I feel like doing this, so I'll issue you guys a deal: If anybody can figure out what I'm planning for the sequel, I'll give you a shout-out and I'll accept any fanfiction request from you (if you have one). Preferably a one-shot, since I already have a huge pile of multi-chapters to write in the future. However, I'll accept multi-chapters if I like the idea enough. Simple? Good.

In the bathroom in front of the mirror, Jack frowned as he fingered a lock of brown hair hanging down on his forehead. He honestly didn't notice how long his bangs had gotten until Mrs. Bennett had pointed it out during breakfast (which reaffirmed the suspicion that he indeed was going blind). Perhaps one of the reasons he didn't notice was because he had gone 300 years without his hair growing one bit and wasn't used to having get haircuts every now and then. Even though his hair was now growing out, it was growing out in quite a strange way. It was mostly his bangs that were growing long and shaggy, while the back of his head hardly sprouted any more hairs. Jack had to admit to himself that he wasn't the smartest expert on how human hair worked, but he was sure Jamie's hair didn't grow out this way. Maybe it was one of those things that was common among people who lived back in the colonies but slowly changed as the years passed on to the modern times. Jack couldn't bother remembering if that was the case. He sighed and blew the messy strands out of his eyes (Seriously, how long did it take him to notice that his hair practically covered half of his face again?).

I almost wish Mrs. Bennett didn't point this out so I wouldn't be finding my hair such a pain in the butt right now, he thought moodily. Now I think that I'm shaping up to have Cody's hairstyle. All emo, inconvenient, and...emo. Except my bangs cover both sides of my face.

He took the same lock of hair he was fingering moments ago and grabbed the pair of scissors that was lying on the bathroom counter. A little trim wouldn't hurt...

Snip.

Jack held back a sigh of relief as he looked in the mirror again. He had just successfully cut off a little bit of his hair, and for once, there was no consequence to come with it. He had measured his cutting perfectly and the left side of his bangs were now looking exactly like how they were supposed to look. Now for the right side. He repeated the same process as before, carefully taking hold of his hair and slowly bringing the scissors up.

Sophie suddenly ran in the bathroom, screaming gleefully and clutching her stuffed rabbit. Jack yelped, obviously not expecting for someone to abruptly pop in. That momentary shock caused him to accidentally put his scissors up too high and–

Snip.

Jack stared in horror at the long lock of bangs, now separated from his head, in his hand. He looked up at the mirror, not expecting things to look perfectly the way he had envisioned. Sure enough, the right side of his forehead was now much too bare for his liking. He stiffly glance over at Sophie, who tilted her head innocently, not understanding what just happened (and also wondering why Jack's hair looked funnier than usual). Jack exhaled deeply, closed his eyes, and pinched the bridge of his nose tightly. "Stay cool, Jack... Wait till she leaves the room... Then it's okay to scream the bad word that's going through your mind right now," he muttered to himself.

"Hey Sophie, don't just run into the bathroom like that. Jack's using it." Jamie, along with Baby Tooth, appeared in the doorway and picked Sophie up off the ground.

"Jamie! Bunny, bunny!" Sophie thrusted her rabbit into Jamie's face.

"Argh! Okay Sophie, I get it, I get it! Wait until Easter! Then we can see the Easter Bunny again, alright?" Jamie's eyes questioningly trailed over to Jack, who still had two fingers pinching the spot between his eyes. "Uh, Jack, why is one side of your bangs way shorter than the other side?"

Baby Tooth looked just about ready to burst out laughing at the sight before her.

Jack glared dangerously at the siblings and the tiny fairy out of the corner of his eye, not removing his hand from his nose. Jamie mentally (and quite nervously) noted that, at the moment, the teenager looked more like a shark stalking its prey instead of the usual fun-loving winter spirit he knew.

"Jamie... Just get your sister out of here before I end up teaching her indecent vocabulary..." Jack drawled out through gritted teeth.

Jamie didn't hesitate to obey, closing the door shut behind him. He looked wearily at Sophie, who was still in his arms. "What'd you do?"

Sophie didn't have a chance to reply before a loud, booming expletive erupted from behind the bathroom door. Baby Tooth whistled a long, low whistle. Mama Tooth would not be happy that Jack was using that sort of language. Something about how it stained beautiful teeth.

