Chapter 1: Intro

Valentine's Day.

To many people, it was the one day of the year to truly show one's affections towards another, and pray to God that their love was reciprocated. Others believed that it is a day that is heavily exploited and used as a means for companies to make a lot of money. Nevertheless, it is a very celebrated day for everyone in the world, regardless of race and culture.

About 190 million valentines are sent each year in the USA alone, and that doesn't even include the valentine cards made in school activities, which will then increase the figure to 1 billion.

1 billion and 1, if you included a valentine from a certain "girl-hating" boy …

Calvin stood nervously from behind the door of his locker, sticking his head out cautiously every 10 seconds. He would then pull back his head, breathing deeply as if his life depended on it and cursing to himself.

Damn it, she's still at her locker! Why is she so slow? And why is she so pretty? Ugh, I blame my hormones for this!

The fifteen-year-old teen growled with intense impatience. His hand was clutching at his chest, a folded paper scented heavily with his Mom's most expensive perfume held tightly in his fingers like it was a lifeline. His heartbeat gave Calvin some comfort, though: it meant that he was not dead. Yet.

The blonde-haired teen inhaled greatly, and he proceeded to stick out his head out again. His light-blue eyes fell on her immediately.

She stood by her own locker not too far away on the right side of the hall, a look of irritation sketched onto her sweet face as she searched endlessly for something hidden beneath all the junk in her locker. Her caramel-coloured hair flared out behind her, a curtain of sun-shine draped against her back. Her eyes appeared to be a mixture of soft blues and light greens, and her skin was snow-white.

The Cate Blanchett of the school.

She seemed unaware of Calvin's existence, let alone his presence. Not once did she turn to see who the boy with blonde hair on its static-like end was, mainly because she was one of those people who didn't know he was even in the school itself. Even so, Calvin was still afraid of being discovered, and with every jerk of her head he would have a sudden heart attack and retreat behind his locker door – again. And despite Calvin's curses, it seemed that she was not going anywhere soon!

The bell for the end of school had rung 5 minutes ago, and this was the only chance of slipping the scented paper into her locker, but it was difficult since the hallway was packed with noisy and "pathetic, worthless, unintelligible, idiotic, stupid and damned" students, all of whom were excited for the next day and wondering if they would get valentines this year. And she was still there, of course.

Calvin's hand gripped the paper tightly out of anxiousness as he watched her, cursing every guy that passed by and made eyes at her. He hated feeling like this. If he was anything like his old seven-year-old self – insulting girls, ignoring girls, pointing out flaws in girls, etc, etc – he wouldn't even be standing there and give any second thoughts about her. He'd have been on the school bus, complaining about education and hard labour and Mr. Wemys trying to kill him, as usual. Flip, he'd already be home, cursing at the top of his voice about Hobbes trying to assassinate him the moment he opened the front door. You get the picture.

But no.

Calvin – a notorious girl-hater, leader of G.R.O.S.S (Get Rid Of Slimy GirlS), still the infamous hell-raiser everyone knew and loathed to the point of insanity, and sender of dead flowers and a black heart-shaped valentine forwarded to Susie Derkins every single year since he was seven – had, as Hobbes tactfully put it, "finally given into his puberty".

And it was all because of her.

She was the reason that Calvin was standing nervously by his locker with a valentine in his hand, a valentine that he worked so hard over the previous night. Okay, it was a plain piece of paper that nearly drowned in Mom's perfume, but what was written on the paper was the most important thing. He spent so much time trying to figure out what to write that he completely forgot to make the hate-valentine for Susie. But he didn't care.

Hobbes was particularly amused. As the tiger watched Calvin throw crumpled paper after paper into his waste-paper bin, he had said casually, "What, no hate-mail this year? Have you finally figured out you love Susie and want to proclaim your undying amour for her?"

"Hobbes, the day I send Susie Derkins a lovey-dovey valentine, Dad and Mom would have decided to buy me a flamethrower," replied Calvin, rolling his eyes.

Hobbes raised an eyebrow. "Then who is it for?"

Calvin shrugged his shoulders, and then he swore heatedly as he crumpled up another piece of paper and threw it away.

Hobbes was no fool. Light dawned on him, and he pointed at the blonde-haired teen with an accusing finger and shrieked, "Is it for a GIRL?! A REAL GIRL?!"

"Be quiet, Hobbes, or I'll punch you so hard your intestines will be the ones crying!" hissed Calvin. "Good God, do you want my parents to hear you?"

"To Mars with them!" said Hobbes, waving his arms. "But really, I can't believe what my brain is telling me!"

