The thing about Plum was that she was genuinely, inconveniently, structurally popular.
Xiu had understood this for a long time and had filed it under things that were temporary, conditions that existed now but would be corrected by the correct application of strategy and patience. Plum was popular because she was warm and she was curvy and she laughed at everything and people gravitated toward her the way people gravitate toward warmth when warmth is genuine rather than performed.
This was correctable.
The chicken suit was the correction.
Xiu arrived at the academy entrance in her dress, which was doing everything she had asked of it, which was considerable, and moved through the students gathering outside with the specific confidence of someone who had already decided how the evening was going to go.
"Time for me to shine, I ruined my first from Roxer but I had backup."
Then she heard it.
Not the music. Not the competition announcements.
The sound of students losing their composure in the specific way they lose it when something unexpected and visually overwhelming walks past them.
She turned.
Plum was in the chicken suit, Buraji was in the Grizzly bear Costume.
And somehow, somehow, in a way that Xiu's strategy had not accounted for and could not have accounted for because it defied reasonable projection, Plum was making the chicken suit work. She was wearing it with the complete comfort of someone who had decided this was what she was doing and had found genuine joy in the decision, and the joy was doing something to the suit that the suit should not have been capable of doing, which was making it charming.
Students were not laughing at her.
Students were losing their minds over her.
"Oh my gosh she's so cute..."
"Who is she..."
"The chicken suit WORKS on her, how does it work on her.."
Plum spun for someone who asked her to. The suit spun with her. The feathers moved. The students watching made the specific sound that students make when something delights them completely.
Burajiru, beside her in the teddy bear costume, was waving at everyone who stared.
Xiu stood in her carefully chosen dress and watched Plum in a chicken suit receive more attention than she had calculated for and felt the specific frustration of someone whose excellent plan has encountered an excellent variable they didn't include.
"How," Xiu said quietly. "How is she doing that, always being a bitch."
"Xiu."
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She turned.
Butter and Mora had arrived together, which was its own problem because the two of them together produced a combined effect that Xiu found professionally annoying. Butter had the specific contained energy of someone who could destroy things but had decided not to tonight. Mora looked like herself, which was the problem, because herself was significant.
Xiu sucked her teeth.
"The Scytherians," she said. "Always trying to steal the show."
Butter looked at Xiu's dress with the mild interest of a sound Scytherian assessing a frequency.
"Your dress is a bit dirty," Butter said. Pleasantly.
Mora looked at it. "I was thinking it made her skin look a bit paler than normal."
Xiu looked at both of them.
"Whatever," she said. Internally: I am not trying to do this with you two tonight. She turned away with the composure of someone exiting a conversation before it could produce results she didn't want. "I have more important things to attend to."
She moved deeper the crowd.
And stopped.
Roxer was across the room.
Xiu had seen Roxer before. She had assessed Roxer before. She had built entire strategic frameworks around Roxer before. But something about him tonight, the suit, the way he was standing, the specific angle of the light, made all of her previous assessments feel like rough drafts.
Beside him was Jaja.
Xiu's breath did something irregular.
"Oh gosh," she said, very quietly. "They're both.."
She pressed her hand to her collarbone.
Roxer said something to Jaja and Jaja laughed and Roxer smiled at whatever the laugh was responding to and Xiu stood twelve meters away and felt her strategy reorganize itself entirely around the image of that smile.
"Okay," she said to herself. "Okay. Focus." She smoothed the front of her dress. "You are the Sexiest Amazon Alive. You have a plan. The plan is working." She glanced at Plum in the chicken suit still receiving adoration from a crowd of students. "Mostly working." She looked back at Roxer. "He is a beautiful and perfect man and tonight he will understand that."
She straightened her posture.
She moved toward him.
The Dance Setup. Same Time.
Toshi Zenko moved through the refreshment tables with the focused attention of someone conducting an important assessment.
He picked up a cup. Smelled it. Put it down.
Picked up another. Smelled it. Put it down.
Picked up a third and held it at eye level.
"Where," he said, "is the alcohol. This is a school dance. This requires at least some good wine."
"I agree."
He turned.
Jexa was standing beside him with her arms crossed and her expression arranged in the specific configuration of someone who had arrived and found the situation consistent with their expectations, which were not high.
Toshi looked at her.
"You came," he said.
"You said there would be food," Jexa said.
"There is food."
She looked at the refreshment table. "There is juice and small sandwiches cut into triangles."
"The triangles are a nice touch," Toshi said.
"I want wine," Jexa said.
"So do I," Toshi said. He put his arm around her. "We'll find something. This island always has something if you know where to look." He scanned the gymnasium entrance. "Also I need to find Burajiru. I heard he has a girlfriend and I want to assess the situation."
Jexa looked at him. "Assess."
"Make sure she's right for him," Toshi said.
"You're going to interrogate his girlfriend at a school dance."
"I'm going to have a conversation," Toshi said. "A friendly one. With questions."
Jexa stared at him.
"You are so strange," she said.
"You came," Toshi said.
"For the food," Jexa said.
"There are triangle sandwiches," Toshi said.
Jexa took one from the table and ate it in two bites.
"Find me wine," she said.
Toshi grinned and went looking.