[REGULAR] Fiery Eyes and Piano Ties (Franz + Janice) [FIN]

[cibarium]

The Corner Cafe, aptly named due to how it was stationed at a streetcorner in a busy part of the town plaza, was a popular hangout for students from every school. It was an unofficial neutral ground, a melting pot of school cultures, comfortably accommodating members of every clique bracket from the overly popular token gays and their faghags to the lowly comic book clubbies. The atmosphere was pleasant, decorated in cozy but not smothering sunset tones, and when there wasn't a live group taking advantage of their small stage the speakers poured out chill, mellow music, easy listening that was just a shade below coffeehouse pretentious.

It was family-owned, the staff friendly as one could find; everyone who worked there knew the dozens of regulars on a first-name basis, and that was probably the only reason why Janice had never been mistakenly addressed as "sir" while being served. She came here quite often; was on amicable terms with the owner. Sometimes they slipped her a free espresso.

The espresso currently accompanying her notebook at her table wasn't free, but that didn't make her appreciate it any less. It wasn't just the easygoing atmosphere that drew customers in: the coffee here was good, actually worth the outrageous prices establishments like these tended to get away with. She lifted it off the table occasionally - one could time it, it was roughly every thirteen seconds - to sip at it while she regarded a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird held in her other hand. Janice had no idea how this book had managed to surface as a requirement for yet another class. This was the fourth time she'd had to read it for academic reasons.

It had become a very boring book.  

[candy lamb]

Janice's re-investigation of how Maycombe was, yet again, a tired old town when first she knew it, was rudely interrupted by a commotion at the counter. This was unusual. The atmosphere had been preserved by the Corner Cafe still being only the safe haven of those who wanted quiet and an espresso without wanting a wireless frappuccino green-tea douche, and thusly most of the schoolchildren tended to actually avoid it if they weren't in their civvies. Apparently a melting pot wasn't good enough; you had to have gang lines. No giggling Crystal girls. No other Meadowviewers picking at their nose piercings. No Hillworth students.

Well.

"Come on, Mrs. Kitchener," said a boy at the counter, low and urgent. He ran one hand through his blonde locks a little urgently, making them even more spiked-up than before. He looked like Sonic the Hedgehog, just blonde. "Please. This is in the name of the free press."

"Franz, I said it before and I'll say it again," said the woman behind the counter, "not without contacting the school."

"The school is authoritarian."

"So are all schools, Franz. If you want us to carry your paper -- "

" -- it's not my paper, it's an interested friend's paper, it's his rallying cry -- "

" -- then you'll need written permission." At his expression, she added, "Un-forged written permission," and the boy cried out, "J'accuse."

Eventually, Janice saw him glumly take an espresso that appeared to be free, and he collapsed into the table opposite hers in a state of high, brooding dudgeon. It was an energetic kind of dudgeon: the boy looked like a live wire, tapping his fingers on the desk, dropping a sheaf of papers on top of his table. The logo at the top was obvious to her naked eye:

THE HILLWORTH SOUND

And underneath it:

DOES CRYSTAL ACADEMY RECEIVE BENEATH-THE-TABLE FUNDS??  

[cibarium]

She was trying to take notes as per the instruction packet as her eyes cantered through the text, oh was she trying, but her pen had stopped making its bulleted list of key points thirty-one pages ago, giving way to row after neatly-aligned row of tic-tac-toe games. The circle had been keeping a fast winning streak. Janice was only noting this because it was the only interesting thing happening with her today.

That is, at least, until a rare swell of volume hit her ears, and she looked up. Seemed like someone was holding up the line. Spiky blonde hair, brandishing a... no, it wasn't a flyer, too many pages. It looked as if he'd been handed a free coffee, probably so he'd stop blocking the customer traffic. Mrs. Kitchener was easy to annoy like that. She'd seen the occasional classmate use that tactic on purpose when they didn't feel like paying. Petrified-Flame-Head didn't seem like that's what he was doing, though, and out of idle curiosity she watched his hair bob around to the tables until he was a few feet away, looking distressed.

