…forgive us our trespasses…

After a couple of days living in Wammy's House, Mello realized very quickly that exceedingly smart children were no better than any other children. In fact, after being the subject of much hair-pulling, name-calling, and general teasing and taunting, the blond noticed that, as exceedingly smart children were more adept at all of the above, they were far nastier than children of lesser intelligences could ever hope to be.

Even worse was the fact that, as L was almost always busy studying, testing, and otherwise preparing for his future, Mello was usually left feeling quite alone among the absolute raging terrors with whom he co-inhabited the House.

The blond was understandably irked by the fact that, though all he wanted was to be left quite alone with his books and his prayers, he was constantly being bothered by other, often older children, who always seemed to be finding something wrong with him.

Nonetheless, Mello couldn't help but to smile when L confronted him one day to discuss his progress in the House's private classes. It had been more than a couple of weeks since Mello and L had last been able to sit down and talk face-to-face, so that, alone, lifted the younger child's spirits, but when L smiled very proudly and told Mello that he had grown quickly to be the best of the entire House, including out of those in classes higher than his, the blond first felt shocked disbelief, and then was suddenly lifted into a state of high elation.

"I am? I did it?" Mello almost squeaked in excitement.

The way L beamed at him was almost enough to make up for everything else, and the rest of that day saw what seemed to be a new Mello.

After far too long being ridiculed by the other children, being recognized by the man Mello looked up to more than anything in the world was enough to make the child take a different look at life and the world in which he lived. The other children were competing for L's attention, too. They must have known that Mello was special, and gotten jealous. That had to be it, of course! It wasn't Mello who had something wrong with him, it was them!

It became quickly apparent, however, that being more special than everyone around you was just as lonely as being the joke of the class, and even though the blond didn't want to lose L's approval or attention, he almost (maybe just a little bit) wanted to be normal, or at least as close to it as any gifted child could be.

Once Mello had been lifted past his fear of the other children, he began to watch them and realized just how different he was from them, and how truly isolated. Sadness marring his newfound bliss, Mello reached a tiny hand into his pocket and felt for his Mama's rosary--still far too long for him to wear without its hanging dangerously between his legs when he sat down--and hoped and prayed to God that even if he wasn't accepted by all of the children that he could at least find one friend.

But as he looked around, each time he would try to lock eyes with someone in hopes of at least a small glimmer of acceptance, the other child would look away, embarrassed, it seemed, to look at him, and even though he had been temporarily relieved by the idea that he was the best of the best, the fact that the cruelty of the other children didn't cease began to bring him back down, and the need to be accepted when L wasn't around compounded farther and farther each day.

One day, however, Mello saw a new glimmer of hope. There was one child who, though he seemed to have friends of his own, did not follow his companions in their ceaseless torturing of the House's Number One. The boy Mello watched seemed about the same age as himself, was thin, had almost awkwardly (almost unnaturally) bright red hair, barely ever seemed to speak to anyone, and usually sat against some wall, in some corner, or on some far, cushy seat and occupied himself with various electronic games--so unlike the other children, but so accepted like one of their own.

This boy had to be him, Mello thought. He had to be a friend, and it only took one more small thing to assure the blond that it was true; that God had shown this boy to him for a reason.

"Hey, Matt! Are you ever gonna stop and come play with us?" called one of the meaner children to the boy.

Mello's ears seemed to perk up at that call. Yes, a familiar name: Matt…Matthew…an apostle in the midst of the damned.

And, suddenly, Mello felt more determined than he had ever felt. He would make a friend, his first friend…

But how?

"Dear God," the blond prayed that night, pulling Mama's rosary out and holding it to his heart, "I don't think I have the strength to talk to Matthew myself. I'm…scared. What if he turns out to be like everyone else? God, please let him wanna talk to me. I just want a friend, if that's not too much to ask. Please….amen."

Mello hung his mother's rosary on its place on his headboard, right next to the broken one he had tied back together with its knot replacing the missing prayer bead.

A few rooms over and a number of nights later, Matt laid on his stomach in bed, playing his newest game. He sighed, smiled, and took off the goggles he had taken to wearing and threw them on his end table.

The character he was playing ran into an enemy and lost its last life, so he shut off the game and flipped over onto his back. Usually, losing would have annoyed him, but Matt had been rather blissfully distracted during the few days prior.

"Tomorrow. I'll do it tomorrow," he said, and closed his eyes to let in sleep.

