Faith Kang in: The VIP Box (ft. Anthony Chang)

"Anthony."

Anthony turned and smiled. "Hailey! Congratulations!"

Hailey didn't smile back. She'd brought her coterie of hangers-on up to the VIP box. "Mother couldn't make it?"

Anthony's smile stiffened. "Er, well, that is-"

Hailey rolled her eyes. "Forget it." Visibly dismissing him, she turned to her friend, the half-white one. "C'mon. Let's find your sister."

"There's no need," someone interrupted. Anthony glanced at the sound and realized that another half-white girl had appeared in the door. "I'm here. Faith?"

The half-white girl - Faith, that was her name - threw her bony arms around her older sister. "Char," she breathed. "Could Mom and Dad-"

"Afraid not, but they send their love."

"Oh. Yeah. Sure."

Hailey's quirk maneuvered Anthony back to the clear portal overlooking the arena. Her other minions had scattered as well, with the exception of the shortest one, who was still tagging along beside them. "That's her sister," she muttered. "Charity. Funny, isn't it? Her mother should've popped out a third one to round out the set."

"Faith, Hope and Charity," Anthony mumbled. "I see."

The shortest one sniggered.

The three of them watched in silence as a white-haired girl with red strings coming out of her hands thrashed a hooded boy with a gravity quirk. Anthony wasn't really paying attention to the play-by-play; he'd only really come for Hailey, anyway. And speaking of his youngest sister, she seemed genuinely engaged. She looked unimpressed, true, but Anthony had watched her grow up. He could tell when she was paying attention, and she was paying attention.

This, of course, was when a hand landed on her shoulder.

Hailey ducked away and spun around as Mark took a few steps back. Anthony had turned, too, and stared in surprise as his younger brother shook his hand out, wincing. "That quirk of yours is really something," he hissed.

"Mark? What are you doing here?"

"What's it look like, Tony?" Mark shoved his hands in his pockets. "I'm here to support my sister." He nodded at Hailey. "Hey, 여동생. Your principal's a real smokeshow, you know that?"

Hailey sneered. "Good to see you too, Mark." She turned to her friend. "C'mon, Max."

Anthony watched them leave, then turned to Mark, wounded. "What was that for?" He'd been looking forward to spending some quality time with Hailey.

"What? She's hot. Top ten hero too, don't you know?" Mark hopped onto a nearby chair and kicked his feet up on a nearby table, his Italian leather shoes nearly toppling Anthony's glass of mescal. "'Sides, I needed her out." He glanced over his shoulder. "Hey, you two. Shoo. We're talking business."

Anthony kneaded the bridge of his nose as Faith and her sister left their booth without a backward glance, but closed the door nonetheless. "Mark-"

"How much d'you think it'd take for me to get in her pants?" Mark asked, steepling his fingers. "A billion won? Two? Everyone has a price."

Gingerly, Anthony retrieved his glass of mescal and took a long sip from it as he waited for his brother to get to the point. Eventually, Mark ran out of insults to toss around.

"Dave's organizing a vote of no-confidence."

Anthony's eyebrows rose into his hairline.

"He's got Uncle Wooseok and Uncle Minho."

"Jess? Claire?"

"Fuck 'em," Mark sneered. "Jess doesn't have the guts to do what needs to be done." Because she's a woman, Anthony thought. "And Claire, well, she isn't one of us." He glanced down disdainfully at the arena, as though searching for Hailey. "Astute needs a change, and soon. We can't keep coasting on our reputation. Dad's old and stuck in his ways. He needs to be removed. You know it as well as I do."

Anthony's head spun. To hear his father be spoken of so dismissively, and by his own son too: it felt like sacrilege, blasphemy. To conceal his misgivings, he focused on refilling his glass. "Go on," he muttered, and drained it in one shot.

YOU ARE NOW ON A SECURE NETWORK.
DESIGNATE: ~ Made by Drone! <3 ~

fides1104: ur asshole brother kicked us out
sugrjangz: which booth ru at now
fides1104: 0722
not_ur_power_bank: we'll come find u ltr
fides1104: ew ur match is in like 10min
fides1104: stop looking at ur phone

Faith clapped and cheered as Takeda heaved himself back to his feet. He staggered back to the waiting area, where Hailey was most probably waiting to kiss him senseless. She almost sighed longingly, but remembered that Charity was right beside her and so held her tongue.

