This is dedicated to you Sammy! Happy birthday!

Completely random story, actually just thinking of all this stuff as I go along. Hope you like it. Warning, Slash, SLASH, SLASH!! Eventual Mello/Near, random and intermittent L/Light, Matt/Mello, (not permanent, very brief and usually leading to awkward feelings afterwards), and Matt/Near (very awkward and usually under the influence of boredom.)


Mello tapped his pencil against the plastic surface of the cafeteria table. It was cold, and sticky with juice spilt and not properly wiped off. He glared at the table, as if it were the cause for his unease.

Matt looked up from under a shock of red hair, looked up from the game he'd been playing for three days straight and it almost startled Mello to see it. Usually Matt never looked up from a game till he'd finished it, and then Mello would have a few blissful days, and if he was lucky, months till Matt got a new one, during which time he'd have grasped the other boys full attention.

But Matt was looking at him now, intently, even though he had a fairly new game in front of him, glaring off the shiny screen of his P.S.P. "Listen." He hissed, reaching across the table and grabbing a fistful of Mello's leather jacket. "You are annoying me now. So just stop ok?"

"What the hell?" Mello said in annoyance, pushing him away. "Stop what?"

"You're making me worry about you, and when I'm worried about you I can't focus on anything else and that pisses me off to no end." Matt grumbled, brushing hair from in front of his goggles.

"Sorry that I'm forcing the good friend hidden deep inside out of you." Mello said, smiling a little to himself. This was Matt's way of showing he cared. "You should be." Matt snapped. "What's wrong with you? You're not talking to me anymore, and you sit there half the time just staring into space like a freaking stereotypical emo. This has been going on for days. Just tell me!"

"I don't know!" Mello said, clinging to strands of his blond hair as if they were the last of his sanity.

"Does it have anything to do with that fight with Light?" Matt asked, actually shutting off the game, making Mello realize just how much he cared.

'I must seem really depressed.' He thought frantically. "No. That was week's ago." he said out loud.

"Something to do with L then?" Matt continued.

Mello shook his head.

"Me?" Matt said quietly, almost afraid to ask. This time Mello shook his head more fervently, to make sure there was no trace of doubt in Matt's mind. "No." he said, laying his head in his arms, suddenly feeling emotionally drained.

"Are you…are you pregnant boss?" Matt said unsurely, his voice suddenly trembling. Reaching up, Mello slapped Matt sharply across the face. Sometime's he wondered about his best friend, and for a brief moment he wondered where L was, so he could have some sort of decent conversation.

"Ok. So I won't rule that option out but I won't say it again." Matt said rubbing his cheek. "All's I'm sayin' is that you've been acting really weird lately, and if I can't get it out of you, I'll send L or Light after you."

"If you can get them to stop making out for five seconds." Mello said cheekily.

"Why do you keep insisting that those two are in a relationship??" Matt sapped. "They're not! Light has that stupid Misa girl clinging to him so much that she would know if anything was happening, and L has never been romantically interested in anyone in his whole life."

"I just think that they were made for each other is all." Mello shrugged, his hair falling into his face. "I don't care what you think, that's just how I feel."

Matt clicked on his game and Mello knew he'd lost the red-heads interest. He sighed and slouched back into his seat, wondering what was wrong with him and lost in a swirling mist of confusion.

"I need to go to the bathroom." He said finally, into the empty and uncaring air. Matt did a sort of half shrug before Mello got up and walked away, maneuvering through all the tables and chairs filling the cafeteria before bursting through the swinging doors and to the stillness of the empty hallway. 'I hate high school.'

Kicking some conveniently placed lockers, Mello stuffed his hands into his pockets before taking the long way to nowhere. If he knew what was wrong with himself, he would have told Matt, but he didn't, and that was the problem.

He happened to be passing the bursars office when he glanced up and saw a head of white hair. 'Strange.' He thought, stopping and peering through the transparent glass window. The head belonged to a little body, almost tiny actually, and Mello couldn't help staring at the adorable face that turned in his direction.

Immediately he regretted staring, and immediately he disliked this boy, because not only was he looking at him with distaste, but as if he knew that Mello was checking him out and knew that was happening because he was so damned cute.

Mello looked away and continued walking, his bad day turning worse. 'Stupid kid.' He thought, stuffing his hands in his pocket. He really hoped that boy hadn't been coming for a transfer. Him and those adorable big eyes…


"What's wrong now?" Matt sighed, slinging his arm around Mello's shoulder. "Is it History that pissed you off? Cause now you seem even more pissed than before."

"Do I?" Mello asked, secretly enjoying the feel of Matt's arm around him. It wasn't as if he liked Matt, not that way anyways, but he really liked the other boy's comfort, and actually getting attention from him.

Matt gave weary smile. "Yeah, and now you're really staring to get me worried." He stopped at his locker, which was next to L's, who was next to Mello, who's next door locker was empty.

L was hunched over his books, trying to hide a piece of candy he was eating with the metal door he was hiding behind. "L…we can all see you." Mello said patiently to his eccentric friend. "You're 6 foot tall for crying out loud."

On Matt's left, Light sniggered cruelly. "Crying out loud." He repeated. "That just sound so retarded."

