That day after school, Chen waited for Ellie to pack up her stuff. “You do know that you don’t have to come to my house, right?” Ellie asked making sure that he knew perfectly well that it was optional to come.

            “Oh, I kind of figured that,” Chen said shrugging his shoulders. “But I want to come anyway.”

            “Why?” Ellie asked him. It wasn’t that she was mad that he was coming over her house; she just didn’t know why it had to be on the very first day of school when they barely even knew each other. At least he was speaking to her, though. That had to mean that their relationship was at least starting off on the right foot, after starting off on the wrong foot, but they were going to get there eventually.

            “Well we do have our project to work on,” Chen started off. He didn’t know why Ellie was asking him such a question, but he figured that she didn’t particularly want him at her house. “But it’s always nice to get to know one of my classmates.”

            “I’m the only classmate you know,” Ellie said emphasizing the word only. She watched Chen in class today after lunch and like always, he was silent. He didn’t say a word to anyone else in the room. Ellie didn’t know if it was because he was shy or if he just thought that he was better than everyone else. Whatever the reason, he didn’t talk. “Why don’t you talk to anyone?”

            “No particular reason,” Chen said as he adjusted his backpack. “Shall we get going? We’re the only ones still in here.”

            “Right,” Ellie said as she zippered up her bag and made her way towards the front of the building with Chen trailing behind. “So, why do you pack your lunch?” she asked Chen in an attempt to start a casual conversation.

            “Why can’t I?” he retorted back.

            “Fine then, forget that I said anything,” Ellie said shrugging her shoulders as she began to quicken her pace. She couldn’t put her finger on why, but for some reason, Chen made her angry easily. Maybe it was because he already saw through her façade earlier. How, she might never understand. Maybe it was because she rolled her eyes as soon as she turned away and didn’t take notice of him sitting there, or maybe it was because he was a mindreader. Whatever the reason was, he found some way to break down her defense system leaving her baffled on how exactly to go about dealing with him.

            “Ellie, Ellie wait,” Chen said grabbing her arm and stopping her.

            “What do you want?” Ellie asked throwing her school personality aside. She didn’t mind if people saw them now. There was something about Chen that caused her to lose her temper. She never lost her temper, not at anyone. Well, not at anyone during the school hours. At home, Ellie would lose her temper to Kris sometimes or just belt out her frustrations to him that she pent up during the day. This was the first time that it was happening at school.

            “I’m sorry,” Chen said looking down at the ground. “I’m sorry for making those lame comebacks at you.”

            Chen didn’t know why Ellie was so upset for no reason. He figured that he didn’t say anything wrong since he simply said something back, but maybe she wasn’t used to people talking back to her. She was a rich girl and in Chen’s mind, all rich people are the same. They’re used to getting their way and that’s final, but there was some vibe coming off of Ellie that made him think that she didn’t want to get everything in the world. There was something about Ellie that was different than other rich girls, like that Jiyeon girl that they sat at lunch with. The difference between Ellie and others made him want to know more about her.

            “Let’s just go,” Ellie said as she turned around. “Kris is probably waiting.”

            “Kris?” Chen asked as he began following behind Ellie once again. He wasn’t sure who Kris was and debated on whether or not to ask her if it was her boyfriend. Chen wasn’t exactly jealous knowing that another guy was waiting for Ellie since he had only met her. He was curious if Kris was her driver or someone that worked for the family. It wasn’t everyday that a rich girl called her workers by their first name. At least not from what Chen’s heard before.

            “Yeah, my friend, why?” Ellie asked looking at him suspiciously.

            “No reason,” Chen said shaking his head. He wasn’t exactly going to say that he thought Kris was her boyfriend or he thought it was strange that she was calling her workers by their first name when in turn, it wasn’t any of those. Kris was simply her friend, but how far their friendship was along, he didn’t know. What type of friends did a rich girl make?

            “There you are,” Kris said as soon as he saw Ellie coming out of school. He started to get worried about her so he was about go inside of the school, but Ellie came out just in time, with Chen following behind. “Who is that?” he asked looking at Chen.

            “My seating partner,” Ellie casually replied as she placed her stuff into the passenger’s seat and hopped in. “Chen, you can sit in the back.”

            “Okay,” Chen said looking at Kris. At first glance, Kris seemed slightly intimidating and Chen would admit that he was very good looking. He was sure that all of the girls would fall over him no matter where he went. He was sure that Kris was older since he wasn’t dressed in any type of school uniform and he looked older than the average high school student anyway.

            Kris looked at Chen as he climbed into the back of his car. He wanted to ask Ellie why Chen was coming with them, but he didn’t want to seem rude and ask those questions right in front of Chen. He figured that he would have to ask questions after Chen left the house.

            The ride back to the house was slightly awkward as neither Ellie, Kris, nor Chen knew how to start a conversation with each other. Normally, when it was only Kris and Ellie, they would be talking about the days events and Ellie would be complaining to Kris about Jiyeon or something else.

            “So, what’s your semester long project this time around?” Kris asked looking at Ellie and looking in the rearview mirror at Chen. Chen was slightly shocked knowing that Kris knew about the semester long project. He would’ve never deemed Kris as someone that went to the school. Then again, people wouldn’t think of Chen as someone that went to the school either.

