Four weeks into school and all the excitement seemed to have died down. Dylan, Steven, Wendy, and Peter all seemed to fit right into their new school and each made a handful of friends. Xiang, well, he was hanging in there a lot better than usual.

The elementary school the Kirkland children attended was a fairly decent sized school. The recess schedule was broken up so half the school would go out at one time and the other another time because of this. Wendy and Peter went out with the younger half of the school while Dylan and Steven went out with the older half.

Even though the two of them went out at the same time, Dylan and Steven didn't really play together all too much during recess. They had their own friends in their own grades. However, that day, Steven was alone at recess. The boys he usually played with were either home sick for a few days, out of town, visiting relatives, or something along the lines of not being at school.

Steven didn't mind all that much. He knew his friends would come back eventually. So he would play hopscotch on his own for a bit. No big deal. Sadly, it wasn't as peaceful as Steven thought it would be.

No matter what age, the world would always be filled with meanies. And if you were a more shy, introverted kid who also happened to be alone at the moment like Steven, you would stick out the most to those meanies.

Steven was just finishing up hopping through the drawn squares on the concrete ground when he noticed a group of older boys confronting him. "H-hello," he stuttered softly, shrinking back a bit.

"What cha doing?" one of the boys asked with fake kindness.

"Just playing hopscotch," Steven answered quietly, fiddling with his sleeves.

"All by yourself? Don't you have friends?" a second asked.

"I-I do."

"We don't see them," the first boy said, looking around. "Are they imaginary?"

"No! They're just not here today..." Steven started backing up a bit more. His father always said to just walk away if meanies were picking on him. But they only followed.

"Ha! You have imaginary friends!" a third boy teased, the group laughing.

Steven was practically shaking, really wanting the group to leave him alone. But the next best thing happened.

"Hey!"

Steven turned, seeing his older brother starting to run up to him and the bullies. Dylan did not have a happy look on his face.

"Leave my brother alone!" Dylan shouted, jumping in between Steven and the group.

"And who's gonna stop us?" one of the boys retorted, pushing Dylan back. They were also older than the Australian boy.

Dylan was going to fight back, but Steven pulled him back by his arm. "Dylan, let's go..." the younger boy said quietly, starting to lead his brother away. Dylan was still glaring back at the group as he followed Steven's lead.

The boys were pointing and laughing. "Ha ha! Your big brother had to save you, but he didn't even do a thing!"

Steven and Dylan did their best to ignore the group. "Don't listen to those guys," Dylan said to his little brother. He then gave the brightest smile he could smile to cheer up his timid younger brother. "You can play with me and my friends for a while! Come on!"

Dylan pulled Steven to his friends and the group welcomed the New Zealander with open arms. They played together until recessed ended and returned to their classes. The two boys thought with that ending, the bullies were no longer going to pick on them. Their thoughts were wrong. When school ended, they were met with a few more upperclassmen boys. The bullies had told their classmates about them and they seemed to be into messing with Dylan and Steven as well.

"Hey!" the first boy from before called when seeing Dylan and Steven walking out of the building. Wendy and Peter were there as well.

Dylan stood protectively in front of his younger siblings. The twins didn't know what exactly was going on, but they could put two and two together. "Will you just leave us alone?"

"Those are sixth graders," Wendy whispered to Peter.

"The head of the school," Peter added back.

"Hey, we're just trying to be nice," a different boy said. "I mean, that one was playing with no one but his imaginary friends," he added, pointing to Steven. "Was it wrong to help him get actual friends?"

"You were picking on him!" Dylan hissed, starting to advance a bit. The younger three held him back.

"Even if that was true, what're you gonna do about it?" the first boy asked with a disdainful smile, easily pushing Dylan down.

"We'll tell our big brother to beat you up!" Peter shouted, fumed.

"Then we'll tell our big brothers to beat up you and your brother!" another boy said, stepping up.

The Kirklands each gave their own versions of angry faces, all turning to the front entrance. There Xiang was. The Chinese teen usually waited for them there, leaning back on the concrete fence with his headphones on and his nose in a book. "Xiang!" all four screamed at the same time.

The elementary school kids all watched as Xiang looked up from his book, taking off his headphones. His head tilted with squinted eyes, trying to focus his vision on his far away stepsiblings.

"Wait, isn't that the crazy kid in the high school?" the Kirkland kids heard one of the bullies ask his fellow bullies.

"M-maybe. I don't know," another said.

"My sister said he was, like, a ticking time bomb or something. I don't know what that means exactly, but I know it's not good," said a third.

The four kids stared confusedly as the other group started panicking. They ran off in fear when Xiang started walking up to them.

"What's going on...?" Xiang hesitantly asked once reaching his stepsiblings. He had watched as all the sixth graders in the group dispersed a moment ago.

"Xiang!" the twins happily exclaimed, wrapping Xiang in hugs.

"There were some big meanie sixth graders picking on Dylan and Steven!" Wendy explained with a huff.

"But I said you'd beat them up if they kept being mean!" Peter proudly added. Xiang frowned, going unnoticed by the kids. Hopefully that wouldn't come back to bite him in the future.

"They ran off scared," Dylan laughed as the five of them began walking home.

"They said you were crazy and was a ticking time bomb," Steven said kind of sadly. He wasn't happy about them making false and hurtful claims about his stepbrother. "But you're not."

Xiang sighed. 'High school gossip travels all the way down to elementary schools, huh...?' he inwardly thought. Xiang was pretty crossed with how the bad opinions about him managed to get to his stepsiblings' ears, but didn't let it show.

"Oh whatever, those guys were stupid anyways!" Dylan huffed.

"You know," Xiang started up, "if there's anyone picking on you in school, you should go tell a teacher."

"No one likes a tattle tale..." he heard all four mumble. Xiang sighed. That was true.

"It's okay now," Steven said. "I don't think they'll pick on us anymore."

"Alright, but at least tell me if they do, alright?" Xiang said. The two older kids nodded.

Xiang's uneasy feeling from hearing his stepsiblings' issue dissolved as they were walking home. He was listening to them all talk about the good things that happened during the day.

Xiang couldn't help but wonder, did his father feel the same way when listening to him as a kid talk about his day? Did his father think and worry about him throughout the day while he attended school as well? Because that was what Xiang was doing the day after the small commotion his stepsiblings went through.

Xiang sighed. He was walking through the halls of his school. He couldn't help but worry about Steven and Dylan and if they were being bullied again. Xiang had been a victim of his peers' outright taunting when he was their age and did not want them going through the same. Though, it wouldn't be until later after school that day that Xiang would hear the bullies did stop picking on his stepsiblings.

School days always looked bright for his stepsiblings, but for Xiang...

"Hey! You!"

The Chinese teen looked up, seeing a few guys he somewhat recognized head over to him, ranging from his grade to seniors.

"Our kid brothers said you were picking on them or something yesterday. That true?"

Xiang gave an even more deadpanned look than what he always showed. 'Are you serious...?'

This may be the last school one for a bit. I'll show Xiang's school days in a later chapter maybe. School's been four weeks, going on five for me. Woo...