"You have a brain?" commented Calvin, but his tiger friend ignored this. He sat down on the bed, feeling a little faint.

"This is so unreal," started Hobbes melodramatically, holding up a paw to his fuzzy forehead, his emerald green eyes to the ceiling. "Calvin is making a valentine for a girl. Maybe I'm in a nightmare. Yes, that's it, a nightmare. I thought that tuna tasted a little off –"

"For goodness sake, Hobbes, stop acting like a drama queen," snapped Calvin irritably. "Geez, you act like I've never made a valentine for a girl before."

"…"

"Okay, so I haven't," said Calvin with a blush, "but that doesn't mean you have to exaggerate."

"Me? Exaggerate?" asked Hobbes, looking innocent. "Don't be ridiculous. But seriously, you make a valentine for a girl? Oy vey."

Recovering from his "faint", Hobbes walked over to the desk and said, "So, who's the unfortunate girl?"

Calvin mumbled something under his breath. Hobbes blinked.

"What was that?" he asked.

Another incoherent mumble.

"Come again?" said the tiger, leaning, so that his chin was practically resting on Calvin's shoulder.

Calvin mumbled once more, his mouth curved into a frown.

"A dead person can speak more loudly than you," said Hobbes, putting a paw behind his ear.

Calvin literally screamed his answer: "I don't know!"

Hobbes straightened up again, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "Aye Don No? Is she Chinese or something?"

"No, Hobbes, she's a flipping Eskimo!" replied Calvin, throwing his arms into the air. "I don't know what her name is!"

The tiger stared at his friend. "How can you not know? You have to be stupid not to know her name – oh wait, I just remembered who I was talking to."

"Ha ha, very funny," Calvin said in a sarcastic tone. He picked up his pen and began to write on a clean sheet of paper. "She only arrived two weeks ago. I saw her in the cafeteria, and I fell."

"If she's seriously a gorgeous chick, I wouldn't blame you for falling in love," said Hobbes with a nod.

Calvin glared at him. "You moron, I didn't fall in love with her! I was so entranced by her beauty that I tripped and fell in front of everyone! She didn't notice, thank God."

"Oh."

"But for the next two weeks, I did fall in love with her," said Calvin casually.

Hobbes nearly "fainted" again. "Oh Lord, please tell me you're a clone! Where's the real Calvin?! He wouldn't have easily given into his puberty so soon!"

"Chillax, Hobbes, I'm the real Calvin," replied the blonde-haired teen. "And here's proof: yesterday we broke into Mom's car and accidentally set the backseat on fire."

Hobbes seemed to have accepted this as proof. He watched as Calvin began to tear the paper up and said, "What are you trying to do, create a mountain made of crumpled paper?"

"No," said Calvin with exasperation. "I'm trying to write –" he paused. "Well, I'm trying to write a poem."

Hobbes stared at him for a few seconds before saying, "You trying to write poem would be like seeing you getting high marks on a test."

Calvin scowled at him. "Why don't you write the poem, if you think you can do better?"

"I didn't say that I thought I could do better," replied Hobbes, leaning against the desk. "But I can help."

"You? Help? The last time you tried to help, I was swimming below C level because my Maths marks were so bad. Below F level, if there was such a thing."

"Okay, so Maths isn't my strongest point," answered Hobbes, crossing his arms, "but it when it comes to love, I'm the master."

Calvin's tilted his head to the side. "Then why are you single?"

Hobbes sighed. "There are so many women out there, and only one of me. Not enough of moi to go around, I'm afraid. And so, I became a bachelor."

Calvin stared at him, an eyebrow raised in disbelief.

"You'll learn about these things as you get older, Calvin" said Hobbes. "That is, unless you've already married to what's-her-face."

"Shut up and help me with this poem already, you sissy," snapped Calvin, his cheeks burning.

Hobbes gave him a quick glare and muttered, "If this unfortunate girl ever becomes your girlfriend, I hope she teaches you some manners."

And so, the rest of the night went by, and more paper got thrown into the bin. Finally, after reading a page of a certain book, they came up with their so-called brilliant poem. Calvin wrote it in his neatest handwriting and signed it anonymously, and, after a brief rendezvous in his parents' bedroom, sprayed it with Mom's Christian Dior perfume (the label read Addict).

Calvin and Hobbes inspected the finished product, which lay drying on the desk

"I'm beginning to feel rather doubtful about this," muttered the blonde-haired teen.

"You know what they say: when in doubt, take away the d and the b, and you're "out" of it," replied Hobbes. "Besides, Valentine's Day isn't for two days."

