Kevin's jaw dropped so fast it felt like it hit the floor. "Uh..." Was all he managed to choke out, while he face flushed and his heart beat took off like a wild stallion.

'Double... Likes me? Like, Likes me, likes me? Infatution... Isn't quite love, right...?'

The thoughts replayed themselves over and over again in his mind in different variations of the same question. Suddenly the whole world felt like it was spinning, and even the previous coolness of the night felt like it had shifted to a firey inferno, specifically targeting his cheeks. Kevin tugged at the rim of his turtle-neck, seeking some form of ventilation, or some gesture to prove he was still with the program. All the while Eddward continued staring up at him expectantly.

'And just what could he possibly hope to gain from all this, anyways? Does he think I'm just going to forget all the horrible things he did to me just because he said something outlandishly bold as this? For all I know it could still be some other form of bullying...'

Kevin allowed his eyes to dart around the surrounding forrest in a quick survey. He wouldn't put it passed Eddward to have the capabilities, equipment and down right sadism to have this recorded so he could taunt Kevin with his reaction later. However the silence seemed to have finally set Edd on edge, so he cleared his throat quite loudly.

"You've.. No input at all in this matter, I presume?" He asked, sounding disheartened.

Unsure of whether the question was rhetorical or not, Kevin chose to remain silent and see where Eddward might take this next. He dug his fingers in the ground next to him, the crinkly of the grass underneath his palms offered the only noise in the almost unbearable silence. Edd didn't offer much else, and the stillness in the atmosphere returned. Kevin felt his throat itching with some sort of response, anything, but nothing felt right. So instead he stood up and patted down his shorts, loose pieces of grass falling back to the ground.

"Look, Eddward..." Kevin chose the name to call him by carefully, as not to offer any signs of hope should his former friend actually be serious. "...How am I supposed to believe anything you say? You've done nothing but make me miserable since you came back." He spat out. Eddward stared intently at the flowing stream, never moving his eyes to even acknowledge Kevin was speaking to him. "There's no way you can even blame me for feeling like this could just be some other type of prank on your end, at my expense." Eddward's hands clenched into tight fists, his knuckles almost immediately went white, but Kevin didn't back down. "I don't know what you had hoped to gain from all this, but I'm not stupid... I'll see you at school, okay?" He turned his back to Edd now, and made his way back towards home, however he did realize that Eddward made no attempt to even budge from that spot as he left.

'I'm not going to feel bad about this. If he means this seriously in any way at all then he's going to have his work cut out for him after everything he's done to me and my friends...' Kevin stopped briefly. 'Have his work cut out for him... That almost sounds like I'm even entertaining the idea of Eddward being something more..." He shook his head furiously. It was late, and they still had school in the morning. Kevin made his way back home, peeled off his grassy clothes and crawled into bed, pulling the Kevin's over his head to block out the rest of the night.

Kevin certainly felt the lack of sleep as he readied himself for school in the morning. His limbs felt heavy and his eyelids heavier. Suddenly he felt like such a spoiled little kid with his perfect routine and eight hours of sleep. A loud groan made its way out of his throat and his mother took it upon herself to tease him relentlessly about things completely unrelated to why he was actually tired.

"My baby boy has finally discovered his libido." She stated to Kevin complete and utter horror.

"No Mom! I swear I just went for a walk at night!"

But his pleas fell on deaf ears. His mother had it set in stone that Kevin had spent the night with himself, discovering his own body. With dread, Kevin left the comfort of his home, his head was racing with thoughts of anything and everything Eddward could have done last night to make his life miserable today. Maybe he had recorded Kevin's reaction on his cellphone and sent it out to everyone in school. Although it seemed unlikely that any of the kids would actually have given Eddward their number. As he clammered onto the bus, watching for any signs of indifference, listening for any hint of a giggle or whisper, Kevin felt increasingly more at ease the close to his seat he got. None of the kids seemed to be looking at him any differently, including his friend. Nazz slid over to let Kevin into the seat next to her and continued on with her excited babblings about some new movie she wanted everyone to go see with her. The school bus resumed it's usual set of similar chatter, plans for the weekend, how much the homework had sucked. Nothing at all seemed out of the ordinary, and even that felt out of sorts for Kevin.

'Surely he hadn't really meant anything he'd said last night...'

As he lost himself in his thoughts, replaying the scenary once more, Nazz elbowed him in the arm, motioning out the window.

