Rin sat in the corner of his classroom, alone, hugging his knees to his chest. He watched sadly as the other kids in the classroom were running around, playing and having fun. When kids got too close to him they eyed him warily before running as fast as they could away from him.

"Why did Yukio have to be sick today?" Rin mumbled to himself sadly, wiping a tear from his face.

Everybody in his class was afraid of him. They thought he was a demon. He was very strong for his age causing other kids to be intimidated. Rin also got mad easily which lead to many frightening tantrums. Any kid that could throw tables across rooms when he got angry was not to be messed with. So to stay on the safe side, kids avoided him thinking he could snap at any moment.

There was only one child that would play with him; his twin brother Yukio, but today Rin sat alone. His brother came down with a cold and had to stay home today leaving Rin with nobody to play with.

As Rin sulked, a new girl in class glanced at him from time to time, thinking about whether or not he'd like to play with her. She was sitting at a table by herself, going through her toys she brought from home. Well, they weren't actually toys; they were all small puzzle erasers. While most students used the tiny, colorful characters to erase away mistakes made on paper, she enjoyed taking them apart, mixing them around, and then putting them back together.

Aelita had quite a collection and she smiled at it proudly as she sat them up in a line to make a rainbow of erasers. She had with her a frog, panda, bird, cow, hamster, popsicle, cake, sushi, and a teddy bear. She had more at home as well.

Once she felt her line of erasers was set up to satisfaction she took them apart and scattered them around the table. She continued doing this until, finally, after putting them together for a third time, she decided she'd share her collection with Rin. Another glance at him, however, made her pause. The sight of such a sad boy distancing himself from all the other kids confused her, but she was determined to figure out why he was sad. She took a deep breath before quietly approaching a group of boys playing with toy cars nearby. One of the boys looked up from their table and smiled, waving a car at her.

"Hey! You're the new kid! Aelita right? Want to play cars?" the boy asked.

"Um, no. Sorry, but… c-can one of you tell me who that boy is?" the girl asked as she pointed to Rin.

"Oh, him?" The biggest boy said, lowering his voice, "That kid is a demon."

"Don't say that we told you though! He might try and eat us!" another boy pitched in slamming his palms on the table.

Aelita looked back at Rin. "He doesn't look like a demon, he looks sad."

"That's how he lures you in! Then he attacks you!" the first boy said. "But he doesn't scare me, if he does anything again sensei will call his daddy!" he grinned, crossing his arms across his chest proudly.

"And whenever somebody talks to him they get awful luck! You might even die!" another boy chimed in.

"Well I'm going to talk to him," the girl said and she grabbed her bag of erasers and walked towards Rin.

The boys yelled at her to stop but were silenced when they looked at the demon boy.

Aelita stopped a few steps away from the boy and gazed down at him curiously. She was a strange girl, not interested in things most girls were interested in. She didn't like dolls, pink, or dresses (though her mother made her wear one to school today). Instead she liked ghosts and scary stories which made her very interested in this so called "demon" boy.

Rin kept his face hidden in his arms and mumbled, "What do you want?"

"Um, d-do… you wanna play with m-me?" she asked quietly. She was a brave girl, but when it came to talking to people she didn't know, she got nervous.

Rin gazed at her through his messy black bangs, "What did you say?"

"W-well, you seemed lonely so… do you wanna play?"

Rin shook his hair out of his crystal blue eyes, "You aren't just trying to trick me are you?" he grumbled.

"O-of course not, um…" she fumbled around in her bag. "Look, I brought some puzzle erasers," she said, holding out her popsicle, teddy bear, and cow eraser in her tiny hand.

He looked curiously at the girl, then at the erasers in her hand.

"G-go on, take them. We can play with them," she said, reaching her hand closer to his face.

Rin grabbed them and smiled, "Cool! A popsicle!"

Aelita smiled too, "You like popsicles?"

He nodded and started to take apart the colorful pieces of rubber. "You know these are just erasers, right?"