Mello shot him a glare that could kill. Light was like that, mean to his friends on the outside, loving them dearly on the inside, but at the moment he couldn't deal with Light's stupid complexes.

"Ignoring you." He snapped, pulling out his biology book before slamming the locker door.

"Oww." A soft voice said from the other side of the locker. The way the lockers were set, you had to be really careful to shut the door, otherwise you'd hit the person on the other side. Mello was never really careful at all, knowing there was never someone on the other side, seeing as he had no locker mate on his left. But someone was behind there. And since he was in a bad mood already, that pissed him off even more.

"Watch where you're standing." He snapped. Then, as an afterthought, he added, "Sorry, by the way."

Closing the door properly, he looked to see whose nose he'd hit, only to see that same stupid boy from lunch.

"You!" he hissed, even though he had no reason to be mad at this boy at all.

"No, my name's Near." He replied softly, holding out his hand. Mello glanced down at it with distaste before blushing back his blond hair. "Hn." He said, feeling pathetic that it was all he could muster. But seriously, that boy was beginning to take his breath away.

Near stuffed his books into the locker, and then once again looked at Mello. "Do you know where Biology D is kept?"

Mello smiled to himself victoriously. He did know where it was kept. But he wasn't about to tell this too pretty boy that was currently standing in front of him. 'Ha ha!' he thought childishly. 'I win!'

"Oh, just follow us." Matt called, smiling cheerfully. "We're going there right now."

Mello frowned at Matt as if he should've known that in telling this stupid little boy where his class was, instead of letting him wonder around aimlessly like a lost and pathetic puppy, he was ruining his life's dreams. 'Curse you Matt.' He thought, mentally shaking his fist in the air.

"Thank you." Near smiled, still staring at Mello, as if he'd been the one to answer.

'Noooo! Biology is the only class I get to spend with all my friends! He's not my friend! He can't come!!' Mello thought, feeling defeated. Usually he wasn't like this. Usually he was sane. But today he felt so hormone enraged that he wondered if he was pregnant.

Matt was tugging the boys arm eagerly, as if he wanted him to come, and it pissed him off even more. The only thing that cheered him up slightly was the fact that Light and L were talking, really talking, serious talking, not even fool-around- hit-me-I-hit-you-back-type-talking. And when the talked like this, Mello's imagination went haywire.

"Hey, you looked kind of sick this morning." Light said, not even looking at L, who was staring intently at his fingernails. "Were you?"

That's what he'd said. But what Mello heard him say was that, with the addition of gently caressing L's cheek and chin. L would blush and the whole world would disappear. Then there would be a swirling mist as the boy's moved closer together and the romantic background music rose to a crescendo.

"No." L would whisper, unconvincingly, causing Light to raise his eyebrows. "You're so cute when you lie to me." He would reply in a darkly seducing voice. The L would blush again, and Light would lean in gently. And then…

"ARE YOU YAOI FANTASISNG ABOUT ME AND L AGAIN!!" Light screeched, smacking Mello across his silky blond head. "First you did that manga and now this! Get you're head out of those freakish porno clouds of yours!"

L blinked, staring from Light to Mello. "Now now Light, if Mello thinks we're a cute yaoi couple, then let him. It's not like anything will come of it. And no, I wasn't sick this morning…I think."

Mello stuck his tongue out at Light, wishing the boy was really as gentle as he was in all his fantasies. "So I like yaoi." He said defensively. "Is that not normal for a boy?"

Matt looked back at him as they got to the classroom, fiddling with his goggles. "Well, you keep fantasizing about you're best friends being together and the only boy I know who actually like's yaoi…"

"I like yaoi." Near said quietly and suddenly.

"Well that's good, because all the hot guys at this school are conveniently gay, and the school is conveniently made up of mostly boys, because their mostly gay." Matt said cheerfully.

"That's why I moved here." Near said.

"I don't like yaoi anymore." Mello said childishly and grumpily, sitting down, not liking the fact that he and the white-haired midget had similarities.

"Actually," L said, sitting on the bench, feet flat, knees up in that entirely peculiar way of his. "I find it rather enthralling. Kind of naughty."

"Which makes sense seeing as you think naughty is stealing candy from our fridge at night." Light said dryly, sitting beside him.

"And then he goes back to your bedroom and you find him and 'punish' him right?" Mello said excitedly.

"Yeah...sure." Light said rolling his eyes.

"P-punish?" L whimpered.

"You guys are crazy." Near said, looking soft of bewildered.

"Want to sit with us then?" Matt asked, smiling warmly, as if being crazy was an automatic invite for people to sit with you.

Near looked around. "I don't want to cause a fuss."

"You hear that? Let the kid go." Mello said resolutely.

"No it's okay. You're new, you need friends. Sit down." Matt said, petting the seat behind him, Mello's seat.

Mello seethed, knowing he was defeated and sat on the other side of the white-haired alien.

'I hate you!' he thought angrily, staring at him. But even when he wanted to take his eyes off of him, he couldn't.


There, first chapter done. How'd you like it? A bit short but they will get longer soon enough. Just a taste to see if it was okay. Happy birthday Samantha, and happy reading everyone else! -