Snippet #2645817

Wrong. It was just wrong. Okay, maybe it wasn't wrong, per say, but it wasn't entirely right either. It was fine, but it wasn't perfect. That was why it was unacceptable.

Rosa adjusted the bouquet, plucking the artificial roses from the plastic vase and placing it in a slightly different position, shifting leaves around and so forth. Rosa would then stand and stare, take a look at it from a different angle, and then pluck the rose again, repeating the process. Rosa was putting way more effort into this miniature bouquet than she needed to, but Rosa believed that she needed to convey her message perfectly; that the Sawada twins were dead.

"They really did die!" That's what Akako had apparently said yesterday, half-hysterical in her explanation. Akako's retelling of events was jumbled up, un-chronological, and mixed with delusions, but from what Rosa gathered was that after that suspicious-looking person made her stop recording, he proceeded to shoot seven different people with an AK-47, including the twins, but then they came back to life and proceeded to beat the school's elite fighter, Ishiki, close to death. Everything was on fire at that point, and then the world's military forces used kids in super-suits to fight off aliens. At least, that was what Rosa gathered from Tomoe after Akako told her. She might have been talking about an anime that watched one time midway through the explanation though.

What was true was that some time after the first supposed casualty, Akako had texted that the situation was getting out of hand. Naturally, Rosa told her just to get more backup, although apparently even that didn't work out. Somehow, these two boys that were tumbling on the wet ground in the morning managed to defeat Rosa's elite henchmen. Well, they were more like her grunts, her underling secret police and a big source of intimidation in the school. Still, it was quite a shock, but not something Rosa didn't act pragmatically about. The first step was to cut ties with Ishiki, which Akako handled quite succinctly. Of course, in order to make sure Ishiki wouldn't have become Rosa's problem again, she had to call somebody else to, well, console with him. A fellow senior, that is. Needless to say, Ishiki didn't come to school that day in order to reflect on his actions. Well, if reflection was done at the comforts of a hospital bed with a medical report which includes massive battering, confining Ishiki at an indefinite period. Then, it is perfect. Of course, Rosa needed to come up with a way to reaffirm her ties with the Martial Arts Appreciation club before they began to develop rancour toward her due to her rejection of the head. That would have to come later, however. For now, Rosa had a job to do.

That said, as much as Rosa was treating this as a serious chore, all the girls who had come with her to the room appeared to be treating it like a field trip. Besides the group, the only other person in the room was a pink-haired girl who seemed heedless to their presence, although the girls made sure she wouldn't rat on them. Akako was sitting on top of a desk to read her texts on her BluScreen while Erin was leaning by the doorway drinking an orange soda, despite the fact that it wasn't even nine in the morning yet. Tomoe, on the other hand, was going around sitting at desks as if she were a freshman again. Lala in her own part was reading a manga she brought with her, and she was enjoying herself, but took time to look at what was Rosa doing. "Rosa-chan, wouldn't it be more beautiful, if it was a real rose?"

"Because a natural rose," Rosa responded, not turning to face the girls, "isn't perfect. Almost nothing is perfect in its natural form." Rosa plucked the flower again, holding it high up and examining it. "Here's a rose that will never wilt, an everlasting image. Is it any less capable of beauty than a flower born from dirt and mud?" Rose twirled the flower in her fingers. "We can't control the fickle nature of ephemeral things not made by our own two hands... Are we not capable of making things more beautiful then they could ever be on their own?" Rosa placed the flower back in the vase and put her hand on her chin again.

That was a lot of complicated thought in Lala's understanding. She does understand Rosa's point of view, but to her things that are not within one's control, are at its most beauty incomparable to other things that stays for eternity. They have a life, a warmth, a light, which cannot be touched, cannot be copied even how much people try to comprehend. There are just things that were never meant to be understood and that was fine with her. It was at that period when her thoughts were only disturbed by the ever loud voice of Tomoe.

"Hey, Rosa!" Tomoe appeared to have no sense of indoor voice. She was taking a photo of the desks with her BluScreen. "Our seats were all together in the middle of the class, huh?" Tomoe tapped several different desks while calling off names. Rosa's desk certainly was in the nucleus of the room, with Tomoe's behind her and Akako next to her. Erin's seat was further toward the back corner of the room. "We all met in this room," Tomoe recalled, "all a bunch of friends in our first year! How nostalgic... Although, I guess Lala and Lyn weren't in our homeroom, huh?"