The next morning, after breakfast, Mello found himself disturbingly nervous. He felt, as usual, that people were watching him, but something felt…wrong. In the background of the House chatter, Mello caught a bit of dark laughter, and then Matt's name.

"Do it, Matt! Go ahead!" they seemed to be saying, and Mello chanced a look in that direction, to see Matt with the children who seemed to be his friends, being shoved…in Mello's general direction.

Could this be it? Could this be what he'd prayed for?

Matt, who wasn't wearing his goggles that day, noticed that the blond was looking at him quizzically, and his eyes widened, his jaw dropped, and he ducked back behind one of the others.

Mello seemed to feel a little braver by the fact that Matt seemed as nervous as he was, and stepped a little closer. The boy Matt had hidden behind grabbed the redhead's shirt, moved the gamer in front of him, and whispered something in his ear, a wicked look on his face.

Any hope Mello had was dashed. This couldn't be good. They were just trying to get Matt to make fun of him like they did.

Matt nodded, stepped forward, and Mello's heart jumped in fear.

Oh no. Not him, too.

Matt's friends were snickering. The slight spectacle seemed to attract some of the other children, and they created a wide circle around the group.

This is gonna be the worst…

Matt stepped forward again, and seemed to be trying to smile. Mello was still as stone, but his heart was beating extremely quickly in his embarrassment.

"Do it! Do it!" the others chanted.

Mello geared up for the most terrible scenarios he could imagine. He readied himself to duck out of the way of a punch or to block his ears from a particularly vicious insult, but when Matt leaned forward quite unexpectedly and kissed him--a light, quick peck on the lips--Mello was slightly more than unprepared.

The house erupted in laughter. Mello's eyes almost bugged straight out of his head as he grabbed at the cross in his pocket. Matt's cheeks turned nearly as red as his hair. The entire situation turned into a mangled jumble of hysterics and voices.

"Matt, I can't believe you fell for it!"

"I'm sorry! Please, don't be mad at me! I just…"

"You really thought that nasty little weasel was…"

"I didn't mean to…if I offended you or something…I'm so sorry, I just thought…"

Then, suddenly, everything made sense as one of the meanest kids in the group and Matt's voices mixed.

"You really thought he was a girl!"

"I just thought…you're the most beautiful girl I've ever seen…the most beautiful girl in the world!"

There was a moment of very abrupt, painful understanding. Matt and Mello looked at each other, the redhead taking in every small detail of the blond, now that they were closer together.

"You're not…"

"No."

"So, you're a…you're a boy, then?"

Mello nodded, his mouth open wide enough that it looked as if his bottom jaw might just fall off.

At the new wave of laughter and taunts, the redhead began to visibly cringe, his eyes wet with traces of tears.

"You're so dumb, Matt! I can't believe you fell for it! He isn't even pretty!"

"Shut up!" Matt yelled back, starting to really cry.

"That little, ugly brat isn't even worth your attention! I'm embarrassed to even be seen around you, Matt!" said another kid.

"Ewww, Matt's gay!"

"Matt likes boys!"

"Matt's a queer!"

Mello felt powerless. All he could do was watch as the other kids pointed fingers and laughed, insulting them both with their words.

"I thought you guys were supposed to be my friends…" Matt said, timidly, and Mello felt that he was probably the only one who heard him.

Maybe friends weren't such a good thing, after all.

"Break it up! What's going on here?" came the voice of Roger, the House's caretaker when Mr. Wammy couldn't be around.

As the circle broke up, Matt took the chance to make a run for it. Mello watched for a second, and then followed, to the taunts and catcalls of the others. "The weasel wants Matt to kiss him again! What a faggot!"

"Hey," was all Mello could think to say as he peeked in through Matt's bedroom door.

"Go away."

"I'm sorry. They're pretty mean, huh?"

"…yeah."

The blond opened the door, stepped in, and shut it again behind him. "If it makes you feel any better, I get made fun of all the time."

"Aren't you mad at me?"

Mello shrugged. "I dunno. I was actually kinda relieved. At least you're not gay, right? I don't know how I could have dealt with it if you were."

"Yeah, but I thought you were a girl."

"Well, I'm kinda used to that by now. I used to get a lot of people in Cathedral who would tell my Mama and Papa what a cute daughter they had. And then the other kids pretty much wherever I go make fun of me because I have 'girly hair' and stuff, and they pull on it."

"Why don't you just cut it? That could have saved me a lot of trouble, you know."

"Well, that's how Mama liked it, and…" The blond looked at his toes, grinding one foot into the ground.

