Four days after I met Paris France and seven days after I met Caspian Black, Holly Edenbrooke was found murdered in a ditch several miles from her home. I saw it on the news, adn the whole school was in a sort of state of shock.

Holly had a lot of enemies. She was somewhat considered the "popular girl" of the school, and yet no one really liked her. she was mean to everyone, was a racist and a homophobe and would outright bully the trans girl at our school. Just a few days before, in fact, she'd "accidentally" dropped my bag in the toilet after running into me in the bathroom, and I went to art class with the grim knowledge that I'd have to restart my entire project, which I was actually almost entirely done with, and a soaking wet backpack. Luckily, I'd forgotten my phone in my locker, or that would've taken a swim as well.

And now she was dead.

I wasn't exactly sad, but it was definitely unexpected. I'm ninety percent sure that the only people who would even really miss her were her parents, because she really had a bad reputation at school.

Still, we were all called into the gym for an assembly, and I swear I heard half the kids in the school groan when they saw the big projector with Holly's sneering face on it. I sighed through my nose and slid in next to Paris on the bleachers, figuring since I didn't really have any friends and he was a new kid we could stick together through this dumb death party.

I glanced at him to see him already looking at me, a little shit-eating grin on his face. "Well, hello there," he said with his adorable French accent. "You're in my art class, right?"

I blinked, rolling my eyes and deciding to respond with sarcasm. "No, I've never seen you before in my life."

Paris hummed, running his fingers through his pastel purple hair. "Ah, my mistake. I should have known."

I blinked, pausing, and then smiled at him, opening my mouth to say more when someone else slid into the seat beside me, and I was suddenly overcome with the scent of something I couldn't quite place. I glanced over to see none other than Caspian Black, his silky hair pulled back in a ponytail, adn he glanced to me and blinked. "Hey."

And then there were three of us. I glanced between Paris and Caspian. "....hey, this is how we sit in art. I'm in the middle of you two."

Caspian glanced at Paris, his expression impassive, and Paris shot Caspian a grin that seemed to have an edge to it. "Hey, Caspian. How're you doing?"

Caspian exhaled through his noise and looked ahead, to where Holly's ugly blue eyes stared back at us from the screen. "Fine."

I paused, glancing between the two and sensing some sort of weird tension between them, and I sighed, leaving it alone. "...Uh. Caspian, did you really know Holly? I saw you two hanging out a few times."

Paris snorted, and Caspian glanced to me with a quirked brow. "...I knew her. But I didn't like her. She was a cheerleader."

I grumbled. "Yeah, and she had blue eyes."

Paris stifled a laugh. "Jeez--what's wrong with that?"

I wrinkled my nose. "I hate blue eyes. They're the most overrated color eyes in the world."

Caspian hummed something softly under his breath, and I turned to peek at him, only catching a little bit of what he said. "What was that?"

He glanced to me sideways, blinking once, and I noticed the color of his eyes for the first real time--a deep brown, and in the light they flashed almost red. He opened his mouth to say something, and then the principal got up to speak.

Principal Hodgins was a fat old man, and he talked with a stutter, which always made me unbearably annoyed for some reason. He also had no problem punishing us if he saw we were even a step out of line, so we all fell silent pretty quickly. All he was really talking about was how tragic it was that Holly wouldnt be able to graduate, or go to Prom next month, or go to university, or something. I tuned him out halfway through, leaning back against the back of my seat, sighing through my nose and glancing sideways at Caspian.

Mmm...apples. And....woodchips?

I blinked, then looked back to the front with a thoughtful expression. That's what Caspian Black smells like. Apples and woodchips.

Hodgins was still blabbing on about Holly's various achievements, and my thoughts turned to what Caspian could have possibly said a second ago. I'd only caught a few words, but i could almost swear he'd said "good thing her eyes are gone now too."

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:)) hehe Caspian you bahd boi