Her gaze drifted over to the - ah, so it was an independent newspaper - and her brow lifted in intrigue as she saw the headline. Briefly weighing the pros and cons between her overtaught literature and the Hillworth Sound... well... she went for the Hillworth Sound. With presence-announcing snap she closed her book, collected her notebook and espresso and walked the three steps it took for her to stand over the blonde's table.

In the next instant Janice had set her cup back down and snatched up a copy of the Sound as if her hand was a hungry alligator and the newspaper a freshly-slaughtered chicken. "You have an interesting brand of journalism," she mused, a light grin brushing her features.

"You're usually not supposed to take up so much space on the front page for the sake of an obvious question."  

[candy lamb]

The boy looked at Janice.

Janice looked at the boy.

"Obvious," he said lightly. "Some would say that the Crystal Academy's fundraising practices are all completely on the level, especially with all the funds diverted to the Board of Trustees and the PTA. Some would say this."

He took a long, jaded sip of his coffee, waving one hand in the air. "But if I make the headline, Crystal Academy Full Of Corrupt Capitalist Roaders, do you know what they do? They did what they did last year, which was to tell me it was slander and to pull it if I wanted to keep my prefectship, not that this paper is necessarily mine but. Jesus! Which was when I had to say: did none of you even watch Spiderman, because as any fool knows it's libel, not slander."

He smacked his hand down on the table. "God, I'm sick of the crapped-up private school system in this city. Tell me you're sick of it, mysterious stranger. If I know someone else, just ONE OTHER PERSON, wants justice in this crazy, ILL, mortal city, then..."

(Really, Destiny City had been voted 'Prettiest Gardens' last year.)  

[cibarium]

"Intricacies aside," the girl offered, swinging a leg to pull out a chair for herself, making herself comfortable - it was as if she didn't need to ask; knew that he wouldn't turn down a request to sit across from him, "those details of cash flow, the dirty money laundering of the edu-corporation and the filthy, greedy parasites latched to its obese underside... yes, gruesome little details, but beside them, as hard as they are to shift focus away from..."

Her voice was more bitter, more acidic than the drink she'd snatched back into her hand, despite a smile of thorough amusement plain on her face. "I must ask - honestly, to me the mystery is glaring - how else could such an outdated, socially crippling, miserable excuse for an educational system stay alive in this modern day?" She laughed, a low, even, smooth noise someone could put a metronome to, and shook her head, eyes locked with the boy. "It couldn't. It just couldn't, mi amigo. No. Impossible."

She had idly gone through another tic tac toe game in her notebook as the exchange began. Another victory for the circle. Turning the page to a fresh one she drew yet another grid, deftly marked a square with an X, and shuttled the paper and pen across the table so it would land squarely in front of the blonde. "You're an effective preacher, but, well... you're directing your complaints to a long-time member of the choir. Who practically needs an IV drip of oxymorphone, given how sick she's gotten," she replied, resting her loosely-crossed arms on the table. "I mean, I've spent half my young life getting bombarded with their poorly-disguised propaganda."  

[candy lamb]

The boy in front of her blew a stray piece of hair out of his face, as though the movement was a way in which to let off steam. His O in her notebook, when he drew it, was slow and perfectly round, carefully done so that it was a perfect circle. "So I can see, mein guter kamerad," he said. "The choir's remarkably empty, you know. It's more like... an amateur barbershop team, if you ask me. So. Your question is obvious, isn't it? How has such a tool of the privileged upper classes waddled its way, fat with the money of the proles, into our midst? Who shuttles in the Harvard grads for the Crystal Academy amazons to marry, lest they leave the city and take their white-collar fortunes and daycare bills elsewhere? I! ask! you! that!"

They both drank their coffee at the same time, a sort of practiced shadowing of each other. "Examine the evidence," he said. "Crystal's a private school and shouldn't get as much government funding as it gets. Crystal shouldn't have as much influence as it has. They banned Hillworth boys from the campus, comrade. Banned. Unofficial banning, that's how they get around it. Obviously so that we can't let our filthy paws leave the viva la revolution stamp on their hallowed walls."

Franz stopped. Then he unbuttoned the top button of his collar. "Sorry," he said. "Nobody talks social injustice to me. Hang on." He fanned himself with the napkin assiduously for a few moments. "All right, I'm done."  

