It all started with Coral. In a Grade 8 French class. On one very eventful February day.

On this Wednesday, I was the usual cheery person I am. I was happy, sitting with (one of) my best friends Coral. You might have heard about her in BABUDDY's story.  Well now she's in mine.

She was that typical fan-girl in my grade. She is an anime lover, and shipping was her game. She actually threatened  to scratch me if I didn't hear about her anime rant. (And sorry to anime lovers, I'm not interested. I'm more of a Markiplier fan. Go check out his channel!) This was the deadly, catty, VERY GREAT CORAL (in case she might actually read this). She loves recalling events in my life that I wish I could forget, but it would take longer than I thought with her around. She sits next to me in French class and loves doodling in my French book. I let her do it so I didn't have to pay attention to her every  word instead of Mrs. Hoff's. My teacher wouldn't mind though. We were smart kids.

Coral had an idea that day, and it usually wasn't pretty.

She told me: "I have a great idea about who you should be shipped with."

"Really," I say half listening trying to hear what Mrs. Hoff was saying about the Passe Compose of Ir- verbs .

"Why not with... I don't know... Alen Newman!"

Now she had my full attention. I glared at her and fire practically shot out of my eyes. She sat there... with a catty little smirk on her face.

"This better not become a thing," I warned.

"Oh... I don't know."

"This will stay between us. Just keep doodling in my notebook."

"Hurray!!!!!" she shouts and continues to write in cursive "Anime" all over the page.

Well during the rest of the period, I was safe.

The next day, I walked past a boy named Manny in the hall. We were both in the same French class, but he went to get something in his locker. As I walked toward the classroom, he said "Hey Melen!" with a teasing tone in his voice. I was confused, but my questions were answered with a single thing written on the chalkboard:

Melissa + Alen = MELEN

I wanted to hide. Sure, Alen is a fine enough kid, but I hated his guts. Since the sixth grade I hated him when he did something absolutely rude to me. I had no intention of supporting the ship. But everyone else in that Period 7 French class did.

But I was good at being calm. There was the occasional "Ooooh!" and "I ship it!" around the class. It didn't even specify which one out of the four in our grade (Alen N, T, M, and M) I was shipped with, but everyone knew it was Newman. Alen Newman. My teacher was puzzled but forced the class back to their seats. I was relieved. But I couldn't do any actual learning with the fact that my whole class was distracted about MELEN in their minds. 

It was until the next day and continuing to the present when people started to have fun with the ship.

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I'm not the usual person to write an author's note, but hey, I guess I could. I am sorry for the short chapter with some unanswered questions, but I had little time. I will get to those in the next chapter. Feel free to comment, and I'm fine with it. Well, my readers, I guess I will leave it off on that note.

PEACE! From your very wacky author...

~FFG ☺♥