Author's Note: There is nothing I love so much as a lust/hate relationship. And where better to find that ship in the HSM realm than with Chadpay? So now I channel my creative energy towards the 'crack pairing' (as my good buddy, Dernier Cri would say) of Chad Danforth and Sharpay Evans. Where this is going, I don't know. But I hope you enjoy it anyway!

BLANKET DISCLAIMER: I do not, nor will I ever, claim to own High School Musical. Damn and blast the monotony of these things!

BETWEEN YOU AND ME

PROLOGUE

The Great Crayon Debate

Blocks of sunlight filled the large colorful classroom on a Tuesday morning. The space was brightened further still by the shrieking laughter and chatter of several wide-eyed children. Ms. Stanford floated around the classroom, organizing her new students, and feeling certain that today would be a good day for all.

Trapped in pure optimism, the teacher failed to notice a little boy planted in a dark corner. He was round of face and somber of eyes, his skin light brown and soft, with brown corkscrew curls sticking out of his head like the leaves of a palm tree.

Little Chad Danforth was currently suffering from severe separation anxiety. For as long as he could remember (which was not very long, considering he was only six) he had been with his mother. He followed her to all three of her jobs and he was always dangling his feet out of the shopping cart when they went to the store. At night he cuddled into her warm embrace, safe in the knowledge that she would never leave. Chad did not know what to do with himself when his mother was not there, and all he could think of at the moment was to hide until she came and rescued him…

Sharpay Evans felt equally excluded, but her isolation was involuntary. Her little brother, Ryan fared much better. Mostly because he was giving away all of his mint-chocolate-chip cookies.

The other children recoiled from Sharpay after mere minutes of exposure to her radiant character. Sharpay stood out like clump of broccoli in a candy store with her blonde hair descending nearly to the waist, her pink, sparkly overalls and her tendency to burst into songs that only grown-ups ever listened to. But Sharpay's unpardonable sin was in her refusal to share her cookies.

The truth was, Sharpay liked her cookies. She liked them and she did not want to see anyone else liking them. Her nanny, Abigail, told her that was called 'selfish'. She said it like it was a bad thing, but Sharpay was unperturbed. If being selfish meant she got six mint-chocolate-chip cookies to herself, then she would gladly be that.

The thing about being selfish, though, was that it was followed by loneliness. Sharpay was troubled by this. Home was lonely, too. Her mother was always going to visit her friends and her father was always out doing important grown-up things. But at home, she had Ryan and Abigail at least.

Here there was no Abigail. And Ryan was everyone's new best friend. So Sharpay was truly alone…

"Okay, kids," Ms. Stanford trilled. "We are going to pair up, two of you at a desk, and work together on coloring! YAY!"

It was only as fourteen of her students scrambled to their desks, that the dim-witted novice notice an extra two, in opposite corners of the room. Her eyes glanced over their pink and blue name tags anxiously.

"Chad? Sharpay? Why don't you two sit at that desk over there? I'm sure you'll have lots of fun together!"

Slowly, the little brown boy and the little yellow girl converged at a desk, their eyes averted. They sat and Ms. Stanford hurried to give them their crayons and picture. It was of a square house with a round sun and a garden.

"Now today, I want you to try your very best to color in the lines. We want our houses looking neat and tidy, don't we?"

Sharpay, oblivious to the teacher, regarded Chad for a moment. "I like your hair."

Chad blinked. For a moment he did not know how to respond, but then remembered what his mum told him about when people say nice things to you. "Thank you very much."

"I'm Sharpay."

"I'm Chad."

She smiled and picked up a crayon. "What do you want the sky to be? Purple?"

Chad wrinkled his nose in displeasure, but smiled a little at the same time. "No! The sky is blue."

"But purple's a nice color. Don't you think?"

"Um…"

Without waiting for his response she turned the paper a little and began to passionately color in her purple sky. The way Sharpay saw it, the sky in real life was always blue. Here she had a chance to do something different, something exciting.

Chad was entertained by the idea, but a little disconcerted at the same time. He liked things to be as they were. The sky blue, the sun yellow. Chad was further affronted when Sharpay exclaimed,

"Oooh! Let's make the grass orange!" And handed him the garish crayon.

"But grass is green!"

"Well, our grass is orange."

Chad glanced at Ms. Stanford, floating by desks and observing the other children's work with a smile and a nod. He was sure their grass wasn't orange.

But Chad really started to get upset when Sharpay began to color outside of the lines.

"You have to color in the lines, Sharpay."

"Why?"

"'Cause that's what you're supposta do. If you don't do it right everybody'll think you're stupid. Stupid and weird."

"Well, I am stupid and weird then."

His cheeks flushed, Chad snatched the crayon from her.

"Hey!"

"You have to do it right."

Sharpay grabbed his hand, he tightened his grip, and a tug-of-war immediately ensued. "Give it back!"

"No! You're being a stupidhead!"

"You're a stupidhead! A stupidhead with stupid big hair!"

Ms. Stanford rushed over to them. "Chad! Sharpay! Stop fighting right now."

Before she had made a move, Sharpay petulantly released her grip and Chad tumbled back, off his chair. She smirked a little as he scrambled back to his feet, his face scrunched up in anticipation of tears.

"Oh, it's all right, Chad!" Ms. Stanford descended to her knees in front of him. "Don't you cry. Go to that table over there. With Zeke and Troy."

Chad gave Sharpay an intense, indignant glare before shuffling over to the desk at which two other boys sat.

"You stay here."

Sharpay huffed as the teacher left and stared after Chad. She felt a little sad. She had liked him. But he was bossy and boring, and so Sharpay would rather be alone. Alone with Ryan at least.

"Ryan!" she hissed across the classroom. "Ryan! Come sit with me!"

The little blonde boy hesitated before his sister's insistent glare pulled him away from the chubby girl by which he sat. He plopped down next to Sharpay and watched her color all over the page with ferocious intent…

Over the next eleven years Chad Danforth and Sharpay Evans would fail to see eye-to-eye on anything. The coloring debacle was but a foreshadowing of conflicts to come.

But even with more than a decade of distance between the children they were and the teens they had become, neither Chad nor Sharpay forgot that flashing moment in which they stared over the drawing and liked each other.

A/N: Well, as I said. I don't quite know where I'm taking this! But reviews would be a good way to get me going in a specific direction.

So yeah. Press the 'GO' button now! Make my day!