They first met in kindergarten. Although they weren't in the same class, they frequently saw each other during recess. At first, they didn't talk; he would spot her on the swing and she would simply glance back for a moment, but the two of them eventually did speak to each other.

Granted, it wasn't a pleasant conversation.

She glared at him as she rubbed her head where he had accidentally hit her with his stupid ball. "Hey, watch it!"

He grinned sheepishly. "Sorry."

"Can't you watch where you're throwing?"

"I just said I was sorry."

Behind him, a few feet away, was his brother, who was patiently waiting for him to get the ball back. Meanwhile, her sister was silently watching her grow irritated.

An apology didn't appease her feisty attitude, as she ended up picking up the ball and chucking it at him—hard. This move took him aback, so his reflexes didn't react fast enough for him to dodge or catch the ball. Needless to say, he got conked in the head by it.

Smugly, she began to stroll back to her sister with a triumphant gait, but once his slightly dazed head understood what had just happened, he was having none of it. Now incensed, he blurted out, "Girls are dummies!" before sprinting towards her and delivering a powerful kick to her shin.

Yelping in pain and anger, she turned around and hit him in the face.

To make a long story short, the two of them (her with the throbbing leg and him with the bloody nose) ended up in trouble with their respective teachers, but once it was clear that neither was going to give in and apologize, the adults simply decided it was best if they just kept them away from each other at all times.

For the rest of the year, the two of them were not allowed to be within five-foot radii of each other.

They were put in the same class in the first grade. They sat on opposite sides of the room, though, so no conflict arose...at least at first. If they hadn't had their momentary encounter at recess one certain day, they probably would have forgotten the beef that had been created the previous year.

He was on the monkey bars when she, chasing her friend in a game of tag, rushed past from underneath him and prompted him to loosen his grip in surprise. A couple seconds later, he found himself staring up at the sky, with several of his peers who had witnessed his fall looking down on him in concern. Luckily for him, the monkey bars weren't very high and he had fallen in a position that gave him no injuries aside from a few scrapes. Unluckily for her, though, he considered this to mean war.

The next week was when they worked on making collages of their personal life. The class's job was to bring over photos of themselves, glue them onto posters, and write captions for what was going on in that photo. While he was sticking a picture of him as a baby throwing his pacifier at his crying brother, he saw her in the corner of his eye, walking up to the teacher with her poster in hand. He usually wasn't one to do something so coarse, but something took over him as he recalled what happened the previous week, and he picked up the Elmer's glue bottle and sprayed some of the viscous substance at her. Some got in her hair, while the rest got on her poster.

Most girls her age probably would have burst into tears at this crude act, but not her. Instead, she picked up her own bottle once she realized what had just transpired, and squirted some at him back.

Of course, it didn't take long for the teacher to break up the glue fight, but after that, the enmity between them was cemented. She never forgave him for ruining the poster she had worked so hard on and had been so proud of, and he never was regretful enough to wholeheartedly apologize for his actions.

For the rest of the year, whenever they saw each other, there was a very likely chance that some sort of battle would break out. As a result, their poor teacher devoted most of her time in the classroom monitoring the two of them.

Unfortunately for their second-grade teacher (and possibly for their classmates who knew what their relationship was like), they were put in the same class again. One would think the two of them would at least try to bury the hatchet, but both remained stubborn in their feud.

On the first day of school, she entered the classroom, and once she saw him, the first thing she did was rush up to him from behind and tackle him. More baffled than furious this time, he protested that he hadn't done anything to her yet.

She replied by claiming he was doing something wrong just by existing.

Ouch. This remark only served to strengthen his belief that she was the worst human being on the planet, if she was actually alright with making such a cruel statement.

This belief continued until he met her other sister. His brother had been cursed to sit next to her sister for a short while, and he often was very upset by the time class was dismissed. According to his brother, her sister was tremendously bossy and aggressive and made another girl at their table cry.

His brother cried, too, to be completely honest. He could tell from the occasional red, puffy eyes he noticed. This wasn't too surprising, since his brother had always been a crybaby, so he assumed that his claims were all exaggerations. Or maybe he assumed that in order to keep up his belief that she was far worse.

Then, one day during recess, he realized that everything said about her sister was true. He and his brother were relaxing on the swings when she appeared and demanded for his brother to get off the swing so she could get on.

"...No." His brother shook his head.

Her sister scowled, not taking the refusal well. "I said get off!"

Judging from how there was a bit of hesitation this time, he realized his brother was probably afraid of her sister. However, his brother stood his ground. "No."

Her sister stamped her foot, before she marched towards his brother and shoved him to the ground. Before his brother could even get up, she sat on the swing and stuck her tongue out at him.

On one hand, his brother was probably a wimp for letting a girl like her sister push him around like that. On the other hand, though, her sister was being kind of mean for bullying him like that. Not that he should be surprised, considering how she was related to her.

"Hey." He chose this moment to intervene. "You didn't have to do that."

"He was hogging the swing! He wasn't even doing anything on it, just sitting there!"

