Mariko's skin crawled. in her minds eye, a billion botfly larvae laid their eggs deep under her epidermis, and a million fresh new lives were happily gorging away at her reservoirs of fat and lipids, quick to turn them into their own selves, writhing under her skin before finally spreading new transparent wings, cutting back through her skin and flying away. That's how it felt when she'd heard that the pervert had been [i]targeting her. [/i] She shivered a little as he went on about his motive and reason. It came across as insane. What was he expecting, that she'd forgive him? That's she'd shrug off being stalked for what could've been possibly a YEAR, without even having any shred of privacy or moment to herself. (except in winter when she'd kept the window locked, thank god) Did he even know what he was doing to her? Did he care? Mariko blinked, trying to hold back the sudden increase in moisture. Most unlike her. Maybe she was trying to overcompensate, overacting her emotion so he'd finally notice it. She never cried when she was alone. Not that she didn't feel sad, just that she never needed to act it out when she was alone. So she slapped Fuyuki across the face, turned on her heel and ran back up the stairs. It was appropriate, wasn't it. The mute bastard had it-

The penny dropped halfway up the stairs. Mute. The girl had been mute. And suddenly she'd seen the only other person she'd known was also up a tree spying on her Obviously spying on her.. And you could never tell what he was thinking about, since his freudian slips were letter sized and not word sized. So, the mute were ganging up on her? For what purpose? What had she done against the Mute? Why were they ganging up on her? Had she offended one, who'd gone off crying to their Mute leader? Did the Mute Yakuza have a vendetta against her, so she'd never talk to anyone about the Mute conspiracy? Were there mutes in every organization, secretly pulling strings behind every public figure whose job was to sit at podiums and answer questions with their working mouths? Did Thomas Pynchon accidentally discover the truth and wrote it down in the crying of lot 49? Was that why all his postmodern bullscheiße sold so well despite being madder then a spoon, to discredit the guy? Why was this making an increasing amount of sense? She stopped. Going back to her room was what was expected of her. Mariko was a routine animal. Routine, like a million james bond spy novels were quick to point out, got you killed. So she musn't go back there in a while. Not even to get her papers for Origami club later. She'd need to borrow some while she was there. She needed to see what Fuyuki would do after she slapped the guy. Hadn't he been yelling at her after she'd slapped the guy? He had a bony head, it'd hurt her more. She didn't know what the guy had been complaining about.