The common room of Onyx House looked like a tornado had a baby with a gym locker and then that baby threw a house party.
Every available surface was covered with something that shouldn't be there. Training weights on the coffee table. Textbooks stacked in precarious towers that defied basic physics. Someone's laundry draped over a lamp. Empty Thunder-Strike cans formed a pyramid on the windowsill, a monument to poor hydration choices. The air smelled like sweat, cheap pizza, and teenage desperation.
Home sweet home.
Hikari had claimed an entire section of the couch as her personal feeding station. She was on what looked like her sixth slice of cold pepperoni, talking with her mouth full in a way that would have given etiquette teachers nightmares.
"See, the thing about pizza," she said between bites, cheese stretching in a string from her lips to the slice, "is that the ratio matters. Too much cheese and you lose the structural integrity. Too little and what's even the point?"
