Stephanie Harris; Sixteen years old, excellent in Art class and well renowned for her bad habit of day-dreaming. That's all the valid 'intel' Ethan had on the girl that occupied the seat next to him. He had noticed her before, but they never went past the formalities. Considering she was a loner like him, you'd think he would finally grow some balls and approach her, but she was always either listening to music or making art in her A3 sheets, setting a figurative barrier around her. There was nothing Ethan could do but show inner admiration at Stephanie's matter-of-fact attitude and her courage to be herself, downright oblivious to the many rumors that featured her as the protagonist. The school was not short on outcasts like Steph and him, but at least the school jocks knew which of Ethan's physical shortcoming is worth printing on a flyer, where as Stephanie is almost, for the lack of a better word, perfect. She is good-looking, she never bothered anyone and she owns quite an athletic body, albeit one that she covered in a rubble of weird fandom-related clothing. With not enough material given to them, the 'cool' kids resorted to gossiping about her. Even though the gossips would fade away pretty fast, Ethan's favorite was the one where they established her father as an abuser. These kids were pretty inventive.

Ethan responded to the girl's shy, timid, smile with a wide grin before veering his sight towards the window to his right. For some reason, today of all days, the popular kids, who would usually travel by car, decided to use the bus for a change. That explained why there were no empty seats left and why Stephanie, who would always accommodate herself in an empty corner sightseeing through the window, was compelled to sit next to the kid with the shittiest reputation in the school. Ethan spontaneously felt the need to treat her with a degree of courtesy and allow her to switch places with him. But first, he had to overcome the difficult bit; conversing to her. He had no idea how to ask her if she wants to switch places without making it too awkward. Either way, he gave it a shot.

"Uh..can y- I mean, do you wanna switch places? I've noticed you always sit near the window, so maybe..", Ethan cut his sentence abruptly, unwilling to make himself seem like more of a creep than he already is.