Serena directs her gaze on to the person, who was currently talking to her, when she notices a tall young man that stares at her.
"Pardon my sudden intrusion sir but my name is Serena Shaw, and I was just curious to see who moved in next door." Serena quickly apologizes for trespassing to the older man while she bows at the waist.
"My, my, my, you're such a cute and well respected young lady." The older man teases her as it causes her cheeks to flush pink.
The man chuckles at her innocent reaction of her blushing face, "How awfully rude of me! I didn't tell you my name…my name is Arthur, it's a pleasure to meet you."
'Arthur, what a weird name to have…' Serena silently thinks to herself before she faces the older man.
"If you don't mind me asking Ms. Serena, how old are you?" the man name Arthur inquires about Serena's age.
Serena was a little hesitant on disclosing her personal information to a stranger but her age would not harm her…would it? "I'm sixteen years old."
"Oh…is that so?" he comments as if he was in awe after he hear her answer.
"That means you're around my son's age…" he mutters to himself as he tucks his arms underneath his chest while his voice trails off.
'He has a child! Just how old is he?' Serena ponders to herself since the man in front of her appears to be in his mid-twenties and not a day older.
"From the expression on your face its safe to assume that you thought I was around your age?" the man name Arthur questions, which causes Serena to stiffen from his response.
He simply rests one of his hands underneath her chin, which leaves only a small space between their faces, "I thank you for the compliment."
"What do you think you're doing to that young girl?" another masculine voice abruptly interjects causing the man in front of her to remove his hand from underneath her chin.
"Ah you came back just in time for me to introduce you to one of our neighbors…" the man name Arthur states with a wide smile on his face.
"Not interested. If you need me, I will be in the house." the voice speaks as Serena eyes linger on Arthur's slightly exposed broad chest.
"Don't be like that!" "She's really cute!" he reasons to the voice before he returns his gaze at his guest.
"Oh Serena…I would like to introduce you to my son." Arthur announces with a small smile present on his face as he moves away from her.
Serena slowly shifts her sights away from his back to see Arthur slings his arm around what resembles a younger version of himself, "Serena this is my son…."
'No way!' she thinks to herself in disbelief as she raises her forehead from in her face.
4444
Brick casually ambles through the school grounds since there was no security present to prevent him from leaving the school grounds.
Even if they tried, they would not succeed since they did not know him or about his abilities.
"So did someone try and come after you?" 'Why did she even ask that question when she already knew the answer?'
When he reflects back on the question Blossom asked him, he recall the expression on Flash's face when Bubbles handed him the phone instead of a hopeful Flash.
'It's something not right about that dumb jock…' Brick deems when he had his hands in his jean pockets.
He peers over his shoulder to make sure that no one tails him on his way to Blossom's home.
"Well I wasn't concern about you…I was concerned about the others who had to face you."
'Did she really think I would purposely harm others during the games?' he ponders to himself.
'Come on Brick, I know you better than you know yourself. If you had the chance, you would have done the same thing to Flash but you didn't want to disappoint her…' Brick hears another voice in his head.
'Who is this voice in my head?'
'I'm your conscious, silly boy! It's a pleasure to finally meet you. You can just think of me as your voice of reasoning from now on.'
'Okay…it's nice to meet you.'
"I don't feel comfortable talking about this over the phone. Do you think you can come over…now?"
'I have a feeling a confession of some sort will stem from this engagement. What do you think Brick?'
'How am I supposed to know? I don't know what Pinkie wants to talk to me about! We will find out when we get there.'
'I swear you're really dense…'
'How am I dense?'
'Poor Brick, you just don't understand the matters of the heart do you? Even you figured out that she was being serious about whatever it is that wants to tell you. She had to tell you that it was important or you wouldn't have shown up.'
'My conscious said its call matters of the heart?'
'What am I going to do with you Brick?'
4444
Knocks were heard against the door, which causes Alma to clean off his desk a little before he announces to the person to come in. It was none other then his secretary that has been by his side ever since he received the Principal position of Pokey Oaks High.
"Mr. Zeal, there's a call for you on line two." She broadcasts to him. He personally did not want to be bothered by anyone at that particular moment.
"Tell them that I'm in a meeting for the rest of the day and that I will return their call once I get out." He conjures up a believable fib while he leans back in his chair.
"One more thing…the person calling is a…" she pauses to read the name she scribbled down on the piece of paper in her hand. "Serena Shaw."
Alma swiftly straightens up from his lounging position before reaching out for the phone and dismisses his secretary from his office.
"Hello?" he asks once he picks up the phone.
"Alma Zeal, the son to Arthur Zeal, whose family's home mysteriously burned down to the ground, the father and son perished within those flames and who just so happened to be my next door neighbor for an entire year." He could hear Serena's voice on the receiving end.