"You've been together since the beginning?" Lala looked at Tomoe with such child-like curiosity. [color=#6633ff][b]"That's so wonderful? How did you guys meet?" Her eyes of red like sparkling rubies as she put down her manga on her lap and waited for a response, in her head, she was already imagining such cliche imagies shown in those friendship movies.

[b]"I, uh..." Tomoe looked at the desk as if the answer were written there, "I guess we just all sat together and talked a lot. Oh, but Rosa always helped me with my work whenever I had troubles,"—Akako and Erin were snickering as if it were an understatement—"but Rosa was always so nice and smart and cool and smart and nice." Tomoe looked toward Akako. "Us three were BFFs until we met you, and then were were four BFFs. I, uh, kinda forget when we became friends with Erin, and I guess Rosa's good friends with Lyn as well, so... That's us now, right?" Tomoe pranced over toward Rosa and asked, "Is the flower done yet?"

Lala had a thoughtful expression on her face. [color=#CD5C5C]"I see..." Then, she looked back at Rosa who was still busy about the rose arrangement. She still has a bad feeling about all of this, but it does provide an outlet for Rosa. As her father would say, it was better out than in.

Rosa was bent over with her elbows on the desk and her hands on the sides of her face. She seemed to be getting frustrated. Rosa just couldn't feel that her message was getting across with this flower. It just wasn't matching her mental image, although she had only a vague idea of what that was. She made a low rumbling noise from the back of her throat. "How do I do this, how do I do this...?" Then it came to her, like a flash of enlightenment. She stood up and called, "Erin!" Erin was covering her mouth to try and cover up a repressed belch. She responded with a "Mmh-hm?" Rosa asked her, "Could you possibly help me out with this?" Erin nodded and quickly made her way across the room and stood right next to Rosa to look over the vase. She pressed her tongue to the side of her mouth where a small piercing was located. Then, with a subtle motion, Erin pushed the vase itself an inch to the right. Both girls then simultaneously brought their fists to their lips in a posture of consideration.

It was at this moment that Lala had the opportunity to ask what she had been meaning to, but never had the chance to. "Uhm, Tomoe-chan? Rosa-chan and Erin-chan are really in sync, aren't they?" She looked back at Tomoe and with a gentle smile. "Did all of you met just during freshmen year?" She really never had friends that hang out with like now. It is true that she was amiable to most, but connections with her are transient in nature, they never stick.

"Pretty much," Tomoe replied, "Although Rosa and Erin weren't always so agreeable. Would you believe it? Rosa and Erin used to fight all the time in the freshman year. Every time Erin opened her mouth, Rosa would be lecturing her or something. Oh, but then sometimes Erin would lecture, although normally she's kinda shy. I guess Erin's still a little shy, huh? I don't really have a clue as to why they didn't like each other so much, but apparently they knew each other from middle school, so maybe they had a misunderstanding or something? Either way, now that Rosa has tons of friends, Erin's become her friend as well. Erin doesn't talk much, but when she and Rosa are together—usually while all of us aren't around—they can go on for hours about the things they find cute or pretty. Erin might be a little scary, but she's an adorable little maiden on the inside, just like the rest of us!"

"Oohh..." Lala nodded her head in understanding as she listened to Tomoe's recount or more like opinion about Rosa and Erin. She looked at the said pair and even quirked her head to the side as she observed the two. The two looked really compatible with each other. Yes, as far as she was concerned, the group of them are friends, and she would like to consider them as good ones. This of course did not apply to Rosa and Erin in her honest gut-feeling. They were best of friends if both won't admit it or not. They know each other more than they would assume or admit to. It was endearing in her opinion. She was rather envious of that relationship and of course, she was also admiring it. "That's nice..."

