"I crush you with the distance between the stars, gravity surrounds you, your entire body clumps together into a ball of bone, flesh, and sinew. Your lungs forget what it means to breathe as the vacuum of space is all that surrounds you."

  "Oh…" The blonde girl stiffened in thought, before her smile returned knowing what to do; "I dodge your attack and shoot you with my water-rain-weather-ray-gun! Kills you instantly." She ad libbed the last part, imitating the sound of what she thinks a 'water-rain-weather-ray-gun!' sounded like.

  Lucius' face drops, reddening with anger. "You. Can't. Do. That."

  In the corner of his eye, a strawberry blond raised his hand, along with an extra finger at the direction of the girl, "Since that's not a counter I'm giving one point to Lithia, this also means you died, Lucius."

  Lucifer looked him in the eyes, something within the deep purple broke at that moment. As if glass shattered right within his iris. The eyes truly are the windows to the soul, he thought.

  Lithia pranced around, celebrating her momentary victory. She cheered and chanted, going "I won! I won! Lucius is a loser!"

  The strawberry blond lazily gazed at the morphing expressions of Lucius, surely, he wouldn't let this get to him, would he? Lucifer approached carefully, deliberately stepping in ways that would avoid setting him off. In this attempt, he met Lucius at arms length. His fiery orange eyes glanced at the whitened clenched fists of the boy. Surely, his perfect baby teeth were gritting as well.

  He opened his mouth, and Lucifer knew what Lucius was about to yell.

  "You're a star!" Lucius sharply shoved his pointer finger at her, face morphed into rage, "You're a star! You're a star! You're a star!" He chanted, possessed by the tantrums of a six year old.

  Lithia stopped her parading around, taking a second to understand what was being said to her. When her mind computed his kind words, her smile widened further, now having the gall to grasp the porcelain boy's hands and drag him into her parading around. She chanted with him;

  "I'm a star! I'm a star! I'm a star!"

  "You're a star! You're a star! You're a star!"

  Lucifer knew, that in a month from now, when they start in preschool;

  This boy will be a menace.

  Preschool was miraculously fine. It seemed Lucius got along with people quite well. He was doted on by everyone. He had unique colored eyes— purple, exotic, and never before seen. His skin was porcelain, lacking blemishes, and his face was often talked about in whispers as being dreamy. Lucius' hair reminded of a cloudless, starless night, but what caught everyone's attention; female or not, were his words.

  "You mean more than a star." Lucius said to another unknowing victim. The girls surrounding him burst out in awe, almost begging to be picked next, to be the next person swayed by his words. He complied; "You're worth more than the countless stars above."

  Lithia, sitting next to Lucifer, watched their interaction with a grimace. "I know that he's really nice but it feels like he's forgetting us." She murmured. Lucifer noticed a glint of sadness in her eyes, likely taking Lucius interaction as abandonment.

  She'd met him just last month, and as kids are, she got herself attached too quickly.

  Before Lucifer could give any of his input, the bell rang, announcing the flood of schoolboys entering the classroom right after a recess of soccer. Normally, everyone would be forced to leave the classroom, however, the teacher, Miss Soiree, deemed them harmless enough to go unsupervised.

  In all likelihood, she assumed the girls would be all too preoccupied with her star student to do anything which would need supervision.

  "Settle down everyone!" Mrs. Soiree announced, her gaze followed the loud stream of boys crashing into the classroom and fighting over their seats. They were assigned already, so why?

  The girls dispersed from around Lucius, yet their looks never truly left him. In the same vein, neither did the looks from the other boys. To them, he was a walking timebomb of cooties.

  As class began, murmurs formed in the back, something Lucifer caught with a snippet of attention. It was from the boys, a chant that had a nice ring to it, in Lucifer's ear. Lu~ci~us has coo~ties.

  Ten minutes passed without Soiree noticing anything. She was blind to the silent warfare now occurring between the boys and the girls. One side hated the other for insulting their compliment-spewing machine.

  Lu~ci~us has coo~ties, Lu~ci~us has coo~ties, Lu~ci~us has coo~ties—

  "Michael! Stand up!" Mrs. Soiree noticed just then, and only then, when the first paper ball was thrown at her star student. From the corner of his eye, Lucifer saw how Lucius solely reacted with confusion, as if none of the surrounding events happened to him. He turned around to see the blue-eyed brunet who had apparently thrown something at him. "Come to the front of the class, right now, and explain yourself."

