Where Jack Frost Chapter 10

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Act 57: Where Consequences Were Certainly in Order

"I understand the dress. Humph! I understand the trolley full of boxes of the shoes! But what I do not understand is," the principal spluttered a little while stroking his beard, clearly more shaken than he would like to be, "a chandelier?"

"It was an accident," Elsa defended herself weakly. She had woken up about half-an-hour after the whole incident, so they hadn't admitted her at the hospital. They, however, did fix up the bruises and cuts she had - along her legs, arms and face - and she felt vaguely like a rag doll with all the patches slapped onto her.

"Do you know how much it costs?" Principal North continued on his tirade, his face turning almost crimson in his flabbergasted rage. He let out such a vehement string of Russian curses that the girl edged her chair away from him, slightly concerned. Rubbing his face with a large palm, he let out a long sigh. Facing her with a grim expression, he told her, the thickness of accent not hiding the seriousness of his tone, "You know that there are students in other schools who have been expelled for less."

This hadn't gone as she had expected. She expected a reprimand and a truck load of detention even, but expelled? "I know that it's not really my place to say," Elsa said, syllables slipping over one another in her alarm, "but that's a little extreme, don't think, sir?"

"Well," North shrugged, pouring himself a mug of coffee from the coffee-maker pot on his shelf, "fight between students usually do not merit an expulsion, but having it in a public area? And destroying hundreds worth of property at the same time?" He shook his head, gazing at her in a manner that seemed so heartbreakingly sorrowful that it almost made her keel over and beg for forgiveness. "Once, I can excuse as impulse, but twice? This time there has to be consequences." The large man reclined back into his chair, locked his fingers together and waited, it seemed, for her to give a good reasonable explanation.

The problem was that, well, Elsa didn't have one. When she parted her lips to speak once again, she felt her tongue folding back on itself. Part of her itched to have a pen in grasp again, to be able to churn out the reasons on the paper as she had done so many years before, but that part of her was quickly silent by the other part of herself who remembered how much she hated that process – to build walls of cold, clear logic to defend a thesis she despised.

Thus, no words left her mouth and her nail-painted hands curled up around each other. Her eyes were glued down to the floor as the silence dragged on.

She heard the principal let out a disappointed exhale, before finally breaking the stillness himself. "I will not be expelling you."

Elsa let out an inaudible sigh of relief. Though her care-free attitude said otherwise, she was actually unprepared to truly let everything go. She was frightfully unprepared to leave school.

"I will, however, be suspending you."

Her eyes widened in horror. Suspension? It wasn't as bad as expulsion, but if she thought punching Hans had earned her black mark, a suspension drove the nail into her coffin. It would show up in all of her transcripts for sure, like a glaring zit on a photo-taking day. Any college she applied to know would definitely hone in on it and attack it.

"Now, it won't be very long," North explained hastily, almost as if he were reassuring. "Just a day."

"But," Elsa protested, and found again that her inventory of defences was empty.

"You would be given work to do, which would be due on the day of your return," North continued on, scribbling something on a notepad near his phone, before using his pencil to stir his coffee. "I hope that you would use your time wisely to contempt your error."

She corrected him without thinking. "You mean 'contemplate', sir?"

"Contempt. Contemplate. Are they not the same?" The Russian-born principal grimaced at the words. "Whatever the matter, use your suspension time wisely. Your sister sadly-" North sighed for what must have been the millionth time that day, rising the mug to his lips and sipping the coffee, "-never got much out of hers."

Elsa blinked, straightening up. "Wait. Anna has been suspended before?"

The principal seemed astonished at her own astonishment. "Well, quite a number of times. I assume you knew."

No, she didn't know, because her old self had never tried especially hard to know her sister better, and her new self had somehow never come across this topic at all. Certainly not in all the new conversations that she was supposed to have with her sister anyway.

With a slight edge in her voice, Elsa inquired, "What exactly did my sister do?"

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Act 58: Where Old Habits Die Hard, but Somehow Wouldn't Just Die.

"You introduced a flock of ducks into the school swimming pool!"

"It was just a harmless joke," Anna said with a wave of her hand. "The swim captain had been pushing us all way too hard during that time, so I decided to annoy her. Besides," she giggled, "the ducklings were way too adorable! It was totally worth it!"

"Anna," Elsa's tone was testy, "the pool couldn't be used for months! And there were people in the swim team who were allergic to ducks!" She was literally shaking her fists at the school compound. By the time they had both had their turns with Principal North, the sun had long disappeared down the horizon and the school compound, which had been desolate through the weekend, felt even more hollow and uninhabited. In the darkness and shadows, it was as if they were in a foreign land.

