Hailey did not look like she was in a good mood. Her expression was completely flat, but Minnie had known her for years, and she knew when she was angry. And right now… oh, boy. She turned to Edie, about to ask her to shut off the recording, but the other girl had already propped her phone up on a nearby tripod and left it facing the arena. It was a shame, really. She’d been hoping to watch Bobby’s match in real-time, but Hailey would probably monopolize their attention until it was her turn to head out.

“So,” Faith began, lightly, “are we heading up to the VIP box, or –”

Hailey shook her head. “Edie, is your phone muted?”

Edie nodded. “I thought you got all the profanity out of your system in the locker rooms?” They’d been waiting elsewhere, but they knew how Hailey was. She’d probably torn a few holes in the walls, terrorized a couple dozen support students, and called it a day. Still pretty destructive, but nothing her family couldn’t paper over.

“Minnie?”

Minnie nodded. “Yeah?”

Hailey’s shoulders slumped. She suddenly looked very tired. “Let’s just watch the match.”

“Oh.” Minnie blinked, nonplussed, but turned back to the arena gratefully. They were standing in a portion of the stadium reserved for competitors. It wasn't a large space, but they'd staked out their own corner, and it had a decent view. Fortunately, they hadn’t missed much. Obviously, she was supporting her boyfriend, but Mitsurugi had been a decent leader in the exercise. If Soujyuuro hadn’t been such a liar about his quirk, they’d have won. Probably. No, definitely. (She was going to fight him next, wasn't she? Self-doubt was bad. She couldn't afford to doubt herself. Not now, at least.)

“She’s draining him,” Max muttered, and Minnie realized that she was right. And, judging from the look on his face, Bobby had realized that too. And so had Mitsurugi.

Minnie leaned forward, one hand over her mouth, as Mitsurugi advanced on her boyfriend, then tore his shirt open. She struck his chin, then his temple, and then he was on the ground. Minnie stared, stricken, but the sinking feeling only lasted for a few seconds. Her mood took a sudden turn for the better as Bobby staggered to his feet, tore his shirt off, and tied what remained of it around his nose and mouth. A collective ooh went up as his pecs caught the sunlight.

That’s my boyfriend, Minnie thought possessively, and bit her lip.

“Looks good, doesn’t he?” Hailey asked innocently.

Minnie looked up. Her hand had migrated from her open mouth to her chin, and she was suddenly, painfully aware of how lovestruck she looked, balanced on the railings, on the verge of toppling headfirst into the arena. “W-what?” she managed.

Hailey made a vague gesture with her hand. Edie's phone wobbled slightly. “Looks good, doesn’t he?”

Minnie narrowed her eyes and tilted her head. Are we doing this?

Hailey nodded. Yes. There was a wicked glint in her eye, a glint that she never let their followers see. (Not when she was on camera, anyway.)

Minnie raised an eyebrow. Seriously?

Hailey rolled her eyes and took a few steps backwards, dismissing Minnie as a lost cause. She left Edie’s phone hanging in the air, pointed directly at her. Max got on tiptoes to revert its focus back to the arena. Minnie, for her part, sighed, shook her head, and very deliberately adjusted her posture. She didn’t want to think about going public about Bobby. Not yet. No, it would have to be carefully stage-managed. And she’d have to tell her family first. What sort of daughter would she be if she let her followers know about her relationship first – and in the middle of a tournament, no less?

Minnie pushed those thoughts to the back of her head and refocused on the arena, where a lot of things had happened in a very short amount of time. Bobby had rallied, and now Mitsurugi had lost her sword. Behind her, for some reason, Takeda had arrived. He and Hailey were speaking very quickly and very loudly. In front of her, Bobby was going on the attack. Behind her, Hailey said something at top volume. Beside her, Edie’s phone tilted. In front of her, Bobby executed a picture-perfect uppercut, catching Mitsurugi square in the jaw. She collapsed like a puppet that had had its strings cut.

SAMSON WINS!

Disoriented by the sheer volume of things that were going on around her but absolutely over the moon, Minnie pumped her fist in the air. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Faith swoon, and turned, eyes narrowed, to ask her friend why, precisely, she was swooning over her boyfriend. The words died on her lips as she realized that Faith wasn't facing the arena. Instead, she was staring at Hailey and Takeda. Hailey's legs were hooked around Takeda's waist, boosting her up such that her face was a little bit higher than his, and she was leaning down to kiss him.

With tongue.

And Edie’s phone was pointing straight at them.

“Hey, that was supposed to be Bobby’s moment of triumph!”

When her brain caught up, Minnie realized, head spinning, that the camera was still running. She was still struggling to come up with something else to say when Hailey detached herself from Takeda's mouth and fixed her with an unimpressed stare. “Just go to your boyfriend.”

Minnie could have said something about Hailey being a self-centered bitch who was incapable of taking other people's desires and priorities into consideration, but she didn’t have it in her to care anymore, because Bobby was topless, and she was determined to savour it. Swallowing, she turned to Edie's phone and cleared her throat, plastering a camera-ready smile onto her face. “Um, Bobby’s my boyfriend. Cat’s out of the bag. Sorry. I’m going to go find him. Let’s move on. Edie, just – do your thing. It’s your phone. Bye!”

Bobby was just about to step into the showers when she rounded the corner. He must have heard her shoes, because he turned, eyes going wide, as she sprinted towards him. He was still topless, and (oh, god) he was sweaty. As Minnie drew closer, a noise escaped her throat that sounded an awful lot like a growl.

She was almost late to her match with Soujyuuro.

Anthony looked up from his phone, eyebrows raised. "Hm," he said.

“What?”

