Chapter 1: First Meeting

A ten year old Mello strutted along the corridor, in the direction of the main hall of Wammy's, the orphanage where he, along with about twenty other children, lived. As Mello walked he cracked his knuckles, he smelled new kids, and as soon as Roger was finished giving them the grand tour, Mello planned on properly informing them of how things worked at Wammy's. Even though Mello wasn't the oldest at Wammy's, he was the self declared "head" of the orphanage, and of course, everyone was too scared of being beaten up to object. Before fully entering the main hall, Mello examined the new meat from around the corner.

'Only one of 'em this time,' he thought, 'and what a weird looking one at that. What the fuck is with that hair?'

Melllo walked fully into the main hall, and spoke sweetly to Roger, "Excuse me, Sir, I know how busy you are, so if you'd like, I could always show the new kid to his room."

"Ah, Mello, yes, that would be most helpful. Allow me to introduce our newest addition: Matt. Actually, as chance would have it, Matt is to be your new roommate Mello. Do be so kind as to show him around." replied Roger, he then bustled off to office to sort out the extensive paperwork that entailed running an orphanage.

'Fuck', thought Mello, 'I thought I'd secured a room to myself for as long as I stayed in this this shit-hole. No matter, he'll soon be begging to change rooms, just like all the others.'

The new kid cleared his throat and introduced himself once again. "Ahem. Hi, my name is Matt, I hope we can be friends." And with that, Matt gave Mello a winning smile and stuck out his hand to be shaken. Slowly Mello turned to face him, putting on his best "scare the living daylights out of the new kid" face. He grabbed Matt by the scruff of the neck and lifted him off the floor.

"Listen shit-face, and listen well, because I wont be saying this again. I am the head guy round here and I'm nobody's friend. And unless you want your face smashed in, I suggest you ask to be put into a different room."

"Must get pretty lonely." replied Matt, trying his best not to sound as terrified as he was.

"What?"

"I said, it must get pretty lonely. B-being nobody's friend and all..."

"Who the fuck do you think you-" Mello was interrupted mid-rant by a small albino child named Near crawling into the room.

"Now, now Mello. Shouldn't you at least wait a week before torturing the new kids?" The small child was a year younger than Mello, but he had pure white hair and dark eyes that held almost no emotion.

Mello had turned towards his arch-enemy and loosed his grip on Matt's collar. Matt took advantage of the situation and ran as fast as he could to the nearest exit. Mello, hardly noticing the runaway because of his blind rage towards Near, started toward the child now sitting on the floor playing calmly with his toy robot. Near was the only one Mello didn't scare, and that, along with many other things, pissed the hell out of Mello.

"I dare say Roger would be most displeased with you Mello."

"Like I give a rat's ass about what Roger thinks, the crazy old pedo!" snapped Mello.

"Ah, but I think you do, for if Roger thinks ill of you, where will you get your chocolate from, Mello?" On that, the albino child gave a small titter and crawled out.

'I learned where Roger kept the chocolate supplies three years ago, you creepy assed freak.' thought Mello, as looked around to see if his prey was still nearby. 'Aw, crap, that freakin' Pyjama Boy made me lose my new punch bag.' Mello then took out a bar of chocolate, and with a snap, broke off a piece. Chewing thoughtfully, he decided he would find some of the smaller kids to amuse himself with until dinner time.

.oOo.

When Mello slammed open the doors to the dining room, all went silent.

'Good,' he thought, as he walked to his rightful place at the front of the food queue, 'at least I still scare the crap out of all the other kids.' He got his food and sat in his usual place on his own at the back of the room. Soon, a shadow fell over Mello's plate, and he looked up to see a red-head in a striped top. The blonde scowled his best scowl and said:

"What the fuck do you think you're doing, you fucking raccoon?"

"Is this seat taken?" asked Matt as he down opposite Mello. A disgusted look of shock crossed Mello's features as Matt took out a GameBoy and proceeded to play Super Mario Bros. The blonde scraped his chair back as loudly as possible, walked round to the opposite side of the table and proceeded to drag the red-head, chair and all, out of the dining room.

"Huh? What? Hey! What are you doing? I hadn't even started eating yet!" protested Matt as he was flung into the corridor with as much strength as Mello could muster.

