Here's the third chapter. This is the longest one yet I think, and also the best I've written. Thank you to anyone who read the last one and I apologize for my lack of knowledge about computer viruses and the like. I've also was been technologically challenged XD. Anyways, here you are:

In first three seconds of fully wearing one, Mail has already decided that he hates suits. He hates the scratchy black material and the way he looks so small in it. He hates the soft tie that feels more like a coarse rope, like a noose around his neck, for Mail is hanging. He is hanging from a very thin string that could break at any moment, and although he is only six years old he is very knowledgeable in the processes of stretching, bending, tearing, ripping, inevitably breaking, and then fading. He has watched his mother do it for the past two years, and through enduring all the anger of his father, it seems that the possibility of getting her back was the only thing stopping him from doing the same.

However what Mail does not take into account is that his heart is quite strong, and that it's each and every beat is a punch for it is a fighter, and it will hold firmly onto that string until the day he dies, which is sadly not as far off as we would like.

As he ties up the laces on his leather shoes, Nurse Broud comes in to tell him that it is time and gives him the white lilies that he will be placing on his parent's graves. It has taken very little time to bury his parents, considering there is no one besides himself to mourn them, and Nurse Broud decided that he was far too young to be there for the lowering of the coffins into the ground. Mail agrees with her on this, although he suspects that his age has nothing to do with it. There will be no real funeral, just himself, Nurse Broud, and a priest to say a few words, although Mail believes that his father has never set foot into a church his entire life and it has been a long time since his mother attended. However, Mail feels that he has to believe in heaven since that is the only way he will ever see his mother again, and he is sure that his father is not going to be there.

Nurse Broud holds his hand during the whole ride to the cemetery, and she has tissues poking out of her purse for what she believes will be an emotional farewell. Mail is not sure if he will cry at all, for he had not since the day he got the news and his eyes have felt tired and too dry since. They almost refused

to open this morning and they glared at the harsh sun with contempt.

Once they find the headstones, Mail immediately stoops down to inspect the engravings. He is relieved to see that his father's grave merely reads 'Husband and Father' and has no mentions of 'loving' or 'faithful' or any other deceiving nonsense. He didn't think he would be able to stand it otherwise. He is also pleased to that the word loving has been slipped in before mother and not wife on his mother's rock. He knows that his mother has not loved his father for a very long time for obvious reasons, and is delighted that whoever carved into these stones could somehow sense this as well. This means, he thinks. That she must of really loved me after all, even if she did forget about me for a while.

Mail lays the all but one of the lilies on his mother's grave, thinking that his father must have been a good person at one point in his life and the flower is for whenever that was. After he does this Nurse Broud puts her arm around his shoulder and the priest begins to speak. Mail does not listen to his words exactly, but more the sound of his voices lulling in the background. He is more absorbed taking in the spring air, which is so fresh that he feels like he's drowning in it. He wonders if death is like drowning or sleeping. He hopes it's like sleeping.

When it is time to leave Mail is proud that he did not cry although he is not sure why. He allows himself to crouch next to his mother's headstone however and rests his forehead against the cool surface. He closes his eyes for a moment and just enjoys remembering everything he can about the real her, placing these memories in a box in his mind and sealing them up tightly so he can take them wherever he happens to go next, and take them out whenever his last string begins to fray.
_

Mail sits on the hospital bed beside Nurse Broud, waiting for Mrs. Woods to come and pick him up and drive him to his house where he will pack his things, and then to The Quill Orphanage where he will be staying… temporarily? Mail is not sure. He would rather stay at his house but his parent's will clearly stated where he was supposed to go. He figures that they did not put much thought into the decision for it is merely the closest orphanage in their area. He wonders what living there will be like and if he will make any friends there. Looking back on his six years of life, he knows he has never once had a real friend and he would not mind getting one. They will all not know anything about him, and there will be no parents to whisper about him coming from a bad family. It isn't what he would call an opportunity considering how he got in this situation, but it is an optimistic factor.

