"A whole new world, Nya! Just think of all the possibilities!"

Nya rolled her eyes and followed her brother to the giant front double doors of their new school. "I still like our old school better. I knew people there."

"But we can start fresh here," Kai said, not taking his eyes off the doors. "We can be whatever we want to be."

"I want to be myself. Why are you so obsessed with the change?"

His eyes widened as he reached for the handle. "Because at the old school we were on the bottom, treated like nothing. Here, we can be on the top and do whatever we want!"

"You keep saying we like it's something we're both going to do. Sorry, Kai, but I'm not going to be part of your master plan to be on the top of the food chain."

"Aw, you're no fun," Kai said, finally glancing back at her with a mock pout on his lips. Nya rolled her eyes again with a little smile, but by the time she looked back at him he was staring at the doors again. "Only a few minutes until we start fresh."

"Until you start fresh."

Kai wrapped his fingers around the handle. "Three, two…"

"You're being so dramatic about it," Nya said suddenly, grabbing the handle of the other door and yanking it open just as the ball rang and echoed through the tiled halls.

"Come on! Fight back, you nerd!" the boy taunted, punching a girl in the face just as she had gotten back up from the floor. "You're not even trying!" This time she stayed down, and the bully smirked and began to kick her instead. "Now you can't even get up!"

Then Jay saw her tears, and in his mind it was like in slow motion as they fell to the ground with each blow. And that was enough for him to step in and shove the bully away in an idiotic attempt at who-knows-what. "Back off! Can't you see she's had enough already?"

The bully backed up a few steps in surprise. "Well, well, well," he said as the dark grin came back. "Never thought I'd even see you stand up for yourself, let alone someone else."

Jay suddenly realized the guy was right. If he'd been in the girl's place, it would have taken until the bell rang for him to be safe. And even then he wouldn't say he was safe until he was home. Or maybe a hundred miles away from this place and never coming back again. Make that a million miles, he thought as the bully slowly took step after step toward him. Say something! "Well…I just thought that…maybe…someone should actually stand up to you for once." It was hard not to slap himself in the face after saying that, because it sounded so hesitant and stupid. He started backing away.

"Really? And where did you think that would get you?"

Jay felt his back against the lockers. There were too many of this guy's football team friends to even try to get away. I guess all that's left to do is wait for the bell. At least I won't have to slap myself in the face for being such an idiot. He'll do it for me.

Whenever there was a fight, Cole always made sure to find his way to the back of the group. He would sacrifice being late to class for a fight, but he sure as hell was not going to get expelled for it. Besides, it just wasn't right. He'd been trying to stop it, but lately he was getting the feeling that his efforts weren't working, so instead he'd been getting as far away as he could. The first target, the girl, was trying to fight her way into the circle to get to the boy who had defended her. Cole had seen the kid before, he just wasn't sure of the name.

There was someone down the hall that surprised him. Usually the halls were empty this close to the end of passing time. But as the person came closer, Cole thought he recognized him. He pushed his way back to the front of the group. "Teacher alert," he said loud enough for the leader to hear.

"Which one?" he growled, holding a bloody fist in the air as the other boy cowered against the lockers.

Cole winced, but tried to conceal it. "Sensei."

The bully's eyes went wide. "Shit, let's get out of here!"

The group scattered as the bell rang, but Cole took one last look down the hall to see the familiar teacher offering a hand to the beat up boy. When he noticed that the rest of the hall was entirely deserted, he tore himself away and hurried to class.

Zane tapped his pencil against the desk absentmindedly. This happened way too often, and the class was getting used to it, having a miniature party every time their teacher was gone. Why was he always late? And why did he always come back as if nothing had happened? It was a complete waste of time, and a missed opportunity to actually learn something. That was why people came to school, wasn't it? He sighed, silent to the rest of the class who were busy playing paper football or talking about the latest gossip in the corner or writing horrible things on the whiteboard. It was getting harder and harder to ignore them.

