AN: To stop writer's block and help keep the writing flow going, I'm back with another series (because these are the only things I seem to be able to finish) of short snippets/ficlets which will try to explore different parts of the Guertena Art Museum or try to view different events in a new light. I aim only for the unique and interesting (pls help if I mess up lol). Rules on my profile. I don't own Ib :3

Week 1. A story entitled "A New Beginning"

A New Beginning

The first time he noticed it, he hadn't.

His new father did.

The boy had just come inside from the garden, nose stuck in a book when he accidentally collided with his stepfather. The burly man grabbed hold of the blond locks near the boy's forehead and seethed, holding up a familiar scrap of sketchbook paper a little too close to his face.

"What is this?"

Even at such a tender age, the boy had pride. Only the heavy breathing indicated his pain. He gritted his teeth to hold the whimpers in, keeping his silence, but didn't have enough courage at the time to meet his executioner's eye. He was just messing around, drawing silly things in between his lessons.

When his cerulean blue eyes finally focused on the drawing, he felt the breath in his lungs taken away.

He hadn't drawn that.

"I… I didn't—"

"How dare you!"

Another backhand to the face.

Pain shot into his scalp as the boy was dragged by his hair across the floor and into his own room. The damn drawing that started all this was crumbled into a ball and thrown in too.

"No supper for you, boy. You will stay in here until you repent for your actions."

The door was slammed shut and silence filled the room, until the only occupant broke it with a sigh. He chuckled, straightened himself until he sat cross-legged and stretched to retrieve the crumpled drawing.

What did his mother even see in him?

Probably his endless amount of land and bottomless pockets.

Admittedly, he and his stepfather didn't have the best relationship in the whole world, but maybe he did cross a line depicting him as an ape man with an unnatural likeliness being hunted (by himself) in the wilderness. Unfolding the paper, Weiss Guertena stared hard at the picture, wondering just how the teeth-baring-fist-fighting gorilla from before was suddenly struck down and lay dying at the bottom of the page. There was smoke he knew he hadn't drawn in coming from the rifle and a devious smirk on the boy's sketchy face.

He was careless, leaving his sketchbook around for all to see.

He had put a lot into that particular drawing, channelling all his anger at his unfair treatment and the frustration from having his mother turn a blind eye into that single piece. He had put his whole soul into it, until what he could only imagine was transferred onto paper.

"Good job, buddy."

The boy in the paper turned his head ever so slowly and winked at the astonished boy sitting cross-legged on the floor. He could only blink back before he slowly crumpled the paper once more and threw it onto the other side of the room.

He laughed until his belly hurt, conjuring up endless possibilities if what he had just seen was true. Trying to smooth his wild curly locks with one hand, he sighed and smiled at the pitiful state he had come to.

He was surely growing mad.

But at least he could have fun escaping his daily hell.

AN: Do tell if you're having fun (or not) by reviewing please ^o^ See you next Saturday x