The rest of the morning passed without anything unusual happening, besides Chen not talking. Ellie wondered why Chen didn’t utter a word during the whole morning that he sat by her besides greeting her after their photography class. Ellie thought it was strange that he wasn’t talking, but she wasn’t going to attempt to converse with him if he didn’t want to talk. If he didn’t want to talk, then he didn’t want to talk, it was that simple.

            “Okay, now don’t forget I’ll be assigning a project soon,” their math teacher told them. “Who knows, it might have to do with your semester long photography project. Don’t think that I don’t know about them,” he warned. Some students groaned in the class. “Okay, class dismissed.”

            Everyone cheered right afterward because next was lunch, everyone’s favorite. As soon as they bell rang, the students got up and made their way to the cafeteria. “Ellie, our usual table?” Jiyeon asked before walking out of the room.

            “Yeah, of course,” Ellie said acting like she couldn’t wait. As soon as Jiyeon turned her back, she rolled her eyes and began picking up the lunchbox next to her seat when she saw that Chen was still in the classroom. Shrugging her shoulders, Ellie didn’t concern herself with Chen until she saw him pull something out of her bag. “You…you pack your lunch?” she asked pointing at him, but he didn’t respond, like usual. “Are you ever going to respond to me?”

            “Are you ever going to tell her the truth?” Chen retorted looking up at Ellie.

            “What do you mean?” Ellie asked staring at him.

            “That girl over there,” he said pointing towards the door. “You clearly don’t like her, do you.”

            “How did you,” Ellie began, but shook her head. “You know what, never mind. I’m just going to go to lunch.” She didn’t know why she was acting that way. For some reason she felt angry when Chen started talking and pretended like he knew everything about her. “He knows nothing about me,” she muttered as she walked out of the classroom to find Jiyeon in the cafeteria at their normal spot. It had been their normal spot ever since the first day of freshman year because of Kris.

            Kris had actually attended the same school as Ellie, thanks to Ellie’s parents. Her parents thought of him as their own son as much as they thought of Ellie as their daughter and paid for his education there. Kris was thankful in every way possible and got a good education thanks to them. Even if he wasn’t as rich as the other kids, he fit right in with his personality and his handsome looks. All of the girls always swooned over to him and thanks to that, his popularity soared.

            Once Ellie had entered the school as a freshman, Kris was already a junior. Some envied Ellie for having a close relationship with him and despite that, Ellie and Kris hadn’t told anyone that Kris’s family worked for hers. They mainly said that they were childhood friends. Even Jiyeon who knew the truth didn’t say anything about it because she had a crush on Kris.

            It was when she first laid eyes on Kris. Jiyeon thought that he was the most handsome person alive and fell in love with him at first sight. She would always create excuses to go over to Ellie’s house just to see Kris and attempt to talk to him. Kris, however, did not feel the same way about Jiyeon. He had eyes on another girl, one that he knew would probably never look at him.

            “There you are,” Jiyeon said breathing a sigh of relief as she saw Ellie. “I thought you disappeared or something.”

            “No, I didn’t disappear,” Ellie said slightly laughing at Jiyeon’s thought. “I was just inside.”

            “With Chen? Are you two getting along that well?” Jiyeon asked raising her eyebrows. Once again, Ellie rolled her eyes at Jiyeon. She wondered where she would come up with that type of thing, but then again, it was normal for Jiyeon. Jiyeon practically dated any guy that looked cute and wanted him as hers. It was a surprise that she hadn’t called dibs on Chen yet, or maybe she just hadn’t seen him, Ellie figured.

            “No, we’re not,” Ellie said. There was no point in lying about that portion of her life. “He doesn’t even speak to me.”

            “Are you that in love with him already?” she asked.

            “No, I just thought that maybe my partner should at least talk to me about the photography project. What about Olivia? How are you guys getting along?” Ellie asked changing the subject as she opened her lunchbox.

            “Good, I guess,” she said sighing. “I don’t know how we’re ever going to get along, though. Why would teachers even place us together when they know that we don’t get along?” Jiyeon complained.

            “You’ll be able to get along with her. I mean, you have all of those group projects anyway,” Ellie reasoned. “You guys are going to be best friends by the time we graduate.”

            “No, you’re my best friend and I’m never going to replace you. What note did Kris write you today?”

            Jiyeon knew all about the notes that Kris left in Ellie’s lunchbox, but she never read it. Ellie never wanted Jiyeon to read the notes because sometimes there would be some things discretely about Jiyeon in there and Ellie didn’t want her to read them.

            Cautiously, Ellie took out the note and read it and a smile immediately appeared on her face, a genuine smile, one that Kris was only able to make appear. Jiyeon never knew that Ellie smiled different.

Ellie, is school going good? You’re at lunchtime now since you’re reading this and I hope you haven’t beaten anyone up yet and I hope that your seating partner is good. If not, then just let Kris handle them. If it’s a guy, then my muscles will appear, if it’s a girl, I’ll just make them swoon about me. Any problem, just tell me. I shouldn’t make this note too long, but I hope you’re paying attention in class and not dozing off or thinking elsewhere. Just think, one more year and you’re out of there.

                Kris

Genuine happy, Ellie closed the note and placed it neatly in her pocket before continuing her meal made by Kris.

            In the classroom, Chen opened his lunch. He couldn’t get Ellie off of his mind and he didn’t know why. There was something about her that seemed approachable, yet there was this element of fear that surrounded her for some reason. He found her to be an interesting creature even if he didn’t know what to think about her yet.