He glanced down at his own swing, mentally noting how he wasn't using it for its intended purpose either. Then, he looked in the direction of the other swings. All taken, which meant that this wasn't an issue that could easily be resolved by telling her sister to take an unoccupied swing.

"What are you doing?"

Oh, no. It was her. Since he had been trying to solve his and his brother's current dilemma with her sister, he hadn't noticed her approaching until she had spoken. Slightly reluctantly, he turned to face her, only to see her casting a chagrined expression at her sister.

"I wanted to swing."

"Couldn't you have waited until one of them got off?"

Was she seriously siding with them against her own sister? He was genuinely shocked, as he had perceived her to be horrible enough to have done worse than what her sister did. And for the first time, he considered the possibility that he had the wrong idea of her.

"Or, at least, you could've pushed the other one off instead."

Once he heard this, he threw that consideration into the trash. Of course she would make an additional statement like that.

"I like this swing better."

"They're all the same!"

"No, they're not! This one is comfier."

She was not amused at her sister's pathetic attempt to justify her unfair treatment of his brother. Sighing, she exasperatedly asked, "Can you just...get off and give the swing back to him?"

Her sister's look soured, but she complied hesitantly. "Fine... It's not like I like the swings anyway," she quickly added, trying to keep up her pride. "Keep it then." With one final glare at his brother, who had been sulking on the ground but had since looked up once he heard he was getting the swing back, her sister flounced off.

Once her sister was gone, she sighed again and gave his brother an apologetic look. Then, she eyed him, her expression slightly changing so she appeared less sorry and more embarrassed—embarrassed that her sister committed an act that was uncalled for in front of him. It took him a second, but he soon realized that she was feeling this way because she did not want him to see her as the girl with the badly-behaving sister; she wanted him to see her as the girl who had no vulnerabilities whatsoever.

He understood that feeling quite well. Although not always, there were occasional times when he felt that his brother was an embarrassment to him, whenever he burst into tears at recess or anything else that would make him wish that he didn't know him. It was a pride thing, and he learned that day that she shared the same sentiment.

For the rest of the year, he saw her differently. His low opinion of her hadn't changed at all, but after that day, he knew that they actually had something in common. A part of him felt disgusted at the mere thought that he might be more similar to someone like her than he initially believed.

Thank the heavens that they weren't in the same class during the third grade. It had been too long since the last time when he didn't have to enter the room and immediately notice her inside as well. It was only a shame how he still ran into her from time to time during recess, however, and seeing her brought his mood down often.

As for her, she didn't appear to want anything to do with him either, as whenever he saw her, she paid him no acknowledgment and continued giggling with her friends. This behavior certainly wasn't because she simply did not notice his presence, because she did. He knew she did.

Even though he knew very well that he wasn't supposed to care that she ignored him, he did feel indignant deep down that she didn't even bother glancing at him for a fraction of a second. He wouldn't admit this, though, not just because of the sake of pride, but also because he was confused as to why he felt so offended by this.

It just wasn't right.

He tried not to let it get to him. His dignity was eager to prevent him from cracking. Eventually, though, even his dignity wasn't strong enough to fight down the urge to get her attention somehow. He desperately searched for a way to mess with her—to show her he still existed, to show her that he wasn't giving up on their beef.

Then, one day, he saw her holding tightly onto a large teddy bear before class time began. After getting over the initial surprise that she was the type to bring her stuffed animal to school—she certainly didn't seem like it—his mind formed the simple, unoriginal but devious idea to take the bear and hide it from her.

His eyes trailed her and that animal for the rest of that day, scanning for an opportunity to swipe the bear when she wasn't looking. The chance came during lunch, when she went off to buy food and set the teddy on the table where she sat. Luckily, none of the people she ate with had arrived yet, so it was an easy task to simply walk up and snatch the item. He hid it inside his desk, concealing it behind his binder and textbooks. It wouldn't take long for her to be flipping the entire campus upside down looking for it.

The next day, he came to school and spotted her looking distressed. Beside her was one of her sisters—the timid one—who was crying her eyes out.

Convincing himself that he was worried about her sister and not her, he got his brother to ask what was wrong; he was never good with bawling girls, and there was no way he was interrogating her.

He stood on the sidelines as his brother went up to her, talked to her for a bit, and came back to explain that she had borrowed a teddy bear from her sister to give to her friend, who was, for some reason, terrified of the monster under her bed and needed a form of comfort. Her friend had given it back to her when she had suddenly lost it during lunch, and she and her sister had come to school extra early to look for it one final time, only to turn up with nothing.

...Oh. Oh. The stuffed animal wasn't hers, it was her sister's.

He promptly felt guilty for taking away her sister's beloved bear, and vowed to return it, one way or another. Just because she was related to her didn't mean she deserved to have a belonging of hers ripped away from her so suddenly. Plus, this sister was much nicer than the other two, and she didn't need to be roped into this conflict.

