Koga sat by the fire place, an orange log glowing with warmth, He soaked up the heat and enjoyed the sensation of not being cold. Since he had mutated he became a cold blooded creature. He was meticulous, and thought things out as long as he could if he was given time. the young man was covered in a layer of fine scales, reminiscent of a snake, small horns poked out randomly all over his scalp and threw a mess of shaggy hair, his eyes were the solid black of most other reptiles. He skin currently was changing color along with the side of the puzzle in his hands, if he worked on the yellow side his skin was akin to bananas but as he turned the cube to the red side it went the color of a fire truck.

His legs crossed beneath him in Indian style he worked on a rubik's turning the puzzle as the sides demanded the rubiks cube wasn't much of a puzzle at all once you knew how to solve it. It was all repetition of certain algorithms over and over until you had your desired result. that said you had to pay attention to what you were doing other wise you would end up losing your place and having to pick up where you left off and hope you remembered the step you were on.

Michael’s head was never full of algorithms of any kind. He preferred to realize that a puzzle was just easy to solve. There wasn’t any particular math thing with it, there were different patterns, and the patterns made the puzzle finish. He looked down at his own puzzle. It was a really cool mirror image puzzle that had a bunch of different sizes and different ways that the pieces moved. It was a rubix puzzle, and one of the harder ones. He looked at it, and the boy wandered about, holding onto the item.

He entered the living room, it was a bit late and he had hoped that it would be deserted…but there was a person there. The little brown-haired boy paused in his walking forward, his white shirt once again slipping off one shoulder. He nearly tripped over his jeans as he crept closer to the male, his one gloved left hand holding onto the item in his hand tighter. He looked at the rubix cube first. Trying to initiate a conversation, he slowly crawled on the ground kind of near the chair, and lifted his own Cube up, then set it on the arm of the chair he sat in.

Out of the corner of his eye Koga watched a small stealthy creature close in on him, he crawled in like the trenches were being battered with heavy fire. He watched the young man place his puzzle on the arm of a chair.

Koga was almost done. he held up a finger to the young man, just give him one more moments concentration. spin forward left back forward right back forward left back right forward and he sat the puzzle down triumphantly.

"Hi." Koga said as he looked at the puzzle briefly enjoying it being finished and the mixed the thing up again. "what do you have there?" his voice was quiet as to not draw the fire of who ever was shooting at them and causing him to crawl to go unnoticed.

He stared at the puzzle again and after a moment realized it was the same, it was the same as the one he just finished, it was just deceiving it was a sheep in wolves clothing.

"I'm Koga." he kept his voice calm and quiet, there was something about the kid that needed to be soothed, he was on unsolid ground and needed something to hang on to, or someone for that matter.

He looked at Koga, watching the male solve his puzzle as he made his way ever so hesitantly in front of the chair, looking down at his feet as he head the question. It took him a moment, but he stuttered out a response. “Puzzle…” He fiddled with the bottom of his jeans insecurely. Michael was still tiny, but the food he’d been getting was helping. Even so, he was enough of a tiny little boy to arouse pity from some, who noticed that he was pretty unhealthily skinny.

Michael looked at Koga for a moment, and then back down at his feet. “I’m Michael.” He said it quietly, and then he leaned forward and took Koga’s puzzle gently, wanting to do a trick for him. Michael liked doing this with rubix cubes, because it was always really cool looking to him. He solved it rather rapidly in such a way that there was a singular dot of one color in the middle, and a solid color surrounding it. So one side was completely red on the outside, and then there was a yellow square in the middle.

He put it on the floor in front of him, expecting some kind of praise or acknowledgement he did well. After all, this was his area of expertise, and no one else was really all too interested in the puzzles that Michael found fascinating.

"Neat!" He would keep it simple until the kid warmed up a bit. " Nice to meet you Mikey, can I call you Mikey?"

He watched in rapt fascination as the kid made the cube do as he wanted...he was following a pattern in his head, he had the Brain...."that...that is freaking amazing!" He knew what to do to get it to go solid again but it was because he memorized the pattern, the way he manipulated the object in his hands, it was obvious he was a natural.

" Doess the mirrored one work the ssame? it lookss like the ssame Idea, but insstead of colorss you are trying to line up the ssizess, a broad basse a middle ssized middle and a thin top." As far as Koga was concerned he had made a fast friend. he leaned in a bit concentrating on the puzzle to take some of the focus of the puzzle pariah before him.

