flights of stairs to

Ansidara's first class, Home Economic. 

Home economics was not his ideal choice for an elective, but it was his mother's who he had to reluctantly obey.

Just as they were pass the third classroom, of the long hallway, the glass automatic door to his left slides open. The first thing he sees are her crystal clear blue eyes, then her unforgettable crimson hair that left him wondering, just how is it so red?

Solaforma steps out of the classroom, her confidence unmatched to anyone else's as she passes the group without even giving him a sideways glance. 

“Hey android.” One of his friends named Teocurous calls out to her. 

She ignores him continuing down the hall.

One of the girls named Sunny steps in her way giving a glare that dares her to ignore her. “Hey!” She says crossing her arms over her chest. “He was trying to talk to you.” She over articulates.

Solaforma slowly turns back to Teocurous, her blue eyes permafrost refusing any life to flourish. “My name is Solaforma, not android.” She is confident as she speaks, her hands calmly by her side, every fraction of her unwavering, as she stares straight through Teocurous. 

He takes a step forward realizing he was just an inch or two shorter than her. “And what if I refuse to call you Solaforma?” He asks his own composure immobile.

She speaks so calmly one would think she was in fact threatening him with the idea that she was unpredictable. “I will not respond,” She leans forward her face seeming hostile as she approaches Teocurous although nothing about her expression changes. “I don’t know what’s so hard to understand.”

She turns away about to leave until he grabs her slender shoulder without warning. “Now hang on-” Before he can tell her the conversation was not finished she grabs the wrist of the hand on her shoulder twisting it so fast Ansidara flinched, sure she would snap a carpal bone as easily as a twig.

She drops his hand before she can, surprising everyone. “I apologize but refrain from touching me.” She looks to the others, acknowledging their surprise. “All of you.” 

Her eyes linger on Ansidara’s for an agonizing two seconds before she turns away. That feeling of emptiness reaches the pit of his stomach as her cold shallow eyes leave his warm endless eyes. He wonders if she can feel the isolation, abandonment, the solitude and seclusion within something far more than just the heart. 

“Do you think you can get away with this?!” Teocurous screams after her. 

She ignores him turning toward the stairs. 

Perhaps it was just him, but he knew better than to assume, especially when it came to her, the unapproachable, impassable, unpredictable Solaforma Inlustris who could cut stone with her subzero stare.