The gate guarding the Rikkai primary school campus was both serious and menacing. The metals of the entrance glared under the morning sun, and the concrete of the path and walls was utterly smooth, elegant yet somehow severe. Rikkai Dai schools, from primary to university, were known to be some of the best in the nation. Highest ranking students, excellent facilities, the best faculty money could buy. Top of the heap.

The boy standing before the gate looked unimpressed. Unimpressed by the perfection of his new school; by his new school uniform; by the fact that he was going to be among the nation’s most brilliant seven year olds. Indeed, the smirk tickling his lips was only the excitement he felt over the opportunity to have a whole new slew of victims.

“You’re going to be late if you keep standing there like that,” a polite voice piped up from beside him.

Niou Masaharu turned his gaze and was both delighted and disgusted by the perfect little boy standing next to him. Neither a wrinkle in his clothes nor a brown hair out of place, with large eyes - strangely sentient for someone so young - and skin unmarked by childish roughhousing, this was a boy who would make mothers all over coo and sigh.

It made Niou want to break him.

“No kidding?” he replied, his own brown eyes half-lidded as he watched the other take him in with those green-hazel orbs. From his messy black hair pulled back in a rattail to his dirt-dulled shoes, every inch the boy examined made Niou feel more and more alien, a welcome feeling…mostly.

Finally, the perfect child answered, “You’re new, right?”

“Wow, good guess,” Niou marveled sarcastically. “You Rikkai kids really are the smartest in Japan, huh?”

The other boy’s mouth twitched into a slight frown, but the words that came out were still polite enough. “Do you need help finding your class?” What a sweet little gentleman, but Niou thought he heard a condescending note in the phrase.

“That‘s nice of you. I‘d like that.” The smile across the little terror’s face was anything but sincere. “What class are you in?”

“A-1.” The response split Niou’s smile into an eager grin.

“Me too.”

Watching the flawless little student’s face pale, Niou wanted to laugh and laugh. The vicious seven year old couldn’t have considered himself luckier, at least not until the tardy bell began to chime. His words were as playfully malicious as his dancing eyes. “Whoops. Looks like we’ll have to be punished for being late.”

The other boy’s cheeks turned a deep red. He glared at Niou and stormed toward the school without another word; his new classmate followed lazily behind, much more satisfied with his new school already.

--

The teacher introduced the new student as Niou Masaharu and told everyone to make friends with him. He’d basked in the stares he received and told them where he’d moved from, if had any pets, the answers to all of the curious, prying questions young children have. The girls all giggled about him.

Niou’s latest victim had deafened his ears to anything having to do with the new kid. He stared blankly ahead the whole time, only looking up when the teacher pointed to where Niou would be sitting. He was barely able to keep his grief from his expression as he gazed at the empty desk next to his.

Niou took his seat, and the class began. The teacher started by having the students get out their language practice workbooks (Niou was given his own and told that he was expected to keep up with the work they were doing now but should try the exercises from before just for practice). She went over the answers for the students, slowly writing the basic characters on the blackboard.

A hiss drifted to the boy’s ear, and by reflex he glanced in the direction it came from. Upon seeing Niou smiling at him, he locked his gaze firmly on his own homework and ignored the noise meant to catch his attention. When Niou escalated to gently prodding him in the arm with a sharp index finger, though, the boy’s attention snapped onto the other in a full glare.

“What do you want?”

“What’s your name?”

Their eyes stayed fixed as the teacher droned on. Amber gazed innocently; jade looked critical.

“…Yagyuu Hiroshi.”

Niou seemed to consider this for a moment, digesting it. His face became serious without warning, and, as his lips parted, Yagyuu was almost anxious to know what he was going to say next.

“Can I call you Hiroshi-kun if I let you call me Masaharu-chan?”

Their eyes remained fixed for only another moment. Yagyuu slowly turned back to his workbook and refused to look at Niou for the rest of class until lunch started. That was when Niou forced him to.

The question was casual. “Hey, Hiroshi-kun, are you going to eat all of your bread?”

The answer was clipped. “Don’t call me that.”

Frowning, the black-haired youth cocked his head to one side. “Don‘t you like it? What else do your friends call you?”

“We aren’t friends.”

“You’re my new best friend,” Niou protested, but Yagyuu wouldn’t respond to such comments any further, so he switched tactics. “Do you play any sports?”

No reply.

“I don’t really, either. How about art? Or music?”

Silence.

“Yeah, that stuff is boring. We should go on an adventure. Can you do something after school tomorrow?”

Nothing.

“…..or the next day?”

Until then, Yagyuu had been staring at his food as he ate, trying to ignore Niou’s babble. At the age of seven, he hadn’t quite developed the tact of being coldly polite in a way that would scare off any offender, but he’d always found that saying nothing usually did the job. For some reason, today it just wasn’t working. He brought his eyes up to look at Niou once more, and that seemed, for a few seconds, to be enough for the talkative boy because he merely stared back.

“You’ve got some rice on your cheek.”

Yagyuu’s hand darted up to brush the untimely grain away and, hopefully, cover the light heat that surfaced from his embarrassment. “Why are you picking on me?”

The new boy looked absolutely shocked. “Picking on you? I’m not picking on you! I’m just making conversation and getting to know my new best friend.” Yagyuu opened his mouth to object, but Niou cut him off. “Why don’t you want to be my friend?”

“Because….you made me late, and…” He was unable to think of anything other than the grudge he was holding against Niou. That made him feel terribly childish; perhaps the new boy was just trying to be funny when he’d been sarcastic. Maybe he was just weirdly outgoing.

Yagyuu frowned and decided that he’d give the other boy a chance, even though he knew underneath that the boy probably really wasn’t pleasant at all. He’d just have be on his guard.

Before they could say anymore to each other, the teacher told them it was time to resume class. The rest of the school day passed as usual, except Yagyuu kept shooting glances at Niou to keep an eye on him. The brown-eyed boy didn’t seem interested in school at all; he seemed to be daydreaming and doodling on his papers when everyone else was copying down math notes. How he had gotten into Rikkai primary class A-1, Yagyuu could only wonder.

Once, when those green-hazel eyes were roaming over Niou’s form - he slouched in his chair and let his feet dangle and sway, Yagyuu observed - they were met by the cool gaze of the trickster. Surprised by the eye contact, Yagyuu found himself unable to break it. The impish boy smiled at him, and the bell letting school out for the day sounded. They stood up at the same time and kept staring at one another, scrutinizing.

“So, we’re gonna play after school tomorrow, right?” Niou asked in his pushy way. When Yagyuu nodded, Niou looked overjoyed. “Alright! See you tomorrow, Hiroshi-kun!” And he bounded out the doorway.

Yagyuu was about to revolt against the name, but his teacher smiled down at him. “That’s very sweet of you, Yagyuu, making friends with the new boy. He seems very lively.” He could only give a half-hearted smile and a nod before starting on his walk home, a walk in the late afternoon heat that left the little gentleman chilled to the bone from ideas of what his new “best friend” might propose they do tomorrow.