"…Oh. Sorry."

"It's okay."

Matt rubbed his eyes, sniffled a little, and then weakly tried to smile. "I don't think I can ever show my face out there again."

"You usually wear goggles, right? Will that help?"

"I don't need goggles. I need a paper bag."

"Why do you wear those, anyway?"

"It's kind of embarrassing."

"Youkissed me. If embarrassing was a problem, you think I'd be here now?"

Matt actually laughed at that. "Well, my friends…or, the guys I used to hang out with, I guess, used to make fun of me for being a crybaby. I didn't know what to do about it, so I noticed that a lot of cool game characters wear goggles, and I started wearing them, too, to cover up my eyes so they couldn't see if I was crying. After that, they stopped making fun of me, and decided I wasn't too much of a pansy anymore to be friends with them."

"That's terrible."

"What about you? You probably think I'm some kind of idiot."

"For what?"

"For everything."

"Nah, I could tell from the first time I saw you that you weren't stupid."

"You…saw me before? You noticed me?"

The blond nodded, finally deciding to move away from the door and sit down on the chair in front of Matt's rather cluttered desk. "I've never had a friend before, and I saw how you seemed so popular, even though you seem different from all of them. I really admired you for that. I wanted to be like you, and I really wanted to be your friend, too."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I'm sure not popular anymore. And I don't really have any friends left, I don't think."

Mello seemed almost as if he were about to get right back up out of the chair and leave, but he forced himself to stay, though he hung his head, unable to bring himself to make eye contact. "I'll understand if you don't wanna ever talk to me again. I know I kinda ruined everything for you, and I don't think you'll be able to get any of your friends back if you hang around with someone like me." The blond dug in one pocket, and pulled out a small bar of chocolate, unwrapping it and nibbling on the corner as if it would protect him from rejection.

"I don't want them back! They can eat dirt, for all I care!"

Mello looked up, puzzled. "Why? Isn't being popular a good thing?"

"They knew for weeks that I thought you were cute and all, and not a single one of 'em bothered to tell me! They all thought it was funny that I was so hung up on you, even though…you know."

"Yeah. You know, I prayed that you would wanna talk to me, Matthew. I mean, I didn't exactly expect what happened, but you talked to me, right?"

There were a few questions that ran through Matt's head at that--about Mello's religion, about the fact that Mello had wanted to talk to him enough to pray about it--but he finally settled on something totally different. "Matthew? My name's Matt."

"Matt's short for Matthew," the slightly older boy said bluntly, as if this would surely convince Matt that he had been wrong about his own name.

"Not for me. I'm just Matt. L named me."

Mello smiled at that, relieved. He had been disconcerted at first by the idea that his apostle theory had been debunked, but if L had named Matt, it was alright. That meant that L trusted the redhead. If L had trusted him, Mello would, too. He puffed up proudly. "L named me, too. I'm Mello."

Both children went quiet. Matt looked down for a second, not quite sure what to do. Should he shake Mello's hand? They had just formally introduced themselves, so that was what was polite, right? But, on the other hand, they had already experienced a much more…abrupt consummation to their friendship.

"So now what?" Mello asked, his mouth wound into a crooked line as he noticed the awkward silence that had taken over the room.

Matt smiled widely. "…You like video games?"

It seemed God worked in very strange ways, because, somehow, what could easily be considered the most mortifying event in Matt's life helped him to find the best friend he'd ever had, while allowing him to give the gift of true friendship to someone who had never had a companion at all, and within months, more very interesting events turned Matt and Mello into a duo to be reckoned with.

"Oh, look." drawled one of the House bullies that Matt had used to call his friend. "It's the weasel and his boyfriend."

"I'm gonna hit him one of these days, I swear," said the redhead, clenching his fist.

"Don't even bother. He's not worth it," replied Mello coolly.

"How do you do that, Mello? I still don't get how you can stay so calm all the time!"

"I have God to keep me sane."

"Yeah, that's what you keep telling me, but I still think it's a bit hard to be supported by someone you can't even see."

The bully, who was usually fine with just a taunt, had decided that day, however, that he really wanted a reaction from his victims. "Yo, Matt. You gonna be a pansy like the weasel and hide behind some invisible friend? Why don't you stand up and fight like a man?"

"Leave him alone," retorted Mello dully. "If you're gonna make fun of someone, make fun of me."

"Hey, Matt! You have to be protected by a little girly boy now, huh?"