"And that time when you carried out your experiments in the school lab at after hours without supervision," the older girl rattled on, still incredulous about all the deeds that she had just learnt about. "Were you insane?"

"Burning magnesium's so pretty," was Anna's comeback and it was not a very good one.

"Not when your 'magnesium' is actually sodium!" Elsa fumed, her teeth grinding against each other as she mentally went over all of her sister's exploits. "How could you not know the difference? Sodium's always stored in oil and magnesium's stored dry!"

"I'm not very smart, okay?" was the younger girl's annoyed retort. "I didn't actually pay attention in science classes."

"And that time when you actually caused a power shortage in the entire school building? I can't believe that you never told me that it was you!"

"Well, I would have, except that I knew that you'd react like this!" Anna growled back, folding her arms and looking genuinely cross herself. "And besides, it's not as if we were exactly on speaking terms." Muttering – "And who's fault was that?"

"Don't try to change the subject," Elsa snapped, her jaw tightening as she brushed aside the glower her sister shot her. Gritting her teeth and trying not to pull on her braid, she stopped them both in the middle of the corridor, earning a questioning look from Anna. "All this time, you had all these-" she grappled for a word "-offences pinned under your belt and I have no idea." Making a guttural sound under her throat" - I don't know what make me madder – the fact that you did them or the fact that I don't know about them!"

"Well, you would have known about them if you bothered to find out," Anna pointed out, wrinkles deepening in her forehead. "But you never really cared much about me in the first place."

"That's not true," Elsa denied, feeling deeply indignant.

"Oh, really?" The younger girl spun to her sharply, tone suddenly acrid and harsh. "What about all the times you would purposely go out of the way to ignore me? Hmm? -" arms akimbo, voice louder "-Or when you do talk to me, you're either not interested or overtly critical of - I don't know - just every tiny little thing I do?"

"I am not 'overtly critical'," the blonde contradicted, expression displaying her growing annoyance. "I'm just the right amount of critical, and you do make some terrible life choices, if the string of suspensions you apparently have attained are anything to go by."

"Well, forgive me for being human." The way she drew out the last two words conveyed with surprising conciseness the scorn that Anna truly felt. Brushing aside the strands that had fallen on her face, the younger girl said, cold and clear, "Because some times when you try, you fail. But it's better than not trying, like some people I know."

Taken aback but not willing to concede, Elsa asked, "What are saying?"

"I'm saying, -" though her hands were clenched and her hands were flushed red, the tears in Anna's eye couldn't be missed, "-I've been trying, and I'm still trying, but you're not giving me very much to work worth with and this whole-" she gestured between them furiously "- 'blood's thicker than water' thing is seriously not working!"

Something what she had said did strike a chord with Elsa – in a matter of fact several things struck many, many chords with her. Slightly regretful, she reached out a hand and placed on her sister's shoulder, breathing out heavily, "Anna-"

"Don't, Elsa." With a chilliness that she didn't know her sister could possess, the brunette girl shrugged her hand off. Hardened and bitter, Anna told her, "I can't keep living like this – thinking that we could be best friends again, then thinking that we can't, then thinking that you enjoy my company, then thinking that you hate me."

"I-" Elsa tried to cut in, but Anna glossed over her forcefully.

"Get back to me when you've actually made up your mind, okay?" The other girl pulled away from her, spinning firmly around and marching down the corridor. "I suck enough at relationships, so if you don't mind, I'm trying to work out which are the people in my life that I can actually rely on."

By right, the new, bold Elsa with absolutely no fears or inhibitions should have run right after her angrily departing sister. She would engulf Anna in a hug and sob apologies for her negligence as the elder sibling, while promising instead to preserve the spirit of family in whatever remained of it.

But the truth was that the truth was often not easy. The earth was not exactly a sphere, tasty food was usually bad for your health and changing your entire life philosophy after punching a boy into a pool didn't mean that your basal instincts would alter according. And Elsa's basal instincts was to watch Anna walk away, with darkness filling the gap between them.

Even if she regretted every single second of it.

After Anna had long disappeared, Elsa stood alone in the empty corridor, staring down the long stretch of lockers and scratching uncomfortably at her bandages. After perhaps a minute – or maybe fifteen of them, she decided that tight sneakers that she had to borrow from Anna (the broken heel of her boot that betrayed her after all) were killing her feet and that she should change out of them.