Sophie looked confused. "What did Jack just say in there?"

Jamie tugged at the collar of his polo shirt apprehensively. "Um... He said 'duck!' Yeah, that's what he said! There was no way he said anything else, no matter how much it sounded like it!" Fortunately for him, Sophie was too little to see through his extremely blatant lie. On the other hand, Baby Tooth looked at him unimpressively.

Jack opened the door again, his right eye twitching. "If you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go find a hat to wear," he said forcefully, then marched his way up the stairs to his room.

Jamie looked at Sophie again. "Seriously, what did you do?"

"Have fun," Mrs. Bennett said her usual goodbye to Jack as he got out of the car. "Are you sure you don't want to pull that beanie up? It's nearly covering your eyes."

"Yeah. I'm not doing that until I get back home," Jack grumbled and slammed the car door shut. "Bye. I'll call you when I need you to pick me up."

He went up the front steps and rang Anton's doorbell, which was becoming some sort of daily ritual recently. Although he didn't turn to see so, he heard Mrs. Bennett start the car and drive off. Soon after, Kayla answered the door.

"Hey Kayla," Jack smiled. "Where's your brother?"

"Upstairs showering." Although Kayla was speaking to him, her eyes were fixated on the beanie pulled uncomfortably low over his head. "Um... Your hat..."

"I accidentally cut half my bangs off this morning, OKAY!" Jack shrilled, snatching off his beanie without thinking. Oh boy, now he was slowly transitioning into an unstable wreck. What the heck was wrong with him all of a sudden?

Kayla winced. How can a guy with a voice that deep suddenly go all high-pitch like that... Out loud, she spoke, "Yeah, you might want to put your beanie thing back on before Anton comes down and sees you—"

"See what?" Anton, hair still slightly damp, came down the stairs and stared at Jack and his hair problem. His immediate reaction was to not bother holding back a long snort.

"Hilarious, isn't it," Jack deadpanned sulkily.

"Truthfully, yes." With that blunt answer, he looked at the beanie in Jack's hand. "Next time you might want to put that on before you get my sister to open the door for you."

"He had it on, he just broke down when I questioned him about it," Kayla informed him, much to Jack's chagrin. She at least didn't have to let him know that much, did she?

Anton faced Jack with a raised eyebrow. "Really. You're much more easily worn down than I originally thought."

"Just, please... Shut up," Jack griped, not in the best of moods. "Can I just come in already? I'm sick of standing out here."

"Very snappish today, aren't you?" Anton took hold of the door from Kayla and opened it wider, letting Jack in. "Seriously though, how'd...that happen?" He motioned towards Jack's lack of even bangs.

"Step one: Note the extremely long bangs you have in the bathroom mirror," Jack began counting the steps off of his fingers. "Step two: Get some scissors and try to cut them shorter. Step three–"

"Oh god, I can see where this is going," Anton muttered. Kayla nodded in agreement.

"–Have Jamie's toddler sister intrude on you screaming her head off," Jack continued, ignoring the commentary from the sides and the blush creeping onto Kayla's face at the mention of Jamie. "Step four: Start in shock and accidentally snip off all the bangs on one side of your forehead."

"Look, if your hair was really bothering you, you should've just gone to get a haircut," Anton pointed out, not willing to believe Jack's apparent stupid decisions.

"I'm not spending money on a haircut when it's only the hair dangling in front of my face that needs to be cut," Jack scoffed. "The back of my head was perfectly fine. I know it's weird, but that's just how my hair works."

"You're right about something for once, it's very, very weird," Anton admitted. "Enough talk about this. We need to work. Kayla, go practice the violin or something."

"I practiced this morning," Kayla frowned.

"Practice some more, or do something else, as long as you don't disrupt us," Anton waved off flippantly, beginning to head up the stairs again, with Jack in tow.

Once they were in the bedroom and Anton closed the door behind Jack, the latter stated with no tentativeness in his voice, "Anton, I'm sorry, but I like your sister way better."

