1.

At her fifteenth birthday's sundown, Marben found herself running down an unknown sidewalk, looking for the ball one of her classmates had accidentally tossed over the fence; she hadn't even been in the new school for an hour yet and was already getting into trouble, sneaking out of it without permission and unsupervised. As focused as she was in being swift - otherwise she would have gotten detention on the very first day of school - the girl could have never imagined it, but her day was about to take an unexpected turn by giving her a special birthday present.

Turning a corner, indeed, Marben got suddenly lost in the green eyes of a boy who was standing on her very same sidewalk: he smiled kindly at her, and suddenly she felt like her heart was skipping beats.

"Hey. Are you looking for this?" asked the boy, alluding to something he was holding in his hand. Marben forced herself to lower her eyes and noticed that it was the little ball. She then looked in the boy's eyes again and smiled, a bit grateful and a bit dumbstruck.

"Yes".

He handed out the ball, and reaching for it, the girl placed one of her hands on his: none of the two broke the contact, the boy flushed a bit but kept on smiling (dazzled, Marben noticed with a heartthrob), and she laughed softly in delight, tilting her head to the side. She took a tiny step ahead, coming closer to him, and…

"NUMBER FIVE!".

The boy startled and quickly turned his head. Following his gaze, Marben saw a man and a group of teens on the other side of the street, looking at them; the man, brandishing his walking stick like a scepter, took a few steps toward them and raised his chin, the sunset light reflecting on a monocle Marben wouldn't have noticed otherwise.

"Shit!" hissed the boy. "Sorry, I gotta run".

His hand left the ball so quickly that Marben almost failed to catch it: ruffled, she tried to think of something to say to keep him from leaving, but words eluded her. In the batting of an eyelash, the boy had crossed the street. Passing in front of the man with the monocle, he threw him a look of challenge to which the man reacted widening his stance. Unbowed, the boy gave him his back and followed the teens at the top of the queue who had resumed walking in complete silence; Marben felt like her feet were glued to the ground, and stayed put for a long time, watching the group disappear even after the green-eyed boy had given her one last curious glance, over his shoulder.

A/N: Hello, everyone, I hope you enjoyed this short debut!

As I wrote on my page, I am not a native English speaker, so if you spot some grammar or spelling errors please be patient...and maybe let me know, if you have a little time to devote to the right cause to help me improve! I would be very grateful, as I don't use the help of a Beta.

I plan to add warnings about descriptions of violent or intimate scenes, as I continue to publish the chapters, so as not to disturb anyone's sensibility. Again, you're very welcome to let me know if you think I should add some warnings or tags while the story goes on.

Thank you for the attention, folks, I hope you will come in large numbers! :)