Disclaimer: I do not own the characters, only the universe in which they annoy the crap out of me! (Mai bad~~~) A/N: Real Author's Note at the bottom... Why? You'll see :)

PART 1

Chapter 6

Clove blinked before regaining her composure.

"Her name sounds like a fucked-up pet name for crystal meth." She always voiced her opinions.

Marvel snorted, "I was thinking more along the lines of crack."

"Possibly," Clove tried to remain indifferent. "So... Cato's ex?"

Marvel ignored her. "It's not like your name is any better, y'know? Why Clove and not Clover, an actual name? Whenever I hear yours, I think of garlic. A clove of garlic."

Apparently, it was insult-each-other's-name day and Clove was only too happy to join in. She rolled her eyes. "And Marvel's any better? What kind of parent names their kid after a comic book publisher?"

"Cool parents, that's who. My name kicks ass."

"Yeah, losers' asses."

"Hey!" Marvel protested, grabbing and putting her into a headlock. Bad idea. In a second Clove's leg had wrapped itself around his and suddenly he was falling, without Clove. She remained standing as he sat up, her eyes narrowed, watching him as he picked himself up from the floor.

"Just how many people misunderstood you, Clove?" he groaned, referring to the conversation they'd had about her cheek.

"Far too many to count," There was a hint of melancholy hidden in her voice, but she quickly dismissed it and plastered a smile onto her face. "I once managed to alienate my entire year at school." It was supposed to be a confession brimming with pride, however, to Marvel, it sounded hollow and lonely.

"Well, we can't have that here, right?" he repeated, whispering. Clove was reminded of when they had first met. How did they get so close in little under a week?

She shrugged and walked off, her good mood forgotten. Cato picked this glorious moment to appear. She ignored him when he greeted her, her eyes flicking up to meet his, all the while thinking, Well they suit each other. Both are blonde and have terrible personalities. Cato was confused and he frowned. What had gotten into her?

Clove managed to survive through Physics, her worst subject, without killing anyone. The teacher had sense her foul mood and played it safe when questioning her, letting the other students take the more difficult questions. She felt like a ticking time-bomb and everyone saw that, staying as far as possible away. But Finnick didn't – the man was ignorant to other people's feelings besides his own and Annie's. It was a wonder that someone hadn't killed him from saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. He'd always been like that. He tilted his head up and threw a Rolo upwards, catching it in his mouth when it fell. Grinning, it wasn't hard to see where the childish part of Cato's personality came from. Just like she had done with Cato, she ignored Finnick, worried that she might bite his head off if he flirted with anyone – or god forbid, her – within her personal bubble. She emitted an aura that clearly said 'DON'T MESS WITH ME', but Finnick couldn't see it and the girls around him admired him for being so 'brave'. Grinding her teeth together, she reminded herself of the pros and cons of seriously harming Finnick.

Pros: She wouldn't have to see him for a while or have to be subjected to his endless flirting; she wouldn't have to deal with jealous fangirls; she would have a peaceful Biology lesson; she would learn more.

Cons: …

She tried to think of them, she seriously did, but nothing came to mind. A lightbulb came on in her head.

Cons: His girlfriend would be worried...?

That was all she could come up with.

She cracked her knuckles in the most unfeminine way possible. Finnick better be prepared for a world of pain if he saw her again.

Clove was the first out of the school's gates, her satchel-style bag bumping against her hips as she ran. Her legs were crying out in protest, but she ignored it and jumped onto the leaving bus at the last second. Paying her fee, she sat down on one of the many empty seats. At this time, with schools only just finishing, the buses were the quietest; in a few minutes this bus would've been packed with complaining students and it seemed neither Clove nor the driver wanted that. She rummaged through the pockets of her bag before finding what she wanted; her iPod and headphones. Slipping them on, she also slipped into her dream world, where everything was as it should be. She closed her eyes and sunk into the bus seat, knowing that she'd never miss her bus stop. This was her usual routine for the ride home, this or reading a book, but sometimes that made her feel sickly so it depended on how good the book was. 'Battle Royale', for example, had been a book she hadn't been able to put down for an entire week, and she had reread it and reread it over and over again; eventually, her father had to get her her own copy so that they could return the library's copy without it looking like it had been chewed by their non-existent dog. (Yes, I'm a BR fangirl XD It's sooo~~~~~ good, but I'll never be forced to choose between HG and BR – THEY'RE TWO DIFFERENT BOOKS! Though I do love the psychopaths in both of them – Cato in HG and Kazou Kiriyama in BR :P … My friend told me today actually I like quite a few psychopaths... Kazou, Cato, Tate (American Horror Story), Dexter (Dexter) and Sherlock (BBC version but he's technically a highly functioning sociopath)) But Battle Royale had been a special book, one that she only came across once in a blue moon. She was, despite many people's opinion of her intelligence because she was athletic, an avid reader who was only stopped reading by her father who'd banned her buying books because she read them too fast. She couldn't remember the last book she'd bought before Battle Royale – it had been so long ago.