At lunch, he took the bear out of his desk and went over to the table where the three sisters were sitting. He gave the animal back, fibbing and claiming he found it on one of the branches of the big tree that every kid loved to climb on.

Her sister was on the verge of tears again, but this time they were tears of relief. "Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!" Repeating those two words, she jumped up, hugged him, and gave him one grateful kiss on the cheek.

He wanted to wipe his cheek clean of the cooties, but he decided to abstain from doing so until he left. "Y-You're welcome," he stammered. "I... I guess some jerk decided it would be funny to take that bear and put it up there, huh?"

Her sister nodded. "Yeah! But I'm just happy I got my bear back! Thank you so, so much!"

The other sister refused to say anything out loud, but the way she rolled her eyes and scoffed clearly indicated that she found the racket about the stuffed animal plain silly.

As for her, she had visibly first shared the relief that her sister felt, but then her expression had contorted into one of confusion during his explanation on where it was. Then she had begun glaring at him when her sister pecked him.

She saw through his lie. She knew exactly what had really happened.

"Yeah... Thank you," she managed to force out, albeit with a tiny bit of venom. Despite her poorly concealed hostility, he was honestly kind of glad she finally acknowledged him.

For the rest of the year, however, she proceeded to ignore him once more. The temporary satisfaction of being noticed was gone as well, and he sensed that her disregard had become less natural, as if she was paying him no mind out of spite for trying to get her attention through purloining her sister's bear. As for him, he found himself hating her more than ever for giving him that itching desire of wanting to be noticed.

In the fourth grade, he didn't see her at all. At first, this confused him; usually he would spot either her or one of her sisters at recess if they weren't in the same class. But even her sisters were nowhere to be found.

He tried to disregard this, but he soon realized that his curiosity was once again getting the best of him. He turned to her close friends to learn what happened to her, and fortunately, none of them questioned his reasons for asking.

Apparently, she had transferred to another elementary school on the other side of town. There was no doubt that this news was unexpected for him, and he wasn't sure how he was supposed to feel about this.

However, one thing was for certain—whether he was supposed to feel this way or not, he was overjoyed. No more of being brought down simply by seeing her outside of class. No more of having that irritating urge to pick fights with her whenever he noticed her presence. No more her.

It took a couple days for this euphoria to wear off, and once it did, he pushed her out of his mind. He cheerfully continued on with his life, now free from dealing with her problematic existence.

Then he began growing less joyous. He started to feel like his life was too peaceful without her around. He found himself beginning to go out of his way to find something that could cause him trouble, something that could throw him off course.

Seeing her was the last thing he wanted, yet at the same time, it was something he craved for. He wanted her to reenter his life and once again become the bane of his existence. It was a paradoxical concept that he just could not wrap his nine-year-old brain around.

For the rest of the year, he began contemplating that maybe—just maybe—he missed having her around.

By the time he entered fifth grade, his last year in grade school, he had moved on past whatever burning dislike he might have had for her. Instead, he had decided to admit—just to himself—that he might or might not have stuck with her because she intrigued him, and that he might or might not have missed that intrigue.

His quelled hatred didn't stop him from vowing to kick her butt if he ever saw her again, however. He wasn't going to give up on her as a foe quite so easily.

For the rest of the year, he would think about her from time to time; sometimes he would muse about how they could have been friends, but there were also other times when he was in a fiercer mood than usual and imagined various ways to kill her.

Sixth grade. It was the year that everything concerning his school life changed. He now had to rotate classrooms a total of six times everyday, do a much larger amount of homework, and deal with the fact that recess didn't exist anymore, just a fifteen-minute break for snack time and, of course, a thirty-five minute lunch.

Most of his classes were filled with people he hadn't seen before, and this made him wonder, for the first time, if the world was much bigger than he considered it to be. Frankly, seeing so many different classmates intimidated him, but he didn't let it show.

(His brother was another story—he was noticeably spooked out by lunchtime. It made him wonder if the wimp was actually agoraphobic.)

Strangers were everywhere, class after class, and he wondered if he was actually so unlucky as to be cursed with not sharing classes with anyone he knew previously. Oh, well, he supposed it wouldn't hurt to make some new friends, no matter how frightening the prospect was.

Then sixth period came. He entered his language arts classroom, ready to deal with this last course of the day so he could go home and relax. He was looking down at the floor as he trudged, and when he glanced up, he scanned his eyes across the room. People were talking all over the place, but his eyes fixated on one particular person who had her back towards him.

He first noticed the long, silky, black hair that stopped at the middle of her back. It seemed familiar, and he knew exactly where he felt he had seen it before. Then she turned around, and his hunch was confirmed.

It was her. She was back.

He didn't know what to think. If someone had told him two years ago that she would one day return and he would be happy, he would've scoffed and dismissed that person as insane. But now, having since matured, he found himself not minding those odds nearly as much.

He didn't really go up to her and begin talking to her like they were old pals; that wasn't his character. Instead, he decided to play it cool, so when he spotted an empty seat somewhere in the room, he made sure to walk past her as he headed towards it. When he was close enough, without even glancing at her, he uttered one, simple line.

