W/n Every time I try to spell omelette I write omlet. Enjoy.
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Due to Chloe’s excellent academical prowess, the headmaster had recommended her into a somewhat prestigious secondary school, which he had hoped would allow her to excel further. The school was about a 15 minute walk there and back, a distance which would leave Chloe with enough energy to focus on her classes, but not much more than that.
Never the less, Chloe had been a tiny bit happy that she would be challenged further, since she spend so much time studying that it might as well have been her hobby, her previous school did not provide a good environment for academia. (noisy libraries + classes etc)
The school had a modern vibe to it, having been built ten or so years ago, the facilities were all in good condition and the library had quite a few books . Furthermore, the teacher’s all had lots of experience in their teaching careers as thus would be able to impart knowledge onto the kids with great efficiency.
Chloe wore the standard blue and white uniform which consisted of a white t-shirt, a grey vest, a dark blue blazer and a blue skirt. The men’s uniforms swapped out the blue skirt for blue trousers, which female students could also wear instead.
The older woman had been reluctant to buy the uniform, but conceded after Chloe pleaded with her drunken state multiple times, although Chloe hadn’t received it for free, having to tolerate the intoxicated shouts and slaps of a woman who lacked empathy.
Walking to school, Chloe saw the neighbourhood shift from working class to middle class, no more apartment blocks to be seen, rather suburban houses with mostly 3 stories. The other children she saw along the way which wore the same uniform as her all had at least one other person accompanying them.
You see, the secondary school she was going to attend had a sister lower school which nearly all the students, which passed the grade requirements for the secondary school, joined. Thus most students had already formed cliques. Finding any friends would be a tough challenge, not that the young girl would try to make any, as she thought it would be a futile act.
She had received her time table in the mail a week prior to the first day of the year. Chloe did not discriminate between the subjects, she liked them all and had no particular favourite. The school separated each years students into 4 groups, labelled 7-A, 7-B, 7-C and 7-D respectively.
Chloe had been allocated to class 7-B and thus followed the signs on the walls of the building to reach the classroom that had been given to 7-B for roll call. Opening the door, multiple pairs of eyes greeted her before looking back out of disinterest. The young girl did not mind, rather choosing to survey the available seats.
The classroom was split into five rows of seats, each with six desks each for a total of thirty students in a class and one hundred and twenty students accepted every year. Chloe ruled out the three rows closest to the back, before deciding on a seat in the second row, closest to the door which she just walked through.
There were two entrances to the classroom, the one Chloe had just walked through revealed a large whiteboard to her right and a projector above it. The young girl maneuverer over to her chosen seat, putting down her bag, and sat down.
She pulled a book out of her bag and flicked through it before stopping on a bookmark. Starting to read, she tuned the other student’s conversations out, focusing on the book. It must have been ten or fifteen minutes before she someone tapped on her shoulder, pulling her out of the book.
The young girl cast her eyes over to the owner of the hand. A head of scruffy dark black hair covered the boy’s eyes. He wore the same uniform that Chloe had been wearing, confirming to her that he was indeed a fellow student.
The index finger which he used to to tap the young girl’s shoulder was now pointing towards the whiteboard at the front. Chloe looked towards the front of the classroom to see that the homeroom teacher was introducing herself.
“Hello class, my name is Mrs. Smith. This homeroom you guys will be introducing yourselves to myself and your fellow classmates. We’ll go from left to right, starting from the front row.” explained the teacher.
A few disgruntled sighs erupted from within the classroom before the first student stood up introducing themselves. Chloe was not particularly bothered by the obligatory introduction, on the contrary actually. This would save her having to individually introduce herself to every student that came up to her, although she doubted that many would.
When her turn came to pass she stood up and spoke, “My name is Chloe. Chloe barker. I went to ST Anthony’s lower school.” said the young girl with a quiet voice before sitting down. The boy next to her seemed to have some sort of reaction when Chloe had introduced herself, it seemed as thought he knew her.
The boy’s turn was next, “My name is Y/n. Y/n Johnson. I hope we can work well with each other.” he stated. Whilst sitting down he side eyed Chloe, as if trying to see if she had any reaction to his name. No dice.
The young girl had already gone back to reading her book, the only reason she hadn’t been reading was to ensure that she would introduce herself in a timely fashion. Y/n seemed to be somewhat disgruntled from her reaction, or rather lack of.