"They aren't fun if you use them just for erasing," she frowned, "Besides, I don't erase my mistakes. I scribble them out so the teacher knows I learned something and fixed my mistake! She won't know if I erase it," Aelita said as she dumped out the rest of her erasers and began to take them apart.

Rin shrugged, finishing up with the few erasers Aelita had handed him. When he was done, he gazed curiously at the girl across from him as she continued to take apart her erasers. She didn't seem like most of the girls that went to his school. She had on a white dress trimmed with light blue that matched the bow around her waist. There was dirt smeared on the skirt of her dress where she must have tried to clean off her hands. On one knee she had a large bandage and the other was covered in dry mud. Her emerald green eyes glimmered with curiosity and kindness. Overall Rin thought she looked pretty cool, for a girl anyway.

Aelita finished with a smile, "Done! Now I should explain how this game works!"

"There are rules?" Rin whined.

"Of course! This is my game!" she said proudly.

"Fiiiine…" Rin grumbled.

The girl giggled, "C'mon! It's easy! Put as many as you can together and whoever has the most wins."

"Oh, that is easy! I'll win for sure!" he grinned.

"Doubt it," Aelita said, sticking her tongue out at Rin. "I play this all the time. Now, let's go!"

The two fumbled around with the tiny pieces, putting them together with determination. Their piles kept growing and growing, one colorful eraser after another being carelessly tossed to the side. To Rin's disappointment he found he was losing so he reached quickly for the last piece, Aelita grabbing onto his hand in an effort to get it away from him.

"Hey! I have the other pieces that go with that! Give it here!" she whined.

"No! I need it or I'll lose!" he whined in return.

The two began to fight, tumbling over each other as they tried to obtain the other child's pieces. In their fight they destroyed their piles of completed erasers, getting everything mixed up. Finally, the two managed to piece the final eraser together in their effort to capture their opponent's piece. With that they looked at each other, dumbfounded, each holding on to half of the eraser before they began to laugh. Their laughter earned some weary glances from the other kids, but the pair didn't notice; they simply laughed until their eyes teared up and their sides cramped.

After a few minutes of tear-inducing laughter, the two settled down, wearing large smiles even when their laughter stopped. Without a word, Aelita stuck her hand in Rin's face, her fingers outstretched to reveal the little blue popsicle eraser in her hand that they had fought over.

"Take it," she said, her smile never leaving her face.

Rin looked at the eraser, then back at her. "You want me to keep it?"

Aelita nodded. "It can be your prize for winning!"

"But, I didn't win…" Rin said with confusion.

"You did too, look at your erasers," she pointed at his pile.

During all their rolling around and fighting they scattered up the erasers causing most of them to end up in Rin's pile.

"I won? But, that's only becau-" he was interrupted by Aelita tackling him.

"You won, now shut up before I keep your prize!" she stuck her tongue out at him.

Rin looked at the girl laying on top of him in confusion before nodding, "Okay, I won then."

Aelita rolled off of him and once again stuck the eraser in his face, "My name is Aelita!"

Rin took the eraser from her hand and smiled, "I'm Rin!"

Aelita sat cross legged in front of Rin as he sat up to do the same, "So does this mean we're friends now?" the girl asked.

This took Rin by surprise. Friends? Nobody wanted to be his friend.

"C'mon! That's not a hard question to answer," she said.

"I-I guess so," Rin mumbled in confusion.

Aelita's face lit up, "Great!"

She dug through the pile of erasers still on the floor before pulling out a popsicle just like Rin's only this one was pink.

"I don't really like pink, but now we have matching erasers! So you'll have to keep yours forever and I'll keep mine forever and then, even if one of us moves, we'll always remember each other," she said, a goofy grin making its way to her face.

Rin smiled as well, Aelita's happiness was rather contagious. "Right, I'll keep mine forever then!"

He tightened his grip on the small little eraser, Aelita loved her erasers and now she entrusted one of her precious erasers to him. Rin looked at the girl who, in turn, looked at him with a grin. Rin never wanted to forget her, so he would keep the eraser forever, treating it as if it were part of Aelita. He'd never forget his first friend.