That didn't stop Calvin worrying his pants off. The feeling intensified the moment he stepped into the school. The girl wasn't in any of his classes, but as he walked off to his classes he saw her every time. She smiled at everyone around her, including him, but he was so blinded by her beauty that he failed to realize that she didn't even acknowledge him enough as she passed him.

Now she was smiling again, for she found what she was looking for in her locker. Calvin's heart skipped a beat as she closed her locker, turned on her heels and walked away, ready to go home. Everyone else immediately followed suit, passing Calvin in blissful ignorance and thinking about what to wear tomorrow. Soon, Calvin was all alone.

He grinned to himself.

Here's my chance!

Silently, Calvin closed his locker door, exposing his handsome yet mischievous features. Clutching the valentine to his chest almost lovingly, the fifteen-year-old tiptoed stealthily across the hall to the other lockers, where hers was. Calvin pressed his back against the lockers, his feet shuffling towards the target (he had such skill to do this without making a noise, due to all the years he tried to avoid getting pounced upon by you-know-who).

Calvin found himself standing in front of her locker. Looking around, he slipped the valentine half-way into the thin opening of the locker door, so that the valentine stuck out for her to see.

With that, Calvin smiled victoriously to himself, going as far as to jump into the air and whoop. Unfortunately, the floor was slippery so he slipped violently and landed painfully on his bottom.

"Good grief, my cheeks were kissed a day early," moaned Calvin as got back up onto his feet, rubbing his rump. "Hopefully I'll get kisses on my face this time. And gentle ones, too."

On that note, Calvin left the school grounds, complaining as usual. This time, however, his thoughts were not of revenge and all that jazz, but of her.

That night …

The janitor smiled pleasantly to himself as he gazed at the decorated hallway. Pink, red and white streamers hung limply from the top of the lockers; huge red hearts hung from the ceiling on Valentine-coloured ribbons; roses of all romantic colours were taped to each corner of the hallway, and each locker was decorated with a heart: pink, red or white.

"Not a bad job, if I do say so myself," he said aloud.

Straightening his cap, the janitor proceeded down the hall with a broom in hand. The handle stuck out alarmingly, narrowly missing the lockers doors. However, it did knock against something. With just a brief touch, a folded paper flew out of a locker opening, landing before the startled janitor's feet. He picked up.

"What's this?" he asked, and opened it up. His eyes scanned the words, and when he got to the end he was mightily moved.

"Aw, that's a sweet valentine for you," the janitor said with a smile. It disappeared when he looked up at the lockers. "Now, which one did you fall out of? Too bad it wasn't addressed to anyone; otherwise it would've made things so much easier."

He stood there for a few minutes, debating which locker it had gone into. Was it the one with the white heart? No, I remember it was a darker colour: must be red. No, that's too dark, it's gotta be pink. No? Well, it's gotta be white then. Aw, which is it?

The janitor looked at the three lockers before him, each with a respective valentine colour. Which was it? White, pink or red?

His watch began to go off. He had to go straight away. Without thinking about it, the janitor slipped it into the locker with the red heart until it was gone from view.

"I hope to heck I'm right, or I'll have ruined someone's Valentine's Day," muttered the janitor, walking off. "Playing Cupid is dangerous and stupid."

As he switched off the hall lights, in a suburb far away Calvin was getting into bed. Hobbes was already asleep, snoring lightly as ever. The teen was thinking heavily of the next day, wondering if she would like the valentine and, if she did, would she reply?

I mustn't stress so much, otherwise my hair's gonna go all grey, and something tells me she doesn't like old guys.

As Calvin succumbed to his dreams, his last thought was of her, and he hoped for the last time that she'll accept the valentine – and his love.

And so Calvin lost consciousness until the morning came, unaware that the valentine resided in another locker. Another girl's locker, where there was supposed to be dead flowers and a black heart-shaped valentine resting inside instead, which he forgot to make …

I know, I know, Valentine's Day was two months ago, but I couldn't help it: I had to write another C&H fanfic, and I wanted something Calvin/Susie-centric. :D If you're reading my fic "A New Beginning", I apologize that I haven't updated recently, but school and JTR has taken up my time. :) Bear with me, please, and I'll update soon, I promise (I'm a bad liar). ^3^

Hmm, I wonder who she is? To tell you the truth, I have no idea. XD But she's not a Mary-Sue, flip no. All Mary-Sues must buuuuuuuurrrrrrn. Think of this girl as Rosaline, like in Romeo & Juliet: she's mentioned, but she's never seen. That helps, right? Right …?

Anyway, if there's any spelling mistakes or grammatical errors, don't hesitate to tell me! :D

Reviews are welcome! :)

Seeya! ;)