Just as Tomoe was talking about it, Rosa and Erin were both in deep conversation, debating over whether the position of the vase or the orientation of the rose needed to be fixed. Both appeared to be putting in as much intellectual effort into their debate as possible, especially Erin, which was unusual for her, who rarely ever spoke much beyond a passing comment. Their debate was getting more heated, however, and Rosa was beginning to raise her voice and gesture wildly, while Erin was pounding her fist against the desk. Rosa stepped back and brought her hands out in the air. "Fine, you show me how its done." Erin shrugged as she shifted the vase to the center of the desk and adjusted it with the gentlest of motions. Then she stood back. Rosa stood and looked at it. "It's... It's good, it's very good. Thank you, Erin." Erin simply nodded her head and grabbed her soda from an adjacent desk to drink it, before placing it back down.

"A perfect message," Rosa announced, "to our dearest friends the Sawadas, who belong not in this life, but are better off to have passed on. Let us pray." Rosa brought her hands together, although as soon as she did, she brought her palms apart to consider something. "It's not finished, however..." Rosa approached the desk, and then with one swipe, knocked the plastic vase over. Erin was about to exclaim but she caught herself. "There," Rosa continued, "There's my message to the Sawadas. Screw them. They're presence, even in death, disgraces the very nature of our school morals and our disciplined, peaceful lives. They seek to cause nothing but chaos and anarchy in our school's perfect order. They are nothing but delinquents, rats among gerbils. If we do not exterminate them now, we will be swarmed by their impure kind. With this beautiful rose, I declare a war on imperfection!"

Erin was about to reach for her soda again when Rosa snatched it. Erin exclaimed, "Hey!" Rosa shook the can around, feeling how much of the fizzy, sticky drink was still in the can. It was a little over a quarter full. Rosa then proceeded to tip the can over and pour the contents of the drink on the desk and seat of Ieharu. Erin cried out, "I was drinking that!" After shaking the can out, Rosa then presented it back to Erin.

"Trash," Rosa told her. Erin stared at her. Rosa reiterated, "or rather, recycle." Erin appeared angry at first, but then her expression seemed to cool, turning into complete reservation. She didn't even grit her teeth or give an indignant sigh. Erin simply took the can and obediently walked to the corner of the room to throw it out.

Lala could not help but smile warmly at that before releasing a rather deep and thoughtful sigh. "Rosa-chan. Erin-chan, you two really get along well. It's refreshing to see." She was honestly giving her observation and a favorable one at her point of view. Then, she looked at what Rosa did to the desk and had a concerned expression. "But Rosa-chan, I still think this is a bad idea. It could have been just a misunderstanding." There was still the nagging feeling telling her that this whole skirmish might not do anyone good. She did already hear some rumors about how Ishiki was in the hospital and all. "Won't it be better, if we just talk to them. I know they would understand what wrong they did." She suggested then looked at Erin, it seems that they take each other's opinions into great consideration. "Don't you think so, Erin-chan? I just have this bad feeling."

"Screw 'em," Rosa and Erin said simultaneously. The girls shot glares at each other from across the room, although Erin's seemed to turn into a smirk, but then she averted Rosa's gaze. Tomoe giggled. "Well," Erin said, shrugging, "I guess Rosa should choose to do whatever she wants. She knows best, after all." The two girls appeared to have an unheard conversation as they stared at each other, consisting of side glances, lip pursing and eyebrow raising and furrowing. Rosa appeared to end it with a smirk.

"Well, clearly, our peaceful order is not upheld by violence," Rosa began to explain, the hypocrisy and blatant lies hanging over her like a swarm of yellowjacket wasps, "yet our enemies are still opaque to us. We do not know if they are capable of diplomacy, which is not worth the risk. After all, I don't know what I'd do if any of my girls..."–she narrowly avoided the word 'friends'–"...were hurt at all, like poor Ishiki. That said, Lala has a point. These boys just may be capable of intelligent thought, and the...direct approach in dealing with them may not be the most ideal one. More people are going to be hurt after all. We have a better method for dealing with their type."

And here it was, the Rosa-brand perfect solution for dealing with 'threats'. Step Number One was Stigmatisizing, or marking a target, which Rosa has accomplished with her lovely little flower. This message that she sent was less meant for the boys themselves and more for everybody else; that this person had become an enemy of Rosa. Even the most introverted student knew that being Rosa's enemy meant you became a public enemy. After all, who in their right mind would think they are more just than Rosa and not expect to be riddiculed by their friends. Likewise, those that didn't ridicule their friends for subverssive thoughts were bound to be riddiculed as well.

