Chapter Three-Progress

Veronica Zales was what most of girls in school envied. She was beautiful, rich, and had the stature of a model. The blonde was the school's sweetest girl in school, beating even Dawn in that department, and had the looks of an angel that made guys weak to their knees within seconds.

However, currently, she was anything but a sweet angel the school knew her as. Her eyes were narrowed down with anger towards the brunette, who returned a nonchalant look back.

"Veronica," Leaf greeted with feigned joy in a mocking tone. "What a delight to see you! Whatever could the school's angel possibly have anything to do with me?"

"Drop it, Leaf," she responded back coldly. "I'm not here to chat. I'm here to set some things straight with you." She paused to see if the brunette had anything to say back. When she didn't, the blonde continued. "To make things simple, stay away from Gary."

Leaf raised an eyebrow at her and released a small mocking laugh. She figured Gary's angry fan girls would confront her eventually but she would've never expected it from Veronica, the seemingly sweet girl everyone loved, to do it first.

"I didn't realize I needed permission to go out with him," Leaf retorted coolly. "Oh right, I don't. Now if you excuse me, I've got some things to do."

The brunette turned her heels and started to walk away before Veronica's voice rang through the empty hallway.

"You may talk tough now, but when he breaks up with you tomorrow and realize that I'm the one for him, you won't be so tough anymore."

Leaf merely smirked and turned around to make sure the blonde, who wore a similar smirk, saw it. "I was with Damian the other day. He sends his greetings."

That had made the blonde snap. She quickly made her way to Leaf and raised her hand, ready to slap the girl, who gave her a challenging look, before a new voice rang out.

"Leaf?"

The brunette turned her attention to the new source of voice and inwardly sighed in relief for his appearance.

"Virgil," Leaf greeted as he made his way over to the girls. "Fancy seeing you here," she said casually.

"What's going on?" he inquired, shifting her eyes in between the two girls.

"I was just asking Leaf to rehearse this one scene from the upcoming play with me since she was the only one here," Veronica lied flawlessly, putting the angel mask back on. "Great acting, Leaf."

And with that, she took her leave, which left Leaf with Virgil, who didn't seem to buy the blonde's lie at all.

After a minute, he let out a chuckle. "Really, Leaf? A scene in the upcoming play? Even the most gullible students wouldn't believe that."

She giggled. Virgil was one of the very few people to see through the blonde and know how she truly was. When Leaf had learned about it, she acknowledged him as a friend and somehow he became her therapist she went to when she felt irritated about things, especially when it was about Gary because her friends didn't seem to understand her dislike for him.

As the two walked away from the hallway Leaf was just in, the brunette had decided to ditch the library and walked alongside the blond boy, who was currently talking his weekend about his job. Since they were so busy with their conversation, they didn't realize that they had ended out to the school garden.

"So I heard about you and Gary," Virgil started. "I'm not going to lie, Leaf. This is a huge shocker considering how much you've ranted to me about him."

The brunette smiled sweetly. She was tempted to tell Virgil the truth but she and Gary had sworn that they weren't allowed to tell anyone. Now if he figured it out on his own, that would be a different story.

"Oh yeah, it just happened after Dawn set us up on a blind date on Friday. I didn't realize I'd get attacked so quickly though," she said, hoping to change the subject.

"You're lucky it was just Veronica," Virgil pointed out. "Some of his fans are just plain crazy."

Leaf giggled. "I'm pretty sure you can include Veronica in that category. If you didn't come, I would've been slapped."

Virgil chuckled. "We wouldn't want that now, would we?" He then touched Leaf's right cheek lightly. "You'd still be beautiful though."

The brunette felt a blush creep on her face so she diverted her attention to the side to avoid meeting eyes with him, though she didn't push his hand away. Leaf noticed that lately he had been acting differently. Until recently he was would never do that kind of thing to her.

Suddenly, Leaf didn't feel his warm hand on her cheek anymore and felt constricted from her waist and turned her diverted her attention there, only to find a pair of arms wrapped around her waist. She heard a chuckle and immediately knew who it was.

"So this is where you were, Leafy," Gary said as he placed his head on top of Leaf's. "Don't bother Virgil if you're bored. That's not nice."

Leaf turned her head to glare at him but when she saw him, the look in his eyes did not match his playful tone.

"Don't worry, Leaf wasn't bothering me at all," Virgil responded, ignoring the look in Gary's eyes before he walked away. "See you later, Leaf."

When he was out of sight, Leaf noticed the looks the other students were giving them and remembered her current position. She started to pull apart from him, but Gary's arms only tightened around her.