“Hailey’s dating someone.” Anthony sighed as Mark stood up. “No, it was on her stream. Barely a minute long.”

“Never pegged you as the type.”

“Hey, I was one of the first people to hop into the chatroom when you had your rocket launch.”

Mark colored. “Don’t remind me.” (His rocket launch had not gone well.) As he sat back down, he leaned forward and plucked up one of the brochures before them. “Which one?” There was a list of names on the third page, each one accompanied by a face.

Anthony squinted. “… Takeda,” he said, finally. “Takeda Hifumi.”

Mark nodded and pulled out his phone. “Jessica,” he explained, in response to Anthony's unasked question. “She’ll know what to do. Her agency’s ace at this sort of thing. Background checks and shit.”

I thought you were going to keep her in the dark about the vote, Anthony thought.

Jessica responded five minutes later with a fifteen-page document. "Oh," Mark said gleefully. "Lower middle class." Anthony leaned over to stare down at his brother's phone. "Dad'll have a conniption."

Eunhyuk set his phone down with a clack. "Jimin's got a boyfriend."

Riwon looked up sharply. "She does?"

Eunhyuk shook his head. The tendons in his neck bulged as he clenched and unclenched his jaw. Riwon tried her best to meet his gaze, but couldn't quite manage it. Eunhyuk was scary when he was angry. "That Jang girl, she's the one who revealed it. She pushed her into it." He retrieved his phone, fiddled with it for a moment, and put it down again. "And I had to find out from a friend. Because I wasn't even watching her stream, and that's where she revealed it."

Riwon blinked. "So… your problem isn't that she has a boyfriend, but that she was forced to reveal it to the world before she was ready?"

Eunhyuk looked at her quizzically. "Yes? He's not a bad catch, not exactly." Turning to stare down at the arena, he jerked his chin dismissively. "Son of Sun Man. One of the early American heroes. A decent dynasty, although his line's reputation is a smidge tarnished." He smiled humorlessly. "At least the Jang girl seems to have worse taste in men."

"Who's he? The Jang girl's paramour."

"Takeda." Eunhyuk gestured vaguely at the pamphlets scattered over their table. "The teleporter. He doesn't seem particularly well-bred."

"I do hope Minseo doesn't have a boyfriend," Riwon mused.

"What?" Eunhyuk chuckled. "Isn't she your sister? I didn't think she was the type. She's sensible. Oh, Jimin's sensible too, but she tends to get… carried away, from time to time. Head over heels."

Riwon nodded. The tournament continued.

The door opened. Faith's mouth formed a surprised 'O' before she took a few steps back. "Oh! You're early. Come in, come in!"

Chris entered her apartment gingerly. It felt weird to go to another girl's house, especially when that girl was his girlfriend. Even thinking it gave him a slightly light, ethereal feeling, like none of this was really real. As he removed his shoes, he glanced around, taking in the clean, minimalist decor and the abstract art pieces on the wall. It was almost psychotically spotless. He was, however, startled out of his reverie by the sight of a long-legged, sullen-looking girl on the couch. The girl, whose name Chris vaguely remembered started with an E, glowered at him and very deliberately looked back down at her magazine.

"Okay," Faith was babbling. "Just - one minute, okay, I need to clean up my room. I'll be right back, okay?"

Chris nodded. He was trying not to look at Faith's friend, but she was a very noticeable presence. It felt like she was glaring daggers at him, even though she wasn't even looking in his direction.

Faith turned to her friend, then. "Edie! Play nice." Spinning around, she darted back into her room and shut the door. From what little Chris had seen of her room, it didn't look very messy, but who was he to judge?

He was just telling himself that he wouldn't be drawn into attempting to make awkward small talk with Edie when the girl set her magazine down and folded her arms. "You."

Chris refused to be intimidated, but ran through what he knew about her nonetheless. She had a very useful quirk, but now that he thought about it, it also had the potential to be very dangerous. Faith had dropped a number of absolutely terrifying hints in the short time that they'd been going out, and she'd dropped them in such a blasé manner that he was starting to get the impression that wealthy people were all just… like that. Maybe Orochi was an outlier. "Yes?"

"I'm watching you," Edie gritted. "No funny business."

What are you, her mother? Chris thought. "Of course not," he said stiffly. "Wouldn't dream of it."

A knife popped into existence on the coffee table. Chris took one step back.

This was when another knife appeared, then a third, then a fourth, then a fifth. Chris bolted to Faith's door and rapped on it smartly. "You done?" he called.

"So," Faith said, spreading her arms to encompass her setup, "you asked me if I had an SOP for trolls."

Chris nodded.

"I mean, yeah, that's a good question," Faith continued, already beginning to stray into rambling, "and it got me thinking, see, because we do get a lot of weird comments on our posts. I think Max tried to report them all manually in, like, fifth grade, but she gave up after a week." With a few slick keystrokes, she pulled up a window on her enormous desktop. Chris stared blankly at the lines scrolling across the screen before two or three of them clicked at the same time and he scooted backwards in horror.

Faith just laughed. "They're not that bad."

"Not that bad?" Chris had new respect for her.

"Really, no. You just get used to it. Anyway," and here Faith started typing again, "I came up with an SOP to deal with it. Basically, it needs a representative package of objectionable comments as the initial input. From there, the AI will extrapolate accordingly and automatically purge any offending comments."

"What if the package is insufficiently representative?"

"Then you clearly don't get a lot of weird comments," Faith said, and tossed a smile at him from over her shoulder. "But no, yeah, I've been wondering about what happens if the bot overcorrects and ends up purging even innocuous comments from harmless fans, and I've figured out that there's, like, four workarounds to deal with the issue. But they each have their pros and cons. So basically…"