My peaceful sleep was interrupted by the sudden fastening of my heart. Swiftly sitting up in my bed, I felt a gasp escape my lips. Ever since last night, I have had a major case of anxiety. How could I have let my guard down so easily around KL? I had just met her, and here I was telling her that I thought I liked her. All she did was stay there in my arms, and all I did was stay there and hold her. Nothing harmful was done and the only thing damaged seemed to be the wall I had put up around myself.

Around her, I almost felt comfortable. A knot welled up in my stomach, as butterflies seemed to dance around it. I was the type of person that never let his guard down because I knew that once you did, you were just bound to get hurt. A good example of that was the fact that she didn't even seem to react after I told her that I liked her. I guess I couldn't blame her because even I felt like I had said that way too early. Yet, I knew that I had to put my walls back up. I'm not becoming vulnerable in front of her ever again. I just hope I didn't scare her off.

Tossing and turning in my bed, I couldn't find a way to fall back asleep. My mind kept racing back to last night. Last night had felt so perfect, yet at the same time it felt so wrong. It felt so odd.

As I drowned in my thoughts, someone knocked on my door. "Aye Kratos, it's me man."

Rubbing my eyes, I got out of bed and proceeded towards my door. " Taj, isn't it too early for this?"

"Yeah, but I couldn't wait to show you this new mix! You have to hear it bro. Listen." As soon as I opened my door, he walked in with his laptop and plopped himself on the corner of my bed.

"How early did you get up to do this?"

"Oh, I didn't get up early," he said, looking up at me. " I finished it last night but wanted to show you first thing this morning."

"You couldn't have waited like another hour or so?"

"Nope," he said smiling.

"It's alright. I couldn't sleep anyway. Let me hear it."

Taj pressed the spacebar on his laptop and it began playing an upbeat version of Selena Gomez's Same Old Love. I eyed him and he held up a finger as if telling me to wait for the good part.

"It'll loop right here and transition real smoothly," he said, motioning his hand in a wavelike motion.

I nodded, waiting for the song to transition into the next. All of a sudden, the Gomez song looped into Fetty Wap's Trap Queen.

"Oooooooh!" He and I exclaimed at the same time.

I shook my head, " I don't know how you made that work, but you did it!"

"Thank you," he said as Wap's track played in the background. As I sat next to him, the music began to blur into the background and my thoughts began to take over. What is going to happen between KL and I next time I see her? I feel like the atmosphere is going to be nothing but awkward.

"Dude," Taj said, snapping me out of my thoughts. I was in such deep concentration about my situation that I didn't even notice that Taj had shut off his new mix.

"You alright?" Asked Taj, his eyebrows furrowing in concern. "You got something on your mind? You're not acting like yourself today."

"Sorry man. I'm just tired,"I said rubbing my eyes.

He shook his head, " I can see that. But that's not what's bothering you. What's up?"

"Nothing's bothering me Taj. I just woke up," I replied.

" The music always wakes you up. You've told me that yourself."

"No I didn-"

"Kratos, I've known you for way too long. You can't lie to me. What's wrong man? Is it that plane crash? I know that when things happen like that to people sometimes they can't get it out of their mind."

" No it's not that, but thanks for reminding me," I said.

"Sorry," he replied, guiltily. He sat down and clasped his hands on his lap. He placed his laptop behind him and had a pensive expression reflect about his face. " Is it that girl?" He asked.

" No. Why would it be her?" I said, looking at the ground.

"Because you've been acting weird ever since she came around."

I looked up at him, "What do you mean?"

"Well first, you passed out. Within all the years that I've known you, you've never even passed out once."

"That doesn't mean anything."

"Yeah, but then when I was joking around with you about her being dating material, you started blushing. Yeah, you thought I didn't see that." Suddenly, my cheeks began to flush red again.

"So don't even act like-"

"I did something."

"What?! What do you mean you did something?"

" I did something."

His eyes widened in fear, "What exactly do you mean by something? Kratos please tell me that you didn't-"

"Whatever you're thinking it probably isn't it that. I kind of got mad at Shadow yesterday and stormed off. KL followed me and I was just in a vulnerable, weakened state." Taj put his hand to his face.

" I told her that I liked her."

Taking his hand off of his face, her stared at me and his eyes nearly popped out of their sockets, "You told her that you liked her?"

