Nigel Uno studied his cup. Thin wisps of steam rose from the smooth brown surface of the coffee before fading into nothingness, and the liquid sloshed about loosely. The air smelled of roast beans and sugary dough and sticky donuts and a half-dozen other odors that always seem present in a coffeeshop.

Nigel didn't know why he studied the cup so carefully. After all, it was just a cup of coffee, very similar in many ways to the ones his friends were holding. There was no reason to pay it any special attention. But ever since he could remember, he had always paid attention to little details, almost to the point of paranoia, so he saw no reason to stop now.

"Nigel? You okay?"

The voice of his childhood friend, Hoagie, broke in upon his thoughts, and Nigel shook his head to clear the cobwebs. He looked up. Hoagie, a tall, lanky young man with arms shooting out of his light blue t-shirt, stared back at him.

"You seemed kinda spaced out for a minute there." Hoagie eyed him worriedly.

"Abby thinks Nigel was just trying to guess what that stuff he's drinkin' is made of." Commented the dark-skinned girl next to Hoagie. A long black braided ponytail poked out from under a weathered baseball cap of faded red perched atop her head. She was slouched over, eyes half-hidden, and a sardonic grin was on her face. "Still trying to figure at how many germs is in there?"

Nigel snorted. "Hardly. An assortment of dried and ground genetically-enhanced bean, dissolved in a mixture of water, milk, sugar, whipped cream, banana flavoring, and who knows what else." He sniffed the cup and grimaced. "My dad wouldn't look at this stuff. Whose idea was it to always go to Starbucks, anyway?"

Hoagie rolled his eyes. "Yours."

Nigel thought that over a moment. "Oh yeah." He sipped his coffee absentmindedly.

"You always think of all the fun stuff to do, Nigie!" This bright and somewhat overly sugary comment bubbled out of a cheerful Japanese girl who was sitting on the other side of the booth. Nigel glanced across at her without comment. "Whenever we need something to do, you always come up with all the plans!"

"Huh." This from the squat boy just next to her. "Don't ask me why. It's not like yer cruddy ideas are worth anything."

"Oh silly!" The asian girl turned and giggled at him, slurping her snowcone rather noisily. "His ideas are always good! Besides, you never know what you want to do!"

"I do to!" The squat boy turned on her in a flustered sort of anger. "I have all sorts of ideas! I just… don't… feel like talking about them all the time."

This brought a snort from Abby, a grin from Hoagie, and a bubbly giggle from the Asian. Nigel raised his eyebrows in an amused manner but said nothing.

"Aw, come off it, Wally." Abby tilted her head off Hoagies shoulder, staring at the husky blonde boy. "Nigel's been thinking of stuff fer us to do since we were little kids! Ain't no reason why he should stop now."

"Heh." Hoagie looked over at Abby and grinned. "You do like to remember those days, don'tcha."

She gave him a friendly shove in return. "Them days was fun, baby. Running around, pretendin' we was invading evil adult complexes, acting like we was Tom Cruise or Jason Bourne…" She shook her head. "Awesome."

"Oh yeah!" The asian bounced up in her seat happily. "I remember that! And we would all hang out in Nigel's treehouse and think up plans on how we were going to get all the ice cream from the awful ice-cream people or something."

"...and then we'd have all those cool fights and stuff." Wally gave the table an evil grin. "Hoagie'd make up some cool gadget thingie for us to pretend we all had, and Nigel…" He smirked. "Yeah, you were always the one telling us we should break into the convention center, or crash your cousin's birthday party, or something."

Nigel closed his eyes. "Please. We were kids. That was a long time ago."

"Aw c'mon!" Hoagie kicked him under the table. "It was fun! Remember the one time we pretended pirates attacked the treehouse and stole all our candy? Or the other time you lost your shorts at the beach, and we…"

"Yes." Nigel glared at Hoagie.

"Nigel, seriously!" Hoagie grinned. "Even you have to admit, that was pretty funny. That and the one time you had the problem with your under…"

"Stop it!" Nigel snapped, trying to ignore the giggles around the table. "I said it was a long time ago, okay!?" He leaned back with an indignant expression. "Anyway, it's not like I'm the only one who did stupid stuff back then. Shall we go over your babysitting adventures with Abby's sister?"

Hoagie blanched. A smirk broke loose from Wally, and Kuki broke into a fresh stream of giggles.

"Cree still thinks y'all are a bunch of pervs." Abby eyed Hoagie with a mixture of disapproval and amusement. "But Nigel, you're the one who raided her bedroom that one time and…"

"I said that was a long time ago!" Nigel cried, blushing furiously. "Sheesh, I was just a little kid, okay? I hardly knew what it was all about! I thought teenagers were evil and all that!"

"Might wanna watch it, Nigie." Wally's voice dripped with mockery, and he smiled blandly in the face of Nigel's fury over the hated nickname. "If your girlfriend ever found out the stuff you used to do…"

"Shut up." Nigel grumbled, and turned back to his coffee.

