Sam paid and thanked the driver before climbing out of the taxi to face yet another « new beginning ». As he hauled the large suitcase out of the trunk, he decided that he would at least try and look happy about this. Although when you took the time to think about it, there really was not that much to be happy about.

His mother had decided that as soon as he finished secondary school, she would look for somewhere to “help” him, or maybe just somewhere to help her get rid of him. He knew full well that his step father only considered him a burden; someone else’s child and a freak to boot. So as soon as he was free of school the whole family had been shipped off to the states in order to find a solution.

Gone were the dreams of choosing a subject and going to university, like all the other students in his class. No, now he was nineteen and still being pushed around by his mum. As the cab pulled away Sam let out a sigh and turned to face his future. Well at least he could not accuse his mother of sending him to some dump. The place was grand to say the least, but right now it still looked a tiny bit like a prison to Sam.

His mother had been in high spirits when she had come back with the news. She has found a world renowned school to take him in and it was right here in New York. It was a lovely place where they took care of people with his kind of issues and she was sure he would love it. So sure he would love it that she had sent him here in a cab with only a quick goodbye at the door of their rented flat. Oh and the news that they were going back to England the next day. So in the end he really was good and trapped and the only way was forward.

Dragging the single suitcase that held all of his belongings he pushed himself into motion and made his way towards the imposing front door. He wondered if he would manage to finally find people to accept him here. As far as he knew everyone here was a mutant but that didn’t change that on top of being a mutant he was also Asian looking, would that be a problem here? Well worrying about that would not make it any less likely.

The door swung open easily enough considering its size and he made his way into an equally impressive entrance hall there was sign indicating admissions office “first floor”. Making his way there he handed over the pile of paperwork his mother had given him and waited for it to be processed. She had told him that all the necessary forms had been filed in and they should know of his arrival. As it turned out she was right but it also worked out that the person handling his arrival had been called away on urgent business. The receptionist could not tell him how long he would have to wait so he moved himself back out into the hallway and sat down on the top of his bag. He just hoped that it would not take too long because he had skipped breakfast and looking at the time lunch would be a welcome thing quite soon.

One week. One whole week since Darren had moved into the mansion. He thought he might slowly be getting used to the school, to all of the mutants openly inhabiting it. Really, it was the sheer number of people who lived and studied there that really got him. He wasn’t the most outgoing of souls, so even introducing himself to a single person was a struggle. His father had told him that he had to shed his inhibitions if he wanted to make friends at the new school, but that was easier said than done.

Having essentially missed a week of education during his parent’s search for a new school, and having transferred at the very end of first semester, the teenager was already struggling academically at Xavier’s. A few teachers had suggested he meet with a student tutor in the library, or grab a few study partners, but that also required putting himself out there and approaching strangers.

He just…wasn’t good at it. But he knew he had to listen to his dad’s and teachers’ advice if he wanted to survive, both socially and academically. Le teenage sigh.

Darren continued to ponder his situation as he neared the admissions office. He needed to pick up the finalized copy of his school schedule, as stated on an official note left tacked on his door that morning. As he entered the door, an older boy walked out, suitcase in tow and unhappy look on his face. Hm, was Darren no longer the new kid?

The other boy was still outside the office, perched on his suitcase, after the shy teenager received his schedule.

Maybe it was time to put Blake Argo’s advice to use…

“H-hi, I’m Darren,” he started, clearing his throat and putting on a timid smile, “Did you just arrive? I just transferred a week ago.”

Sam startled as someone pulled open the door to the admissions office from the inside. He had not even realized someone else had been in there. Just went to show how little attention he had been paying to his surroundings. Pulling himself out of his own private gloom cloud, he turned to study the person that had just stepped into the corridor next to him.

It turned out to be a boy a few years younger than him, brown hair pretty much ordinary looking. But considering where they were looks were probably the only thing ordinary about the teenager standing next to him. Sam had always found it weird how people could be so normal but because of one gene going a bit crazy find themselves so shunned. He reckoned that if you were born with the ability to control your power perfectly, most mutants would just live ordinary lives. He certainly knew he would have liked it to happen that way.

He must have been staring as the youth turned to him and introduced himself in a small voice.

“H-hi, I’m Darren,”

Darren, right now all he had to do was remember that and stop spacing out every five minutes. It wouldn’t do to alienate the first person in this place who actually showed him some kindness. So he put on a smile, trying to make sure it didn’t turn into the forced “crazy killer” type smile you sometimes obtained in this kind of situation.