"Good to see you."

She heard him, and as he sat down, he saw her look at him momentarily before the corners of her lips twitched up into a small, recognizing smile.

It was as if they made a silent, mutual agreement. Their time in middle school had arrived, so it was only right if any grudges formed in elementary were forgotten.

Then, when school was dismissed for the day, he stuck to the promise he made to himself and tackled her before she could leave. Her response proved that she had not changed a bit, because she punched him the same way she did back in kindergarten.

He lied to his parents that evening, saying that his bloody nose was caused by a nasty fall he took during lunch.

For the rest of the year, they barely talked, though both considered that as a good sign of an improvement in their relationship. They were now capable of interacting without a desire to kill each other, although that didn't mean their association had become one hundred percent peaceful.

During the seventh grade, he was paired up with her sister—the nice one—for a science project. They agreed to meet up at her house, where she was already in possession of the materials necessary. Perhaps he was simply imagining so, but her sister seemed really happy once she heard that he was her partner. Ah, well, she probably just thought he was a friendly person to work with, considering he 'found' her teddy back during grade school.

When he arrived, her sister was waiting on the front porch, ready to greet him. He remarked that she didn't have to be so courteous and wait so earnestly for him, but she told him that she wanted to. Her reasons were that her sisters were having a huge spat and she needed to get out of the house.

Typical.

Her sister was reluctant to go inside, since she wasn't sure if the argument going on indoors had ended, but he assured her by saying that if they still were immersed in their fight, he would do his best to break it up.

They went inside, and sure enough, peace had yet to arrive to the household. The sister not involved in the shouting match explained to him that their parents were both at work and that the other sister—the bossy one—was in charge of making sure everything was okay. She had caught the third sister—her—fiddling around with her belongings and basically invading other people's business. Things had gotten ugly from there, needless to say.

All he did was heave a sigh and make a move to settle the both of them down. At that second, she lunged at her sister, only to fail to lay a finger on her as he held her back. She, not expecting him to pull her away like that, subconsciously went into self-defense mode and elbowed him—right in the nose.

There was a loud crack, and it didn't take long for his nose to begin dripping blood. She was horrified once she realized what had happened, her bossy sister recoiled in disgust at the sight of the red liquid, and the third one—his science partner—hurriedly grabbed as many tissues as she could and instructed him to tilt his head back to staunch the bleeding.

He was quite angry with her, his attacker, but, to his surprise, she refrained from being her usual proud self and apologized profusely for hitting him in the nose again. He presumed it was because, this time, he didn't really do anything to deserve this, and also because she hit much harder than she did in kindergarten and the sixth grade.

He found himself unable to stay mad at her, knowing that she had a conscience after all, so he agreed when she offered to make up for it by accompanying him to the hospital for a checkup. Fortunately, his partner understood that they should probably cancel their plans to work on their project that day.

God, was he glad that he hadn't been paired up with the devilish sister instead.

When he got home that day, he explained to his family the events that had caused his injured nose, and later on, he overheard his father comment to his mother about a wedding in their future. Yeah, right.

For the rest of the year, he would point to his nose whenever she was remotely rude to him in order to remind her that she had hurt him in a way that he didn't deserve to be hurt. This attempt at guilt tripping was effective at first, but she soon grew annoyed and retaliated with a threat that she would do it again. Knowing better, he obeyed, albeit a little begrudgingly.

In eighth grade, all he could wonder was why. Why he was burdened with this curse. Why any of this had to happen to him. And no, he wasn't referring to cracking voices or zits.

He was referring to the fact that she had once again given his nose a beating.

He honestly had to take in the circumstances surrounding the situation. He and his family were at the market buying goodies for his and his brother's fourteenth birthday party when he suddenly heard yelling. He turned around to see what was going on, only to see a grapefruit—yes, a grapefruit—coming closer to his face. Sadly, his reflexes weren't quick enough to dodge this one.

As his nose began bleeding for the third year in a row and he saw who was guilty of the throw, he furiously demanded to know what she was doing there and why she had chucked that round monstrosity of a fruit in his direction. Frankly, he didn't really bother listening to whatever response she gave since he was so busy trying to prevent too much of his blood from dripping onto the linoleum floor, so he still didn't know exactly why. Something about how her bossy sister was the original target, but she had ducked when she saw the object being hurled at her.

His mother took him away to the car so he could clean himself up (Thankfully, his nose wasn't broken this time so all he needed were a couple tissues), and once they went back, he found his father amiably chatting it up with her mother.

Traitor.

In order to stop his dad from becoming associated with the devil's parent, he insisted to his mom that her husband was flirting with another woman. His mother only laughed and began talking to that demon's father about how her adorable son and his pretty daughter would make a good couple in the future.

He could not believe the utter treason both of his parents committed that day. At first looking around for his brother so he could vent his problems out on him, he became further chagrined when his father took a momentary break from his conversation and informed him that his brother went off with her sisters.

