World's Starlight

The hallways were filled with teenagers, some were talking with their friends in front of their lockers, some were heading to class, and some were doing other things. On one of the lockers, a tall teenager could be seen taking his books from the locker.

The young man was tall, with his height being no more than six feet. He has brown hair that does not look tidied nor does it look messy. His eyes were as brown as an oak wood. The young man's face looked rather average and did not stand out among the other teenagers, but his face was calm and naturally looked fierce, making other teenagers hesitate to approach him.

Victor Vancouver was preparing to head to class when he saw a short teenager approaching him with a smile. His gorgeous face along with his short height, he looked rather comical.

Olive approached Victor, but before he could greet him, Victor greeted him first.

"Olive… you're surprisingly late."

Olive just chucked and said in a neutral voice:

"Did I? Well, I kind of overslept."

Victor was slightly taken aback. It was not like Olive to oversleep, especially during a school night.

"Overslept? That's unusual, coming from you."

"Uh–huh, I had a rather beautiful dream, you see."

Hearing that, Victor's face paled. He looked around, to make sure that no one had heard it. But to his horror, it seems that quite a lot of people heard his friend's last sentence.

"I… I see, let's not talk about it."

"Why?"

"Let's just not! No questions asked."

Olive shook his head, feeling confused about Victor's odd behavior. He opened his locker for his class, and after he was done preparing, both Olive and Victor headed to their class.

***

As Olive and Victor chatted while walking down the hallway full of teenagers, one of the teenagers suddenly came up to them.

And Olive, noticing the teenagers approaching, groaned, with a frustrated look on his gorgeous face… Victor however, still hadn't noticed the teenager approaching, looked at Olive confusingly. Then suddenly, the approaching teenager said, as if answering Victor's confusion.

"Well if it isn't Oliver Pennyson."

Victor turned his head from Olive and saw a tall, muscular teenager — around Victor's height. The teenager has a tan skin, his hair was black and his eye color was… Well, who cares what his eye color is? The teenager seemed to wear a football team jacket.

'Great... a bully.'

Suddenly, Victor couldn't help but also let out a groan.

The teenager in front of Olive and Victor was in the school's football team, so naturally he had a lot of fans and was popular among the school. He would have been respected by a lot of students if this guy weren't such a bully. And due to Olive's short height, it was inevitable for him to get picked by the popular jock.

"Say, I couldn't help but overhear the other students talking about you having a really nice dream. Wow! Our shorty has finally reached puberty! About time, actually. I was beginning to think that you wouldn't grow at all!"

While he said that, the jock leaned closer toward Olive. He kept mocking Olive for some more time, making him and Olive even more frustrated.

"Hey, shorty! You're good at chemistry, right? You got a full mark on it after all! So how about you do a little homework of mine?"

This time, he had to intervene. Him mocking Olive was irritating enough, but he held back from interfering throughout the years, since Olive told him to. But asking him to do his lousy assignment? Now he know he needes ro step in.

"Quit it, no one is doing anyone's homework. Leave him alone."

Hearing that, the jock frowned.

"Well, looks like, Victor here is protecting this short friend of his."

The jock grabbed Victor by the collar, clearly doesn't appreciate his conversation was intervene

"Listen here you bastard, this is between me and little Oliver so mind your own business. I'll find you when I need you."

Victor couldn't help but scoffed hearing the jock's word.

'What is he, an idiot? ' I'll find you when I need you.' Who does he think he is? Thinking that he owns me?'

Of course, Victor already knew what the jock meant. Victor has always been great at science–technology, and was able to program and create a rather advanced tech — although not that advanced compared to the big companies. It was thanks to Olive's father, who had allowed him to learn the course by watching their work in their laboratory and personally taught him from time to time about programming and creating a device.

Olive also knew how to program and create a device, since he always built it with Victor in their free time. But that was beside the point…

Victor was not smart to begin with and had to start from zero to understand the basics of programming and building a device, and so did Olive when he learnt chemistry and other things. They had faced hardship, failure, and struggle to master it.

So why does the jock want the easy way by making others do the hardships that were supposed to be his?

"You shut your damn mouth. You don't own me. So don't talk like I'm your slave, brainless prick."

"Ho?"

Victor could see the jock's eyes twitch and frowning his brow. He doubt that the jock was offended by the former statement and was offended Victor's insult.

Then suddenly, the jock lifted his hand and formed a fist, making Olive's eyes widen and ready to act if anything happened to his friend. The other students around them tensed, as they saw the sight of a fight that was about to break. Some were even preparing to take out their cell phone to record it.

