Er… Yes. Basically a collection of oneshots for belatedly celebrating Valen- I mean National Singles Awareness Day. Parings are the ones I support… err… sorry. I hate it that does not show where you indented… I apologize if messed up how I wrote this story.
I don't own Code Lyoko. Moonscoop owns it… I just own the story (but you already knew that).
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Chapter 1
Concentration. That was the key here. For this Math test to be aced, there must be concentration on the set of problems identified here, especially since this was the last midterm test, and there was the fact that it was the last class of the day before the long-awaited break. He scratched his head on the problem, momentarily solving it in his head, hours of studying for this midterm pressing his already stressed mind. He frowned. The problems in front of him seemed to be mocking him.
'If the measure of C= 25, and A= 14, what is the measure of B, if it is a right triangle?' the question asked.
Jeremie frowned at the problem, his mind filled with square roots and the formula for the Pythagorean Theorem. 25 squared, subtracted by 14 squared equals… 11 squared! To be sure, Jeremie calculated more mathematical equations in his head. 625 minus 196 equals… 429! "But… 429 does not equal 121" Jeremie thought, scrawling 'not a right triangle' where the answer bar was.
Jeremie was looking over midpoint problems when he realized it was the day before Valentine's Day. It had almost been a year ever since the XANA attack, with the controlling pendant that completely put her under his control.
He dared not look beside him, where she was sitting and taking the test, fearful that the teacher would think that he was cheating by trying to get the answers from her. Her brows were furrowed, her mouth was drawn in a thin line of what appeared to be something along the lines of anger, and she was scrawling answers quickly, solving problems at blinding speed- having been taught this earlier when she was homeschooled, a few weeks before she was first virtualized onto Lyoko.
Jeremie nervously glanced at the clock. Only about 25 minutes remained until the end of the period- and that was the amount of time he had left to complete… 30 more problems.
Jeremie groaned inwardly, the time adding more stress on his mind- on top of the test, the fight against XANA, programming endless lines of code and testing the programs, and the fight he and Aelita had early this morning. Jeremie kept pawing at the back of his head where the itching caused by his turtleneck made it hard to concentrate.
Was it really all his fault for bringing up the topic of her past, causing her icy reaction towards him, giving him the cold shoulder ever since two weeks ago, when he had brought it up? Maybe… maybe he should not have brought the subject up at all, and they might not have gotten into their argument on whether she should dwell on the past, or forget about it and ignore the possibility of finding the remains of her past- her father mainly. Jeremie thought about apologizing right now, but Ms. Meyers glared at the students at the room, daring for them to peek at each others' answers.
Jeremie flipped the page over in search of questions that were easier to answer than the one that he was currently stuck on. Finding a jackpot on them on that side rather than the opposite side, Jeremie scrawled down the answers haphazardly, erasing and re-scribbling the answers if he thought they were too messy.
20 minutes left in the class, and there were only about 15 questions left. Jeremie dared and sneaked a glance back at Aelita, who had her paper face down, meaning that she had recently finished the test. Aelita was now doodling on the back of her test, meaningless squiggles that surrounded a circular object, until the squiggles were eventually formed into a cloudy haze. 'She probably means the object to be a mystery, or that she cannot think straight', Jeremie reasoned.
Aelita stopped scrawling for a moment, as if knowing he was glancing at her and her doodle, looking up into Jeremie's eyes, dark green piercing a dark cerulean, almost glaring at him with invisible icy daggers. Eventually, the dark green eyes moved back onto the graphite ridden paper, her hands scrawling unreadable text in the midst of the drawing.
Jeremie also turned back to his paper, narrowly avoiding Ms. Meyer's stare as she turned to inspect the side of the room Jeremie was in. Glancing at the questions again, the answers suddenly popped into his head, and Jeremie hastily wrote them down before they could disappear within the deep crevices of his overworked mind.
"Fifteen more minutes until you guys turn your tests in." Ms. Meyer's voice rang out through the room, an invisible knife shredding the threads of silence that was strung across the class.
'What?' Jeremie's mind thought, peeking at the clock to make sure that he was right in the assumption that there was more than twenty minutes left into the class.
"There are still about eighteen minutes left in the class, but I just wanted to put some minutes aside for the handing out of the roses, since many of you will be going out of town for the break." Ms. Meyer clarified for those confused about the time left.
'I wonder if she had forgiven me yet…' Jeremie thought as he wrote down the answers to the last questions remaining on the test.
'Don't be ridiculous,' the other part of his brain chided. 'You know she loves you.'
'But what if she doesn't like me anymore?' the negative side of his brain asked. 'I know she deeply misses her past life as much as she enjoys her life now.'
'Seriously? Yin (negative side of Jeremie), you are a fool' the more sensible side of him (Yang) said. 'You remember when XANA caused a large rift between you and her by simply kissing others? You mended the rift quickly, even after the fights you had!'
'But it was XANA's doing… it was XANA who had made the problem, not me. This time it isn't his doing. It was m-'
'Okay, stop the pity party. It's really getting to my… er… our nerves.'
'Sorry…'
'Stop saying sorry, please.'
'Sorr-'
'What did I tell you about saying sorry in here? *sighs* Look, rose or no rose, you know that she still likes you, so stop drowning in self pity! You should go talk to Aelita and try explaining what you meant instead of moping, even though I am sure she knows what you meant anyway.'
'Then what is the purpose of-'
'It's a reassurance that you still care about her and that you did not really mean what you said… talk is cheap, but actions speak louder than words, now go!'