Well, at least that information gave him the chance to later tease his brother about being a player.

He then noticed that she was standing next to him when she spoke up and apologized for the grapefruit, to which he responded by asking her if giving him nose damage was going to be a regular thing in high school as well. She got annoyed for some reason and told him that his ugly nose needed fixing up anyway.

Ugh.

For the rest of the year, his parents would frequently ask him about her, wanting to know what sort of interaction he had with her that particularly day at school. He would either ignore them or give an irritated reply, not wishing to give them dirt that they could gush over when they thought he wasn't listening. He couldn't stop them from learning about the two of them completely, however, since they ran into her parents during their middle school graduation. When he found them among the crowd, they were wearing identical smirks on their faces. Screw her for not bothering to keep her mouth shut.

Ninth grade came along. He was happy at first, only to become less so as he realized that half of his teachers hated him and the upperclassmen mocked him wherever he went. Ah, perks of being a freshman. At least he wasn't as unlucky as his brother, who also had to deal with the disadvantages of being a loser. Poor guy.

He shared his history class with her, a fact that for which he had mixed feelings. On one hand, he wasn't really in the mood to continue their fiery conversations. On the other hand, she had gotten quite pretty over the summer.

For the rest of the year, he would find himself sneaking glances at her during the middle of the lesson, something for which he blamed his hormones. If she noticed his eyeballing, she certainly did not show it. He couldn't figure out if that should make him feel relieved or disappointed.

During tenth grade, his sophomore year, he found himself to be a lot busier than he ever had been previously. Since his uncle was the track and field coach, the older man had persuaded him to join the sport once it was known that he was actually a really fast runner. He couldn't say that he didn't like track or didn't enjoy being the ace of the sport...

If only his uncle would stop grilling him about what to do as if he were a drill sergeant. There were often times when he would go home with all of joints sore.

In order to distract him from how painful the activity had become, he trained his eyes on the cheerleading squad in order to find some source of relief (His track mate noticed this and questioned his reasons. He simply replied, "Hormones plus male equals ooh la la.")

There was that one cheerleader, the new girl whom his brother immediately developed a crush on the first minute he saw her, and there was that attractive cheerleading captain that managed to stand out in front of everyone else. She eventually realized he was watching her and approached him.

Then they started dating.

But they soon broke up.

The split left him bitter and angry, and instead of focusing on girls to get his mind off of track, he began focusing on track to get his mind off of girls. Because he was absolutely done with them (The aforementioned track mate accused him of behaving like a typical heartbroken teenage girl. What a douche, as if girls were the only ones capable of having their hearts splintered into pieces.)

Eventually, the day of a particular track meet arrived, and many of the school's students came to support the entire team. His brother was there, of course, along with the new cheerleader, with whom he became fast friends, despite everything concerning his wariness around girls at that time. There was also another cheerleader, who happened to be none other than the nice sister. Her nice sister.

Speaking of her, she was there also. However, the bossy sister wasn't, which was honestly a good thing; he didn't want those two to break out into a fight in the audience. When he saw her, he promptly decided that though his ex was pretty, she paled in comparison to her. There was one thing that the girls shared in common concerning physical appearance, though, and that was the long, silky, raven hair that had always mesmerized him.

For the rest of the year was how long it had taken for him to realize it, but there was a chance that he had been attracted to the captain because this shared trait simply reminded him of her.

Whoever was up there must have decided that he deserved a break after his miserable sophomore year, because eleventh grade had become far easier for him to deal with. He quit track, and his uncle went to go coach at a school in Philadelphia. Additionally, she was in half of his classes. Awesome. But, in some cruel twist of fate, all of their classes together were also shared with her bossy sister. Not so awesome.

He tried his best to be civil towards the sister (Nonetheless, her behavior still didn't improve) and decided to talk to her without rousing any conflict for once. It worked...

...mostly because she simply ignored him. This action hurt him, but he refused to show it. Instead, he chose to forget about her. Move on. That couldn't be too hard to do...could it?

During those days, he would talk about her in a very sardonic way whenever his brother asked him why they hadn't had enough interaction for her to break his nose again. He didn't really understand why he acted that way; maybe it was because he felt like he could spitefully take advantage of how she treated him as if he were nonexistent. It wasn't the most mature choice he made in his entire life, but he wasn't meant to be mature. His brother was.

For the rest of the year, this continued. He tried his best to forget about her, but there were times when he couldn't help but sneak some glances at her. To be honest, despite her conservative wear, she had...curves... Not that he cared. Oh, no, not that all. It's not like he didn't have any physical development. He was far from having a beefy body, but all the extensive training his uncle put him through last year had made him develop some nice back muscles. He heard girls liked that sort of thing.

Twelfth grade arrived before anyone knew it. He considered his senior year to be a year to take a break from the past three rigorous years of keeping up his GPA to be at least a 3.5 and taking the SAT, a belief that meant he had much more time to pay attention to non-educational stuff.