Opening her eyes, she gazed out of the window to find her stop was approaching quickly. Twenty minutes on the bus was all it took to get back to her house, where she felt safe, where no-one could touch her. She stood up, her headphones still blasting out foreign music by a group called C-Clown, a K-Pop group. Much like her favouritism to Korean cuisine, she was biased in her entertainment choices, preferring K-Pop music and K-Dramas to English and American ones.

The path was cracked below her feet as she jumped over each one, mentally chanting a children's rhyme.

Step on a crack and you break your mother's back; step on a line and you break your father's spine. (Morbid, eh? I used to play that...) It was a game she'd often played as a child and it brought back happier memories from when she was still innocent.

A white car alongside the red one was all it took for Clove to speed up, forgetting the children's game at once. She crashed through the doorway after fumbling with her keys and shouted, "Mother!" into the house.

Her father was the one to greet her, wearing a sheepish expression. Clove grinned, knowing that he'd been chewed out by mother for all the takeaways they'd consumed. Her mother popped her head around the corner of the door, a head shorter than her father (she was vertically challenged because of her mother's genetics) and rolled her eyes.

"Hi, Sweetie." she greeted Clove, who was struggling to pull off her shoes, hopping around like a kangaroo. Finally, the shoe flew across the hall and hit the wall and Clove vaulted into her mother's arms. Her mother wasn't home much because of her work, and when she was she was often too tired to have a real conversation with, or, when Clove was younger, play with. But today she looked fine. Clove kissed each of her cheeks.

"How was work?"

"Ah, fine, fine. A patient was being rude again today, though. As if I wanted to cause him pain." Clove rolled her eyes at that. Many times her mother had come home and complained of ungrateful patients at the hospital. She was a doctor, working on the A&E (ER) ward, which saw the most bizarre cases and most frustrated patients who had probably been waiting for hours on end.

"Nothing out of the ordinary, then?" Clove teased happily. She didn't mean it to sound rude or anything, she knew how hard her mother worked, but she only got a few chances such as this to have fun with her mother.

There was a twinkle in her mother's eyes as she replied. "You'll have to deal with people when you become a physiotherapist, too. And you aren't exactly a people person." Clove laughed and patted her mother on the shoulder.

"Nice, mum."

"I'm getting funnier, right?" It had been Clove's mother's life goal to make her kids laugh at least once a day. Frequently, she couldn't, especially if she wasn't there to tell the joke to begin with.

"'Funnier' implies you were funny to begin with." Clove rolled her eyes.

Her mother feigned being shocked – she was used to comments like this. "Take that back, young lady!"

"No!" Clove cried out, before giggling as she ran up the stairs.

Glimmer re-applied her lip gloss for the fifth time, happy with the amount of shine on her lips. She licked her lips and froze.

Aw, shit. She applied it again, this time determined not to mess up her lip gloss. She was waiting for Cato, like usual, standing against the school's gate waiting for football practice to end. Her golden hair tumbled down her back, freshly brushed and shining like a beacon. Her emerald eyes shone, framed by a few layers of mascara. Whilst she was waiting she picked at her pink polished nail, diamantes sticking up on a few of her fingers, thinking that she would rather be at home, playing Black Ops 2 or Battlefield 3. But she couldn't go home and face her mother without at least trying to talk to Cato. She'd know straight away if Glimmer lied about flirting with Cato since the break-up. Glimmer had taken it pretty well, her mother on the other hand, had not. And this new girl, Clove, hadn't exactly made her mother any happier. So there she stood, waiting for a boy who she supposedly pined after with all her heart. At least she'd be able to see Gale, if only for a few seconds when they passed her by...

Cato was hot and sweaty for the second time that day, Gale stood next to him, pouring a bottle of water on himself. It was September and the air was becoming colder, but it didn't seem to matter to either of them.

"Practice sucks." Cato decided out loud, getting a few snickers from around the changing room. Cato may have been the most athletic of them all, but he sure did complain.

"Get over it." Gale told him, ever the peace-keeper. Some of the boys on the team got bored of Cato's whining – who wouldn't? – and were stupid enough to let him know it every once in a while; Gale was the tension diffuser in those types of situations. Cato stuck out his tongue just as Marvel walked into the changing room, wrinkling his nose.

"You smell horrible." he told them all before spotting Cato. "And you look like Clove when you do that."

Cato quickly retracted his tongue, feeling like the idiot he was. "What do you want, mathlete?" Was all Cato said to his comment.

Marvel grinned, obviously pleased by the name Cato had associated to him. It was catching on after all! "Snow wants to make sure you're all not lagging behind in studies because you're in a sports team."

Groans resounded through the changing room. "It's not even been a week!" someone complained.

Someone else chuckled. "Don't let him hear you – you'll be out within a second, I guarantee it."