"Let go of me, Oak," she demanded angrily and she attempted to pull his arms apart, but to no avail. "People are staring."

"Let them stare," he replied coolly. "It'll make it clear that you are taken. What happened to studying for your quiz? Why are you with him instead?"

Anger spiked within Leaf as he said this. She didn't care if she was only pretending to go out with him. The fact that he treated her like she was an object who couldn't get along with other guys irritated her. She felt his arms loosen lightly around her and decided to take advantage of it by shoving them from her.

"Look, Gary," she started, making sure to use his first name so her peers wouldn't suspect anything about them. "I talk to whoever I want to, understand?"

Though he didn't show any of his annoyance, Leaf could tell that he was slowly losing his patience. Before she was able to add anything more, Gary grabbed a hold of her hand and dragged her with him back inside the school to a more secluded part.

"Look, Leaf," he began after he let out a sigh. "I didn't want to be the bad guy out there, but if more people saw that, then there'd be rumors about you two and the plan to get back at Dawn will be ruined."

Though the brunette hated to admit it, he had a point. Though there was probably another way for her to get back at her friend, she knew that this plan would be the one to make Dawn stop setting her up with guys she was not interested in. With her resolve in mind, Leaf let out a sigh.

"Fine, I'll try to not bring attention to myself about these things," she agreed. "But we need to set some ground rules here." Gary nodded in acknowledgment for her to continue. "One, you are not allowed to do something like you just did right now outside. I hate the stares we get whenever you do something like that."

Gary chucked sheepishly. "Okay, I went a little too far with that. I apologize. Go on."

"Two, no surprise kisses. People are going to stare like they did this morning and I would appreciate it if they didn't look at me like that. Three, please don't be possessive like that again. I'm not your actual girlfriend and to be quite honest, possessiveness is not a good color on you."

Once Leaf was done with her listing of what he was and wasn't allowed to do, she allowed silence to take over as Gary processed the set of rules she had just laid on him. He had a blank expression on his face, disabling her to try to figure out what he was thinking so she had no choice but to wait for him to say something.

"Ok," Gary finally agreed after a long silence. "But I'll only have you know that if I hadn't been possessive out there, people will start to suspect something. What you and Virgil do, I know it's none of my business so I'll back off if you need me to. However, if people see that scene between you two, rumors will start about you cheating on me or that we'll break up in no time."

Leaf was about to retort when she realized that Gary did in fact somewhat had a point. Although she hated to admit it, the brunette knew that she had to set some boundaries with Virgil when they were in public or else people will start to suspect that something wasn't right about her and Gary.

She sighed and held her hand out to Gary, who shot her a bewildered face.

"You're right," Leaf finally said as she continued to leave her hand out to him. "Now, come on. The gang should be looking for us right now."

Finally understanding what the brunette was hinting at, the spiky-headed teen couldn't help but smirk before intertwining their fingers together.

"Glad to see you're finally playing along, Leafy."

Fweee!

Hearing the whistle, Leaf quickly spiked the incoming ball to the other side of the net before gathering with her other teammates, complementing them on the great practice they had.

"It's only because we have such an amazing captain," one of the junior varsity girls responded back, grinning up at Leaf, who returned it with a smile.

"I'm not that amazing. I'm just trying to do what's best for the team," the brunette said modestly.

Upon hearing that, the other girls on the team surrounded Leaf, each with a comment of their own for her to hear.

"That's not true, Leaf!" a junior objected. "The captain before you doesn't even come close to being as hard working as you. You actually plan out our moves and everything."

"I envy you, Leaf," a varsity teammate commented, catching the brunette's attention. "Not only are you the Varsity captain, but you're also the smartest person in our graduating class!"

"It's no wonder you're dating Gary. You two are perfect together."

As the comments about Leaf and her relationship with Gary, the brunette found herself to be slowly getting tired of them. She already didn't like the attention that she got when she was with Gary, she certainly did not need more when she was with her teammates. She may had agreed to finally work with Gary and try to be more patient with him, but that didn't mean she liked the idea of dating him, even if it was fake.

Rather than to change out of her uniform, Leaf decided to just shove her clothes in her duffel bag and left the locker room with in her uniform seeing as it was only way for her to get out as fast as possible.

As she made her way to her locker, she saw a familiar silhouette standing there and inwardly cursed.

"Gary," she greeted unenthusiastically upon arriving to her locker.

While the brunette was getting her books and bag, Gary found his eyes shamelessly roam her body as she was till in her volleyball uniform. Not only did her shorts barely reach her mid-thigh, but it was also tight, which brought out her curves in all the right places.

