Chapter 1: Silver

Silver managed to look nonchalant when he entered the school grounds, as if he had nothing to worry about. He had years to perfect that expression, after being tossed from one home to another. He wouldn't even call it a home, he wasn't in it long enough to be considered a home. People sneered because he was an orphan, unwanted by anyone. They would be right. He had lost count of how many times he had moved.

Silver took a deep breath, opened his locker and dumped his new stuff inside the locker.

"Hey, so you'll be my locker partner, huh?" a voice behind him said.

Silver turned to see its speaker. It was a boy a little taller than him. Silver-black eyes gazed back at him coldly. His hair was sable black; black enough to have blue highlights in it. He wore black jeans, a white shirt with a dragon in its center and a black leather jacket over it. The boy's mouth held a slight sneer.

"Yes," Silver said calmly. "You'll be...?"

"I go by Leil. Just so you know, don't touch a single f my stuff," Leil said. "What's your name?"

Silver looked into his eyes. "You can call me Silver."

He started walking away, to his class. Take it easy, he told himself. How many times had he moved? This was a sitch compared to how it will be later.

Leil watched the boy's back. Silver, he said his name was. And it fit him. Pale skin, silver-blue eyes and hair. Add to the outfit, he was wearing; white jeans and shirt. He looked absolutely ravishing. It made Leil wonder if he would possibly be gay.

He would have to crack the boy's shell first. His silver eyes were unreadable, as if a layer of ice was covered over it. He had built a wall around himself. Why, Leil asked himself, he couldn't wonder.

Leil walked to class a moment later.

Silver was eating lunch outside the field. He was reading as he ate, engrossed in the book. It was about five children of the genesis, and it was interesting. Looking up from his book, He saw Leil playing basketball with a couple of boys. Why was he even thinking about the boy?

There was a reason he had kept himself apart from them. If he was not close to any one, he would not get hurt by them. So why now to start feeling again? He was confused. He had gone so long without someone loving or caring for him, he could not tell what it was now.

Silver took out a picture of his parents. The only picture he had of them, before they were killed by his gang when he refused them. He looked at the picture sadly.

The bell rang. Silver packed his things and went to class. To his surprise, Leil was in art as well. He allowed his face to show none of his surprise, which meant nothing at all.

"So you like to do art?" Leil asked him.

Silver nodded. He studiously kept his gaze on his drawing. It was a scene from outside the window.

"That's good," Leil said, trying to get him to talk.

"Thanks," he said curtly.

Leil tried several more times to draw the boy out of his solitude, but he gave up when Silver would not cooperate.

After school was done, Silver headed straight for home. On his way back, he saw a kid getting beaten up by the same boys he had seen Leil play with. The kid looked only a little younger than them. Silver was angry. He went to them.

"Why are you beating him?" Silver demanded.

"Well, let's see, he didn't pay for his 'protection' " the leader, obviously, said.

"Let him go," Silver said coldly.

"Or what?" the older boy taunted. "You'd beat the crap out of us?"

"Actually, I think I will," Silver said, dropping his back pack and dropping into a fighter's stance.

The leader took a swing at him first. Silver only moved aside. the punch missing by inches. Siver took a swinging kick, making them bump into each other then punching them at various places individually.

"If I see you bullying even one more kid, you'll regret that you'd ever lived," Silver said, still using his cold voice.

He gave them an additional kick for good measure. Then he picked up his back pack and left. He reached his new 'home' in ten minutes.

"There you are, boy," the old man said. "Go do the dishes will you?"

"Oh, alright," Silver said, rolling his eyes.

"You're rude!" the old lady said. "I knew we shouldn't have taken you in!"

"Why did you bother anyway?" Silver muttered as he did the dishes.

"Because we thought, with a little care and love you would change," the old man said mildly.

"Yeah right. No one wants me. I get dragged off every few months. And people can't change just like that. Why do you care?" Silver said to himself. "You always make me leave."

"We're not sending you back," the old man said firmly.

"That's what they all say," Silver said quietly. "That's what they all say."

"In the end, I always end up the same way I started out; in the orphanage."