Alright guys, please go easy on me. Aside from 'A Christmas Story' this is my first one-shot! Lol

I hope y'all enjoy this!

Flamers and Praise welcome!

XOXOXOXOXOX

The two five-year-olds were heading down the hallway of the cheerful elementary school in clean single-file lines. They were coming from the opposite directions, and had never met before…but that didn't stop the young little boy from pausing in awe as he saw the beautiful girl passing him with a light smile. She didn't even know him, but she had taken the moment to throw a friendly gesture his way, and little did she know, she had made his entire week. His eyes studied her thoroughly, and he looked her up and down with a smile on his face, until something caught his eye that pulled him from his line of other children. His awkward little steps carried him over towards her, and he pointed to her feet with a huge grin,

"Your shoe's untied." he announced eagerly. To him, this was the perfect conversation starter. He'd noticed something new from the very moment…this was his very first crush. Looking at her made him feel butterflies tickling his stomach…and this was the first time he'd ever felt anything like that. He was drawn towards her, and immediately set out on a thick expedition to make her smile…and like him, if it were in the cards. Though he had a young mind. He wasn't mature enough yet to comprehend the full dynamics of a male/female relationships. But he was smart enough to know that there was something about her-be it, as simple as the fact she was pretty-that made him want to be around her. IT was sudden and hit him like a ton of bricks…but hey, doesn't everyone's first crush tend to work that way?

"Here, I'll help you!" he exclaimed to her, too eager to wait for her reply before kneeling down in front of her and began going to work (and showing off a little bit) at her scattered laces. Her tan face turned a bright pink color, as she watched the anonymous boy form perfect bows on her purple tennis shoes. She'd never seen him before in her life, but she automatically felt like she knew him, and waited for him to lift himself back to his feet before she pulled him into a friendly hug. He was surprised by this, but it was a good feeling to know that a total stranger was loving enough to display something like this upon someone she'd never met. He waited for her to pull away before grinning at her, looking her over, and trying to piece his words together in the form of some kind of introduction. Kori, however, beat him to it.

"Thank you." she told him sweetly, looking up at him with a shy smile on her face. And they had been best friends ever since. They went together like peanut butter and jelly…or like brother and sister, perhaps a better analogy. But they were the kind of friends who were always looking out for each other through school. Where Richard struggled, Kori helped him soar, and vic versa. When he was having a bad day, or having difficulty coping with the loss of his parents, she was there to serve as his little six-year-old guiding light. She always helped him see the bright side and always gave him something to look forward to, even if he was having a rough time with everything else around him. She always gave him a way to make it through. She held his hand and told him it would all be okay, and as long as he had her, it always was.

That wasn't the only way she made a difference in his life, though. See…he wasn't the best student. He scraped by with D's, but even that wasn't always enough. She was the straight-A student, to whom the criteria of school just came naturally… But she had a gift. Something clicked in her head that just gave her the ability to teach people. She broke down things she learned and reworded them in a way that made them easier to understand…and she used her talent to help Richard through his classes. It made a huge difference, too. He went from a barely passing grade card to B's and C's…with the occasional A, if you could believe it. She was the reason he didn't repeat first and second grade…and was working on third. She was the kind of friend that made school bearable, if not a little enjoyable…and that meant the world to both him, and his parents.

Richard, of course, wasn't the kind of friend who took and took from others. He helped Kori through her day just as much as she helped him. You see…Kori had a bad life at home. Severe emotional abuse from both of her parents…though he often suspected there was a variety of physical mistreatment thrown into the mix, even if she would never admit it. She was a very unique looking girl…beautiful, undeniably. But she was never dressed well, courtesy of her older sister who lived to humiliate her, and was bullied day in and day out by almost every girl in their school…encouraged, and amplified by her sibling. It was rough on her…and Richard always hated it.

He was a very popular kid in that school. Everybody liked him, and he got along with everyone…aside from Kori's sister, who had a huge crush on him. But that was beside the point. He used this to his advantage. He didn't care what people thought of his relationship with Kori…no one every dared to mess with him. So he would stick up for her when people harassed her. He would either make fun of the people who made fun of her, or he would get between her and her bullies and gave them mouthful after mouthful. He promised both himself, as well as her, that he would protect her and keep her from getting hurt. And he was going to keep that promise. Even at such a young age, they were indescribably loyal to each other and were closer than words could tell.

They spent every minute they could of every day together, year after year. She helped him through third, fourth, and fifth grade, and they were working on sixth grade, before something terrible happened… The death of Richard's parents. There had been an accident in the circus they worked at, and their tight ropes had been sabotaged…they fell to their deaths on a Saturday night, with eleven-year-old Richard in the audience, their murder was on national television…and his life would be changed forever.

