Important author's notes: I received this very long and winded review from a guest (yes m.p. I'm talking about you! XD), and he/she made me feel so bad for leaving you all waiting for so long that I've decided to post part of the next chapter. Mostly just to let you all know that I'm not dead and this story will be continued; I've just had too much homework aside from my other job to give it the proper attention it requires. In any case, as you can obviously tell, this is not the complete chapter. The rest of it, which I hope to finish in the upcoming week, will be posted as chapter six, but really is a continuity of chapter five.

For the Growth of the Flower of Love: You must sow the seed

Episode Five:

"Of lunches and dates"

Sloppy Joes and saucy ravioli. French Fries and fried chicken. Chocolate cake and sweet apple sauce. All of them part of a wonderful lunch menu mom swears she was constantly given during her public schooling years. None of them actually present in my plate. Which means mom must be an outright liar. And it hurts me, it hurts me deeply. How could she lie to her only daughter about something as important as the food I would be ingesting for the next three years!

I dip my spoon in the…what the hell is this? Sweet potato mush? It's orange, and thick and watery at the same time, sticking to the spoon and falling in nasty chunks, and it's just plain disgusting.

"It's not so bad." Kristoff dares say, garnering from me the most 'are you fucking kidding me' expression that quickly transform into an 'I'm going to puke' kind of look as I see him inhale the gross orange thing with the suspicious smell that I have yet to identify. "What? Are your taste buds too good for this, little Ms. Private School?"

He mocks me, and for a second there I'm tempted to say 'fuck yes' and flip the table and beg my parents to please enroll me in a private high school ASAP for the sake of my stomach and general health. But then I remember the nuns and their hard rulers and harder rules, and nope, homemade Pasta Carbonara is so not worth dealing with those prudes for three more years.

Or is it? I hit my spoon on the side of the plate to get rid of the gooey soup, and move it to the rubbery rice. "I can't believe you actually love this crap." Because he looks like he's eating fillet Mignon.

He swallows whatever he had in his mouth, "It's not like I love it, but when you are starving everything tastes like steak!"

"You are always starving." I comment.

"And isn't that a good quality to have right now?"

The question is rhetorical, or I take it as if it was because I really have no answer for that. I don't think that even famished I could find this appetizing.

"Look. The trick is to imagine you are eating something else. Watch." He says and waits for my eyes to return to him before taking a big spoonful of what the school is passing as rice and shoving it in his mouth. His eyes are close, there's a fat drop of sweat on his temple as he chews the concoction, and still he says, "Hmmm, double bacon cheeseburger, my favorite." He gulps down hard and loud, with a grimace, and then tries to smile at me reassuringly.

The delusions of the poor.

I shake my head at his wasted effort and push away my plate, untouched, up to the middle of the table. Then reach back into my backpack that's resting on the back of my chair. Opening it, I rummage within for my emergency stash and pull out the only good thing that came out of this last Saturday.

Candy. Specifically chocolate. A fucking huge bar of Hershey.

A smile instantly brightens my features. I rip the plastic wrap softly, delicately, reverently, for within lies my salvation. It's like ambrosia, the smell that tantalizes my senses. I pull the bar closer to my lips, moisten them in anticipation, and keep nearing this wonderful invention all the more closely to my mouth, so close I can taste it. And then I stop, because some weird animal is ruining the best moment of my day with their incessant panting.

I look to my left and realize that oh, it's just Kristoff, drooling like a dog.

I roll my eyes, "Sheesh, you only have to ask." And break a piece for him before he dehydrates by either his mouth or his watery eyes.

"You are my best friend." He claims emotionally, taking the piece of chocolate in both of his palms as if it were the Holy Grail.

I smirk, amused at his overly dramatic antics (we are to sides of a coin, I know), but then I ignore him completely and place all my attention on what truly matters. Oh Hershey! My love, allow me to devour you until you cease to exist and we have become one! It's a bit of a toxic relationship we have but Hershey doesn't mind. And so I indulge in glory for a few minutes. Alright seconds. I never last a minute with chocolate in my hands.

"Where did you get such a huge bar of heaven?" Kristoff implores while licking his fingers clean of any chocolaty residue.

"The arcade." I say, doing the same.

He gasps, "You went to the arcade without me?"

Fuck, I've been found. "Ah…no, well yes, but – "

"But what?" He asks, indignant.

In the time we have known each other we have never gone to the arcade without the other. It's why I wanted to keep this outing to myself. That and one other reason that I will now have to reluctantly explain.

I sigh. "It was with Elsa."

He's frowning curiously now, "Elsa likes the arcade?"

"No." I say, then think again. "Well, maybe only one game. I'm not sure, really. We didn't have much time to play before her chauffer came to pick us up."

He leans forward on the table, and squints his eyes in suspicious intrigue. "Chauffer? Picking up? What exactly did you two do Anna?"

I huff. This annoying ass. "I'm going to punch you if you don't back off." He's not even that close, but that annoying face that hides a know-it-all smirk really gets on my nerves.

He leans a little bit closer and I launch my fist at him but end up hitting air.

"Too slow." He grins.

I shrug nonchalantly. "You are lucky I had no intention to truly harm you."

"Sure, sure." He waves me off. "Now stop changing the subject. How was your date?" He wiggles his eyebrows.

I click my tongue. "It wasn't a – " Except technically it was. Even if we didn't want it to be. "Itwashorrible." I murmur quickly.

"What?" He puts a hang over his ear.

"I said….it was horrible!"

He's looking unimpressed. "You mean a date with the hottest transfer student of this school was horrible?"

I cross my arms over my chest. Here we go again, me against another Elsa fan. How does this girl get so many admirers when she barely makes eye contact with anyone? "You think Elsa's the greatest thing to walk the earth, but really she's just a bitch."

"And you aren't?" He asks, again rhetorically, except this time I want to answer because of course I'm not! At least, not unprovoked! But he hurries to continue, "And I don't think she's the greatest thing to walk the earth, as you put it, but she just doesn't seem so bitchy to me in the classroom."

"Right, because the fifty minutes you spend staring at her back instead of the board has really let you know all her secrets." I nod.

"One hundred minutes actually. We have two classes together." He shrugs.

"Whatever."

He chuckles. "Just give me the juicy details."

"You want me to revisit the worst day of my weekend? Seriously?" That's my best friend.

"Yes!" He nods eagerly.

I roll my eyes, and heave a profound sigh, "…fine."

To be continued…

A/N: Alright! I hope this little teaser encourages you to wait for what's to come, and a big thank you to all of you that loyally keep waiting for my busy ass. I'll be back soon!