Author´s note: An AU high school fanfiction for One Piece. Main characters (for now) are: Nami, Ace, Koala, Robin. Main pairings are SaboxKoala and AcexRobin but several others will appear. I apologise for any OOC:ness. Flashbacks are written in italics.

Hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own One Piece or any of its characters.


Chapter 1.

Mother was careless enough to stop right outside the school gate.

"You can´t stop here!"

"Why not? It´s a legal parking spot." She was completely clueless to what she meant.

"Everyone will stare! Please, just drive around the corner."

Mother let out a dramatic sigh. "I´m already late for work because I wanted to drive you to school on your first day. Get out. Now."

Koala quickly stepped out of the car without another word. Her mother handed her the bag, and wished her good luck before she slammed the door shut after her.

She heard the engine creak, as the car sprung back into movement. Other students were watching her. Most were boys.

What do they think about the new girl student, arriving in a rusty, rundown Mazda? she thought. She cowered a little, as she walked across the gravelled path leading to the main entrance.

She had often imagined how her arrival to the new school would be like. In the ideal case, eyes would stare, mouths would drop open at the sight of her, and everyone would move out of her way, as she strolled through the corridors with equal parts grace and beauty. She would stand in front of her new class, saying her name out loud as she studied her new classmates, judging each by their appearance. The most popular and handsome guy would ask his friend to move, so she could sit beside him instead. Because she didn´t have any yet, he would let her read from his biology book. But she wouldn´t remember any function of the cell, because all she could think about was how his thigh almost touched hers, and wonder what shampoo he used because his hair smelled so good…

She snapped out of her thoughts. Her mother would have a heart attack if she knew what she was thinking about. Some of the words she said was still clear in her memory: ´Koala, up until now you have only attended girl schools. But this high school has the best reputation, even though it´s co-educated. If you focus on your studies, and not boys, I´ll allow you to go there.´

Of course, the reality wasn´t like her fantasies at all. In fact, almost none of the students paid any attention to her. Most students that had already arrived were busy talking with friends or just playing with their phones.

Thanks to the school orientation she did the previous week, she already knew the way to the classroom. She didn´t need to go to her locker, because she didn´t have any items to pick up yet. She didn´t have to leave any clothes either: It was late summer, and still warm enough to wear the school uniform outside.

She arrived early to the classroom; 15 minutes before the lesson started. The first class of the day was biology. It was not her favorite subject, but it was more interesting than most. The door to the classroom was still closed. She tried to open the door but it was locked.

"You can´t get inside yet." She looked around until she noticed who the voice belonged to. A boy, dressed in a school uniform just like her, sat on a bench, with a book open in his lap. But he had turned his face to look at her. "The teacher has to unlock the door before the first lesson starts."

"Oh, okay. Thanks."

"Are you here for biology?" She nodded. "Oh. You must be new then. I´m Sabo."

"I´m Koala. Nice to meet you."

"Same to you," he said, and their short conversation came to an abrupt end as neither of them knew what else to say.

He returned to his reading, and she stood with her back comfortably leaned against the wall next to the door, waiting for the minutes to pass. But unwillingly, her gaze wandered to the boy at the bench. Was he in her class? He must be. There were no other classrooms close by. Did he think she was rude, not saying anything? Was she rude? Probably. Her curiousity about him rose slowly but steadily, and soon her nervousness was overcome. She stepped closer to him, sideways along the wall. He was still focusing at his book. By now, she could almost see what he was reading. Page 49. It looked like a novel. She leaned a little closer. The cover was black. Was it a crime story? Or horror?

All of a sudden, the book closed. She saw him looking at her, and she wanted to disappear. "S-sorry." She began to quickly retreat to her "part" of the corridor, to diminish the embarrassment she felt, but a word stopped her in her tracks.

"Wait." He turned around on the bench so that he sat facing her. He was just about to say something, but someone spoke before him.

"Hey, Sabo! What´s up?"

The corners of his lips tilted upwards. The book disappeared down into his bag and she was forgotten as well, as he stood to greet a friend.