[cibarium]

If Franz's circle was that well formed, it would find a kindred spirit in the girl's expertly rendered X - perfect straight lines, exact 90 degree angles, each end the same number of micrometers away from the corners of the boxes, which were also perfect, evenly sized squares. The precision both of them took in a casual pen-and-paper game was probably a reason for concern. When she passed the notebook back across the table, the blonde would find that under the grid she had also jotted down her name for him in a rigid, thorny cursive:

Janice Fitzpatrick -- "Jan" is fine if you'd rather not pronounce two whole syllables.

"You answered you own question there, мой хороший друг," Janice replied, rotating her finger in his direction. "Exploitation! Where hardworking citizens come to stake out an honest living, the overly privileged will follow to use them for their own means, sucking them dry, stunting the growth of what could have been an upstanding community for the sake of their own self-loving, grotesque interests." She produced a white cloth out of a front pocket, proceeding to wipe her glasses as if she could rub the lenses out of existence. "God forbid the rich-poor gap actually close, then any Jane or Harry could sign up for the country club! And we can't just have that, now can we?"

Sliding her glasses back onto her face, she then fiddled briefly with the piano-key tie she was wearing fastened snugly around her neck. "Figures they'd shut out anything that might tear the wool away from their eyes," she said, seemingly unphased by the blonde's case of the impassioned vapors. "Honestly, though, I'd rather be banned then have to constantly deal with them trying to drag me into their ranks."

Her marsh-colored eyes were smoldering with pure contempt as she recalled, "One year they pushed a very lucrative offer at me. Full scholarship. Something you normally have to work for, even with them." A hand raised so she could thumb at her chin. "I was in the middle of accepting it. My name and birthdate were written on the application. But then..."

Janice trailed off, lifting her hand away in a loose open gesture, canting her gaze to the side.  

[candy lamb]

It didn't matter; she had her audience. The black hole O's stood next to her crosses in proud, font-perfect formation, and underneath her own spiky cursive stood just as graceless a cramped hand --

Franz St. Germaine. Excuse my bourgeiosie.

"Then you saw the light?" he prompted. "Then you realised that even covertly getting yourself into their ranks would mean you became one of their powder-blue Stepford selves? That beating the game and the apparatus of their social capital wouldn't involve infiltration? Or!" He tapped his fingers on the table again. "You simply couldn't handle the acid, Crystal Pepsi taste of their pre-law, pre-med atmosphere."

Franz rested his chin on his hands, examining Janice keenly. They were interested in each other now, like two babies were interested, freely and without suspicion. "But then, Comrade Fitzpatrick?" he said, and added artlessly: "I see you are wearing a piano tie, by the way."  

[cibarium]

The notebook was passed back and forth another couple of rounds, until it stopped in front of Janice with an unnaturally straight, bold line passing through the grid - circle wins yet again. Looking up at Franz, she tilted her head curiously in response to his statement on her choice of accessory. "Is that an idle observation, sir," she dared to ask, "or are you complimenting me on my appearance? Whatever the case, your hair is exceptionally blonde and spiky."

This was said in a completely neutral tone.

"Back on topic," Janice continued, sitting back in her chair, crossing her arms. "Those were all acceptable answers, yes, but... well, as much as I hate to admit it, back then I didn't possess the wisdom I have now. I value education, you see; thought it would be a way for me to get into a good college. But then, yes, but then I took a look at the pamphlet that comes with these things, and you-- well, actually, I think you in particular would believe what I saw, aware as you are..."

The girl pondered for a short moment-- or, at least, looked for a short moment like she was pondering before speaking again. "They keep sending me the damn things, and I keep all my junk mail, so I've accumulated several copies," she said, in the tone of someone who appeared to believe it was a good habit to keep one's junk mail. "Enough to spare a couple for any interested parties. I also have some pico de gallo in the fridge I could use some help getting rid of."

She was already standing.  

[candy lamb]

Franz was standing too. He hastily knocked back the rest of his espresso -- apparently having been born of asbestos lips -- and set it down on the counter, gathering up his pile of homebrewed magazines.