Leaf felt his eyes on her and slammed her locker hard in order to bring him out of his daze. When he looked to meet her eyes, the brunette wore a glare.

"Done looking?" Without waiting for his reply, Leaf made her way to the school parking lot.

Gary chuckled sheepishly before running up to catch up with the brunette and offered a hand to help her with her books, which Leaf accepted.

"Long day in practice?" he inquired curiously. "You seem grumpier than usual." When he only received silence in return, he continued. "I thought we were going to be on good terms too after our agreement this afternoon."

As the two continued to make their way to Gary's car, since he had driven her this morning, he continued to talk, though the brunette wasn't quite sure what he was going off on.

"So, home?" he asked when they reached his car. "Or did you have somewhere else to go?"

Leaf raised a curious brow at him upon hearing the question. Now that she thought about it, he wasn't like his usual obnoxious self since this afternoon. Even though he had been looking at her a little too long earlier, he didn't make any of his usual comments.

"This is new for you, Oak," she commented casually as she got into his car. "I thought you'd be trying to get me to go on a date with you."

Putting on his seatbelt, Gary nonchalantly replied, "You're no fun to tease when you don't respond."

"And how is that any different from my usual self? I've ignored you for the most part before this whole charade was created."

The teen next to her smirked as he backed out of the parking spot and made his way out of the school.

"Usually, I can see that you have the fire to fight back. But you seem a little out of it today so I'm going to be a good boyfriend and give you a break," he answered proudly.

Hearing this, the brunette couldn't help but let out a small giggle. "Well, what a great boyfriend you are then."

Suddenly, the car stopped and Leaf turned to ask Gary what had happened, only to see that had a smile on his face. A real, genuine smile. And he was looking right at her.

"This is the first time you've ever smiled because of me," he said softly.

For the first time, Leaf was left with a loss for words. Usually when Gary said something she'd have something to retort back with, but this time she was speechless and didn't know any other way of replying back.

It had gone silent between the two and since Leaf couldn't handle the silence, she cleared her throat and faced back towards the front.

"We should get going," she said, hoping that he'd be back to normal soon.

Gary had continued driving and when he heard that, he raised an eyebrow. "'We should get going?' Leafy, if you wanted a date, you can just come out and say it directly. No need to say it like that."

And just like that, he was back to his usual self.

The brunette rolled her eyes at him and was about to reply when he continued on, "Sorry, but I'm going to be busy so we'll have to take a rain check."

"Meeting with a secret girlfriend?" Leaf asked curiously.

Gary scoffed. "As if I'd be dumb enough to do that," he answered. "Ash texted me earlier, telling me he needed help so I need to drop by to see what he needs. Knowing him, it's probably going to take the whole day," he explained, chuckling at the end.

The rest of the way home, the two had small talk here and there. Finally, when they reached Leaf's house, their conversation stopped.

"Thanks for the ride," she thanked as got out of the car. "Oh, and you don't have to pick me up tomorrow. I have work afterschool and it'd be inconvenient for you to drive me there so I can just drive myself tomorrow."

"I don't mind driving, you know?"

"But I do," Leaf retorted. "So it's fine. You just take your time tomorrow."

Knowing that there'd be no point in trying to argue with her, Gary simply agreed.

"Fine. But if you change your mind, just let me know, ok?"

"I won't," Leaf shot back. "Bye, Gary."

"I'll leave once you get in your house. Now, hurry up and get in your house."

The brunette rolled her eyes but obliged nonetheless, knowing that he stood true to his words. After their blind date and he had driven her home, Gary made sure she went inside her house before he drove off.

Entering her house, Leaf dropped her things by the staircase at sat down at the bottom stair, thinking back to all the events that had happened from morning until now. She thought back to the hectic morning she had because the whole school was talking about her and Gary dating, lunchtime when she was confronted and almost slapped by Veronica, her almost too intimate moment with Virgil, Gary's hug, her decision to finally work with the playboy, and the friendly moment she just had with him after practice.

After thinking back to all that, the brunette realized that by just one day, she was able to dislike Gary a little less than she did last week.

"Well, at least we've made progress."

BLAH. IT'S SHORT. BUT IT'S LATE. AN I'M TIRED. SO THERE ARE BOUND TO BE MISTAKES IN HERE.

I know this seems rushed, but originally this was intended to be a one-shot sooooo yaaaaah LOL. Next chapter there will be more focus on the other characters and PROBABLY a time skip so look forward to that!

Please review and let me know how it was! I love reading your reviews AND DIDN'T YOU HEAR?! IT'S GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH ;D And if you have time and curious to know more about me, don't be afraid to ask me stuff on !

That's it for now, so I'll talk to all soon! Bye!