Mrs. Woods already told him that he will be going to the same school, which seemed strange to him. All the old aspects of his life were being stolen away from him by fate and he got to keep one of the things he did not want? What a cruel joke.

"Feel free to write me whenever you want," says Nurse Broud, handing him her address on a crumpled piece of paper. "I'd like to know how you're doing and…" she trails off and bites her lip, swallowing the last part of her sentence. I know you don't have anybody else.

"Thank you. I will, I promise. I've never had a pen pal before and that'd be cool." said Mail, giving her a small smile. He could sense her empathy towards him and he didn't want her to worry, for in his short time in her care she had done quite enough. When Mrs. Woods came to take him away to whatever was awaiting him, he made sure that he gave her a hug goodbye.

"Are you alight?" asked Mrs. Woods.

Mail had had his hand on the doorknob for the past five minutes and he could not figure out why he was so scared to open it. His parent's had not died in this house, and the thought of all the beatings he'd taken inside those walls should not paralyze him for they had not occurred that long ago. Perhaps it was just the action of what he was about to do that froze his hand to the brass. He was about to take his things out of this house, and leave it behind forever. He did not understand why he would miss a structure where such unhappy things took place, but he knew he was going to. Maybe the bad memories just didn't taint the good ones as much as he had thought they did.

"I'm fine." said Mail, and with that, he pushed the door open.

The beer bottles and syringes had been cleaned up by whoever had wiped his blood from his fall off the floor, and without them it appeared that this could be a time before his father had came back and ruined his and his mother's life. Mail held on tightly to the backpack and suitcase that Mrs. Woods had given him and went upstairs to his room.

After he had packed the necessities into the backpack he filled the suitcase with more sentimental items. A stuffed dog he had gotten for his third birthday, the books his mother used to read to him, and a scrap book filled with pictures up to a little after his fourth year. He knew that most of his parent's things would be donated so he made sure to also pack some of his mother's old shirts, which still smelled like her. He sat under the hangers in her closet and inhaled until Mrs. Woods came upstairs to check on him.

"Are you ready to go?"

"Yes. What's going to happen to the house anyways?" he asked.

"Well, your parents had some debts so even though it's left in the will to you it's going to have to be sold." Mail nods. He had expected that.

When he shuts the door on his old life Mail feels a strange tingling in his fingers and he feels a strong urge to open it again and peer inside. He ignores this and is relieved once he and Mrs. Woods are in the car and driving down the road.

The director of The Quill Orphanage is named Mr. Marshall, and he is old and tall and reminds Mail of a bird. He has light gold-brown eyes that stare down a hooked beak of a nose and his lip twitches to the side every so often in an unnerving manner. His hair is salt and pepper gray and has balded just past his ears. Mail is a little wary to be left in his care when Mrs. Woods drives away.

"Well, I should show you up to your room. Everyone is at school at the moment so it's a little quiet right now." The halls of the orphanage were painted a light yellow and they seemed pleasant enough to Mail, and he supposed that it was a nice change from the white of the hospital.

Once on the third floor of the building Mr. Marshall pushed open a dark brown door to where his room would be. The walls were light blue and there was a brown shelf nailed on the wall above a single bed. "We have an odd number of children around your age so you'll be in here by yourself." Mail was relieved to hear it as he had never had to share a room before and he wasn't at all sure how to go about it. "I'll leave you to unpack anyway. The closest bathroom is just five doors down the hall to your right, and my office is just beside the main entrance if you need anything."

Once alone, Mail sinks down on the bed and opens his suitcase. He places the mementos up on the shelf and stares at them. He rearranges them several times but he finds that no matter what order he puts them in, he cannot manage to make the room look or feel like his new home. This is just how it's going to have to be, he thinks. You will get used to it.
_

The next few weeks at The Quill Orphanage were absolutely dreary. He did not make a single friend for he found himself too shy and the majority of the kids to be just like the ones at school. Dull and mean. I wonder if certain people are just supposed to be alone, thought Mail. Maybe not everybody is allowed to have friends and that's just the way the world works. He found this idea to be disheartening and he wished he hadn't thought of it at all.

