A/N: Hello everyone! I have a few things to say before you start to read.

First of all, thank you for clicking onto the link to read this story. This is my first ever fanfiction and I appreciated that you are taking the time to read it.

Secondly, my updates will range anywhere from a week to about a month. If I'm later than a month, spam the crap out of me.

Third, this is a modern day/human AU of D. Gray-Man. That means no Akuma. If you were looking for a fic with an epic Exorcist fight scene, then you clicked the wrong link.

Finally, this is a Laven fic. That means it is Lavi x Allen. If you don't like Laven or you are simply a homophobe, then you probably shouldn't read this. Just a fair warning.

So now that I've finished my incredibly long Author's Note, on with the story!

Allen Walker liked a lot of things.

He liked helping others, making people smile, eating, reading, doing exercises, watching humorous television shows (though he preferred anime), playing the piano, and his golden pet named Timcanpy. And that was only the tip of the iceberg.

Allen smiled slightly to himself as he pulled a shirt over his head. Yes, there were many things in life that he enjoyed. The fifteen-year-old boy walked to the bathroom to further prepare for the day.

It wasn't until Allen had entered the bathroom and stared into the mirror that he was reminded of the many things that he hated.

He hated the ugly scar that ran across his face with the pentagram above his eye that made him look like a Satanist, his bleach white hair, and the deformed skin of his left arm. He hated the cold metallic color of his eyes, the fact that he was far too short, and the knowledge that no one would try to be his friend. Who in their right mind would want to talk to such… such a freak?

Allen stared at his reflection for a moment longer before he sighed to himself. It wasn't like he could do anything to change the way he looked. If he could, then he would. Allen would do anything to be normal. The second week of school was starting today and the freshman already had a reputation around school as the "Cursed Clown" due to his appearance. The students hadn't spared him one rude remark or insult. It wasn't something that Allen cared for. Not at all.

Allen sighed again before he roughly combed his fingers through his snow-white hair. When he deemed it acceptable, the teen quickly brushed his teeth before he reached down into the cabinets. His left hand soon emerged, a bottle of concealer in its grasp.

Carefully putting the skin colored liquid on his fingertips, Allen started to place it onto his scar. The coolness of the makeup against his skin no longer surprised him so he didn't bother to cringe. The concealer wouldn't be able to completely hide the scar, Allen knew that, but it would work well enough for his purposes.

After carefully returning everything to its place, Allen made the short trip back to his room and slipped a black hoodie on over his shirt. It was supposed to be a relatively nice fall day, but Allen wasn't putting on the hoodie to shelter from the cold. No, the garment was being used for a different reason.

Allen pulled the almost ridiculously oversized hood up and draped it over the top of his head. It made looking in the upper part of his sight range a bit difficult, but the hood almost completely hid his face. The shadow of it would prevent anyone from actually seeing his disturbing features.

Shoulders now slumped, Allen produced two white gloves from the nightstand's drawer and slid them onto both of his hands. Although he only needed to cover up his left arm/hand, having just one glove would probably draw more attention than a matching pair.

Allen rummaged around his room some more until he was certain that he had everything he would need for the day, plus a few other items. Nothing much, just homework from over the weekend, back up concealer, his pencil pouch, some disinfectant, and a wrap of gauze. Just in case he got beaten up (which was incredibly likely to happen) or if his makeup started to come off (which was also extremely probable).

Feeling somewhat defeated now, Allen hoisted his backpack over his shoulder and slumped out of the house. It was going to be another long day.

.:*~*:..:*~*:..:*~*:..:*~*:..:*~*:.

"See ya Gramps!" Lavi called over his shoulder to the old man as he raced out of the car.

"Ungrateful brat, at least say thank you!" Bookman shouted as the redhead reached the school courtyard. Really, the idiot had completely missed first period and he wouldn't have made it anytime before lunch if Bookman had not woken him up and driven him to school. Oh well, being a guardian never really was a job that warranted much gratitude.

Lavi pointedly ignored his grandfather's voice as he continued to sprint across the sidewalk leading up to the school's entrance. The teen finally slowed his pace to a halt when he reached the front steps of the building. He couldn't help the smile that seeped onto his face as he stood there. Once he stepped through those doors, his junior year of high school would officially start. After this, he would only have one more year of high school to attend until he would graduate and be forced to face the real world.

Giving one last look over the outside of the school, Lavi stepped through the main doors and headed into the main office.

"Hey Reever!" Lavi greeted the school secretary with a huge grin. "What's up man? How was your summer?"

Reever looked up from whatever paper he was scribbling notes onto. "Lavi? Good to see you. Aren't you a bit late?"

"I guess I am," Lavi simply laughed the question off, "Me and Gramps just got back from our vacation yesterday and I'm still dead because of the jetlag." Almost as if to emphasize his point, the redhead let out a huge yawn and stretched his arms over his head.

"Ah, of course. And how was your vacation?"

