Orion's eyes creaked open.

He felt slightly disoriented, like something wasn't quite right about his bed, his room. Orion rolled over onto his side, expecting to find his alarm clock sitting on the bedside table.

It blinked the time at him in acid-green: 6:25 AM.

He groaned, then returned to his original position, laying on his back. Orion had band practice today, and he had woken up five minutes early. Four minutes now.

He didn't know what to do with the extra time, so he decided to just stare up at the ceiling. A black dot caught his attention. He wondered what it was. If he squinted really hard, he could make out its rough shape; a couple of tiny hair-like legs materialised.

The dot moved, and Orion followed it with his gaze, right into a splatter of light. A spider.

He threw the covers off himself and sat up.

Today is the day you die. I knew you were hiding in here somewhere.

He picked up a slipper, and was about to throw it at the ceiling, when he heard his name being whispered. Orion froze, arm lifted above his head.

"Ever since...I don't...certainly..." It came from the other side of the wall, from his parent's bedroom. From the snippets of conversation which floated through, Orion knew that they were talking about him. Curiosity led him to creep over to the wall, and place his ear against it.

"His problem is that he lacks discipline, he does not take his studies seriously." Unmistakably his father.

"You may be right. But you must understand that he spends the majority of his time on his own, with no one to supervise him." Some rustling ensued, but then his mother continued, "He is only 15, he is young. It is normal that he is a little mischievous, you used to be as well, remember?"

Orion rolled his eyes.

"Yes, I was. But I always put my studies first—I was top of my class!"

Nothing from his mother's end. She must've been occupied with something.

Suddenly, the alarm clock buzzed.

Orion's first instinct was to whip around and bat the device off the bedside table; it hit the wall, and the wailing immediately died down.

"What was that?" He heard his father ask from the other room.

Today wasn't going to be a good day.

-:-

After arriving at school, Orion stepped out of his mother's yellow Beetle, a scowl on his face. The whole trip had consisted in her explaining his father's reasoning, along with why he felt the way he did. She always felt the need to justify her husband's erratic behaviour, and it annoyed Orion to no end; it was clear, at least to him, that his mother didn't share the same beliefs as his father. She first-handedly saw Orion's dedication to his studies—whenever he stayed up late, hunched over his open textbooks to revise for a test, she was always the one that would bring him mooncakes to 'replenish his energy'. Yet, she never seemed to be able to contradict her husband.

Maybe it was her destiny to be so benevolent, so submissive towards those who were domineering. After all, her name, Li Juan, in Chinese translated to 'soft' and 'yielding'. It was starting to dawn on Orion that he resembled his mother in more ways than one—whereas Shen had gotten strong personality traits from his father, Orion had gotten the weaker traits, from his mother.

He absolutely detested this fact, but he wasn't going to make it known.

"Are you sure that you packed all your sheet music? Last time I saw them, they were on the piano." One hand on the steering wheel, the other on the gearshift. She was more than ready to drive off for work—as the owner of an Asian grocery store—and was a breath away from flooring the accelerator, even though the car-door was wide open.

"Yes, Ah Ma. Are you picking me up today, or can I walk home? It's supposed to be sunny today." He bent over, resting his hand on the door as he peered inside.

"Unfortunately not," she said, shaking her head, "I have a noodle delivery coming in at around three-fifteen, so I wouldn't make it in time." Her eyes flitted to the miniature red lantern that hung from the rearview mirror, then back at him. There was something a little off about her, but he couldn't exactly put his finger on it. Maybe she was just stressed out. It wasn't easy to run the only ethnic food-store in the entire town.

"Alright, have a nice day." Orion smiled and gave her a small wave. Even her French bob wasn't ruler-straight as per usual, and the colour of her necklace didn't match her blouse.

Whatever. His thoughts were stupid, Orion decided.

He straightened and shut the door to their car. His mother was fine.

She waved back and pulled out of the parking lot nearly colliding with a car as she attempted to merge onto a new street.

Orion tilted his head back and sighed, then turned on his heel to walk towards the school entrance. He ran his thumbs up and down his backpack straps and tried not to think about his mother, or anything in fact. The school was deserted this early in the morning, so Orion would enjoy this tranquility for as long as he could; once he set foot in the music room, it would dissipate into nothingness.

An hour and a half later, he staggered towards his locker, flustered.

There wasn't one good thing about today's session.

The clarinets were off-key for the majority of the piece, the brass players didn't learn their part, and the first violin hadn't shown up, completely avoiding the duet Orion was meant to try out with him.

Band practice was a complete waste of time. It was more beneficial for him to get that extra hour of sleep than to tolerate a bunch of amateurs, but his mother thought it was a good opportunity for him to interact with 'likeminded students' and 'showcase his talent as a pianist'. The Spring Concert—which was only a month away—would help change her mind, and hopefully allow him to choose his own extracurriculars next term. Even though he was only a freshman in high school, he was no longer a kid as his parents thought.

