Hello, I just wanted to say that this is my first published fanfic. I hope you'll enjoy reading.

Chapter 1

Eridan stopped walking and looked at the big building in front of him. This was his first day at his new school and he was nervous. Actually more than nervous, his anxiety was kicking in when he thought of all the new people he would have to meet and how they would stare at him, just like everyone else. On top of that, it was a hot and sunny day, not exactly suitable for wearing long sleeves and jeans but he still did. He wiped his sweaty palms on his striped jeans and looked at the girl next to him. Her wide smile calmed him a little and the girl took his hand and pulled him inside the school. Eridan was used to this, being pulled everywhere by the excited girl, who was also his best friend and had been ever since they were kids.

They entered the hall. Cool air flowed in his face when the girl pushed the door open, and Eridan sighed, feeling a little better now that he got inside, away from the hot, burning sun. He looked at her long dark brown hair bouncing on her shoulders as she eagerly pulled him forward. There weren't that many people in the hall but the few glanced at them and Eridan saw a girl poking her friend and pointing at his direction. Eridan winced and looked away, feeling his cheeks flush. He looked at his friend again. He knew they didn't share many classes because they weren't classmates. He thought of asking the girl to show him the class he was supposed to go to, though he believed that the girl would've done it anyway.
"Hey, Fef-", he muttered.

"Yes?" the girl turned around and smiled at him.

"Could you show-w me the history class?" he asked.

"Of course, that's where I was taking you!" Feferi said and giggled. "What's your next class after history?"

"W-wait, I'll check", Eridan said and they stopped. He pulled the schedule from his bag with shaky hands and checked the next class, which was biology. He informed Feferi and the girl smiled and nodded.

"It's close to the history class so it shouldn't be hard to find", she said. "Come on, let's go!"

They walked across the hall and up the stairs. In the second floor they turned left and soon they stopped in front of an open door.

"So! Here we are. Biology class is right that way, you'll find it by yourself", Feferi said and smiled. "I need to get going, call me if you need anything!"

"Yeah, thanks Fef", Eridan said and gave the shorter girl a quick hug before she hurried to her class, waving at him as she left.

Eridan sighed and ran his fingers through his brown hair. He entered the classroom, quickly walking to the back and sitting in the corner. He set his bag next to the desk and pulled out his history book, then took a quick look at the classroom. It wasn't that big and there were only a few people. A girl and a boy were sitting in the front and the girl was excitedly explaining something to the boy. The boy nodded once in a while and threw a few comments, but it looked like the girl didn't really give him time to speak. The girl was a very small, skinny and cute and had short light brown hair and a hat with cat ears. The boy was tall and muscular, his hair was shoulder length and black. He was wearing sunglasses, even though he didn't really need them, considering they were inside. Eridan looked to the other side of the room and saw two girls, other with short, dark reddish brown hair and glasses with red pointy lenses. Eridan recognized her as Terezi, a weird girl who was obsessed with law and justice and wished to become a lawyer one day, if he remembered correctly. Eridan didn't know the other girl, she had long, black hair with a tint of blue and she wore blue lipstick. It sounded like they were arguing about something but Eridan didn't really pay attention to it and looked away. There was one more girl in the room, she sat in the back in the other corner. She had long, curly blonde hair and bright red lipstick. She was curvy and wore a red tank top, showing her beautiful body shape and she had a black bow in her hair. Eridan looked at her and as the girl turned her head, he recognized her as Aradia – a girl he had known back in middle school and one of the few he could have called his friend. The girl seemed to notice Eridan and she smiled. Eridan smiled too and waved, and she got up and walked to him.

"Hello Ampora", she greeted. "I haven't seen you in ages!"

"Yeah I know-w, I liv-ved somew-where else for a w-while but I'm back here now-w", Eridan said and sighed. "Good to see you Ar."

"You too! How have you been?" she asked and sat down on the chair next to him.

Eridan grimaced and bit his lip, thinking for a moment before he answered. "I'v-ve been fine", he said. Honestly, it was a lie, but he didn't feel like throwing any dramatic bullshit on her right after they met after a rather long time. "How-w about you?"

Aradia looked concerned. "You don't look fine", she said cautiously.

"Thanks", Eridan said and sneered.

"No, I don't mean –", Aradia stopped and huffed. "Is everything okay? Did something happen?"

"No, it's nothin'", Eridan said and gave her a faint smile. "I'm fine, really."

She still looked a bit worried. "Um, okay."

It was silent for a moment until Eridan broke it. "W-what about you?"

"What?"

Eridan rolled his eyes. "How-w hav-ve you been?"

"Oh! I've been fine", she said and smiled.

"That's good."

The bell rang, informing them that the class was about to start, and right on time. The conversation had started getting a bit awkward.

Aradia got up.

"I'll go back to sit now, I hope you'll have a good first day at your new school", she said with a small smile and walked back to her desk.

"Yeah, I hope so too", Eridan muttered to himself and frowned.

He lifted his head to look at the door when the students started walking in. He recognized a few of them but most of them were strangers to him. He saw Tavros, a short boy with a fluffy black mohawk and a wide smile. He was known to claim to be confident, but everyone knew he was actually pretty shy. He was walking with a tall boy that Eridan didn't know. The boy had blonde hair and as Eridan studied his face for a moment, he could swear he was attractive even though he had aviators covering his eyes. What was with everyone wearing sunglasses inside?

The other students sat down, leaving empty desks around Eridan. He sighed and lowered his head, feeling some of the youngsters watching him. It was understandable, though, because most of them had never seen him before. He didn't know if they'd been informed about a new student.

"Who is that? I haven't seen him before", he heard a girl whispering to her friend a couple of desks away from him, and as Eridan lifted his head to glance at her direction, she was glowering at him from behind her shoulder. Wow, she didn't seem very friendly.