“Did you just arrive? I just transferred a week ago.”

So Darren would be able to show him the basics here, which was good because the basics were really all you needed. He might have to wait a bit to find his room but that didn’t matter much. Food was much more prominently featured in his thoughts right now.

“Yep, been here about ten minutes and already I’ve been abandoned.”

He said it with humor; it wasn’t really the schools fault that he had been parachuted in here on such short notice. So he couldn’t blame them for not having everything ready. He stood up from his makeshift seat and saw how much taller than Darren he actually was. It was strange how the Korean’s were so tall whereas the Chinese and Japanese had a reputation for being a short people. Not that he was complaining, he quite enjoyed being 5’9 and therefore considered a nice normal height. He stretched out his hand for the other boy to shake.

“I’m Sam by the way, nice to meet you.”

The words were swiftly followed by a rather loud and embarrassing rumble from his long ignored stomach.

When the older boy smiled back, Darren visibly relaxed, glad that the stranger was receiving him well. That was the thing with approaching unfamiliar persons, you never knew what to expect. That unknown was a large part of the teenager’s fear. He had been scorned too many times to chance it again…except, well, he was actually chancing it. Desperate times called for desperate measures.

>> “Yep, been here about ten minutes and already I’ve been abandoned.”

Ah, he understood what happened. It seemed the mansion’s official greeters had a habit of never being around to take charge of the new arrivals, as far as Darren had seen. “Really? W-well I could show you around. I don’t think they would mind, it just wouldn’t be ‘official,’” he offered, shrugging.
Wait, what was he doing?! He was actually trying to prolong human contact? He certainly wouldn’t mind showing the new guy around, admittedly, it was just very…unlike himself. His dads would’ve been proud.

>> “I’m Sam by the way, nice to meet you.”

Darren shook the hand and grinned a little wider. So far so good! Sam was proving to be a pretty friendly person, despite the forlorn expression he had held earlier. He was about to respond when he heard a very loud, very noticeable grumbling sound come from the older boy’s stomach region.

Someone was hungry.

“How about we start the tour in the kitchen? You can leave your suitcase in the office, just let the lady know. I think food’s more important than moving in at the moment.” Spoken like a true teenage boy. Food took precedence over everything.

“How about we start the tour in the kitchen? You can leave your suitcase in the office, just let the lady know. I think food’s more important than moving in at the moment.”

Darren spoke with the knowledgeable tone that only a growing teenager could have employed in this kind of situation. Parents always blamed you for costing them a fortune in food but they must obviously forgotten what it was like to go through a growth spurt. Sam was pretty happy that at age nineteen he was very nearly done with all this growing business. If nothing else it would be nice to have a closet where everything fit.

“Food sounds like a fabulous idea. But I kind of gave that away already didn’t I?”

He then proceeded to do as Darren advised and left his case with the person in the office. She told him that it would be taken up to his room later and he should just drop back whenever to be shown his new living quarters and given the official tour. Sam wondered if “whenever” was a good word for her to be using considering the fact that his official guide was still MIA. Ah well, it didn’t matter did it; it was not like he had pressing business elsewhere.

“Okay, I’m good to go. Before I forget it’s really nice of you to take the time to make sure I don’t starve to death.”

Sam was not really a “people” person but he had long ago worked out that smiling and thanking people got you on the good side of almost any normal person. So he decided to apply this here it would not hurt to be polite and besides he really was grateful for the help.

As they slowly left the administration’s office behind, Sam tried his best to pay attention to the path they took. The mansion was huge and even if it had been sensibly laid out he figured getting lost would be easy enough. Thankfully one of the decent skills he had inherited from his father was a decent sense of direction and a relatively good visual memory for places.

“So what brings you to this academy for the “gifted” then?”

He figured that here this was probably a quite common question. It’s not like you came here without a reason as it wasn’t just a normal private school, it was a private school specifically for mutants.

Darren chuckled at Sam’s reply and nodded, “Yeah, you were pretty loud and clear.” He waited patiently as the older boy entrusted his suitcase to the receptionist in the Admissions Office, and smiled throughout, genuinely happy that Sam was turning out to be a pretty friendly guy, and that he himself was managing to stay mostly calm and nonchalant. Then again, Sam wasn’t a cute teenage girl. There wasn’t much about him that made Darren nervous, past the introductions.

>> “Okay, I’m good to go. Before I forget it’s really nice of you to take the time to make sure I don’t starve to death.”

