WARNING: EDITED/CHANGED

As the Author's Note stated, this is all being rewritten. I've noticed some things that need changed. It's mostly editing, but I've noticed some things that I had meant to write into this that weren't, and some things that were and shouldn't have. So read and enjoy! ^^

~Munnin

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The Day They Met

The door to Wammy's Orphanage opened on a bright August morning, to reveal two people. One, an older gentleman led a reluctant 11 year old red-head. As soon as they entered into the building, Roger let go of the young child's hand as though it had burned him. The red-head shoved his hands into his pockets and looked down with his hair covering his face. The sounds of children carried down the hallway to the two from a distant room. The sounds grew louder and a sharp yelp of pain cut through the air.

Roger pointed the red-head in the direction of the office he was supposed to go to first. Then Roger left down the hallway to the room at the end.

As the red-head started down the hall, he heard the sound of someone running in his direction. He turned around in time to see someone with blond hair crash into him. Both boys landed on the floor in a heap.

Soon Roger was back. "Mello! Where do you think you're going?" Behind Roger was a young boy with a bruise on his face. Mello refused to say anything. "Let's go Mello. You aren't getting away with this again." Roger grabbed Mello's hand and grabbed the red-head's hand as well. "We're all going the same place, so you may as well come with us." The three hurried down another hall to a door on the end.

Roger brought both boys to a small, but well furnished office and made them sit in two chairs away from each other. "I have to make sure Justin is okay. Stay here and don't talk." Roger rushed out of the room.

The red-head hung his head allowing his face to be covered by his hair again and put his hands back in his pockets. Mello stared at him expecting the boy to introduce himself or to ask what he'd done to the other boy, but the boy didn't look out from beneath his bangs. Before long though, Mello lost patience.

"So what's your name?"

The boy brought his head up but refused to meet Mello's eyes.

"My name is Ma-Matt," he replied quietly.

"Do you have a stutter? God, are you stupid or something?" Matt's face burned red and he hung his head again. Mello's expression softened and he ran his hand thought his shoulder-length blond hair.

"God, I was only joking. Why are you here? What happened to your parents?"

Before Matt could respond, Roger walked in. "Mello this is your final warning, if you don't stop fighting the other students, I'm going to have to put you in a juvenile delinquent orphanage. At this rate, we can't keep you."

Mello jumped up. "You can't do that!"

"No one is willing to room with you anymore, and I can't let you have your own room, especially since you can't behave yourself. Maybe I will have you room with an older student to see if they can keep you under control."

"What! You can't do that! They don't like me! All they'll do is bully me."

"Then perhaps you will learn your lesson."

"I-I'll room with him if no one else will." Roger and Mello turned to the meek boy looking at the floor. He looked slightly surprised that he'd even said anything. Mello had a look of disbelief. Then Roger spoke with the same disbelief Mello's face showed.

"You won't want to room with him. He usually ends up trying to harm his roommate. You're new here so you wouldn't know. What happened in the playroom isn't unusual for him."

Matt finally looked up, his eyes shining with determination. "If Mello needs a roommate and he needs one his age then I'll do it!"

Roger and Mello looked at Matt in continued surprise. Neither had expected anything like this from the quiet boy.

Roger quickly regained his composure and nodded. "Fine then, but if you decide you don't want to room with him anymore, let me know and I'll switch you out." Matt nodded. "Mello, take him to your room. I told Justin to get his things out of the room and he should have moved out already since the other children were going to help him. He should probably be out already, but if not, I want you to stay out of his way and leave him alone till he's gone. Then I need you to be nice and help Matt get settled in."

Mello nodded with an angry grimace on his face and grabbed Matt's hand, dragging him out of the room. Mello didn't say a word till they reached the top of a set of stairs. Down the hall, they could see the boy, Justin and several other children scurrying in and out of a room taking stuff out. Then Mello stopped and turned to Matt saying, "Why'd you stick up for me?"

Matt, still looking at the ground, just shrugged his shoulders. Mello, tired of Matt not meeting his eyes and hiding behind his hair, grabbed his chin and forced him to meet his eyes. Bright blue met with deep green. "When I ask you something, you answer. Got it?" Matt nodded. "Verbally."

"Y-yes!" Mello let go of his chin. Mello opened the door and went in with Matt following behind. Inside the room was a bed with no sheets on one side, and a bed with black sheets on the other. There were two desks, one of which was covered with a variety of books and papers, the other was bare. Matt pulled off the back pack he had brought, and pulled out a pair of plain jeans and a plain grey long sleeved shirt identical to the one he wore.

"Is that all you have to wear?" Matt looked up, not thinking the blond would have been watching.

"Yeah." Mello raised an eyebrow but said nothing else so Matt put his clothes in the dresser.

"I still never got an answer." Matt looked up, a quiet fear in his eyes. "Just answer. Even if you lie, tell me something." Matt swallowed and nodded.

"I-I just think everyone needs another chance. And I thought…that if I was nice to you, you'd be nice to me and I could have a place to stay." Mello frowned a moment.

"I beat up some other kid. What makes you think I might like you?" Matt shrugged.

"I hate meeting people and I'd already met you so I didn't want to bother meeting anyone else." Matt hung his head again letting his hair cover his eyes again.

"Whatever. I'll try not to hurt you, but only because I don't want to get kicked out." Matt nodded again and pulled out an old Game Boy and put in the cartridge for Tetris. He sat there silently playing till Mello, bored leaving him alone, walked over. "What are you doing?" Matt, engrossed in the game, didn't answer. Mello, impatient, pulled the game out of Matt's hands.

