Unfortunately for me, I had class. I made my way over to my locker where I found Eret leaning against it as he whistled a cheery tune. The corners of my lips bent up in a smile as I wrapped my arms around his neck. "You don't have to follow me to morning class, you know?"

Eret tucked a strand of my blonde hair behind my ear. "I've got to make sure you don't run straight into the arms of another as soon as I drop you off, love"

I let out a chuckle as our eyes met and I took in his copper tinted, amber irises that could make any woman's legs turn into cooked spaghetti. I leaned in closer to him as my lips yearned for his, but right before they had a chance to meet, I felt a tap on my shoulder.

I let out a frustrated sigh as I turned my head around, but stopped halfway as I realized who the person behind me was. I tore myself out of Eret's arms and wrapped my own around my best friend.

"Heather, I'm so happy to see you!" I said as I pulled away and took her in. Her long, black hair had been braided into the signature braid that hung over her left shoulder, standing in contrast to her pale skin and grass green eyes. She wore a black tank top with two crossed axes printed on it underneath the silver jacket that could've easily been mistaken for some modern kind of iron armor. On her legs were her acid washed ripped jeans that had been neatly tucked into her black Timberland boots that looked like they had joined her on a hike or two.

"I'm happy to see you too, how are you doing?" She asked me, a smile spreading across her face.

"I'm good, but tell me, how was it up north?" I asked her.

She shrugged. "It was good I guess, but I would say the best part of my break was coming back!"

I knitted my brows together in confusion. "How so?"

"Well..." She bit her bottom lip and gripped her arm as her cheeks suddenly turned red. "I got a boyfriend"

Boyfriend. A word I never thought I would hear my best friend say.

Ever since we met in the 6th grade, Heather had always been anti-boyfriends. In the 7th grade she rejected Corey Smith, the most popular guy at our middle school because she simply had 'better things to do'. That was the moment our friendship was set in stone. After that we made a pact that we wouldn't date anyone during middle school, and we succeeded.

Then came high school, I began dating Eret, and to my surprise, Heather was very excited and happy for me. I'm pretty sure she was dangerously close to fainting when we informed her that we were officially dating.

"Heather, I'm so happy for you!" My smile from before grew even wider as enthusiasm coated my every word. "Who's the lucky guy?"

"Heather!" A guy shouted as he came running up to us, panting heavily, as if he had just ran all the way from the parking lot. Heather turned around, a grin appearing on her face as she planted a kiss on the cheek of the guy that had just ran up to us.

Heather wove her fingers in his before turning back to us, her cheeks now baby pink. "Astrid, Eret, meet Fishlegs Ingerman, my boyfriend"

Fishlegs smiled as he waved at us. He was a rather large and husky looking guy. His short hair was blonde and his eyes were the same color as Heather's. He wore a checkered vest over a white shirt and a pair of dark blue jeans that were folded neatly over his navy trainers, revealing his white socks.

The fresh pair gazed lovingly into each other's eyes as they seemed to forget that Eret and I were present.

I cleared my throat, earning the attention of the two lovers, who turned red as tomatoes simultaneously.

"Astrid" I smiled as I offered Fishlegs my hand. He took it and gave it a good shake.

"Heather has told me a lot about you, it's an honor to meet someone so important to my... girlfriend" Fishlegs said as if he still hadn't gotten used to calling Heather his girlfriend. Heather leaned her head against his arm, as if to assure him that she really was his girlfriend.

Seeing those two together made my heart flutter. I instinctively slipped my hand into Eret's as I remembered when we had been the exact same way.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Fishlegs." Eret said as the two of them shook hands. "I'm Eret, a Astrid's boyfriend"

"It's a pleasure to meet you too, Eret." Fishlegs smiled.

The bell rang, and we said our goodbyes to one another before splitting up. Eret followed me to class before taking my hands in his and placing a kiss on my knuckles.

"I gotta go now, see you after school?" I smiled up at him as I was once again drawn into his eyes.

I got up on my tippy toes and placed a gently kiss on his cheek. Man, how I loved our height difference. He was 6'4, I was 5'9. Some would say that's too big of a difference, those people have clearly never spooned with a tall partner before. Spooning gets a thousand times better when you're constantly the little spoon.

"Of course" I told him as I let him go and watched him disappear in the sea of students that filled the hallway.

***

I made my way into the classroom and managed to snag myself 'the perfect seat'. Also known as the seat in the middle of the middle row. From there you could hear whatever the teacher said and see whatever they did, but they would have a hard time hearing or seeing anything I did.