  Begrudgingly, the boy did as she said. Scowling at the purple-eyed menace as he walked by.

  Now, in front of everyone, he spoke; "Okay, um, Lucius…" Michael looked up at Mrs. Soiree, the woman staring at him with anticipation, "Lucius…" He began to sing, "Lu~ci~us has coo~ties, Lu~ci~us has coo~ties, Lu~ci~us has coo~ties. And he has weird eyes too!"

  Half the class erupted in laughter, Lithia peered around in discomfort at the way her friend was being treated. Mrs. Soiree struggled to silence their mockery.

  However, Lucius seemed to have his mind elsewhere entirely. Slowly, he pushed the desk away, approaching the two at the front, stopping right as he faced Michael.

  "Whatever you say won't hurt me, not when you're my star."

  …

  Lucifer waited outside of the principal's office, sitting patiently while munching on the lemon candies offered by the receptionist. Luckily, he managed to prevent Michael from punching the porcelain boy straight in the face.

  Inside, the two sat on opposite chairs, the principal read through the report, over, and over again. Why are they both here?

  To conceal his confusion, he asks in a strained tone; "Do you know what you've done?"

  Lucius spoke up first, ignoring the other sitting beside him, "He's my star, I've done nothing but tell him that." He turned away, stubborn in his conviction.

  "I– he!" Michael tried, "He just—!" and he tried again. "He's just so…"

  "So what?" The principal was left even more confused now than before.

  Michael didn't actually know why he was upset. Those words resonated something within him, he's someone's star. It wasn't something he had heard before, not from his friends, nor his family. In fact, he felt now more than ever that he should apologize to the boy beside him for calling him odd.

  "I'm sorry, you don't have cooties, and you don't have weird eyes. I overreacted." Michael stood up, fiddling with his fingers as he humbled himself by apologizing. Lucius didn't seem to share the same sentiment, he wasn't even looking at him as he apologized. "Lucius?" Michael asked.

  The principal, touched by this heartwarming display, commanded both of them. "Give each other a hug and forgive."

  Then, the boy finally glanced up, an unreadable expression lacing his face. Lucius gazed over at Michael, with a single intention. "So you concede? You accept that you're my star?"

  Michael, finding himself in front of his new friend, smiled and nodded, "Yes! I'm your star!" he opened his arms, thinking that maybe, the last thing he needed to reign in a hug was to return the favor. "And you're my star too!"

  Lucius dropped whatever his smug expression was prior, if Lucifer were here, he'd get closer to the boy as a means to prevent any possible incidents. But he wasn't here. "No!"

  Michael wasn't sure how to react, maybe he ruined it after all. Even worse was the principal, completely taken aback by what transpired. "I'm sorry, you're not my star, I take it back." Michael solemnly muttered. "I am only your star. You aren't mine."

  To his surprise, Lucius returned to the same, smug expression, "Yes, that you are, star."

  That day, Lucius gained a new admirer.

  Lucifer noticed a pattern with Lucius, he had seen it appearing before, but now in second grade it was most prominent. The strawberry blond watched as it happened again. Every time he finished reading a sentence in his mother's book about magic and all the sort, he would stare at Lucifer expectantly. He wouldn't turn away until Lucifer gave him what he wanted. It just so happened that most of the time, Lucius wanted a sip.

  "You really like 'Milky Way', don't you Lucius?" Lithia asked, a smile present on her face, "Lucifer told me you loved it so I bought you a ton, glad you like it."

  Lucius didn't glance up to give her any sense of attention. In fact, since the start of their 'friendship' Lucius hadn't spoken to her directly even once, the poor girl couldn't for the life of her see it. The boy had a vendetta against her and it was one that wouldn't disappear until she knelt and kissed his feet in apology.

  "Lucius thanks you," Lucifer explained, splitting his vision between the football match in front of them and the two sitting by him. At his words did Lucius peer up, confusion present on his face, almost as if to ask 'who are you talking to?' Lucifer stared ahead, he couldn't bother with him right now.

  They continued their rhythm for a while, by the time the final goal of the football match was scored—by Michael— Lucius had drunk through six cartons of Milky Way chocolate milk, all of which were provided by Lithia.

