A/N-I finally finished! I'm so glad this is out. I'm postjng early because I have a robotics competition tomorrow, and I have to get up super early for it. i'm leaving at 6 am and coming back at 6:30 pm! It's gonna be fun, though. Any way, without further ado, Kinney's chapter!

Kinney's eyes were so dry they felt like they'd never be able to close again. He blinked slowly and then went back to watching YouTube. He knew he'd have to head to Hell in a few hours, but he just couldn't sleep.

Kinney woke up to the beeping of his alarm. He'd only gotten half an hour of sleep.

Fuck it, he thought, I can sleep through English. Lutz feels bad for me. He checked his schedule. I also have a study hall today. Awesome.

He threw some crap into his bag plus a doctor's note that said he was exempt from homework and participating in class. He brought one of these in every day. He went to and paid for the doctor on his own, and had learned how to fake his parents' signatures a long time ago. He'd been signing his own forms since he was eleven.

He caught the bus just in time and sat down in the seat no one else wanted because it was all the way at the back. He closed his eyes and began to drift off.

Kinney jumped and blearily opened his eyes the next time the bus stopped. He saw the blue-haired girl who always sat in front of him walking down the center aisle. She stopped uncertainly at her seat, which had been claimed by a freshman. She stood there for a while, and then seemed to decide it wasn't worth the effort.

She leaned against the back of the bus for about ten seconds till Kinney looked at her and said, "Hey. Blue Hair."

Her head quickly turned toward him, tiny braids falling over her shoulders perfectly. Kinney was struck by how beautiful she was.

"Yeah?"

She sounded tired, already exhausted by the teasing she thought was coming.

Kinney gestured at the seat next to him. "Here."

The girl nodded and timidly sat down, tucking her arms into her sides and keeping her legs closed tightly as if she was tied up. She put her dark purple backpack on her lap and hugged it against her chest.

"What's your name?"

"Iko. I'm in your science class." Iko sounded a bit hurt.

"Oh. Sorry. It's not you. I'm just asleep half the time."

"And the other half?"

"Thinking about sleeping again."

"Oh."

"Hey, we had that speaker a few days ago. What was her name? Red?"

"I don't really…oh! Scarlet. It was Scarlet."

"Yeah, her. She was cool. I saw her with that short girl with the purple hair. They were talking by the bike racks."

"Interesting."

Iko clearly wasn't interested, so Kinney tried something else.

"You know, Iko, you're really freaking pretty."

Kinney was surprised and kind of scared when Iko started to cry. He awkwardly put his hand on her elbow till she caught her breath.

"What's wrong?"

Iko searched in her bag for a tissue. "No one has called me pretty since I was really young. It's…I don't…I can't talk about it. I just can't, okay?"

Suddenly she was annoyed at him. Kinney was getting more confused by the second with this girl. He decided agreeing with her was probably smart.

"Okay. I'm sorry I made you cry."

Iko nodded, and Kinney noticed that her eyelashes were staining her eyelids and cheeks blackish. He also saw the bags under her eyes which weren't there before. He asked her for a tissue and she handed one to him.

He put his hand on her face and gently turned it toward him.

"What are you doing? You'll smudge my makeup!"

He started to dab under her eyes, trying to get the blackness off. All he did was move it around.

Iko batted his hand away. "You're doing it all wrong! Now I have to fix it."

She dug in her backpack for a bag that she handed to Kinney. It weighed at least five pounds.

Iko dropped her bag at her feet and took the gray bag back from Kinney. She opened it to reveal a lot of little tubes and boxes. She took a wipe out of a small blue package and wiped her face off, and hundreds of freckles and a bunch of acne scars suddenly appeared. She pulled a small mirror out of somewhere, looked at her face in it, and groaned.

"Today is not my day, that's for sure."

She grabbed a tube that was the same color as her skin and took the cap off, squeezed some liquid onto the back of her hand, and started applying it to her face. She then found a really fluffy-looking brush somewhere in the gray bag on her lap and brushed over face with it. Just like that, her skin was perfectly smooth again.

She handed Kinney the small mirror. "I need you to hold this up for me at about that height." Iko put the mirror in his hand and then adjusted it so she could use it. She took out a black cylinder and shook it hard. She opened it and used a really thin brush to put black ink on the edges of her eyelids. Then she closed that black cylinder, and used a different black cylinder with a pipe cleaner on a stick inside it to make her eyelashes longer. She put everything away, then closed the gray bag and dropped it back into her backpack. She pulled out her pencil case and then from that came a blue sparkly tube that matched her hair. She used the little sponge-on-a-stick inside that tube to put the blue stuff on her lips.

After Iko was done painting her face, she lifted the mirror out of Kinney's hand and put the mirror and blue stuff in her pencil case. She pulled her bag back onto her lap and dropped the pencil case in a pocket.

When all this was done, Iko noticed Kinney staring at her, mouth slightly open. She smiled at him.

"Amazing, right?"

"Yeah."

"Do I look different?"

"Mhmm."

Iko's smile got lost behind a cloud of an emotion Kinney couldn't think of a name for.

"Good."

He thought she looked just as pretty without the makeup, but after seeing how much work she put into it, he figured it was better he didn't voice it. He also really liked the color of her hair.

"…I, uh, I like your hair."

"Thanks. Did it myself." She laughed a laugh that had no mirth to it. "What am I saying? It's not like anyone else would have done it."

Kinney half-smiled at this girl. He liked her.

But there was something about her…something wrong. She didn't look right. The way she acted tugged at an alarm in Kinney's gut.

He wanted to make sure Iko was all right. And maybe, he thought, maybe we could be each other's therapy.

He looked her up and down.

"Hey…wanna hang out tonight?"

She closed her eyes and sighed.

"Are you trying to hook up with me?"

"No! No, of course not."

"I'm not inclined to believe you, considering you're looking at me like some people look at rollercoasters."

"What do you mean?"

"Terrified but excited to ride."

Kinney blushed.

"Oh, God. No, Iko. I'm not…like that."

"You mean, not trying to fuck every girl you meet?"

"…Yeah, I guess."

"Well in that case…sure, let's hang out tonight. Do you happen to be any good with trig?"

"Yeah, I'm in honors."

"Oh, thank God. I'm failing. Will you tutor me?"

"Sure."

A/N-Wish me luck! And R&R?

Love,
Baz