Sophmore-year Aelita Stones, secretly Aelita Schaeffer, fidgetted with her clip-on earring. The same earring that she was given that day, which she always wore no matter how much of her attire had changed over the past couple of years.
The day she had a personal day out with Ulrich Stern, her best friend.
The day, she believes, when she started falling in love with her best friend.
Aelita was cheerfully walking to Odd and Ulrich's room, intending to meet up with Ulrich, and possibly even Odd, before heading towards the cafeteria for dinner. She was wearing the young athlete's gift, attaching the earing to her left ear like on Lyoko, although she thinks it is a bit out of place considering she had elf-like ears on Lyoko but the small accessory blends well with her new attire none the less.
The pinkette stopped on her tracks when the door to her friend's room opened, and coming out was Ulrich.
"Hey, Ulrich!" She greeted a little loudly before gesturing to the gift she received from him. "Thanks for the gift! What do you think?"
The young man did not reply to her right away, instead he kept walking until he was in front of her. Until then did she notices his demeanor. His eyes were wide open and staring into space, his lips were an emotionless frown, and walking with a slouch.
"Ulrich?" Aelita said his name in worry as she a hand in front of him to see if he was responsive.
"Stop that." She immediately stopped what she was doing, sheepishly giving him a smile while having the decency to blush in embarrassment. "Hold on while I try to process what I just saw in my room."
Aelita raised an eyebrow, "Saw what?"
"Odd..." Ulrich tried to continue, "and Sissi...making out."
Silence filled the already quiet hallway of the boys' dorm rooms.
Aelita's mouth hanged wide open, her eyes mirroring Ulrich's widened soulless eyes.
"... ... ... That-" She began to respond to the bombshell once she regained her bearings . "explains why we hardly see both of them for the past month."
Ulrich could only nod at her statement.
Elizabeth "Sissi" Delmas was once an annoyance to their group, but ever since they defeated their archenemy and shut down the supercomputer for good, they all agreed to finally open up to their classmates; and the first person they accepted was Sissi herself, after which she rejected her only two followers in the whole school. They hardly see those two as well outside of the background.
To everyone's surprise, Sissi did not use this opportunity to get close to Ulrich but instead started hanging out with Aelita and Yumi. It was actually rather pleasant for the princess and female martial artist to hang out with the principal's daughter. Having some girl talk, sharing a little gossip, and talking about the latest trends. Aelita could tell that the principal's daughter was just craving for some interaction with other girls her age considering she is not exactly popular with everyone on campus.
For a week, Aelita and Yumi hanged with Sissi all the time, but their time with Sissi soon evolved to hanging every other day to seeing the principal's daughter for only once a day out of the week at least. It was also around this time that Aelita started to see Yumi less and less and saw her with William. When Aelita asked Sissi, she told the pinkette that her father wanted her to focus more on her schoolwork, and was really firm about it. Clearly, it was the classic "I needed to study" excuse to hide a secret, Aelita and the others should know that, but the pinkette decided not to dig more Sissi's secret, so she accepted Sissi's excuse.
"Do you know how this happened?" Aelita asked, now curious about Odd and Sissi's relationship.
Ulrich looked around a bit, "Let's talk about it somewhere else. The walls have ears." He said, eyeing the doors around them.
Aelita agreed, so they left for the cafeteria.
After getting their share of dinner, they both sat down at a table that is mostly isolated from the rest of the students there. After sitting down, Ulrich told Aelita the tale of how their happy-go-lucky friend, Odd Della Robbia, got in a secret relationship with their nemesis-turned-friend, Sissi Delmas. From how they told him after coming into his shared dorm room to find his old pal and ex-love interest.
Apparently their romantic relationship initially started back during their previous year in Kadic Academy, before the Lyoko Warriors learned more about Franz Hopper and the reveal that their precious friend, Aelita herself, was human, to begin with. The two unknowingly started a relationship with each other threw the internet, which went on for a while before revealing to one another they are enrolled in Kadic Junior High Academy. They both decided to meet each other for real, but Odd soon found out who was his online girlfriend before Sissi could find out who was her online boyfriend.