She had left a decent set of flats in her locker, so she decided that she would journey to retrieve them. It wasn't all that far from her current position and soon she was kicking off the borrowed pair and slipping on the much more fitting pair. Of course, she hadn't worn the respectable, plain ballet flats ever since she had gone through her 'makeover' and donning them again gave her a mix of comfort and strangeness.

After she shut the locker door, she held the sneakers up and sighed. Elsa knew that she would have to return them to Anna eventually, but that would mean seeing her sister again. Seeing Anna meant a confrontation, and a confrontation was going to a plethora of emotions and uncomfortable thoughts.

For all she wished to be free with her feelings, emotions still did scare her.

As she prepared to make her way out of school – the janitor would be around soon to lock up the whole place at nine – she heard the creaking of hinges from another locker further down. Puzzled, she approached the source of the noise and found there on sight a boy removing a stack of worksheet from the locker. "Jack?"

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Act 59: Where A Wonderful, but Horrible, but Also Wonderful, Mistake was Made

Have you ever wondered what the world would be like if clouds were actually made of cotton candy-like material instead being water droplets suspended in the air? Well, one, the world would probably suffer a terrifying mix of flood and drought, and two, this has absolutely no relevance to our story.

Well, okay, it was a little relevant. The question I posed above was indeed the one that had been occupying Jack while he removed Hans' homework for the week from his own locker, which was why he was startled when his name was called.

That, and his unethical arrangement with his pathologically eccentric redheaded rival was something he didn't want to reveal to the whole world.

Fumbling with the large stack and almost dropping it, but somehow managing to not do so and hugging it to his chest instead, Jack twisted his neck to see who it was that had almost caused the largest paper spillage in world history. It just took once glance at her to set his heart racing.

"Elsa," he said, surprised because that was what he was. He tried to hide that he was ecstatic that she had actually remembered his name after such a long while, because that was stupid, even bordering on pathetic. If he could roll his eyes at himself, he would.

Oh, wait, he could roll his eyes at himself. Hmm.

But now it wasn't the most appropriate time for him to do so, because the girl he had been crushing on for a good hard of his life was looking at him right now. Not that he should actually care about the opinion of someone who didn't care very much about him.

She eyed the large stack that he had pressed against himself, barely able to keep it from slipping out of his grasp. Slowly, she asked, "Need help with that?"

"Um, no," he lied, trying to adjust the stack in his arms only to for the stack to start slipping out even more.

The blonde girl rolled her eyes, because apparently she had no such inhibitions about doing that to him. Approaching him, she began grabbing part of the pile out of his grasp despite his protests.

"I had it," he muttered sourly as he straightened out his much lighter burden against the doors of the lockers.

"Of course you did," Elsa said, disbelief clear in her voice. Neatening up her own stack, she asked, "What are you doing here anyway?"

"Left homework here. Didn't want to wait till tomorrow to come get it," was his brief answer. He wasn't going to mention that most of it wasn't his own homework, of course. Kicking the locker door shut, he nodded to her stack. "Are you going to give that over?"

"I can manage it," the girl said, shaking her braid behind her. It was then he noticed the multitude of bandages stuck all over her body.

Trying not to seem too concerned, but yet not willing to keep silent – "What on Earth happened to you?"

She sighed, blowing off a lock of white-gold that fell over her eyes – an act that somehow he oddly still found rather appealing. Her shoulders slumped back and she grimaced. "Well, I suppose the whole school would find out by tomorrow. Somehow they always do."

So she recounted to him the shopping expedition that she had gone onto with her sister, her encounter and subsequent battle with Astrid Hofferson of the craved 'perfect dress' and, with a great deal of reluctance, her suspension.

"Wow," was all Jack could say, stunned. "Sounds like you had quite an adventure."

"You could call I that, I suppose," Elsa said wryly, fiddling with one of the sheets. "It did kind of go haywire at the end – that, and the chandelier was a bit much."

"You have to admit that it's quite a feat," he remarked jokingly, trying to lightened the mood. "Even on my list of mischief, I've never achieved something of that level."

"You make sound like it's something desirable," she commented, gazing up at him with a mix of amusement and disapproval – a muted sort of expression that seemed more like her droll-self rather than the flamboyant wild child that had been roaming these corridors for the last few weeks. Yet, Jack couldn't help but welcome the familiar manner.

"Well, I don't know." He shrugged. "Did you have fun?"

Elsa considered his question with a good deal more seriousness than he expected and when he was about to put in that he was just kidding, she answered, "For that split second before the trolley flipped over, yeah, I did."

"Oh." He blinked in surprise, for he had never thought that. "Well, did you like having fun?"