"Hey babe, you're looking amazing, as always" The ever so annoying voice of Snotlout Jorgenson pointed out from the seat behind me.

I sighed and turned around to face him. "Will there ever be a year where we don't share a class?"

Snotlout slung his legs up on the desk before adjusting the grey cap that held his dark brown hair down. "It seems to me that you can't get enough of the Snotman"

He shot finger guns at me -something he did alarmingly often- and I couldn't help but sigh and roll my eyes at how idiotic he looked.

Unfortunately for me, I had known Snotlout since the first grade, and ever since then he has had a crush on me. Snotlout was a rather short guy, standing at just 5'6 with dark blue eyes and a crimson red backpack that he carried around everywhere. He usually wore a black leather jacket over a grey t-shirt with the print of a band no one had ever heard of. He quite enjoyed wearing black converse, but broke his black-grey color scheme with his blue jeans.

"Welcome back students, now let's talk about your group presentation" The English teacher, Mr. Grimborn said, earning groans from the entire class.

Mr. Grimborn had never been the teacher that drowned us in a million small projects, no, he was the teacher that gave the class 2 major presentations that made a HUGE impact on your grade. Long story short, the presentation terrified everyone.

"Alright class, before I assign you to your groups, I'm going to go over some of the changes I made to the group presentation of this semester" Mr. Grimborn braided his fingers together as he scanned the room, making sure to get eye contact with each and every student. "I've cut down the size of the groups, the preparation time and the length of the presentation. From now on you'll be in groups of two and two, the minimum length is going to be 30 minutes and you have from today until March 2nd to finish it"

Gasps could be heard coming from all sides of the room.

"Calm down, I'm sure you'll do just as fine as you did last semester" Mr. Grimborn attempted to assure us as he opened one of the drawers in his desk and pulled out a sheet of paper. "Now, the following are the pairs you'll be in; Ms. Anderson and Mr. Andrews..."

I put my hands together and leaned my forehead against them. "If the gods are real, I beg of you, please, please do not let me end up with Snotlout as my partner for this presentation"

"Ms. Hofferson and..." I perked up at the sound of my name, curious -and a little nervous- to find out who would be my partner. "Mr. Haddock"

The name rang a bell in my head, but I just couldn't place my finger on what exactly my mind was trying to tell me. "Who?"

Mr. Grimborn let out a sigh as he got up from his desk and made his way over to the back of the classroom. He placed his hands on the shoulders of the guy he stood behind, causing him to look up, and therefore giving me full view of his face.

"Ms. Hofferson, meet Mr. Haddock, your partner" As my eyes met those of the guy we had ran over in the parking lot earlier, all the pieces of the puzzle were finally coming together.

Haddock. There were only two people in Berk who had that last name, and that was the mayor, Stoick Haddock and his son, Hiccup Haddock. No wonder I didn't recognize him at first, puberty had hit that scrawny little kid from middle school like a freight train!

The only question that remained now was how I hadn't noticed him before now, seeing as he had been in the same class as me for 6 months. I really should take a trip to Dr. Gothi and get my eyes checked.

"Hold up, she's my partner?" Hiccup questioned Mr. Grimborn, clearly not happy with his decision.

Mr. Grimborn rubbed his temples and let out another sigh. "Gods! Do any of you children ever listen?"

"When I tell you who your partner is, that is final, no changing, no complaining, understood?" Mr. Grimborn said, sounding quite irritated before he quickly calmed down and resumed pairing people up.

I glanced over at Hiccup and found him doodling in his notebook. As I continued staring at him I could not seem to figure why he was being so rude to me. What had I ever done to him?

***

"Wow, I can't wait to get an F on this!" I told myself as I read through our schedule in physics, my mind aching at the thought of all the studying I would have to do. As I was internally arguing with myself about whether I should go to university or stay at home forever, a loud 'ding!' brought me back to where I was sitting at the kitchen table.

I glanced over at my phone, picked it up and read the message I had been sent.

Unknown Number:
'Hey, is this Astrid?'

I tapped my chin, debating if I should answer the text or no.

"Depends on who's asking"

"Hiccup Haddock, you ran me over today, remember?"

"Oh yeah, sorry about that"
"How'd you get my number anyway?"

"Your friend, Heather"

"Makes sense"

"Anyway, the project?"

"Already?"

"Yeah"

"Library during lunch?"

"Sure, see you then"

A smile tugged at the corners of my lips as I looked over the texts we had sent. I quickly registered him as a contact before turning my phone off and making an attempt at returning to what I had been previously doing.