On top of loneliness, he was uncomfortable. He was unused to not being able to come and go as he pleased with no one caring where that was. He wasn't allowed to go to the park until the day's that his entire age group went on chaperoned outings. He only had 30 minutes on one day per week in the building's computer lab. He had nowhere to go and nothing to do on weekends so he just sat on his bed, staring at the ceiling, daydreaming. He missed his room, and his house, and his street. He missed the familiarity and the privacy. But no matter how much he missed everything he could not decide whether it was better to be here all alone or for things to be like they were before. He'd have to go through his father's beating but his mother would be there, and maybe if Mail had told one of his teachers about his father he would have been sent away and his mother would be herself again.

Maybe I could have fixed everything, if only I hadn't been such a coward, he thought. Is it all my fault then? Everything that happened? The guilt began to torment him. By the end of the fifth week, all Mail wanted to do was to leave the orphanage. And leave he would.
_

On one of his brief turns in the computer lab, Mail was fooling around as usually. He was in the middle playing one of his favorite games and had just reached a new high score when a bubble appeared in the corner of the screen; Warning: Five new viruses detected. Mail's eyebrows drew together in confusion. Viruses? He thought. I remember my computer used to have those, but I fixed it. Mail began to type busily on the key board until Mr. Marshall came to collect him.

"What," he asked, peering over his shoulder. "Have you done here?" Mail was worried for a moment that he might have done something wrong. "May I see?" He quickly moved aside so Mr. Marshall could sit down. "Did you fix all of these yourself?" Mail nodded sheepishly. "Who taught you about computer codes?"

"Nobody," whispered Mail. "I looked some stuff up in the library, but mostly I taught myself. It's not that hard really." Mr. Marshall's face broke out into the only grin Mail had ever seen him wear.

"Oh it's not hard is it? Then would you mind showing me how you do it?" Mail shrugged.

"I guess not."

"Good. Because I know someone who would be very interested to see it. Very interested indeed."
_

Two days after this incident Mail was called down to the cafeteria to write a test. Mr. Marshall had been very pleased after he had shown him what he knew about computers, and had said that he was going to call an old friend and ask him to send a special test for Mail to complete. He had not told him what was going to be on the test or what it was for which Mail found horribly unfair. How did they expect him to study?

Mail found himself to be very nervous once he got down to the cafeteria and sat in front of the ominous white sheets of paper. He clutched his pencil tightly in his sweaty palm. What if I fail or something? He thought. What is this even supposed to determine?

However once he began to write he started to relax. The questions were not as hard as he thought they would be although they were much more difficult than anything he had had to complete at school. Most of the answers came naturally to him, taken from the knowledge stored in his brain from the countless books he had signed out at the library, for Mail loved to read. A few stumped him of course, but he thought that it went rather well.

After he was finished Mr. Marshall took the papers away and told him to wait there for a few minutes. Mail had no idea what he was waiting for and found himself impatient, having been left alone with nothing to do. He swung his legs back and forth and drummed his fingers on the wood of the table, and he was still doing this when one of the strangest men he had ever seen walked into the room.

He was tall and lanky and hunched. He wore a white long sleeve shirt and his thumbs were hooked into the front pockets of his light blue jeans. His feet were bare of both socks and shoes, and atop his head was a shock of messy, inky black hair. Bags outlined deep dark eyes which stared at Mail with such intensity that he felt like he might fall into them and never get out. He crouched on the table across from him in a way that reminded Mail of an owl.

"Hello Mail," he said. "My name is Ryuzaki." Mail tilted his head to the side. He could tell the name was foreign but he could not decide what race the man was. He was as pale as ghost.

"Um, hi." Mail greeted meekly. He found the man's focused gaze to be unnerving.

"You did very well on this." Said Ryuzaki, gesturing to the test which Mail had not noticed was in his hands.