Step Number Two: Alienation; "First off, we should keep others informed, warn them of how dangerous these boys are. Perhaps we can minimalize the amount of incidents involving these boys by making sure nobody gets too close to them. Make sure to let your friends know that these boys are too dangerous. If they ever make any attempt to associate with them, be it talking, inclusion in activities or even just seemingly polite gestures, make sure to remind them of how troublesome the boys are, and also of the possible conesquences for such associations. After all, they might be in trouble with their own friends if they're also friends with such dangerous people."

Step Number Three: Humiliation; "Still, it's going to be so depressing to have these sorts of people around. I'm sure we're all feeling rather anxious with these big elephants in the school, but I'm sure that can be dealt with. After all, maybe Lala is right, and maybe we are capable of laughing with these boys. I'm sure with them being new to the school, they aren't aware of our... what should we call it? Prank culture?" Tomoe, Akako and Erin simultaneously giggled. "Yeah, our Namimori-styled jokes. We'll be sure to have all kinds of fun with these boys, and no doubt, everybody else will too. No prank is too far if it's all in good fun after all. Soon, we won't even have to be scared of the Sawadas anymore, we'll just laugh."

Step Number Four: Vilification; "Of course, we can't forget about how little we know of the true nature of these boys. That's why it's up to us to find out everything we can about them. We must track their every move and every previous step they've ever taken. If they have any dark hidden secrets, we must bring them to the light of day so that they may become common knowledge. In order to keep our shining crystal diamond clear, even the most disgusting of imperfections must be found."...in order to be cut out.

Rosa's multi-part method worked without failure. It was adaptable and worked on forces much more powerful than one person could muster alone, the power of socialogy. Sow the seeds of hate and beautiful flowers of perfection will bloom, like the one which lay on the desks of Ieyoshi and Ieharu. Rosa could see it now; Ieharu's desk covered in prayers, "Loser," "Delinquent," "Pervert," "Disgusting," "Go away, underwear pervert," "Go home," "Don't even come to school," "Nobody likes you," "Die," Die. That image hung in Rosa's head. She knew exactly how it looked on a desk with black marker. Rosa had seen it many times before. The image of being absolutely abhorred, Rosa loved and hated seeing it.

When it came to what must be done, Lala knew that Rosa had everything planned to her desires. Lala hadn't actually seen any decisions that Rosa had made turn into folly since they became friends. That was why Lala had no doubt when it cane to what Rosa wanted. Yet, there was this gnawing alarm inside of her that told her to warn Rosa or at the most just prevent this all from happening. There was something about this situation that was different from the previous ones. As if, something more than the everyday normal life can handle, like this reality of theirs would shatter and they won't be pleased about it. At the moment, Lala didn't want that. She was happy with everyone around her. It was true that their was some negativity coming from the other students when it came to Rosa's way of doing things. But, she knew there were far more positive outcomes for it. Still, she couldn't shake this feeling.

"In any case," Rosa continued, noticing she was being stared at during her pause, "Our current business in this here is finished. Come girls, let us depart from this..." Rosa looked toward the desk, where the flower lay, "...depressing environment. We have other important things after all, like our little plan for today's lunch." Instantly, all the other girls' expressions lit up in excitement. Rosa looked around at each of them, spread around the room, including the unfamiliar pink-haired one. She was quietly sitting at a desk, like she had been when she entered the room, with red earbuds on while she was dazing off, only now she was staring directly at Rosa. Was she listening the entire time? It was hard to tell seeing as she had earbuds on, but nonetheless, her eyes were trained on Rosa with an expression that seemed otherwise disinterested. Could she possibly have been a friend of the twins? "You," Rosa commanded, directed at the spectator who may or may not have been listening to her, "You better not repeat anything you may have heard here, got it?" If the girl was stupid and didn't know the consequences of disobeying her, well, Rosa wouldn't have to worry anyway. The pink-hair girl simply made a curt nod, before going back to her own devices.

"Rosa-chan, let's just be careful, okay?" Lala noted with a kind and gentle smile toward Rosa, before she looked toward the pink-haired girl and waved at her. "Thank you!" She then followed the rest while taking one final look at the flower on the desk then took a deep breath as she hoped everything would be fine... Yes, hopefully.

Upon the exit of the junior girls, the pink-haired girl stood up and began to search for paper towels.