There were four of them. The boy with the hamburger introduced himself as Alfred before shoving the rest of his burger in his mouth and reaching for a shake and another burger simultaneously. There was a Japanese boy named Kiku, who was eating sushi quietly. The other two where Arthur, who was eating something that Sei couldn't identify, and Francis, who was eating what looked like French onion soup.

"So where did you move from?" Alfred asked with his mouth full.

"What?"

"You're a transfer student, non?" Francis said in way of an explanation.

"Yeah…" Sei poked at his macaroni and cheese. It was more cheese than macaroni, which was a plus for the school, since that was just how he liked it.

"So where did you transfer from?" Alfred demanded impatiently.

"Oh." Sei couldn't tell them that he had lived on the compound his whole life. He shrugged dismissively and reached for his carton of soy milk. "I was home schooled." He said. "I didn't move from anywhere."

"Oh." Alfred sounded disappointed. "I thought you would have come from a different country."

"Pretty much everyone at this school is from a country other than America." Francis said. "Like moi." He flipped his long blond hair over his shoulder in a way that reminded Sei of girls in movies. "I'm from France."

"Aren't we in Canada?" Sei asked, not really caring where anyone was from.

"Canada's just the biggest US state." Alfred said, waving off the comment. He grabbed a cookie that was twice the size of his head and took a bite.

"That's Texas." Sei corrected. If there was anything that got under his skin, it was mistakes regarding geography. He often thought of the world as a group of people, and if someone made a mistake, it hurt the feelings of another country. "Canada is the second largest country in the world, second only to Russia."

"Speaking of which." Arthur said, tilting his head in the direction of the back corner. Sei looked and saw a group of six people taking their seats at the table he had originally intended to sit at. "Ivan's from Russia." Arthur pointed out the tall boy who was wearing a long coat and scarf.

Sei nodded slightly, not caring. Then his attention was grabbed when he noticed that Eduard was among the other five kids. He didn't know why he found that interesting, but it did make him smirk.

"Steer clear of them." Alfred warned. He spoke with his mouth full and sprayed cookie crumbs across the table. Everyone flinched away. "That whole group is dangerous."

"Even the little one." Kiku spoke up.

Little one? Sei looked back at the table. Sure enough, sitting right beside Eduard was a boy even shorter than Sei. He looked like he was shaking, and his expression was one of fear.

He's dangerous? Sei found himself wondering. Then he caught himself. I'm pretty dangerous too. He reminded himself of the time when he had not cared about anything to the extent when he had let a building in the compound get engulfed in flames. Ten people had died, and he hadn't cared at all.

"Arthur, look." Francis's voice cut into Sei's memory. He was pointing at another small boy who was happily walking toward Ivan's table.

Arthur shook his head and went back to eating. "I swear Peter's got a death wish."

"Peter is Arthur's little brother." Alfred whispered to Sei.

Sei nodded so that Alfred would know that he had heard him. He watched as Peter reached the table and said something to the small boy there. The boy smiled slightly in a way that looked grateful before turning to Ivan. Something was exchanged, and then the boy got to his feet and followed Peter out of the cafeteria.

"He's really pushing his luck." Arthur muttered. Sei noticed that worry flashed on his face for a moment when he looked after Peter. This interested Sei, since it showed that Arthur really did care for his brother.

Sei hadn't been raised with any other kids, so he didn't know what it was like to have siblings. He had read somewhere that family love, which was what they tried to imitate in the compound, was the strongest love out there. He had never felt it, so he didn't know.

And when Sei didn't know something, he either spent all his energy finding it out, or he just ignored it because he didn't really care.

This time, he found himself wanting to learn.

Immediately after lunch, Sei had Physical Education. He knew that the higher ups at the compound had forged his transfer documents, so they had been able to put whatever they wanted for his past credits. He was a little pissed off that they hadn't given him a Physical Education credit. He did enough physical activity at the compound already.

When Sei entered the boys' change room, it was completely empty. He saw that the walls were lined with small lockers, and each locker had a name on it. Since there was nobody else there, he lazily walked around, looking at the names. He didn't expect to find his own name.

But he did. It was located between two lockers that said 'Kirkland' and 'Galante'. He pulled open the door and found a small slip of paper inside. When he unfolded the paper, he found a combination typed on it. Sei guessed that it was the combination to the locker, but he wasn't going to take any chances.

Without putting anything in the locker, he closed it and gave the dial a spin. Then, reading carefully from the paper, he tried the combination. The tumblers clicked and the locker opened. Satisfied, Sei committed the combination to memory.

"You should just go somewhere else for lunch."

Sei turned when he heard voices. The locker room door was pushed open and two boys entered. One looked a lot happier than the other.

With a blink of surprise, Sei recognized them from the cafeteria. The happy one was Arthur's brother, Peter. The other one was the small boy from Ivan's table.

"Oh!" Ivan's friend breathed when he saw Sei. "Uh, hi."

Peter looked at Sei for a moment before a huge smile spread across his face. "Hi!" He practically shouted. He ran to Sei's side and grinned. "Are you a new student? Is that your locker? You must be new, since that locker has been empty for the last month! Gea, huh? It's nice to meet you, I'm Peter!"

Sei almost punched the boy in the face to get him to shut up. He had never liked people who talked a lot. That was probably because he hated to talk himself, but it didn't really matter, he just didn't like them.

"Sei." He said quickly. Then he bent and unzipped his backpack. As he picked up his bag, he pulled the school issued Physical Education uniform out. Then he shoved his bag into the locker and shut it.

"This is Ravis." Peter said, nodding at the other boy, who was walking behind Sei to the locker with the name 'Galante'. Then Peter turned to the locker marked 'Kirkland' and turned the dial. "Hey, do you want to do the warm up with us?"

Sei didn't even pause as he changed. "I always warm up alone."

"You'll never pass the class if you don't work with others." Peter stated, sounding like a teacher. Sei frowned in response.

"Are we going to warm up with Sophia again?" Ravis asked timidly.

Sei took this opportunity to shove his clothes into his locker and get out of there. He didn't feel like arguing about what he was going to do. He'd go find the teacher and explain that it was safer for him to warm up on his own.

He was just leaving the locker room when he heard someone shout.

"Heads up!"