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He was that annoying kid in your kindergarten class. In a word, brat. He liked to think he was right about everything, always trying to tell you what to do. Dumb things like, "stop pulling on Meenah's hair!" and "stop swinging sticks around, magic isnt real!"
What did he know anyway? Nothing. You are Cronus Ampora and you know WAY more than that dumb kid. What was his name again? Oh, right. Kankri Vantas.
Of course, that wasn't even the worst part. Nope. While every other kid got to go home and be free from his constant yammering you got to be his neighbour. And your dad was always telling you to "go play with that Vantas kid."
So you had no choice but to go hang out with "that Vantas kid", and fool around. Except that you couldn't, because even though his dad let you do what you liked, stupid, stinky Kankri never let you have any fun. Once shoved him into a mud puddle and he wouldn't talk to you for weeks. Best few weeks ever.
All the way through grades one to five, you hated the kid. When he started doing well on every test, he'd never let you cheat off him. He'd rather sit there and lecture you for hours, trying to make you understand. You'd rather just use magic.
But once you got into sixth grade, in your new Junior High school, things started to change.
You realized that magic was lame and stupid, and worst of all, fake. You were just a little bit bummed out. You were sulking on your way home when you saw him. Kankri.
He was the loser kid with his pants up really fucking high and always spoke with way too much pride about everything that he knew. You kind of tried really hard to avoid him, though it was pretty much impossible, the kid was in your grade after all.
He was standing with three other kids and, low and behold, he seemed to be spouting more nonsense. The other kids looked kind of insulted and really pissed off.
"What the hell are you even talking about?"
"Hell is an offensive word, please refrain fro--"
"Shut up, loser." Suddenly one of the kids shoved Kankri to the ground. Kankri only looked at him, confused and startled. One of the other kids went to kick him.
"Hey!" You found yourself shouting angrily. The hell? YOU were the only one who got to push Kankri around. Fuck those other kids. You went straight for the punch.
Needless to say, they ended up beating the both of you pretty badly. You lay with your head bleeding on the ground for a minute before Kankri slowly helped you up, making sure you could still walk, despite the fact that his own leg was badly bruised and it looked like he could barely stand.
Neither of you said a word as you slowly limped home together, silently tending to your wounds when you arrived at Kankri's home. You'd had a huge bruise on your face that lasted the whole week after that, but it was worth it, because for the first time, right as you were taking your leave, Kankri looked directly at you, and softly muttered,
"Thanks."