Among the Secrets

Chapter 1

In the Shadows

Note: Well, it's finally here. My first real Arkos story. As usually, the characters may not be how they are in the show, but that's just my style. Anyways, I hope you enjoy the start of this and be sure to let me know how I did.

Another school year came around and Jaune was ready for the best senior year in history. He constantly psyched himself up about how senior year was the best for everyone. This mentality alone made him anxious to get to school and reunite with his friends. The morning of the first day was busy. All of the students were walking to school with smiles on their faces. Jaune literally ran to school because he was so excited. When he got to campus, he was able to meet up with his best friends.

"Ren! Nora! Hey guys!"

They turned around and saw Jaune running towards them.

"Hey Jaune, how was your summer? Was it fun?"

"You bet it was. I stayed home all day. Haha. What about you guys? Did you do anything cool?"

"Yeah we did. Ren took me to his beach house for a week. That was awesome. I still can't get over how rich your family is. You don't even seem that rich."

"Thanks Nora. That makes me feel a whole lot better about myself."

"Haha, I'm sorry. You know you love me," she said as she hugged his arm.

"Yeah, whatever you say."

"Oh my God, look. It's her."

The three of them turned around at the sound of the commotion happening around them. When they turned around, they were immediately introduced to what it was that was taking everyone by surprise. It was the most popular, most beautiful girl on campus: Pyrrha Nikos. She was walking through the courtyard in her magnificent grandeur while everyone else could only stare at her loveliness.

"Wow… That Pyrrha girl never ceases to impress me."

"Yeah, I know. It's almost as if she's some kind of model." Ren turned his head to look at Jaune, but he was completely in awe of this girl. He was staring so intensively that it was almost impossible to snap him out of it.

"Hey Jaune, stop looking like a creeper." At that moment, Nora smacked him in his back which brought him back to reality, but also nearly knocked the wind out of him.

"Ah jeez. Nora! What did I say about smacking people?"

"Hey, I can't help it if you're looking like some weirdo."

Jaune regained himself, but immediately went back to looking at Pyrrha. By this point, the girl made into the building and headed off to class. That's when Jaune sighed out loud.

"Do you guys think a girl like that would ever go out with a guy like me?"

"I mean, maybe."

"Maybe? What's that supposed to mean?"

"I think what Ren is trying to say is that if you weren't such a loser, you might have a chance."

"You know what Nora?!"

"Uh oh, I pissed him off. Bye Ren, I'll catch you at lunch. You won't be able to catch me, slowpoke!"

Jaune took a few steps toward her, but she managed to escape in such a quick fashion. Jaune simply decided to give up and walk to the lockers. Ren was right behind him, enjoying the entire scene.

For the longest time, Jaune has had a crush on Pyrrha, but because of who he was and the kind of girl Pyrrha was, he was too afraid to try anything. He simply adored her from afar. That alone wasn't all that bad, but the thing was that Jaune didn't know a single thing about that girl. All he knew was that she was the smartest student and the greatest athlete. Those things really made it difficult for him to approach her. However, he was determined to make some changes to his life with the start of his senior year. Time was short so he wanted to muster the strength to find out if she was interested in spending some time with her.

Near the end of the day got difficult for Jaune. He wasn't much of an academic kind of guy so his attention span started to waiver. Eventually, his eyes wandered out towards the window and saw something leaving the school. This caught his attention so he sharpened his vision and saw that it was Pyrrha.

"What is she doing?"

"What was that Mr. Arc?"

"Nothing, sir," he shouted as he stood up from his chair, completely erect. Meanwhile, everyone in class was laughing to themselves. Ren couldn't help but shake his head at Jaune's cluelessness.

"Ugh." Jaune sat back down and covered his head with his arms. He already made a fool of himself on the first day so he decided to shut up and not do anything else for the rest of the day.

When the day was over, Jaune headed back down to his locker and got ready to go home. Before he could leave, Nora jumped onto his back and ruffed up his hair.

"Hey Jaune, let's go grab a snack before we head home."

"Sorry, but my parents just texted me that I need to pick some stuff on the way home. Maybe tomorrow."

"Alright, we'll be ready for that time."

Jaune smiled and walked off. When he got to the store, the sun was already setting so he knew that he had to hurry up. He grabbed everything his parents asked him to buy and headed home. On the way there, he came across an alleyway that had a lot of sound coming out of it. It kind of made him wonder why there was sound coming from there since there wasn't anything down there. However, it wasn't until he heard some kids' voices calling out for help which forced him to check out what was happening.

"Hey, what's going on here?!" At that moment, he saw three kids on the ground being cornered by one person with a knife. The person with the knife stopped their attack and slowly turned to face Jaune. Meanwhile, the kids managed to escape.

"What are you doing here?" As the person finished their turn, Jaune knew who it was, but there was no time to react. The person charged at him and kneed him in the stomach.

"Guh!"

After that, they grabbed Jaune by the shoulders and hurled him into the nearby dumpster. Unfortunately, they weren't done. The person stood right over him and continued to kick Jaune in the gut until blood started to spew out of his mouth. Once that started to happen, the person turned around and started to walk off.

"I better not hear about you telling anyone about this."

Jaune was in so much pain, but he managed to open his eyes for that comment. However, he couldn't think much about it since the pain in his body was starting to dominate his mind. It took quite a while for him to recover, but when he did, he slowly made his way home.

He was already behind schedule so when he came in through the front door, his sisters ran out him like madmen.

"Where have you been?!"

"Are you okay?!"

"What are you thinking, staying out this late?!"

He was constantly getting bombarded with questions from all seven sisters. Finally, his mother and father entered the fray to calm the storm.

"Jaune Arc, where have you been?"

"Sorry, but…"

"Why do you look like that? Did you get beat up?"

"Mom, don't worry about it. I brought the food so we should be okay." At that moment, all of his sisters hugged him and then stole the food. After that, he was finally able to recover without being swarmed by massive amounts of people. He headed to his room, but was followed closely by his father.

"Jaune, is there something you want to tell me?"

"No, I'm fine."

"Are you sure?"

"Of course. I made it back home. Why wouldn't I be okay?"

"Alright, there's no need to get angry. Dinner will be ready soon so be sure to come out and join us."

"Okay, I will." He closed his door behind him and sat down on his chair. He looked up at the ceiling in exhaustion. "I don't think this was the best definition of a first day at school." He sat back up and walked over to his closet to change out of his school uniform. "Pyrrha Nikos… What was that all about?"

End of Chapter 1