"Eddward didn't get on today, Kev." She briefed him. Kevin's chest felt a little bit heavy. He wondered if perhaps, something he had said last night sa he left had caused it, but he quickly shook the feeling. There was no way Eddward would have ever let something Kevin had said get to him.

"Well, lucky us!" Kevin joked, trying to hide his momentary discomfort behind a smile.

"Not if we get more new kids!" Nat chimed in.

They made a few more jokes and laughed amongst themselves until they got to school. The halls still joyously abuzz with students. Everything felt right and wrong all at the same time. All the kids were too at ease, the atmosphere lacked stiffness, conversations flowed happily.

Eddward, and even the two new Ed's, were missing.

It clicked with Kevin around the same time as his friends, and the small group made comments amongst themselves while Kevin gave slight nods of semi-conscious attention every now and then. His head was swimming with questions and he couldn't help the slightly guilty feeling in his heart, either, weighing on his chest as if someone had put a cinderblock there. 'This isn't my fault, is it? Of course not... There's no way all three of them wouldn't show up just because of what happened last night. It's just a weird coincidence." As Kevin tried to reason with himself deep in his thoughts, the school bell rang signifying warning of first period starting. He shook the thoughts from his mind, there were more important things to focus on than Eddward for once.

"I just don't get it. I've been trying to get you to skip school for years now and you always made such a big deal about going in anyways. Then all of a sudden you just give up?" Eddy whined as he opened another can of Pop and chugged half its contents. Ed was sitting in the corner, devouring a bag of Chee-Z Triangles, making every obnoxious chewing noise you could possibly imagine. Meanwhile Eddward sat in front of his computer, furiously typing away with such a serious expression you'd believe he was typing out his final will and testaments. When Eddy was met with no response he gave a loud, exasperated groan and kicked his feet hard against the bean bag he was sunk into. The commotion only instigated Eddward enough to look over with his eyes, not even bothering to turn his head towards his friend. It was enough for Eddy, though, he jumped up out of the chair and made his way over to Edd, throwing his arm around Edd's shoulder and glancing over towards the computer. The screen flashed, then went black and Eddward finally choose to acknowledge Eddy.

"I didn't give up, Eddy. I merely had more important issues to attend to today. Important enough to merit my negligence of education."

Eddy rolled his eyes, unsatisfied with Eddward's answer. "What are you typing up, anyways?" Eddward was back to ignoring him, so Eddy reached around him to try and turn the screen back on, but Eddward grabbed his arm and held it firmly.

"One might need to remind you it is rude to peruse through other people's personal belongings without permission." He warned firmly, and Eddy backed down, letting his arm fall to his side though he was obviously displeased with Eddward's reaction. Ed made a choking noise behind them and gasped several times, however Eddy refused to break eye contact with Eddward. Finally, Edd sighed and pressed the power button to the computer, powering the system down quickly before he swiveled his chair around and went over to help Ed.

Eddy stood there, his back to his friends, glaring glaring at the machine that had fallen silent to quickly, despite it's lively hum only mere moments ago. Whatever it was that Eddward would go to such lengths to keep him from seeing felt like a direct challenge to him, as though Eddward were instead daring him to find a way to view it. Perhaps their past years together hadn't quite been warning enough, but by this point Eddy felt the Edd should have known by now that once he put his mind to it, there was no stopping him. Eddward called out to Eddy from the kitchen, snapping the shorter boy from his determined thoughts, and he started walking towards his friends automatically. He stopped only for a moment to look back at the dark screen, confirming in his head that he would figure out just what Eddward wanted to keep hidden.

Ugh. I'm really upset with myself lately for not being able to get more content out to you guys more frequently. I've got all these really amazing ideas I want to share with you guys, but I'm not really sure how to get to the point where I can actually use them. I'm actually thinking about scrapping this particular story and restarting fresh, with longer chapters, more details, better descriptions. Clearer focal points. A more specific charater perspective (Rather than jumping between the perspectives of several people.) Giving other characters more.. UMPF! More purpose, than simple background characters.

...I have been reading a lot more lately, not only to try and break through my writer's block, but to learn many different styles of writing and such. I haven't.. Learned much.. Aside from the fact that people make a LOT of typos now-a-days, and simple spelling errors. Where as my older books are more clean and very rarely have grammatical errors.

In short, it's made me slightly ashamed of my story, and I'm wondering how I could have ever gained such wonderful readers as you guys when I've been putting out such bad quality writing.

Please let me know what you're thinking. I would truly like to start over, but I don't want to disappoint you all.

-Chrono