"YOU WHAT!" A girl yelled from within an empty unused room as two other girls winced in fear from her anger.

"I-It was my fault." Boudicca confessed. "I was running without paying attention and crashed into her–"

"You." The furious girl pointed at Boudicca and gestured her to shut up. "I'm not talking to you. I am talking to her." She glared towards the girl next to Bou. 

She seemed like a meek, shy, and introverted girl as she fearfully twiddled her thumbs. "I-I'm really reaaally s-sorry, Denise…It was an accident! I swear!" She explained, her voice stuttered and trembled at every few words.

Denise, the angry woman, furrowed her eyebrows and put her two fingers on her forehead to calm herself down. "I swear to god, Jelica. You always mess up like this!" She sighed and slumped down the seat.

"I really am sorry!" Jelica, the girl, cried.

"AAAAH! Why are you so usele–" She stopped herself and smacked the table, pursing her lips and turning her glare towards Bou. "You. Help her with fixing this mess."

"U-uh…Yeah, Of course." Bou shuddered at the woman's tone.

"And Jelica…sorry but find another partner next time." Denise frowned towards the girl.  Bou glanced down and saw the meek girl, Jelica, clenching her fists. "I can't take it when I put so much effort into something only to have someone else ruin it."

"I-I'm sorry…" Jelica bit her lip, trying to hold back tears. "I'm sorry, Denise."

"Just…fix this, please." Denise looked away from the both of them and walked out the room, slamming the door behind her. Jelica cringed when she heard the bang.

It took a few seconds but the small girl made her way to the split diorama and picked up a glue gun trying to salvage what she could. She stayed silent as Bou looked on, unsure of where to start helping.

"U-uhmm." Bou tried to get her attention, to maybe at least figure out where to start working.

"Oh." The girl looked up and gave a half-hearted smile to Bou. "Y-You don't have to help me…sorry. You can go ahead."

"B-but it was my fault."

"Nah. It was me being careless like always." She started. "It's me, Jelica…the one who always ruins everything. The one who can't do one thing right. The one who always messes things up. The one who-who–" She couldn't continue as tears flowed down her eyes and snot built on her nose. She sniffled as she dropped the glue gun and squatted down on the floor tucking herself into a ball.

"Goddamnit." She cursed. "I hate myself so much…She was the only person who agreed to partner up with me and I destroyed everything…AGAIN!"

Bou couldn't say anything. She didn't know this girl and she doesn't exactly have a degree in comforting people. 

"Stupid Jelica! Moron Jelica! Fucking good for nothing Jelica!" She then stands and starts hitting her head over and over. "Just die already Jelica!"

"Hey! Hey! Hey!" Bou rushed over as soon as she saw her hurting herself and pulled her arms away and made her stand up. Revealing her messed up face, her make-up thrown into a full on disarray, and tears flooding down like waterfalls. "Don't do that!"

"Get away!" She pulled her arms out of Bou's grasp and yelled at her. "Why are you still here!? Just leave!"

"I wanna help! It was my fault and–" 

"I DON'T CARE! LEAVE!" She screamed in frustration and anger. Her hair turned to a complete mess and her mascara spread like black tears. "AAAAAAGHH!" She shrieked in frustration and dropped down on the floor, bawling her eyes out.

Bou was completely at a loss on what to do. She felt extremely guilty at what's happening but also she can't muster up any courage to speak up right now. 

"Why!!!!?" The girl cried. "Why can't I do anything right!"

Bou sucked up her chest and took a step forward. She knelt down next to the girl and gave her a hug. 

The girl blinked, realizing the arms around her. "What are you doing?"

"You might start punching yourself again." Bou reasoned and hugged her tighter. "And you looked like you needed one."

"I–I…" She couldn't say anything else and she just accepted the embrace and kept letting her emotions pour out. "I hate this!"

That day in an empty room, in a quiet hallway, on the third floor of a certain building. The tears and cries of a young girl could be heard and within these tears was the pain and sorrow long held deep being let out like a wave from a broken dam.

Boudicca held the girl in her arms. She didn't know what she could say to her to help or if she should even say anything at all. It was merely instinct that made her decide to embrace her.

She felt the girl's tears dampen her hoodie, and she felt the girl's nail dig at her back but for some reason she could feel a sense of kinship towards this young woman. 

It took a few couple minutes before the scene began to calm down.

"Are you okay?" Bou runs to her stuff and grabs a handkerchief and hands it over to the girl. "Jelica, right? Here." She knelt down and started wiping her face, not caring if the makeup would stain the cloth.

"I'm feeling better now." Jelica muttered. "Thank you."

"It's fine." Bou smiled and gave the girl a head pat. "It was my fault anyways."

"Let's just say it's both ours." Jelica smiled back. "I-I was running too."

"I see." Bou took her time carefully removing the smudges on Jelica's face.

"You don't have to help though, I can probably handle this on my own." The girl said as her eyes were being tapped by a damp cloth. 

"I'll stay…I want to help too." Bou looked at her cheek back to back then took a far away glance. "Not much I can do without proper tools but it's good enough." She addressed the steak slightly dirty face of Jelica, who could only laugh.

"You did better than I would've done."

The two girls stand up laughing to each other before looking at the diorama and the work that's cut out for them.

"I'll help remake some of the broken parts." Bou said.

"I'll focus on the gluing for now." Jelica nodded back.

And so the two went to work, fixing the diorama that they both contributed to breaking, all the while a steady but tense atmosphere hung in the air.

