batsutousai | ORIGINAL: The Food Fight ~ PG-ish

Title: The Food Fight
Author:

batsutousai
Summary: A university girl finally learns to fit in after a year of bowing under her roommate's thumb.

The Food Fight

My name's Kiri and I go to a small, private, co-ed college. I don't have a lot of friends – it's hard to fit in with a bunch of rich kids when you're...not – only Alan and Damita really ever talk to me. Damita and I knew each other from high school and Alan's her boyfriend, or I don't think he'd talk to me either. I wonder, sometimes, why Damita even speaks with me. She's a Spanish beauty with glossy black hair and sweeping dresses that are as much the pride of our college as they were of our high school in the slums. Damita didn't talk to me back then – I hung with my group, she with hers – but as soon as she heard she wouldn't be the only one going to this college from our high school, she was my best friend. It was quite disconcerting, having this rich, preppy girl approach me during lunch the day our decisions were announced and promptly informing me that we were now friends and soon to be roommates.

Alan, on the other hand, is the year above us and popular with everyone. He's got these gorgeous golden-green eyes that sparkle in the light and a surprisingly feminine face that puts most women I've seen to shame. As soon as Damita saw him on our second day, she walked over and asked him out. When she found out he was already taken, she called his girlfriend out and talked her into giving him up. There were a lot of nasty words during that one, and that's all I'll say about it.

With Alan at her side, Damita talked her way to the top of the social chain at our little college and was the most popular girl within a week.

As for me? I was just as popular as before – which is to say, not at all – and mostly forgotten by my "friend," Damita. Every couple of days, she'll remember about me – usually when she couldn't talk her way into sleeping the night in Alan's room – and apologize for ever forgetting about me and promising she'd invite me to sit at her table during meals and so forth. Within a day, I'm forgotten again. It had become such a regular cycle, that I didn't even blink anymore. I spent the time without her around keeping ahead of my homework and passing my classes with the sort of flying colors required to continue receiving my rather generous scholarship.

My sophomore year found me agreeing to be Damita's roommate again, since I didn't know anyone else and had no money to get a single room, and Damita liked that I never told anyone about her nightly disappearances. Another year found me studying in my room anytime I wasn't either "in" with my roommate and her circle or at class. Meals, I split between the chancy cafeteria food and the stockpile of food that Damita weekly replenished and let me eat since I was "the most coolest person, like, ever!" Not even the quiet freshman who tended to show up wherever I was every Friday could disrupt the circle of loneliness I'd fallen back into as soon as I returned to campus that year.

An odd Friday in early February found me in Damita's favor again and when I sat down at her table with her many friends surrounding us loudly, I couldn't help but notice the floored expression on the face of the little freshman who'd been following me around again. If I wasn't just as disgusted with my life as she probably was, I might have smiled. I think I grimaced instead. She ran off towards another table and I turned to my food – a cold-cut sandwich, a salad doused with too much dressing, and two sugar cookies – and started in on it in silence. Almost two years of practice had taught me that it didn't matter that Damita had invited me to their table, no one would speak to me but Damita herself. Or Alan, if he was feeling generous.

Really, the last thing I expected was for the girl on my left to frown at me and say, "Why was that freshman following you?"

I blinked at the girl in surprise, then turn to my right, where Damita sat, to see if she was the one being addressed.

The girl across the table snorted and said, "Kiri, Sarah's talking to you, not Damita."

The girl next to me, Sarah, laughed. "Really. So many freshmen follow Damita around, I don't think she'd know which one I'm talking about. I'm asking you, Kiri, because I've seen that girl following you around all year, but none of us know why."

I blinked at Sarah again, the blurted out the first thing that came to mind, which happened to be, "Why are you talking to me?"

Sarah blinked, then frowned. Across from me, the other girl commented, "She's curious. We all are."

"But..."

"Well, it's not like we've ever had anything to talk with you about before, right? You always keep to yourself and only speak up in class when the professor speaks to you first. Not to mention that when Allisa was bugging you all last year to talk her more about Damita, you told her off for prying in other people's business behind their back."

