"I will never go back in that shop ever again," you groaned, "I made an absolute fool of myself in there." You had face-palmed yourself while leaning on that hand on the side of your currently blank canvas of your Advanced Art class that you shared with Rapunzel. You only had managed to meet up with her during your first period to discuss the events that unfolded earlier this morning.

"Oh, how bad can it be?" your blonde friend tried to reassure you. You would have felt relief from the second opinion that Rapunzel usually gives you, but you were annoyed more so. She wasn't there to see your embarrassing panic attack.

"I literally left Hiro in the middle of a conversation while I was gaping like a fish towards Hiccup," you deadpanned.

The blonde was multitasking as she patiently listened to you rant her ear off while she was painting. She seemed rather content with herself until you replied when she seemed to slip and cringe at your misfortune. You rose a brow at her facial expression as she tried playing off her mistake with a guilty grin.

"Well, that would explain why no one would ever see him before school," she mumbled.

You opened your mouth to question her statement but was interrupted when you felt eyes drilling in the back of your skull and you made eye contact with your teacher, who was critiquing and walking around the whole class.

"Ladies," she greeted with a smile—more towards Rapunzel as she saw her already filled canvas. Her smile fell off her lips when her eyes traveled to you. Knowing full well her disappointment was more towards the lack of work rather than the type, you visibly tensed up from your blank canvas. "I was hoping you would be productive if you're willing to chatter the whole morning."

"I apologize, Miss Gracie," you came up with an excuse on the fly that wasn't necessarily untrue, "I'm just not feeling very inspired to paint anything lately. Any advice?"

Miss Gracie hummed as she gave you a skeptical look. Something told you that she believed what you had to say, but only because she had previously heard the distraught in your voice from earlier. It made you mentally cringe that despite mumbling and quietly whispering to each other, a teacher had heard about your morning. Her sharp eyes studied you as you try not to flinch. "From my experience, and this is without context, I would say you're going through a block, in which, you cannot focus on what you want to create and bring it to life. To fight this block in your mind, you must put all thoughts aside and push through a project even when you're not happy with it. If it's to start a project, I would stick with something easy. For example, for painting, stick to what you know or currently seeing. You could paint your friend, a corner of the room, or anything from what you saw earlier by memory."

You had let the information process; an image instantly sticking to your mind. You had subconsciously picked up a ruler, wanting to sketch out the lines first. "Thanks, Miss Gracie," you addressed, "I think you helped me with my block."

Your teacher didn't say anything more. She just nodded and continued to walk around the classroom. You clicked the ruler on the canvas and started to sketch, keeping your lines light. The ruler fell out of your hands and you cursed silently. You took a glance around the classroom, seeing that Miss Gracie was on the other side of it helping a student or at least out of hearing distance. You took the ruler falling out your hand as a sigh that the universe is telling you to temporarily give up on your project. You sighed with the motivation leaving you, but the image you wanted to draw was still embroidered in your mind. "I don't even know why you convinced me to take this class. I'm not even that good at this."

Your blonde friend took a glance at you and eyed at the progress of your work. "You took the beginners class with me during our first year, though." She smiled genuinely at you. She probably thought she was encouraging you. You have always appreciated the fact that she looked on the brighter side of things, pulling you out of some depressing episodes in the past. "That's how we met actually."

"True," you agreed with a nod, "but that was because I needed a Fine Arts credit to graduate. I figured it would have been the easiest thing to do. I was so wrong." You slouch with a bit of exaggeration. You only could half joke since you were feeling unmotivated to lift that paint brush. You swear to people who do painting for a living couldn't have done anything else during the day since it sucked the energy out of a person.

"Well, I love it!" she exclaimed a little too cheerfully, "It helps me relax and express myself! There's so many beautiful colors! And the best part you can do whatever—!"

"You're way too optimistic," you mumbled more to yourself. Despite your mood, you didn't want to interrupt Rapunzel's rambling. You never could unless it was absolutely necessary.

"—Unless, of course, it's more of an assignment or commission, then your options are limited. There are ways around it, though! You just have to stay focus!" During the whole time she was proudly giving advice, she was still painting. She managed to finally put her paintbrush down into a cup full of water. It clacked around along with the other brushes that spun around in it. The water had long since turned into a murky water. You eyed her as she took a damp towel and cleaned off the excess paint on her fingers as her green eyes admired her work.

There was a slight pang of jealousy that went through you and left the moment you felt it. You always wondered how she was able to see the world with her eyes. You wanted to protect that, but also feel how it would be like. Nonetheless, you couldn't help but jab at her a little bit as you eyed the teacher coming a little closer to your station, "Speaking of focusing, we should probably save this conversation for English if we don't want to get in trouble with the teacher."