Jack watched as she sunk back into deep thought again, then said, "I suppose I did."

"Then it's worth it," he declared, grinning. "I mean, sure there's the suspension, but hey, one day you'll get to tell your kids all about the dumb things you did in high school. It'd make a great story"

She snorted at his answer, but he could see how the side of her lip twisted upward and felt his heart leap in his chest … and this was getting really weird. He was sort-of dating her sister, and she had pretty much rejected him before, so, yeaaaahhh. He needed to leave before this got weird, and by 'weird', he meant that before he did something very stupid.

"That's rather sweet of you, you know."

Jack blinked, mentally recounting to himself what he had just said and not finding how it she could have come up with this conclusion.

"Most people," Elsa absentmindedly straightened out one of the sheets of the stack she was holding, "think that I'll die depressed, bitter old hag. Sometimes, I think that of myself. So-" her eyes flitted up to him "-thank you for thinking I would ever have children. Or start a family." Her face darkened. "Or that any family I have would last sufficiently for me to have close enough a relationship to that I would tell them stories about my childhood."

"Um, sure." He was little puzzled by this. "Though I honestly can't see why you having kids –," he blushed slightly "-if you wanted to, I mean – would be so unbelievable. I mean, you're pretty and smart. I'm sure there'll be plenty of guys who'd throw themselves at your feet."

She raised her brow at him.

He still didn't get it. "What? It's true."

Elsa beamed at him, but more in an indulgent way than from actual pleasure. There was a good measure of remorse in her voice as she spoke, "You're a nice guy, Jack, but you know as well as I do that everyone in this school either fears me or detests me."

"That's not true," he rejected her words even before he had time to process them.

"It is," she insisted, leaning herself back into wall of lockers and sighing. "I mean, look at me." Scrunching her face up, the blonde girl glanced idly down at the stack of papers she still held. "I'm an emotional wreck, only able to swing from extremes. Either too much or too little." She picked at one of folded dog-ear on the pile. "I suppose it figures that I'm a quite a disappointing elder sister."

He didn't have to think very hard to put the pieces together. "So you fought with Anna again." Jack hummed in puzzlement. "But I thought you guys were getting along better, like that time at the sorbet parlour?"

"It was getting better, but then I ruined it." She stamped a foot on the ground, annoyed but apparently not with him. "I lost my temper with her earlier, then she blew up too, and now…"

Elsa trailed off there, but it was more than sufficient to convey to Jack what had occurred. It did come to his attention though that unlike the first few times when she had complained to him about Anna, this time she directed the blame all to herself She told him almost nothing of what her sister had done to actually earn her wrath. Perhaps the fault really did lie with herself, but having her admit that so readily was strangely refreshing.

"Hey," he told her gently, earning a meek glance up towards him. "Look, you just need to tell her you're sorry."

She seemed confused by it. "I'm … sorry?"

Jack felt a pang of pity for her by how genuinely lost she appeared. With how proud she had been in a good part of her life, how many times had she actually apologised to anyone? "I mean, you do regret getting mad with her, right? So, just apologise, be sincere about it and she'll forgive you. Anna's not the petty type. She won't hold it against you."

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah, like that." He nodded approvingly. "You just need to find the courage to say it to her."

"No, I meant that I am sorry," she spoke with greater earnestness, gazing directly at him. "To you. I'm sorry."

He took a step back, eyes glazing over. "Wha-"

"I figured that I've probably hurt you a couple of times – many with words, at other times with actions," Elsa confessed, shamefacedly staring down at the stack she had been carrying for him. "I know you didn't deserve all that, so I think I owe you an apology."

"Oh." Jack felt a little peculiar at this twist in events, as if someone had picked up a giant ice-cream cake and dropped it in front of him without leaving instructions on what to do with it. So he here was, flopping listlessly around and not knowing how to react. "Oh."

"You're a really nice guy – like genuinely and sincerely nice," she went on, pulling herself off the lockers and finally handing the stack she had out to him, which gratefully added to back to his original pile. "You don't pretend to be perfect, or pretend to be nice, or pretend anything. You're just who you are." She bit her lip, folding her now free arms together. "Sometimes, I wish I could be like that."

If you had asked him a month ago if he'd thought Elsa Arendelle, his lifelong crush, would ever willingly deliver a string of compliments to him, he would have laughed. But standing here at this moment, having her say all that without a tint of sarcasm or a shade of artifice, he knew that beyond doubt that she meant it … and also beyond doubt that it wasn't true.

Against his own better judgement, he let out a groan and pulled off one of the sheets from his stack. "Take a look at this."

