Chapter 3

Waking up, I decided that I'd at least give Matt a chance. If the kid wanted to talk to me that badly, I'd let him. 'Keep telling yourself that. You know you just want an excuse to talk to him.' I thought to myself, frowning. I rolled over in my bed, not wanting to leave it but I knew that I'd have to eventually.

When I managed dragged myself out of bed, I walked over to my desk and unlocked the only locked draw. I pulled out a block of my favourite chocolate and sat down at the desk, opening my laptop as I did so. I opened up the internet – not needing to log into the school system for once – and paused. Taking a bite of my chocolate, I stared at the screen trying to remember what I was originally going to do. I didn't really feel like studying just yet, it was too early in the morning for that.

Sighing, I shut the laptop down again and got up. May as well have breakfast, I have to eat sometime right? I put my chocolate back in the draw for later and left the room. It didn't take long for me to get to the dining hall, my room was relatively close to it. I walked past everyone and grabbed a tray before joining the line. I was going to be here for a while.

When I'd finally gotten some sort of food, I found an unoccupied table and sat down. I stared into space as I absentmindedly started eating my jam and butter toast. It wasn't until I heard my 'name' did I realise I wasn't alone.

"Hey." Matt said from next to me, I gasped in shock and started choking on my drink. Matt immediately started laughing while I was trying desperately to stop coughing. "Die quieter please." Matt said, still laughing. I glared at him and managed to catch my breath. "Sup?"

"The sky." I muttered lamely. I looked at him for a moment before I realised what – or rather who – was missing. "Where's Near?" I asked, scowling as I said the name.

"Oh, he's sick so he's still in bed." Matt replied, taking a bite of his own toast.

"So it's human after all!" I announced, laughing. Matt just glared at me and continued chewing. "Oh bite me. You know I don't like him." I said, poking my tongue out at him. He started laughing and we settled into a more normal conversation soon after.

Fast forward one month

I was sitting outside with Near and Matt, trying my hardest not to punch the big headed moron in the mouth every time he spoke. Matt and I had become closer friends by now, to the point we spent almost all of our time together. Unfortunately this also meant that I would have to spend time with it and act like I like him.

We'd been talking about nothing in particular for about an hour now. Mainly myself and Matt had kept up the conversation but every now and again Near would say something, and every time he did I wanted to yell at him to shut up. I didn't though, somehow I managed to keep my mouth shut and I was pretty sure Matt realised that.

"Well, I'd better get going…" Near eventually said, standing up to leave. The way he was acting now seemed a bit out of character for him. "From now on I'll leave you two alone, but Matt, if Mello ever does something to hurt you I'll still be here for you." He said and left. I watched him leave, confused. When did he decide that, and more importantly, why the hell did he think I would do something to hurt Matt!

"Well…" Matt said, standing up. "We should probably get something to eat."

"Alright." I said, standing up. We walked to the dining hall as lunch started, I wasn't hungry so I told Matt that I'd find us a table. Looking around, I realised Near wasn't anywhere to be seen. Good. I didn't want what he'd just said to have been some sort of sick joke.

When Matt finally joined me, he seemed a little out of it. I raised my eyebrow and turned to look at him but he didn't seem to notice and I knew not to interrupt when he was like this. He didn't yell or anything, he just got annoyed and stole your chocolate…

When almost twenty minutes had passed and he still didn't say anything, I started poking his shoulder. He immediately snapped out of it and seemed to blush a little, I frowned but said nothing. As far as I knew, he'd been daydreaming about some girl and forgot where he was.

"Ready to go?" He asked once he'd finished eating. I nodded and stood up to leave, Matt quickly following me.

"You alright?" I asked Matt, nudging Matt's arm. We'd been slowly walking to my room and he still hadn't said a word. I was used to this, however usually he was playing on his Gameboy and almost walking into people…or walls.

"Fine fine." He replied immediately and started animatedly swinging his arms. "Never been better. Yep. Perfect."

"Ooookay then?" I said, though it sounded more like a question. He certainly wasn't acting normal but I didn't want to keep asking questions. We finally arrived at my room and I unlocked the door. I stepped in and was followed quickly by Matt. I sat at my desk and grabbed the open chocolate bar from this morning, Matt sat down on my bed and pulled out his Gameboy.

"Hey…Mello?" Matt asked after a couple of minutes of what would be silence if not for the sounds coming from the Gameboy.

"Yeah?" I replied absently, taking another bite of the chocolate bar in my hand. Until now I'd be in my own world.

"Promise you'll never hate me, no matter what happens?" Matt said, he was no longer looking at the Gameboy. Instead he was looking straight into my eyes, he'd even moved his goggles onto the top of his head, showing me his beautiful, large green eyes.

'Beautiful?! No! Not beautiful!' I thought to myself, trying not to frown so Matt wouldn't take it the wrong way. "Of course I'd never hate you! ...Why would you think that?" I replied eventually, Matt seemed to blush slightly.

"No reason…" He mumbled before putting the goggles back on and going back to playing his Gameboy.