He exhales a sigh before he counters her statement, "It seems as if you have a good memory. I thought that by you forgetting me would work out in my favor so it would give me an actual chance to get to know you. After all, you were the daughter of a very high ranking official in the army."
A brief pause follows before Serena speaks up, "Let me guess becoming a school principal was your excuse to cover up your father's secret?"
"I'm not like my father and neither are any of my siblings. I wasn't aware of what my father was doing and was cleared by the cops on the basis that I didn't know anything."
"Why did you accept my brothers in to your school?" she inquires.
"My role as an educator comes first. Besides, who am I to deny a child their right to a proper education? It wasn't like I accepted them just so I could see you. I never would have thought that you were their guardian."
"Since I answered all of your questions please answer mines, what took you so long to figure out who I was?"
"You changed your looks from the last time I saw you. But to be quite honest, I never really cared too much to remember anyone who lived me near since I would eventually move away."
"Well then Ms. Shaw or should I say Serena, what are your thoughts of me now?"
He did not receive a verbal answer instead the dial tone gestures to him that she had hung up in his face.
'Why did she have to figure out who I was so early?' Alma wonders to himself while leaning back in his chair with a disappointed expression on his face.
4444
Blossom hears knocking against the red door of her family home as she pushes the cover away from her body and slowly makes her way toward the door.
Instead of looking through the peephole, Blossom merely opens the door and notices Brick standing in front of the door with his hands within in his pockets.
'He tends to do that when he is nervous.' She mentally notes Brick's behavior to herself before she permits Brick access to her home with a "Come in".
"So this is where you have been stuck at the entire day?" He teasingly revels once he passes through the door before Blossom closes the door after he enters inside of her family home.
He spots a blanket that covers the surface of the couch and two pillows on top of each other. He predicts that she must have recently slept there for the day. There was a half empty glass of orange juice and a bowl with some noodles and pieces of chickens in it. Also there was a bowl of water that had a wrapped towel soaking in the water.
"Have a seat." Blossom suggests to him as she slowly walks pass Brick and takes a seat on the couch she had slept on that morning.
Brick opts to sit on the opposite couch that was but an arm length away from where Blossom was currently sitting.
"Are you sure you're feeling any better?" Brick inquires about Blossom's health when he notices that her face was red and slightly droopy eyes.
She suddenly shields her mouth with her elbow when she feels the urge to cough so she would not spread her germs, "Sorry about that but I don't want you to get sick either."
"Why don't you just lie down and get some more rest?" Brick instructs after he watches her sway since she could barely manage to sit completely straight up.
"Thank you for worrying about me…" Blossom thanks him with a smile on her face, "…even though we didn't get off on the right foot you always worried about me."
'Matters of the heart?'
"Anyway you're probably wondering why I suddenly called you over here. I think you waited long enough to hear your answer…" Blossom speaks up again capturing Brick's attention in the process.
"Do you remember when we ran in to each other at the mall?" Blossom inquires about if Brick remembers that particular day.
"Yeah, I remember it. It was when we ran in to Princess first then Lucas and Argos." Brick provides an answer to her question.
"It means you recall what occurred when we attempt to shake hands right?" Blossom fires another question.
"You mean that weird light thingy that happened?" Brick mentions, which causes her to nod her head up and down.
"I secretly tested an experiment on my sisters' and every time I touched their hands nothing happens. The same thing goes for your brothers, Boomer and Butch. I think it only happens between us. Care to see if my hypothesis is correct?"
'I have a feeling a confession of some sort will stem from this engagement what do you think Brick?'
"And what if nothing happens?" Brick assumes another possibility when he asks her the question.
"Then I will just have to ask the Professor to investigate it further for me." Blossom suggests since she already had a safety plan incase the first fail.
"So let's prove if I'm right or wrong," she asserts while she extends her opposite hand that she did not use to cover her mouth with toward him.
'Poor Brick, you just don't understand the matters of the heart do you? Even you figured out that she was being serious about whatever it is. She had to tell you was important or you wouldn't have shown up.'
He slowly reaches out his hand toward her as he silently hopes that something did not happen again.
'I swear you're really dense…'
'How am I dense?'
At first nothing immediately happened, which prompts Brick to release a quiet sigh of relief that he was right and that Blossom was wrong.
However, that moment would not last long as little sparkles like fireworks starts to explode in the night sky on a clear Fourth of July day.
It morphs in to miniature lighting bolts that emits from their hands and strikes the other hands except this time there was no pain.
Brick casts his gaze upward to see Blossom stares at him as well not realizing that the lightning bolts transforms in to a sphere of energy that increase in volume.
"Do you believe me now?" She questions him with a serious expression on her face.
The ball of light explodes and rains down fragment of lights around them before Brick supplies an answer.
"Yes. I do." He confirms, which earns him a wide smile from Blossom.
'This light…was made because of us. But why just us?'