Mischievous Function

Mic blinked and looked back and forth between the box and Fanny. "...What?" she asked.

"You heard me," Fanny frowned with an irritated glare. "Here."

She dropped the box on the ground next to the table. Dot and Mic looked inside and found the B.F.D. High girls' idol outfits folded neatly inside before looking back up at Fanny, who was already half-turned away. "We don't need them. Take them back," she muttered. "They were always yours, anyway."

Fanny hadn't even taken a step away from them before Mic had scrambled to get up from her seat. "Fanny, wait," she said, lunging for her shoulder.

On instinct, Fanny wrenched her shoulder out of Mic's grip, whirled around, and glared at her, right hand hovering near her holster. "What?" she hissed, furrowing her brows. "You expect me to say sorry or something?"

"No, I..." Mic paused as she drew her hand back and sighed, taking a moment to collect herself. "I just...I wanted to say I'm sorry."

Fanny scoffed and rolled her eyes as she turned away. "Don't be. It's thanks to you we realized what we really are, anyway."

"No, that's not true!" Mic protested, grabbing Fanny again and turning her around. "Look, I—I was being selfish, okay? I'm sorry."

"Don't freakin' patronize me!" Fanny nearly yelled as she threw Mic's arms off her and scowled. "We get it, okay?! We're freaks! We're weird! We're not normal! Sooner or later, someone would have told us!"

Fanny tightened her fist and shut her eyes as she forced her gaze downward. After a few moments, she let out a tired exhale and stared at the ground. "And it's because we're not normal that we understand why this was never going to work," she muttered. "We don't want to ruin your last performance any more than you want to have it ruined. We're crazy, I get that, but we're not jerks. I know you need girls for your group, but...not us. You don't need us. You've made that clear already, whether you've told us directly or not."

"Fanny..." Mic started, taking a step toward her. "I—"

"We have dreams, too," she continued. "And Leafy? The craziest girl at our school, quite literally? Don't you think that she's the one who wants to have a normal life most out of all of us? We want to live a normal life, too. Yes, Needle burned down a house and nearly murdered her best friend, but I bet she didn't tell you that she did it because she just wanted to be loved by someone. Yes, Golf Ball was complicit in blowing up a summer camp, but it was because she thought that the only one who truly loved her was leaving her life. Yes, Leafy ran away to the forest, but it was because she thought she was hurting the ones she loved. And I can't tell you how many times that Bubble, bless her heart, has tried to go into that damn forest herself, but it keeps kicking her out, time and time again. We do what we do because...because we just want to be happy, Mic."

Fanny tilted her gaze up to meet Mic's. "But if there's one lesson that we've all learned this year so far, it's that we're not going to do it at the expense of others' happiness. If we have a choice between someone else's happiness and our own, then who are we to ruin someone else's life?"

She sighed and closed her eyes as she once again turned toward the café's exit. "And you've made it very clear that we're going to ruin yours, so...just leave us alone, if only so you and we don't have to deal with being reminded of this disappointment for the rest of the week."

Fanny waited for Mic to say something or to hold her back. But she didn't. So Fanny sighed one more time, shoved her hands in her pockets, and trudged off toward the exit.

"I can't stop you."

She stopped in place upon hearing Mic's words. Mic hadn't even stepped closer to her.