"You didn't see her?" Yeji asks, taking a seat next to her. "Girl, you bolted outta there fast." She cackles and Aeri shoves her, mouthing 'be nice' in a not-so-discreet way. "Well, it took a few minutes for the audience to chill, people went nuts!"
"Yeah, everyone was talking over everyone else and Winter was called on stage and she just stood there awkwardly waiting for people to shut up. It was crazy."
"Are there pictures of this?" Karina asks, with a chuckle. "I'm kinda curious about the look on her face."
Yeji stands up to get her phone from her bag and scrolls for a minute, passing the phone to Karina once she's done. "Here. The gossip twitter had a field day today."
Karina looks at @sipthegreentea's timeline and, sure enough, it would seem like whoever runs it had never had a better day in their life. They'd live-tweeted the event almost minute by minute.
@sipthegreentea Karina is publicly apologizing to Winter?????? WUT!!!!???
@sipthegreentea she can't say what she did wrong? Hmm I think there's been some girl-on-girl crime here
@sipthegreentea SHE JUST RENOUNCED THE PRESIDENCY DGHAJFDJHKFSKL
@sipthegreentea I SHIT YOU NOT GUYS KARINA YU JUST GAVE UP THE PRESIDENCY TO WINTER KIM JNDSKAKYT;LA;DS;L
@sipthegreentea SHE JUST RAN OUT THE STAGE WTF IS HAPPENING
@sipthegreentea IM SCREAMING WINTER LOOKS LIKE A LOST PUPPY ON THAT STAGE LOOK AT HERRRRRR
And, of course, following an introduction like that, there's a collection of tweets with photos of Winter. Karina is quite sure that if she flicked through the sequence fast enough, it would showcase that funny optical illusion of movement, with Winter opening and closing her mouth. She seems as shocked as the rest of the school must have felt, if not more.
Passing the phone back to Yeji, she says, "I hope her speech wasn't as good as mine."
"She didn't stand a chance, Rina," Aeri tells her, a hand covering her mouth as she munches on a slice. "Maybe she had a victory speech prepared, but no one prepares for 'your worst enemy literally just walked out on their legitimate win for your sake'."
"Yeah, she was stuttering like a boy caught watching porn for a full minute." Yeji laughs. "Stop monopolizing the Hawaiian pizza, Rina! Pass me a slice."
"And she seemed to be looking around for you? Maybe she thought you'd go back to your seat."
"Okay, but what did she say?"
"She went on for a looooong time about you and your past achievements. Like, one would think she was your campaign manager or something." Yeji shrugs. "Then of course she went on a rant about promoting an inclusive environment and how she was planning to do that and bla bla bla."
"She also thanked her team and everyone who voted for her, obviously." Aeri tilts her head, studying Karina pensive expression. "Seemed intent on promising she'd do her best to be worthy of those who didn't vote for her, too."
"But anyways," Yeji drawls, turning her body to Karina, who gulps and becomes even more fascinated with the pizza in front of them, "this is old news to us. We want the actual tea. Spill."
"What do you mean?" Karina asks, cheeks full like a hamster's to add to the faux innocence in her tone of voice. "You were there the whole time, you saw everything."
"Rina," Aeri counters warningly, rolling her eyes. "Why did you go through hell for weeks only to give up the presidency to Winter?"
Karina swallows, the motion both visible and audible to the other girls, and she takes a moment to dwell on her words. "I thought I was gonna lose. The polls have been pretty clear on that for the past week or so." She fiddles with the pizza box, for once uncomfortable with how the attention is on her. "When the principal called my name, I... I was in shock, and I didn't really have time to think much, I just asked him to show me the results and like, a difference of eight votes?" Karina shrugs, bringing a little bit of the pizza crust to her lips. "I just figured if that was the difference between us, it would be more useful for me to renounce the presidency and remain in the good graces of the school. This way I still have people's respect and I can go back to the clubs I gave up on because I didn't want to be swamped for senior year."