So it's been over two years, and I know I'm a horrible person for not updating. I promised myself when staring this story that I would never end up being one of those writer's, but life gets in the way sometimes and there's nothing you can really do about it. So all I'm going to say is that I really am truly sorry about it and I'm going to do my best to keep this ball rolling now. So without further ado, here's my long awaited Chapter Five:

Matt had gotten used to waking up and not knowing where he was. From being shifted from the hospital to Quill Orphanage, and now Wammy's House he had gotten over the panicked cold sweat feeling of realizing that although the bed is perfectly comfortable, it is not your own, and you are not at home. But this was his home now, by all paperwork technicalities, and he was just going to have to make the best of it. What he was not used to and was not sure how to make the best of however, was being pulled out of bed and dumped onto the hard floor by a shouting fierce tempered blonde haired boy at 7:00 in the morning.

"Wake up dumb ass! Didn't I tell you I didn't want to have to bother getting you up? I'm going to miss breakfast if I have to wait for you, get yourself dressed!" Mello exclaimed with a flushed red face.

Matt stared up at him from the floor dumbfounded, but quickly got to his feet to protect himself from being yelled at any farther. He went to the dresser and pulled out his jeans and black and red stripped t-shirt and didn't bother running his comb through his hair or asking where the bathroom was so he could go brush his teeth due to the way Mello was leaning against the door frame looking like he could explode again any moment. Once he was decent Mello took off down the hall without a word and Matt had to practically sprint down the stairs to keep up with him, terrified that he would lose sight of him and get lost in the gigantic building. He thought they were close to the front entrance way they had came in last night when Mello turned the corner to the dining hall and Matt took it all in with a queasy stomach.

Rows and rows of cafeteria tables, their ends facing his direction, went from one side of the room to the other, filled bench to bench with children and noise. So much noise. Matt had thought a school full of geniuses would be extremely disciplined but apparently not, and aside from the people dishing food in the line on the left side there were no adults visible. His own school and the lunch room at Quill Orphanage had been much smaller than this, and Matt found that when he was placed in a crowd of this size and this volume, he completely forgot how to move and his heart started to hammer in his chest.

"Well come on idiot, there's still plenty of food left if you don't just stand here!"

Matt was almost relieved when Mello grabbed his hand and roughly yanked him towards the line. He grabbed a plate and nodded to every question about what he wanted the women dishing food asked him because he couldn't hear what they said over the din and he was too nervous to ask them to repeat it. He ended up with some slices of apple, eggs, sausage, and a cup of what appeared to be orange juice. The food looked much better than anything he'd had to eat in his life. He was then faced with the new dilemma of where to take a seat to eat in the crowded hall, but followed Mello's lead to the only empty table in the far right corner of the room, a spot he hadn't noticed before over the chains of many heads.

"I always eat here by myself. No one ever takes the table because they're scared I'll beat them up. But I'll make an exception for you because I don't want you to get lost and beaten up and have your blood be on my hands."

Matt could clearly recognize the resentment in Mello's voice for being saddled with the task of showing the new kid around, but he could also already see the odd contradictions in the way that he presented himself to others. Last night he had told him that if he didn't wake up in time for breakfast he would just leave him there, but sure enough this morning he had woke him up and waited for him before leaving. Sure, it had been a rude awakening he performed grumpily, but he hadn't made good on his threat. Maybe his bark was going to worse than his bite.

"But fuck, I'll leave you on your own if you don't quit staring at me you freak! Seriously, what the heck are you looking at?" Mello asked exasperatedly as he reached to the center of the table for the bottle of chocolate syrup there and began to drown the waffles on his plate. Pretty soon Matt couldn't even see the waffles anymore, just a brown puddle. "Man, you got a shitty breakfast too, what's up with that? We only get waffles on Saturday you know and they're the best things in this dump. Here, try some."

Matt was thoroughly surprised when he found a forkful of dripping waffles shoved in his face. He quickly opened his mouth and swallowed the sickly sweet substance and found himself coughing and having to take a huge gulp of his orange juice, tears stinging his eyes. Mello started to laugh loudly with his head thrown back, an expression Matt could previously never imagine on the harsh boys face.

"Hey dummy did you even chew that? You must have liked it with the way you wolfed it down. Chocolate makes everything taste better, but we rarely have it here because they want us to eat "healthy", which is total bullshit because Ryuzaki eats nothing but sugar."

"He does? How do you know that?" Matt asked. His throat felt dry and he realized that it was the first time he had spoken all morning.

"'Cause I spent a weekend with him once and for every meal and snack he ate nothing but candy! Seriously, just sugar cubes and marshmallows and lollipops, that was all. It seems pretty bizarre but it must work for him because he's perfectly healthy and he's the smartest person in the world! When I'm older I want to see if I can eat nothing but chocolate."

It was the first few sentences Mello had spoken to him without uttering an insult. Getting him on the subject of Ryuzaki seemed to be a step in the right direction.

"Wow, he seems like a really busy guy so you must be a pretty important student for him to spend a whole weekend with you." Mello actually beamed at him.

"Yeah well, I think he realizes that I have the biggest shot at being his successor so he wanted to teach me some things I'll need. But I can't tell you what he told me because its top secret information that only the most trusted few can know."

"I understand."

Suddenly a loud school bell rang and all of the students got up to dump their plates in a bucket at the end of the line. Matt followed Mello into the hall and grabbed the back of his shirt so that they weren't separated in the swarms of students making their way to their classes. He was relieved when they finally entered their own which was a small room that was already filled up except for two empty desks at the back of the room that Matt immediately knew must be Mello's, and the other, he realized, for himself. The other children's eyes bored into them as they made their way to their seats.

