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Notebook in hand at all times really tended to distract McKenna from the outside world. She had her face buried so deep in it that her nose couldn't even get cold from the wind. Of course, she was careful not to run into anybody, but other than that, she didn't notice a thing. Kenny had just dropped her hand that held her notebook when she was struck by a cold, wet ball of slush.
One would expect someone to be mad for taking fire without being aware of what was happening, however, Kenny was a go with the flow kind of girl. She had checked to be sure that her notebook was not wet, and it wasn't, before pocketing it in her book bag and ducking behind one of the few bushes that lined the courtyard. Her eyes scanned the area in front of her for the culprit, but nothing struck her as odd. Perhaps a pile of snow had fallen from the building...in the middle of the courtyard...where nothing was actually overhead.
Just then she saw someone with wide eyes and she knew she'd caught him. Kenny scooped up a handful of snow, rounded it into a ball and sent it flying across the field.
When Sam saw the people having a snowball fight, he hesitated for about five minutes before getting ready and joining them. For once, he didn't have to worry about people lying. They were all having fun and he was joining in on it.
Sad as it may be, this wasn't a regular occurrence in the twenty-three year old's life so he took advantage of it.
In the middle of it, he hit an innocent passerby by accident and froze. The girl ducked behind a bush and he winced. He held a hand up and grimaced. "Sor-" he started just before the snowball hit him right in the forehead. "Shit!" He exclaimed with a laugh before finding a spot to hide and gathering as much snow one hand could fit before throwing it haphazardly in the general direction of the girl.
Kenny squeaked when she noticed that she hit him in the face and she cringed. Before she could worry too much about whether he was okay, he was diving and hiding, too. He hurled snow in her general direction and she ducked and scooted away to avoid getting it, while also trying to make more snowballs faster.
She was probably better at the throwing than the making of them. They'd fall apart a little as soon as she let one fly, scattering the snow in several directions. Kenny laughed and went to move away from her hiding spot to get a better angle of getting him. As soon as she moved, however, she got struck in the arm. She dove behind another tree/bush and kneeled down so that she wasn't in the line of fire anymore.
Again, she attempted to make a solid snowball, but she found the same problem to be her packing. Kenny chewed on her lower lip and concentrated on the quality of her snowball before sending it over. "I'll never surrender!"
Having packed a few of the snowballs in his parka, Sam ran behind a tree and saw someone approaching the girl he had hit, a snowball in their hand ready to strike. He laughed and wound an arm back before throwing one snowball in their direction. Unfortunately, they saw him coming and froze the snowball in place.
"Ugh! No powers! No powers!" Sam yelled out before running off so he wouldn't be in the line of fire from them. He heard their laughter fade before he looked around for the girl who had hit him before.
"You're gonna have to surrender or there will be consequences!" He called out before finally seeing her behind the bush. He grabbed another snowball and sent it flying in her direction. "Still alive?"
Kenny was oblivious to her surroundings, focused all too hard on these damn snowballs. She'd grown up in warmer places that she hardly ever saw any snow, maybe twice in the whole time she'd lived in New Orleans, so it was all so new to her. She'd watched countless movies with snowball fights and they'd all made it look effortless. She wished that she could have been like Will Ferrel in Elf as she was looking to win and not get barraged with snow.
Just as she went to toss one, she got struck in the arm and squeaked. The boy she'd been aiming for asked if she was still alive and she brushed the snow from her arm. "Just barely!" She called back with a laugh. If she kept up at this pace, she was never going to win. Where was a cryo when she needed one?! Her ability was of little use in this situation, not unless she wanted to break out into song and make everyone feel like surrendering, but she wasn't even sure that would work.
She threw over another ball in the general direction the voice came from.
Hearing her reaction had Sam laughing, her response even more. "Just give u-" before he could finish his sentence, he was pelted with a cloud of snow in his face.