"I did?" he asked, relieved. "What's it for anyways, if you don't mind me asking?" The corners of Ryuzaki's mouth twitched upwards.

"I don't mind at all. This is a test of intelligence, designed by myself. And you scored 90%, which is the third highest percentage anyone has ever gotten." Mail's eyes widened.

"What does that mean?"

"It means," Ryuzaki whispered. "That you are a very smart boy." Mail's brow furrowed in confusion. He had always done well in school but he had never considered himself to be smart. He had never considered himself to be much of anything really. If he had been smart or clever, he would've figured out a way to save his mom.

"I doubt it." He sighed. "My dad always said I was pretty dumb actually." Ryuzaki frowned.

"Then I think that your father must have been a very short sighted man. Or perhaps a jealous one. Either way, he has smothered your potential up to this point, and I would like the opportunity to fix that." Ryuzaki laid the pages down on the table and smoothed them out slowly. "Do you like it here Mail?"

"No," Mail answered immediately. "I don't."

"So you would be open to the idea of living somewhere else? Of leaving this city and everything in it behind?" Mail wasn't sure exactly where Ryuzaki was going this but he nodded. He wasn't attached to his school, or this orphanage. He hated them. Anywhere else would be better in his mind. "Well then, this works out quite nicely. You see Mail, there is another orphanage that I think could nurture your talent. It is also a school for gifted children. It's in a place called England, which is very far away from here."

"I know where England is." Mail snapped, but felt bad about it only a second later. After all this man seemed to be offering what Mail had been only dreaming about these past few weeks. A way to leave, an escape. What right did he have to be rude. "Sir." He added, trying to soften the harshness of his previous tone. To his surprise, Ryuzaki let out a small chuckle.

"That's quite alright. But Mail, this orphanage I am telling you about, in the past some people have found that it was not to their liking." Mail's brow furrowed as he watched Ryuzaki's dark eyes glaze over with an emotion he couldn't place. Sadness? Anger? Regret? What? "If you decide that you would like to accept my offer and come there, it would most likely be different from anything you have ever experienced. There is a very… competitive atmosphere. Some people find the pressure of it to be too much."

"Competitive? But what would a bunch of kids be competing for?" Mail questioned. Ryuzaki pressed the tip of his thumb to his lips before he answered, a childlike action that Mail had never seen an adult perform. But then again, Ryuzaki didn't seem to be like most adults.

"They are competing to replace me. I have a very important job Mail, and that job cannot be left to just anybody if something were to happen to me. And it is very likely that something will happen, be it sooner or later." Mail frowned at the lonely sound of his voice and the way it echoed slightly throughout the empty room.

"So your job is dangerous then? And if I went to this orphanage then I would be competing for it too?"

"That is correct."

"So… what is it?" Ryuzaki smiled sleepily and placed his hands on his bent knees, palms facing upwards as if he were holding something.

"I am the greatest detective in the world Mail. I say this not to boast, but because that it is merely the title people have given me, and the one I have earned. And because of this title and the many cases I have solved, because of the people I have put behind bars, a lot of people would like to see harm come to me." Mail raised his eyebrows in astonishment at this explanation.

"If you're really as great and as famous as you say, then why have I never heard of you before now?"

"Because I have lied to you and my name is not Ryuzaki. But if I tell you what it really is you must first agree to come to England and live in the orphanage I have told you about. You must be committed to giving your best effort in competing for my position. You must promise me you'll never reveal my true identity, and you must, absolutely must think very carefully about this decision."

What was there to think about? To Mail it seemed so simple. He didn't know the complexities of this choice, and all the places it would lead him to.

"Yes," he said. "Absolutely yes. I agree, I will, I promise. Yes." Ryuzaki sighed, and then extended his hand, taking Mail's and shaking it gently.

"It is very nice to meet you Mail. My name is L."

So how was that? Please review and tell me what you think, I love all the feedback you give me. In the next chapter Mello will make his first appearance, which I am very excited about XD. I can't wait for this dynamic duo to begin.