To his mild surprise, Anton didn't seem to take that as nonchalantly as he expected him to. He shot the secret winter spirit a dirty look, and retorted flatly, "That's too bad, because she's not the one you need to be working with. I'm not happy about an extra person setting foot into my house, because that means one more person's burden I'm carrying on my shoulders. But it's not like I have a choice. Even if I refuse, my dad would probably drag me over to you and demand that we set aside our differences. You know what that means? That means we're basically stuck with each other for the next couple weeks, whether we like it or not, and there's nothing either of us can do about it."

Yikes. Jack blinked at the sudden hostile attitude Anton seemed to currently be possessing. What'd he say that set him off so much? The dude should've expected Jack to prefer his sister over him, so even if that was meant to be insulting (which it wasn't), he shouldn't have gotten so offended.

Anton sighed exasperatedly and sat himself on his bed. "So we got our banner covered. That's one less thing to grow white hairs over."

Excuse me, but do you have a problem with white hair? was the rather irritable comment Jack was extremely tempted to make. As a winter-spirit-turned-human, having white hair wasn't meant to be a bad thing. However, he managed to keep his mouth shut.

"What else do we need to take care of?" Anton was asking.

Jack shrugged. "I dunno. Skits and...stuff."

"Dude, the performance is at the end of February, and January's almost over. It takes us like two weeks to rehearse everything, which only leaves us the next two weeks to have everything ready. The two of us are barely making any progress, we have no idea what everyone else is doing, and our play doesn't even have an existing plot yet," Anton vented. "It'll take a miracle for us to do all of that on time."

"I don't know about you, but I'd rather have some stuff done than have nothing at all," Jack shot back, beginning to finally lose patience with this guy. "So maybe you should stop being a grump and focus. You're no better at concentrating."

Anton glared venomously at him. "Well maybe you should be thinking up ideas right now instead of arguing back."

"Oh, and the same thing can't be said about you?" Jack rolled his eyes. "This is why I said your sister's more endurable than you. She's much kinder and more grounded and actually thinks before she speaks. How is she even related to you? I beat myself up all the time wondering that."

"You're actually bringing Kayla into this?" Anton narrowed his eyes at Jack. "First off, we're related because we share the same parents. Two, she understands me and I understand her. Did what she said to you on Friday just go in one ear and out the other–" He cut himself off at this point.

"What she said to me on Friday–" Jack thought back to two days ago.

"I kind of have to disagree. Sure, he doesn't really treat you with a respectful attitude, but that doesn't mean he hates you. If anything, I think...he's jealous of you."

It hit Jack like a blizzard he didn't cause. "...You were listening to us talk?"

Anton seemed to go from a sullen teenager to a little kid who was stubbornly trying to not admit to something that was obviously true. "I guess I was...a little bit... But it wasn't like I cared or anything! I just happened to be listening in, and I just happen to remember what she said."

"...You do care," Jack deadpanned. "Sorry to contradict you, but you do and you know it."

"You've been contradicting me ever since you came in this house today," Anton grumbled, which Jack chose to ignore.

"Was that why you were acting a little distractedly when you came back that day?" Jack began grilling for answers, not being able to help himself now that the pieces slowly fitted together. "You seemed like you were contemplating something, and—...Was Kayla right?"

"About what?"

"About you. About how you're 'jealous' of me." Jack put air quotes around the term Kayla had previously used.

"...So what if I say yes?" Anton grouched like a baby wouldn't give up his lollipop. "Maybe I am. Maybe I'm not."

Silence overtook the room until Jack broke it by snorting, followed by full-blown laughter, much to poor Anton's confusion. "What? What's so funny?!" he demanded.

Jack calmed down enough to say with a huge grin on his face, "It's just that I always thought you hated me for no good reason other than how you're Samson's best friend and all that. Out of all the people I thought would be jealous of me, I placed you at the bottom of that list. I know Kayla already told me about this, but I can't really say I believed her. I just thought she was saying that just to comfort me. It's just so unexpected, and I'm just trying to soak it all in all of a sudden, and well... It's funny." The smile fell off of his face as he sobered up to ask seriously, "What's there to be jealous of?" This was clearly a question he had asked Kayla previously, but he needed to hear Anton's side.