After that, it didn´t take long for the other students to arrive. The teacher came at 8.24, six minutes before the class was scheduled to start. He was maybe forty something, wore ill-fitting glasses, and the first thing he did was cheerily asking the students if they were happy that school started again. The answer sounded like a collective groan.

Koala made sure she was one of the last to enter. As she got into the classroom, the other students had already taken seats. She headed for an empty window table at the back of the room.

During the next minutes, more students came flooding in, until almost all chairs were occupied. She discreetly counted how many her classmates were.

Excepting her, there were twelve girls and sixteen boys. 28 complete strangers. The two girls who sat down at her table eyed her curiously, but other than that they only spoke with each other about their summers. And she didn´t want to intervene, not even to introduce herself.

She saw Sabo sitting in the front, laughing together with his friends. Being behind him, she couldn´t see his face, but still he seemed relaxed, leaning back in his chair with his legs stretched out in front of him. She found herself wondering what they were talking about that was so funny.

The teacher suddenly cleared his throat. He wished them a welcome back, and, after looking at a list, he noticed that there was a new student in class. As soon as he said that, everyone´s gazes turned to Koala.

What should she do? Stand up, to make her presence known? But everyone had already noticed her. Should she walk to the front of the classroom, and hold a speech about herself?

She only rose a hand, as a form of greeting. "Hi. My name is Koala."

"Do you want to tell us something about yourself, Koala?" the teacher asked politely.

"I used to go to a... a girls-only school," she said. She´d decided she didn´t want to keep it a secret.

Immediately, looks were exchanged and whispers shared between the students. The teacher spoke up loudly, effectively quieting them. "Oh? I guess all this must be pretty new to you then?" He made a circling gesture with an arm.

I have been in a classroom before, she thought. "I don´t know. I haven´t been here very long, so..."

"Of course not. Well, I hope you´ll enjoy studying here. Perhaps it would be helpful if you knew your classmates´ names."

Everyone told her their names, and Koala memorized them to the best of her ability, before the actual class started. It was just an introduction of the course, however, and no books were handed out.

The second class, math, went in the same manner, with only the course plan being introduced as an hour and a half passed. Koala sat once again next to the same girls as during biology, and they spoke a little, but the truth was that although they were all being nice to each other, the girls didn´t seem very interesting to her, and the feeling seemed mutual. The plan of befriending her bench mates miserably failed.

At 11, lunch break started. She was used to being around girls, it had been like that almost her entire life, and hanging out with girls was a familiar area to her. Yet although she would maybe feel more comfortable being around girls, she didn´t really want to. Not when she finally was in a ´normal´ school. Despite what her mother advised her against doing, she took a risk.

She caught up to Sabo after the class, and nonchalantly asked where the canteen was, even though she already knew. As she had hoped, he offered to show her. So she tagged along with him and his two friends as they went to the canteen on the ground floor. Her eyes fixed on a small, empty table away from the others.

But Sabo, her blonde knight for today, noticed she wasn´t following. He stopped, turned around and waved eagerly at her, and so she found herself eating together with only boys for the first time in her life.

She greeted those she hadn´t met before, and repeated her name, but other than that she ate in silence, merely observing what was almost an unknown species to her. But the boys weren´t so different from girls like she had suspected. Sure, maybe they spoke about different things, but they were still somewhat aware of each other and what they said, like girls. And they were actually really funny. They spoke loudly, as if they didn´t care whether the rest heard them or not. Actually, the environment in the hall was much louder than what she was used to, and after finishing her egg salad she felt inclined to leave.

But that was before Sabo, sitting next to her, leaned closer to speak to her.

"What do you think about the school so far?" he asked.

"It seems good," she said. "Well, I´m sort of nervous... no, not sort of but really nervous actually, but... I did orientation last week, so at least I already know where everythi..." She stopped, but she had realised her mistake too late.

"You know where everything is," Sabo finished for her.

Oh, no. How stupid could she possibly be? She covered her face with her hands. It had only been hours, and he must already think she was weird.

