AN: Huh, what's this? A new story? No, not really. This is just a little something that came across my mind while watching kids telly the other day and that I'm using to overcome writer's block. So I have no idea how regular I'll update this. ^^"

What's to know about it? Modern College AU. That's really it, I think. Have fun. ^^

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"I think I'll ask him."

With one eyebrow raised, Heather looked up at her best friend. Astrid sat across from her at the cafeteria table, eye cast straight past Heather and Ruffnut, and Heather didn't need to turn to know where she was looking.

Or rather, at who.

"Ask who what?" asked Ruff. Her focus was more on arranging the food on her plate into funny imageries. Heather cocked her head, trying to make sense of it. Was that… a mashed-potato-and-ketchup bonfire where the pea tribe sacrificed the carrot people? Ruff definitely had too much of an imagination.

"Ask Hiccup if he'd go to the spring dance with me."

At that, Ruff now looked up after all, eyes wide in bafflement. "Hiccup?"

Astrid's confidence seemed to crumple a little, which was quite an unusual sight, even for Heather. Usually, there was nothing that could intimidate Astrid Hofferson, always fierce and direct. But as soon as a certain someone was involved, her confidence shrank to the size of an almond.

"You don't think that's a good idea?" she asked, shoulders slumped and head dropping. "You're right. That was a silly thought. I should–"

"You should go over and ask him," Heather intervened before Astrid could completely lose her head. "Because if you're waiting for him to ask you, you two will be tiptoeing around each other until you're both old and grey."

Astrid gave her a pensive look, but then nodded. "You're right. I'll ask him. Right now!"

And with these words, Astrid stood up and walked around the table to the other end where Hiccup sat between Justin and Cami, quietly eating his lunch. She got a few curious glances, from Scott, who kinda always had his eyes on any woman, and from Eret, who grinned and then held out his hand to Dagur, accepting the note Heather's brother handed him grudgingly. These two and their bets.

"Hiccup?" Astrid's voice rang loud and clear, drawing everyone's attention.

Hiccup went rigid in his seat, then slowly turned to look up at the blond valkyrie looming over him.

"Hi. Hi Astrid, hi. Uhm… hi."

Even across the distance of the entire long table, Heather could see the fierce blush spreading across Hiccup's freckled face and all the way down his neck. Heather failed to get what her friend was seeing in him, but she at least had to give him that much; he was adorable.

Astrid bit her lip, a little thrown off guard as she always was when the boy's green eyes were focused on her – or at least when she noticed it. "I-I wanted to ask you–" she began, stammering, "–whether you'd go to the spring dance with me."

As red as his face had been a moment ago, the rate with which it turned white now was a little alarming.

Heather was enjoying the show greatly.

"The spring dance?" he squeaked, voice surely at least an octave higher than usual. "Yes! Y-yes, of course."

For an endless moment, there was a bubble of awkward silence around their table. Nobody dared to say anything, too hyped – or, in Scott's case, shocked – to interrupt their moment.

"Good," Astrid eventually said, throwing an apprehensive glance at the gaping group of their friends around them, and fled. There really was no other way to call it. "I… I'll see you around," she muttered, turned, and left the cafeteria – in the wrong direction for their next class.

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So, there. Really short chapters inc. As always, I'd be incredibly thankful for comments :)