"...I first heard about you when word spread around about how you socked Samson right in the nose," Anton gave in, not seeing any point in covering up any longer. "The weird thing was, I wasn't mad that you did that at all, I kinda thought to myself about how you seemed to accept the black eye he gave you and retaliated right back. I don't like Samson," he suddenly declared. "I used to, but not anymore. But I don't know what to do about it, because he's the oldest friend I've ever had, and we've been through so much together in our childhood, that it just feels plain wrong for me to just ditch him. I guess I got a little envious of how you're able to stand up for yourself to him while I can't..."

"So you glare at and insult me like you genuinely hate me because you're always wondering why you can't be more like me," Jack finished for him, just to spare him further embarrassment.

"That's one way of putting it," Anton mumbled. At lightning speed, he pointed menacingly at Jack. "Do not tell anyone we had this conversation if you want to live."

"Sheesh, prideful," Jack muttered.

"Especially not Cody Gray."

"Yeah, okay, I won't—wait, what?" Jack raised an eyebrow. "What'd you just call Cody?"

"What?" Anton held his hands up. "I just called him by his first and last name. Cody Gray."

"...Wasn't his last name–"

"Oh, I see where you're going now," Anton realized. "His last name is Gray, but a lot of people think it's Gay because when he first came here in freshman year, there was a little typo in the form, or whatever it's supposed to be called. The R was accidentally omitted, but by the time they fixed it, the name had already stuck. Some people use the Gay thing purposely as some kind of nickname to degrade him, but other people really don't know that it's not his real last name. That's what I think, at least."

"...What the hell," Jack finally stated flatly. "That's plain bad luck right there. Worse than me."

"You got that right," Anton agreed. "It's not like he cares anyway. He doesn't care about anything, whether it's about him or anyone else."

"How come you and Cody don't like each other?" Jack asked.

Anton looked at him for a moment, then shrugged. "There's no backstory to that, if that's what you're thinking. We just met within the first few days he came here and we just got off on the wrong foot. We've been pretty rocky towards each other ever since."

"How come you got off on the wrong foot?"

"What is this, some interrogation? It's just that we have nothing in common with each other."

I really don't think that's it, Jack thought, but didn't say anything. "You know, if you wanna leave Samson, then leave Samson," he steered the conversation back to the original topic. "Trust me, if you stay with him, you'll regret it eventually. He may be the only childhood friend you have left, but friends can change. It'll hurt, but it's for the best. I get around enough to know that you're not the only person in this world who feels this way. I'm sorry I have to word it this way, but Samson's already not your friend anymore. You're just his servant."

Anton was listening intently, then looked down at his hands. "Maybe we should get to work now," he muttered.

Jack smiled understandingly. "Sure."

"Two hours of work and I think I should probably go now," Jack said at last, standing up. "It's getting late."

Anton nodded. "Alright." He stood up too. "I feel like we made a lot more progress today."

It was true. Jack had noticed that the two of them were getting along significantly better today now that they had that talk with each other. As they both went down the stairs, Jack asked, "Are you gonna consider what I said?"

"I'll think about it," Anton replied cryptically. He opened the door for Jack, and when the latter stepped out, Anton added, "Oh yeah, one more thing." When Jack turned, he motioned towards the beanie that was in his hand. "You might wanna put that on again."

Jack rolled his eyes and pulled the beanie over his head, though this time he put it on properly, resulting in his hair malfunction to still be visible. After thinking about it, he decided that if anyone laughed at his hair, then he wouldn't mind. It was pretty funny in hindsight. He turned around again and walked down the steps.

"Also–" Anton wasn't done yet.

When Jack turned around the second time (albeit a little annoyed), Anton let a tiny hint of a smile surface his lips. "Not bad, Jack. Not bad at all."

He didn't let Jack get a chance to say something back before he shut the door.

Excuse me if this chapter ended up seeming boring to the lot of you.

Also, three votes on my poll so far. ...I'm not even going to say anything. You guys know I'm not satisfied with that low number. But I must point this out: It seems like I always have to say I have a new poll on my profile twice before most people listen to me. For those who actually listened the first time, I'm sorry you have to hear this.

So Anton's finally really starting to warm up to Jack (Gasp) and he's even starting to call him by his first name (Double gasp). Now all that's left is Cody. I'm just going to warn everyone ahead of time: Things will be getting pretty dark. The next chapter should be just fine, but it's the chapter after that that should worry you.

