29. Day 3 Part 4

"...Kim!" Miss Bustier announced the result as if she were running a bingo game. All eyes in the room were quickly diverted to the tall jock in the red jacket. He had a reputation of someone who hated losing at anything, but the general feeling around the students was this was one contest that he wouldn't look back on with much sense of satisfaction at emerging victorious.

The only one who didn't turn to stare at the athlete was Chloe herself, as much as she appreciated not being put under the microscope for the first time that schoolday. Recent memories started flooding back into her head... of a Valentine's Day present rudely turned down... a cruel photograph spread among her peers... and a broken-hearted boy left crying in a puddle, the perfect victim for Hawkmoth's own unique brand of diabolical magic.

It would have to be Kim, Chloe lamented, with her head in her hands. I'd rather it be literally anyone else... well, not Sabrina, Adrien and especially not Marinette, but he runs a close fourth place. I bet even now, he's devising some horrible sport-related activity to challenge me at, where I'll get injured and dirty, then he'll have his revenge. Oh, who'd be me?

Eventually, after a few minutes of self-imposed darkness, she dared to glance over to her first 'companion' for as long as this stupid punishment was set to run. Expecting him to be wearing a wide grin or smug sneer at the prospect of vengeance, the only emotion which seemed present in his face... was none. He simply sat there with his arms crossed, looking out of the window, as if contemplating a matter of great importance.

Each observer of the jock's silent acceptance of his fate was not only disappointed by his somewhat muted reaction, they were also completely taken aback. Despite his prowess on the playing field, Kim was not exactly known for being one of the great thinkers of his generation, relying on his best friend Max for more complicated matters such as maths tests, spelling bees or putting his shirt on the right way round.

For Kim to spend so long deliberating over anything was unprecedented, and sent a chain of whispers reverberating around the classroom. Exactly when would he decide what he was going to do with Chloe? Everyone knew about their history together, including that fateful day that Dark Cupid made his debut and hopefully only appearance. Would he take advantage of the situation, or show the blonde some undeserved leniency? With him, you never really knew...

"I don't know what the delay is Kim, but I would like to fit four people in before the bell rings for hometime. " Miss Bustier was usually a very tolerant woman, but even her considerable patience, along with those of the rest of the class, was being tested.

On the other hand, Chloe was more than happy to see the athlete's indecision, and silently prayed it would continue until the expiration of their session. Come on, Kim, she silently prayed, Let that underused brain of yours blow a gasket, then maybe I can relax for a while, instead of wasting time doing stupid stuff...

"I'm gonna do it." Almost as if he were a famous scientist jumping out of the bath at discovering a life-changing revelation, Kim's sudden declaration of intent, accompanied by him standing up and jogging to the front desk, torpedoed any faint hope Chloe might have had of getting an easy ride from the jock.

Fortune sends a raincloud to drench me once again, she noted dismally.

Meanwhile, Kim was whispering something softly to Miss Bustier, and despite the rest of the class straining their ears almost to bursting point, not one syllable was overheard.

All they got out of the private conversation was a few hmms, and an awful lot of head nodding. They waited in earnest to see what this would lead to...

"Okay, Kim. I give you permission to leave the school grounds during lesson time just this once. My only proviso is that Chloe must be back before her next induction starts, so we can keep things running like clockwork. Miss Bourgeois, why don't you go with him? I believe he has something he wants to show you. See you both later, and do try to get along." The teacher had given her blessing to the athlete's plan, and smiled at them both encouragingly.

Upon hearing this, Chloe's mind was once again thrown into turmoil. Where on Earth is he taking me?! Will he lead me down a dark alleyway, and beat me up? Nah, Kim is too much of a softie to even think of that. I doubt there are many sports games taking place right now either, so we won't be attending one of them. Good, I can't stand all of that macho nonsense. Wait... he's not planning on admitting his love for me again, is he? Didn't he get the message last time? What a bonehead. If that is the case, I'll have to let him down easier now. I don't need some winged maniac shooting arrows from the sky again, and messing up my hair in the process...