            “It’s photography, it’s only the first day of school,” Ellie told Kris. “We don’t know the other ones, yet.”

            “You’ll figure them out within the coming days,” Kris said shrugging his shoulders. “S owhat do you have to do?”

            “Take a picture of the most beautiful thing,” Ellie explained. “It might take a while so we’re going to start brainstorming ideas. We’re allowed to take the picture anywhere in the world that we want, I guess. They really put no restrictions on it.”

            “That’s good, when I went there they had lame projects,” Kris complained.

            Before long, they arrived at the house. “Just make yourself at home,” Ellie said to Chen as soon as they entered. “I’m going to change out of my clothes; you just wait down here with Kris.”

            Awkwardly, Chen sat on the couch while Kris sat next to him and Ellie went upstairs to change her clothes. “So, you go to the school?” Kris asked attempting to start a casual conversation as Chen was admiring the house. He had never seen something so big in his life.

            “Yeah,” Chen awkwardly said as he looked at him. “I just transferred this year.”

            “Wow, then you must be really smart or your family must be really rich,” Kris said looking at him.

            “Yeah,” Chen awkwardly responded once again. He didn’t feel like correcting Kris, it was too much work. Plus, he didn’t really want anyone to know so he kept it to himself and he was planning on keeping it to himself forever.

            “Why are you so nervous?” Kris asked looking at him with a confused look. He didn’t know why Chen was acting so weird and tense when he also knew how rich guys from the school were like. Kris knew that the guys at the school would always attempt to brag about something that they had in comparison to another person’s, but Chen wasn’t doing that.

            “I’m not nervous,” Chen said giving Kris a smile to ease up the situation, but it did nothing. It simply made him more nervous than he already was before. Thankfully, Ellie came downstairs after changing.

            While changing, Ellie figured that there was no reason to hide her personality from Chen. If he could already see through that little bit, then he would be able to see through everything that she did. It was a big step for her to take since she didn’t show anyone her true personality besides Kris. To Ellie, Chen seemed different. There was something about him that seemed like he would be able to see right through anyone and Ellie was a little afraid at what might happen in the future if she acted differently in front of him during school and at her home.

            “Chen, are you ready?” Ellie asked as she came down the stairs. She had changed out of her school uniform into a pair of comfortable jeans and a slightly oversized t-shirt.

            “Ready?” Chen asked looking at Ellie. What would he be ready for? The project? “To talk about the project?”

            “Yeah, we can go into the back room. Follow me. Kris,” Ellie said turning to look at him. “Chen and I are going to be working on our project, alright?”

            “Sure,” Kris said. “I have some homework I have to do for university anyway.”

            “Okay, you do that,” Kris said as he watched Ellie and Chen disappear.

            “This is a nice house you have here,” Chen said complimenting the house after they began walking towards the back room.

            “Yours is probably impressive, too,” Ellie said without thinking.

            “Yeah,” Chen said as his voice suddenly got softer again. “Mine is nothing fancy.”

            “Well, here’s the back room. Feel free to make yourself at home,” Ellie said as she sprawled out on the couch in the room. “So, let’s talk about the project.”

            “Less about the project, there’s something I’m curious about,” Chen said stopping the project talk before it even started. There was something he was curious about and he was curious about it when he first saw it. He wondered why Ellie would pretend to like Jiyeon when in reality she didn’t like her.

            “What are you curious about?” Ellie asked.

            “Why do you pretend to like Jiyeon?” Chen asked.

            “What?” Ellie asked slightly taken aback by such a question.

            “It’s obvious that you don’t like her. I mean, after she left for lunch and then while you were sitting with her at lunch I could tell that you didn’t like her, so why stay friends with her?”

            Ellie wasn’t expecting Chen to ask that question. She wondered if he was really curious about why she acted that way. “She’s my friend, I can’t just say that,” Ellie said attempting to laugh it off, but it seemed like Chen wasn’t going to let it go that easily.

            “You seem to act differently,” he said thinking about what he saw when Ellie was at school compared to when she stepped foot in her house and saw Kris. “You know, between home and school, it seems different.”

            “Oh, I didn’t notice,” Ellie said pretending to play dumb. Even though she figured that she would truly act herself in front of Chen, she found it hard to answer his questions about her personality changes.

            “You did so,” Chen said looking at Ellie. Even if he didn’t talk all day at school, he was observing everyone to know who to stay away from and who to possibly make friends with. Through his observation, he saw that Ellie acted differently when no one was paying attention compared to when people were actually paying attention to her.

            “How about I tell you another time,” Ellie suggested. “I can explain it all to you later. I’m too tired to think about it now.”

            “Then why did you suggest me coming over to work on the project if you’re tired?” Chen asked.

            “I didn’t invite you over, Jiyeon did,” Ellie said.

            “Right,” Chen said sighing. “I’ll go now if you want me to.” As he was getting up, Ellie’s voice stopped him.

            “No, you don’t have to,” Ellie said stopping Chen’s journey to go back through the house. “You can stay, I don’t mind.”

            “Okay,” Chen said giving Ellie and smile and sitting back down. 

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How will the rest of the time be spent at Ellie's house? How is Chen so quick on the uptake of noticing Ellie's personality changes? Why is Chen so awkward once he reaches the house?

Here is Chapter 3. Hope you enjoyed :D