Through The Years As Best Friends

Sixth Grade (Age: 11-12)

Sixth grade. For Kensi Blye and Marty Deeks, that meant they were the Top Dogs of the school.

"This is gonna be great!" Deeks exclaimed to Kensi on the morning of the first day of school.

"Yeah, it is! The fifth graders are gonna be so small compared to us!" Kensi replied, reminiscing on how the sixth graders seemed so huge compared to them last year.

But little did they know that maybe this school year wasn't going to be so great, after all.

Their teacher, Mrs. Hazel Schwemmer, wasn't all too nice. She was pretty old, one of the oldest teachers in the builing. She was also pretty hard on her students, and dare I say, stuck in gender roles and gender norms.

Kensi and Deeks walked up to their classroom, Deeks' arm slung around Kensi's shoulders and both of them smiling and laughing, eyes beaming with happiness.

They walked in, and Mrs. Schwemmer immediately looked up and stared at them.

Right from the start, she didn't really like them.

She didn't like the way Kensi was dressed: ripped jeans, My Chemical Romance T-Shirt, Converse All Star Chuck Taylor high tops, a leather jacket, a bunch of concert bracelets, a watch, and a choker. She had no make-up on, no earrings, no nail polish, nothing about Kensi screamed "I'm even the tiniest bit feminine."

Mrs. Schwemmer didn't like Deeks' look either. It wasn't necessarily what he was wearing, though, she thought to herself, that he could've dressed a bit more like what guys usually wear around that age. He was pretty much wearing what Kensi was wearing: ripped jeans, My Chemical Romance T-Shirt, Converse All Star Chuck Taylor high tops, a leather jacket, and a bunch of concert bracelets. He wasn't wearing a choker, though. But what Mrs. Schwemmer really didn't like about him was his hair. It wasn't buzzed or even as short as she thought his hair should be. His hair flopped around his face/head and she didn't like that at all.

Mrs. Schwemmer walked over to them, and asked to speak with them out in the hall.

"Are you two dating?" Mrs. Schwemmer asked. A part of her wanted them to say yes, because that would give them a reason to match clothes and touch each other. But the other part of her wanted them to say no, because they were too young to date.

"No, ma'am," Kensi and Deeks said together.

"Then why are your clothes matching and why is your arm slung across her shoulder?" Mrs. Schwemmer continued her questioning which almost seemed like an interrogation.

"We're best friends," Kensi and Deeks answered.

Mrs. Schwemmer just walked back in the classroom and they followed. They sat in their desks, which were right next to each other.

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As the year went on, Kensi and Deeks realized that Mrs. Schwemmer really didn't like them. Fair enough, they figured, because they didn't like her, either.

Deeks didn't like that Mrs. Schwemmer kept nagging Kensi about the way she dressed, and how she trying to get Kensi to wear a dress, or make-up or anything that girls would normally wear.

Kensi didn't like that Mrs. Schwemmer kept nagging Deeks,  telling him to get a haircut, and how she kept trying to get him to start playing a sport on a team.

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Everyday when Kensi and Deeks got home, either at Deeks' house or Kensi's, they would drop their bags on the floor and groan.

Both their parents knew what they weren't happy about, so they didn't even bother asking.

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But, at the end of the year, they were as close as ever, if not even closer than they were the year before.

And even the little fifth graders that didn't know them at all, could see that they had a thing, but Kensi and Deeks kept on denying it, saying that they were just best friends.

And that's how they would stay for the time being.

Best Friends.