She heard him bursting into laughter. Sabo was laughing, at her. She took a deep breath, before she lowered her hands again. In only seconds, she had put her lunch box back into her bag and stood up. Her face was blushing, as it felt like everyone, not only around the table but in the whole room, was staring at her. She looked at Sabo one final time. His laughter had subsided, but he was still smiling, and there was an amused glint in his eyes. She didn´t want to leave without saying anything. "I´m sorry."

Next she knew, she was sitting on the floor in an empty corridor, trying to hold back sobbing. She was only in this state for no more than five minutes, before returning to her senses. Being overly emotional and sensitive was one of her biggest flaws, and she knew that she had fully, completely overreacted. She had acted like an idiot for long enough already; now, she had to go to the next class that would start in... 3 minutes!

Fate wasn´t completely against her today. As she came to the next classroom, she saw a familiar long, orange hair. The student turned around, as if she sensed her presence. As she noticed her, she smiled and waved her over to her table. Koala ignored Sabo, who glanced at her, and walked to Nami´s table in the back, sitting down on the chair she pulled out for her.

"I couldn´t come earlier," Nami explained. "I had a meeting with the student council. Took the whole morning." She studied Koala. "How has your day been so far?"

"It was alright," she said. "But, I´m really glad you´re here!"

Nami returned her smile with a kind one of her own. "So am I."

The teacher called for attention, and so began the better half of the day for Koala.


- Orientation, three days earlier -

The principal had greeted the few, newly arrived students, and taken each of their names as well as handing out schedules and other papers. The one who would do the actual orientation was a junior, a pretty girl going by the name of Nami. As the principal left, she briefly introduced herself, and asked them to tell her something about themselves in return.

"One of my friends will accompany us soon to assist with the orientation. He´s just a little late. But I´m sure you´ll like him. Unlike me, he´s a senior. Ah, there he is."

Koala slowly turned to see who Nami looked at, and not before then did she realise there was a man, wearing jeans and a sleeveless shirt, leaning against the wall next to her. She jumped in shock; he was standing way too close. His skin must have been less than a hand´s length away from her. He grinned down at her, clearly amused by her reaction. Her cheeks immediately burned and she looked away. As she took a step away, he stepped closer. Now she couldn´t move away from him any more, or she would bump into another student. She swiftly pulled past him and to the safety at the other side of the corridor.

"What´s this?" he said. He bent down and picked up her bag, that she´d accidentally dropped in her hurry. Now he walked towards her, and she couldn´t exactly run from him again, not when he had her bag. But he stopped at a long enough distance away from her, and held the bag towards her. "It´s yours, right? Here you go." A row of perfect, white teeth showed as he spoke.

"T-thank you," she quietly mumbled. Someone giggled, and Koala felt her cheeks burn more.

"Ace!" Nami exclaimed, breaking the awkward silence. "How nice of you to finally join us."

"Am I late? Shit. Sorry." Ace walked over to her, and Koala let go of the breath she´d been holding. He leaned his face close to Nami´s. "How should I make up for it?" he said with a deeper voice.

Nami only rolled her eyes. "These are the new students," she said, pointing at them.

He sighed. "Right. The fresh meat." Then he made a grimace, as Nami elbowed him in the side. "Ouch."

"Maybe you should repeat your names, so Ace can learn them too," she suggested.

They did. Koala was the only one who hadn´t mentioned her name yet, so Nami walked over to her to shake her hand.

"I´m Koala," she said. Nami stopped. Her eyes squinted. Koala might have imagined it, but it seemed almost like a shadow passed across her face.

"Koala. What a cute name," she said, now back to her usual, smiling self. "I hope you´ll like it here."

Ace appeared next to her. "I think this school suits you. For someone with assets like yours, the future must be bright."

Assets? What is he talking about? she wondered. I have really good grades from my previous school, but there is no way he knows that...

Nami cleared her throat. "You´ll have time to look at your schedules later. Now, we will show you where your classrooms and lockers are. This school´s pretty large, so it might be confusing at first, but you´ll surely find your way around soon."