"Awesome, duh!" Lavi practically yelled. "The only problem is that I had to miss the first week of school and all, which totally blows. But you already knew that."

Reever nodded. "Yes. Where did you go again? China?"

Lavi threw his head back and laughed. "You're getting me mixed up with Lenalee and Komui! Nah, me and the panda went to India. It was kinda one of his extended business trips and I tagged along because he didn't trust me to keep the house from burning down for a month. It was still really awesome."

Reever let out a small chuckle towards the end of the junior's little speech, "right, right." The blonde then bent down and shuffled through a few papers. He straightened back up when he found the one that he was looking for. "This is your schedule for the year," the secretary explained as he handed the paper to Lavi. "I would normally offer you a map, but I'm sure that you know your way around the school by now."

"Yup!" Lavi chirped happily as he accepted his schedule from Reever. "Thanks man."

Reever shrugged. "Just doing my job," was his only reply as he went to type something into his computer. Almost as of an afterthought, he added, "you might want to get to class soon. Second period started about fifteen minutes ago."

"Oh crap!" Lavi's smile fell off his face and his green eye widened. "Thanks again Reever, I'll see you around!" Lavi then bolted out of the main office and dashed through the hallways.

When the redhead realized that he had no idea where he was going. Lavi skidded to a halt and glanced over his schedule. He had missed math for first period (thank god) and second period was… English.

Lavi threw his head back and groaned. He had never liked English. There were too many rules about grammar and format and conjunctions and far too many exceptions to all of those complicated rules. He knew how to spell and write a halfway decent research paper. What else did he need to know? They had search engines for all those elusive rules!

Whatever. It wasn't like Lavi could remove the class from his schedule. He needed four years of English to graduate and there was no way in hell that the redhead would sacrifice his summer break to get rid of the stupid class.

Moving at a slower pace now, Lavi made his way to the dreaded classroom. English was his only class that wasn't advanced or AP or Honors or whatever other term meant the he was ahead of the average population. Sure, he didn't like math or science, but at least those subjects made sense.

When Lavi looked up again, he realized that he was in front of the dreaded room with the dreaded door that would lead him into the dreaded class with the dreaded subject that was probably being taught by a dreaded teacher. All in all, things were not looking good for the junior right now.

After a deep breath, Lavi pushed the door to the classroom open and stepped inside.

The students inside of the class seemed normal enough, thank god. Alas, there was no one that Lavi recognized.

"And who might you be?" Lavi turned to face the front of the classroom to face, who he thought to be, the teacher. The man had long, white hair and a bushy mustache of the same complexion.

"The name's Lavi, Lavi Bookman," Lavi gave his signature smile and glanced over to see several girls were practically swooning. That was to be expected, though, since he was the most popular boy at school. "I just came back to school from an extended vacation and I was told to come to second period. So, here I am."

One or two students quietly snickered at the last comment.

"Alright then, Mr. Bookman," the teacher seemed unfazed by Lavi's charm, "my name is Mr. Yeegar and I will be your English teacher. Take a seat so that we can continue the lesson, please."

Lavi flashed Mr. Yeegar a smile. The man seemed pretty nice (sans the fact that he taught English) so Lavi wouldn't do anything too horrible in his class. The redhead then turned to face the small sea of students and desks. The entire classroom was pretty packed. The only empty seat was the one next to some emo kid with a black hoodie in the back of the classroom. Lavi's smile dropped as he went to the desk. Even if the teacher seemed nice, the redhead would have to stay next to some weirdo for the entire period.

Screw English. Just screw it.

Lavi slung his backpack to the floor and sat in the plastic chair adjacent to the emo/weirdo kid. Lavi couldn't see anything but the boy's (was the student even male?) mouth and chin, but the junior could see the slight shift of the emo's head towards him. The kid was probably looking at him. Lavi knew that, even if he couldn't see the student's eyes.

Mr. Yeegar started to say something about taking out an assignment and all of the students did just that. Except Lavi, of course, who had no idea what was going on.

Almost as if sensing the redhead's distress, Mr. Yeegar looked up at the junior. "Lavi, why don't you look off of Allen's paper for now. I will catch you up to speed during lunch today."

Well, that worked. Now who was Allen?

Shifting to his right caught Lavi's attention as the emo scooted his chair over to Lavi's desk and placed a small packet of papers onto the edge of the desk. Okay, so apparently Allen was the creepy emo kid that sat next to him.

Mr. Yeegar started talking but Lavi ignored him in favor of looking over this Allen. He had a hoodie that was probably one or two sizes too big on him and his jean pants were loose, but at least those fit him well. What Lavi thought was really odd was the fact that Allen was wearing a pair of white gloves. Who the hell wore gloves? The kid looked like he was getting ready to a ball. Well, not really, but still.