The door opened at last and the class went silent as they always did, hurrying to their seats as quietly as they could and trying to look like good students. "Good morning, class," Sensei Wu said as usual. Being the Japanese teacher, it was expected that maybe a few people might refer to him as Sensei, but this particular teacher was determined that everyone in the school, Japanese students or not, would refer to him by that title. And it had worked. Within the first year that he had begun teaching at this school, every student knew to call him Sensei. Or so they said.

No one else noticed, but Zane had a feeling that this was not such a good morning. Something didn't feel right. As soon as Sensei was fully within the classroom, he knew why. He jumped up from his seat and practically ran the few steps to the door. "Jay!"

His friend smiled weakly as he followed their teacher into the room. "You're drawing attention, Zane," Jay whispered.

"What happened?"

"The football team again. It was nothing."

"You're bleeding."

"Zane, I'm fine."

"But—"

"I'm fine." He gave another attempt at a smile before holding his already blood-stained sleeve up to his nose again and moving to sit at his desk.

Zane sat at his desk reluctantly, and just then noticed that he had clenched his hand into a fist. No, that wouldn't do. Two wrongs didn't make a right, he couldn't start a fight to end a fight. That wasn't how he was supposed to deal with this.

But they hurt people. Again. They weren't supposed to do that in the first place. Zane sighed and tried to forget about it, tried to tell himself that Jay was right and it really was no big deal. And yet every time he caught a glimpse of Jay at the desk next to him he was reminded that it was probably a bigger deal than he was making it out to be. He couldn't keep his eyes off the blood stain on his friend's sleeve, until he heard Sensei call his name, and he felt the eyes of every person in class staring at him.

"I'm…I'm sorry. I didn't hear the question."

Just as Sensei opened his mouth to repeat whatever it was that he had said, the door flew open and Zane let out a relieved sigh. A boy came through, wearing a fiery red coat and a confident smile. "Sorry I'm late," he said in a voice just as confident. "I got lost."

"That's perfectly fine. Take a seat," Sensei told him, motioning toward the empty desk near Zane.

"Hey, my name's Kai," he said again, hoping maybe this time the guy sitting next to him would respond. But he'd been completely absorbed in the worksheet ever since their teacher handed it out. Kai rolled his eyes and stared at the Japanese words on the paper. Then he glanced back at the silent blond kid. "Do you know any of the answers to this? I'm new."

"I noticed."

Kai smiled. "Could you help me?"

"This was not to be a group assignment."

He frowned. Well, at least he'd gotten the guy to talk. Kai turned back to his paper and tried to focus, but inside he was still way too excited about being in a completely new place. Even if Nya wasn't with him on this, he was still going to make his way to the top, he was sure of it. He tried to do something, at least scribble randomness on the paper, but he couldn't even focus enough to do that, and ended up just staring at his paper like some lunatic for the rest of the class. When the bell rang he stood right away, but quickly sat down again when he noticed he was the only one. "What's going on?" he whispered to the silent boy.

"Sensei has to check our papers before we leave."

"Why?"

"He wants to be certain we did the required amount of work for the day."

Wow, this guy talked funny. No wonder he kept his mouth shut. "But I didn't finish anything."

The other boy was silent again.

By the time the teacher, Sensei as everyone kept calling him, got around to Kai, the latter had written gibberish on his paper, just to pass off for a finished worksheet and get out of there. But as he began to stand again, Sensei told him, "This was not translated correctly. Try again."

"Again? But I didn't even—"

"Again," Sensei repeated, and moved on to the next desk.

"Better luck next time," the silent boy whispered as he picked up his things and left.

Kai growled under his breath. He only had a few more minutes to get to his next class, and he had already been late today and didn't plan to again. Leaving the paper on the desk, he gathered his things and slipped out the door while Sensei was distracted with another student.

He paused once he was far enough away from the classroom, and stood on his toes to see if he could catch a glimpse of his sister. Kai thought he might have seen her in the crowd and lifted his arm to wave to her when suddenly—

"Watch it, idiot. You nearly hit my face!" A boy in a football jersey shoved past him down the hall.

"Sorry," Kai muttered as the guy walked off. People in this place weren't friendly at all. He'd have to really prove himself if he wanted to even make friends, let alone climb to the top.

Suddenly another football guy was at his side. "Sorry about him," the other boy said. "He's a bit of a jerk, but don't tell him I said that."