For obvious reasons, Odd immediately dumped Sissi without revealing his online identity and cut all contacts he had with her online. He just left her waiting there.
When Sissi was accepted by the now-former Lyoko Warriors, Odd gathered up the courage to tell her. At first, she did not believe him, but when he recited a message that he once sent to her, it was then she realized he was telling the truth. After being frozen like a statue for a moment, Sissi's response was a slap across Odd's face.
Now, Odd has dated multiple girls at once with any of the girls knowing such unfaithfulness, and when they did find out, it was all the same responses. Being confronted by each girl individually, usually when the purple-loving blonde was alone, being yelled at a bit before being slapped across the face, leaving a red hand imprint.
Out of all the slaps he received so far, Sissi's slap was the most painful. Both figuratively and literally.
His pain was just the beginning as he stood there, in the park alone with her, being told how sad and miserable she was when her online boyfriend dumped her and leaving her high and dry without a word. After a good solid five minutes of her rambling on, Odd decided to end it by kissing her squarely on the lips. Shocked and a bit peeved, but soon Sissi was returning the kiss. (1)
"And after that, they started dating." Ulrich finished the tale of their close friend's secret relationship with the principal's daughter.
"So how come they haven't told anyone?" Asked Aelita as she started picking up her silverware. Their food was left untouched while the young man was retelling the secret relation in Kadic Academy. Seeing it was done, the pinkette started digging into the meatballs and gravy.
"It was Sissi's idea, she was afraid that her father wouldn't be too pleased to hear that she started dating Odd. Saying that he might have Jim watch them like a hawk." Ulrich said as he also started eating.
Aelita took a while to process that information before nodding, agreeing with Sissi's reason. Odd is definitely not boyfriend material, especially with his history of two-timing almost all the girls in school, which undoubtedly Delmas caught wind of by this point. If he could not put a stop to their relationship, the next best thing he could do was have their gym teacher supervise them on all of their activity, especially on Odd's part. She knows how annoying it would be if Jim was left in charge of being Sissi's chaperone while she dated Odd. She remembers the time she and Jeremie were caught at night together working on the Skidbladnir. Jim and Delmas were relentless on their punishment.
After a couple of bites, Aelita said her thoughts in a hushed whisper, "Who would have thought? That Odd and Sissi would be going out."
Ulrich took a while before responding, swallowing his food first. "Well, Odd was interested in her when he transferred here, but then he noticed how annoying she was after our first return trip to the past. So, I didn't really think they would hook up. As Odd had said before, "Love works in mysterious ways" "
Aelita giggled, knowing how true that last statement was.
"When did he say that?"
"After he and Sissi told me how they got together, which was before they went back to sucking on each other's face." He told her with a smirk.
Aelita giggled, a little louder this time. Ulrich just smiled, enjoying the sound of her laughter. They went back to eating their dinner. They talked about their day and how they have been lately. What they thought about the movie they saw, and that time did Ulrich not tease her. Laughed when one of them cracked a joke. Their smiles never leaving their faces.
Present Aelita giggled when that memory of that night ended in her mind. Remembering how they were the last students at the cafeteria that night.
She unclipped her earring.
She looked over it. Despite being a year old (2), it still looked relatively brand new, just like the day she received it. It was a symbol of her friendship with Ulrich and a reminder of that day.
The start of their budding relationship.
She held the earring close to her heart.
"Love really does work in mysterious ways."
(1): I wrote a whole lot more than I intended when I wrote about Odd and Sissi's secret relationship. Words just kept going. Honestly, I didn't really plan for this initially until I started working on this chapter. I hope it wasn't too big of a pill to swallow.
(2): Correct me if I'm wrong here, but Jeremie, Odd, Ulrich, and Aelita were in 8th grade and Yumi and William were in 9th grade prior to season 3. So going by the USA school system, the formers were in their last year of middle school while the latter were in their first year of high school. So at the start of season 3, Jeremie, Odd, Ulrich, and Aelita started their high school year as freshmen, and Yumi and William are in their sophomore year. Just checking cause I want to accurate with the timeline.
Yeah, not a chapter that is mostly about the main pairing. Hope you still love it.
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