The teenager nodded, a little abashed. He wasn’t doing much, really. All of his classes were done for the day, and it wasn’t like he had many friends to hang out with in the after-hours. Sure, he had a small pile of homework waiting for him in his room, but it was easy introductory work that he could knock out in an hour or two. “Oh, it’s really no problem. We new kids got to stick together,” he joked.

The duo walked through the large hallways, Darren leading the way to the kitchen, or at least trying to. Truth be told, he was still pretty shaky with directions in the mansion. But the kitchen was one of the locations he frequented at least three times a day, so hopefully it wouldn’t be a problem to find it.

>> “So what brings you to this academy for the “gifted” then?”

He’d received the question plenty of times during the past week, sometimes asked quite bluntly and directly (“What’s your power, dude?”), but he still wasn’t quite used to hearing it. “I’m stretchy. Like rubber bands.” Darren accompanied his words with a small demonstration, shooting his arm a few feet in front of him. He had to admit, he was still a little surprised whenever he did what he did. The teenager wasn’t quite used to his mutation, either.

“What about you?”

Sam waited for an answer while watching his surroundings closely. It appeared that the mansion was laid out in a sensible fashion. Every floor had a purpose and was made up mostly of long straight corridors. Sam smiled, it was hard to get lost going in a straight line. Then he turned his attention back to the teenager walking by his side. Darren wore a slightly odd expression for a second, as if turning in his mind what he was about to say. Sam knew of the difficulty of having to explain one’s power, he had had to do it not so long ago.

“I’m stretchy. Like rubber bands.”

Oh, well that was a pretty straightforward mutation, and to Sam it actually seemed like a potentially useful one. As that thought crossed his mind it was quickly followed by another “Am I jealous?”. Maybe? Probably? He had always felt that if you should be a mutant you might as well have a useful power, which explained why he felt so depressed about his own.

He watched Darren extend his arm in front of him and was at once confronted by one of his childhood memories. When he lived in Korea he had had a friend that just loved animé and one of the series had been about a pirate with the ability to stretch out his body. It was strange to remember this now but it was a good memory and it made him smile.

“What about you?”

He had known asking someone else for a description of their power would mean he had to give one of his own; god that was partially why he had asked, to get used to saying it out loud. He took two minutes to think of the best way to proceed. Simple, to the point, maybe a touch of humour? Ok he had it now; taking a breath he tried to explain.

“Mine is nothing cool, like yours. I can… well make myself look like other people. Not that I get to choose who I look like though and really it’s only an illusion.”

Saying in that way made it sound like the world’s most boring power. Well it was not like he enjoyed it anyway.

Darren led the way down a winding flight of stairs to the first floor, landing in a hallway lined with various classrooms and practice rooms for music. They were near the living room then, if he remembered correctly. Down this hallway, make a turn here…was he getting it right? No, there was no way he could get lost on the way to the kitchen. Too quickly, his mind was filled with directional doubts and navigational uncertainties. He was certain they were on the correct floor, at least…

He was so wrapped up with navigation that he almost didn’t notice the long pause Sam took when asked about his mutation. He almost didn’t notice. After the teenager’s demonstration, the older boy had grown silent. He seemed to be mulling over his answer, and Darren patiently waited for him to come up with it. He could understand how Sam was possibly feeling about things like mutations. It was completely new and uncharted territory. Yet it was also an integral part of their being. That kind of paradox took time getting used to. Not the mention, the actual mutations themselves tended to be of the shocking variety. Those took time to get used to, too, obviously.

>> “Mine is nothing cool, like yours. I can… well make myself look like other people. Not that I get to choose who I look like though and really it’s only an illusion.”

Sam had called Darren’s mutation “cool.” That made him puff his chest out a little. He hadn’t received many compliments about his elastic ability. If anything, he’d received more disappointed reactions than anything else. Faces falling when they realized he couldn’t do something like create explosions or control an army of monkeys. (Because apparently, those types of mutations were more conventionally cool.)

The moment of ego faded quickly, and the teenager listened intently to Sam’s description of his power. It was confusing. Darren tried to sift through the words and figure out what he meant, but had a difficult time deciphering. “Does this mean I’m not seeing the ‘real’ you, right now?” That was sort of disconcerting. He was possibly talking to an illusion. Huh.

“Does this mean I’m not seeing the ‘real’ you, right now?”