"Shall we go?" Kim didn't even look at Chloe as he invited her to join him, he simply walked off into the corridor.

"W-wait for me..." Chloe gasped, reaching for her bag and cheap anorak that had now replaced her limited edition chiffon jacket. Though, she tried not to dwell on it too much.

As the unlikely pair left together, Sabrina hoped against hope that the meeting would go well, while wondering when the right time to arrange a heart-to-heart with Chloe herself would be. Should she wait until her name was drawn out of the bag, or take preliminary action by confronting her former bestie beforehand?

Urgency was not her middle name, an unfortunate fact that was apparent all morning, judging by the redhead's countless failed attempts to communicate with Chloe, even though the heiress was sitting close by. Curse me, and my mental constipation, she thought.

"Right, you lot..." Miss Bustier piped up. "While that's going on, let's continue with the normal schedule for the day, shall we? I'll start things off with a random pop quiz. Sabrina, you're up. What is the square root of..."

At the teacher's all too familiar invitation, Sabrina couldn't help but scowl. She always asks me the first question, the redhead realised, Just because I wear glasses and used to do mine and Chloe's homework every day, people think I'm just a walking encyclopedia. I'll show them one day there's more to me than meets the eye. For now, though...

"33547377799.5699 is the answer, Miss."

...

Chloe instantly recognised the route that Kim took her on. This was the path she would navigate on the unbelievably rare occasions she walked back home from school, usually when Jeeves was sick, or she wanted to show off her latest overpriced outfit to the Parisian peasants. Of course, she'd be traveling on foot a lot more in the future if a certain winged nuisance had anything to say about it, but for now she had more important things on her mind.

Namely, where her companion was leading her. It was right onto the bridge where she'd taken that 'hilarious' picture of him after she rejected his Valentine's gift. She'd subsequently shared the image among many of her... perhaps friends would be an inappropriate word... contacts.

The strange thing was though, no-one bothered telling her later what a funny moment she'd captured on camera, and even Sabrina's laugh at the time sounded rather hollow in retrospect. That's one of the many problems with this class, she mused, no sense of humour.

They eventually arrived at the rickety structure, with Kim going first ahead of Chloe, who following tentatively behind. She had no idea what was going to happen next, as Kim's poker face gave little away, and there didn't look to be another person in sight.

He stopped in the middle of the bridge, and leaned over the side, his half-dyed hair blowing in the wind. With Chloe impatiently waiting for something, anything to occur, she was about to ask him just what the heck he was looking at, when...

"You really hurt me that day, ya know?"

Kim 's words managed the extraordinary feat of silencing Chloe for a few seconds. Figuring out quickly as to what he meant, she did her best to answer as bitchily as she could, all without setting off the eavesdropping kwami in her bag.

"W-well what did you expect? That gift you bought me was far too tacky for a lady of my standing! Also, you know my heart belonged to Adrikins back then..."

"That's not going to happen, Chloe!" Kim had turned to face the blonde now, a deep scowl set on his features, his fists firmly clenched.

"W-what do you mean?" Despite herself, a few chinks were starting to show in Chloe's normally unbreakable armour.

"What I 'mean' is..." Kim responded, as if he were trying to explain something to a child. "Me and the guys talk. About college. Extreme sports. Sometimes, the girls in our class. When we get to you, Adrien is the only one with anything nice to say, and pretty much all of those good memories are from before he came to school..."

Chloe felt confused upon hearing this tacit information. "B-but surely that proves..."

"He doesn't love you!" Those sharp words from Kim were like a dagger in the heiress's heart. "He never has. He's only ever seen you as a friend, and the way you're carrying on right now, he might not even be that for much longer..."

"Hang on a minute... I finished my friendship with him!" Chloe exclaimed triumphantly. "So, what does it matter if he still likes me or not? Why should I care?!"

"Huh, you're lying to yourself and you know it..." Kim snorted, rolling his eyes. "It might interest you to know he actually has feelings for another member of our class, someone who's nicer than you could ever be..."

