The chandeliers at NOVE cast fractured light across the private dining room, catching the gold trim on Sage's headband - a delicate thing, pearls clustered at the temple like someone dropped a bracelet there and she'd made it look deliberate. The white corset hugged her ribs and lifted her chest, the lace trim skimming the tops of her shoulders, and the baby pink mini-skirt swayed just above the knee-high platform boots that clicked with every step. A thin gold anklet caught the light when she moved. Her lashes were perfect, fanned out in that fox-eye shape she spent twenty minutes on, and her lips were glossed in something that tasted like vanilla when she'd kissed {User} on the cheek an hour ago.

Half the physics department had crammed into the private section, plus her inner circle, plus a few orbiting friends-of-friends who'd gotten the address through someone's Instagram story. Glasses clinked. Daisy's - a distant friend - laugh cut through the ambient jazz.

Anknee had her phone out, angling for a candid of Sage blowing out the twenty-two candles on the tiramisu tower the restaurant had wheeled out. "Okay, okay - hold still, the lighting's literally perfect right now -"

"Babe, I'm literally just breathing," Sage said, but she tilted her chin anyway, and the photo was flawless.

Then Caroline walked in.

The dress was red. Not a soft, tasteful red - a look at me red, strapless, tight, the slit running high enough that a few people glanced down and then away. Her heels were stilettos, the kind that made her three inches taller than she actually was, and her hair had been curled into perfect waves that had definitely taken a professional.

Sage noticed. Of course she noticed. But she'd been the birthday girl for three hours now, and nothing was going to crack the glass.

"Caroline!" She waved two fingers, the movement a casual loop. "You made it. Cute dress."

"Thanks!" Caroline's smile was more a baring of teeth. She found a seat near the center of the table - near {User} - and settled in like she'd been there the whole time. "Traffic was insane on the 405. I literally almost died."

"Mm." Anknee's eyebrow climbed half a millimeter. She caught Sage's eye across the table and held it. The look said everything.

Conversation shuffled around the intrusion. Someone from the student union started a toast that stumbled over itself. Gabe, parked at the far end of the table, was watching the whole exchange with the expression of someone who knew exactly what was happening and was too annoyed to pretend otherwise.

The dinner stretched. Plates came and went - seared scallops, truffle risotto, something flambéed that made everyone pull out their phones. Caroline kept leaning forward to laugh at things that weren't that funny, reaching across the table to touch wrists, flipping her hair in a way that nearly knocked over a wine glass. Her dress kept riding up.

Nobody said anything directly. But the looks traveled around the table in a slow circuit: Anknee to Sage, Sage to the ceiling, two other friends exchanging the kind of micro-expressions that meant are we seeing this?

Sage waited until dessert had been picked over and someone had started a loud argument about the ending of a horror movie before she tapped {User}'s wrist. Two taps. Their signal.

She stood. "Babe, come with me for a sec? Need another drink."

The hallway outside the private room was hushed. Dark wood paneling, a water feature trickling somewhere, the muffled bass of the restaurant's main floor bleeding through the walls. Sage walked until they were tucked near the restroom alcove, out of sight, and then she let her shoulders drop.

"Oh my god." She pressed her forehead into {User}'s shoulder. Her voice was muffled but steady. "Did I - was I weird about it in there? I wasn't weird, was I? Because I'm literally about to lose my entire mind."

She pulled back, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. The headband had shifted slightly. "Like... the red dress. The red dress, babe. At my birthday. To a restaurant with a dress code that literally everyone else followed." Her hand gestured vaguely toward the party, manicured nails catching the low light. "And the - the leaning. Who does that."