Once at his locker, he twisted the combination into his lock. After a sharp click, he removed it and pulled the steel door open, simultaneously setting his backpack onto the floor.

He placed his hands on his hips, and scoured the place with a critical eye for any imperfections. Seeing everything in their place made Orion feel wholesome—at least one aspect of his life was sorted.

With a satisfied grin, he reached inside for his English materials for first period.

A shove had him banging his head against the shelf and the books collapsing on him.

They jabbed his neck and back as they fell from their designated spots, before splattering haphazardly onto the floor. Orion didn't have time to react, that he was pushed against it once again.

"Don't ignore me when I'm talking to you, loser."

Brandon, a kid from his class, stared at him with beady eyes and a downturned mouth.

"I didn't think you were," Orion said, in shock. To be fair, the only person who ever talked to him was Barbara—he was non-existent to everyone else. There was something terribly wrong with this kid though: it isn't normal for someone to react so violently when ignored.

Orion glanced down. Nobody had stopped to help pick his stuff up, or ask this guy what his problem was. It was like the two of them were in a completely different dimension.

"Running your mouth again, huh? Like you haven't caused enough damage already." Brandon took a step towards him, and Orion reflexively lifted his arms up to shield his face.

What is he talking about? Why isn't anyone doing anything?

"I'm sorry if I did something wrong...whatever it is I can—" Orion cowered like a whipped dog, fear scrawled across his face.

"Shut the hell up."

A punch in the stomach had Orion buckling over, then two hands grabbed his collar and lifted him back up against the locker.

"Do you know what 'double the work' means?" Brandon said, his voice low and deadly. His breath smelled like something had died inside of him.

Orion shook his head, shrinking back into his shirt. His head spun.

"Of course you wouldn't, you're a goddamn nerd." He snorted. "It means we are gonna have to spend both breaks in a classroom, doing dumb shit we've already gone over a million times. My boys don't wanna do anything to you, so I thought I should...teach you a lesson."

Somewhere during the little spiel, Orion had found his voice, and was now determined to use it in self-defence, "I didn't...I didn't know! But I'm going to be there too, so—"

Brandon curled his hand into a fist and swung it towards Orion's face.

But before it could make contact, the impossible happened.

A student intervened.

He appeared out of seemingly nowhere and caught a hold of Brandon's hoodie, jerking him away from Orion.

"What do you think you're doing?" He asked, a Texan accent tinging his words. His brown hair was cropped close to his head and he wore a red polo shirt paired with dark blue jeans and NIKE sneakers.

Orion didn't know who he was, but he definitely looked like a senior.

This time, it was Brandon's turn to stammer incoherently.

"I don't care about what you have to say. I hate bullies, and I never want to see you bothering this kid again, you hear me?"

Brandon's head bobbed up and down, and he clasped his hands together.

"Now scram." One kick had the bully stumbling forwards, then scuttling away, tail between his legs.

The knight in shining armour turned towards Orion, a concerned look on his face.

"You alright?" He strode over and placed a hand on Orion's shoulder.

Orion gave him a feeble nod. The admiration he had for this guy was beyond anything he had ever encountered before.

"Awesome, I'm Carter. These are Lee-Anne and Markus."

A girl and a boy appeared and flanked his sides, looking as big and bad as Carter. She waved and he nodded curtly.

"I'm Orion." He gave each of them a small smile, feeling inadequate underneath their intense gazes, especially Carter's.

"Are you the Orion? As in, Shen's little brother?"

A pause. "Yes...why?"

His grey eyes were starting to creep him out.

"Your brother knows my brother. Francesco. You know him?"

Orion mulled it over for a moment. The name sounded familiar, and as he stared at Carter, he starting linking it to a face. Francesco was one of Shen's friends. His brother had never formally introduced Orion to him, but his name had floated around a lot, as did him.

"Shen's friend?" Orion asked tentatively, hoping that he had connected the dots. His eyes went to Lee-Anne, who was fiddling around on her phone. It's case was encrusted with multicolour rhinestones and anime characters.

"Yeah!" Carter's face lit up, and Orion immediately felt at ease, "Any friend of my brother's friend is a friend of mine...if that made any sense," he chuckled, "this also means that I won't let anyone mess with you."

A shiver went up Orion's spine. The tone of Carter's voice had dropped a couple of degrees at his last statement, and it made Orion uncomfortable. He was confused about what he meant—was this guy some sort of nerd-protector? It didn't make any sense.

To avoid eye-contact, Orion bent over and started picking up his books.

"Anyway, I gotta go. Got AP Calculus first period, and I can't be late." Carter took a step back, and looped his arm around his backpack strap. "That little fiasco right then? It's just the beginning, the guy won't stop bothering you until you dumb it down, or move away. You're lucky we ran into each other." He tossed his head, and then walked off, his two friends padding behind him.

It seemed to good to be true.

Bully-protection, but at what cost?