The jock was about to throw his fist at Victor's face when a women's voice suddenly resounded behind him.

"What do you think you're doing?"

The jock's fist then stopped mere inches away from Victor's face. He turned around, and his eyes were met with a stunningly gorgeous woman.

It was a slender young woman with a blonde hair that fell like a river of gold covering her back. Her ivory skin was as smooth as a stone marble with an aloof and calm demeanor on her face. Her height almost reached Victor by the nose… And her sight was breathtaking.

But even then, what stood out the most was not her slender figure or her beautiful golden hair. No… In fact, what made her stand out was her unique different color of pupils on each side — with the color gold on the right and blue on the left.

Her sight would have made every male fall to their knees, charmed by her beauty. But that was not the case for the jock. Because currently, his face was deadly pale as if he had seen a ghost. And a scary one.

It was Sarah. The woman standing in front of the jock was Sarah Jewell, and currently, she was looking at him with a dark look and icy cold eyes.

"Sa–Sarah! Nothing! I was just having a nice conversation with Michael and Victor!"

The jock, noticing his fist, quickly put it down.

Sarah was silent for a moment and then snarled.

"Scram."

The jock. Not wasting any time, quickly retreat from Olive and Victor.

Sarah took a glance at the paled face jock. Then turned her head toward Olive and Victor. She walked up to them and asked with a concern voice.

"Are you alright?"

Victor brushed off his collar where the jock grabbed him and replied.

"Yeah, I'm alright. That bastard ran before he could punch me anyway-"

"I wasn't talking to you."

Sarah said, looking at Olive while ignoring Victor completely.

Victor, stunned by Sarah's cold attitude, looked at her with disbelief and turned his head to Olive, who also seemed to be taken aback.

Eventually, Olive answered.

"Me? Yeah, I'm alright."

Sarah let out a relieved sigh and just gave him a smile.

"Really? Well, that's a relief then."

Victor, who was still looking at Sarah with disbelief, immediately interrupted.

"Hey! I'm the one who'd almost received a punch! How come he is the only one you're concerned for!?"

Sarah seemed annoyed by Victor's question. She looked at him and said with a hint of sarcasm in her voice.

"You're the one who provoked him, didn't you? So it's your fault if you got a bruised face anyway."

Victor scoffed, hearing the bold statement.

"Wow, how cold. Is this how you talk with your friends?"

"I don't know you."

Seeing Victor's eyes twitch, she let out a melodious chuckle.

After she made sure that Olive and Victor were alright, she then walked alongside them to make sure that there were no other people trying to pick up on Olive. However, that was not her only reason. Because while also making sure that others would not pick on Olive, she also wanted to have a nice chat with her childhood friends who were both Olive and Victor.

Victor had not known Olive and Sarah since childhood. In the friend group, Olive was the youngest, with Victor being one year older than him and Sarah being two years older.

There was a reason why the popular jock's face paled when he saw Sarah. The reasoning was because, even though Sarah looked stunningly gorgeous, she was also surprisingly dangerous. She knows how to fight and she wasn't afraid to use it.

She was rather popular, unlike the jock who was known as bully, Sarah was known as the opposite — a protector. So instead of others being scared by her, they respected her for her guardian personality. But mostly for her beauty.

The other students weren't aware of Olive's and Victor's relationship with Sarah. So when they see Sarah walking alongside them, they looked at Olive and Victor whispering with envy.

"Damn, if I had known she would walk alongside them, I would've not hesitated to stand up for that shorty instead."

"Lucky them, to be able to walk alongside her."

"Hey, how about tomorrow you pretend to pick on me, or even better punch me!"

"What!? And get myself beaten!? As if!"

Victor couldn't help but overheard the students whispering about them. Olive and Sarah seem to heard a bit of their envious whisper but chose to remain silent.

Victor sighed.

Suddenly, Victor was reminded of the incident during their middle school years.

Remembering that, his face darkein ned. There is a reason why the jock didn't cross the line and just mocked Olive. That reason being was because Sarah kept him in check. Sarah didn't always use her strength to protect others and only decided to use it after Olive got bullied in middle school. If it weren't for Sarah, Olive would've been bullied by the jock even worse a long time ago.

Though, if Olive wanted to, he could've just beaten them up into a pulp, but he had his reasons not to.

Victor had always regretted his action in middle school. So he tried to make a difference in high school. Hoping that it could atone for it.

'Whatever, that was a long time ago.'

There were no benefits recalling a bitter past, really. What happened, had already happened. He has a lot of regret about the past, but there was no changing it. It was just not possible.

...So he just brushed the thought off and headed to class.