Never the less, Y/n decided that he would attempt to start a conversation with her whenever she was alone. He wasn’t that good at talking to people, especially so when there were more than one person in the vicinity.
The bell rung, signifying that the students should get to their first class. Chloe put her book in her bag and went to her first class, English. Each class lasted an hour, with there being 5 classes in one day for a total of 5 hours of learning.
After English, science followed and then 15 minutes of break time which Chloe spent searching for the library. She had already decided that she would study during lunch in the library, as it was the place most devoid of distractions. Walking down the corridor, she read the sign next to a set of mahogany double doors before opening the door.
Unfortunately they wouldn’t budge. It seemed as though Chloe lacked the physical force to push the heavy set of doors open. A cough sounded from behind her, prompting the girl to look over her shoulder. Y/n was there, “I’ll open it for you.” the boy said before walking next to Chloe and pushing the door open, exerting some effort.
Y/n was taller than Chloe by a few inches and certainly was stronger than his female counterpart. Even so, “Heavy” the boy mumbled under his breath before turning around to give a small smile directed towards Chloe.
“Thanks” said the little girl before she walked past Y/n. A nice smell invaded her senses, Chloe had always liked the smell of books and the library in front of her contained what seemed like an endless sea of shelves upon shelves of books.
There were a few rows of tables with adjacent chairs which a few students were using to read books.
‘Perfect 'Chloe thought before moving over to a vacant table, sitting down and reading her book.
Y/n had been observing Chloe’s actions before deciding to browse for an interesting book.
’Perhaps If I read with her, I’ll be able to start a conversation with Chloe.” he thought.
Chloe who was consumed in her endless journey for knowledge had not noticed Y/n as he shuffled around her table before gaining the courage to sit down in a seat somewhat far away from her.
The table was 2 metres by 2 metres, with 6 chairs, three on each side. Chloe and Y/n where sitting on opposite ends of the table, it would seen Y/n had yet to build the confidence to sit in front of her.
The past month had definitely been arduous for Y/n. Starting from two seats away from his goal, every lunch time he would follow his classmate into the library, opening the door for her and then sitting on the same table. A week ago he finally managed to move a seat closer to his goal but had yet to take the last step.
Chloe, on the other hand, had not yet noticed Y/n’s advances. She was thoroughly satisfied with her new school, the classes were sublime in comparison to the time she spent in her abode, and she could ask the teacher if she didn’t understand anything. Her previous school’s teachers weren’t exactly that bothered with extra questions.
Furthermore, the young girl had been able to spend her lunch breaks in a library which was actually quiet. The librarian was a nice old lady who had many great book recommendations thus, Chloe didn’t even mind the 15 minute walk to the school if it meant that she would get to spend more time in the library.
Unfortunately, her insomnia still make the weak girl constantly tired and not eating three meals a day made the situation even worse. On this particular day, she had been awake for about 2 days straight. The frequent walks to school had made her even more tired than usual, resulting in Chloe accidentally sleeping in her precious library time.
Coincidentally, this was the day that Y/n was planning on making his final move to the seat located in front of Chloe. As he sat down, Y/n had yet to notice that the young girl in front of him was asleep.
“Good morning Chloe! You probably know that my name is Y/n .... I attended your father’s funeral a few years ago and we played together for a bit.” Y/n mumbled whilst looked at his desk.
Silence. After around thirty seconds, Y/n finally looked upwards, only to find the girl he thought he was talking to fast asleep. He ruffled his hair in annoyance and sighed, “How did I not see that she was asleep...” he muttered quietly.
‘I’ll try again tomorrow... for now I’ll just read my book like usual...’ he thought. The book he was reading about was a fiction book about a murder mystery case. He liked the genre as he tried to guess who was the killer before they were unveiled. Spoiler, he got it wrong most of the time.
Occasionally peaking at Chloe’s sleeping figure every once in while, the period of time that he spent looking at the girl increased. It took only fifteen or so minutes for Y/n to fully abandon the book in lieu of staring at the girl’s sleeping form.
Unfortunately, such moments of peace are usually short lived for the bell signifying that school was about to start had sounded out. Chloe, awakened by the curtly sounding noise, frowned as she realised that sleep had bested her resulting in a loss of reading time. Her eyes scanned the area before resting on Y/n’s orbs which lied in front of her.
