~Chapter 1~

The boy who stood in front of the room had silvery white hair, with just a tinge of violet from a dying experiment gone horribly wrong. The hair ascaded over his shoulders and almost halfway down his back, seemingly in defiance of the majority of boys in the room, whose hair barely reached the napes of their necks. His uniform several shades lighter than those of the other boys also.

The boys were already looking at him with veiled hostility. The boy at the front of the room sighed slightly, warm chocolate eyes mirroring his resignation.

It was the girls. It was always the girls. They were staring at him as though he were song pop idol. At least he knew they'd get over it. The girls where he grew up had gotten over it when they'd realized he was a boy.

He bowed as the teacher wrote his name on the board. "Yoroshiku, onegai-shimasu! Bakura Ryou to moshimasu."

There was a general murmur of reply.

"Bakura-kun," the teacher said, "I'm afraid you'll have to sit with Jounouchi. There's no other free seat." He turned toward a blond boy, sprawled across two chairs. "Don't scare him away from the school," he said in a tight voice, eyes snapping anger.

The blond snorted and sat up to give Bakura room.

"Yoroshiku," the new boy said with a smile.

He was greeted with a scowl from his deskmate and sighs of admiration from the girls around them.

The lesson started. Bakura hurried to start his notes until he realized that this class was a bit behind the one he'd come from. Relaxing with a smile, he looked up to see what his classmates really looked like.

He blinked, coming face to face with a rubberband, stretched across Jounouchi's thumb and forefinger and poised for snapping. He gave a bit of a gasp, startled at the thought that his deskmate might try and hit him with something.

Jounouchi gave him a disgusted glance and leaned back around him to fire the rubberband at a brunette a few desks over.

"Jounouchi-kun!" Bakura said in shocked dismay as the blond pulled out another rubberband.

The teacher looked up from his lesson at the voice, then frowned at Jounouchi, ordering him out with a look.

The blond smirked defiantly at the teacher as he rose. He kicked Bakura's chair as he passed it, hands in pockets, to leave the room. Moments later, a motion outside the building caught Bakura's eye through the window. His blond deskmate was giving him the finger.

Seeing that he'd been noticed, Jounouchi tossed him a mocking salute and sauntered off the school's grounds.
The rest of the day didn't go much better, as all the girls followed him around and the boys looked at him with jealous hatred. Bakura sighed as he packed his books up to go home. He felt eyes on him and looked up, smiling at the one boy who hadn't said an unkind word to him.

Hadn't said any word to him at all, or to anyone else that he'd noticed.

The small boy looked down, hiding his eyes behind blond bangs that didn't look any more natural than the maroon ends of his hair. Bakura wondered how he got it to stand up the way it did, knowing that Keiji back home-- he shook his head and mentally corrected himself-- back where he USED to live would be interested to know it.

Recalling himself to the present, he smiled at the stranger again. "Yoroshiku ne," he greeted brightly.

The boy looked like Bakura had hit him and hurried toward the door, leaving Bakura to blink after him in confusion.

"Where do you think you're going, chibi?" a voice called after the small boy, making him cringe down in fear and causing Bakura to scowl.

A brunette - the one that Jounouchi had shot the rubberband at - blocked off the boy's escape. Bakura recognized the boy as one who had glared at him as a pretty girl with long hair the colour Keiji had tried to dye his had fawned over him

"Why don't you leave him alone," Bakura suggested, coming up behind the small boy and cutting off his further escape. "He hasn't done anything to you."

"Think you're better than me?" the brunette asked, raising his fists.

"If this is how you treat people younger than you, then yes," Bakura said firmly, meeting the other boy's eyes.

The brunette collapsed laughing. "Hear that, chibi? He's only helping you because he thinks you're a kid. You can go home now. I don't think I can do anything worse to you."

Bakura looked confusedly down at the smaller boy, seeing a blush of embarrassment and tears of mortification in the boy's eyes as he raced from the room.

"Yuugi!" a dark haired girl shouted, chasing after him. She glared at the brunette who was still chuckling on the floor on her way out.

"I think I like you better now," the brunette said. "But stay away from the girls."

"What did I do?"

"He's the same age we are," the other boy said with a smirk.

"Sonna!" Bakura stared at the door wide-eyed. "I should apologize...."

"To him?" the other boy snorted. "Don't bother." He pulled himself up off the floor and walked out.

"Wait!" Bakura called. "I don't know anybody. Please...."

"I'm not going to be your friend," the other boy said bluntly. "And you can forget about trying to be 'buddies' with Jounouchi. He's worse than I am."

Bakura watched after him miserably.