Chapter Text
"Ten minutes."
Abbie shifted and fiddled in his seat, sweat slowly forming at the sides of his head — threatening to drop down at his test sheet.
He wiped the sweat away before it could.
The tall, compass-wielding teacher known as Miss Circle scanned the classroom with an ever-vigilant gaze, seeking out any cheaters amongst the students.
Abbie continued to sweat bullets.
Man, why was math so hard? It wasn't that he was an idiot, no — he just had a certain weakness when it came to numerics and formulas.
The Apple shook his head, he'd better get his ass in the game or else he'd find out where all his missing classmates ended up after they failed one of the three main subjects.
And judging the fact that his math teacher's razor-sharp smile seemed to be focused solely on him..
Yeah, no. He doesn't wanna find out.
"Abbie."
The boy almost flinched at the mention of his name, Miss Circle's eyes glared at him from her seat, so much so that he probably could've died then and there.
Thankfully, he didn't.
Standing up from his seat, he approached the teacher's desk filled with trepidation and nervousness; his fingers fidgeting anxiously in his pockets.
"How disappointing. Although it's not a complete failure, I still expected you to do better." Miss Circle snarked, he flinched.
Taking the paper with anxious hands, he was met by the sight of— what was in his eyes, —a miracle.
A C- boldly encircled on his paper with crimson red ink.
'Woah..'
Wow, to be honest he thought he'd be a goner by now. Props to him for clutching this subject.
He continued to stare at his score, sighing in relief at the sight of his less-than-acceptable-but-better-than-nothing grade. He'd actually done it! All those study sessions with Lana, Engel, and Claire weren't going to waste after all.
"How long do you plan on standing there, Abbie?" The snarky voice of his math teacher broke him out of his flabbergasted state as he sputtered an apology.
"S-sorry Miss Circle, I-I'll be going now.."
He hurriedly left the classroom, still clutching his quiz paper. The sound of Miss Circle's voice calling out the remaining students were all but an afterthought for the Apple.
The Apple boy closed the door to his locker, placing all the things he currently didn't need inside his private storage space.
After organizing his things, he proceeded to close the locker's metal door.
And was met by the sight of Zip looking at him with mischievous eyes a smug grin.
Abbie was taken aback. "Ah! Z-Zip, what can I do for you?" Terrified, the boy asked. He wasn't really keen on being the target of one of the bully trio's many pranks and chicanery.
The lizard-tailed girl rolled her eyes. "It's lunch time, bozo. What do you have?"
Abbie, realizing what was about to transpire, attempted to escape with a lie. "Oh, uh.. nothing, I kinda forgot to bring some lunch."
Zip raised a brow. "Really?"
"Yep."
Zip's eyes glowed with an all too familiar malicious glint, her mouth twisting into a sly grin. "Not even lunch money?"
"U-um I— uh.."
Suddenly, Zip laughed; voice filled with mocking mirth. "Relax, apple-for-brains, I ain't gonna steal your cash. Not this time, at least."
Abbie cautiously brightened up with optimism. "R-really?"
"Yeah, me and Edward jumped Claire a few days ago, so I'm pretty stuffed with cash right now. Besides, whatever lunch you have probably doesn't even taste that good."
Abbie winced internally at the mention that one of his friends had to face the unfortunate fate of getting tagged on by Zip and Edward.
A part of him wanted to snap at the bully before him, to stand up for his friend's injustice.
But... He was already lucky with the results of his quiz, and now Zip approached him yet he was once again fortunate due to the fact that she had no interest in terrorizing him this time and was apparently in a good mood today.
Does he really want to continue pushing his luck? He was already granted two miracles by whatever higher power existed, he'd rather not waste it.
"Sorry, Claire. I just don't have the guts right now.."
Silently berating himself for his cowardice, he bottled his self-hate for later and decided to put on a polite smile.
"Well, uh, what do you need from me exactly?"
"Huh? Oh, Edward's tinkering with his robot and Oliver's busy doing god knows what inside Alice's room right now, so I don't have anyone to eat lunch with."