"Be sure about this, comrade," he warned, "I could be someone from the inside sent to try to lure you back to Crystal under the threat of blackmail." Beat. "No; they're too unimaginative. Big business always is. Who am I kidding."

The sheaf of magazines went under one arm. "I would definitely not say no to pico de gallo either," he said. "At Hillworth, when it comes to us, it's pretty much only the pico, you know what I'm saying?"

Franz hesitated. He looked Janice directly in the eye, looked straight through her keyboard tie and her murky-purple hair and stopped. "Janice Fitzpatrick, Crystal escapee," he said seriously, "I warn you, I am a lifer."

He held out his hand, to shake.  

[cibarium]

Janice laughed again, pushing a lock of hair behind an ear. "Like I'd fold under blackmail, anyway," she smirked. "But you're right, they really only know how to bribe, and you can see how far that's gotten them with me..."

The handshake was very brief, but iron-gripped and electric, coupled by a bold locking of the eyes and confident smiles. When the contact broke they were heading instantly out the store and down the street, cleaving shamelessly through the light streams of people milling about the plaza. The whole journey looked more like a power-walking race than a case of lead-and-follow. Janice's footsteps were very noisy, as if she thought she was a stationary entity rotating the earth with them.

What probably should have been a fifteen-minute walk was over in five, and the girl finally stopped at one of the doors lining the street of a suburban neighborhood. It wasn't anything special, one of the countless two-story dwellings that fit into the general scheme of an American home. The glass roof of a greenhouse had briefly peeked out from the backyard as they'd turned into the road.

The inside wasn't any less typical - clean, modestly furnished, ergonomical; there was a bookshelf near the staircase filled with intimidating medical texts, and family photos on the fireplace mantle. One was of Janice posing with a clarinet in Meadowview's band uniform, looking militantly serious.

"Hang on a second," she said, and dipped into the kitchen, which was bathed in sunlight from the window, decorated in warm buttery caramel shades. But she seemed to literally mean a second, as an instant later she had produced aforementioned pico de gallo, some tortilla chips and two tall cans of CitrusPLOSION Megaquench (like either of them needed even more caffiene), one of which was tossed in Franz's direction. Janice was fast-paced and stern in her hospitality.

"And now, tavarish moy, let's get to the reason why I dragged you here in the first place," the girl grinned, leading him upstairs to her room. "I don't subscribe to the Hillworth stereotypes, but I should still warn you - if you try to break any laws in here I know how to knock someone unconscious with a clarinet case."  

[candy lamb]

Franz seemed interested in everything -- interested in the furnishings, interested in the gleam of pictures in their picture-frames, interested in the wallpaper and the furniture and the trappings of Fitzpatrick home life, throwing himself down on Janice's floor and looking around with every sign of fascination. A little like a goldfish who had just been moved to a new bowl. He took his CitrusPLOSION Megaquench with a "Danke schoen," and somehow managed to drink it out of the side of his mouth as Janice artfully dropped the first of the Crystal Academy pamphlets on his lap.

"You have nothing to fear from me," he said. "I only commit political thought crimes nowadays."

But his eyes were narrowing as he opened the pamphlet and devoured its contents, brow furrowing in distaste, turning it over (and at one point, upside-down) and spluttering on a mouthful of Megaquench. This was saved, as nobody liked to lose their mouthful of Megaquench, but he swatted the pamphlet with his other hand as though it was a naughty child.

"You're kidding," he said. "You're kidding me. -- Crystal Academy's goal is to turn girls into spectacular young women. You may note our governmental placement program which provides Crystal Academy girls with placements, internships and junior clerkships at the top firms in Destiny City and its surroundings, often long before other students from other schools are considered -- " Another swat. "Oh my God, it's open nepotism, it's a pre-law nudge-nudge wink-wink, this is grotesque."

He brandished the pamphlet at her. "The average IQ of a Crystal Academy student is 120. -- Not to break open the misogyny barrel, but I've met Crystal girls who thought the Constitution was a breakdance move. They tried to net you with this?"  