Spitting out the snow from his mouth, he crept closer to the girl and unpacked the snowballs from his pocket so they crumbled before he dunked it over her in her hiding spot.
"Victory is mine!" He exclaimed, holding up two fists and pumping it up in the air.
McKenna shrieked as she was covered in snow. Had she been paying attention, she was sure that she'd have had the time to tackle him to the ground and bury him, but she'd been oblivious to his approach and in turn ended up buried herself. She was not dressed properly for being covered; her peacoat was soaked within minutes as well as her hair. The gloves that she wore only protected her hands because they were leather. She was drenched from head to toe otherwise.
She sat there for a moment and watched him do his victory dance, observing that he was small enough that she could have easily tackled him and also that he was really cute in the most dorky way she could ever imagine. After her brief moment of distraction, she started brushing herself off. Her teeth started to chatter and she laughed through them.
"That w-was really s-smooth. Congratulations-s-s," Louisiana girls weren't meant for the cold and she felt like her fingers might fall off. "Aren't you f-freezing?" She stood up and brushed her coat off before smoothing down her hair and brushing it out of her eyes. "I'm Kenny, by the way. D'you have a name other than 'Mighty Victor'?" She giggled again and sniffled.
As she chattered away, Sam couldn't help but grimace as he realised that a) she was now drenched and she was ridiculously cute. He had just drenched a grade A cutie.
He also realised he was staring when he only heard the tail end of her asking his name. "Oh crap." He took off his jacket and handed it over to her so she could warm herself up. "Best if you take your coat off. You'll warm up quicker." He said before scratching the back of his neck.
When he started shrugging his coat off, she held her hands up, "Oh no, you really don't have to." But he seemed sure and she was freezing. Kenny slid off her coat and took his from him, pulling it around her shoulders as her eyes lifted back up to his. "Thank you, you're sweet."
He gave her his name and she smiled at him. It fit his face, she had to admit. He just looked like a Sam. Kenny's teeth sank into her lower lip when he suggested they go in for hot chocolate. She was never one to turn down anything warm in this kind of weather, least of all when it was chocolate. "Well, Sam, it's nice to meet you. I'd love to get hot chocolate with you."
Of course she could tell that he was uncomfortable, maybe nervous, it wasn't a secret. She wished that she had a way to ease his nerves without having to sing or something of the sort, so she did the only thing that she could think of and took his hand. She didn't make a big fuss over it and just started walking beside him, looking down at her feet as they walked. It was like he was magnetic, she found herself walking close beside him, although it could have been just to keep warm against the wind that blew snow off of the rooftops. Kenny followed him into the building and towards the cafeteria without question, "You must be used to the snow, your packing skills were far better than mine. Are you from around here?"
Alex would have a field day with this. Sweet would never be an adjective she used for him and for a brief moment, he laughed lightly. Clearing his throat, he smiled at Kenny when she accepted the offer.
He hadn't expected her to take his hand but when she did, he didn't pull away. She hadn't lied so far so he wasn't going berserk about that. This was fine. He was fine. How he wished Alex would be here to coach him.
Wow...he needed help and it shouldn't be coming from his twin.
He turned to her and laughed. "I might as well be. I've been here three years and before that I was in Montana since I was fourteen. Cold never bothered me anyway." He chuckled before rolling his eyes at how lame that must have sounded.
"It's really not that hard to pack snowballs. I'll definitely teach you later." Wow he needed to stop talking before the girl thought he was a creeper weirdo. It's unfortunate that he didn't have a filter. Superpowers his ass.
Over the course of the last few years, Kenny had realized that she became very forward. When she was sixteen she could barely look at a boy, let alone grab his hand moments after learning his name. He didn't pull away though, and she accepted it as a small victory. The cute, dorky guy was holding her hand as if it were such a natural thing. He was a complete stranger, what did she think she was doing? But he felt familiar and she took comfort in that.