Bou wanted to ask about Jelica's situation but she feels far too shy to do it and scared that it might be going too far. She was a stranger after all. You wouldn't want a stranger asking such personal questions.

So she decided to stay silent and help Jelica quietly. Smiling and joking around but not necessarily getting to know each other. 

"You know…" Jelica began to talk. "About earlier, sorry you had to see that."

Bou gulped and flashes of her own breakdowns slid into her mind. "It happens to the best of us, don't worry."

"It's just…" Jelica sighed. "It's like I have bad luck or something, I always end up ruining things for other people."

"Hmm."

"I answer the wrong questions, I send the wrong topics, or like this, I slip and end up breaking a project." She groaned. "I've let down so many people already, I hate it."

"Some things are just hard but it's never too late to keep trying again you know?" Bou replied but her chest felt heavy from her own words.

"They always say that…" Jelica grumbled.  "Don't give up…like it's that easy."

Bou chuckled and handed Jelica a miniature table. "Fair enough."

While they worked together in rebuilding the diorama, Bou noticed a sweet humming melody filling the air.

A voice that felt buttery and smooth, but also rugged and experienced reverberated and found its way into Bou's eardrums. She turned her head and it was simply Jelica singing an unfamiliar song.

"Did you write that?" Boudicca queried.

"Hm? Oh! Uh...kinda." Jelica stopped humming as she blushed, a bit embarrassed for getting caught singing.

"Kinda?"

"I used to write some songs and sing too but…"Jelica grinned weakly. "It's all in the past now."

"The past?"

"It's really nothing, forget about it."

"Alright then." Bou let it go just as she was asked to do. The last thing she wanted was to become the type of person she herself hated.

"What about you?" Jelica asked as she stuck a house to the board.

"What about me?"

"What's your thing?"

"Thing?"

"Everybody's got a thing, you know?" Jelica giggled a bit. "If mines being unlucky as heck, what's yours?"

"Mine?" Bou thought about it for a moment. Autumn's crying face propped up on her head. The guilt she felt when she saw that expression on her best friend, and the sound of the trophy clanging on to the floor.

"Too personal?" Jelica snapped her back into reality. "You don't have to say anything if you don't want to."

"Oh no! It's not like that…" Bou pursed her lips as her hands stopped moving. "It's just…I don't really know if I have a thing currently…I just kinda want to exist?"

"I hear you." Jelica laughed and bumped her shoulder. "I don't even know why I went to this school…I just had it available so I kinda just wandered into it."

"For me, I was squeezed in last minute by my Dad." Bou smiled. "I'm just a bit aimless right now."

Jelica then nudges closer to Bou and smirks. "Happens to the best of us? Right?" She raised her eyebrows at Bou.

Boy found herself chuckling at the girl and laughing at the face she was making. "Yeah! It really does, huh?"

Jelica then went back to her side of the work and did her load diligently and extra carefully. "I used to sing a lot when I was a kid." Jelica finally decided to answer Bou's question earlier. "My mom would always tell me how good I was at singing and how proud she was of me…so we entered competitions and I started winning some."

"That's cute."

"Yeah…because of that, I started writing my own songs, learned to play many instruments, so I could make a song just for my mom." Jelica said with a large smile on her face. "I promised her she'd be the mother of a fantastic singer one day."

Bou giggled. "I bet your mom was happy to hear your dream."

"Yeah! She really was." Jelica's grin then slowly turned sour. "But you know, dreams don't last forever. We grow out of them and…"

"And?"

"I guess I grew out of mine?" She gave Bou, a broken smile.

Bou stayed silent. She felt like refuting Jelica's statement now would be disingenuous of her. That telling Jelica that dreams do last forever is nothing short of hypocrisy on her part.

She herself had long forgotten her own dream.

"I painted." Bou decided to answer Jelica's question earlier with open honesty, the same way Jelica answered her question. "I painted a lot when I was a kid and I won many awards."

"Must've been great?"

"It wasn't…" Bou bit her lip. "Cause everytime I would win, this certain someone would lose."

"Oh."

"And I guess I probably stopped because they began to hate me." She laughed a bit. "It was stupid really. We said we'd stand atop the art world as equals but…"

"Do you still…?"

"Not anymore." Bou fingers tingle at the thought. "I can't even hold a brush steady whatsoever."

"Guess we are pretty similar, hm?" Jelica teased.

"Guess so." Bou went along with it.

"Jelica Banks." The girl next to Bou finally formally introduced herself and offered a handshake. "People sometimes shorten it to Jelly, so call me that if you'd like." She beamed.

"Boudicca Chamberlain." She took the offer but Jelica's eyes widened. "Something wrong?"

"You're the Boudicca Chamberlain!" Jelica's clasped her mouth. "Laliette's childhood friend?! Don't tell me…" 

Bou panicked realizing she might've messed up telling someone about her past. She felt her blood turn dry and her hands turn cold at this sudden realization.

As Jelica put two and two together. She turned around and screamed into her hands before looking back and facing Bou with a smile. She then made a gesture of zipping her lip. "Don't worry, Bou." Jelly grinned. "It's safe with me."

Bou blinked and a wash of relief flooded her entire soul. "You scared me."

"Sorry about that." Jelly giggled then snapped her head to the diorama again. "Then what say we finish this now and get some coffee later?"

"Who's paying?" Bou teased.

"Your order, your pay."

"Fine by me." Bou laughed and began to focus on the diorama again. "Let's finish this then?"

"Right!"