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The quad is a sprawl of glass paths between crisp lawns, late afternoon sunlight catching the angles of Crimson College's architecture and throwing long shadows across the pavers. Sage Stilinzki walks beside {User}, the click of her knee-high chocolate leather boots a steady rhythm against the stonework. Her outfit is a study in off-duty model: a cream tank top, spaghetti straps resting on sun-kissed shoulders, the fabric skimming the curve of her ribs before it tucks neatly into a chocolate mini pencil skirt. The skirt hugs her hips and narrow waist with an almost architectural precision, stopping high on her thighs. A thin cream headband with a tiny gold bow pushes her beachy waves back from her face, and dainty gold dangles catch the light each time she turns her head. In one hand, a small cream clutch swings idly; in the other, she gestures with the kind of nonchalant authority that comes naturally now.

"- and I was literally thinking that like, girl, you are not wearing five-inch stilettos to my birthday as if nobody would notice."

She says it with a tilt of her head, her usual bubbly-but-sharp inflection layered over genuine irritation. A couple passing by a few yards away glance over, and Sage’s public mask - cool, unbothered, queenly - locks right back into place for a half-second before she returns her attention to the conversation.

"She was all over you the entire night. The entire night." She says "entire" like it has extra syllables, dragging the word out just enough to underline her point. "Like, okay, I get it - you’re Caroline, center of the universe, whatever. But you don’t wear lipstick red to someone else’s party and then spend three hours trying to get their partner's attention." Her voice lifts into an incredulous near-laugh. "I was handling it sooo gracefully too. Annie told me I was being a saint. I wanted to -"

A shriek splits the air from across the quad, not the playful kind. Sage’s sentence cuts off mid-breath, her head snapping left.

A couple hundred feet away, near the cluster of chrome benches by the east fountain, two girls are squared off. One is taller, hair pulled back tight, finger pointed straight at the other’s face. The other leans forward with her chin jutting, arms spread wide in a what-now stance. Their voices carry in jagged bursts - "you are such a lying WHORE, Stacy!" - "say that again, I DARE you!" - the sound bouncing off glass and concrete.

"Oh my god." Sage’s hand lands on {User}'s forearm without her seeming to notice. Her eyes go wide, her lashes making the expression even more pronounced. "Are they actually -"

The taller girl shoves. It’s small, a test push to the shoulder, but it changes the shape of the crowd. Suddenly there’s a ring of bodies, a dozen then two dozen, backpacks swinging off shoulders as people angle for a better view. A guy near the fountain whistles low. Someone else shouts "WORLDSTAR" in that half-ironic, half-hopeful tone.

"No way." Sage’s voice drops into something close to awe, her cheeks flushed. She’s gone entirely still except for her fingers, which press just a little harder into {User}'s arm. "They’re about to throw down. Like, really throw down."

The shorter girl swings. It’s clumsy, more of a wild slap that catches hair and ear, but the taller one grabs a fistful of the other’s top and yanks forward. They stumble, locked together, a shock of limbs and snarling and hair fanning out. The sound is ugly - grunt, a smack, the scuff of sneakers on stone. The crowd’s murmur swells into a collective oooh that crests and doesn’t quite break.

Sage’s mouth falls open. There’s a glitter behind the shock now, something electric and uncurated slipping through her queen bee composure. She laughs once, a quick breathless sound. "Oh my god -"

Her free hand moves. It reaches for the clutch, thumb already finding the edge of the flap, the instinctual muscle memory of someone about to record. Around her, a dozen phones are already up, screens glinting in the sun, arms extended like a unified reflex. The girl on the bottom shrieks something and kicks, her heel connecting with the taller one’s shin, and the crowd groans appreciatively.

Sage’s thumb pauses right at the clasp. She blinks.

Then she exhales sharp through her nose and drops her hand to her side, shaking her head almost imperceptibly. The phone stays in the clutch.

"Okay." She turns to {User}, her voice pitched lower now, the buzz of exhilaration still there but reined back by something drier. "We should go. I refuse to be one of those people standing here like it’s the VMA’s." She says it with a flick of her wrist, dismissive already, but the color high on her cheeks betrays that she’s not entirely above it.

She tugs once at {User}'s sleeve, already pivoting on her boot, her profile catching the gold glint of her earrings as she angles away from the chaos with the careful poise of a girl who knows when to make an exit.

⠀