She took the sheet that he offered with a perplexed mien, but nonetheless studied it gravely. He felt dread pool in his stomach when her brows shots up and her head raised to face him. "Why do you have Hans' homework?"

With a sigh, he explained to her his predicament with his unwilling tutee and the guidance counsellor. Actually saying it out loud made him cringe at how stupid his situation sounded, but at the same time, he felt a great burden in his chest being lifted out as he shared this with her. It was strange to tell her all this, considering he hadn't told anyone else – not Kristoff, not Bunny, and certainly not Anna. But somehow, when he spoke to her, he couldn't help but be exactly honest with all his thoughts and feelings. The moment was so comfortable that both of them eventually ended up sitting down on the floor, backs leaning against the lockers, with him talking and her actually listening while glaring down at the stack of homework that didn't really belong to him.

"So, yeah, you must think me a loser," Jack finished, curling himself up like a ball against the locker. He steeled himself for the sharp rebuke that he had little doubt that she would deliver.

By her frown, Elsa was definitely displeased with the matter, but her answer was not what he had thought it'd be. "The next time I see Hans, I'm going to punch him again - hopefully into a ditch of manure this time."

Jack blinked at her.

"He's a manipulative, calculative, indolent jerk who exploits others for his own end," she explained curtly, brows furrowed together. "And also because I really want to."

"Wow. Um, I appreciate the sentiment, but-" he raised his hands up helplessly "-Hans would just find a way to blame me for it, and then the guidance counsellor would give me these heartbreakingly disappointed looks and I'll have to sit through a long dialogue with North again. And I'll have another mark on my conduct grade." He sighed, not daring look up. "Sometimes I wonder if I'd even get a job after high school."

"You will," came her ready answer not less than a second after he had stopped for a breath. "You're bright, earnest and sincere. Just wait and see – you'll have employers throwing themselves at your feet."

The thought of dozens of elderly men in formal suits and tie attire belly flopping themselves at his feet tickled him, so he burst into snickers.

"What?" Elsa was perhaps slightly annoyed with his reaction. "I was perfectly serious."

"I know, I know," he wheezed in between guffaws, grabbing his side, "it's just-" he exploded into laughter again.

After he managed calm down and wipe the tears from his eyes, he shared his peculiar image with her and she despite herself smiled at him, though she told him that she didn't think it was that hilarious (yeah, right she didn't) and then they both spent three minutes just taking turns to chuckle.

A little later after the laughing attack, both them just sat side by side at the lockers, not really saying anything, Jack said what he hadn't meant to say out loud. "I like this."

"You like this?" Elsa eyed him questioningly. "Sitting on a dirty floor of the school corridor at night?"

"No." He debated with himself on whether he should tell her, and it was only a minor struggle. "I like sitting here. With you."

She regarded his remark with a little alarm. "Oh." She hooked a lock of hair behind her ear, and part of him wished that he could have helped her with that. "But wouldn't Anna be more cheerful company?"

Anna. Right. Anna. The sweet kid who made him heart-shaped sandwiches and brought him ice-cream. His prom date. Her sister.

Reluctantly, Jack said, sitting himself up rather stiffly, "Yeah, but well, -" he paused, "-Anna's a good deal more cheerful, and loads of fun. But I don't know-" he shook his head "-there some things that I just can't talk to her about. When it comes to like deeper stuff, I just feel-" he used a nail to scratch a line down the stack of papers "-I feel like she doesn't want to know."

She peered at him quizzically. "Know what?"

"That I'm flawed. That I'm not the perfect prince charming that she would like me to be." He let out a heavy exhale while gesturing dismissively at himself.

"Well, you're no prince charming, true," he felt her drawing nearer to him and her cold hand pressed against his cheek, turning his head so that she could look him in the eyes, "but you're pretty perfect to me."

Before he could actually take in what was said, she had already leaned over and pressed her lips against his.

The first vestiges of shock were melted quickly as he absorbed the moment and realized that Elsa – the Elsa that he had liked since, well, forever - was kissing him. At her own free well.

And he hoped that she'd never stop.

He supposed that first time kisses were supposed to be short time little pecks full of blushing and awkwardness, with one party running away later while feeling completely elated. But then, he remembered that actually that 'first time peck kiss' had already happened what seemed to be ages ago when they had used the med-bay stretcher bed to go bed-riding down the school corridor.

So that meant that this was second kiss. What happened at second kisses? Movies never educated about those. Were they supposed to bear the innocent of the first, but with more confidence and purpose? Were they supposed to be clumsy still, but with a slight improvement in passion? Were they supposed to feel absolutely magical?