Marvel sat next to where Cato carried on changing, in between him and Gale. Gale glared pointedly down at him whereas Cato regarded him with a lopsided smile. The three of them were an odd group, not exactly friends but closer than acquaintances. Allies, maybe. But there was some form of tension between Marvel and Gale, but Cato kept them together with his sheer strength. Literally.

One time he'd had to grab them both and half-drag them to the cinema which neither of them wanted to go to, simply because the other was there. Cato had a feeling it was because Marvel reminded him of Mellark, the pansy boy who'd taken 'Gale's girl', Katniss. Cato didn't think that it was a very good reason to hate someone, but he couldn't talk – he'd hated people for similar reasons, after all. It seemed like a pretty good reason when you were the one experiencing the feeling; but from someone else's point of view, you just looked desperate.

Little did he know, as he kept on chasing Clove and talking about her, he was beginning to seem a little desperate. But no-one would have the guts to tell him that.

Marvel looked up from his thinking, staring at Cato's happy expression, wondering when he should break it to him. Was now too soon? Should he break his happiness before he becomes too deeply involved?

Clearing his throat, Marvel stood, kicking the floor and stuffing his hands in his pockets. He had something to say and Cato shot a questioning look at him.

"I want to tell you something." Unlike usual, Marvel's voice was strong and hard, unflinching.

"Geez," Cato laughed, "Serious Marvel is Scary Marvel."

Gale was silent. He'd suspected something for a few days. He was a wallflower in their maths lesson, watching them both interact silently. 'Them' referring to Clove and Marvel.

So he's finally grown some balls. Gale thought as he looked at both his friends. It seemed that Cato was about to go through what he had already been through, and boy, was it a fucking hard road. So how would he take it?

Gale closed his eyes, preparing for the worst.

Marvel took a deep breath.

Cato's smile vanished a second before Marvel spoke.

"I like Clove."

All was silent in the changing room.

Then Hell broke loose and Cato had him pinned against the wall.

"WHAT?!"

A/N: Sorry... You probably all want to kill me, right? But surely you knew this would happen! I mean, c'mon, look how close they've become! But relax, I won't have Marvel confess his feelings for at least another two chapters – take into account the time scale I'm working with here haha! I happen to like Glimmer so I wanted to make her seem a little more... likeable...? But she now seems like a bitch for using Cato for her mother... Sorry 'bout that, seems like I can't redeem Glimmer in any way – BUT I'M GOING TO TRY! FIGHTING! ^^

I've surprisingly found myself with lots of inspiration and motivation these past few days and HOW LONG IS THIS? For ME? Geez, it's as big as my other fanfic's chapters. If anyone's interested in the song lyrics I used for the first chapter which you probably didn't even read, this is it:

/watch?v=bm4UwNCU0Pk (on YouTube)

It's by a Korean Pop (K-Pop) rookie group called C-Clown and I got my storyline from this song ^^ The lyrics are also what I'm using for each 'Part'. This chapter is a part of 'Part 1', but Part 1'll be ending soon, leading to Part 2 then so on! Don't worry though, I won't be using the plot too much – only hints of it! The ending always makes me feel really angry and sad -_-

I also thought this song fit really well when I first heard it. I wanted to change songs, but then I was like 'ARGH BUT THEY BOTH FIT SO PERFECTLY WHYYYY?!' Plus it's by my favourite group EVER! SUPER JUNIOR FTW! … Err... so... fangirling over... here's the link:

/watch?v=W8bSg2HNCKo

… Yeah this is a long A/N... I often get a bit... passionate... when talking about K-Pop... which is why it's in the story XDDD

ANYWAY, tell me in the reviews if you thought the songs were epic (THEY ARE ^^ BUT I'M VERY BIASED *not even sorry*) WATCH THEM FOR POSTING THIS UBER EARLY AND FOR A LONGER-THAN-USUAL CHAPTER! Pretty please ;)

So I hoped you enjoyed reading, so review (or PM) and tell what you think of Marvel x Clove, favourite and follow to see what happens next chapter! Could I be cheeky and ask for more reviews this chapter? :P

TO MY REVIEWERS:

Clato123: Thank you for giving my story the time of day! And for reviewing! ^^ I don't she hates him, she's just a bit irked by him... I mean, who wouldn't be? He's really arrogant in the books and films XDDD

Kato45: Thank you for reviewing, I'm always waiting for your review because I know it'll come eventually haha! My first reaction to Glimmer's name when I read the Hunger Games was that it sounded like a pet name for crystal meth, so I'm glad my logic amuses you :P

UnicornChloe: Haha I felt like that when I wrote it, so I hoped that'd be the reaction! I hope I've changed your opinion of Glimmer this chapter, though, if not only slightly..? I'm terrible, I really need to keep my 'bad' characters, bad. Maybe I'll add an OC enemy... XDDD Thanks for reviewing!

Clatoforeverinmyheart: Sorry, no Cato and Glimmer reaction this chapter, but he's gotta come out of school sometime AND SHE'S WAITING ;D That sounds... very stalkerish... Haha... Thanks for reviewing!

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-R