Their eyes connected, Y/n flinching in surprise before hastily redirecting his gaze towards his bag. The young girl rubbed her eyes as she stood up, picking up her things before heading towards the door, tactfully waiting for someone else to exit before following them in order to not have to unfruitfully attempt to open the door.
‘What a failure..’ Y/n thought with a frown on his face. Never mind. He would try again tomorrow.
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Like Chloe, Y/n had lost a family member, his mother, and thus lived alone with his father, Fredrick Olsen. Y/n often immersed himself in fiction books, such as the murder mystery book that he was reading in the library. His favourite fiction series was called “A Series Of Unfortunate Events” in which three siblings lose their family in a fire and are chased by the arsonists in order to inherit the children’s large fortune.
Y/n didn’t really have many other hobbies, thus his room was comprised of shelves full of books, a solitary single bed and a workspace for studying. Despite his hobbies, Y/n was quite the socialite and enjoyed hanging out with, and making new, friends.
Chloe was a bit different from all the other kids that he wanted to become friends with; he could spend what seemed like an eternity gazing upon her for and would get somewhat nervous being around her, even though he was an extroverted kid.
Days passed as usual for the young girl, apart for Y/n sparking one-sided conversations with her. Chloe was not much of a talker, especially after her little ‘incident’. Sometimes, whilst Y/n was talking, she would look down to her leg and feel shivers as she recalled the state it used to be in.
As the days passed with Y/n making occasional small talk, Chloe’s mother started to spent much less time at home, and for when she inevitably did come home it was because she was completely drunk and or had brought someone home.
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One of the worst experiences when going to sleep is, hands down, waking up soaked in your own sweat. This was especially the case for Chloe, now aged 16. She hadn’t recovered from the nightmares that had plagued her from Mikhail’s unsightly death. Once she had woken up from one, there was simply no way of going back to sleep for Chloe.
After a year or two of one sided conversations, the young girl began to involve herself in the conversations with Y/n, much to his delight. The two of them had became close knit friends and would usually spend their free time with each other when possible.
When Y/n and Chloe started to eat lunch together, Y/n would quickly come to the realisation that the young girl didn’t have a lunch to eat, and thus would normally donate some food from his packed lunch for her to eat, a famished smile adorned on the blank canvas that was her face.
This day in particular had symbolised the start of her new college life, which she had expected would go no differently from her previous school experience. Thanks to her and Y/n’s studious past times, they both had no problem with exams throughout their secondary school years.
After turning 16, Chloe applied for a job at a local café as a waitress in order to obtain the money needed to buy food to eat, majorly improving her physical health. The café, named “The Red Herring”, served primarily desserts and drinks such as coffee, paid pretty well and provided a calm work environment for Chloe to take her mind off things.
The teenaged girl was small in stature, at a towering height of 160cm, her cascading orange locks no longer had been cut short. Over the past few years, with no money to even feed herself, her hair had grown long. Although the girl had money nowadays she had grown fond of her long hairstyle. Besides, Y/n had always said that it fit her quite well.
Today, due to enduring another nightmare, the girl had woken up earlier than she usual arose. It took the most part of 5 whole years, post accident, for Chloe to be able to go to sleep on a daily basis.
Although, just because she could go to sleep did not guarantee that she would stay asleep. As before mentioned, nightmares plagued her constantly limiting the amount of slumber she could obtain.
Chloe had woken up today at 5am, three hours before her school would commence. Deciding that taking a shower would be the best course of action, she slipped out of bed feeling the cold rake against her skin. Ignoring the unpleasant sensation, she entered the bathroom and caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror above her sink.
The short girl’s orange hair was messy and tangled, eyebags a permanent resident on her features. Brown freckles decorated her white skin, a groggy expression splayed across her face.
Her small build was littered with black bruises, some fresh, the others old. The abuse from the older woman never ceased and usually took place in areas of Chloe’s body which could not be seen when she was clothed.
Her injuries healed slowly due to the lack of food she had available and the older woman would usually use blunt objects in order to maximise the force she could exhibit on the former’s body without causing blood to be spilt.
The young teen had lost count of the many nights she had spent crying in pain after being tormented by the older woman. Thankfully, none of the beatings had resulted in any lasting severe physical trauma. Though her mental state was a sight to see indeed.
