A/N: Glad to see this has received a fair amount of support for its re-release. Thank you to all of you kind enough to leave a review after you finished reading! A huge thank you goes out to Ther-rizzle, aka Snickers3339, for helping me (majorly) with the characterisation of Miley. As a bloke, I am completely clueless when it comes to the female mind. Actually, I'm pretty clueless when it comes to most things concerning females... So, yeah... Thanks Theresa! If you haven't, read her brilliant stories and bug her to finish them via reviews!

I requested five for last chapter and just received my fifth one! For chapter three, I think five reviews before another update is fair. So enjoy chapter two and please leave your thoughts on the way out, mates. Cheers!

Disclaimer: I own nothing and am making nothing off of the following. Only thing I own here is the bloody brilliant rap by Oliver. Haha, kidding. I did write it though.

The Confused World of Oliver Oken

Chapter Two

The bus ride seemed to be taking even longer than usual today. Miley and I had finished reviewing our maths homework earlier and now I was currently sitting in silence while Miley and Lilly were talking about girl stuff. I randomly started rapping my knuckles against the window and then began creating a pretty nice beat. As I created the beat, I looked over at Lilly hesitantly to see she had stopped her discussion with Miley and was glaring at me, clearly giving me the warning look I received so often.

Now, I normally try not to show off my brilliant rhyming skills because I feel that it might be mean to those that can't rap as well as I can. I don't like making others feel lower than me due to my rapping ability; Lilly has a fairly strong right hand also and doesn't usually care for my raps.

I glanced up at her narrowed look one more time. Let the haters hate. The beat I was making was too good to pass up. I gave her a nod and started spitting.

"I'm currently rhymin' to my best friend Lil-lay

She represents the 'Bu but wants to live in the cit-tay.

She's pretty much sisters with my best girl Miles

She's ever so pretty and she never stops the smiles.

I'm the leader of our group and I'm known as Triple-O

You can recognise me by my brilliant flow.

We're the Malibu Trio and we're at the top of the game

Amber and Ashley?

We make 'em look lame.

Word."

I finished folding my arms across my chest, shades of my alter-ego, the ladies' man and all-star rapper, Mike Standley the III. A few people that had looked over were wearing a look that I read as clearly being impressed and a few others looked merely amused. Amber and Ashley said something with matching scowls and then did their stupid finger thing when they heard their inclusion in my rap.

Miley had glanced over at her own inclusion into my rap with an odd look on her face and a small smile. I looked over to her now and saw her head twist quickly away from me. I noticed she seemed to be fiddling with her mobile but the smile remained on her face. Was she flustered by me calling her pretty? Miles is beautiful, there's nothing for her to–

Whoa. I froze as the realisation of my thoughts hit me. Did I just call Miles beautiful? I glanced at her and she made a rather hurried movement away from me and started rummaging through her backpack. Was she staring at me? Why was she so flustered? Why am I thinking she's beautiful?

My brain started to hurt as I began trying to process all of this so I shook my head and glanced over to look around the bus some more and saw one person that had heard my rap and she was looking anything but amused or impressed. Lilly was clenching her fists and glaring at me.

"Miley?" Lilly asked in a suspiciously sweet voice. "Could you move forward slightly?"

Miley looked up at Lilly and seemed to immediately register what was going on and shifted towards the seat in front of us. I sure didn't know what was going on.

"Why does Miles have to–" I began but was cut off by Lilly swinging her backpack at me.

"Ow!" I said in as manly of a voice as I could. Lilly's backpack held her maths book and biology book. It hurt!

"What did I tell you about rapping?" she hissed at me. I glared at her and rubbed my shoulder.

"That one was pretty good though! Didn't you hear the part about Amber and Ashley?" I asked her. I mean come on! We all hate Amber and Ashley. Where's the love?

"Yes, that one was actually pretty good for you. Nice diss to Amber and Ashley," she said. I smiled proudly but it didn't stay on my face for long.

"Ow!" I said again as she hit me in the shoulder again, thankfully with just her hand.

