AN: Welcome to my first Kuroshitsuji fanfiction~! ^^ It'll be a little darker than my other fanfictions, so hopefully that's okay! ^^; Sorry that this chapter is so short; I had it longer but I decided to make the majority of it in chapter 2. I may change that formatting eventually, and if I do, I'll let you know~ Thanks! Read and review!

"Ah, why do souls have to be so difficult these days?" a certain red-head shinigami whined, combing out his long hair with his fingers.

The younger male beside him with two-toned hair shrugged. "I dunno, seemed pretty easy to me."

"That's because I did all of the work!" Grell cried shrilly. "And look what it did to my hair!" Ronald Knox had no response to that statement, instead turning away and looking out at the setting sun. Grell, after struggling with a certain tangle for a minute more, finally quit trying to fix his hair and looked to the sky as well. There was a fairly noticeable chill in the breeze that made his hair dance and his skin prickle as the two shinigami stood near the edge of the roof of the building they had collected from. With a small sigh, Grell begrudgingly pulled out the clunky metal clipboard that William now required all members of the Dispatch to carry with them and checked the two names of the humans whose souls they had reaped. One, a woman of 27, was to be sent to heaven. The other, a man of 46, was not.

"Sutcliff, sir, can't we get out of here now?" Ronald asked around a wide yawn. "I'm beat and there's supposed to be an office party tonight!"

Grell bit his lip a bit in contemplation. Was the younger shinigami aware that his sentences contradicted? Thankfully Grell didn't care. "Well, alright," he decided, turning with a flip of his hair to head back toward the small set of stairs that had lead them to the roof in the first place. "Besides, a party is certainly more appealing than collecting the last three souls on William's stupid li—"

All of a sudden a dull flash of pain darted up from his wrists to his chest, climbing up through his veins like sharp jungle vines; it certainly caught him off guard. What is this?

"Mr. Sutcliff? Grell, sir, are you okay?" a voice said from somewhere to his right.

"Yes, of course," he replied, rubbing at his itching wrists during a moment of contemplation. "It's just some odd prickling."

It looked as though Ronald was about to say something, but the older shinigami really didn't want to linger on little useless sensations; he had an office party to entertain.

"Come now, let's hit up that party, Ronny~" he said with a mischievous grin and a clap of his hands. Ronald smiled, fist-pumped, and then followed the feminine male down the stairs that led them down from the roof. Said male, however, couldn't quit thinking about that tingling in his veins. He lightly put one hand to his right wrist, holding it subconsciously as they descended.

'I better be okay, or so help me…'