After Hailey's rude brother (well, one of her rude brothers) had chased them out, they'd reconvened just next door with the rest of her friends' supporters. There weren't a lot of them. Minnie's older brother and Edie's older sister had shown up, and a craggy Vietnamese retainer had exchanged a few words with Max before shuffling to the sofa and falling asleep, but apart from the three of them, their corner of the booth was pretty empty.

She was pretty sure that she'd never been so quiet as when Chris was having his bout against Owari. She'd felt more than seen his gaze pass over her, but it turned out that he hadn't even been looking for her. Which was fine. She was fine. She still clapped for Owari, but not particularly enthusiastically.

"That was something," Charity finally said.

"I know, right?" They had a gap now. Like it or not, Soujyuuro was filler. Faith didn't really think about him that much, so she was free to make awkward small talk with her older sister. She didn't need to pay full attention to his match. After that, it'd be Minnie, then Edie, and then another lull as Katsuragi fought the Brit. (Faith was fairly certain that the Brit was going to win.) Then it'd be Max, then another filler, then another long break during which the five of them were probably going to link up. Hopefully they'd all win their matches.

"You OK?"

Faith blinked. "Huh? Yeah."

"I mean, you lost."

"Meh." Faith shrugged, smiling sheepishly. "I usually do better with prep time."

"Well, then they shouldn't have put you out there to be humiliated like that," Charity said firmly.

Personally, Faith agreed. But who was she to argue with the principal's decision? Anyway, it was good that she'd been eliminated so early. The VIP box was very comfy. She definitely wasn't salty. Not at all.

Anyway, Soujyuuro's match was boring, which was expected, since both he and Jackson had quirks that revolved around the mind. After the conversation with her sister hit a lull, Faith checked her phone, liked and reshared Minnie's post, and streamed a short clip from the VIP box. Consolatory messages were flooding into her public account. She almost missed the start of Minnie's match.

Minnie and Edie won, as expected, but Charity didn't try to reboot the conversation during Katsuragi's bout with the Brit. That left Faith free to fantasize about the summer festival. Switching accounts, she uploaded the clips that she'd taken of Minnie and Edie's bouts and added a handful of captions before returning to their groupchat and swiping through Edie's proposed fits. She'd really outdone herself. Faith gushed internally at the sweater-miniskirt-boots combo that she'd come up with, but was immediately overwhelmed by her next suggestion, which also involved a miniskirt but paired it with the most darling blue blouse and Mary Janes-

"What's that?"

Faith jumped, but it was just Charity. "Oh, Edie was just tossing out some fit ideas," she said lamely. "For, uh, me."

"For what?" Charity squinted. "Is it a boy?"

"No," Faith squawked, a little too quickly. "Oh look! Max's match is starting."

Max lost, which was disappointing, but Faith was privately, treacherously glad that she wouldn't be alone in the VIP box. It had taken her about the duration of a single match to wake up from Mitsurugi's sword-shock-thing, but Max had been knocked out by a gas specifically designed to put her to sleep. Hopefully she wouldn't take too long.

Her phone buzzed.

YOU ARE NOW ON A SECURE NETWORK.
DESIGNATE: ~ Made by Drone! <3 ~

fides1104: CONGRATS GUYS
THUNDERDOME: thx
sugrjangz: thx
not_ur_power_bank: thanks faith
not_ur_power_bank: also we're prob staying w max till she wakes up
not_ur_power_bank: but it might take a while for her
fides1104: thats ok idm
fides1104: lol
THUNDERDOME: actly ykw u shd come down
THUNDERDOME: join us
sugrjangz: cain looks like hes in pretty shit condition
sugrjangz: he might not make it lol
not_ur_power_bank: don't listen to her, he's fine

Faith made her excuses and ran back down to the medical bay. Hailey, Minnie and Edie were seated beside Max's bed. She looked fine.

"It's a blessing in disguise," Hailey said brightly. "If you hadn't been eliminated, you wouldn't have been able to sit at Cain's bedside until he woke up. How romantic is that?"

Faith hung around beside Chris's bed for a while, but didn't sit down. She was too busy beating herself up. She should've rushed down the instant he'd fallen unconscious, but had opted instead to lounge around in the VIP box. She didn't really deserve him. She couldn't even look at him.

When she returned to Max's bedside, the other girl had woken up, but Hailey had disappeared. "It's her turn," Minnie said. "You wanna go up with Max?"

"I think I'll just stay here." Faith glanced over her shoulder and saw that Chris had woken up. He began to turn in her direction, as though he could feel her gaze, but she looked away. "Whatever you want, Max. I'm fine with anything."