The comment went over her head or she chose to ignore it as she gave you a bright smile and nodded, "That's the spirit!"

You bowed your head down from her exclamation when you thought she was a little loud. You could have sworn you saw Miss Gracie give you a disappointing glare.

•

•

•

Second period couldn't have gone any slower. Your government class didn't have anything new that you haven't already prepared for the next week or so. The research paper had already been graded and handed back to you with a solid A. The only thing you had to worry about is the final coming up for the semester. It involved an Utopian country with a mandatory group project. Group projects were already a bother with uneven productivity from an individual to another, but choosing who gets to be in your group was another level of stress. Your social studies teacher had extended the choices to students in his other government classes, but you still had limited choices.

Rapunzel was a definite consideration along with a few others. There were others who you could get along with as well, but the knowledge of lacking work bothered you more. You needed six people including yourself in a group soon. Otherwise, the teacher is going to pick for you.

Your brow furrowed while you were in thought. It was probably something you should think about later since you had to focus on traveling to your locker as it seemingly felt like it was on the other side of the campus. Once you got to your locker breathlessly, you managed to open it as you were huffing in relief when you saw everyone else barely reaching their lockers for their next class. Shadows traveled around you along with the moving bodies as everyone chatted about any irrelevant topic. You were in your own world and avoided any overstimulation from the crowd. You couldn't help but notice a shadow who was next to your locker for a long period of time but you didn't bother thinking about it twice, since you thought it was just your neighbor. You managed to shove your English textbook in your bag and in exchange, put your dismissed textbooks away, making room in your bag and lighten the load on your shoulders.

You yelped when you slammed your locker shut and made eye contact with a pair of green eyes you saw earlier this morning. You held your chest where your heart beats rapidly from the scare and the growing anxiety that came with it. You were expecting your neighbor, not Hiccup. He held his gaze steady as the corners of his lips quirked up slightly from your jump. He stood more straight from leaning against the near lockers.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you," he cleared his throat awkwardly. He adjusted his strap for his backpack slightly. You immediately turned the opposite direction and started power walking, hoping he wouldn't follow. But, he wasn't finished with you, was he? "Hey, [Name], wait!"

"Oh, wow," you mocked, having your anxiety get the best of you, "He actually remembers my name. I thought for sure he would haven't forgotten it by now."

He caught up with you easily despite the crowd. You were jealous with the way he slipped and maneuvered through the passing bodies while you were bumping into shoulders and almost dropping your bag. It didn't help that you were looking back a lot, but it was almost like the crowd was against you and helping him.

"Is this how you greet your old friends," he mused but there was something about his tone that wasn't amusing to you, rather accusing.

You scoffed when you felt a hand touch your arm. There was no force from the touch, but it grazed enough to get your attention and the butterflies in your stomach started to flutter. You yanked your arm away immediately. You didn't bother to hide your glare. "Screw off, and don't touch me. I'm going to run late for class."

Hiccup was a little surprised with the tone you gave him as he tried to blink away his shock. His eyebrowed furrowed along with his slight frown. "What's with you? Loosen up a little, will you? I just wanted to talk."

You did start to realize that you were a bit more riled up than usual, but who was he to say you about wanting to talk? Unbelievable, that out of everyone, you had to hear it from this giant tree. You breathed a sigh with your eyes closed for a moment before staring into his viridescent eyes. "No offense, but I don't have time for a conversation I could care less for."

"Harsh," he shook his head in disappointment, but something lit up in his eyes, "yet, you're still here talking to me."

Your mouth opened to retort and cocked your hip with a fist on it, but someone had called your name. A rather welcoming interruption that you're weren't going to complain about.

"There you are!" you felt an arm hoop through yours and locked arms with you. Rapunzel's profile greeted you as she smiled at Hiccup and it even looked a little forced. "Hey, Hiccup! We need to go. Bye, Hiccup!" She waved behind her as she turned the two of you around, keeping her unwavering smile.

"I'll talk to you later," you heard the boy behind you.

You couldn't help but roll your eyes from his persistence . "Why don't you leave a message?" you called back over your shoulder. You couldn't help but chuckle a bit at Hiccup's confused facial expression.

"But I don't have your number!" he called, but his voice started to get smaller as you were approaching the end of the hall.

"I didn't say I would give it to you!" you laughed as your blonde friend had pulled you far away enough and out the building to go to another one. You had slowed your pace, keeping your arms locked with her and sighing out your laugh. "Thanks for the save back there. I thought I wouldn't have been able to escape."

"No problem," Rapunzel smiled with her nose scrunched and a wave of her hand, "I just knew you wanted to get out of there."

"You always do save me when I need it," you smiled back.

"What are friends for?"

Word Count: 2105

Status: Unedited