There's a girl with short pink hair, a jean jacket with patches, a serious look on her face, and a biology textbook open in front of her, absentmindedly eating.

Another girl, over in the corner, staring out the window with her brow furrowed. She's apparently ignoring her food. Most of her stuff's pretty nondescript.

And a third girl, her orange lunchbox pushed to the side, apparently trying to nap. She, like the other two, is also alone.

Well, she doesn't want to interrupt a good nap. And studying is probably important.

She sets her stuff down by the girl staring out the window. "Hi! Anybody sitting here?" she asks.

"No."

"Hi, then! I'm Ariel, I'm new here, what's your name?"

"I'm Sue. New city or just school?"

"New city! I move around a lot, so I'm always on the lookout for new friends."

"And I looked friendly?"

She shrugs. "Looked like you could use a friend, maybe. If you'd rather I got lost, I'm amenable to that too."

"I don't like talking to people. You can sit, though."

"I do like talking to people, though... I'm gonna see if anybody else is more interested in social, sorry for disrupting your groove."

She picks up her backpack and relocates to Textbook Girl's table. "Hey there! I'm Ariel, I'm new in town!"

She looks up, smiling. "Oh, hey! Welcome, I guess! I'm Sakura. Been here a couple years."

“Oh, you were once the new girl too? Nice.” She sets down her backpack. “Sakura is a really pretty name! And your hair is such a nice color, too!"

She touches one strand, smiling. "Heh, thanks! It's a bit of a pain to keep up, but I like it."

"I tried to dye my hair with Kool-Aid a couple years ago and it was a disaster, I've got nothing but respect for anybody who can make it work."

"Heee. It is a bit more complicated than just Kool-Aid! Though I guess if your hair's pale enough you could get a tinge... My friend Anna's like that. Platinum blond."

"I didn't just pour Kool-Aid in my hair! I looked up this whole procedure online where you mix Kool-Aid powder with conditioner, but my hair was longer then, and I had trouble sectioning it out so I could get it all the way down to the roots, and I was too impatient to let it sit long enough to permeate properly, so it was all uneven and stuff, and it just ended up getting on my pillow anyway. That was what got me kicked out of that set of fosters, they got super mad about the pillow and me wasting the conditioner and I was like 'can you guys for once in your lives chill' and then whoops, back to the agency."

She sighs. "Man, I have no idea why some people decide to interact with kids, like, ever..."

“I know, right? Those weren’t like, the worst ones I’ve had, but like, hot take? If you can’t deal with Kool-Aid stains on a pillow, maybe don’t be foster parents. Or maybe just chill.”

She laughs. "The weirdest are the people who can't handle messes and decide they want a baby."

“Oh, man, yeah - thankfully I never had to deal with that kind, I was with my mom until I was 10. Then she vanished under mysterious circumstances and I was introduced to the wonders of The System.”

"My dad and mom split before I can remember - apparently a toddler was the last straw for mom. Live with dad now, and he's really chill."

"Nice! Cool parents are cool."

Ariel takes a moment to examine the patches on Sakura's jacket.

"They are!"

Visible from the front, there's a biohazard one, a skeleton garden, a rainbow heart pin, a cherry blossom, a first aid patch, two that look kind of like Girl Scouts patches...