Push & Pull | KLAROLINE

Chapter One

Never in a million years did Niklaus Mikaelson think that he could be friends with more than one person at a time. Though he disliked the idea of having friends in general, he particularly despised even the thought of being in a friend group. He was usually known to be a loner but was approached by a pretty blonde in the seventh grade when he first moved to the States. She kindly but forcefully asked him to join her and another girl (whose name he soon learned was Elena Gilbert) at their lunch table.

She swiftly introduced herself as Caroline Forbes after realizing how rude she had been to not do so before ever suggesting that he come over to their table. At first, he thought that their personalities would clash and that they would end up hating one another because she was far too bubbly for his liking, but he was quickly proven wrong.

While she was a walking ray of unstoppable light, he felt almost comfortable with it, despite his natural comfort zone being silence in his room with only his sketchbooks and utensils.

Niklaus immediately found her amusing and took great joy in getting on her very last nerve. He would tease her about small things, mostly her habit of meddling in random strangers' business as he and the two girls would walk home or the way that she would duck her head into her shirt whenever she saw her crush walk by. He saw the angry look in her eyes and felt compelled to renew it when it would disappear. Even then, it was not only her fierceness that inched him closer to her; it was her longing to make her friends smile every day, her determination to get things done in as orderly a fashion as possible, and even her constant nagging about seatbelts and speed limits as she sat in the backseat of his mother's car when he was learning how to drive. All in all, he took a liking to her and she quickly became one of his best friends, as did Elena.

Elena and Niklaus had a brother-and-sister sort of relationship, which showed immensely, as they also teased one another. Caroline found that they would argue over such minuscule details of the most meaningless things and, at first, thought that it may be them crushing on one another but Niklaus quickly thwarted that thought by confessing that he had a crush on Aurora, the most annoying girl at their middle school. Niklaus would genuinely be angry after every argument, as would Elena but they would quickly get over the matter in just seconds. The two still called one another a friend and would not dare let a thing happen to the other but the squabbles were intense. If it were not for Niklaus' heavy British accent, you could be fooled into thinking they grew up in the same household and were mortal enemies.

Regardless, this was a tight group of friends and they even followed each other to the same high school; Mystic High.

It was not until the Salvatores entered their high school in tenth grade that the three friends grew apart.

Damon Salvatore, who had already made a name for himself after the first day, swept sweet and innocent Caroline off her feet the second he approached her with his icy blue eyes and dark hair. Something about the contrast between the two was enough to drive any girl crazy.

Caroline slowly but surely drifted away from her two best friends but not at will. At the very start of her relationship with him, Damon was proven to be and recognized as, very possessive and borderline narcissistic and controlling. He disliked the way that she and Niklaus were close, although Niklaus had some lady friends of his own over the course of the six months that had passed by. Yes, that is right. Damon and Caroline only lasted six months, which was good news because, in those six months, Damon tore her from every opposite-sex friendship or any guy that she was even acquaintances with.

Stefan Salvatore, the younger brother, did not necessarily do much talking except to Niklaus and Elena. If mellow was a person, it was Stefan. He had been the complete opposite of his brother, causing people to have a completely different reaction to his existence.