  With excited footsteps, Michael approached their bench, he stopped right as he crashed into the iron fence separating the tiny field and the onlookers. "Lucius! Lucius! Did you see?"

  Lucius didn't care, it wasn't doubtful that he didn't even realize there was a match happening in front of him. But Michael couldn't see that. It was another thing Lucifer noticed, the kids seemed fine being around someone, as long as they said words that were kind on the surface.

  Noticing how he garnered none of Lucius' attention, Michael climbed the fence to reach him face-to-face, and when he stood there like an idiot, he tried a different method. He reached out to the book, but before he could touch a page, Lucifer slapped away his hand.

  Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  "Hey!" Michael exclaimed.

  Lucifer shushed him in return, knowing that this would lead solely to disappointment. Maybe Michael, like the dog he is, would know to back off.

  Sadly, he kept barking; "Lucius! Did you see my goal? I won!"

  Michael's eyes lit up, because for a moment it looked like Lucius was about to see him. He was wrong, again, Lucius gave Lucifer the thousand yard stare, signaling that he wanted his seventh Milky Way chocolate milk.

  At that, Michael readied himself to actually start screaming, however, luckily, Lithia found him to be distracting.

  "Hey! Stinky boy! Leave us alone!" She shooed at him, trying to kick him away with her torn shoes. "You've been trying to hang out with us when we don't want you here! Obviously!"

  Michael scowled at her sudden outburst, ending up grabbing her feet and dragging her from the bench. Lithia hit the ground, yelling as she saw Michael step over her to take her spot.

  "He calls me his star!" He yelled at the girl writhing on the floor, "You're the one being annoying, I've seen you guys for a year and I have never seen you talk with him."

  People weren't really watching them, surprisingly. But if they did, they would see Lithia launching herself like a missile at the brunet. Luckily, Lucifer had the thought of pulling Lucius away to the next class.

  Two miscreants came late to class that day, bruises present on both of them.

  Another weirdo entered the classroom, a new student, one foreign to this side of town. He called himself 'Aleron Solun', hearing that name raised alarm bells in one, Michael Luan.

  He was a meek boy, pale but not porcelain, hair black like shadows dancing in different shapes. His red eyes contrasted Michael's blue ones perfectly. Nobody questioned it though, he wasn't the first one with an abnormal eye color in the room.

  Mrs. Soiree made him write his name on the board and she asked him to take a seat, however she was quick to correct her decision, clapping her hands together with a new plan.

  "Actually class, I'd like to change the seating arrangement a tiny bit." She started, the class erupted in discontent, everyone giving the idea a piece of their mind in retaliation. "Calm down, calm down, I did say a tiny bit, didn't I? This will only concern… two of you at most."

  Mrs. Soiree indirectly caused the majority of the class to begin praying then and there. Nobody wanted to switch seats, especially not Michael who, last time they were assigned, was lucky enough to sit next to Lucius Nox.

  She paused, finally gazing at her victims after connecting a few dots in her head. She made a mental line between Lucifer and Michael and a metaphorical lightbulb lit above her. Lucifer only likes to talk to Lucius, doesn't he?

  At the current moment, Lucifer was unique in sitting completely alone. Normally Mrs. Soiree would be fine just sending the new kid to a vacant seat, but she wasn't exactly certain of Lucifer's ability to hold a conversation. Rarely did she see him speak to anyone outside of Lucius' presence. So, to serve as a solution, she found her target.

  "Michael, could you please switch seats with Lucifer over here?" She asked with a smile.

  Immediately, Michael shook, a firm refusal in moving from his seat. "I don't wanna." He said.

  "You have to, Michael, show some courtesy to your new classmate here," she gestured for Aleron to move forward. It seemed that even he found the whole thing uncomfortable. He was obviously not wanted, but here she pushed for Michael to sit with him.

  "But—"

  "If you're going to be annoying I'd rather sit with Lucifer, now move." Lucius commanded in a way that caused everything to start moving. Promptly, all the seats were switched as they should be. Lucius with Lucifer, and Aleron with Michael.

  Their class resumed with no further interruption.

  "Why do you smell so weird?" Michael whispered bitterly and the new kid wasted no time returning the insult.

  "And you don't smell like shit and saliva?"

  The brunet had to gather himself, what? Michael scratches his head, unsure of what to say next, so, as a countermeasure, Michael spits on the duffel bag hanging on Aleron's chair.