"Maybe I didn't make myself clear enough when we first met. So, just for you, I'll say it again. YOU DO NOT COME NEAR ME UNLESS YOU WANT TO FUCKING DIE! You got that, you fucktard?" screamed Mello

"Aww, but you just looked so lonely all by yourself at the back there." cooed Matt.

"You queer or something?"

"What? NO! I just...you know, wanted to be friends. And don't give that crap about how you "don't do friends", 'cause, honestly, I that's bull!"

Mello tensed, and both his hands curled into tight fists. His was rising but for some reason he wasn't taking it out on the nearest living thing, like he usually did. Instead he was attempting to control his anger, something about the red-head in front him made him want to calm down. Mello growled suddenly and stormed off to his room, deciding that a few hours of studying would help him think.

.oOo.

When Matt opened the door to his new room for the first time he saw two single beds that had been pushed together previously by Mello to form one double ('He obviously likes to spread himself out.' thought Matt), two desks (once again they had been pushed together), and at one of the desks he saw a blonde, snoring slightly, with his his head on his arms. Matt smiled at the sight and then started to get ready for bed. He considered pulling the beds apart, but he was afraid he would wake his roommate with the noise. He also considered carrying Mello to his own bed, but he didn't particularly want to be called queer again. So with that thought he promptly fell on one of the beds exhausted from the days trials

.oOo.

Mello woke up in the middle of the night and realised that he was still sitting at his desk. He slowly got up, feeling extremely tired and disorientated, and walked to his "double" bed. He crawled in and fell back asleep almost immediately.

.oOo.

Matt awoke and slowly opened his eyes to an odd view: a blonde girl sleeping soundly beside him...

'Oh, crap. That's not a girl! That's Mello!', thought Matt. 'I better get out of this bed before wakes up because I really don't wanna get beaten up...'

Too late. Mello woke up and stretched out his arms but instead of his hands feeling nothing but the other side of the bed he felt something...alive. The blonde's eyes snapped open and were met with an extremely unwanted sight. Mello jumped out of bed and glared at Matt.

"What the fuck are you doing in MY bed?!"

"It's not YOUR bed anymore! And for your information, you were the one who got into to bed with me!" Mello backtracked, no one, apart from Near, had ever dared to talk back to him. Not even Roger.

"Aren't you scared of me?" asked Mello. He needed to know how the strange red-head was so casual with him.

"Not particularly.', lied Matt, trying his best to appear nonchalant. "You're pretty skinny and you look kinda like a girl." Matt closed his eyes and flinched, he didn't know that had made him say that, and now he regretted it.

Instead of clenching his fists in anger, Mello did something that surprised both boys. He laughed. And once he had stopped laughing he walked over to Matt and looked at him closely. Matt, who was (understandably) freaked out at this point, took a step back when Mello came closer.

"No one's ever spoken to me like that. It was an interesting experience...I think that maybe, just maybe, I'll let you be my friend. But make me look like a pussy in front of anyone, ANYONE, and I swear to God I will beat your ass up so hard you'll wish you were never born!"

Then, Mello smirked and stuck out his hand. He didn't know why he hadn't just beaten up the red-head like he would have usually, but usually people ran away when they saw him coming. There was something different about the boy opposite him, and Mello was curious.

Matt tentatively took the hand that Mello offered and shook it. Matt had always been good at making friends, it was just a matter of pressing the right buttons. He smiled back at Mello, who then cleared his throat and announced that even though they were friends, they would definitely not be sleeping in the same bed. So the two boys pulled the beds apart and did the same for the desks.

.oOo.

Later that day Matt was walking alone up to his room after lunch (Mello had left earlier, saying something about wanting to study). He heard his name being called behind him and he turned to see a girl about his age running to catch up with him.

"Hi, you're Matt, right? My name is Linda. You new here, yeah?" Matt nodded with a smile; the girl was pretty cute and Matt didn't mind talking to her. "So, I saw you sitting with Mello, you're his roommate, right? A word of advice: stay away from him. He has a bad rep around here, and if you hang around with him, you're only gonna get hurt."

Matt smiled again at the girl, although this time the smile wasn't as genuine.

"I think I'll be fine." And with that he turned and walked up to his room, leaving the girl gawping behind him.