Revamped!

[S/O to a wonderful person who messaged me on Wattpad. This chapter is up because of them :)]

[Kai is definitely the hardest person to name arcs after … or maybe Cinder is. Whatever. Kaider is difficult in this sense. Anyways, I hope you enjoy!] [2020: Jacin is also spading difficult.]

Act of Kai-ndness: Part One

"Cinder, Cinder, Cinder!"

Cinder wakes up in extreme shock. She rubs her face awake as she looks ahead to see a startled Winter in her pyjamas, kneeling on her bed. For a moment, Cinder thinks that it's some emergency because why else would Winter wake her up in such a panic. Maybe Levana was in trouble … but then again, Levana was always either the silent cause of trouble or the calm survivor of chaos. There was no in-between.

"Our alarms didn't go off!" Winter exclaims. "Levana must have left early to help the mayoral campaign so she didn't wake us when our phones remained silent."

"Clearly, it did," Cinder says, poking right in the centre of Winter's forehead. She goes back to lying in bed and falling back to sleep.

"School starts in ten minutes and you know their late policies."

Cinder eyes open instantly. She jumps out of bed, almost knocking Winter right to the floor. She instantly strips her pyjamas and throws on the first ensemble of uniform she could find, unaware of whether it was clean or on top of her laundry pile. (Not that she cared. Besides, it was likely from the latter). Winter hops off Cinder's bed and skips back to her room to get ready. For someone who woke her up in a panic, Winter seemed to be taking her dear, sweet time.

There was no way in the stars that she and Winter would stay after school in detention.

Once dressed, Cinder rushes to the bathroom and slobbers some toothpaste onto her toothbrush before shoving it into her mouth. She looks at her reflection and almost chokes on her toothbrush. Her bedhead was more repulsive than usual. No wonder Levana always yelled at her to brush her hair. Well, whatever. She has no time. She redoes her messy ponytail into a less messy version because it was better than whatever tumbleweed was in her reflection. She spits into the sink and rushes out, hopping down the hallway as she puts on her shoes.

Cinder stumbles, seeing Winter in her bathroom. She was already dressed but taking her time doing her makeup.

"Seriously?" Cinder asks. "We're in a rush."

"Give me a second to finish my eyeliner -!"

Cinder already grabbed Winter before she could finish her sentence and her eyeliner. They get their bags and head out the door, seeing if they could make it to school and in class in five minutes. May the stars be ever in their favour.

-o-

They arrived at school twenty minutes late and got scolded for speeding in the parking lot and their uniform violations. Lucky for them, they didn't get detention from the teacher who stopped them. To get out of their dress code problems, they approach the nearest locker they know which was Kai's. Cinder quickly enters his locker combination and opens it, changing into a pair of black shoes that she kept there since she never worse uniform shoes as Winter hangs her jacket on a free hook. Then, the girls start speed-walking to class.

They arrive and the teacher smiles when they enter. What surprised them is that it looked like a smile that was nowhere near the mention of a tardiness detention.

"Cinder, I'm glad you got well enough to make it today," their teacher tells them. "Winter, good to see you as well."

The Blackburn girls exchange awkward smiles as they scurry to their seats beside their friends.

"What was that about?" Winter asks them.

"I told her that Cinder was having stomach problems this morning and might be running late," Thorne explains.

Winter bites down on her lips to hold back her laughter as Cinder narrows her eyes at him. Thorne smiles with a small and innocent shrug. Now, Cinder was grouchy: mainly at Thorne but really at her other so-called friends for letting Thorne get away with it. She looks at Winter to say something, but Winter was already in pursuit of finishing her eyeliner to make it as perfect as possible. Easy for her to do since Winter wasn't the one with apparent stomach problems.

"Lighten up, Cinder," Scarlet says encouragingly.

"Nothing makes me want to lighten up less than someone telling me to lighten up," Cinder says before slumping into her seat. "It's too early for these spades."

"I never defend Thorne but he did a nice thing for you and Winter, debatably, of course."

Thorne smiles like an angel with a halo on his head which makes Cinder want to initiate her fake stomach issues and vomit all over him.

"Too much of my time is spent discussing ways to avoid you," Cinder says to him. "I need to limit my toxic exposure to you."

Thorne starts to fake a sob. "Are we breaking up?"

Scarlet fakes a gasp before laughing. Cinder rolls her eyes before looking at Cress, Kai, and Wolf for help but they were too preoccupied with Winter finishing her makeup. It's no joke, they were fixed on her as if it was some new form of hypnosis. It's Winter Hayle-Blackburn so it makes sense. Cinder thinks how she needs some new friends in Commonwealth.

Winter pulls out a handful of lipsticks from a side pocket in her backpack. She puts them on her desk and starts opening them to swatch them. Winter looks at her forearm but sees that she's wearing the long sleeve uniform which was nearly impossible to roll up without chaffing her arm. She looks around and most of her friends were also wearing the long sleeves or the pullover sweaters. That is, except for Wolf who was wearing the polo. She takes his forearm and starts swatching. Wolf didn't even bother trying to stop her since she already started (and the lipsticks oddly smelled like cake batter which he didn't mine).

"I like that one," Cress says, pointing at a swatch.

"This one's nice," Kai says, pointing at another swatch.

"What about you, Wolf?" Winter asks.

Wolf lifts his forearm to take a better look at the swatches. "I honestly don't care."

"Pick my swatch!" Kai exclaims at him.

"What the stars, Kai?" Cinder asks him. She didn't think that Kai would be competitive over lipstick swatches.

"Yeah," Wolf adds. "Why take makeup offers from you?"

Wolf laughs as Kai mimics him.

"What can I say?" Kai asks rhetorically. "People are mean, people are kind, people are bad. We're all human - well, Cinder might not be."

Cinder takes a short breath. " … I can't with the cyborg stuff."

"Don't tell me it's too early for that too," Scarlet says with a little laugh in her voice.

"Shut it, Scarlet."

Scarlet spitefully winks at her with a tinge of play in her action.

"I may be the one taking all the credit for what I said, but all this was Kai's idea," Thorne says to Cinder. "It was all his act of kindness to tell the teacher an excuse that I made up so you and Winter wouldn't be marked late. What a good boyfriend."

"Or good ex-boyfriend…" Cinder mumbles sarcastically.

Cress gasps at the sound of one of her hashtag relationship goals breaking up. Cinder turns around and stares at her, needing to verify that she and Kai won't break up. Cress has never looked more relieved.

"Or maybe it was an act of Kai-ndness," Cress mutters happily.

Cinder rolls her eyes as she looks at her not-ex-boyfriend. "Oh, and by the way, Winter and I dumped your stuff in your locker."

"Wait, what?" Kai questions.

"I like that shade called Seedless," Wolf tells Winter, pointing at a swatch on his arm. He holds it up by Winter's temple to look at it with her face. "I think it matches your eyes best."

"Wait, what?" Winter questions shocked that Wolf bothered to cooperate and give an insightful opinion.