His smile and that laugh, she thought she might melt before even reaching the cafeteria. At his words, she felt shocked because they had likely been part of the same school for years without crossing paths even once. Of course, she had strayed far away from the opposite gender for a large portion of the time, but even so, she knew she'd have remembered seeing him in the halls. "Frozen reference, noted," Kenny giggled and bit down on her lower lip. "It's wild that I've never seen you around before, I've been part of Bellefonte since I was twelve."
When he offered to help teach her proper packing of a snowball, she grinned wide and nodded, "I look forward to it. Well, ya know, after I thaw out a bit. I'm from Louisiana before I manifested, it doesn't get like this there very often." She shivered involuntarily as if for emphasis.
Kenny might have thought that it was wild they had never met before but Sam had spent almost an entirety of his time in Bellefonte secluded in his room. He appreciated that she didn't think the Disney reference was as lame as he had initially thought. Well...she didn't say anything that constituted a lie so he supposed she probably did think it was.
The paranoia that came with his superpowers had to be one of the worst side effects his powers had given him.
"Well...it wasn't so wild. I kinda cooped myself up in my room for the majority of the time we were in Montana. And...a little bit when we moved out here." He grimaced. They arrived at the cafeteria and he turned to her. "I'll go and get us the hot chocolates, you choose us a seat?" He smiled at her, glad that his companion didn't make it any worst for him in the truth department so far.
McKenna nodded slowly, absorbing the information. He didn't peg her as a hermit type, but she could have been reading it wrong. After all, she'd been pretty hermit-like a few years ago and for those who met her now, she was certain they wouldn't have believed it.
Reluctant as she was to release his hand, she gave a smile and a nod as she looked around for an open table that was good for some conversation. The cafeteria was mostly empty, so she supposed it didn't really matter. She chose a table nearest to the windows, away from the few other people that were lingering and speaking. Her eyes were locked on the scene outside. The snow had always been pretty to her, but she was not cut out for being in it for long.
She turned when she heard him approach and she smiled again, "Thanks. It's kind of crazy how good the hot chocolate here is, ya know? For being a cafeteria. I just remember my normal school never had good hot chocolate. It was always really watery." Kenny turned her nose up and grimaced.
He took the time away from Kenny to re-evaluate his status as a person in what seemed to be pretty good company. She was so cute and bubbly and he...wasn't. He didn't really know how to handle people like her. He was used to Alex and Alex was most decidedly not Kenny.
When he finally got the hot chocolates, he looked around to find Kenny and found her sitting near the window. "Fuck, she's gorgeous. Okay, just let all of it out now so I don't sound like a freak later. So cute. That hair looks so silky and she looks so good in my jacket, what even that's just unfair. Okay. Done. Let's be human, Harper." He cleared his throat and joined Kenny.
He nodded as he sat down, a smile creeping on his face. "Yeah for sure. They don't put as much marshmallow as I would like but they're quite decent." He offered, thankful that he was doing well so far. "You were from...Louisiana you say? How was that like?" He asked.
She liked when he smiled. It was never really a full one, but just the hint of it was adorable and made her went to pinch his cheeks. He just had that oddly adorable air about him. Like she wanted to protect him at all costs, even though she was probably not that good of a protector. "Totally agree, you can never go overboard on marshmallows. Not ever."
He asked her about her home and she gave a wistful sigh, Louisiana was everything. New Orleans just had all of the good stuff that people needed. Food, music and gorgeous scenery. "I could go on for days. New Orleans is the most incredible place in the world. There's so much influence there with music and food. Plus it's beautiful and the people are exotic and wild. Basically, it's my favorite place that I've ever been and I miss it like no other." It made her sad to think about how little she went back compared to how much she wanted to. School made it hard and work would make it harder.
"Did you ever live anywhere else?" She felt like she'd gone back and forth between New Orleans and Los Angeles that she knew them both by heart, but she didn't know anywhere else. Other than where the academy had taken her.
she was ridiculously cute. He had just drenched a grade A cutie.