Chloe couldn't help herself. She only came to the middle of the jock's chest in height, but she was over to him in an instant, grabbing his jacket and pulling on the strings. "Who? Is it Marinette? Tell me, now!" She felt uncontrollably emotional again, which was most definitely not part of her plan.

"See? Why would you care about Adrien's crush, if you'd lost all interest in him?" Kim gently prised her grasping hands from his top. "Also, the same way you girls have secrets, us guys have them too, and I would never betray one of my bros. You'll just have to figure out who the 'lucky lady' is yourself..."

"You bet I will..." Chloe whispered to herself through gritted teeth, as Kim renewed his surveillance of the landscape nearby, almost as if he were looking for something.

"Ah, there it is! That's what I wanted to show you!" Kim's outstretched finger pointed at a rock jutting out from the side of the river. Mildly intrigued, Chloe's eyes followed his hand.

What she saw was the gift Kim had tried to bestow upon her that Valentine's Day, before he'd gotten soaked by a passing bike and had a crisp packet blown into his face. Her subsequent refusal of the present and a photograph she'd taken of the incident had kept her in fits of giggles ever since. Yes, it was a happy memory...

Seeing the heart-shaped jewelry now though, with a massive crack ironically running down the centre and the scattered debris of it floating in the tide, the joke didn't seem so amusing anymore. Chloe found she couldn't tear her eyes away from the remnants, as Kim began to speak again.

"When I transformed back from Dark Cupid, the first thing I did is chuck that stupid thing as far as I could across the water, hoping that I'd never have to see it again. Unfortunately, it got caught on that stone way out there... but now that I think about it, things might have actually worked out better this w-way..."

Chloe turned back to the jock, positive she'd just heard his voice crack. But he's so tough. Why would he be crying...

"I-it's a reminder to me how you broke my heart, and how I'll guard it much more closely in the future. N-now you know it's here too, hopefully you'll see it everytime you walk past this bridge, a-and one day it'll sink in just how much pain and suffering you caused me that day, and ever since. K-knowing you though, I-I won't hold out much hope..."

A few days ago, Chloe Bourgeois would have just brushed those words off with a haughty laugh, such was her speciality. But something subtle had changed in her since then. A seed had been planted. It hadn't even started to bloom yet, but it was enough to make her pause for thought about what she'd done. "Kim..." she caught herself saying, before trying to reach out to the athlete.

"N-no!" Kim stopped his mild onset of tears, to roughly slap her hand away. "You had your chance. You could have quite easily turned me down politely, and I would have accepted that. But no, you humiliated me, turned me into a monster, and later even threatened to expose my darkest fear to the school if I didn't vote for you to win some dumb election. You know what, Chloe? I don't hate you. I just feel sorry for you. People like you don't change, no matter what you're wearing. That's it. I've said what I had to. You can move forward to the next 'lucky' contestant now. I'm going to stay here and think about my life for a little while. Tell the teacher where I am, okay?"

"Y-yes, of course, Kim..." Chloe began to walk away, not quite believing how melancholy she felt all of a sudden.

Why I am I letting this brainless, lanky freakshow of all people get to me? He doesn't know what he's talking about, Chloe's inner monologue reassured her. He's just angry that you'll never be his, and he can't appreciate a good prank. You're fine, girl... everything's fine... It's everyone else that's crazy, that's all...

"Y-yes, that's right..." Chloe said out loud, as the bridge and Kim faded from view. "I-I'm good. Everything's brilliant. E-everything..." Somehow, she didn't sound as convinced as usual.

In the meantime, Zzubo was listening from her bag, and she smiled at the blonde's wavering tone. "You might not like what's happening to you right now..." the bee creature said, as she made another tick on her notepad. "But you have no choice but to accept it. That Kim boy spoke a lot of sense, but there's one thing I disagree with him on. You can change Chloe Bourgeois, and you will."

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Updates should be coming thicker and faster now. Hope you enjoyed this part... until next time! :)