He wasn't sure exactly when his arms had circled her neck or when her fingers started carding themselves through his white hair. But it must have happened at some point because when they pulled apart, they were latched together in such a manner - panting, flushed, and a little confused about their whereabouts.

He must have been smiling at first, because he felt it when that smile slipped off his face, along with the blood draining from his cheeks. Shuffling himself back a bit too much and thus slamming himself into the lockers, he stared at her with a wild-eyed look.

Elsa treated his response with an expression of annoyance. "What?"

"You-" he couldn't get the word out of his throat, not with the way it was clogging up "-why did you – you-"

She turned crimson, and it was then that he realized he had never seen her turn that shade before. Honestly though, it was a good look on her. Well, she never looked bad in anything –

-okay, seriously, Jack, FOCUS.

"Well, I guess that I like you."

Wait. WHAT. "What?"

"I like you, Jack," she said simply. "You make it hard for me not to."

He stared at her, unable believe his own ears. This had to be some kind of joke, or a horrid hoax, except that he knew that she wasn't the type to do either.

Something in his expression must have told her as much, because Elsa then added, drawing herself back, "I get it if you don't believe me, and-" her face was unreadable but the hand which brushed her fringe back trembled "-it's fine if you don't like me back anymore."

He stared at her, his heart in his throat and completely at a loss of what to do or say next. He scrambled for some kind of action, or word, or anything, but he came out blank. Panicked, he grabbed the stack of worksheets, shot up to his feet and dashed away down the empty corridor, away from her.

Because if he stayed any longer, he might kiss her back, and that wouldn't solve his current problem.

It's remarkable the speeds that a person can attain when they really put their legs into running, even more so if they had a good reason for their hurry. In less than a minute, he was back inside the dorm building, breathless in the corridor as he tried to fit his key into his room door. Then after fitting it and turning it, he realized that the door had not been locked before and not he had just locked himself out. Smacking himself on the forehead and muttering curses, Jack twisted the key the other way and turned the knob, only to find his roommate standing in front of the door way with a boomerang raised overhead and bearing an extremely aggressive expression.

"Whoa!" Jack jumped back, raising his one free hand to guard his skull. "What are you doing?"

"Oh, it's just you." Bunny let out a sigh relief, lowering the boomerang. "I thought the watercooler apocalypse might be have started."

The tenseness in Jack's posture did not leave him. "The what-now?"

"Nevermind." The other boy shrugged before moving aside, letting his roommate enter the room. Jack still cast suspicious glances towards him every now and then while creeping over his side of the room. He dropped the stack of sheets on his table while Bunnymund replaced his boomerang on the shelf. The Australian student then dropped back into his own seat, asking, "What's all that?"

Jack gazed questioningly at him "Hmm?"

"That stack." Bunnymund pointed at the paper tower that stood at the edge of his desk. "What's all that?"

"Oh, just practice stuff," Jack lied, sliding into his seat with false casualness. Hoping that the rapid thumping of his heart wouldn't be noticed by his roommate, he went on, "To prep for finals, you know."

"Yes." Bunnymund was looking at him oddly.

Jack frowned. "What? Is there something on my face?"

"Actually, -" the other boy pointed towards the side of his mouth.

The white-haired lad rubbed a finger along the site indicated on his own face and found a light purple stain there. Lipstick. The thought of where it came from made him turn red while he furiously wiped the rest of the waxy substance off with his sleeve.

His behaviour was observed by the doubtful eyes of Bunnymund, who stared at him as if he had just grown a set of claws and fangs. Eventually though, the Australian boy grew bored of this occupation and returned this time not to paint his eggs, but actually bury his head in a magazine titled 'Kangaroos – Relatives of the Rabbit or Spies of Aliens? Also, Do Carrots Really Improve Eyesight or was that Invented by the Carrot Farming Corporation?'

This left Jack with a bout of silence that would have been extremely helpful for his studying, or doing Hans' endless pile of undone homework, except that his brain could only think about one thing, and no, it wasn't Pythagoras Theorem.

Elsa kissed him. Sure, he didn't just sit there and take it either, but she definitely initiated it. And she liked him. She actually said that she liked him. It was like a dream come true. Except, well, for one teeny, tiny yet important detail.

Anna.

Jack let out a very long exhale as he set his head in hands. Anna liked him a lot – he knew that, because Anna held no secrets about her feelings. She treated their time together like it was sacred, laughing at all his jokes and tricks, dragging him off to eat foods that she knew he liked.