I apologize for the supreme lack of Baby Tooth. Let's just say that she's just chilling on Jack's shoulder the whole time during his stay at Anton's. By the way, just because I promised that I wouldn't shave Jack's head didn't mean nothing would happen to his hair. I'm sorry, but I'm not sorry.

On a completely unrelated note, I watched Saving Private Ryan in history class this past week. -it's beautiful-

Review replies:

artsynam5: I get my awesomeness from all the awesome reviewers who bother reading this shizzle :D

pearlsofwisdom: Hey, when you spend 300 years with practically nothing to do but spread winter, you would get pretty desperate for something to ease your boredom too ;P His staff appears to make a good pole, by the way.

dude: I had a feeling someone would want to pair Christine up with Anton. I'm not against that couple, but I don't think there will be any romance between those two seen in this story or in the sequel.

YandereGoddess: Honestly, I just made Jamie have a crush on Pippa because other than Cupcake, she's the only girl he hangs out with, and I picture Monty awkwardly liking Cupcake. You know, you're the only one who seems to have questioned Cici's mysterious dad, so THANK YOU. Also, I don't think Christine and Anton are going to be interacting with each other romantically, but you can ship it in your head, I don't mind. Anton's not getting a love interest in this story anyway XD I've never had the talk either, and my mom didn't bring it up at all. That explains why I was so embarrassingly innocent and I had to figure everything out on my own.

feathered moon wings: Yeah, if the blob catches him, he'll die. There's no doubt about it. And Christine isn't that bad... At least she's not Ariel. And I now have the mental image of Jack pole dancing on the school flagpole. Thanks a lot XD

PuppetMaster55: Considering he only had the wind and his staff on his side for 300 long years, I think pole dancing should've crossed his mind at least once. I'm pretty sure he needed a hobby anyway, so. And yeah, February's almost here. I'll explain Mrs. Bennett at one point.

Guest: Think about it. I don't know about you, but if I was Jack, I wouldn't really know how to turn back to normal either, so I don't think it's possible for him to try becoming immortal again if he doesn't know where to begin. I suppose my summary is slightly misleading though, but I'm not going to bother changing it because I am the laziest ass ever otl.

RandomKrazyPerson: If you're talking about CGryffindorGrimm's picture, no.

Moonstar Daughter of Hades: ...Ohhhhhhh dear. That's something I really am not going to enjoy explaining. It's a form of...dance where you take a pole and just...dance. Do you know what a lap dance is? It's like a lap dance except you use a pole instead of somebody's lap. It's kind of dirty, and...and... Look it up. That's the best answer I can offer you.

Lovepuppy316: You know my innocence was destroyed a couple years ago because I have the most dirty-minded friends ever? I swear, I was the only one who was completely innocent, and even now, I'm sure I'm the least dirty out of all of us. Count yourself lucky that I'm not anyone else. And dear god, I really didn't think someone would be so traumatized by my little anecdote about my RoTG-hating friend. I'm sorry D:

Dream Theme: No, it wasn't Higurashi. The fanfic's called Red Valentine under the Shugo Chara fandom, so feel free to search it up. On another note, I'm not planning on having Samson figure the truth out about Jack. It's too bad how he's not in the performance art class either, so I'm sorry D: But I really like your idea of Jack being all 'fuck this shit' when role auditions come :D

Maddie Seth: In Response to Your Response to My Response to Your Response to My Response to Your Review (I don't know how long both of us will be able to keep this up): I like long reviews, they're what motivate me to write more :D And yeah, I heard about Finding Dory. Even though Ellen Degeneres made the announcement on the day after April Fools Day, she wasn't kidding. It's real. And whoa, Macklemore did a song like that? I'm really impressed. It's not everyday you stumble upon an artist who actually dedicates an entire song to the LGBT community. The only other song I know that's about gay rights is Lady Gaga's Americano, which is an awesome song. I remember going on this movie website and I looked up RoTG, and you wouldn't believe what some of the comments said. Some people were rambling on and on about how the movie appears to suck and the animation is ugly (Why anyone would think that, I'm not sure), and it really REALLY pissed me off because they didn't even bother going to see the actual movie and they were already judging. Asses.

So, ah, review! And don't forget to participate in my poll this time around.