Her friend giggled. "Me neither, but I think he's kinda attractive", she whispered back.

Eridan's heart jumped and his cheeks flushed. Did she just call him attractive? He felt a little better after hearing that, until he heard the other girl's answer.

"Really, that guy? Look at that stupid blonde stripe in his hair and those fake hipster glasses! Come on, he's probably gay", the other whispered and snorted.

Eridan felt a bit hurt and he frowned. He heard that often, and even though it didn't feel nice, it was half true, because Eridan was bisexual. He didn't see anything bad about that, but how could someone even tell what a gay looked like? They were just like everyone else, they just liked people of the same sex and that's it. And the blonde stripe in his hair wasn't stupid, as far as he was concerned it looked pretty good.

"I can hear you", Eridan said and glanced at the girls angrily. Anger was his way of hiding his true feelings, which wasn't very good because sometimes it made him seem too arrogant and it drove people away from him, but that's how he acted anyway. Seeming weak was the last thing he wanted.

"Gosh, I'm so sorry", said the girl who had called him attractive.

Eridan ignored her, his eyes on the girl that had insulted him. "Don't you hav-ve anythin' better to do than judge other people", Eridan snarled, but kept his voice low. He didn't want to draw attention.

The other girl snorted again and turned away. The other bit her lip and then turned to her friend and said something to her that Eridan couldn't hear anymore.

Soon the teacher walked in to the class and the first lesson started. Eridan was in a bad mood and didn't really bother to listen to the teacher. He pulled a sketchbook from his bag and started sketching a seahorse, as they were his favorite animals. He didn't really concentrate in the drawing either, his mind wandering and he just wished for the lesson to end already when it hadn't really even started yet. His thoughts were interrupted when the teacher called his name.

"Eridan?"

Eridan jumped and lifted his face up from the drawing to see the tall female teacher looking at him, waiting.

"U-uh, yes?" he said and felt his cheeks flushing. Oh cod, not again.

"I was just asking you to introduce yourself to the class", she said, raising her eyebrows. "You're a new student after all, I think the other would like to get to know you."

Eridan gulped and got a grip of himself, lifting his head and changing his expression from surprised to a more confident one, although he wasn't feeling very confident at all, as he felt everyone's eyes piercing through him.

He cleared his throat. "Yes, my name is Eridan Ampora", he said and glanced at the others. He saw Terezi's face brighten and she gave him a small wave. She waved at a wrong direction, a bit to Eridan's right, but the poor girl was blind so it was understandable. Mostly blind at least, he didn't really understand what was the deal with her and had never bothered to find out.

"Well, welcome to our school, Eridan", the teacher said. "Could you tell us something about yourself?"

"I don't think it w-would be necessary, miss", he said, trying to sound polite, but it came out a bit harsher than it was meant to.

The teacher looked a little taken aback, but then she turned around and walked to the blackboard.
"Well then, why don't we start our lesson."

The students turned away from Eridan to look at the teacher. Eridan sighed and relaxed and then continued his drawing. He sketched the little seahorse's curled tail and smiled. He could admit he was pretty good at drawing, especially all kinds of sea creatures, because they were what he mostly drew due to his interest in underwater life.

It had been about fifteen minutes since the beginning of the lesson when a sharp knock on the door distracted Eridan from his drawing. He lifted his head up to see what kind of an asshole would show up late. The teached stopped talking and walked to the door to open it, revealing a panting, lanky boy with brown hair and bicolored glasses. Eridan froze and felt his face drop as he stared at the boy who was standing in the doorway. He immediately recognized the tall, skinny boy as Sollux Captor, the boy he had hated since some point during middle school and he believed the other hated him too. They had always had a kind of a rivalry going on between them, throwing insults at each other and occasionally even fighting, even though it was rare but it had happened a few times. Eridan couldn't stand the other and he had already thought that he had finally gotten rid of him when they moved away, but now that his family had moved back to where they used to live, of course that fucker had to be in the same high school as him. He suddenly was mad at Feferi for not warning him about this. Surely she knew Sollux would be here - she'd been at this school for her freshman and sophomore year as well, as had Sollux, probably.

"Thorry I'm late, mithh", he said with a noticeable lisp, just as Eridan remembered.

The teacher sighed. "It's okay Sollux, now take a seat, please."

Eridan was quick to turn his head away when Sollux made his way to the desk in front of Aradia, the both of them greeting each other. Sollux threw his backpack on the floor at sat down, face towards the girl. Eridan noticed Aradia smiling brightly at Sollux, which made him feel a little jealous. Not only had he hated the boy, but had also been envious of him. Sollux was good at school without really even trying, he had lots of friends when Eridan only had a few. Sollux had a decent, loving family. Eridan had a family too, parents and an older brother, but they were rarely at home and didn't treat him very well. He preferred to not really think about them. Sollux had had a couple of girlfriends too, and the last time they saw he had been dating Aradia. It had been a few years, and they had been just thirteen back then, but from the way they looked at each other, Eridan thought they might still be together.

He looked at Sollux for a while. The boy sure looked a lot different and Eridan actually found his appearance quite attractive, but he would never admit that. He let his eyes study the boy's body, from his styled hair to his thin arms that were resting on Aradia's desk and his long legs, covered with dark grey jeans. He wore different colored shoes – black and white. Eridan snorted quietly at the boy still wearing those weird 3D –glasses. Of course they weren't actually 3D, but the red and blue tinted lenses made them look like it.

Eridan stared at the boy for a while, not sure whether to feel anger, jealousy or attraction. He ended up feeling all of the three, being angry at himself for feeling that way. He looked away but couldn't concentrate in neither his drawing nor the lesson anymore, a certain Captor in his thoughts.