She'd be crushed if she'd ever knew what had happened. He had been the one to comfort her after her harsh break-up with Hans. In a way, she saw him as her knight-in-shining armour that had rescued her from an ugly relationship. which would make this infinitely worse.

He considered options. He could pretend that it never happened, of course, and if he did, Elsa probably would too. No one else was there, so no one else knew and there was no one else to tell Anna. Everything would be as it had been and he would take Anna to Prom and then he'll graduate and then…

…And then what? Would they continue dating? If he somehow managed to get into a college out of state, would they try some long-distance thing? Would they break up? Would they stay together?

The more he thought about these questions, the more he realised that he didn't want think about them at all. He didn't want to consider these possibilities, because very simply, he did not intend for them to happen.

It was clear that even before he had started thinking about this that he had made his decision. He knew what he had to do.

But Anna was a decent kid – more that than, she absolutely wonderful. She didn't deserve to be chucked in the bin like old news. No, she deserved to have it honest, straight from him.

Hans' homework and his own study materials were shoved to a side of the desk as he drew up a writing pad and began writing.

"Anna, I suppose it's only fair to you-"

~~~0~~~

Act 60: Where Our Hero Received Not One, but Two Slaps

"'-that you know the truth. In the past few weeks, in which we have been sort-of -together'' – wait, you're actually going to say 'sort-of-together'?" Kristoff sounded disapproving as he scrutinised the script. "What happens if all this while she thought that you guys were really 'together-together'? It might hurt her feelings."

"I'm trying to break up with her, Kristoff," Jack hissed, peering warily at the other students around them. Some of them had been shooting him dark looks throughout the morning and he wondered if they had heard the two of them talking. "This whole thing is going to hurt her feelings anyway."

"Yeah, but the least you can do is try to be nice about it," Kristoff urged, scanning down then next couple of lines and muttering them under his breath.

"I am trying to be nice about it," the white-haired boy whispered fiercely, which earned him a scowl from a passing student, though Jack in truth had no idea who that girl was. "That's the only reason why I'm asking you to vet it!"

"'I've never really liked you as much as you've liked me,'" Kristoff read from the sheet of paper. "Wow. Really twisting the knife there."

"Are you actually going to give any-" Jack cut himself off he pondered over the line, then said, "Yeah, let's scrap that line. She doesn't need to know that."

"Okay." Holding the sheet against his arm, Kristoff marked off the line with a pen, before reading the next part of the script. "'But most importantly, I want you to know you are an amazing girl and any fella' who gets you is the luckiest man in the world. But that guy isn't going to be me. I've known that for a while and I suspect that you do too.'" The blonde boy paused for a moment before continuing. "'I really hope that we can stay as friends, but if you don't want to, I don't blame you. I really wish you all the best, because if anyone deserves it, it's you. Geez." He shook his head as he appraised the sheet of paper one last time. "This makes me feel like crying and it's not even addressed to me."

Jack nipped the sheet from his fingers and folded it up. "Trust me, if I didn't have to do this, I wouldn't. But-" he pursed his lips together for a moment "-she deserve to know the truth and that it's not her fault. It's the least I can do."

"Well, no time like the present." Kristoff clapped him on the shoulder and nodding ahead. There in the crowd a brunette with twin braids bobbed through the sea of heads, possibly moving towards her own classroom.

The white-haired senior student blanched. "Wait. Right now?"

"Well, better now than later. If you put it off, you might chicken out," Kristoff pointed out.

Despite himself, Jack conceded that the blonde junior boy had a point. It was like ripping off a bandage right? The quicker you did it, the quicker it'd be over.

"Wish me luck," he muttered to the junior student as he unfolded the script to take one last glance at him.

"Good luck, heartbreaker."

Jack gave him a withering look.

"What? It's true."

"I really need rethink our friendship," the white-haired boy put in pertly, before stepping forward and squeezing his way through the crowd. The constriction that had been attacking his chest since morning only worsened as he drew nearer and nearer to his target. Once or twice, he genuinely thought of backing out, but then he thought of the kiss (the second one, if that first peck was counted) and he knew that there was a part of his heart that he could never give her.

"Anna," he called for her through the crowd, but she kept walking on. It was pretty noisy though, so she probably didn't hear him.

He shoved past a couple of huddling students who all turned to glare at him. He wove his way past the cheer team, who taught it appropriate to practice their steps in the middle of the congested locker corridor. He managed to wriggle his way out of reach from the fundraisers trying to sell him cookies that he knew tasted disgusting. When he was right behind her, he grabbed her arm to get her to stop. "Anna, listen, I need to talk to-"