            It wasn’t that he didn’t want to talk, he wanted to, but he was shy and it was his first year in a school that was meant for the rich, he didn’t belong there. Chen was concerned with something wrong coming out of his mouth at any moment and having everyone else look down at him. He just figured that everyone would ignore him the first day and everyone had, except for Ellie. She was the only one that talked to him besides the staff.

            As he began eating his lunchbox, he sighed. Chen already figured that he probably sent Ellie the wrong message by not really engaging in a conversation with her when the teacher allowed and he realized that they had many more partner projects than he had originally thought, but he would have to get through that. Chen figured that the way to get on the good side of Ellie was to start over again. Making up his mind, Chen picked up his lunchbox and made his way towards the cafeteria.

            Back in the cafeteria, Jiyeon began ranting to Ellie about something that she didn’t particularly care about, which was a cute guy that Jiyeon had spotted a couple of classes over. “He’s the cutest thing possible,” she said as she began gushing about him. “You should see him. He looks so cute and I want to make him mine, do you think he would accept?”

            Ellie wanted to badly tell Jiyeon the truth. Ellie wanted to tell Jiyeon that she thought that the guy probably wouldn’t take her since Jiyeon had a major reputation of being a huge flirt and doing whatever the guy wanted her to do, which was basically take advantage of her without having the other guys and girls look down on her. How she managed to do it, Ellie would never know, but she did know the dark secrets that Jiyeon had that the student body did not know since Jiyeon decided to tell her everything whether she wanted to know or not.

            Instead, Ellie went for the typical nice answer. “Of course, why wouldn’t he like you?” Ellie asked as though she was acting through her sympathy. “If he doesn’t like you, that guy doesn’t know what he’s missing.”

            “Thanks Ellie,” Jiyeon said as her face formed into a smile. “I should attempt to talk to him today. I think I might meet up with him after school.”

            “Okay,” Ellie said. She wasn’t sad that that meant that Jiyeon wouldn’t come with her to her house, which just meant more time for her to be alone and hang out with Kris. Ellie also knew what Jiyeon meant by talking with him. More than likely she didn’t mean talking; she meant something like making out. It was the way that she got all of the guys to talk or look at her and still she managed to be the most popular girl in the class.

            “What are you going to do after school today?” Jiyeon asked concerning herself with her best friend’s after school affairs.

            “I’ll probably just end up going home,” Ellie said.

            “Why? You should hang out with Chen,” Jiyeon suggested. “Isn’t that him coming this way?”

            Ellie turned around and looked to where Jiyeon was pointing. “Impossible,” she muttered to herself. She wondered why Chen would be coming into the cafeteria when he was clearly sitting in the classroom and eating his lunch. She was even more surprised as he made his way towards their table and took a seat right down next to her.

            “I’m sorry for earlier,” he mumbled, but loud enough for Ellie to hear.

            “You’re sorry?” Ellie asked slightly in disbelief, but then she took a quick glance at Jiyeon. “You…you should be.”

            “Of course,” Chen said looking her right in the eyes and she felt like her soul was being read by him. “Why wouldn’t I be sorry? I was rude for not answering to you.” At that sentence, Ellie got the feeling that Chen was simply acting, but why he was acting she didn’t know. Chen didn’t really know why he was acting either. He just knew that for some odd reason, he felt as though he wanted to do this and act out with Ellie. He felt as though he could relate to her situation at the current moment, but wouldn’t let it show. “Do you think we can start over?”

            “We can,” Ellie said nodding her head as she stuck out her hand. “Hello, I’m Ellie.”

            “Hi, I’m Chen,” he said shaking her hand. “I hope we can work well together in the future.”

            “Yup, same here,” Ellie said flashing a smile. “Oh, I forgot to introduce you to my best friend, Jiyeon. Jiyeon, this is Chen, my seating partner.”

            “Nice to meet you Chen,” she said flashing a smile to him. “I hope we can get to know each other better.”

            “Yeah,” Chen awkwardly said as he stared at them.

            “Oh Chen,” Jiyeon said starting up the conversation again after silence and slight awkwardness was in their future. “Ellie here was saying how you should go over to her house after school to work on the photography project.” Before Ellie could cover Jiyeon’s mouth and deny every word that came out of , Chen spoke up.

            “Okay,” he simply said as he continued eating his lunchbox.

            “Okay?” Ellie asked looking at him in disbelief. “Why okay?”

            “I mean, we should start working on it, even if it is a semester long project,” Chen reasoned. “We still have to find the most beautiful thing that we possibly can. Who knows how long it might take to do that.”

            “Right,” Ellie said giving Jiyeon an evil eye as she simply shrugged her shoulders. She didn’t need to fake the part that she was mad at Jiyeon for proposing such a thing to Chen, she hated it when Jiyeon would always suggest hanging out with people that she didn’t feel like hanging out with. But she had to continue to fake her anger when she heard Chen said that he would come over. Somehow, she felt like she was getting through to him…somehow.

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What is going to happen when Chen gets to Ellie's house? What will Kris's first impression of Chen be? How can Chen see through Ellie's facade? 

Here is Chapter 2. Hope you enjoyed :D

Renzei27: I don't even have an idea for their beautiful picture yet, haha. I have a slight idea, but nothing that's final yet.