Kai smiled. "Don't worry. I don't think I'll be talking to him anytime soon." He paused for a moment, thinking maybe the guy would walk away. But he didn't. "Name's Kai."

"Cole," said the other boy, returning the smile. "You're new around here, aren't you?"

"Yeah. And you're the first person to actually introduce yourself."

Cole raised an eyebrow. "Really? You must have been talking to some weird people."

Kai nodded. "Well this one guy was pretty weird. I got put next to him in Japanese, and—"

"That's where I recognized you from! You had it last period, right? Came in late?"

He groaned. "Don't remind me. That teacher is nuts."

Cole shrugged. "Maybe he is, maybe not. But more strict than anyone else in this school, so I'd recommend listening to him more often. You can sit next to me tomorrow, I'll help you out. But you were saying about the guy next to you?"

"I thought he couldn't talk at first. He wouldn't say a word. Just kept working on his paper. And when he did talk, he said things…weird. He just wasn't normal."

"Oh. You must have been sitting next to Zane."

"You know him?"

"I know who he is. I don't think anyone really knows him. He hardly talks to anyone, and I'm positive his only friend is the guy sitting on his other side."

"The one with the nosebleed?"

Cole suddenly seemed hesitant. "Yeah."

"Do you know his name?" Kai asked, pretending not to notice.

He began to shake his head, then suddenly perked up again. "Oh wait, yeah I do. He's Jay. He's the exact opposite of Zane, I don't see how they're friends. Zane doesn't talk at all, Jay talks too much. It's a little confusing, but I'm just letting it be. I mean it's not like I'm friends with either of them."

Kai nodded. "Yeah. Well that makes more sense then. I mean why he didn't talk at all." He smiled. "Thanks."

Cole returned it again. "No problem. Where are you headed next? Don't want you to get lost again."

The snake looked perfect. Not colorful at all, but the line art was perfect. Lloyd stood back and admired his giant green drawing on the whiteboard of his uncle's classroom. It was intricate and huge, and took up the entire white space.

"Lloyd, I told you not to draw on the whiteboards," his uncle said suddenly, closing the door silently behind him.

The boy let out a sigh. "You scared me to death, uncle. Besides, it's just a snake."

"You keep wasting the ink in my markers."

"Aw, come on. You barely use them anyway."

"Lloyd."

He sighed again, but this time it wasn't so relieved. "Yes, uncle."

The old man nodded with a little smile and went to sit at his desk. "Don't you have a class to be in?"

"It's lunch break."

"Hm. Well then since you've got some free time on your hands, erase your drawing please."

"But Sensei—"

"Butts are for sitting. Erase it."

Lloyd gave a third sigh and picked up the eraser. "Can I at least take a picture?" His uncle didn't seem to hear him, but Lloyd figured that was a yes. He pulled out his phone to snap a picture as quick as he could, but just before he pressed the button, the bell rang. He took the picture, shoved the phone back in his pocket, and gave his uncle a little wave. "Well Sensei, it looks like I've got to be off to class now. See you after school!" And he was gone.

At once he ran into the group of boys he spent most of his time with. They were a small group, but they were well known throughout the school. Lloyd wasn't sure if they everyone knew them because he was in it and his uncle taught at the school, or if they were just that intimidating. Maybe both. He smiled when he found his two closest friends, Gene and Brad. But they didn't look so happy. "What's up with you two?" he asked when he reached them.

Brad frowned and crossed his arms. "Some of the football goons beat up two kids today."

"And?"

"Do you realize what that could do to our reputation? If popular football dolls go around beating down multiple people a day, let alone multiple during passing time, we're going down the toilet. People will think we've gone soft or something."

"And you're mad at me because…?"

Gene rolled his eyes and spoke up. "Didn't you do anything about it? You can get your uncle to stop them so we steal the game back, idiot."

Lloyd looked down at his feet. "Oh. Well…yeah. I guess you're right." He looked back up at them, but Gene was still glaring at him through his thick glasses. "You…want me to go tell him now?"

"No. It already happened, Lloyd. Just don't let it happen again."

"Yeah. Okay."