I vaguely remembered that occurrence. Allisa had been Alan's girlfriend before Damita stole him and she cornered me one day when I'd just spent the night previous writing a paper until four in the morning. Needless to say, I wasn't in the mood to have the girl prying into the private life of the only person in the whole school who spoke to me on a regular basis and happily told her what I thought of her preppy little self. Damita had been my friend for a whole week and a half after that, which was really the only reason I remembered it at all, sadly.

"I–uh..." I stuttered, then shook my head. "Shit. I didn't... I mean, erm... Aw, fuck it all. Look, I don't know why that kid's following me around, alright? Why the sudden interest?"

Sarah looked shocked and the other girl had her mouth hanging open. I wasn't quite sure why until Damita glanced over and said, "I told you she has a commoner's mouth."

"Gee, thanks, 'Mi," I offered in rather a dry tone. Damita smiled fondly and turned back to Alan.

Sarah found her tongue before the other girl and said, "I've never heard such vile language before."

I couldn't help it that my mouth decided to attach itself to the tabletop at that comment.

The other girl smiled in what appeared to be a painful manner and said, "Sarah and I were home schooled, you see..."

"Say no more!" I said, getting the picture. If they'd been home schooled, they probably wouldn't have heard many, if any, curse words. Especially if they were upper-class, like most of Damita's friends were. "So, uh..." And that's about when I realized that I really didn't have anything to talk about with these rich, home schooled girls because I was a poor girl who'd gone to school in the slums and was only pretending to be a part of their clique. And we all knew it.

I was saved from the embarrassing silence by a flying glob of vanilla pudding, which landed right in the middle of my sandwich. In turning around to find the culprit, I got splashed with someone's Pepsi. Most of our table got the Pepsi, actually, since the cup went flying over all our heads.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Damita staring down at her beautiful red and black dress with watery eyes. Seeing the sadness of the poor girl who had taken me in despite our social differences made me want to retaliate against those who would dare upset her– NOT.

I grabbed my fork and scooped at the pudding on my sandwich. I was going to eat that, you know? Revenge sounded nice, so I took careful aim at the table where the whole mess appeared to have started – the one my freshman stalker sat at, incidentally – and returned fire. My freshman stalker received a nice bit of white goop in her hair and I felt rather proud of myself.

"Kiri," Damita hissed from beside me, "what are you doing?!"

"Retaliating," I offered, then took aim with a dressing-slathered piece of lettuce.

"No!" Damita grabbed my hands and my projectile slathered her hands with dressing before hitting the floor with a wet 'plop'. "We're not in high school, you fool! We don't join food fights!"

"Then, what do we do?" I asked in my best why-are-you-ruining-my-fun voice.

"We run!" Damita said, then took the initiative and scampered after her clique, towards the doors of the cafeteria.

I glanced over at where Alan and a couple of his guy friends had crouched behind our table and were returning fire at our enemies. Alan waved me over with a grin, so I hopped the table and joined their small army with only my fork and salad bowl.

In only a few moments, the cafeteria resembled a battleground of food-mush and wet splotches. I was certain that the cafeteria staff intended to fall upon us for another battle as soon as we stopped throwing things, but for the moment, all was fine. Across a short expanse, the freshmen had also taken cover behind their table and were sending members out in twos and threes to collect more projectiles. Our fewer numbers meant we slunk off ourselves when our weapons ran out and quickly returned so someone else could hurry off.

Three minutes or so after the initial start, we were reusing weapons that had landed on our table or us and one of the members of the cafeteria staff got tired of the wait and sprang the sprinklers in the ceiling. We all ducked under the tables and watched the flood of water clean up the messy floor to the best of its ability while the cafeteria staff dragged out their mops and angry looks.

***

After two hours of clean-up work, the cafeteria was back in order and our two armies had been properly introduced. My stalker's name was Tallulah and she liked my punk-style of dress, but hadn't been sure how to approach me. Her best friend was a guy named Roarke who had, in fact, started the food fight. Their table, according to Alan and his friends, was often loud and caused a ruckus that none of the girls at our table liked, which only made the table of freshmen that much better in my book. It helped that they would talk to me. Had things to talk with me about, even.