Which included the new kid on the block that began living in the house across from his. The guy was nice enough, albeit a little strange. They, along with his brother, hit it off very quickly and, before he knew it, the three of them were at school, chatting everyday at the lunch table they shared.

As for his situation with her, it didn't change in the slightest. She was still declining to acknowledge him, and this distant demeanor was something he eventually got used to. No big deal.

Of course, now he had to cope with the fact that she and her sisters were instantly crazy about the new guy, a revelation that was slightly harder to adjust to. He had simply waltzed into his sixth period with his brother and spotted all three of them drooling over the puzzled newcomer.

He had scoffed, rolling his eyes in disbelief. "Really?"

Though he didn't exactly enjoy being a witness to all the horrid attempts at flirting they made with the new guy, he bore with it. What he absolutely, flat-out refused to tolerate, however, was the little, oblivious crush the newbie developed on his demonic ex-girlfriend. Because of these feelings, there was a fleeting period of conflict between the two boys. Fortunately, things were quickly resolved once the new kid realized his mistake.

That was half of the issue fixed. The other half was her and her sisters. It wasn't that he couldn't deal with having her try so hard for another guy, since it wasn't like they were ever particularly close to one another, but it didn't stop him from being jealous. He hid it impressively well, though.

For the rest of the year, he would silently sit on the sidelines, watching her act obnoxiously with her sisters and try in vain to get closer to the new kid, who would be, by now, rather annoyed with having three suitors throwing themselves at him...

At least, that was what he expected would happen. Instead, he was dead wrong, and, to his genuine surprise, it didn't take till graduation for their relationship to get out of the rut in which it was thrown. Because for the first time in all the years he had been acquainted with her, neither of them were patient enough to let time take charge of their progress, and instead took it with their own hands. Their lives were far too short to allow things to continue like they had for the past thirteen years.

"You hit hard."

"I was a black belt in tae kwon do when I was little. I probably could've broken your jaw if I wanted to."

Of course. Why didn't he suspect that she had skills in martial arts earlier. She was the one who had given him nose trauma all throughout middle school.

His friend, the new guy, who was the one who had brought her over in the first place, was rather perplexed, seeing them interact directly for the first time through minor violence. When he questioned it, his brother simply explained that he was never above wrestling with a female, not bothering to offer an elaborate explanation of their history.

He assumed his friend got fed up with their antics, because he, she, and his brother were all eventually kicked out of the house, taking away their shelter from the pouring weather. Rude. His brother, feeling awkward with standing there between the two of them, said he was going to go home ahead of him, hanging him out to dry with her.

Silence ensued, enveloping the two in a very tense atmosphere. Until...

"You know my sister doesn't like it when I act even remotely different from her?" she suddenly spoke up, looking down on the ground, playing with a lock of hair that was still slightly wet from her sitting out in the rain previously.

He couldn't exactly say he was surprised at this revelation. Her bossy sister certainly seemed like that sort of person. "Yeah? Why do you say that?"

She rolled her eyes, clearly believing her reasons to be obvious. "You're very transparent, you know that? I know you weren't happy with the fact that I began ignoring you in junior year."

Okay, now that was embarrassing. He had thought that he had hid his emotions well enough for her to not notice. "Yeah, okay? What does your sister have to do with that?"

Now she was looking at him as if he were the densest living being on the planet. "I'm just saying, she's controlling to the point that she won't let me talk to people she doesn't talk to, or else she'll get angry and throw a fit," she explained slowly as if she were speaking to a little toddler.

Okay, he wasn't that stupid. Although he tried his best to push the thought down, a part of him considered kissing her to shut her up and to show her he really didn't care about her past behavior towards him anymore. After all, she was talking to him now, wasn't she?

"Anyway, I have to go," she sighed, turning away from him to go down the porch and back home. "She'll demand to know where I ran off to the second I enter the front door. I'll have to mentally prepare myself for that," she continued, speaking more to herself than to him.

On second thought, spinning her around and putting his lips to hers didn't sound like such a bad idea. However, he still refrained from doing so, instead plucking up the courage—why it took him courage was the question he asked himself later on—to say, "Wait."

She had started to leave, with one foot already placed on the ground at the bottom of the front steps, when she turned to see what he had to tell her. He stole one glance at the gloomy clouds and the rain that fell from them, and that vision was all it took for him to affirm his decision. He held out the closed umbrella he had been grasping onto for her to take. "You should use this. Being out in the rain unprotected more than you already have will get you sick."

She was skeptical, aware that taking his umbrella would leave him vulnerable to the downpour. "You sure?"

He nodded, sure that he was doing the right thing. "Yeah, it's fine. I live right across the street anyway. You can give it back to me tomorrow or something."

Hesitantly, she accepted the umbrella, and, even more tentatively, she uttered a small, "Thank you," indicating that she was not expecting him to be so generous towards her. The right corner of his mouth went up, forming a smirk in response, as she opened the umbrella and stepped out into the rain.