"Usually I just eat with them but since they're busy, so I thought maybeee.." she dragged out.
Abbie grew confused.
"Are you.. asking me to eat lunch with you?" He asked curiously.
Zip nodded. "Yep, wanna go? This is a once in a lifetime chance, y'know. I might go back to pranking you next week, best to go with me while I'm in a good mood."
Well, she had a point. That and Abbie had a nagging feeling that declining her right now would lead to severe consequences the next time they met.
Ruining her good mood probably wasn't the wisest thing to do.
"Okay, yeah, sure."
With that affirmation, the two headed off to the cafeteria.
The Apple boy pulled out a pair of ham sandwiches, stacked with cheese in-between alongside the slice of ham.
"A ham sandwich? That's it? So bland."
Abbie huffed at her comment. "Hey, my mom put effort in making this meal for me. It'd be rude of me to waste it."
"Whatever, Mama's boy. Here's mine."
Zip pulled out two small plastic containers containing some sort of brown, gelatinous substance.
"Chocolate pudding?"
"Yep, my little bro made it for me."
"Oh, wow. That's nice."
The two ate their food with a somewhat comfortable silence.
Until Zip spoke.
"Hey, is your sandwich good?"
"Huh?" Abbie said with a stuffed mouth.
"I said is your sandwich good? Must taste better than it looks if your stuffing your face with it like that." She snickered.
Abbie's cheeks reddened in embarrassment.
Swallowing and wiping his mouth, he replied. "It's alright, I guess, nothing too groundbreaking."
He held out the other sandwich. "Want one?"
Zip was silent for a moment, clearly contemplating her decision.
Then, she nodded.
"Sure, but if I find out that this thing tastes like dogshit, I'm drowning you in the toilet next week." She casually replied.
Abbie gulped nervously.
She took the other one before biting into the bread and stuffing within.
"Hmm... You know, this ain't too bad. Congrats, you're not on toilet duty next week."
Abbie silently sighed in relief, his mother's food prepping skills had saved his butt.
"Welp, since you gave me some of your food, wanna try mine?"
Abbie blinked in surprise.
"Huh? Alright."
Having finished the first the first small container, Zip opened the second one containing the same amount of pudding.
"Now," Zip grabbed the plastic spoon she'd been using to eat the last pudding with and scooped a small portion of the chocolate pudding.
She held up the spoon in front of Abbie's face. "Eat."
The Apple boy was flabbergasted. "Huh?! Wait, wh—"
"Eat it, come on, I'm seriously gonna change my mind if you don't."
"Wait, Zip why do you have to—" Abbie sputtered.
"I said.." The lizard-tailed girl shot an irritated glare at the Apple boy. "Eat it."
Not wanting to risk her ire, he complied — swallowing the small chunk of chocolate offered to him.
Satisfied, Zip smiled. "There, wasn't too hard now, was it?"
Abbie savored the sweet taste of the chocolate on his tongue. He'd give Zip's brother some credit, this was a pretty good Chocolate pudding.
"Huh.. that wasn't too bad. Actually pretty tasty."
"Of course it is, dumbass. Are you saying my bro's cooking is expected to be subpar?"
"No-no, it's just that I wasn't expecting to taste good. I didn't mean your brother was—"
"Pfft, yeah yeah, calm down idiot I was kidding. Now, open wide." She held up another spoonful of the pudding.
"Wait, you're seriously gonna hand-feed me all the way?"
"Uh, yeah? You got a problem with that?"
"Uh, no it's ok."
"it's better to not make her mad." He justified.
As the minutes passed, the two gained curious and mildly shocked glances by the other students at the sight of Zip hand-feeding Abbie.
"U-uh, Zip, people are staring at us.." he nervously said, noticing the sudden attention.
"So? Fuck them, they're just jealous of my tasty chocolate pudding." She scoffed, feeding him another bite.
Deciding to just go with her flow, the Apple boy obliged.
Neither of them were sure they'd ever admit it but...
Spending time with each other that didn't involve one tormenting the living hell out of the other wasn't too bad.