"But I still told you that you're not allowed to rap," she said with a scoff. She then turned to talk with Miley again who looked this time I know I saw made a quick movement to look away from me. Lilly had a slight smirk to her face as she whispered to Miley who seemed to become slightly flustered at whatever Lilly was saying. This all just confused me even more as the bus continued to take us to school.

Upon arriving at school, I once again faded into my 'school daze' where I do everything on auto-pilot. I started with my locker before homeroom, this time opening it with merely two elbows to the top, a rap of the knuckles in the centre and a snap of my fingers. I put away my maths book and grabbed my biology book. Even though Kunkle's class wasn't until after homeroom, the big old book was a nice-sized pillow. Turning around, I saw Lilly and Miley were still talking, yet they kept glancing my way as they whispered fervently. They stopped as soon as they realised I had turned around and both turned back to their lockers. My mind still hadn't even begun to process the confusion from earlier and I wasn't about to try and comprehend what they were going on about. It would probably confuse me even more. I put it off to figure they were probably just going on about some more girl stuff. They seemed to be continuing their conversation as I looked over so I just shrugged, assuming they would catch up in homeroom.

I entered homeroom to find only a handful of the class there so far, so I managed to grab three desks near the back. I bung my backpack next to one and sat down. Mr. Corelli was currently kicked back in his chair, feet on the desk, reading the business section of the newspaper. I snorted. I didn't take him to be one that followed business and I was proved correct as the business section silently fell away, revealing the comics. The only other thing that caught my eye was Miley and Lilly finally appearing in the door way. Miley paused and scanned the room as if she was looking for someone. Her gaze stopped in my direction and smiled slightly as she walked over.

"Hey," she said rather quietly as she sat down next to me. I cocked an eyebrow slightly as she placed her book bag down next to her. Looking up, she met my gaze with an oddly shy smile.

"What?"

I continued to stare blankly at her in silence, partly to see what was up with her, partly to annoy her, partly to amuse myself. Her shy smile soon turned into an amused grin.

"What?" she asked with more force. I continued to remain silent and merely stared at her longer.

Her grin widened as her pretty smile completely filled her face. I've always had this power over her to – wait. I just did it again. Did I just think her smile was pretty? I mean it is but I can't be thinking this as her best guy friend.

Luckily, my thoughts didn't appear to show on my face as her smile continued to grow.

"What?!" she demanded. After refusing to give her anything again, she turned in her seat to smack me on the arm, causing me to yelp slightly.

I scoffed indignantly, causing her to let out an usual giggle that sounded almost... giddy? I rubbed my arm, causing her to shake her head in amusement.

"You're such a doughnut," she muttered with a bright smile. Her smile seemed to be infectious and I found myself smiling despite her physical attack.

I felt my stomach rumble a little bit so I turned to my backpack to grab something to eat. Rummaging through and pulling out a sandwich, I heard an amused scoff from beside me.

"Didn't you eat breakfast not half an hour ago?"

I nodded and replied, "It's been thirty minutes since I last ate! I'm a growing boy and I need my food."

She merely proceeded to shake her head as she asked with her cute Southern accent, "What's wrong with you boy?"

Wait. I did it again. My eyes widened slightly as the realisation hit me. Did I just call her Southern accent cute? I really shouldn't have had that hot fudge sundae before bed last night. First the weird dream; then I thought of her as beautiful; now I'm thinking her Southern accent is cute! I was woken from my thoughts by Miley waving her hand in front of my face.

"Anyone in there?" she asked.

I looked back at her as she scooted closer to me and felt my head. The contact for some reason made me feel warm. What was going on with me lately?

"You're acting doughnutty but not any more than usual..." she mused as she then placed a hand on my shoulder. "Are you all right?"

This action seemed to warm me even more but luckily I was again woken from my confusing thoughts as the hyperactive Lilly literally bounced into the desk in front of Miley and I. At her appearance, I noticed Miley remove her hand from my shoulder.

"What's up?" she asked slightly louder than was necessary, a very large perky smile on her face. Miley and I both shrugged.

"Not too much," she replied.

Lilly turned to look at Miley questionably and the two of them seemed to be communicating with that 'silent language' girls can speak. I looked back and forth between the two of my friends as each of their expressions changed during their 'discussion'. After some odd looks back and forth, Lilly suddenly turned to me.

