"Ah…you are so dead!"

With a massive leap into the air, the warrior swished his sword furiously, destroying his enemy. Or so he thought. At the last second, the ninja hurled his body forward, launching his leg right into the warrior's abdomen, with the sword thrust missing him altogether.

"Oh yeah! I so owned you!" Ken Riley shouted, to his best friend.

"Whatever man." Jake Lorne smiled his familiar grin. "I can still beat you at NBA Live any day of the week!"

Laughing, Ken bounded over the couch, towards the refrigerator. "Want anything to drink?"

With a noncommittal shrug, Jake leaned back on the sofa. It was harder than it looked. Obviously, the choice had been fashion over comfort. In fact, the entire apartment was similarly furnished. The stiff dark blue cushions hurt just to sit on them.

"I guess so." Jake looked curiously around the room, at the new apartment his best friend lived in with his mom. "Got any Pepsi?" The whole place made him feel uncomfortable, even though he was used to the style of Ken's mother. Nevertheless, it made him feel like he was in the dentist's office, waiting to get his teeth checked. The apartment emitted a sense of pristine crispness, as though he couldn't touch anything without messing it up.   

Handing him the can of soda, Ken plopped down on the seat next to him. "You wanna try to beat me?" His blue eyes silently teased his friend to play the video game again. Ken, with his sunny blond hair, looked like a model from an Abercrombie & Fitch ad. His easy-going personality was well known throughout their school; girls flocked to him like sheep to a shepherd. Jake was as different from his friend as cream and sugar. Besides physically—Jake had light brown curls—they differed in personality; where Ken was friendly and easy to talk to, Jake was harder to get to know, with his quiet demeanor.

"Not right now dude. I've got band practice in an hour. I gotta go grab my stuff and head over to Evan's. We have the gig on Saturday." Jake's fledgling band was struggling to succeed in the cutthroat world of music, finally acquiring their first gig after many supposed "connections" fell through. Even after their first performance, it was still hard to find an audience, so they played wherever they could.

"You gotta remind me again; my cousin will want to come."

"Who?"

"Lani, my cousin who's living with us now."

"Oh yeah, her. Okay, sure. Do you want me to help you move some more stuff up before I go?"

Jake had actually come over to help the Rileys' move their things, and the boys had succeeded in doing most of the grunt work. But after lunch, they had decided to take a "short" break, which had stretched into a couple of hours of doing nothing productive. 

"If you have time."

"Well if you want me to help, we just have to hurry because I want to take a shower before practice."

"What, you got sweaty just from playing video games?" Ken joked. Pretending to smell something, he pinched his nose, making an exaggerated "Phew!"

With a laugh, Jake headed downstairs. Ken followed him, picking up some boxes.

"Geez, what's in here?" Jake groaned under the weight of a heavy box.

"It's Lani's stuff. You having trouble?" Ken walked by him, easily lifting his load. I gotta go to the gym soon. "No, I've got it." What could a 13-year-old kid have in here? It feels like I'm lifting an entire dresser!

Suddenly tilting the box too far, a notebook fell out, hitting Jake's foot hard. "Shit!" he yelled, cringing in pain. Dying to massage his poor toes, he dropped the box to the side, when he finally noticed Ken laughing at him. About to tell him to shut up, Jake stopped himself after realizing that there were two other people watching him. In fact one of them was Lani, Ken's cousin, and the other was a girl who looked vaguely familiar, although he couldn't recall where he had seen her before.

                "Uh, hi." Jake said with a sheepish grin.