  Mrs. Soiree wrote happily on the board, that happiness abruptly came to an end when a loud slap resounded from the back of the classroom. She couldn't turn around before an even louder wailing noise exploded from Michael. Aleron opened his notebook, finally ready for class.

  In the moment, Mrs. Soiree attempted to speak up. No matter how she tried, she couldn't. Her vocal cords constricted and when she approached, her mind couldn't agree with her to do so.

  Lucius slammed his fists on Aleron's desk. The latter boy glanced up from his book. He recognized this 'Lucius' as the guy who Michael just sat next to. In his mind, he disliked him too.

  "What?" Aleron scowled, "Trying to get revenge for your boyfriend?"

  "Don't you dare call him my boyfriend." Lucius glared, "He's my star," the porcelain boy pointed at the crying Michael, it seemed, however, that with his words, Michael's cries died down. "Back off." Lucifer stood behind him, acting as extra 'threatening' support.

  With Lucius' attention now on Michael, he went on to grab hold of the brunet, fleeing the classroom. Lucifer understood that, although it was a slight overreaction, Lucius taking him to the nurse was a very 'Lucius' thing to do.

  "What about you?" Aleron spat, "You just gonna stand there?"

  Lucifer was about to leave and go back to his seat, his intrigue wouldn't let him go, however. Now, he wanted to share a piece of his mind. He closed the distance between them, leaning into his ear.

  "Fix your attitude in front of Nox, I know who you are, Solun." When Lucifer found the other boy's reaction satisfactory, when he found that 'fear' was all that this Aleron could think of, he leaned away. With a final stare down to confirm Aleron's understanding, Lucifer made his way to the nurse's office in pursuit of the crying baby and the narcissist.

  Mrs. Soiree finds herself speechless, simply ignoring her duty, and going back to drawing on the board.

  Fourth grade was when Lucius' spell broke. When his charming words soured.

  "Everything here and there is made up of numbers," Lucius spoke, slowly and lazily. "Math is my subject."

  Lucifer caressed the porcelain boy's back. He laid his head down in disinterest, after all, in this hour his least favorite lesson was at full display. He hated physics. Lucifer understood that Lucius found it to be useless.

  This year, the classroom had a bit of an overhaul. Now there were triple desks which the students shared. Lucifer and Lucius sat together— again, but with a third classmate, a girl who paid them no attention outside of group work. Begrudgingly, Lithia was forced to sit in the middle of Aleron and Michael.

  If others considered Lucius to be a star, then the way people saw Aleron and Michael was like the sun and moon. Aleron hated being in the sun whilst Michael found the moon a tad bit disturbing.

  "Lithia, mind if I borrow your eraser?" Aleron asked politely, never raising his hand until having received the nod from Lithia. "Thank you very much."

  Lithia wasn't necessarily annoyed at them all the time. Actually, in her mind, Aleron was quite a nice person to sit with. He never spoke out of turn and when he did it was to compliment her for her blonde hair.

  There was nothing wrong with her assigned seat…

  "Poor fuck." Michael jabbed beneath his breath.

  …if it weren't for the second douchebag right next to her.

  "Say that again why don't you?" As if having his fuse set off, Aleron lost whatever composure he held before. They'd been at this 'war' for a year now, as expected since it started on day one. "Fucking mutt."

  Of course, their dialogue changed. A year is enough for kids to grow massively. Not only has everyone changed physically, but a few extra words were added to their vocabularies. For Michael and Aleron, these words were free use no matter the sentence they'd thought of in their heads.

  "Alright, class!" Mr. Hesod the science teacher, gathered everyone's focus with a clap of his hands, "Take a ten minute break everyone! There's some material I have to get downstairs." He left the classroom swiftly.

  Seeing this opportunity, Lithia left her desk, heading straight for Lucifer and Lucius. "Helloooo~?" She slid awkwardly in between their desk and the one in front of theirs.

  Lucifer glanced up at her, prying his absolute focus away from whatever it was Lucius was drawing. "Hello, Lithia." Lucifer greeted.

  She inspected the dozens of papers they had on their side of the table. It was a bunch of drawings in varying degrees of skill. She noticed that there was an equal amount of ugly drawings as ones that were easily placeable in a museum. Lithia picked one of the good ones and smiled.

