@Keba Si Rota:

Thanks for all the good critique!

The "frown-aside" was supposed to have a dash in between, but I'll consider rephrasing or using different punctuation.

I agree with you on fireplace and firelight being close enough in the sentence to sound repetitive.

You've given me some food for thought on blending in the Spanish words. If it doesn't sound natural, perhaps I shouldn't do that. I'll take another good look at his dialogue.

I'm glad you're intrigued! Hope you'll enjoy the next chapters! ^^

OK, I got to the second chapter. Sorry it took so long.

I had a good feeling that Hikari was one of the Gifted, so I'm glad you confirmed it early on. Still, it doesn't answer the question of why he has memory loss/mood swings. I guess that you'll reveal that later on.

There are two sentences that need some tweaking:

Hikari turned to look at him; it was the first time Joel had ever seen him frown–aside from the time when he lost his memory.

It's the "frown-aside" part that threw me. Maybe the hyphen should be a comma.

José hesitantly picked Hikari up and dragged him closer to the warm fireplace and its bright orange firelight.

This is purely aesthetic, but using "fireplace" and "firelight" so close together in the same sentence feels a bit too repetitive. Maybe just say, "bright, orange light" or omit that last bit altogether.

There was also another instance of the double period thing here: “Oh..Yeah, I recognize you now,” Hikari said, smiling hollowly.

I'm wondering about Jose a little bit-- mostly regarding his manner of speech. I'm not bilingual, so I don't know how much about how one mixes two languages together. It just felt a little weird to me seeing the Spanish mixed in with the English. Then again, he's probably using Spanish as a term of endearment or something because he uses it in regards to children and parents. As I said, I'm no authority on this matter. Still props to you for making your cast diverse. That's something I need to work on. A lot.

Well, this review turned out a lot longer than I thought. I'm still intrigued by who these Gifted people are and why there's so much stigma surrounding them.

@Keba Si Rota:

Ohmygoodness, thanks so much for all the feedback!

The capitalization on "the Gifted" is intentional.

I had a bad habit of using two periods instead of the proper ellipsis to denote a shorter pause. XD Thanks fror pointing them out. I'll have to correct those.

Glad you like the atmosphere of the story thus far (as well as grumpy Joel, who is a bit like Marshall, now that you mention it). ^^ Joel and Michi are mixed. I wanted to move away from using so many Japanese names in this story, so I incorporated some other cultures.

Thanks again! I hope you enjoy the next chapters too!

I'm so glad that I get to read another one of your stories. I've only read the first chapter so far. I'll get back to the rest when I can.

So far, I've found a few typos... at least I think they're typos.

Joel: “Have you ever heard of something called ‘the gifted’?”

Should it be "gifted" or "Gifted"?

There's another line that Kristy says that involves the capitalization question, as well. It was something like, "They call themselves 'gifted'". Again, I don't know if that was intentional or not.

All the other typos involve ellipses being two periods and not three. There was also one case of an ellipse that was a comma and two periods.

Anyway, on to the story itself: Right away, the story gave me a feeling of curiosity. It seems like a big mystery, and like these kids don't know what they're getting into.

So far, I think I like Joel the most. He reminds me a little of Marshall.

I'm just wondering about a lot of the characters' ethnicity since some names are Japanese and some aren't. Was that intentional?

Also, I LOVE how you wrapped up this chapter. Michi keeps saying that she likes Hikari, and at the very end, Joel repeats that. It's just too good.

Can't wait to read more!