This is a flashback...hope you guys enjoy. It was really fun to write! I wrote this because I'm experiencing a bit of an anxiety slump currently. Let me know your thoughts! 
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Northwood High.

I almost threw up when I got out of the car. Maybe the two glasses of milk were not the best idea.

"Honey," my mom called from the driver's seat. I turned to look at her, gulping nervously and fixing my backpack on my shoulder. She smiled warmly, her blond hair tumbling around her face. "Be nice and kind to everyone, Wilder. Remember what I said?"

"You never know what someone is going through," I repeated devoutly. She nodded, flashing me a dazzling smile as I stepped away from the car and watched her drive away. As if on cue, the bell rang and I found myself among a sea of jostling students as everyone started making their way into the red brick building.

My class was fifth, standard B. It was located on the western wing on the second floor. I decided to take the stairs, afraid that I might find people on the elevator. As it is, I was highly aware of several stares on me.

I entered the long corridor and saw that it was mercifully empty. Everyone seemed to have already entered their classes. I took a deep breath, suddenly feeling extremely conscious of everything from my blue tshirt down to my black socks. I gazed at the soft board attached on the walls, displaying a bunch of drawings and quotations, inspirational ones. I could see the sign for 'V-B' on the corner most classroom and slowly made my way toward sit. My legs felt like blocks of ice, my chest was frozen.

I had been thankful that so far, my family's scandal hadn't been revealed to this city. When it did, we would have to shift cities again. I had been terrified of attending a new school, extremely sad because I had to leave my old football team, the one where I had learnt everything. I tried not to dwell on it, however, forwards was the only way.

A dark-haired man stood at the front of the class. He turned to look at me as I stood nervously near the hallways, suddenly feeling naked as twenty curious pairs of eyes swivelled in my direction. The man smiled, a twinkle in his eyes. 

"Wilder Collins?" I nodded at his words and slowly walked in, afraid of falling over my own feet. He placed his hand on my shoulder and spoke, "Class, this is the new student, Wilder Collins."

"Hi, Wilder!"

Several students greeted me in scattered unison. I felt my cheeks burning and managed to smile awkwardly at the floor.

"Nicola!"

My head snapped up as my teacher called someone sitting at the last seat. A curly-haired boy looked up from his notebook where he seemed to have been writing something intently. His eyes fell on me and I found myself blushing harder. If he was going to do that thing where I got a guardian in school, I would prefer just running away instead of pushing my presence on someone.

"Nicola, will you take the responsibility of bringing Wilder up to speed and being his friend?"

I wanted to melt in a pool of embarrassment. However, the boy nodded his head. I noticed the top curls in his thick hair bounding gaily and almost laughed at it. I was led to an empty seat near him and I sat down quietly, my heart slowly settling down.

"Er...hi!" I said to him as our teacher, Mr Kingsley as I remembered later, started calling out names for attendance. I glanced at the boy and saw that he had the strangest eyes I had ever seen. They were a mixture of pistachio green and hazel, blended together in a rather confusing mix. "I'm Wilder."

"I heard," he said shortly, shutting the notebook he had been scribbling in and turning in his seat to face me. "I'm Nico by the way. Don't call me by the abomination of a name."

I blinked rapidly, racking my brain as I wondered what the heck the words meant. However, he didn't elaborate and instead fixed his gaze in front of him.

"Um...I'm from-"

"Save it," he replied. "You can copy off my work for a while."

He turned away from me, again scribbling into his notebook. I gaped at him, my heart sinking. He didn't seem at all interested to be my friend whatsoever. I gazed at him for while before turning to my own desk. I wasn't feeling very good about how things were looking currently.

"Don't make that puppy face," Nico said unexpectedly and I turned to look at him. "Wait for the break for everyone to swarm to you. Everyone loves the new boy."

I remembered my mother's words and opened my mouth to speak before I could quite control myself, "I like your hair."

He seemed stunned for a while, his eyes wide as he gaped at me. "Er...thanks."

I gave him a friendly smile and answered my roll call.

As it turned out, however, I didn't have to wait until the break to realize the truth of Nico's words. As soon as the bell rang, I reached for my timetable and squinted at it. My next class was history, not one of my strengths. As I was perusing the paper, however, a girl's voice spoke.

"Hi, Wilder." I glanced up at a pretty girl with her dark braided hair flowing behind her as she smiled at me. "I'm Kenna." She was accompanied by two more girls, a rust haired one and another dark-haired done. "Kiera and Liz." She introduced them dismissively.

"Um...hi."

"Where you from?"

