This has been sitting in my files for over a year now, and, since I'm seriously bad at writing right now, I thought I'd just kinda ... post it. And then maybe I could feel slightly less guilty about all the fics that need updating, and the people that want them.

(crawls into small hole and hides)

Look at him. Walking past me without as much as a glance. Seven years old, and so cocky already.

Parents are both dead - does he even care? I wonder, looking at him now. Him, with those big, blood-red eyes. He looks like everyone is performing a little private joke, just for him, day in, day out. Look at that supercilious smirk on his stupid little face. Bet people pander to his every whim. Bet whatever he says is gospel.

Why wouldn't they spoil him? He's the "big cheese's" kin. Bet he has everything, and the most expensive of everything at that. I bet he wipes his arse with bank notes.

While we slave day in and day out in this shit-hole, he sits at his comfortable desk in his swanky private school and gets an education. He's probably the smartest child in his year.

I can't even write my own name. None of us can.

He comes in at weekends and trains with his top class beyblade until he's lightly sweating and out of breath. He's only pushed as far as he wants to go.

We train until we drop to the floor through exhaustion, and then we get dragged up by the hair and made to keep going.

To be fair though, at least I have the others to rely on for help. It's human nature to make friends, and even in this terrible place we can still exchange smiles and whisper which trainers are feeling particularly vicious, what the food's like, sympathise with the guy with half his head mashed into the wall.

And yeah, ok, if we're found out, there's a price: a frontal lobotomy to ensure you never feel anything ever again.

My best friend had that done to him. Now he just smiles all the time. This wide, cloudy smile with this dead look in his eyes. It's fucking creepy. He does what they tell him to.

All the same, our entire lives are built around risks. One more or less makes no difference.

I'd rather take the risk than be friendless.

Like he is.

Stupid rich-boy spoilt brat.

----------

He's watching me. I can feel him. Horrible, ratty thing with weird red hair, and those strange eyes.

My eyes are an odd colour too, but then, I'm special. Grandfather says so.

I'm the strongest of everyone in the Abbey. I don't need to work as hard as they do, because I'm so much more powerful. That's what he says. I get to go to school because I'm so brilliant. The kids make fun of me there, but I don't care. None of them have a bit-beast like my Dranzer. And even the ones that come close, they haven't had one for as long as I have. They're all jealous.

The whole world is jealous of me, 'cause I'm better than them all.

I'm Grandfather's little soldier - the best of the best.

But still. Sometimes, I want know what it's like, being those kids in school.

Being stupid, not worrying about training and power and getting good marks in school.

Being untidy; getting their uniforms dirty and wrinkly and their skin brown and crackly with mud, not blood, like the Abbey kids; not like me - I never get dirty.

Being lazy and laughing at me when I run round the playground for the whole of lunch. They couldn't do it if they tried!

Being soft - running home to their mums and dads and hugs and soft furniture, and a meal round a table with their family.

Being unproductive; just "hanging out" with … friends.

I wonder; what's it like, being all those things?

I guess I'll never know.

I don't need to know, anyway. I don't need friends to be the best.

Grandfather says so.

(shrugs) Short and random. I think we all know exactly who the characters are. The fact that Kai goes to a posh school has always intruiged me. I might see what I can do, oneshot wise.