He watched her leave and begin going back in the direction of her house, the umbrella held up over her head, effectively keeping her dry. Once he realized how creepy staring at her appeared, however, he ceased doing so and decided to head home as well. Heaving a sigh, he began to run across the front yard and across the street to his house. Once he entered through his front door, he was already soaked to the bone, clearly having underestimated the severity of the downpour.

He really should have just settled on kissing her.

It started when Malcolm asked if there were any good sports that he could try out for, since, according to him, he needed some sort of activity to 'cease his boredom.' Of course, she and her big mouth had to contribute and spout the last thing he wanted to be revealed.

"You know, this guy right here used to be a track noob." As she said this, she shot him a knowing expression. "If you're interested in track, ask him and he might be able to sign you up."

He glared at her for throwing him under the bus like that. "Really? You couldn't wait until after Mal chooses which sport he wants to join?"

She shrugged, not even caring. "I'm just trying to help."

"You were in track?" Jack asked, who had been unaware of the occurrences in sophomore year. "How come you never mentioned that?"

"'Cause I didn't want you to know." He rolled his eyes, not wishing to discuss the subject further. "Track brings up some painful memories that I want to keep forgotten."

"Our uncle was the coach and he made him join," Spencer elaborated. "He ended up transferring to another school eventually, and that's when he quit."

"I mean, track was alright, it just wasn't my thing," he added, suddenly reaching behind and rubbing his back. "He made me do a whole bunch of push-ups and stuff before running, and it's made me develop some nice back muscles."

Spencer groaned, putting a palm to his face. "Not this again."

"No, seriously, I think that's the one good thing that's come out of his sergeant-like ways."

"You?" Sitting next to him, Jack eyed him with pure incredulity. "Back muscles?" His gaze trailed down to his back, which really didn't seem all that much. "Yeah, right, I know what someone looks like with back muscles—oh my gosh." During mid-sentence, his hand had reached up and had begun feeling his back, quickly learning that he was not bluffing about the muscles.

"Whatever. They're not that hot, anyway," she said, obviously unimpressed.

"They're kind of hot," Hazel admitted, glancing away.

"Back muscles are a nice touch, I guess," Cici opined somewhat distractedly.

"Hot damn," Cody, with a raised eyebrow, agreed.

"...Okay," he deadpanned. There was no need to gain a harem that liked to ogle at his back.

"Do you have abs?" she inquired out of the blue. "And tell the truth."

"Everyone has abdominal muscles, so yeah, what did you think?"

She responded by leaning over and lifting up his shirt as if she were going to see his abs or lack thereof. However, he quickly learned that that was not her objective, as she then socked him right in the gut.

"Gah!" He keeled over, placing his head on the table as he held his throbbing stomach area. Eventually, he managed out painfully, "Why did you do that?"

"No girl likes a guy who can't even take a punch like a man," she explained simply. "Regardless of back muscles."

"No guy likes a girl who socks people for no reason!" he retorted. Well, obviously, that wasn't true. God, sometimes he wished that he genuinely hated her. Hating her would make his life far easier.

At that moment, Hazel's brother, Hector, joked that the two of them should get a room. He had to wonder why the younger boy said that, considering the current conversation was not at all intimate and was instead gut-wrenching. Literally. But sadly, it seemed that poor Hector couldn't tell the difference.

Ugh.

As he approached the vending machine to buy a beverage, he stopped strolling along the hallway once he heard two voices conversing around the corner. He promptly recognized the voices to belong to none other than Jack and her, and he probably would have went out and greeted them (well, greet Jack, at least) if he didn't suddenly hear his name being thrown into whatever chat they were having. Once he realized they were talking about him, he stayed behind the wall and decided to eavesdrop.

God, what was wrong with him. He usually wouldn't care about this sort of thing if she wasn't the one involved in talking about him. Jesus, he must really have it bad.

"...I mean, I know you two fight a lot, but still," Jack was saying. "And while he's the one who starts most of the fights, don't you think you're a little hard on him?"

"Not really," was the unrepentant reply. "After all, we've sort of being at each other's throats since we were five."

Jack clearly was not expecting this revelation. "Wait... You guys knew each other since kindergarten? How come you never mentioned this earlier?"

"I don't know. Nobody ever asked, and it never became relevant."

"That's the explanation everyone gives when they don't bother saying anything earlier."

"That's because it's true. And yeah, so maybe I'm often giving him a hard time. But, you know, it's not like he puts in much more effort in getting along."

He held back an indignant scoff. Every time in the past when he tried doing so, she only gave him the cold shoulder.

"Still, maybe you should try being nicer. Maybe then he'll soften."

"Soften? Jack, you do realize his hormones are uncontrollable, right? If I'm nice to him, he'll just...take it as an opportunity to violate me or something."

Her trust in him was flattering.

He was grateful when Jack came to his defense. "Zander's not like that! He can control himself just fine!"

"Hey, who's the one who's known him for twelve to thirteen years, me or you?" she shot back. "Besides, if he has a problem with my low opinion of him, then he should be the one to defend himself. In a way that I can take seriously."