‘I can’t wait to take a hot shower’ she thought as she rubbed her eyes, turning on the shower head. The steamy water hit her hair, her expression softening resulting in a small sigh of approval from the teen.
Her thoughts darted from school work to her sole friend, Y/n. They had been companions for quite some time now, at this point Chloe couldn’t think of life without him. On that note, they had been hanging out in the young girl’s place of work pretty frequently due to the lack of noise and old oak bookshelves which were filled to the brim, serving as fantastic sources of entertainment for the two.
Her wet hair obfuscated her vision as she used shampoo and some conditioner, ‘I wonder what he thought about the plot twist... I bet he was shocked~!’she giggled. Ignoring the bruises which adorned her figure, she stepped out of the shower and dried herself off before returning to her room and equipping a sharp grey and blue outfit that was her new official school uniform.
Stepping out the room in order to prepare some breakfast, she met the older woman would stood before her, a loosely fitting white blouse was the only piece of clothes which she wore. The woman stared bullets at her younger counterpart before lurching forwards and backhanding the small teen, who stood firm in response.
The older woman then staggered a bit before regaining her balance and continuing her assault, this time targeting Chloe’s stomach, sending her to the ground with a shove, the taller women finishing her tantrum with a heavy kick.
“You...You.. make me feel sick...” she rambled before holding a hand over her mouth and rushing to the bathroom, completely forgetting that Chloe was in her way resulting in her nearly tripping over the girl, shutting the door after she had reached her destination.
Chloe laid motionless on the floor, recovering from the flurry of slaps and punches that she had endured, before slowly pushing herself up from the floor. Using the counter as a crutch of sorts, she slowly inched towards the fridge, grabbing a few eggs and sausages in order to make some breakfast.
The young girl’s cooking skills were lacklustre due to her lack of experience, messing up the cracking of her eggs and having to fish the fallen shell out of the bowl of eggs which she whisked before putting onto a hot pan, which had sunflower oil unevenly spread throughout the pan.
‘I should have enough time to make breakfast and leave before she recovers from her hangover... Gotta be quick...’ She thought, hastily preparing her food, plating her omelette and sausages.
With no time to spare she grabbed a fork and eat standing before grabbing her backpack and rushing out of the apartment.
Without Y/n at her side she felt empty and defunct. A meaningless existence. If possible Chloe would have preferred to be around him 24/7, but alas that was unfeasible for now. Slowly walking towards his house, she looked at the scenery around her, a mass of unfathomably large grey skyscrapers blocking the sun from shining it’s rays down upon her.
‘How drab...’She thought as she shuffled forward at a faster pace than before in order to move away from all the sun’s obstructions. A patch of light stood before her causing her to move towards it, the rays of light exorbitantly bouncing of her lifeless eyes.
Y/n lived in quite the expensive neighbour hood. All the houses were painted a pure white colour, which seemed to glisten under the sun’s warmth, expensive cars lining the driveways. Each house had three floors as many windows that looked out towards the street. Thanks to her and Y/n’s continuous hard work they had both managed to secure a place at a prestigious college, although if Y/n willed it he could have just asked his father to bribe them both in.
The male teen declined the scholarship that was offered to him, unlike Chloe who accepted, due to his financial position not requiring aid. This was a huge boon for the orange haired teen who would not have been able to attend the college otherwise due to expensive attendance fees.
Reaching the front of his house, she waited outside the gate for about an hour until Y/n finally walked out. Chloe hadn’t minded waiting for so long since she didn’t want to wake Y/n up early, the girl knew that her friend loved to sleep in for as long as possible, hence his current appearance.
Chloe walked over to Y/n before tugging on his blazer, which was loosely buttoned up. Y/n looked over his shoulder before a smile came to his face, “Hey Chloe! How long were you waiting for me?” he queried, a slightly apologetic expression bloomed upon his features.
“About ten minutes.” she lied, “You have bed hair by the way” she added with a smug smile equipped.
Y/n quickly forgot about his previous question, hastily ruffling his hair until he thought his appearance was to his satisfaction. A small smile crept on the girl’s face as she watched him scramble to make himself presentable.
It took them 10 minutes to arrive at their college, which had been built quite some time ago by a famous Nobel Prize winner. The private college was comprised up of around 450 students and offered a very wide range of Advanced courses to take.