"Um..." I glanced sideways at Nico and saw that he had already risen to his feet and was making his way out of the classroom. I felt suddenly suffocated under all the attention. "West High."

Kenna's dark eyes widened. "Whoa. That's like...really popular." She shook her head, making her braids sway dramatically as I rose to my feet.

"Er, nice to meet you guys," I spoke, hoping I didn't sound too rude. "I have a class."

I hastily packed my bag up and left the room, quickly making my way towards the history class located on the floor below. I entered the room to see that it was scarcely populated. A group of boys stood near the opposite wall, talking and laughing loudly. My eyes spotted Nico, sitting at the far corner as if trying to disappear as he buried his nose in a book in front of him. I started making my way towards him when one of the boys called.

"Yo, Collins!" I turned around and saw a dark-haired boy with hazel eyes smiling at me. Tentatively, I walked over to them. "I'm Brad," he said, giving me a friendly wave and pointing to a blonde guy beside him, "this is Matt, Colt and Jason."

I nodded at the three boys, finding myself fidgeting nervously but managing to put up a façade. "You're from West?" Jason asked, his pale eyes gazing at me intently.

"Er...yeah."

"You're Collins right?" Colt said, his eyes widening. "Oh, weren't you the striker on their football team?"

I grinned and nodded. We had faced Northwood a few times during school tournament. I couldn't quite remember the statistics very well, but it had been closer to thirty seventy in our favour.

"Man, you're good," Colt shook his head in awe and nudged Brad. "You should see his freekicks man."

Brad smiled at me. "Would love to, during sports maybe?"

I nodded back at him, my heart fluttering at the thought of playing football again. Ever since the news about my mom had got out, I had taken to staying at my home. I was afraid I might be a little rusty, but my excitement won out.

I gave them a little wave and continued towards the back of the room where I noticed that Nico had been gazing at us intently. When I caught him staring, his cheeks flushed and he quickly fixed his eyes back on the book.

"May I sit here?" I asked, pointing to the empty seat beside him as more students started milling into the classroom. He shrugged, without looking up from his book.

"It's a free country."

I sighed softly and took the seat, finding, much to my surprise that Brad and the others had started talking among themselves. Nico looked at me and then at them before he spoke. "You should probably not stay with me, Collins. It's not good for you."

I gazed at him, stunned. His expression was unreadable, his eyes fixed on mine unwaveringly, as if in defiance.

"Why's that?" I asked, gazing at Brad and his group again before looking back at Nico.

"I'm fat, boring, ugly and nerdy," he spoke tonelessly. "You're going to move into their clique eventually anyway, might as well do it."

I gaped at him, my stomach twisting uncomfortably. I hated the way he sounded. As if he had stated facts. Looking at his curly hair and his strangely beautiful eyes, I couldn't disagree more.

"Who told you that?" I asked, my heart wrenching in pain.

He didn't answer, turning away from me and again starting to read, as if the conversation was over. I wasn't sure prodding him would do any wonders and decided to remain silent, his words still ringing in my ears.

I went through the classes quietly, occasionally greeting Kenna, Brad or some new kids whose names I was struggling to remember. Nico seemed extremely disinterested to even talk to me, and somehow, it hurt me. Out of everyone I had come across so far, he was the most intriguing one to me. He kept pushing me away, being needlessly rude and closed off.

Almost as if he was afraid.

All thoughts of social politics, however, were wiped from my mind during the PE period. Our coach, Mr Bradman, was a tall, bearded fellow with kind, twinkling eyes hidden behind the bushy eyebrows. He reminded me a lot of Hagrid.

He seemed well over six feet tall. I jogged on the spot when we decided to break into two teams to play. We had another section joining us which meant that it would be ours versus theirs. From the corner of my eye, I saw Nico sitting on the ground at the very end of the field, picking at a blade of grass. I felt strange that he wasn't joining us, but the excitement of playing again was far too great for me to approach him just yet.

My fears about me being rusty from not playing for a while were dispelled as soon as I took the striker position in place of a disgruntled Asian boy. As soon as I was back on the field, all worries left my mind and I felt at home.

I wasn't sure if it was the adrenaline rush of playing after so long that was making me so energetic, or simply because the opposite team sucked- but our team triumphed. I managed to score a hattrick, feeling slightly bad as the opponents' goalkeeper was almost reduced to tears. A regular match would last for ninety minutes, with limited time however ours lasted for fifty and we won with a whopping five to one.

I felt high on the enthusiasm, finding myself jumping ecstatically with the rest of my classmates. My gaze travelled across the field to where Nico sat, apparently engaged deeply in scribbling something on the grass with his finger.