The girl swung straight around and he then noticed that she had a scowl on her face. Before he could inquire on what wrong, he felt a burning slap strike him across the cheek, causing him to gasp in astonishment. He could hear gasps echoing around the corridor as the students around him suddenly went silent and all eyes were glued on the two of them.

Massaging the red mark that had appeared his face and wincing at his smarting cheek, Jack asked, incredulous, "What was that for?"

"For being a two-faced, jerk-faced cad," Anna growled at him, her eyes burning with fury and her face countenance. Without warning, she struck him again on the same side and he cried out in shock to feel the dying sting once again. "And a liar. If you hated me so much, why didn't you just say so?"

"What?" Jack was stunned. "Anna, I don't hate you."

"Maybe not, but you don't like me much, do you?" she accused.

"What? No. I mean, well, er – where is all this coming from?"

"Stop pretending!" Anna grabbed him by the collar and dragged him down sharply so that he was at her height. "I already know what happened."

"You-" his thoughts were in turmoil. This was going rapidly turmoil. "How?"

"Everyone in school knows, Jack," she barked at him, arms flailing wildly. Some of the onlookers started to feel a little uncomfortable hurriedly stepped away, but others spectators in want of a better view were more than happy to feel those gaps. Anna took no notice of them though, choosing to stare at him as if she was trying to make him to explode with her mind. "It's online. Someone uploaded it yesterday."

His heart sank. "It?"

"A short clip. Blurred, but clear enough to tell it's you." She folded her arms, corner of the lip downturned. "You and Elsa."

Yep, it has all gone south. His break-up speech was now completely useless. "Anna, let me explain-"

"That what, you still like my sister? I mean, I can understand that. She's only a dozen times prettier and smarter than me." A harsh guttural note rose out of her throat, with each words soaked in bitterness. "What I don't get is that you still like her after all the times that she'd rejected you and snubbed you." Anna gesticulated wildly at him, disgust smeared on every inch of her mien. "What on Earth is wrong with you?"

He thought of saying something, some little defence to make him sound less stupid, but he caught the tears hidden in the corners of her eyes and his tongue was immediately knotted up and swallowed back. He stood stark still before Anna as she searched him through and through, shaking her head.

"I tried to make you happy with me," she said in a quieter tone, resentful still but marked too with confusion. "I let you do what you like, don't I? I try to be supportive and encouraging." Her voice thickened while she rubbed her finger against her wet eyes. "I let you be yourself. Why isn't that good enough?"

He wanted to explain it all. He wanted to rest a hand on her shoulder, to lead her to some place away from the busybodies, to sit her down and read out the speech that he had prepared for her – to let her understand how exactly he saw her.

But when Jack reached a hand out to her, Anna struck it away and told him "Don't."

So he didn't.

"And if it's not clear, I'm breaking up with you. Well, -" the girl made a scoffing sound a tear trickled down her cheek "-breaking up whatever-this-is, anyway. And you better remember that I broke up with you." She jabbed a finger at him as more tears tumbled down and her voice, though still forceful, was starting to shake. "This was my choice. Mine."

Rubbing her cheek viciously against his sleeve, Anna tore herself away from him, determinedly diving into the crowd and disappearing. With the show over, the spectators' ring dispersed, but every third student would stop to shoot a disapproving look. Jack only wished that he could sink into the floor.

"Hey." Kristoff had emerged from the throng somehow and was now holding a box of raw carrots. He was holding one of those carrots and nibbling its tip. Clearly, he hadn't watch what happened, because he asked with a cheerful expression, "So, how did it go?"

Jack stared at him for a long while, before scrunching up the speech sheet into a ball and tossing it behind him. He then grabbed one of the carrots from the box and began munching furiously on it.

Kristoff watched him with raised brows, then said pityingly, "You sad white-haired man."

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Well, that's a bummer, ain't it? Poor Jack.

Guest Review Mailbox:

Guest (Jan 17): I'm glad I wrote in the gown chase part. I almost wanted to cut it out, but heck - it's hilarious. I'm glad you like the odd style of writing in this story, because I do enjoy writing it that way. It's ridiculously freeing to break all conventions when narrating a tale (that, and I do still think this story is kind of silly.)

I think I'm going to focus a while on this story. The end is in sight, so if I get this done, I can finally turn my attention to my longer stories. Also, time is getting increasing limited due to a little…hiccup in my studies that requires me to spend more time with it. Well, life is life. I can't be sorry about it.

Leave if a review if you like. Cheers and cheerio!