“M…Mikey is okay.” He said this quietly, and then looked down at the puzzle again, rather focused. He really liked playing with puzzles, it was a lot of fun. The little boy moved forward slightly again, and then picked up his mirror rubix cube. He wasn’t expecting Koga to react at his little trick, and when he did he almost jumped a little bit, and his wide eyes stared up at Koga, bright, and with a tinge of pride.

Of course, he wasn’t staring Koga in the eyes. Of course not. Michael was looking at Koga as a whole, with a quick up and down glance. He stuttered through the next project of his, which was making the mirrored one get all solved. “I…it’s different. ‘Cause there isn’t a color p-pattern, but…but the idea…the idea is the same and all…but it’s not. You gotta just…just make the patterns match up.” He moved his hands fast again, almost cradling the precious puzzle as he solved it just as quickly, if not a bit quicker, than the regular-colored one.

He also put that one on the floor in front of Koga. “It’s easier when…when you don’t look at the mirror…’cause I always get mad at the pictures.” He didn’t like looking at himself in the mirror, it was very very creepy, so he refused to do it.

"I ssee, sso it iss and it issn't," He looked at the finished puzzle and reached for it. " May I try?"

As he waited for permission he thought about how much that said about the young man, he wondered what kind of childhood had brought that on. He understood it though, there were days when he looked in the mirror at his pitch black eyes and finely scaled skin and couldn't help but shudder. it wasn't what he saw in the mirror, but what he was becoming that really made him wonder why he couldn't look normal.

"I have thosse dayss where I want to sstay away from the mirror. You want to know a ssecret? That iss part of why I sshow off sso much about being able to change colorss.because if I don't then I am just a odd lizard boy."

Michael looked over at him and then handed the puzzle to the person. He wriggled a bit where he sat, and listened to Koga's story. He didn't smile or seem to come to any realization. In truth, he was very bad at displaying any of his emotions in the right way. Michael watched Koga for a moment, and then he spoke slowly. "My...my thing is bad, and it only makes bad things happen like I do."

He said this quietly, because he liked Koga. He didn't like other people like doctors or therapists, who hadn't gotten to know him yet, so he would attempt to avoid telling them no matter what the costs were. When it was someone he knew, or someone who seemed to share similar interests, it was okay.

He also felt that Koga might understand that Michael felt this way about himself. Perhaps he wouldn't understand that Michael felt like he caused bad things wherever he went, because Koga didn't hurt someone at school his own age on accident, and have to run away from school. Nor did Koga have to listen while locked in his room to arguments with his parents.

"I...I like colors though. You make better colors than the colors I make." He nodded a little bit. He was talking of course about the color of the silvery substance on his hand.

Koga sympathized. His powers took hold in his sleep, his father knew before he did, when he woke up it was to a pair of police officers attempting to remove him, he knocked one out before he was even really awake. He put him in a choke hold after springing on him. all instinct. kill or be killed. luckily he only knocked him out....or so he hoped. " That iss one of the besst thingss about thiss sschool, They help you figure out how to control the bad partss. How to usse them, how to make them good partss. The next best thing iss everyone, has had ssituationss too. Mosst if not all of uss have had our powerss do sstuff without our intending. sso, we can all relate in ssome way."

"What is your favorite color Mikey?" Koga would turn into that color as soon as the hue left the boys mouth. "What colorss do you make? I think every color hass itss advantagess."

Michael closed his eyes a moment, trying to think of an answer. This was what he was forcing himself to do, because he didn't want to think about Koga's words. They scared him in truth. He was scared that his words meant that Michael would have to face the fears that he had of himself and things around him. It meant that maybe he'd have to figure out what his power did, and why people were angry at him for having it. Would he have to face his issues all along? No. Michael didn't want to keep going with these thoughts, and Koga could most likely see the little boy as he tugged on his hair a little bit, and then squeezed a section for a moment. A distraction, that's all it was.

He looked over at Koga, and then back down again quickly. He was kind of scared still, but he wanted to keep talking, since it was already going so well. "I...like...I like blue." He said quietly. Blue's and oranges made him happy. Black, red, yellow, and white made him scared. When white was there he felt like his eyes were burning up, so it was awkward to look at.