I shook my head, and looked down in shame. Taj shook his head back and forth. "When did you grow the guts to do something like that?"

" Like I said, I was in a vulnerable state. I let my emotions get the best of me. It was all a big mistake."

"A mistake? I don't think it was a mistake. I mean, obviously you like her."

I sat in silence. "Don't you even try to deny it either," he continued. " I see the way you look at her."

I looked up at him, "Since when did you become the love expert?"

"Uh, since I asked Lily out," he replied.

"And when did that happen?"

"Sometime in the near future," he said, smirking.

"You two are basically married already. Just make it official," I said, bothering him.

" I will when I feel the time is right. But there's nothing wrong with having a crush, Kratos. I just can't believe you told her this early, but I guess if you want to skip the basics-"

" It slipped out on accident. I told you that."

" Kratos," he said, "you cannot deny the fact that you like this girl."

" I didn't deny it. I just....didn't confirm it."

Taj shook his head, "Whatever dude. You know you like her."

I sighed, " I don't even know what I feel towards her. I just need to think things out."

Taj stood up and stretched, "If you say so. Hey, do you want me to send you a copy of that mix?"

"Yeah, send it over. From the snippet I heard, it sounds really good."

"Thanks," he said as he smiled proudly and hugged his laptop to his chest. Taj left my room and once again, I was alone with no company other than my thoughts.

~*~

Rushing in the room, my cloak swished behind me. Shadow turned around and smiled. "Good morning Kratos. You made it just in time. We have KL's lab results."

"Already? What time did you wake up to do this?"

"Well she said she was having difficulty sleeping, so we started at six this morning," Shadow replied while clicking around on desktop computer.

Taking a quick glance at her, I could see the rosiness of her cheeks. She looked at me shyly, and I took the chance to look away. I couldn't help but feel horrible that I lead on this poor girl.

"So what do the results say?" I asked.

Lily and Nox came out of the back lab room, where they did all the chemical work. "Shadow the vials are clean," she said.

"Thank you two," Shadow blandly replied to them.

"No problem," Lily replied.

Answering my question, Shadow spoke up, "The results will take a few minutes to compute before I can actually read them."

"Good morning Kratos," said Lily.

"Good morning Lily, Nox," I replied.

Glancing over at KL, I noticed that she was staring directly at me, and I quickly turned my head the other way again. In a way, I almost felt bad for her. Here I was toying with her emotions when she had enough on her plate right now. Plus, she was probably stressed out from all of the testing she had to go through. Though I was much younger than she when I got tested, I remember the process was long and agonizing.

Shadow spoke up again, as he swiveled in his rolling chair to face KL. "Miss Kiyano, please remember that this test does not tell you exactly what all of your abilities are, but it will give you a general idea of the category that you fall under. For example, Kratos over here is a Jitsu. This means that his powers are based off of strong combat skills paired up with physical abilities that humans would not be able to possess-such as super strength, super speed, and being able to jump much higher than any human is physically capable of. Raine over here is both a Jitsu and an Elto, which means that she possesses powers just like Kratos, but being an Elto she also has power over elemental things such as rain and thunder. Of course there are other things that these two are capable of, but as I have said before this is just a basic classification. There are many other classifications other than Jitsu and Elto, and some of these categories could even be broken down into more categories. Understood?"

"Understood," she replied, though she still looked puzzled.

Looking over to my side, I noticed that Raine had appeared, but she must've been very quiet in doing so. She kept her arms crossed over her chest, and stared directly forward. I wonder what happened to her to make her twice as grouchy as she usually is.

Refocusing on the main event happening, I couldn't help but realize how late I was to KL's screening. As she sat on the lab table, suction cups were placed all over her skin. Usually, the suction cups had little needles that would poke you and insert sleeping gas into your system. That would make you knock out for a little while while the test read your unconscious vitals. Either I arrived very late to the point where she had already woken up or Shadow just didn't do that procedure this time.

As if she were reading my mind, Raine asked, "So did she get put into a slumber?"

Shadow spoke up as KL nodded yes. "Yes, she just woke up not too long ago."

"She should've stayed sleeping," Raine grumbled.

Both Lily and I simultaneously shot Raine the same expression. "Raine, if you're going to cause problems leave now," commanded Lily. Unaware of his surroundings, Shadow looked up and shot Raine a look. She pouted, but stayed where she was at.