That night, Kori had snuck out and taken the bus to get down to the police station where they had taken him to sort out what would happen to him. She spent the entire night with him, and held him close to her while he cried…didn't leave his side…wouldn't budge unless he told her that he wanted her to…which he never did. They stayed glued together that entire night…until a police officer came in and told them that he was going to a foster home with a famous billionaire and that he had to go home, pack up his things, and he was moving to Gotham City that night… Their relationship was shattered on that Saturday…and they were pulled apart, never to see each other again…

That night, when Kori got home, her parents put her in the hospital for sneaking out…but the physical pain and concussion didn't hurt as much as losing her best friend in the world… She'd of course, lied to the doctors and told them that she had been mugged on the way home to keep the cops from arresting her parents or separating her family… It wasn't a good decision for her wellbeing…in fact the future for her holds three more hospital visits before her parents are killed in a drunken car crash and she's moved in with her loving uncle…but she still loved her family, whether or not it was mutual, and she wasn't going to get them in trouble if she could avoid it.

Her sister ran away when she was sixteen, leaving Kori alone to face her father's fury. She'd never been heard from again…but it didn't matter. Kori was living with her uncle, Galfore within months of her sister's departure, and for the first time since Richard left, she felt loved and happy…not to say she didn't still think about him and miss him…she did. There wasn't a day that went by that she didn't think about him…but she'd finally come to terms that he was a part of her past-a very important part-and that hopefully they would run into each other again one day…however unlikely it seemed…it was her biggest hope.

She couldn't help but let him crawl into her mind out of the blue. She always wondered If he ever thought about her-which of course, he very much did-and wondered if he missed her. She always tried to imagine how his life turned out…wondered if he was okay…hoped that he was happy. He was the kind of train of thought that she couldn't shake, no matter how hard she tried. Everything she saw or did made him come to the surface of her mind… She saw a clear blue sky, she thought of his eyes…she saw freshly cut grass, she'll think of the times they used to roll down the hill in his back yard together. She saw a swing set, she thought about the times he'd push her on it. Everywhere she looked were great memories of him. And you'd think something like that would hurt…but this was Richard…nothing about him-aside from what he'd been through-was at all bad.

You see…Kori was the kind of girl who always tried to find the positive in everything. Even when she went through all the abuse with her parents, she still looked at the fact that they were her mother and father, and she loved them… This is why she never told on them. Even if it meant that she would be freed from it all, it also meant that they would get in trouble and go to jail, and that's the last thing she wanted. And it's about the same thing with being bullied when she was little. Instead of hating the kids that always hurt her, she usually gave them sympathy because of the fact that they couldn't understand that she was different. She was special…even when she was younger…but she's not little anymore.

Kori was now a senior in high school…and my, how things have changed within the past years for her. She had bloomed into the most beautiful girl in the entire school, and all of the bullying had ceased, leaving room for her to now be the popular 'sweetheart'…everybody loved her…and she loved everybody. There wasn't anybody in the entire school (aside from jealous girls) that gave her crap. She was the girl who was nice to all the special needs kids, the over weight girls, the boys who nobody liked…she was always helping them out, being there for them, sticking up for them when other people were doing the opposite…she was the kind of girl who made everyone feel like they had someone to confide in. She was the girl everyone wanted to be, and there wasn't a guy in the school that didn't want to date her. She was perfect. There was no one who would nor could deny that.

So here we are…the beautiful/perfect teenage girl stood at her organized locker, flipping through her numerous folders, textbooks, and binders, looking for a particular piece of paper that she had shoved randomly into a place with no known destination the day before. She knew that she would regret it, but she did it anyway, trying to keep one of her friends from reading it. It was an old note she'd found from her former best friend that she'd read repeatedly when she was having a bad day. It had worked…but now, her biggest focus was finding it. She had twelve minutes before the bell rang, so there was nothing stopping her from succeeding before she had to go. …or at least that's what she'd thought.

While she wasn't paying attention to her surroundings, a handsome boy around her age slowly approached her, watching the people around her, before a wide grin appeared on his face. He knelt down next to her, and took the laces of her left shoe into his hands, waiting for her to look down at him before his grin widened,

"Don't you ever learn?"

XOXOXOXOXOX

Alrighty, so yes…it was a bit rushed at the end…and I know this story was a little pointless and doesn't have all the plot in the world, but hey, I thought it was cute. Its sole purpose was for cute amusement and I'd like to think I succeeded in that department. :]

Please tell me what you thought.

I'm not going to be posting regular updates on this or anything like that… I'm just going to post new one-shots when I come up with them, so long as my chapter story is taken care of, lol.

Hope y'all liked it!