He noticed that the boy pulled at his hair in agitation, perhaps his clockwork skill came with other aspects it was said that autism sometimes meant that you might be great with puzzles, but possibly lack certain social sensibility, not so much that the person would be rude, but simply operate under a different set of rules. He might need to be a little bit more careful, the words that were meant to be comforting, had him pulling at his hair. Or he might be totally off and the kiddo was just nervous to be talking to a teenager with scales on his skin.

Koga turned a few different shades of blue. As he toyed with the oddly shaped rubix cube, he did his best not to pay attention to the colors reflected off of the outside. He was making pretty good progress, not nearly as quick as micheal had done it but fast when considering he hadn’t seen the puzzle before.

Michael watched Koga's skin as it changed and he moved a bit closer than he had been before, watching how the colors changed when he did. The boy shifted a bit, looking at Koga with bright eyes as Koga's eyes remained focused on what he was doing with the Rubix cube. He did not know what to think of this person at the moment, but he was nice enough when he was changing into the color blue. He did like blue, after all. And as long as he didn't turn completely black, Michael would be fine. He did not trust things that were completely black. Black was a color that could hide any other color or stain of some sort.

He soon become not interested in Koga's solving the puzzle he'd done, and started to idly pick at one of the scabs on his legs. It was really bothering him at the moment, and was rather itchy. He did not really pay attention to social cues, nor could he really connect that Koga was changing blue just for him. It was a nice blue color, and he appreciated it, but his world at the moment was very inverted, and selfish. He assumed others felt that way too, so maybe Koga just happened to like the color blue or something. After some silence, he spoke again. "D...do you...like puzzles?" Tentative question. He hoped the answer would be yes.

"Abssolutely, puzzless are good for the mind, like exercisse for the body. If you want to keep your brain healthy and in top sshape than puzzless are a good way to achieve that, besidess, they are fun." Koga watched him in his peripheral and he thought that his previous thoughts might have been brash, perhaps he was just a bored young man in a place he was still getting used to.

Koga was making progress, but lost his place and had to figure out where he was, but soon found his way back on track again and was repeating the algorithm that he suspected would finish the puzzle. a few minutes later a smile appeared on his lightly scaled face. He held out the finished puzzle for Micheal.

"want to see what other kinds of puzzles they have in here, we could put one together or do a Sudoku or something."

He listened carefully to what Koga said, and then he thought about it. He'd never once tried to fix a puzzle, or mend something that seemed to be broken, but fit together in a pattern to make his brain smarter. His head wasn’t too...small, so his brain couldn’t be small either, but he did wonder what would happen if the muscles in his brain got a workout. Would his brain just..suddenly get bigger? Michael pulled on his hair again with his troubling thought, but soon spoke to Koga once more. “M..my brain doesn’t need to work out. I...I just like to play.”

Playing was fun. When he played, thinking of all the bad times, and all the bad things seemed to be harder. He had to search for things that would fill his need to do something, and puzzles answered his call. He could complete the hardest puzzle in the world, which was made from an all white template. He’d never tried it, but it would be easy for him. He just knew which pieces had to go together.

Taking the puzzle back from Koga, he looked down at it, then set it gingerly on the floor. He wasn’t sure he wanted to reveal his secret...but he could. He’d figured out other things to do with rubix cubes, after all. “Then...then you have to draw a special pattern that you like on paper...a-and you have to try and make the sides look like that. Then...then you have more to do, and it’s fun again.” He wouldn’t mention the fact that he made puzzles for himself, little rubix cube flashcards. Some were legitimately impossible to do but for on one side, so he had to put those aside.

His secrets about his puzzles may or may not be showing Koga the nature of the little boy. It was a bit of an insight into the life of a little boy who needed to keep himself entertained for long periods of time. Leggo, rubix cubes, anything. He was searching to keep himself involved in “fun.”

He nodded to the young man and smiled when he said he just liked to play. “Playing iss important too.’
He listened as the boy bared his soul about making a rubix cube more challenging, he wondered idly if he would be able to solve the algorithm of a puzzle like that so he could defeat it. he supposed he could if he had a second rubix cube to practice on while he solved the primary one. It would be tricky though.

“You are ssmart. I like that.” He grinned once more, the kiddo seemed like he could use the approval, he certainly craved it so, if he could help fulfil that for someone else, why not?

“ Have you ever played tetriss I have an Dss that you could have, I’ve got mosstly puzzle gamess if you want them.” he offered, it had been forever since he had played it and it would obviously go to good use in his able hands.