A/N: Hi, Derek here. I want to thank everyone that has taken interest in this story, it’s really appreciated! Okay, just a quick summary-

Kiyoshi, a 16 year old boy is in search of a new life in London to find his British brithparents. He has no plans, so takes life as it comes. He meets a handsome stranger by the name of Mateus, who is rude and arrogant; his personality clashes with Kiyoshi’s, as he is extremely polite and a little naïve. Somehow the two become close friends…and maybe, they share a little more than just friendship…

Chapter 1 – Inoue Kiyoshi

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The bus is empty, empty except for a lonely 16 year old boy sitting in daydream near the back of the bus. He has his head resting on the window, listening to the sounds of the rattling bus and missing the warm, sunny weather he is so used to outside. He is on his way to London, and has been excited about for years; but there’s only one problem, he has been traveling for days and is now feeling extremely travel-sick not to mention, home-sick.

Kiyoshi often sits alone; he rather likes the solitary life. It gives him time to think, but now, on an empty bus in a foreign country, he feels uncomfortably alone and quite uneasy. He is determined to enjoy himself, so he grins at his reflection in the window; all he receives back is a tired smile.

He is jerked back to reality when the bus stops abruptly and a group of boys, around the same age as himself, join his company on the bus. Kiyoshi looks up and smiles his usual child-like smile at the youth nearest to him. The lad scowls back, and his friends twitter. They look like Jocks, and not a very friendly bunch either. They sit down behind him and Kiyoshi turns round to talk to them.

He nods his head as a subtle, customary Japanese greeting, but the lads frown back at him and again, begin their intimidating giggling.

“What you starin’ at, Nerd?” says the boy Kiyoshi had smiled to a few moments before. Kiyoshi is a little confused, he was sure he hadn’t offended them.

‘Maybe this is the British was of being friendly’ thinks Kiyoshi, ‘maybe “Nerd” is another word for friend!’

“Nothing, so, how are you…Nerd?” replies Kiyoshi in a rather over-confident manner.

“What you callin’ me?” thunders the boy, throwing Kiyoshi a menacing look. He doesn’t reply but the boy continues to glare. “You call me that, one more time and I’ll…” he draws back his arm and punches his other hand with a smack. Kiyoshi jumps.

He turns back round to avoid drawing anymore attention to himself.

‘Funny’, Kiyoshi thinks to himself, ‘I thought he was being friendly’. Kiyoshi had been bought up in his Japanese family to speak English and Chinese as well as Japanese. He was rather fluent in all three, but personally found English a little difficult…so much slang…

He wasn’t fluent in street talk. That’s what the Japanese called it, ‘street talk.’ Maybe he should avoid it.

He slips back into his own little daydream, about what it must be like in London. All those shops, and people, and tourist attractions! It was going to be so different to home, -a quiet, sparsely populated town, on the West Coast of Japan, near the mountains. Streams, hills, farms, there was none of that here in London for miles.

His thoughts are trampled on as a white object narrowly misses his head. It flies past and sticks like a blob of glue to the back of the seat in front…chewing gum.

Kiyoshi knows it was them…the Jocks. Shrieks of laughter and congratulating grunts confirmed that. Kiyoshi spins round.

“What was that for…Nerd!?” he yells without thinking. He clasps his hands over his mouth praying to the Gods that the boys hadn’t heard that. ‘Damn damn damn, I’m dead!’ The boy stands up and towers over a terrified Kiyoshi.

“I told you, you little prat, if you EVER…!!” He draws back his arm as he had done before and hurls his fist into Kiyoshi’s face.

Pain paralyzes him and he falls to the floor, blood trickling from his nose, over his upper lip and into his mouth. That sweet, sickly, metallic taste of blood. Kiyoshi is blinded, on his hands and knees in the aisle of the bus, roars of laugher ringing in his ears. He tries to scuttle back to his seat, but is kicked back down by the heavy feet of the youths as they leave the bus.

Dizzy, he pulls himself raggedly back to his seat. The events whirr round in his mind, but he is determined to have a good day. He wipes the blood from his nose onto a paper tissue and realizes there is blood smeared across his forearm. There is no damage; it’s just blood from his nose.

Kiyoshi resumes his meaningless stares at his reflection in the glass. The bus begins to fill up, but to Kiyoshi’s almighty relief, no-one wants to sit down next to him. He thinks of home, how he longs for his family to be here. But most of all, he wishes that somehow his birthparents could be here. How he longed for them. He cannot remember them, but he misses them.

Kiyoshi lived with his Japanese family for thirteen years. They brought him up as one of their own. He had always known he wasn’t really Japanese; he looked different, had a different accent and found it hard to follow customs that he didn’t agree with sometimes. He was the only boy like that in his town.

He has eyes the colour of melted chocolate and his hair is scruffy and fair. He has a round, slightly tanned, childish face, and is taller than all his Japanese friends. (Though he does not realize this, he is actually rather short for his age). Kiyoshi cannot remember his real name; it was changed when he was young, when his birthparents disappeared. He looks at his blood covered hands. He feels a mess.

The bus fills up and finally (to his dismay) a stranger sits next to Kiyoshi. He avoids eye contact and so does not glance up. He is focused on his hands. He has slim, slightly tanned arms and a few freckles. He likes his freckles…none of his friends have them. He takes a quick glance upward to see who is sitting next to him, frightened and wary that it is another antagonistic youth. The stranger again, seems his age but is dressed much differently to the boys he had the misfortune to meet earlier. The boy is faced away from him, and all Kiyoshi can see of the stranger is his back, he is wearing a slightly creased black shirt and has messy, spiked black hair. The boys’ arm is stretched out and grasping the rail on the back of the seat in front. Kiyoshi is amazed at how pale he is! He is wearing a black sweatband on his wrist and Kiyoshi has never seen anything like it.

‘What a pointless item of clothing…if you can call it that’ he thinks. Kiyoshi stretches out his arm and clasps the rail next to the strangers white hand. He compares their skin colour. ‘I look really tanned compared to him!’

Kiyoshi chuckles and the boy turns round. Kiyoshi averts his gaze and stares stupidly at his shoes, withdrawing his arm from next to the boys’ extremely quickly.

“Freak” Kiyoshi hears the boy mutter, but he doesn’t understand what this means either. ‘It must be another insult perhaps.’

Finally the bus stops at London’s main Bus station. Kiyoshi waits politely for the other passenger to exit the bus, but they push and shove him to move along. He steps out and chokes. London air is so different to Japanese air. Pollution, Kiyoshi had never known it was this bad.

He looks up and his spirits are raised by the thought of discovery. Little did he know, WHAT it was he was soon to discover…

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A/N: Thanks for reading, I hope you liked it. Chapter 2 will be up soon, and things begin to get difficult for Kiyoshi…but humorous for the reader!

Kiyoshi is pronounced (Kye-osh-ee)

All the best everyone! xXx Derek xXx