Somehow, I reflected as I ran to my next class, I had fallen in with a bunch of kids who I could stand and that could stand me. Tallulah was also a scholarship student, according to Roarke, and none of their table had known one another before coming to our college. The core of their group had become friends during their shared biology lab, and then dragged their roommates in with them. By the second week of fall term, they'd managed to form a closer bond than Damita and I could have ever hoped to form.

Besides Tallulah and her friends, I'd also found myself rather suddenly accepted by the boys of Damita's clique. Alan mentioned that he liked knowing a girl who was willing to get dirty just for the hell of it. He also told me that, had he known I was so much fun before, he might have hung out with me more. I told him where to stuff that pile of bullshit and got a mop in the face. The kitchen staff stomped in before another war could start, but Alan and his friends didn't stop talking to me or the freshmen. It was actually rather refreshing.

After that food fight, classes seemed rather tiresome, but things hadn't finished rearranging themselves in my world yet.

***

When I retired to my dorm to start my homework, I found Damita waiting for me with a thunderous expression. Before I'd even managed to shut the door behind me, she started yelling: "What were you thinking?! You made a mess and ruined everything! Now all our friends think you're some sort of– of animal! And the way you were acting, I'd have to agree! Do you think we're still in high school?! I know you and those hooligans you used to hang out with thought throwing food around was great fun, but you're an adult now! Act like it!"

I blinked at the first couple of words in surprise, then decided to ignore her and put my stuff away. By the time her rant had wound down, I had my homework spread out in front of me and had a freshly sharpened pencil poised and ready for her impending silence and furious exit.

Alas, the exit was not to be – I must have truly angered her this time – and went I didn't respond to her angry demand, she stormed up to my desk, slammed my book closed on my hand and bent over so she could stare me in the eye. "Well? What do you have to say for yourself?"

I stared at her for a long moment as I attempted to find my tongue. Just as she was opening her mouth to, no doubt, start questioning me again, I snapped out, "Did you give Alan this same dressing-down, or is this privilege for me only?"

Damita blinked twice, looking stunned.

I stood and snatched my book out from under the hand she'd left on top of it. "Look. I don't really care if your popularity is ruined by my actions today. I've protected your swollen head for the past year and a half and stood silently in your oh so generous shadow without a word about how you've taken me for granted. I've found people, today, who are a lot more accepting of the me I've been repressing just for your benefit since we got here. If you hadn't invited me to lunch today, perhaps things would have continued as they have for another month or two, but I'm not letting you order my actions as you please any longer. Crystal?"

Damita rallied part way through my speech and by the end was red in fury and nearly spitting her response, "Oh, it's clear. So clear, in fact, that I think you should move in with one of your new friends before I kick you out myself!"

I smiled. "No, 'Mi. If anyone's leaving this room, it's you. Or I'm telling the dorm leader where you disappear to most nights."

The expression on Damita's face as I left for the library was priceless.

***

By dinnertime, the entire school seemed to know that I'd fallen out with Damita and she was looking for a new roommate. When the freshmen I'd made friends with during clean-up saw me enter the cafeteria, they immediately waved me over, then congratulated me on defeating my roommate. I got my food and, when I got back to the freshmen's table, Alan and his friends had joined them with their trays.

As I sat, Alan turned to me with an amused look. "So, I sat down next to Damita and she immediately started ripping into me about participating in the food fight, which she's never done before. So I asked her what her problem was. Apparently, you got pissed off at her because she was yelling at you and not me."

I frowned and tried to find a response to that which wouldn't put me in a poor light. "Ah, well, you see..."

Alan laughed. "It's fine, Kiri. I think it's more amusing than anything."

"I, uhm..." I felt myself blushing. "I see."

The rest of the table joined Alan in laughing and Tallulah leaned over to hug me around my shoulders with a smile. "I think it's great that you told her off. I could never say anything mean to Damita."

I smiled at that. "It helps when you have blackmail," I offered off-handily.

"Like what?!" one of the other freshmen shouted. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Alan reddening.

I felt my smile widen and said as innocently as I could, "Is anyone looking for a roommate, by the way? I'm going to be needing one soon."

The table broke out in laughter again while Alan shook his head with a smile. I winked at him and he joined the laughter.

As for me? I was just glad I finally fit in.

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ORIGINAL: The Food Fight ~ PG-ish

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