"Soooooo..." she asked me with a slightly frightening look of all knowing on her face. "What have you two been up to?"

I stared in bewilderment at Lilly's odd behaviour and watched as she looked between me and Miley with a Cheshire cat grin.

"What do you mean?" I asked dumbfounded.

"Oh, nothing..." she replied with the same grin. "Just curious why you two were grinning so much when I came in. Did you two have a discussion? Talk about anything important?"

I blinked in confusion and turned to look at Miley to see if she knew what Lilly was on about. Miley seemed to be attempting to avoid Lilly's gaze, however, as she began busying herself with her book bag.

I was lost again. Lilly clearly knew something I didn't, though to be quite honest with myself, that wasn't exactly saying much. I can be just a little slow.

"What's going on?" I asked suspiciously.

Lilly glanced between me and Miley again with a strange smirk mixed with... excitement? I noticed Miley look up at Lilly and the two of them 'communicated' again. Finally Lilly seemed to agree to something and finally turned to me.

"Miley and I just have been talking the past few days," she stated as she glanced at Miley. I glanced over at her too and noticed she seemed extremely shy... a shyness I hadn't seen since... since we had met actually...

"–And she's just dealing with something that has bothering her for years," Lilly continued with a rather large smile. This time I looked at Miley completely with concern. Something was bothering her? And I didn't know?

"What's wrong Miles?" I asked softly, putting a hand on her shoulder gently, causing me to feel warm once again for some odd reason. I felt her jump slightly at my touch, causing me to worry even more.

"Miles?"

Miley shifted uncomfortably before turning to face me with what I could immediately tell was a forced smile.

"Really, Oliver, I'm okay," she said as she placed her hand onto the hand I had on her shoulder. I felt a shock at the touch and also noticed how small her hand was compared to mine. I could cover her hand completely with mine if I tried. Wait, why would I want to hold her hand like that?

I shook my head slightly to bring me back to the situation at hand and stared Miley in the eyes. Her bright, lively, and pretty eyes... A sort of light brown colour... Or hazel...? There is a bit of green in them, too. In this light, though, I think I see some blue and grey...

"What colour are your eyes exactly?" I suddenly blurted out. "They're really pretty."

I vaguely heard Lilly slip off the back of the desk she was sitting on as I mentally slapped myself for my mouth once again moving quicker than my head. Miley's eyes widened slightly at my remark but instead of hitting me or gagging or something else I might have expected, she smiled brightly.

"Really? Thanks Oliver. They're hazel but I've been told they change colour a little bit..."

I was about to describe to her all of the colours I saw but somehow managed to hold my tongue. Actually, I bit it, causing me some pain but it stopped me from revealing I had been staring into her eyes for some reason. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Lilly had picked settled back onto her desk and was smiling brightly, too.

"So, are you sure, you're okay?" I asked again.

"I'm fine, Oliver. Really," she replied with a more convincing smile. She squeezed my hand atop of her shoulder and gave me a slightly nervous smile before pulling out her maths book she had dug out of her book bag just a bit earlier. I still wasn't convinced, though. Especially as I noticed she wasn't really reading her book.

"We already reviewed our maths homework on the bus," I pointed out. Her response was to pick up her book and hit me with it on the shoulder before burying herself in it again.

"Ow!" I said as I rubbed my shoulder. Miley remained silent, however, and Lilly merely laughed before she turned around and walked up and sat on the desk of a shocked Mr. Corelli and began talking rapidly.

Lilly knew something about Miley that I didn't. Miley was dealing with something but I wasn't allowed to know about it. Both of my shoulders felt as if they were bruising. Something was going on. Something I didn't understand.

A/N: This chapter had a major overhaul compared to the original. I know many of you will have forgotten the original – I did! So if you would as you leave, please leave your thoughts. I'm working on correcting the characterisation of this story as well as attempting to make it flow better. I would love to hear what you guys are thinking – did you find something funny? If so, what? Did something literally make you 'laugh out loud' or did something literally make you say 'aww' or summat? What were your thoughts as you read this chapter? Let me know! Cheers.