"What's everybody looking at?!" Mello snapped, and all their heads immediately snapped back around to face the white board at the front of the room. All heads except for one. Matt took in the white mop of curls that sat upon the head of a pale faced, small boy dressed in what appeared to be button up pajamas the same colour as his hair. His eyes were a dark cold grey that made Matt want to shiver, and so he was alarmed when the boy got up and strode to the back of the room with an outstretched hand.

"I was not aware that we were receiving a new student. Welcome, I am Near. And you are?"

Before Matt could grasp Nears hand Mello's came between them and swatted his arm away.

"His name's Matt and there's no reason that you would know that he was coming, you're not the first to be informed on everything around here Near." Mello sneered. "And he's my roommate so I'm showing him everything so he doesn't need any of your help, got it?"

"Well that is very nice of you Mello, I am pleased that you have finally made a friend. It is nice to meet you Matt, I look forward to being your classmate." Near said calmly and nodded to him before slowly walking back to his desk.

Despite his calm demeanor, Matt had felt more uncomfortable meeting him than he had meeting Mello the previous night. Something about just how calm he was unsettled him.

"Hey, I never said he was my friend, and what the fuck is that supposed to mean?!" Mello yelled after him, just as a tall Japanese woman with a severe looking black bob came into the room.

"Mello, I would appreciate it if you would refrain from using such language in my classroom. Good morning class."

"Good morning Miss Harada." Maybe this school was going to be more normal than Matt thought.

"Now this morning we are going to be continuing with our languages lesson on conjugating German verbs that we began yesterday. If you would all please get your textbooks from the shelves and turn to page seventy-four."

Matt followed Mello's lead on which book to grab from the many piles on the shelves and flipped open to the page.

"We also have the arrival of a new student today. I am sure you have all already noticed Matt, and if you would all please look after him and help show him around Wammy's. Matt, would you like to start our lesson off by reading us the instructions, from the top of the page please."

Matt looked down at the paper but found that the printed words were nothing but gibberish to him. They weren't in English and he thought that if he tried to say any of them they would come out horribly mispronounced, so as a result of his nervousness he found himself staring at the letters until wetness welled up in his eyes and all the markings swirled together into one big unreadable mess. He started fidgeting with his hands under the desk until he heard the rest of the class start to snicker.

"I uh, I'm sorry but I can't read this Miss H-Harada."

"Why ever not? You can read, can't you?" The class let out another series of giggles. Matt decided that he didn't like this woman.

"Yes I can read, I just never learned any German."

"Oh I see, they must have been studying a different curriculum where you went to school. What languages were you studying?"

"Um, English." The class was in an uproar now.

"Hey shut up you asshole!" Matt heard Mello yell, but he still didn't look up from his own hands. He heard Miss Harada shush him and the rest of the class.

"English and?"

"Only English Miss Harada. Nothing else." Matt's voice cracked on the last word and he knew that if he spoke a single more he would burst into tears.

"Well then. I suppose I have to go speak with Roger in the office about that for a moment. You all better be on your very best behaviour until I return."

When she left the room, a boy sitting a few seats in front of him turned around with a mean grin on his face. Matt had learned to recognize a bully instantly by now, and he knew that he was going to be in for it.

"I guess she's going to have to get you moved to a lower grade, you imbecile. Perhaps with the kindergartners?" The whole class laughed in response, except for Near and Mello, who was now on his feet , stomping over to the boys desk and leaning over him imposingly.

"Hey shut the fuck up Blaire! Not everyone was as privileged as you and went to a private school before mommy and daddy bit the dust."

The rest of the class oohed and ahhed at this and Matt could feel the excitement tingling in the air. He couldn't believe that Mello was sticking up for him, but maybe Mello was always looking to get involved in any sort of trouble.

"Hey, all I'm saying is maybe Ryuzaki made a mistake in picking him, some sort of weird fluke in the test. Ordinary idiots like him don't belong here."

"Ryuzaki never makes any mistakes! Just because he hasn't got the education you did before you came here doesn't mean he's stupid! You're the ignorant fucktwad!"

"Ooh fucktwad, that's a new one. Tell me Mello, I'm very interested in psychology and I think you'd make a perfect test subject. Do you think maybe your use of profanity and rage is meant compensate for something else? Perhaps how much of a coward you truly are? You know, some psychological traits run in families. Was your daddy a coward too, is that why he shot-"

Blaire's nose was crushed under Mello's fist before he could utter another word. His chair scrapped back loudly as he fell to the floor, no other noise to cover the painful thud as the rest of the class had fallen to complete shocked silence. Mello slammed his fist into his face again, and again, sitting on the boy's chest and bashing his head into the floor until his knuckles started to stain with the blood that began to poor from Blaire's nose. Near got up slowly and grabbed Mello's fist, pulling it back to stop him.

"Mello you have to-"Mello immediately began pummeling Near as well as Blaire laid next to them, stunned. One girl at the front of the room screamed, and Matt realized that since he was the reason the fight had broken out he would have to intervene, no matter how much his rapid pulse told him not to. He walked around in front of Mello where the boy could see him approach and wrapped his fingers around the boys shoulders to stop him from pouncing on Near's small form that laid between them. To his surprise Mello leapt over the body and pushed Matt back onto the empty desk, his arms on either side of his head. The fire was back. The hot blue threatening to burn him alive, to burn anyone alive who dared to try and block his path. Mello pulled his bloody fist back and Matt cringed, bracing himself for the impact the punch to his cheek he knew all too well. The blue flames widened with sudden understanding, and Mello stepped back. Then Miss Harada's voice was yelling for Roger, and all four of them were being dragged out of the room by their shirt collars, two in each hand, to his office.