The crisis in his head resolved, Jeremie was able to finish the test with several minutes to spare. Ms. Meyers was already taking out the roses, each wrapped in a clear plastic that always makes that crunching sound when it is folded or crumpled. The thorns had been cut off by the growers, and there were some small, delicate, white flowers that had been placed alongside the rose as a decoration. On the outer side of the plastic, there was a small note card, with a stylized pink, red, and gold border, displaying the message and the sender's name, if he or she had placed it there.
Was it a minute, or was it an eternity before Ms. Meyer started calling out the names of the people that had received a rose.
"Stern, Ulrich!" her voice cracked out throughout the room. "You have two roses waiting for you"
Ulrich, confused, picked them up, immediately getting mixed reactions from them. One of them, he was immediately grossed out by, as it was from Sissi, the other, he blushed heavily, after reading the note card on the rose that was sent by Yumi.
"Della Robbia, Odd" Ms. Meyers called out.
Immediately, Odd got up, almost bounding to the desk, and almost snatched up his rose, reading the note card and grinning from ear to ear. It had been sent by Sam, and instead of a real message, there was a bunch of letters, symbols, and numbers that formed a picture, if the person was looking at it far away enough to see the cat and a rose on it.
"Delmas, Elizabeth" was next in line.
Jeremie was almost sure that she was mentally lashing out at the teacher for calling her by her real name, instead of her nickname. Judging by the smirk on her face, she probably expected the rose to be from her 'Ulrich dear' as she tactfully put it. Jeremie suppressed a laugh when she realized it was really from Herve, and that he wanted to send a hundred roses, but he did not have the money for it, and the company did not want to fill out an order that large for just one person.
The names were called out, time passing by slowly, as if it was mocking him. Sissi, having recovered from her recent 'fall' was now smirking at him, taunting him because he did not receive anything from his 'precious Aelita' yet. Jeremie's thoughts immediately turned to revenge, but the thoughts were immediately halted when his name was sharply called out.
Jeremie got up slowly, as if in disbelief, and Ms. Meyers, impatient that day because of the rate the day was passing, urged him on until he finally received it. Jeremie carefully inspected the rose, and then Sissi's expression, which had changed to utter shock. Jeremie searched for the note card, and finding it, began to read the script that was printed in a beautiful font.
Can you find out who I am before the yearbook signings?
Hint: 1-5-12-9-20-1
Jeremie scratched his head, reading the note card over and over again, not fully comprehending what the hint actually meant. Ulrich and Odd had crowded around him, suggesting that it was a group of girls' locker numbers, since numbers 1-250 were assigned to the girls. Jeremie shook his head.
"If they were locker numbers, they would be those of 6th graders." Jeremie countered. "Which 6th grader, in the right mind, would like an 8th grader?" Jeremie added, dismissing the theory as quickly as Ulrich and Odd had suggested it.
Jeremie looked over to Aelita, who was not paying attention to what was going on around, even as a mass of students crowded around Jeremie, offering their suggestions. Aelita was staring off at the front of the class, her dark green eyes scanning over everything but the scene that was going on behind her. Slowly, the eyes met his eyes again, but not fully of icy hate this time, but something … different. Somewhere in her eyes, there were 'vibrant colors and something more swirling around' in a pattern that he could not hope to understand.
It was as if Spring had already come and had melted away the icy hatred in her eyes, and replaced it with a calming aura, almost like candlelight. Her eyes stared at his for a moment, and as if realizing the awkwardness of the situation, turned away to look outside the window- where the sun was shining and bathing all of France in a warm glow.
Jeremie, almost autonomously, turned towards the note card again, and his mind, from the depths of nowhere, pulled out something that was so plain, and simple… it may have been the answer. Jeremie looked at Aelita again, but only saw her back. Just as he was turning again, he noticed that a great quivering had sent her shaking slightly.
Jeremie, thinking that she was thinking about the past events which led to their fight, was about to put his hand on her shoulder, when the shaking got more violent, and the air which had been detained in her lungs, burst out, with an odd noise people would call 'laughing'.
Her laughing continued, her body shaking uncontrollably while her fits of laughter was let out. Feeling as though a light had revealed the answer, Jeremie figured out the answer in his head. Of course! It was a code, just like the codes he had used multiple times for programming aid to fight against XANA. 1-5-12-9-20-1… It was the alphabet… 1-5-12-9-20-1… AELITA!
Jeremie, grinning from the fact that she had, in fact, forgiven him, rushed up and hugged the unsuspecting Aelita from behind, while her tears of laugher splashed against the floor, though nobody really cared to see them fall. All they could see was two people, oblivious to anybody but each other, laughing in the room while the teacher did not bother to contain the chaos and pandemonium raging through the room.
Ulrich clapped Jeremie on the shoulder, congratulating him for his 15 minutes of fame while Odd laughed at Sissi's reaction- utter disbelief.
'See?' Jeremie's Yang side said 'Told ya!'
Jeremie's Yin side could not find an argument to base itself on as the class went on.
Aelita turned around in his gentle embrace and whispered in his ear.
"L'amour Toujours…" she whispered. "love forever"
Jeremie could not help but agree.
THE END… for this Oneshot
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Yep, I broke the fourth barrier (character directly address the audience), and possibly other barriers as well. Doing more oneshots, but too lazy to post right now. Couples are the ones I support, so that means… NO Yaoi, NO Crack fics, NO lemons, and NO Yuri (or any of that weird stuff that I can't remember the names for)!
The rose thing here is loosely based on what happened last year, when I inadvertently caused chaos with a rose… and friendship with someone (not a relationship! It's a… say it with me, a friendship! … thank you). I got L'amour toujours from a Gigi D'agostino song, as I was listening to the remix as I was typing this.
Also, did you know that there are two alternatives to Valentine's day- National Singles Awareness Day, and Galentines day (just a day where girls hang out together)? Yin and Yang? Just the opposite sides, always balancing the world… too complicated for me to explain.
