<div align="center"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 18pt;"><strong>Trouble in Paradise</strong></span></div><hr/><br/><div class="floatleft">(https://i.imgur.com/Rt2ECxS.gif)</div><strong>NAME:</strong>Kevin Finch<br/><strong>DAY:</strong>May 6th, 2019<br/><strong>LOCATION:</strong>Mitsuhara Private School, School Gates<br/><strong>TAGGING:</strong>Mallory Minato|Mentioned: Reckley Stiles<br/><strong>EXTRA:</strong>Breather<br/><strong>WEARING:</strong>Rugby Shirt and Khakis<br/><hr/><br/>And there it was - the reason Kevin liked Mallory so much. With all she had been through, all the crap thrown at her, she still somehow managed to look through it all and survive. And somehow make Kevin feel like a better person than he actually was. It was the thing no one understood. Not their classmates. Not their teachers. Not his parents. Definitely not his parents.<br/><br/>Mal's aunt might have understood, but she worked against them for her own reasons, at least as far as Kevin knew.<br/><br/>And right now Mallory was bringing a blush to his own cheeks. Kevin simply wasn't used to praise. His parents saved it for special occasions to harden their boy up. Mallory was right - they loved him. But their form of love wasn't the easiest thing to live with, by design. Life was going to be hard for him, so they wanted to give him a head start on being hard right back. If it weren't for Mallory, he might have very well not been able to manage it at all.<br/><br/>Another unfortunate consequence, however, was that he had all sorts of trouble expressing these very same thoughts to Mallory - he had no models with which to learn from. Mallory could probably hear him struggle to put his emotions into words. As opposed to say, dents in the lockers. "I don't want you to change either Mal. You're... well... you're incredible."<br/><br/>Okay, so maybe he could manage it a little.<br/><br/>"Yeah I know my parents only want the best for me. I'm sure your parents... um... wanted that for you." It was especially hard talking to Mallory about her loss. No one was in her corner. Except him. And despite recent events, his power in that regard was relatively small. In a sense, Reckley could have blamed Hanna as much as Kevin, and himself, for his current predicament. "And you're stronger than you think, Mal. Believe me, I know where to look for that. I think... you know... you'll pull through." When he looked at Mallory, and he looked at her guardians, there really wasn't any other conclusion he could reach (not that his parents thought as much, but they were natural born pessimists. Not natural born, but from reasons that Kevin knew all too much about, and yet not quite enough.) "So just hang strong, OK? We'll get through this. Reckley can do his worst, but we'll get through." He nodded, then stopped, and patted her on the shoulder, ironically noting to himself that for the bravest person in the world, he could be frustratingly timid at times.