Mr Bradman praised me, telling me that he would love to see me on the field for practices and I hurriedly agreed. I was soon jostled by a crowd of people, all yelling in my face and felt extremely awkward as I finally managed to disengage myself from them and made my way silently towards where Nico was still sitting cross-legged.

He didn't look up as I walked closer to him and I saw that he was paying with a little ladybird that sat blissfully on his finger as he gazed at it intently, as if studying it.

"You play really well," he said unexpectedly as he finally looked up at me, his eyes gentler than I had seen. "It is nice to see you're so passionate about it."

I sat beside him, leaning back to catch my breath as he turned to look at me. His eyes flitted nervously to the crowd of students. It was break time after this, which meant that I had at least half an hour for a quick nap.

"It's the only thing I am good at," I admitted, raking a hand through my gross, sweaty hair and making a disgusted face immediately.

Then something strange happened. He chuckled.

I glanced at him silently, stunned by the shimmer in his eyes as he gazed at me. "How do you know you're not good at anything else? You haven't tried everything, have you?"

I opened my mouth to argue and shut it again, realizing that he was right. I shrugged and grinned at him. "Well, I guess you're right."

He started to reply before his eyes clouded over and I became aware of voices coming closer towards us. I saw Brad and his three friends walking up to us, his eyes narrowed suspiciously due to some reason. I sensed Nico suddenly sizing up, nervous and glanced at him curiously.

"Collins, let's go get some lunch," Brad said, nodding at me. I felt slightly annoyed at the way they completely ignored Nico.

"Sure," I nudged Nico. "Come with me."

His eyes widened, horrified. He shook his head. "Er...I don't eat lunch."

"What?" I asked, confused. I started to speak again before Brad interjected.

"Let him be, Wilder. Just come with us."

I gazed at Nico who was suddenly averting my eyes and glanced back at Brad trying to flash him a friendly smile. "That's alright, Brad. I'll see you later."

He frowned, his lips a thin line as his gaze shifted between both of us before he shrugged and walked away.

I was acutely aware of Nico's eyes on me and turned to see him gazing at me with the strangest expression. "Nico?"

He bit his quivering lip and shook his head, suddenly vulnerable. I couldn't understand what was plaguing him so, I just knew that he didn't deserve it.

"Th...thank you, Wilder," he said sincerely. I watched as he reached into his pocket and fished out a chocolate bar. "You can have my KitKat because you are very nice."

I gazed at the chocolate and then back into his sincere eyes before I burst out laughing. He seemed adorably affronted. I grinned, resisting the urge to reach over and mess his hair up as I took the chocolate. "We can share."

He perked up, his eyes shining as he nodded. "Okay."

I split the chocolate into two halves and gave one to him, gazing at him silently as he took a bite. I couldn't understand what his words meant. I could understand however that there was some hidden story behind them. And somehow, I found myself yearning to know about it.

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This chapter was really fun to write. I am still in the process of contemplating whether or not I should make this into a series. If I do, it will focus a lot more on Wilder and Nico's development and the growth of their relationship from boyish love into something much more stable and mature. I am thinking of adding flashbacks and new arcs and stuff...Do you have any specific ideas in mind? I would love to know because honestly, I am a bit stumped. I want the plot to showcase their love, their friendship and their progress. Would you like to see the development of their friendship, the consequent love and then the fall? A prequel of sorts to Getting Wilder actually.

Also, I am super excited because I also have some tentative book covers and titles:

(Courtesy of titles to IlamMalik fucking WIZ WOMAN-)

Let me know your thoughts down below and as always thank you so much for all the love and support. I honestly never thought I would ever deserve this. It is overwhelming and humbling. I appreciate and read all of your comments and try to reply every time. 

On that note, I am working and publishing another story that I hope to be achingly beautiful. It's called A Little Patch of Sky! It'll hopefully be published soon.

Adrij's sky is a coloured a little differently.

Having once lived and breathed art, an accident changes the way he sees colour, limiting his world to just a few hues.

Reeling from a loss that has shattered him to the core, he meets the brilliant young artist Adriel. Their shared affair for colours bring them together as Adriel gently leads Adrij back into the world he had run from so long ago.

Adrij struggles to come to terms with his new and unique perspective towards the world. He tries to love the red grass, the scarlet dusk and Adriel, the boy who makes him fall in love with the idea of love itself.

BTW THIS IS THE SEQUEL AND IT'S IN THE DRAFTS!!! Don't know when it'll be completed enough to post though :")

Thank You,
sending sparkles and pizzas and chocolates-
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