Lavi turned his gaze from the other student and glanced over the paper that Allen had put on his desk. He had no idea what was going on. Well, he supposed since he didn't know anything, he could probably get Allen to tell him and then just leave it at that.

Forcing a radiant smile onto his face, Lavi leaned in towards Allen. "Hey, can you maybe, I don't know, tell me what's going on?"

Whenever Lavi did this, the person on the receiving end of his attention would melt into a puddle, blush and sputter out nonsense, or smile back. All Allen did was shrug and continue to stare at the paper.

At this, Lavi frowned but remembered himself and put a pout on his face. "Don't be mean. I just wanna know what's going on."

Allen still ignored him. Lavi gritted his teeth. Why couldn't the kid just answer him already? Lavi went to place his hand on Allen's left shoulder, "Look—"

As soon as Lavi's hand made contact with the fabric of Allen's hoodie, the boy violently jerked away and nearly fell out of his chair. Lavi, in turn, snatched his hand back to his chest.

The two sat in relative quiet as Mr. Yeegar explained several things to the class. Lavi finally broke it.

"Sorry," the redhead mumbled. "I… just wanted to know what was happening."

Lavi wasn't expecting any sort of response and he was fine with that. He didn't want another crazy reaction—

"The Odyssey," Lavi looked up to see that Allen's mouth was moving and it took the junior a second to realize that the boy was talking. "We're talking about book one of The Odyssey."

Lavi blinked. He only half computed the words because he had picked up on something else about Allen's voice. Before he could stop himself, the redhead blurted out, "Oh my god, you're totally British."

Lavi thought that he saw the thin line of a mouth quirk up for a moment but it happened so quickly that the junior thought he might have imagined it.

From there on out, the two students simply listened to Mr. Yeegar talk about the portion of the book that the class had read. Whenever Lavi got lost, he would shoot Allen a glance and the smaller teen would point to the part of the paper that the class was currently talking about. Lavi would then send Allen a small smile, but these ones were actually sincere. It was a good system.

Lavi was surprised when he heard the bell ring and glanced at the clock. Second period was already over? Lavi couldn't remember any of his English classes passing so quickly before. Huh, that was weird. Well, he sure wasn't complaining.

The redhead stood up and gathered his supplies before he glanced at Allen. The boy was placing the packet into his backpack neatly.

"Hey," Lavi said, successfully grabbing Allen's attention, "thank you. Really, you helped me a bunch."

The two stayed silent for another moment before Lavi saw Allen's lips form into a small smile and heard a perfect British accent reply, "you're welcome."

Lavi's smile grew and he stuck out his hand after Allen had stood up. "I'm Lavi."

Allen regarded the hand for a moment before he stuck out his own and grasped Lavi's. "Allen, Allen Walker."

"Well then, Mr. Allen Walker," Lavi's voice took on a playful tone and he imitated a British accent, "I am quite grateful for the extreme pleasure that I have received by meeting you." The junior bowed to the Brit.

Allen let out a small chuckle at the redhead's antics and Lavi felt pride fill his chest. He had gotten the weird little emo kid to open up into someone who wasn't weird or emo at all. Allen seemed like good company.

"Mr. Bookman," Lavi straightened as Mr. Yeeger approached him, "I would like to discuss the material that was covered during your absence."

"Alright," Lavi nodded at his teacher, "d'you mind if I grab some lunch first? I'm starving."

"Go right on ahead," Mr. Yeegar smiled. "I don't mind waiting until you're ready."

Lavi sent the old man a thankful grin before he turned to Allen. Or, at least, he turned to where Allen had been standing. The boy was practically out the door.

"Hey, wait up!" Lavi ran the short distance across the classroom to catch up to Allen. "D'ya wanna grab lunch with me?"

Allen didn't move an inch and Lavi just knew that the boy was staring at him. After what felt like an eternity, Lavi got a response.

"Thanks, but I'm fine," Allen shifted his weight between his feet for a few seconds, "I'll see you around, then." With that, shorter student practically bolted away from him.

Lavi blinked at the empty space in front of him. Despite Allen's skittish behavior, Lavi really liked the Brit. Now if only he could figure out why Allen acted like that. If there was one thing that Lavi enjoyed — besides history — it was a good riddle.

The junior smiled to himself. English just got interesting.

A/N: My first chapter of my first fanfic! I feel like this is a huge milestone for me... *basks in the glory of the moment*

So if you're wondering why Allen is in a junior English class, it's because he's really good at/loves English class (personal headcanon) and he took an English class over the summer so he's two years ahead of everyone. But just in English. He's pretty standard for everything else.

Oh, and I'm going off of American schooling system/standards. If you don't get it, that's cool. It's not super relevant to the plot. Another note: my school let's you take courses over the summer so that you can get ahead, so this school does too. XD

Okay! I want to thank you for reading my typo filled piece. Also, reviews are appreciated. I would love to hear your feedback so I can fix anything I screwed up too badly.

Once again, thank you for reading!