CK & KK Ficlets and Non-Ficlets

Demetri and Yasmine

Demetri showed Eli the info he discovered on Terry Silver. "Vietnam vet turned businessman. Had a few ups and downs, but still turned out pretty rich. Not much dirt, other than some toxic waste scandal in Borneo back in the '80s."

"Geez, sounds like a Renaissance man," Eli remarked. "How'd you find out his name?"

"I took a picture at the dojo, found an old facial recognition beta test and tweaked the code to make it compatible with HEIC," Demetri replied in his usual 'I may be nerdy, but I'm proud of it regardless' way, which Eli knew superbly well.

At that moment, Yasmine and Moon walked up to Demetri and Hawk; Yasmine was glowing from ear to ear with a big smile on her face. "I love it when you talk nerdy."

Demetri smiled at his girlfriend. "You are both the first and my favorite person to say that."

Yasmine giggled. Since having become an outcast thanks to Aisha introducing her to the front wedgie at the lake, she'd become more open-minded and showed empathy to those she'd once picked on.

She'd also learned the hard way about how being a laughingstock really stung when she came back to school from spending her summer in Paris, only to find things had changed for her, and not positively, either. To begin with, Kyler and Brucks didn't want anything to do with her, since her popularity was now gone, and her clique was dismantled. And besides that, as she'd also learned the hard way, the front wedgie incident hadn't been forgotten by the other students, as Nate had showed her once when he called her "Front Wedgie" (which had made his friend Chris laugh a little). 

The only person who still made sure she was there for Yasmine and stood by her as the only friend she had was Moon. Of course, Moon had made sure to let her know she wasn't going to be a bully anymore, and if Yasmine wanted to continue her friendship with her, then she needed to change for the better. (Deep down, Yasmine knew Moon was serious about that.)

But while Moon stuck by Yasmine, the other girls at the "rich girls" table gave Yasmine the cold shoulder after the front wedgie incident (which since went viral when it was posted on YouTube) had destroyed her popularity when they turned their backs on her, left her texts unanswered and disinvited her to concerts they were going to.

As a result, Yasmine was saddened at being treated like an outcast, while also realizing something painful. I look back at that now, and I feel bad, because Moon and I did something similar to Sam by not inviting her to that concert we'd posted selfies and videos of. If only we hadn't listened to Kyler then, and if only we'd known he wasn't being honest with us when he spread that rumor about Sam, too. If we'd been more open-minded then, I would've suggested finding Sam and asking her something like "So, Sam, what really happened?"

As of late, once Yasmine saw Demetri for the caring person he really was on the inside and realized there was more to him than she initially thought, she decided she'd had it with caring what others thought about her, which she now knew was not a good thing, as well as a dreadful habit which was hard to break. Basically, Demetri was a cool guy — someone who the old her would've looked right past, whereas the new her saw it differently.

Deep down, as she secretly did in private from time to time, Yasmine would berate herself for her past behavior, as well as sternly lecture herself for not swallowing her pride and getting to know Demetri better earlier when she had the chance. If only she'd taken the opportunity to do so by being nice to him and deciding to completely drop the "mean girl" facade (which she'd secretly gotten tired of putting on) the night she'd been introduced to the front wedgie thanks to Aisha.