  It was a sketch portrait of Lucius. Perfectly capturing his most handsome features with nothing but a dull graphite pen.

  "This must've been drawn by a master with how good it is." Lithia's eyes slid towards Lucius who gave no reaction. She recognized early on this year that Lucius would always give her a direct reply if she were to compliment him, but here he said nothing.

  "I drew that, thank you." Lucifer interjected, knowing her intentions, he was discreet about what he wanted to say to her.

  Lithia understood instantly, gathering a poor stickman drawing for the perfect pivot, "But this one is so much better, whoever drew this is a genius among geniuses. Sorry, Lucifer." She ad-libbed the last part.

  At that, Lucius pried away from his next art piece and said; "Yes that's right, I drew that." He gave her his signature smug smile and continued on with his work.

  Lithia, seeing that she wouldn't get much more conversation from these two, trekked back to her seat. Where at some point, Michael and Aleron had successfully left completely clean. Now they wrestled by the board to everyone's amusement.

  Michael had the upper hand recently.

  "Lucifer, I want to go home," Lucius crumpled the paper he had just worked on, now he looked at Lucifer. "If I want to learn more about physics, mother is better at teaching."

  After a quick minute of packing their stuff, the two quietly— actually just Lucifer— approached the door. When he opened it for Lucius to step out, they were both immediately met with Mr. Hesod. To Lucifer's dismay, his collecting of material was a bit faster than anticipated.

  "Lucius! Where do you think you're heading?" Mr. Hesod questioned, pushing the porcelain boy back into the classroom.

  Lucius would get the brunt of the blame. The strawberry blond tensed up, this was an 'unstoppable force meets an immovable object' scenario.

  "Home." Lucius said, annoyed as if his intentions were clear as day. "Your teaching is stellar, I have no reason to listen to it."

  With this, everyone, including the two brawling boys had swapped their attention over to them. Mr. Hesod had to pause, stellar?

  Puzzled, the teacher had to ask; "Wouldn't that make you want to stay and listen?" and then he added, "Either way, school is obligatory, you skip my class and there'll be trouble."

  "Lucius, you should stay!" Michael suggested from the floor, getting up after Aleron loosened his grip. Lithia started gesturing at Lucifer, doing her best to express for them to just stay, that it's not worth it.

  Lucius rolled his eyes, Lucifer knew this wouldn't end well. "I meant that you're meaningless, physics teacher."

  Mr. Hesod was still not caught up. Thinking that he was talking to some child who had no clue how words in the English language even functioned, he had to ask again; "Lucius, do you know what stellar means? Do you know what a star is?"

  "More than you do," The porcelain boy was getting annoyed, dumbfounded at his teacher's question, "A star is useless, meaningless, a waste of space, time, effort—"

  "No, that's not at all…" Mr. Hesod at this point was shocked at this sudden revelation. So he tried again, but with a nicer approach, "No, Lucius, following your line of thought— a star is someone more like you, you're—"

  Lucius yelled then; "No you're a star! You're filled with gas and your whole purpose is to die!"

  The brunet who had just stepped towards them froze at that explanation. Everyone else in the class who had fallen prey to Lucius' complimenting streak had slowly, like a domino effect, begun their understanding. Lucifer listened carefully as a bunch of people expressed their 'what?'s and their 'what did he say?'s.

  "You… I'm your s–star…?" Michael whispered. Whether it was to Lucius or himself, he had no idea. Something within this ten year old boy completely shattered with just a few words. Lucifer almost pitied him.

  But Aleron didn't.

  "Wait actually?" The noiret smiled so widely, that the corners of his mouth were in danger of getting stuck. "What the fuck dude." Aleron looked at the distraught face of Michael and he couldn't hold it in any longer. He laughed.

  Aleron laughed, howling so loudly it was the sole sound filling the classroom. He knew there was something wrong with that guy. It was even funnier seeing how this was the first time anyone came to realize that. Lithia wanted to slap his mouth shut. His laughter was soon drowned by everyone else.

  "What is wrong with you?"

  "What is wrong with him?"

  Lucifer couldn't care much for the details, the questions were recycled complaints. Of course, they complained. This was betrayal, sweet betrayal.

  "Go to the principal's office." Mr. Hesod stepped aside, pointing at the door. When Lucius simply strolled out with Lucifer in tow.

  "Why? My house is in the opposite direction."