Who was Naya, that was the real question I was faced with. Even though I knew her, I didn't understand. It was like an equation where you can see each part but you don't know what they amount up to as a whole. I will tell you that I am not a person who is confused easily or often, and not by a girl younger than myself, but I cannot explain what happened when we met. She touched me in the most intimate way anyone ever could, and not just from a six-year -olds viewpoint. I learnt that later, much later.

Lets just say I wasn't good with people, at least that's what I felt. I mean just look at the size of my friend group. Well it was quite extensive if you counted every book in the library, but we were talking people wise and that was limited to this one new acquaintance. I wanted to believe that we were friends from that first moment, and maybe we were, but as I said I'm not good with people so I don't trust them.

If I'd even had a clue as to what that mind-merge was going to lead up to, what all those images meant, maybe I would have discontinued our acquaintance. No, just kidding, there was no chance that was going to happen. We just got along after that pretty effortlessly.

She was a girl two years my junior, wasn't attending school for a reason I knew, but like most about her I didn't comprehend. Her father was a scientist who worked along with mine, her mother a researcher who spent a lot of time away. I wanted to try out what had happened on our first meeting again, but she usually deflected to another subject, showing considerable discomfort. Sometimes she would say that she didn't really know how to control it, and that it had surprised her almost as much as me. I believe her. But still, she's holding a lot back from me concerning it. I understand, at least I feel I do. We have all the time in the world to learn to trust.

To begin with, Naya and me didn't do much. We just sat in the library together and listened to each other read. I think she might have mild dyslexia, words tend to get a bit tangled when she reads out load. I don't mind. I'm glad she carries on, and doesn't give up. The way she expresses herself shows something beyond her years, but I have a feeling that this might have something to do with her abilities. I didn't ask about them at first just to be considerate, but curiosity began to get the better of me.

"Naya?" Ienzo smiled softly

"Hmm." The girl turned to him wide-eyed and inquisitive.

The blunette sighed, and looked at her. "You're going to have to tell me sooner or later. How are you the way you are, because I know no five-year old that is like you. Please…"

Considering what the boy was asking for a moment, Naya finally bit her lip. "Something happened to my father in an experiment, we don't really talk about it." There was a long pause, as if the white-haired girl was gathering strength to tell him. She let her gaze slip off him and travel around the room, not stopping while he tried to chase it with his own. He gently rubbed her hand for comfort. "But I don't hear you, not like others. Everyone else is so loud, and I know so much about them that it's embarrassing.

"Is that why you don't go to school, because you hear what they're thinking?"

Naya smiled a sigh. "That was my own choice. I don't have to, see I know everything I need to."

The boy looked at her confused. "Everything?"

"I've seen what the teachers know, what the scientists here know, what people that walk past me know. The children at school didn't like that I knew everything, they didn't like me…"

"So you stopped." Naya looked away and Ienzo hugged her close for comfort, he knew too well how it felt to be excluded. There was a long quiet pause, less than comfortable, but not quite awkward either. "What did you mean when you said you couldn't hear me?"

"I can," she turned back to him, gazing intently into his eyes. "It's just different." Standing up, she propped down on the floor in front of him, still holding him with a soft stare. "But it doesn't hurt, I can still breath."

Ienzo watched her eyes slip from his. A small smile crept onto his features, a sympathetic smile. He still didn't understand, but he appreciated her trying to let him into her world. Looking at her from above, he felt closer and further away at the same time, comfortable there with her and afraid of something. Even after a year since they had met, he wasn't much closer to knowing what she could do. He pursed his thin lips together in thought.

The girl lifted her gaze back to look at the boy. There was a cute little winkle on his brow above his cold blue eyes. She leant in, massaging it away with her short bony fingers. Ienzo flinched slightly but stayed still nonetheless. It was like magic as she made his apprehension melt away. He wanted to say something, but her mind quietly hushed him, so no words could begin to form in his mind. She had him paralyzed with a touch, and yet he felt in control, telling her not to stop. She didn't.

The boy finally eased himself back into the fold of the large armchair. He watched Naya curl up at his feet, close her emerald eyes and drift off away from him. For a moment, something inside him told him to run, to leave before she woke up. Something warned him about the harmless girl sleeping on the floor, advising him to have nothing more to do with her for both their sakes. He knew better than to ignore it, and still, against his better judgment, he chose to stay.


A/N: It's been a while since I update, been really busy, but hope you liked the new chapter.