Nami did most of the talking, while Ace mostly walked next to her, looking bored. Koala wondered why he even came with. Maybe it was standard procedure or something that two students are responsible for the orientation.

She was impressed by the size of the school, since the girl school she had attended before had been much smaller. The school had three floors. The classrooms were divided by sections of fields, for example some of the classrooms on the second floor was only for social studies, while another part was for language studies and so on. The canteen, consisting of a restaurant as well, was at the ground floor, and the gym was in an other building lying closeby.

None of the other new students were in her class, she quickly learned, and because of that she wasn´t too keen to befriend them. She spoke mostly with Nami, asking her questions about the school. She knew a lot, having gone to the school for two years, and politely answered each question.

She seemed very nice, too, especially compared to Ace, who would smirk slightly at her every time she looked at him. Koala believed they could become friends.

The tour took barely one hour, and after it, they were shown the location of their lockers. They would get their new books sometime during the beginnings of the courses. Nami repeated a ´welcome to the school´, and told them their classes would start at Monday and they were free to go home.

"If you have any questions, whatever it might be, don´t hesitate to contact me. I check my email daily," she finished, and Koala thought she looked especially at her, as she said that.


"I´m glad this day's over."

Ace and Nami had just gotten home. Nami stayed with her friend Ace for the beginning of the semester, because her mother was very busy with a large project and rarely home, and her sister had left for college. Coincidentally, Ace's parents were away on a cruise, to celebrate their anniversary, so Ace and Nami had the mansion to themselves.

"How come?" she asked. She took off her jacket and carefully hung it across a chair, while Ace kicked off his shoes and then kicked them into a corner of the room.

"Summer break is over. What, were you looking forward to returning to school?" She opened her mouth, but before she uttered a word, he continued to speak. "Of course you were. I forgot you're like the queen there."

"The queen?"

"Everyone loves you. Each student wants to be your friend, and the teachers surely worship you. And, your popularity rose especially after what happened to Hancock last year..."

"If you´re talking about those pictures, I had nothing to do with it. Unlike you."

"I was bored."

"You were lucky not to get expelled." She let out a sigh. "There is, however, an exception. A thorn in the side for my reputation."

"Aha. Who is it? Because I love gossip."

"I'm making coffee. You want some?"

He shrugged. "Why not?" He followed her into the kitchen, knowing she would tell him if he was patient enough.

As the coffee machine was brewing, she turned to face him. "Some weeks ago, Arlong broke up with me."

"The college student you've stuck to for almost a year? I thought you didn't like him very much."

"Whether I liked him or not doesn't matter. I put in a lot of effort in our relationship. I even went to his grandmother's birthday dinner."

Ace laughed. "You can't be serious."

"Actually, I said I would come, but I ´accidentally´ ate bad chicken the day before the party. Couldn't hold onto food for days."

He nodded. "But how does it affect your reputation? He's a college student, no one in the school should know him."

"Au contraire. Arlong met someone else days before he left me. It´s one of the new students - the sweet and innocent Koala."

"Oh. How upsetting that must be for you. And you know this how?"

"I found out, by one of his friends, that he invited her to his vacation house for winter." She reached for two mugs from a high cupboard. She took her time, probably knowing he was watching her from behind.

"You´re jealous," he said.

"How could anyone choose someone like her over me? She´s basically a kid. And I´m sure Arlong isn´t a pedophile." She finally reached the mugs, and filled them with the already-finished coffee before taking them to the table.

"She´s sixteen. She´s not a child, she´s just inexperienced. And, did you look at her body?"

"I´m not interested in girls. And you´re a pervert." She leaned forward over the table, showing more skin in the process. "Still, I want your help."

He tried very hard to look at her face. "With what?"

Her lips curved into a mischievous smile. "I need you to seduce the young Koala."


This chapter might pretty fastpaced at times and slower at others. Please, please leave a review. Any comments are welcome, also if you didn´t like the chapter, I´ll be extra thankful if you tell me what was bad so I can improve my writing.