The idea made Sam smile; it would be really nice to be able to put on any face you liked. To be able to create the perfect you and project that image to the world. But sadly that was not to be and Sam was somehow relieved. He did not believe he could have coped with the mental strain that kind of power would cause, there would be too much temptation to just become someone else altogether. And even though being him was not that great, it was hard enough already.

“No I’m me, don’t worry. If I had activated my power you would have seen someone you already know, and as far as I know we have never met before so you’re safe.”

He smiled a little at the comment, how many other people would go around looking at his strangely wondering if he was really “him”? A few probably. He would dearly love to know what kind of face they imagined for him though. Shaking his head slightly at the idea he moved the subject on a little.

“So what’s the coolest mutation you’ve run into so far?”

He knew that it was all a question of perspective. What Darren found cool might sound really dull or weird to him but he was curious. Besides it might help him not look so shocked when other students told him that they could lift buildings and other such things. He was trying to imagine what he thought was the coolest, when the distinctive smell of food came his way. His stomach growled in protest once more and he winced a bit at the sound. Thank god they were almost there.

>> “No I’m me, don’t worry. If I had activated my power you would have seen someone you already know, and as far as I know we have never met before so you’re safe.”

That was both relieving and confusing. “Someone I already know? What do you mean?” And what did Sam mean by “safe”? Was there some danger associated with his mutation? Darren had seen a few dangerous powers exhibited by the other students, although they were all under some level of control. The school’s guidance counselor also had a mutation-nullifying ability that was useful should a kid’s control start to slip. His own mutation, as far as he knew, was not dangerous in the least.
But how dangerous could a shape-shifting, illusion-type ability be?

“S-sorry if I’m prying, I’m just a b-bit confused,” He said, realizing that he could be coming off as nosy or pushy. He blushed and cursed his stutter, which had snuck itself back into his words. If Sam didn’t want to talk about it, he didn’t want to talk about. Darren didn’t want to scare away the older boy the way some of the other kids had scared him away with their incessant questions and overwhelming curiosity. +1 to his insecurities.

>> “So what’s the coolest mutation you’ve run into so far?”

A harmless enough question for which he was grateful, even if was only a slight topic change. But it was also surprisingly hard to answer. The teenager had seen so many mutations the past week… “Well, I did meet a gargoyle girl on my first day, which was pretty cool I guess. And the other day I saw a guy walk into a mirror!” Which did not sound nearly as cool as it did in his head. “S-sorry if these sound lame…I-I’m not used to being around m-mutants at all.” He shrugged. It was very true.

The smell of baked goods hit his nose at the same time Sam’s stomach made another grumbling noise. Darren grinned. They were close! (And it seemed the mansion’s mysterious midnight baker had struck again.) Just one more turn and they’d hit the kitchen.

As Sam tore his attention away from the “oh so captivating” smell of food, he thought about the powers Darren had just described to him. Ok so first of all: gargoyle girl. Turning to stone sounded ok but he couldn’t help but wonder how easy it would be to move around like that. What if you suddenly weighed half a tone and had the same strength as a normal human. He smiled slightly; you really would be a gargoyle, stuck in one place unable to move your own weight. The image in his head was amusing but he sincerely hoped that this girl’s mutation allowed her to get around that rather large issue.

Then came through mirrors, in Sam’s mind this was already more interesting. Although it all depended if you could walk into one mirror and come out another or if you were stuck in the one you had picked. Still however you looked at it there was sneaking potential there. Ok, so mirrors he liked. And of course if you stopped to consider Darren’s power it could have all kinds of uses; however they were not all that obvious at first sight. Sam wondered what would happen if Darren shut his fingers in a door or something, would they just stretch flat and be unscathed. It was an interesting idea.

Looking across at Darren, Sam realized that he must be making him uncomfortable with this long silence. He already felt a bit bad because something he had said earlier had obviously unnerved the other boy slightly and caused a slight stutter to appear. Somewhat selfishly Sam thanked his lucky star that he did not have that kind of problem. People said he had a nice, soothing voice and he was glad of it, people always seemed nicer when you had that kind of voice.

“What is that smell? Is someone baking or something? Oh, sorry I’m being a bit rude, it’s the hunger speaking, please just ignore me when I'm like this.”

But he was a bit curious about something rather more important than whether or not someone was baking. What he wanted to know was if there was some kind of cafeteria or if he was going to have to cook for himself; which let’s face it would be a bit of a major problem for him.

“Tell me, how does food work in this school? Do we have a cafeteria or do we have to buy stuff in and cook?”