"Aw, c'mon, Wally." Hoagie glared at the jock. "You know she knows all about it anyway. She played with us just as much as anyone."

"Did not." Abby snorted, interrupting. "Abby knows Liz never liked playing those games. She just hung around because she was all boy-crazy over Nigel here."

"Quite the ladies man, weren't ya?" Wally smirked. "Awww… you two were so cuuuute back then. What a pity."

"Oh, be quiet!" Nigel glared, ignoring the chuckles around the table. "We were little… like, 12, most of us. We didn't even know what it all meant. Besides," He froze Wally with a glance. "You're hardly one to talk."

Wally turned slightly pale. Kuki's cheeks reddened a little.

A snicker broke loose from Abby. "He's got you there, baby."

Hoagie was just barely suppressing a grin. "Looking back, it was kinda funny. Especially considering how things have turned out now. I mean, you guys weren't so close when you started high school, and it could just have easily gone…"

"Shut up." Wally grunted, digging at his milkshake.

Hoagie shrugged and turned "Say, Nigel, how come Liz isn't here, anyway?" He asked. "I mean, she never really comes to these things after school."

Nigel was studying his coffee cup again. "She's got a job. Secretary position, at the principal's office. She needs to stay overtime a bit."

Abby looked about to say something, but she apparently decided against it. "Bummer."

Glancing over, Nigel shrugged. "Well, we see a lot of each other anyway. It's not so big. And anyway, these coffee things are kinda just for the five of us."

"Yeah…" Hoagie nodded. There was a short silence at the table. Hoagie looked over at Wally, who glanced sideways at Kuki, who bit her lip and smiled hopefully at Abby.

Abby said nothing.

The silence was finally broken by Nigel, who set down his cup of coffee with a sigh. "You know," he mentioned. "That old treefort is still up in the tree behind my house."

"Still?" Hoagie arched an eyebrow. "That thing's gotta be pretty rickety by now. I mean, sure the tree's strong and all, but that fort's been up there for a long time."

"It's holding pretty well." Nigel insisted. "I mean, my dad practically built the thing, ladder, walls, roof and all. Even helped us move in the TV that one time. Course, your little brother keeps tacking stuff on too, so that helps."

"Baby, your dad is seriously the coolest." Abby sipped at her mocha.

An exasperated expression came over Hoagie's face. "That Tommy. I swear I don't know what to do with him."

"Aw, he's okay." Abby swatted him again. "Just a little obsessed with Yipper still, that's all."

"You guys let Tommy play in there?" Wally glanced at Nigel, surprised.

Nigel nodded. "Sure. We don't use it anymore, and the kids in the neighborhood love to play all sorts of stuff there. Dad says it makes the fort so much worth it just to see all the kids playing."

"Who all plays back there?" Wally tilted his head, gulping down on more milkshake.

A frown creased Nigel's forehead. "Sheesh. I don't know. They come and they go. Your brother's been there a couple times, I think. And I know Mushi's been playing around there a couple times. And Tommy of course, and that one Shauny kid."

"Fanny's younger brother?" Abby looked over. "But she lives two blocks from you guys!"

Nigel shrugged. "I told you, I don't really know. They come, they play, they leave. We're so used to it, we hardly even notice sometimes. Anyway, you know we used to have kids over from even farther, back when we played there."

"Sometimes." Abby grunted. "But mostly it was just the five of us. Just pretending we were on some crazy mission, working for some insane organization. Fighting tyranny…" She sighed. "Crazy."

"We had sleepovers, and pretended we had all separate rooms, and acted like we had all this crazy stuff in there." Kuki's eye's were half-closed, dreamlike. "And we said we went all these planets and did all this great stuff." She smiled. "It was wonderful."

Wally was blushing furiously. Kuki was clutching at his arm in a most distracting manner. "It… it was fun." He admitted. "The… the fights, I mean. And pretending we were fighting all these supervillians."

"Heh." Hoagie smiled. "That really was awesome. All those crazy villains that we made up, and fought. And then sometimes we would get half the neighborhood together, and we would all hide around Mr. Wigglesteins' place, and pretend we were attacking or something." He looked over at Abby and smiled. "It was great. But we never were really got a big club together."

"No." Nigel nodded, staring at his swirling coffee. "It was never a big organization. We were just... the Kids Next Door."

Okay. This is just a little one-shot for all of you who put author watch cause of SEPARATION, only to have me post a Half-Life Story. Sorry, but it was on my mind at the moment. This has nothing to do with SEPARATION, though I am considering an addition to that story.

I neither know, nor care, whether this conflicts with INTERVIEWS. If it does, I do NOT want to know. I've heard too much about the spoilers already, and I don't want to know anymore. Consider this an AU, if you want. Just an idea about maybe what Kids Next Door actually is… a bunch of kids in an imaginary world of their own.

Tell me if you like this. I may write more, detailed accounts of ZERO or something, from this POV.