"Hey! Give that back!" Matt jumped up to get the hand held game but Mello, taller than Matt, held it over his head.

"Tell me what it is and I'll give it back." Mello held the game higher. He found it interesting that Matt seemed to care more about his game than himself.

"It's Tetris, okay? Now give it back!" Mello laughed. It was different seeing Matt angry.

"Fine, but I didn't think you'd get so mad over a game." As soon as Mello lowered the game, Matt snatched it back. He stormed over to his bed and lay on it, turning his game on again.

By the time night came, Mello was finishing up some homework for class the next day when he looked at the clock. It was one in the morning. He glanced over and saw that Matt was still playing his game. Mello closed his book.

"We should go to sleep. We have to get up at six for classes at seven."

Matt looked up and nodded. "I'll go to bed soon." He turned his attention back to his game.

"Fine then." Mello turned off his desk lamp plunging the room into darkness.

"W-what are you do-doing!"

"Turning off the light, why? Do you have a problem with that?"

"Erm…no….it was just sudden is all."

"Well then good night." Mello crawled under the covers and fell asleep. Matt curled up in the corner of his bed and pulled out a game boy light and attached it to the game boy and continued playing.

The next morning Mello woke up to his alarm clock. He glanced over, surprised to see that Matt was already up. But Mello shrugged it off; about half the kids in the orphanage were insomniacs because they studied. It wasn't all that unusual, and he just assumed that Matt just got distracted by his game. Mello got out of bed and got ready for class. Matt got up as well and started to change from one shirt to the next, but before he could, Mello snatched it out of his hands.

"What are yo-"

"Wear this."

Before Matt could say a word, a black and green stripped shirt hit him square in the face.

"You can't wear the same kind of shirt every day. I have some shirts I don't like that you can have. They might be too big but it's better than the shit you have." Matt nodded and threw the shirt on over his head. Just as Mello had said, the shirt was a bit too big, but Matt was grateful anyways.

As soon as he changed, Mello dragged Matt out of the room. "Just so you know, they might not put you in my class. Classes here aren't determined by age or what grade they should be. It just depends on how smart you are. I'm smarter than most everyone else."

"Even the older kids?"

Mello nodded. "So we probably won't be in the same class. Got it?" Matt nodded. "Why are you so damn quiet? It's fucking annoying!"

For the first time since he got there, Matt smiled. "Yeah, I'll try."

Mello dragged Matt into a classroom. Dragging him to the back of the classroom, Matt looked around in fascination while all the older students stared at the two with what looked like a mix of anger and resentment. "What class is this?"

"This class is Algebra II. You probably won't understand any of it but till they put you somewhere else, you can stay here."

"Okay." Matt continued looking around the room with a look of fascination.

"What's the matter, never seen a classroom before?" Matt shook his head. "Wait, really?"

"Well not in person. I couldn't go to school at home or at the other orphanages." Mello furrowed his brow.

"Why?"

"I never learned right." Mello sighed. He'd been hoping his roommate would be smart, but so far all that the boy had done was play video games and refuse to talk. He couldn't expect a random roommate assignment to work out.

Matt and Mello sat in the back of the room, where Mello got out his book and notebook and Matt pulled out his game. He muted it and continued to play. Mello shook his head.

"Here take the book instead. You can see what Algebra is like if you want." Mello grinned as Matt looked excited. "You won't understand it at all."

"That's okay!" Mello shook his head. He guessed simple kids felt better just holding a book that advanced.

"Here's where we are right now." Mello turned the page to a chapter in the middle of the book. Even Mello had to smile at the excitement on Matt's face. He'd almost regret not having Matt in his classes, if only to see how amazed by the schoolwork he'd be. Matt stared at the book looking at the pages in the chapter until class started and Mello took his book back.

When class started Matt pulled out his game, and played it instead of paying attention to the lesson. Mello didn't stop him since he assumed the class work was too far advanced for him. It didn't take long for the teacher to notice that Matt wasn't paying much attention, however.

The teacher made her way to the back of the room. Matt, playing his game, and Mello, taking down notes, didn't notice until she stood between the two and tapped Matt's shoulder. Matt jumped up, surprised and looked up into the teacher's face.

"What is your name?"

"M-Matt."

"Well Matt, I want you to go solve the problem on the board." Matt's eyes widened in fear and he sputtered for a moment before Mello spoke up.

"He wasn't assigned classes yet, so I brought him with me. He doesn't even know what level he's at."

"Well Mello, he still shouldn't be playing games in my class. Matt, go to the board and answer the question written there."

"But Miss-"

"Be quiet Mello. Matt, go to the board. You'll stay there until you answer it correctly."

Matt shuffled to the front of the room visibly shaking as he went. Mello bit his lip, feeling bad for him. The other kids snickered. They had always resented younger kids in their classes, especially since this class was filled with 16 to 18 year olds.

"You have to use the quadratic formula to solve *0.3y^2+0.15y-11.7=0." Noticing that Matt seemed frozen, she shook her head. It was well known she didn't like younger children in her classes anymore than the older students. "The faster you answer it correctly, the faster you can sit down." She smiled while the rest of the class laughed. Mello was about to stand up but the teacher put her hand on his shoulder to keep him down.

Matt, bright red and still shaking, picked up a piece of chalk, and, quickly wrote, y=6, -6.5. The teacher was shocked and didn't say a word for a moment while the rest of the class looked angry.

Finally she said, "Correct." Matt dropped the chalk and half ran to the back of the room, his face red. Reaching the table, he put his head on the table on his arms.

Mello just stared at him. "Since when were you that smart?"

Matt just kept his head down and didn't answer.

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Please review and let me know what you think! ^^