He tried to keep the rising dismay out of his voice, but truly the idea of cooking was really a depressing one.

Sam was…quiet. He was definitely quieter than Darren, who had a tendency to babble when he was anxious. That was why the boy usually opted not to speak, because he got nervous too quickly and began rambling on and on. He was almost certain he had turned Sam off with his awkward conversational skills. If it had not been for his knowledge of the location of the kitchen, the older teenager would most probably not be hanging around him…he suppressed a sigh. He had messed things up again, hadn’t—

>> “What is that smell? Is someone baking or something? Oh, sorry I’m being a bit rude, it’s the hunger speaking, please just ignore me when I'm like this.”

Darren quietly laughed. The words were so random…well, they weren’t really random, since the smell of baking was prevalent in the atmosphere, but the way Sam said them were funny. Maybe the older boy had been too distracted by hunger to talk… The stretchy teenager let that thought console him and led the way around the corner, into the mansion’s cozy kitchen.

>> “Tell me, how does food work in this school? Do we have a cafeteria or do we have to buy stuff in and cook?”

A fair question to ask, and judging by the hint of dismay in Sam’s voice, he could guess that one of those options did not appeal to him at all. Most likely the latter: buying and cooking food. Darren would not, did not, have a problem with that, seeing as how he had his chef father on speed dial and a special interest in cooking. But he knew many did not share his interest, or had a parent who had a recipe encyclopedia instead of a brain.

“N-no cafeteria, just this kitchen and it’s many seats. You don’t have to buy food, the school has it all. You can cook if you like, but we have plenty of food mutants and students who enjoy making meals for others. Over there,” he gestured to a line of cabinets sitting above the counter, “is where they keep snacks. There’s the pantry over here, and those drawers contain a lot of dry ingredients.” He pointed to the designated areas.

He opened up the refrigerator for his companion. “And this is the monster fridge. Take a look. I can always whip up something for you, too. If you’d like.” Darren gave a small smile and waited for Sam to make his verdict.

As Sam listened to Darren explain his hopes sank. I really was a help yourself to anything type of kitchen, regrettably the anything then had to be transformed into a dish that you could eat. He took a minute to go over the few things he had been led to cook in his nineteen years of life: spaghetti, hamburgers, roasted marshmallows and potatoes. Well that was not going to get him far, so he silently made a note to find some easy recipes on the internet and practice them when no one else was around.

He then made sure he memorized exactly where the snack cupboard was, that could save him in case of severe cooking failure. Looking around the room, Sam had to admit that the kitchen was a good size and he wondered how busy it got at meal times. Well he was sure to find out soon enough and he would adapt his eating habits so as to avoid peak times. Meanwhile Darren had made his way across to the fridge and opened it for him. The inside looked like a bomb had gone off inside, there was food everywhere you looked and as students had helped themselves it was all just stuffed in wherever it would fit.

Sam suppressed a grown; it looked like it was going to be a challenge to even find the right ingredients in this mess. It was then that he realized that he was once again being rude to Darren who had just kindly offered to cook for him. Slapping himself out of his self pity he put a wan smile back on his face and decided to accept the elastic mutant’s kind offer.

“That would really nice, if you don’t mind. I have to admit that I am “cooking challenged” and all that food is a bit daunting.”

He wondered across the room and took a seat out of the way but made sure he could still see what Darren was doing. If he was going to have to learn how to cook he better start watching others in order to pick up some tricks. It was at times like this when he resented the whole Korean “women are the cooks in the household” thing. Because of that he had never been allowed into the kitchen when his mum was cooking and now he was going to pay for that by giving himself food poisoning if he wasn’t careful.

“So how come you know how to cook?”

His curiosity had gotten the better of him even though he knew that in the modern world most men knew how to cook now. It was not Darren that was special for knowing how; it was him that was old fashioned for being this ignorant.

Sam listened intently as Darren explained that his dad was a chef, which caused him to immediately except the boys offer to cook him something. There was no point in being stubborn and attempting to cook something himself, only to end up with food poisoning, when someone who had some skill could make him something edible.

So the two made polite conversation as the younger boy set took cooking up an omelet, just the smell of it had set Sam’s stomach off again. To say that he was glad when the food arrived would have been an understatement. It took most of his self control to cut off normal sized pieces rather than seeing how much he could swallow in one go.
Once he had finished his small feat he made a mental note to repay this favor someday, when the opportunity presented itself.