Chloe had chosen five main subjects; Maths, English language, Physics, Biology and Art. Y/n had chosen only two of the same subjects, Maths and physics, and thus they would be apart for most of the school day.
Since the small orange teen was of a poor background, she didn’t exactly get on well with the rest of the students. Only a couple of people, such as Chloe, had managed to get in without donating to the school board.
Y/n was definitely not a bad looking guy. As the social butterfly that he was, the black haired teen had made many male and female friends during their few months in the school, unlike Chloe who had no such intentions. This had resulted in a few of Y/n’s admirers coming to dislike the orange teen who had came from such a poor background and still had the gall to hang out around Y/N.
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The sound of the copper bell signified that it was indeed now lunch time, followed close by a flood of conversations erupting within the Art classroom. Their task had been to draw and shade a few basic objects such as apples, balls and bottles in order to better command the ability to draw realistic shadows.
Chloe enjoyed drawing since a young age, a small notebook hidden in the back of her draws at her apartment would attest to this. She found it useful as a form of escapism from when she had been abused or was feeling lonely.
There were quite a few sketches of her and Y/n or of the scenery that she had seen throughout her day, although most of her old sketches were in grey and white as she couldn’t afford to buy coloured pencils.
The girl had never really deeply thought about the details of the shadows of an object, so she found this drawing exercise to be quite intriguing, unlike some of the other students who had used the time to talk whilst half-heartedly drawing.
As she was packing her things up, a trio of girls came over to her table and took her backpack, “Follow us if you want it back, you filthy beggar” the lead girl sneered before leaving the room.
The usual meeting spots, where Chloe and the trio met, were either the top of the roof, under the stairs or at the back of the field. One thing all these locations had in common was that they were all isolated areas.
Today it was under the stairs of the ground floor. Clenching her fists, the small-statured orange teen crumbled to the ground under the resultant force of a kick aimed directly at her stomach, served by one of the underlings.
“You Mutt, how many times have we warned you to keep your little nasty paws away from Y/n? You contaminate even the air around us, I simply can not fathom how Y/n must feel having to be near you.” snarkily added the other sidekick.
The leader simply coldly stared at Chloe as she laid on the ground, who was slowly pushing herself up, before throwing the orange teen’s backpack on the floor and kicking it over to her. “Heed our words you pest.” she added before rounding up her friends and pridefully striding away.
The trio would usually have their little meetings with her once a week or so, the severity of the beatings increasing each time. At first is was just a bit of pushing, but now a few months had passed and they had already resorted to kicking and punching.
It didn’t matter. To Chloe, this type of harassment did not even make her flinch. She’d dealt with worse. Dusting off her uniform, she slung on her backpack and made her way towards the cafeteria. Thanks to her intellectual prowess, the scholarship awarded to her provided free meals, enrolment and some free equipment such as a school uniform. Lunch was no longer sourced by Y/n, much to Chloe’s dismay.
Reaching her destination, the small statured teen attempted to search for Y/n who was quite taller than the latter and was equipped with dark black hair which hung over his left eye. Unfortunately, due to her viewpoint being obfuscated by the hordes of people flooding the cafeteria she had to wonder around and hope that she’d bump into him.
And bump into him she did, the taller teen patted Chloe on the head with a smug grin, “Little Child, have you lost your mother?” Y/n quipped, earning a pout from the orange haired teen before they both made their way other to the food line.
They conversed about what had occurred earlier in their respective classes, Chloe going over how she enjoyed learning about how to properly shade objects stating that it would improve the quality of the sketches she drew at home.
“You should really let me see your sketch book Chloe, I’ve wanted to for a few years since you first mentioned it.” huffed Y/n with a frown, faking sadness.
“Never.” the orange teen responded, her hair moving frantically as she moved her head back and forth.
′As If I’d ever show him the sketches I’ve drawn of him... Not in a million years.′ she inwardly cowered.
“Stubborn” commented Y/n, a smile present on his face. A small blush unnoticed by the small orange teen.
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Sorry for the long chapter, some of C4 was moved into C5. This is due to my next book being a complete reimagining of this book. I had planned to keep C1-C4 the same in the new book, but ended up completely rewriting the chapters anyway, so I guess all that reshuffling was for naught :/ .