The Most Predictable Love Story

Interlude

10 years ago

Kiera was not looking forward to go to her course today.

Even though she's spending it with her best friend Daisy, they both know that today is not going to be their day.

Kiera and Daisy has been going to a Chinese course in their residence for over a year now, since they're both not very good at it, but has to be, since they're you know, Chinese. And spending most of their time watching Sponge-bob hasn't exactly helped.

Kiera always thought she's fine at Chinese, not the best, but not good enough if she wants to pursue a career out of the country (or survive a thanksgiving dinner).

Backpack all zipped up and propped on her shoulders, Kiera locked the door behind her and knocked on the house beside hers, Daisy's.

"Daisy! It's Kiera!" She yelled, tiptoeing to get a look over Daisy's tall fence, just as Daisy was walking down the steps to approach her. "I know!" She greeted Kiera with a smile, and they both started to walk across the street.

"So, what's for today?" Kiera looked over to Daisy, knowing exactly what she meant. "Pringles, your favorite" she said with a sly smile, Daisy immediately cheered and puts her fist in the air. When they need to take a break from course, they're allowed to have a 15 minute break from the teacher. And they both usually spend it just outside the class eating snacks, and it's their favorite time of the entire 3 hour course.

Before they know it, they were already knocking on the door of the class and went inside. "Good afternoon, Mrs. Cho!" Kiera and Daisy said in unison. Mrs. Cho smiled warmly at them before they both walked to their seats in the corner, "You two are early today, what do you want to do?" Kiera looked up as Mrs. Cho approached them.

"My mom said to practice more on han zi" She replied, and got a nod in return. She pulled out some textbooks and started to write down on her paper. Daisy does the same on her table. She tried to ignore the thought that keeps coming back to her that they're going to be here anytime soon.

She kept her head down and distracted herself with her work but she just knows it, she didn't see them come in, but she felt it. And sure enough, the tallest boy spoke to Mrs.Cho, who greeted her three students with glee. They all sat side to side, just two rows in front of Kiera.

She kept her eyes on the words on her paper. Her mind suddenly stopped working and her hand toys with her pencil instead of writing with it. Daisy gave Kiera a concerned look, but knowing her, she's just as nervous as Kiera is. She shook her head to try and clear her mind, closing her eyes for a second. Making sure she's in the right zone of her mind, she focused entirely on her work. The boy sitting a mere feet away from her slowly goes unnoticed, even as he and his friends took glances at both her and Daisy.

Daisy started calling them the Three Musketeers. They go to learn at the Chinese course 3 times a week, and they would have the same class as the Three Musketeers everytime. The tallest boy, Roy, is more like the leader of the three. He's the smartest of them all, and that's saying a lot, since they all go to a well known school for 'smart kids' as they have said, nearby.

Roy is.. interesting looking, to say. He has big brown eyes, probably from all the looking down at people he's done. A tiny and slender nose, with teeth in braces. On top of it all he has a too-tidy bowl haircut. Kiera feels like he gets his hair a new trim every week because she never sees his hair out of place at all.

The second boy's name is Konnor. With a K. How pathetic? He's kind of the 1 dollar version of Roy. He's a little shorter, same haircut. But instead of cutting it once a week, he probably cuts it once every decade. And he's not even 10 years old yet. Konnor has smaller eyes, and has crooked teeth probably from all the bitter things he's said.

The last member of the Three Musketeer is Lexi. She was the one Daisy and Kiera thought could be their friend, but they were unfortunately wrong. Lexi has really pale skin, even paler then Kiera's. She wears small pink glasses and Kiera has always thought that it does not suit her face shape at all. She has delicate features, and actually really pretty.

Her personality doesn't have the same trait, sadly. Lexi always has her black hair slicked back into a low ponytail. And for some reason, she always wears striped shirts. Vertical.

Kiera sighed in relief as she reached the bottom of the page, finally done halfway through her work for the day. She can't think of anything else other than enjoying a can of Pringles outside class. She glanced at Daisy, still focused on her work.

It looked like she was still going to take some time. So she zipped open her bag and took out her current project she's been working on. A phone pouch for going around. She's about halfway done, the two sides of the bag are already stitched and she just wanted to stitch on some buttons and the strings to be able to wear the bag.

She took some buttons she brought and started to needle her thread, then looked up as she heard a loud cough from Roy.

His big eyes met hers, and immediately she felt uncomfortable as Roy started to roll up some paper scrap and throw it at her. She couldn't help but flinch

Roy made a sound that sounded somewhere like a snicker and a snort, she looked down at the paper that landed on her lap and opened it slowly.

"What'chu making, grandma?"

Kiera looked up again to see Konnor laughing silently at her, her face turning beet red, she looked back down and hoped that her face is covered enough with her hair

She knew it was Daisy who grabbed her hand and dragged her to the front, muttering a quick excuse to Mrs. Cho before going outside and finally facing her
"Kiera, are you okay? What did they say?" Daisy was concerned, Kiera just shook her head.

"Nothing, it doesn't matter. Let's go eat!" She tried to smile, she saw Daisy hesitating but finally going with her to sit on the steps and opened the can of Pringles. Finally.

She popped a chip to her mouth and instantly she felt a lot better. Daisy and Kiera enjoyed their Pringles and talked about small things.

"Have you heard of these Invisible pens?" Daisy asked as they ate, "Everyone knows about Invisible pens" she said. "I want one really bad"

"What for?", "I dunno, i can write basically anything, anywhere i want and not get into trouble" She explained, "They're probably going to ban them at our school because students would cheat on tests with it"

Daisy shrugged, "I don't cheat anyways, i'd use it most at my house. Then when I'm old i can just shine the little light and read messages from my old self, or, oh! What if i make a secret scavenger hunt?" She gasped, getting excited. Kiera laughed along with her friend.

Kiera noticed Daisy's smile faltering and was concerned immediately. "What's wrong?" She asked, Daisy just pointed to the window a few feet behind her

She got up to look clearly and saw Roy holding Kiera's pair of scissors in hand

Oh no

She glimpsed at the empty desk in front, Mrs. Cho absent from the room

Oh no no no no

She gaped in horror as Roy cut the thread on every stitch on her work, he tried to put it back on the table and stack it back together like nothing happened but she would know what would happen once she'd lift the fabric

She feels stupid as tears were urging in the back of her throat, seeing Roy laughing with Konnor and Lexi as they sat back down

It would all fall apart.