[cibarium]

If the living room was that interesting, Janice's personal space must have been that much more so. It could be described in a single statement as a recovering kleptomaniac's worst nightmare; a paramount to organized clutter. She had a massive collection of windup toys on one set of shelves, carefully lined up like some sort of plastic and tin paramilitary force waiting for an order. Shadow-boxes full of artfully-arranged preserved insects lined one wall - from the size and color of some of them, it was apparent she had to have traveled abroad at least once to get them if she caught them herself - and sitting next to her bedside table was a small laundry bin with a handful of rolled-up posters inside. The chips and pico de gallo was now nestled in between a well-progressed game of Monopoly (she had notes handy on the progression of all four pieces) and a half-finished game of checkers (red was winning, but just barely).

The pamphlets themselves were being pulled from a heavy filing cabinet, crammed carefully with glossy ads for everything one could think to market to a high school girl. Everything she flipped through had a small label with a hastily-scribbled date affixed to the top right corner. Some items had notepad pages attached to them with paperclips, or the notes were scribbled directly on them with arrows and underlines highlighting points of interest.

"I looked into those placement programs, and they're really nothing any sane girl would want to get involved in," Janice said as she kept rummaging through a powder-blue section of her drawer, her hair falling messily over one shoulder. "You'd either end up fetching coffee for the people you could have been, or get stuck doing the mindless busywork no one else wants to do." She huffed. "Hardly anything that requires an IQ of 120. That's such a stupid way to determine one's intelligence anyway."

She handed him another one that was merrily titled What Can You Learn at Crystal Academy? and paused to snatch up a chip. "It only gets worse from there, just take a look at what they think I should be doing to prepare myself for the real world... priding themselves in their high standards in things like deportment. Deportment!" She gestured angrily with her now half-eaten chip as she continued. "As if I really need to spend an hour of my day learning to walk around with a stack of books on my head, or how to properly hold a teacup." The word 'teacup' was emphasized with a great deal of venom.

"This isn't a school, Franz St. Germaine, it isn't a school at all! It's a trophy wife factory."  

[candy lamb]

"Deportment," he read out loud. "Elegance. Society manners. Networking. -- You may be right. Let's have a look."

Franz took a handful of chips, a good dose of Megaquench, and flipped through the pamphlet. "Alumni. Well, well, well, what do we have here? The wife of the current mayor. The wife of the head of the local bank. A lot of wives here, not a lot of mayors or bankers. -- Oh, wait, no, here we go; a handful of lawyers, some accountants, one -- professional ballroom dancer? Always something to aspire to. Oh, here we go, let me read your notes, so she's the black sheep: someone went into the Navy. She won't be using her deportment there. No teacup-holding in the government's armed forces."

Franz stretched himself out on her floor -- he was entirely absorbed by the papers in front of him, though he did give cursory looks to what was a pretty interesting bedroom at other times. His big marmalade-coloured eyes darted over the windup toys and the kaleidoscope of tin and colour that were the tiny toy military force, the dead, neatly pinned insects, the stacks and stacks of stuff. Then his gaze went back to the pamphlets. "Let's see, foreign program options -- oh, nice; 'spend a semester with the best arts, dance and language masters Switzerland has to offer'."

He looked up. "Fitzpatrick," he said. "What is this antebellum bimbo bullshit? This rot runs FAR deeper than I'd ever suspected. This has to be outed to the city."  

[cibarium]

After producing a couple more prairie sky-colored pieces of interest, Janice opted to settle next to the checkerboard, regarding it with about half the interest she gave to watching the cogs turn in Franz's head as he soaked in the information. The village of Maycombe had become a tired, old, forgotten town by this point.

"Accountants and lawyers, yes," she replied, canting an eyebrow, "but that's not all too impressive when you consider the huge amount of career fields that are never even mentioned at all, anywhere. Lawyers, but do you see any doctors? No. Research directors? No. Foreign ambassadors? No. Anything that contributes at all to society? No."

She took another chip and a long drink of Megaquench. "Lawyers and accountants... sounds on the surface like a source of pride, but they're just producing more cogs for the bureaucracy machine."

Janice's thin, murky eyes smoldered at the boy on her floor. "And to think, all the information you ever needed was plain in sight, just waiting for you to find it. I hope you don't mind me being honest with you, but your journalism..." and she paused to artfully jump three red checkers with a black, scooping the pieces up in one hand with a triumphant smirk.

"...needs work."