"That's a little better," said Mello to the bully, pushing Matt behind him. "But you're still picking on him, or did you not hear me when I told you not to? And, yeah, I may be girly, but at least I'm not so stupid that I have to pick on younger kids to feel like I'm worth something."

A couple of other kids in the room began to laugh.

Matt stood still. "Mello, let's go, before I lose my cool."

"Shut up!" yelled the bully to the onlookers, and the room went silent. "Okay, weasel. You're asking for it."

"Mello,let's go."

"You can't do anything to me, Braeden! You can't hurt me!"

There was a chorus of impressed "Oooh"s throughout the room. The air became tense, expectant.

Matt was becoming very uncomfortable.

"You wanna bet I can't, ya little wimp? And that's Brad to you!"

The heads in the room turned to Brad, and then to Mello, who was simply smiling calmly. "I'll pray for you, Braeden."

Brad began to laugh.

"Mello, please. Let's go. I don't wanna get him started. He's older than you, and bigger. I don't want you to get hurt because of me."

"Yeah, your boyfriend's right, Barbie. You're gonna get hurt if you don't back down right now."

"Try me." said Mello, pulling his Mama's rosary out and crossing his chest.

"You gonna pray I don't break your scrawny little neck?" hissed Brad as he stepped forward.

Then, he made a mistake: He snatched the rosary from Mello's hold.

Without even thinking, Mello drew his hand back, balled it into a fist, and punched Brad, hard, in the face.

The bully grabbed at his nose with a screech and dropped the rosary, tripping to the ground as well. Mello grabbed the cross from the floor and backed up quickly. The blond watched with wide eyes as blood began to flow between the bully's fingers.

"You broke his nose!" Matt whispered as loudly as he could to his friend.

Mello dropped to his knees and started to pray.

There was a long moment where the House went silent, then Brad stood up as quickly as he could and turned away. "I'm gonna tell Roger!" he yelled, muffled and nasal, through the blood running over his mouth.

The children watching stared at Mello. The blond stopped in his prayers for a second, and cracked open his eyes.

Matt starting laughing. "Did you see his face? Mello, you just totally kicked his butt! Brad! You broke Brad's nose! I didn't know you had it in ya'!"

"Matt, that's not something to be proud of! God frowns down on…"

"You're so weird. Just admit that you took down the biggest bully in the House! You're like some kinda hero!"

Mello looked around. He looked down at the cross in his hand. He looked down at the bit of blood on his knuckles. He looked up toward Heaven.

He started, quietly at first, to laugh, and then broke out into all-out guffaws, more at how silly he realized he looked than anything.

"Do you find what you did funny, Mello?" said Roger from right behind him, Brad clutching to the leg of the caretaker's pants, sniffling awkwardly. The laughter stopped.

"And, you, Matt. What do you have to say for yourself?"

It was then that some of the children who had been bullied by Brad and his group found the courage to stand up for themselves, and though Mello (and Matt with him) got into a little bit of trouble, it wasn't as much as expected, because at least four of their peers defended them.

From that moment, Mello was untouchable, and because of him, Matt was, too. Not only was Mello the grand "slayer of evil", as Matt liked to jokingly call him, but he had quickly become the idol of the house. The blond settled into a kind of fatherly position, and took over the job of helping the younger children and breaking up fights when L couldn't be around, earning himself an even more special place within his hero's heart.

"Ow! Don't! It hurts!" cried a young brunette girl whose arm was being twisted by an older boy, and Mello was there to stand up against the oppressor. All it took was a look, and even the bravest, most burly of bullies would back down.

It was almost a year later, after Mello had grown up and very comfortable with his position and the rewards that went with it (including almost limitless supplies of praise and chocolate), that word finally got out that he was also the top student in Wammy's House

Matt, as Mello's best friend, automatically reaped a lot of his benefits, but, for reasons then unknown to the blond, Matt had suddenly begun to seem…miserable.

"What's wrong?" asked Mello one evening, after dinner.

Like every other time before, Matt answered with a dismissive, "Nothing."

And that was all.

Mello didn't understand. He didn't get it at all, and it hurt him. Since he had gained his relatively newfound fame and grown busier, he had become more distanced from God, but this was enough to prompt him to pick up the rosary and pray again.

"I don't know what's wrong with Matt. He's my best friend, but he won't even talk to me about it. I know I haven't been good about talking to you much anymore, but God, please help me to understand why he's been so distant."

Though God had been ignored for some time, it seemed he was still there when Mello needed him, and he answered.

A few days later, a new child came to the House.