Love, Hate, It's All The Same

Chapter 4: Recipe For Disaster

"Hey, remember when I said the school will know by tomorrow?" Dipper asked Pacifica as they made their way through the cafeteria. "Yeah, I was way wrong. Everybody knew by third period."

"This is bad." Pacifica groaned and plopped down on the table seat. "Why'd I have to get stuck with you?"

"Hey, I'm not enjoying this either." Dipper muttered, sitting down on the seat opposite her.

"Look what we have here!" Leo exclaimed and sat himself down next to Dipper. "It's Falls High's new power couple!"

"Please don't call us that." Dipper and Pacifica said simultaneously.

"Aw, c'mon, buzzkills." Leo said as he admired his burger. "Don't be shy, kiss. I don't mind."

"I'm not kissing anyone in front of you." Dipper spat, looking appalled as Leo gorged down on his burger.

"There's my new favorite couple!" Mabel suddenly appeared behind Dipper, giving him a noogie. Pacifica picked on her fries unenthusiastically.

"Oh, by the way, where's Vince?" Mabel asked as she sat down next to Pacifica. 

"I don't know. He ran off with a bunch of buffoons." Dipper replied. "Hey, those are mine!"

"I ate all of mine." Pacifica said simply and continued eating Dipper's fries. Dipper sighed and pushed his tray of fries towards Pacifica. 

"Anyway," He turned back to Mabel. "Don't you have somewhere to be?"

"No, I'm on break. I'd go hang with Candy and Grenda but they have club stuff to take care of."

"Hiii!" said a voice behind Dipper. He felt something leaning on his back. He turned his head to see what it was and found Chloe Moore smiling down at him with her head propped on his shoulder.

"Uhh, Dipper," Leo said, "You gonna introduce us to your friend?"

He nodded toward Chloe, who was receiving death glares from Pacifica.

"You know damn well who she is, Leo." Mabel replied. "What I wanna know is, why is she here?"

Mabel looked at Chloe curiously as if she were a mildly interesting TV show. Chloe stood up straight just as Dipper turned to face her.

"Oh, I wanted to ask Dipper about the Math homework." She answered sweetly.

"There's, like, four other nerds in our class." Dipper pointed out. "Why me?"

"'Cause you're not weird and you're cute. Duh."

"If it's just homework, can't it wait 'til after lunch?" Pacifica said unexpectedly.

"No, I'm afraid not. I only have free time during lunch." Chloe retorted. 

"Alright, then, I'll just grab my book from my locker." Dipper stood up from the table and made for the cafeteria doors, Chloe close behind him.

"Can I ask you something?" Chloe spoke suddenly. 

"Go for it."

"Are you really dating the new girl?"

Despite answering the same question repeatedly over the past few hours, it caught Dipper off guard when it came out of Chloe's mouth.

"W-well, um, yeah. Wh-why do you ask?" Dipper stammered. His fingers fumbled clumsily with his locker's combination lock.

"No reason. I just thought it was a bit weird since you told me you didn't like blondes." Chloe stated nonchalantly and pointed at her own head of blonde locks. She looked eagerly at Dipper, who had finally managed to open his locker. "What makes her so different?"

Dipper took a moment to answer. He was suddenly extremely interested in the quality of his book's paper. He awkwardly shuffled from one foot to the other.

"Honestly? I don't know." He finally answered. "I just feel better around her."

Dipper handed the book to Chloe, keeping his head bowed to avoid eye contact.

"That's nice."

When Chloe spoke, there was an air of defeat laced into her voice. But before Dipper could process what he heard, she had put on a smile and her voice had returned to it's usual playful tone. "Thanks for the help."

Dipper stared at her peculiarly as she turned around and began walking back to the cafeteria.

"Chloe." Dipper put a hand on her shoulder. "Are you still mad about, you know... last year?"

She faced Dipper with a small smile. "I still don't get why you said 'no' then. Or how Newbie managed to change your mind. But no. I'm not mad about that."

"Wait, so you are mad about something." Dipper urged. 

"I should go." 

She nodded toward something behind Dipper and walked away. Dipper looked behind him and saw Pacifica sauntering over with a scowl on her face. She glared at the direction Chloe went.

"Do you ever just feel like chucking knives at certain people?" she muttered bitterly.

"Yes, every time I see you." 

"I thought you feel better around me?" Pacifica sniggered. Dipper stared at her with wide eyes. Exactly how long had she been around when he had that conversation?

"I just said that so we won't blow our cover." he grumbled. He walked past a giggling Pacifica, turning his head away to prevent her from seeing his reddening face.

Pacifica followed him, grinning. "I know. I was just pulling your leg. But more importantly - what happened between you guys last year?"

Dipper glared at her. "None of your business."

"What a snappy retort. Honestly, I don't know how you come up with them." Pacifica said with mock admiration. "Oh, by the way, I need you to come to my room tomorrow."

"Why do I have to go there? Can't we just meet somewhere?"

"My dad doesn't let me out at night. He'll have the whole of downstairs filled with butlers and stuff."

"Well then how do you expect me to get to your room?"

"The same way any teenager sneaking into a house does." Pacifica said matter-of-factly.  "Through a window."

Dipper looked bewildered. "But, I don't even know which window is yours!" 

"You'll find it." Pacifica muttered with a roll of her eyes. 

They reached an intersection and when she spoke, Dipper was alarmed to hear how sweet Pacifica's voice became in the few seconds that had passed.

"Anyways, I'll see you then, honey." Pacifica planted a parting kiss on his cheek before heading off into the left hallway, leaving Dipper absolutely baffled. He stayed standing there like an idiot for a few seconds, trying to process what had just happened, until he was greeted by a voice right next to him and he realized that Pacifica had feigned affection because they had ran into Leo. Seriously, it wouldn't kill her to give him a heads up. 

Leo cleared his throat to get Dipper's attention. "You know, you're really confusing bro."

"You're gonna have to give me a bit more than that if you want to get a proper reaction." Dipper jabbed as he and Leo began walking to their next class.

"Like, one moment you're insisting that you guys aren't dating and the next the whole school is talking about 'Dipcifica' being official."

"Dipcifica?"

"That's what people are calling you guys." Leo clarified at his friend's confusion. "You know, Dipper plus Pacifica equals-"

A disaster, Dipper thought scathingly.

"-Dipcifica!" Leo finished cheerfully. "We gotta run if we wanna make it to History, though."