Before

Kelin

CW: Friendships issues/neglect

Kelin was a very shy child, but also a teacher's pet at the same time. In his first year of school, he helped teachers with small things, cleaning up after other students, and helping get parts of the class ready for new students as well. As he got older he made sure to always behave in class and do whatever it took to help others, he always felt useful when he helped others. Yet because he was a quiet and shy person he ran into quite a few problems with friends. His closest friend in elementary school was a boy named Flynn, and they played all sorts of games together, at least until Jackson, one of Flynn's friends who left the school for a year, came back. Flynn then started spending time with Jackson so Kelin ended up spending time with Issac, another young boy who also seemed to be left out.

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With Issac though Kelin always felt like he was the backup option, as Issac was always close friends with Flynn as well but also got left out when Jackson came. Kelin found those first few years lonely, but then out of nowhere he became best friends with Jackson, and Kelin really liked his company. Jackson was into all the same things he was and helped him find other things he was interested in as well. Samuel, a boy who joined in the same year Jackson and Kelin became close, became friends with them as well and Issac joined their little group as well. It was around this time that Kelin started gaining confidence in himself.

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In middle school, they remained friends but had added others to their number as the class size had pretty much doubled. Kelin also saw less of Flynn as well as they were no longer in the same classes, but they still remained friends. His best friend was always Jackson throughout this, their own little duo. It was in the latter half of that first middle school year when their duo became a trio when Kelin dragged another boy, Avirce, into their group.

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In the second year of middle school Jackson ended up dating another boy in their class, Travis. Around that time Kelin ended up being left out by him, it did make him glad he had Avirce to be friends with. Kelin also had this feeling of wanting to be loved as well so he tried asking his new larger friends if they had a crush on someone, wanting someone to love him, and did end up pushing people into relationships just to stop him asking. It was something he didn't realise until later and apologised greatly for.

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The next year of middle school the year's size doubled again, and Kelin ended up drawing someone else to join their group, a taller boy called Spencer. It didn't end up that well for Kelin though, Jackson had started hanging out with others and Avirce had been hanging out with Flynn, who was now in their class, and Spencer, leaving Kelin alone a lot. In the second half of the year, after Xavier and Edmund, two other boys in the year, joined Avirce's new group Kelin joined as well. He did struggle with feeling included though, he always felt like he was on the outside looking in.

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The next year Edmund left the group to join with others, and again Kelin had the same issues of being excluded by people he called his friends. At moments he felt included, it was why he stayed, but at times he felt alone. In the final term of the year, they learnt that Xavier and Flynn were leaving the school, and Xavier didn't want anyone else to know but it still got out, and Xavier blamed Flynn, Avirce and Spencer for it. They also gained two other friends during this time, Locky and Everett, people whom Kelin reached out to, so they wouldn't be alone. Everett ended up siding with Xavier and they grew apart in a long texting chain messages were exchanged as they grew apart.

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High school had those issues in the past, their group was now Spencer, Avirce, Locky, Samuel (who joined the group after leaving another) and Kelin. Jackson ended up hanging out with them more as well, but Spencer, Avirce and Locky started ignoring Jackson after a while, having issues but not communicating with them. Kelin and Samuel, while remaining in a group with the other three, still wanted to be friends with Jackson, so they were. Then slowly over time the two of them started to be left out as well, and it was hard for Kelin. He had always tried to be friends with them, made sure that if one of them was walking alone he would join them so they were walking alone but during a club where Samuel and Jackson didn't go to, where they once sat together, they now sat alone. They didn't even ask to join him. They started becoming friends with others in the year below and it was during a walk to class when Avirce chose to end the conversation Kelin was having with him to talk to one of the people in the year below.