Note: This book is full of plot holes and I'm trying my best to fix them all. In retrospect, I had to edit out a LOT of scenes, including those that include Fishlegs, and especially this entire chapter where it was supposed to be a kidnapping scenario. Everything in here is cliché, but some things are just too horribly cliché. 

Honestly, even Hiccup's personality is just an awful turn-off, I can't believe everyone let me get away with it back then. This is not how I imagine him to be (at least now, anyway). I changed major parts of the story, so I'm only hoping everything else turns out well. From here on, the plot changes, just slightly, very slightly.

—

—a s t r i d

"Why did you pick me as partner, anyway? Wanna get credit for slacking off?"

Dinner opted for a clear night out. Maybe it is questionable for two, unsuspecting minors roaming around the alleyway at any time after five-thirty. Yes, indeed. But current generation begs to differ, as you see fourteen year-olds on dates a couple times. It's quite a sickening concept, but I'm hoping my night out with Hiccup Haddock counts as friendly banter rather than a date.

The stars gleamed in Hiccup's eyes, I could feel myself drown in all the questions in my head.

"I don't know, you tell me." He looks distracted, staring at me intently, carefully. Like I was a fragile shard in a million pieces.

I've been thinking, these past few days.

I've been thinking why I always will myself to not get flustered whenever around him; why the beats hammering within tight, closed spaces come threatening out my chest. I've been thinking why even after ten years, Hiccup Haddock refused to leave my impression of him as the four-year old Robin Hood I had back then. His dependable back. His wiry arms that caged me in from bullies of the past.

I've been thinking when exactly Hiccup Haddock had ceased to be my hero and became someone I liked.

Adored, my mind wanted to say. It's very confusing. All this love thing.

Pining after someone — out of all the books I've read I had always learned that one-side love is a self-destructing thing. It eats you up, shoots you down, and gives you demise on endless wrecks of the life you have left. How such a wonderful thing — love — can be the reason for wars; be a catalyst for destruction.

There is evil in unconstrained good.

I've been staring way too long.

—

I see Mrs. Haddock by their doorstep, her smile motherly and warm. Hiccup's dad comes home moments later, takeout in hand and a big, wholesome grin etched on the crevices of his face. His mom had assured my mom that her daughter is safe, and indeed I am. I'm doing this for the marks, after all.

When Hiccup led me into his study, I felt the unsuspecting familiarity of the room's coziness, and suddenly I'm enveloped into good, old nostalgia. "We used to play, back then." I mentioned, as if it had been crucial. I needed a distraction, small talk, anything.

Hiccup alone is too much of a distraction.

"We did. You're a loser in playing tag, by the way." He grins, picking up a textbook. I blew a raspberry back at him, "You have no right to say that when you hide at the most obvious places during hide-and-seek. Don't test me, Haddock."

He hums, smiling. I let the comfortable silence take over for a while, until the familiarity strikes me unbearable.

"What did you feel about me?" I started, my voice constricted in my throat. "Back then?"

Hiccup flips a page. He flips them too fast for them to count as a means of distraction. His body language tenses, the fidgets on his fingers frequent even more. "You had the bluest eyes I could remember." He looks at me.

"You looked frail, and weak, and honestly, the first time I saw you I pitied you horribly. I treated you like a charity case. You were just a remedy for my hero complex."

The air was silent. The room was cold.

"I'll be honest with you," his breath gets caught somewhere in his voice box, because the sound was shrill, and completely unstable. "I liked you. I fell for baby blue eyes when I was four, and I realized it when I was ten."

I could not breathe. The fates are testing me today. My palms felt clammy, sweat breaking out from the unknown. The vast skies outside greets me a melancholy of regret. If only, if only, if only.

"Now I'm fourteen, and things have never changed."

If only I stayed.

If only I never isolated.

If only I never ran away from myself.

"Astrid, can I kiss you?"

I stared, looking at him dumbfounded, utterly in a wreck. My emotions were going haywire, the last few drops of insanity knocking straight at the windows of my mind. I felt a brush of lips, chaste and light. The collision tasted like years of longing, of pining confusion, of eager searching and separation. The taste was bitter. Suddenly Hiccup was crying, and so was I. The kiss ended as soon at it had started, and his soft hands framed the sides of my face, bringing our foreheads together.

Oh, the irony.

His eyes were more beautiful than mine.

"Hey, hello, I'm just realizing I like you, and my feelings are overflowing and I only have this much heart in a suitcase."

"I like you too, Hiccup. It took me ten years, but I like you a lot."

—

Note: Good-bye :'D

Old Author's Notes:

°°◇》Author's Note《◇°°

How'd you all like the chapter?

Happy 200+ reads! Or is it 300+??

What's gonna happen to Brandon and Trisha?

No,this is so far away from the ending..I still have plans for this book so it won't end yet :)

What will be Stoick and Valka's reaction?

Welp!Bye for now,sea buccaneers!

I'll be at Eel Island to prank my brother XD

I dedicate this to @TheAwezomeOne for being my second twin! :D

Is this chappie a bit TOO long?

Correct me for wrong grammars,spellings,etc.

So okay then!Bye!

~TheCoolestAstrid