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CHAPTER ONE
OLIVER HAD BEEN LIVING in Hawkins since he was in eighth grade, and yet, nobody knew his name. Sure, he had been friends with a few people over the years, but they all end up finding someone better to hang out with.
Now they never really ditched him because of something bad, but he was too boring. He was bland. He had trouble portraying emotions and always had this stare on his face. Despite the fact that he was adorable, the stare made people steer clear of him.
This is embarrassing, but the only people who really know him and talk about him are his family and the teachers at Hawkins High School.
But it wasn't like he minded anyway. He liked being alone. It was like a weight being taken off his back. He didn't have to pretend to be interested in somebody when truly, he wasn't interested at all.
The only relationship that mattered to him was his relationship with his parents. His parents were his everything. As long as he had them everything would be fine.
Another thing that made everyone stay away from him was his major social anxiety. He had trouble looking at people and he could barely stand in front of his class without getting anxious.
His parents have been trying to help him with it for years, but it only seemed to be getting worse. Especially after his grandmother passed away.
He and his grandmother were close. He would stay at her house on the weekends and they would make traditional Korean foods that he hadn't eaten since he moved to Hawkins. They did this so often that he often cooked the meals at home. He became quite skilled at cooking if you asked him.
One day, however, when he was supposed to go spend the night with her, he and his parents were informed that she had passed away in her sleep.
Oliver's life came crashing down after that. He became the new kid once again, everyone's eyes on him. He was without his grandmother, and she was almost like his anchor. He couldn't go to her anymore after that, and realization had hit him hard.
Now he's known as the freaky senior kid who gets good grades. That was the only thing going smoothly in his life. He had been a straight-A student all his life, he never once failed a test or got a grade lower than 93%.
Because of this, despite how much he hates it, he was often asked to tutor some kids who had horrible grades. Most of the time they were the 'cool' people from school. The ones everyone looked up to for no damn reason. They were childish and had nothing good about them.
Which was why he was stuck at Steve Harrington's house on a Saturday night trying to get him to pay attention to the math problems in front of him.
There are so many things he could be doing instead of this. And by 'so many things' he means laying in bed reading his favorite books or sleeping.
He hates being smart sometimes.
"So what you're trying to say is I have to move the 7 over before I can subtract the 5?" Steve asked, pointing at the problem with the eraser end of his pencil. Oliver had his head laying on his hand, boredom was most definitely evident on his face. "Yes, you got it."
"Sweet!" He started marking on the paper and Oliver watched, making sure he made no mistakes. After almost two hours of putting up with Steve's annoying behavior, he finally solved a problem. Steve passed the paper over to the boy in front of him so he could check over it.
Oliver's eyes scanned over the paper carefully, almost impressed that Steve had gotten them correct, but then remembered how long it had taken him to even process the question.
"You got it, good job." He passed the paper back to Steve, noticing how his face lit up. "Do you think you could help me with one more thing before you go?" Oliver bit his lip before shaking his head.
"I'm sorry but I've already been here for two hours, I need to get home." Steve sighed sadly before nodding his head in understanding. "What about tomorrow? You free?" He was.
"What do you need help with?" Oliver asked, trying to figure out if he would regret saying yes. "I need to work on an essay. For college."
Oliver sighed, thinking for a moment. He opened his notebook and ripped out a piece of paper, jotting down his phone number before handing it to the other boy in front of him. "Give me a call tomorrow, I'll let you know then." He gave him a forced smile.
"Alright. Thanks, Ollie." Oliver almost flipped the table at the nickname, but just nodded and got up, stuffing a few papers in his backpack.
He made his way to the front door, rolling his eyes at the sound of footsteps following after him. "See you later?" Oliver turned around and nodded with a tight smile. "See you later..." He mumbled as he exited the house.
He grabbed his skateboard that he had left leaning on the side of the house and waited until he got to the road before he set it down. "Be careful! You know how things are here nowadays." Steve shouted after him.
Kids going missing and one coming back to life? Yeah. He knows what happens here. "Yeah, yeah." He waved him off before pushing off, riding down the street.
He knows to be careful, his parents tell him every day. But to be truthful, he never took it to heart because nothing had happened for a year.
He should probably listen to his parents more. And for once in his life, maybe he should've listened to Steve Harrington.
