Kendall Perkins lived a boring life; deep in some metaphorical jewelry box she whipped out only in her most intimate moments, she had this thought stashed away—she knew this.

Her boyfriend was boring, her home was boring, her friends (or lack thereof) left her feeling bored…

Kendall woke in a queen-sized bed with her sheets hardly messed, hair straight in three—she counted- strokes of a brush, with her books and journals sitting in wait near her front door, lunchbox sitting at the edge of a counter convenient for grabbing. The rest of her day was spent sitting up straight at every desk she took, chair scooched so close that the tip of her desk pressed against the end of her lungs, hands folded as she placed her undivided attention in whatever material had been splayed out across the board in fading marker. She'd sidestep, or trip over, whatever Kick Buttowski's mess of the day was, visit Ronaldo just to listen to him quote poetry in binary, come home for the day, and spend her last few remaining hours on essays that wouldn't be due for another two weeks.

The trend would follow her into middle school, of that she was sure, and seeing as she was so obviously a creature of habit, it'd follow her well into high school.

Sometimes she wondered if that would be all there was, just textbook after checkered vest—candlelit dinner beside a statue of the molecular structure of a strand of DNA after class election. She'd catch a flash of red flying by her tense shoulder, hear the deep mellow of a familiar boy and the youthful charm of its ever-devoted companion; the normalcy of it left a sinking, empty feeling in the dead center of her looping stomach.

She often thought she'd have been better off on good terms with Kick. Her life would have a flavor to it, and she swore she'd prefer the hair-ripping anxiety of ridiculous over-the-top stunts than the blandness of rewatching every Marcel Pompeau she'd come to own. She lived for the coincidences life always left for her like a candy trail, times where she'd be swept up in one of Kick's shenanigans and Gunther's screaming, and she'd get the smallest taste of what it was like to ride wild—to be alive.

Then it would all end. Kick would part from her with an insult, sometimes it'd stick and prick and bleed, and she'd snap back at him and they'd be right back to the beginning. She'd long missed her opportunity to be anything but his enemy, and long driven out the chance of being a friend.

Kendall shook her head and, upon noting the creek of her back, stood straighter and took each step with a façade of confidence when she walked. Other kids flittered around her, some in third grade with headbands from class spelling words they'd been learning, some in fourth grade with fists raised at the retreating shadows of the impish second graders, and some in her grade just buzzing with excitement because the end of the year was quickly approaching.

They'd all be sixth graders soon.

Something deep brown—dark brown—flashed at the corner of her eye, and Kendall found her head spinning in slow motion. Her hair fell over her sunken shoulder in cascades. People pushed into her back, tried to knock her sideways, bounced off her frame in a rush to get to class, but they weren't any faster than she was. A boy, hardly blinking, hardly seeing anything but the ground laid before him, dressed in rags of green and blue and brown, hands in his pockets with eyes so sharp and dark they were like needles to her chest, passed her by one second and disappeared in a shroud of transparency. It was as though sheets of nothing had fallen over him, and Kendall was yet to piece together much of anything but curiosity.

Time continued at its regular pace, and Kendall fell two steps to one side and two steps to the other as people pressed on against her unintentional roadblock. She glanced from side to side, chest buzzing and squirming, hands clenched like claws around the edges of her books. "Did anyone else see that?" No answer. She looked around and called out again, louder this time. "Did anybody see that?" She got funny looks and cold shoulders and aggressive irritation, but not one kid answered her.

It would be something she thought in depth about when she had the time—or not. She did, after all, lead a very boring life.

Okay so I have NOT looked this over at all, but this is a fic I have planned out to every detail. I've got the outline complete, and if people want to see more of it, there will be more of it. I will also be posting the final chapter of Jackie, This is All Your Fault, but probably later tonight. I've been writing it and rewriting it over for weeks now T_T Sigh...