"Any specific results we're looking for?" I asked.

Nox spoke up, "I don't think he's really looking for anything in particular."

"Well now that I think about it, when we were being chased down, there was mention of her being a Breaker," I said.

"A Breaker?" Asked Shadow.

"Mmhmm," Replied KL.

"How would they know that before we did?" Shadow asked, his eyebrow raising.

I shrugged my shoulders. " How should I know?"

He looked at KL, "They really said that?"

KL nodded in response.

Shadow sighed and looked at the computer screen in front of him. A slight pout formed on his face. " Well apparently they got it wrong. It says she's a Proctor."

" A Proctor?" I asked. Even though it wasn't as extravagant as falling within the Breaker category, I could see that category fitting her.

"Yes, a Proctor," Shadow repeated.

"What does that mean?" KL asked, looking towards Shadow.

" A Proctor is one whose abilities are made around self-defense and protection. They usually know how to protect others as well as themselves and use things like force fields to keep themselves and their colleagues safe."

" That's good right?" She asked.

Shadow nodded and replied with a dry, "Yes."

Lily intervened, " I think he thought you actually were a Breaker though..."

"Oh, well I'm sorry to disappoint," said KL. An expression of slight sadness and guilt was plastered on her face.

"It's not disappointing," I said, looking directly at her. "You can help what you categorize as."

Raine scowled, " I don't understand why it's so big a deal. She's as normal as any one of us. You shouldn't be surprised. There's nothing special about her."

KL looked at Raine, " Do you always have something negative to say?"

" I'm not negative, just truthful."

" Well sometimes it's best if you just don't say anything," KL said, her anger rising with every word.

" I don't understand why you're getting so worked up."

" I don't understand why you keep talking when no one wants to hear your opinion!" KL said.

Shadow went to open his mouth to say something, but all of a sudden an orange blast shot out towards Raine and threw her against the glass window. Raine grabbed her shoulder that was closest to the window. She looked over at KL and she literally hissed at her. She used her super speed to dash over by KL and grab her by the neck. Automatically I went towards them, yanking Raine's hand off of KL's neck and restraining her.

"Calm down!" I scolded.

Shadow looked dead at me, "Get her out of here."

I nodded, grabbing Raine by both of her wrists and taking her out of the lab. When we got far enough away, I released her and spun her around to face me. "What is your problem? She was testing! You know how important that is."

" It doesn't matter. She made me mad."

" So? Tons of people make me mad and you don't see me getting into fist fights with them! What has been up with you lately? You've been so on edge ever since KL showed up."

"I. Don't. Like. Her," she nearly spat at me.

"Yeah, you've made that pretty clear to everybody. We get it, but the least you could do is act like a civilized person and at least try to get along with her."

" Why?"

"Because that's the courteous thing to do."

"No."

"What has she done so bad to you that you can't even try to get along with her?"

Looking deeply into Raine's crystal blue eyes, I could tell that I had hit a soft spot with her. Her eyes became glassy, as if she was struggling to fight back tears and a part of me almost felt bad for her. I had always deeply cared for Raine because we grew up here together and were very close friends. She was like the sister that I never had, and I hated to see her breaking here before me.

She stared dead at me, " You wouldn't get it."

"I'm here for you Raine."

"But you just wouldn't understand," she said as she hung her head.

A tear rolled down her cheek. "Raine but-"

She raised up a hand to me. "Don't Kratos." Then she turned around and walked off toward her room.

~.~

Making my way back to the lab, I was puzzled over Raine's reaction. She always had a tough front, and the only time that I had ever seen her shed a tear was when something traumatic happened. To see her in such a weak state let me know that something had to really be bothering her.

As I entered the room, all eyes locked on me. "What? What's wrong?"

" Is she alright?"

I sighed, " I don't even know. I don't know what's wrong with her."

Shadow looked down at his computer screen, " I'll talk with her later."

"So what happened while I was gone?"

Lily smiled, " Something quite interesting, actually."

"Yeah, you'll want to hear this," Agreed Nox.

"Hear what?

Shadow smiled, " The results we had before were only half correct. A few minutes after you left, she was also detected to be a Breaker."

© Lightning_Stryker 2015