She had a point. There were times when he questioned his own behavior towards her and the way he handled her retaliations.

He heard footsteps, but they weren't headed his way, so he made no effort to hide or act natural. She must have been leaving, because he heard Jack call out after her.

"Wait, you didn't answer my first question. How do you feel about him? Do you like him, do you hate him, or...?"

There was a minute of silence. Then, she said, "Don't tell him this, since I don't want to inflate his ego..."

His breath caught in his throat. What? What was it?

"But I'd always thought he was kind of cute, for an annoying idiot." He could sense the grin on her face. "At first, it was the 'Oh, he's such a kid,' sort of thing, but..." Her voice faltered, before beginning to sound a bit more sincere and less teasing. "But recently, he's been a different kind of cute. A more mature, attractive kind of cute."

Then she left.

Well then, that remark certainly wasn't one he expected. For the longest time, he had assumed he fancied her (as much as he didn't want to admit it) while she just enjoyed using that to her advantage to play with his emotions and give him a party in his cojones. At least, that was how he phrased it whenever anyone asked. All in all, he supposed 'cute' was a good enough description of him to elicit from her; it wasn't like he was aiming for her to start gushing about him behind his back.

Yeah, Zander told himself, it's a start. After all, he probably wasn't getting any more praise from Florence any time soon.

Florence and Zander were initially paired up together because I wanted to include a love/hate relationship. Now they've become one of my biggest OTPs. Dear god, please help.

I took this as a chance to practice my description skills and delve deeper into their relationship. Because hey, it's pretty clear that Zander has the hots for Florence while Florence is probably a secret lover of Zander's back muscles, despite everything she says.

Additionally, if you're confused by what's going on in the last sections of this chapter, then fear not, they're there to foreshadow future events in the actual story. Zander's track and field history will catch up to him and what he means when he mentions his 'painful memories' will be explained.

I get this feeling that someone's going to question Cody's quote in this chapter. My explanation: he's not limited to girls.

This chapter and author's note are being typed and finished before the completion of chapter 11 (the Phoenix infiltration chapter), even though chapter 11 is being uploaded first. Ahahahahahaha this is just me stalling because I'm lazy and write what I want first before anything else.

I'll do review replies for chapter 11 here once it's up.

EDIT: Okay so now I have reviews that I can reply to yaaaay.

Lil Angel 927: Yes, Hazel/Cody was beginning to surface, Anton/Cody's ship name is Crouton, and I believe the ship you say Zander is involved in is the very one that was the focus of this extra/filler :D As for the Guardians... Sigh, I'm still trying to figure that out. Probably when Jack loses his memory (which isn't far from now)? And I'm planning on just going to the college that accepts me. California has some good colleges (especially their UCs), but in case I'm unable to get into those, I'll probably go out of state. Another option is pursuing a scholarship in Japan, but that's more far-fetched than anything else.

ReganRocks: There's not just a trilogy, there's also an original story that I'll be uploading to FictionPress eventually. I even have this idea for a story that centers around the next generation (You know, when all of the OCs you see now are adults. Also if this idea takes off, then they will definitely be recurring characters :D) *cough* Bailey is Hazel's best friend back in Philadelphia who kind of acts contemptuous around Cody (Jealousy, ya feel?). She only "appeared" briefly when she called Hazel on her phone, so forgetting her isn't exactly a shocking twist to me XD So was typing "antacids" on purpose or was it a genuine typo on your part? :D

Sol's Darkness: See, this is why I don't follow Homestuck, I don't think I can handle the feels it could possibly give me (Says the girl who got into Corpse Party over the summer...). And I'm sure your art isnt' that bad! It's the thought that counts! And I've decided that unless if I give you Mal's description right here and right now, then I'm never going to get to it. Mal has auburn hair and green eyes. Frequently has a stupid fedora on his head, but sometimes doesn't. As for clothes, then I guess you can refer to the part where he first appears, where the attire he was wearing that day is described in detail. Of course, if that outfit doesn't appeal to you, then you can draw him in something else—just something that's semi-formal.

Phinbellafan2298: You called Anton "Antonio." I laughed so hard when I first saw that. And yes, Jo does have a crush on Zander, and a huge one at that. However, Florence x Zander is still safe, since Zander doesn't have any interest in either of her sisters :)

Doctor Skittles: You wanna know? Okay. Samson's gay, Anton's bi, and Cody's pan. Oh, and Hazel's friend Bailey is a lesbo, Cody's friend Charlie (who will make his appearance later) is gay, and Elliott, Cody's other friend who was the one that committed arson at age 14, is either bi or pan. Still haven't figured that one out. (Psst Samson, Anton, and Cody will later be seen together a lot and I'm just like, "What a bunch of non-straight losers.")

duncundog: Your avatar looks like Cody omg. And thank you!

ZeroLuver567: I'm supposed to be doing my Spanish homework right now, so you're not the only one who's slacking :P

Now review!