Ira Gamagoori dislikes Mako Mankanshoku. He dislikes her lethargy. He dislikes her habit of eating whenever, wherever, despite the situation, and that she talks with her mouth full. He dislikes the fact that she has a tendency to get herself caught in the most absurd, yet deadly, scenarios, usually at the whim of her equally idiotic (but slightly more grounded) friend, Ryuko Matoi.

It's hard to keep his eyes off of someone who's an inch away from getting impaled by a fusillade of scalpels (or dipped in a vat of boiling oil, or struck by a barrage of tennis balls, or trampled by a runaway bus, take your pick from the list of incidents). Mako Mankanshoku becomes a preoccupation, an irritating face hovering just on the edge of his peripheral vision, a fly buzzing in his ear that he cannot swat. That is exactly the problem: that Mako is not someone who can be easily disposed of.

Twice, she barges into his quarters without asking. She flaunts herself obliviously, shamelessly, with more depravity than even that Matoi girl can manage. Her naivete is truly remarkable, he notices, though not especially surprising, considering she's a No-Star who lives in the slums with her bizarre family.

Consider your duty to the Academy and Lady Kiryuin, his mind protests at the mere thought of the bob-haired girl, grinning so brightly, so vacantly at him, him, the Disciplinary Committee Chair, of all people. No-Stars like Mako do not simply grin at Ira Gamagoori and leave unscathed. Yet, he permits it. There is almost something endearing in her too-wide smile, in her dumb schoolgirl routine. There is almost something he could love about Mako Mankanshoku.

Once, she dares to kiss him.

"What was that for?" he growls, deadly serious. Mako only giggles and blushes.

"You're always so angry and stern, Gamagoori-san," she chirps. "Why doncha lighten up a bit, huh?"

Saliva from a pig can be wiped off, the stain cleansed. The kiss itself, however, is not so easily forgotten. He finds himself thinking more and more about Mako in the weeks afterward. She still waves at him, unashamed, unafraid, ever the picture of ignorance.

Fool, he thinks.

Hesitantly, he lifts his own broad hand in greeting. Mako's teeth are pale white in the sunlight; Gamagoori decides that, for all the exasperation she brings, there is something undeniably attractive about the slum girl with the terrible attitude.