Hello! Thanks for stopping by to read this :) I got the entire plot idea for this in one night, but I decided to try my hand at it...And I like it a bit :) Please review and let me know what I can work on so I can improve! ^^

Disclaimer: I do not own Kuroshitsuji/Black Butler, nor any of its characters - they are the intellectual property of Yana Toboso. The plot, however, is mine.

"Aw, Ciel, what do we have to go to the library for?" a young boy whined. "Libraries are so boring!" He sniffed, letting his blonde hair get tousled by the wind as he trailed behind his companion.

"You and I are partners for Mr. Michaelis' bio paper," Ciel answered, fixing the blonde with a deep blue gaze. Though he was of shorter stature, he seemed to be the authoritative one of the two. "So we have to do research. I've told you this a thousand times, Alois."

Alois whined, digging his sneaker into the sidewalk. "What does it matter? Mr. Michaelis always gives you a hundred in everything – he would even give it to you if you didn't do the assignment! He always gives you special treatment!"

The blue-haired boy huffed in disgust, turning away from the other boy. "That is not true. I earn my grades. You're the one who barely scrapes by, putting in zero effort. It's a disgrace." He dug his hands into his Dockers, dark blue turtleneck clinging to his lean frame and shielding him from the cold.

Alois gripped his thin green T-shirt as a cold March wind blew by. "I work hard too!" he snapped. "I'm just not a prodigy like you," he muttered under his breath. The cold bit at the holes in his jeans and he started to jog a bit to get his blood circulating.

The two boys, no more than 15, approached the great black doors of the library. "Well, we're here," Ciel announced. "You do know how to behave in a library, don't you?" he leered condescendingly. Just because they were partners didn't mean they were friends. No one was friends with Alois Trancy. Like anyone needed to remind him.

"Duh, of course, what do you think I am? Stupid?" Alois knew the answer to the question was yes, but his pride wouldn't allow for anyone to say it to his face. "You shut up, sit there, and read boring books." He rolled his sky-blue eyes and let his tongue stick out of his mouth for a childish moment.

Ciel shook his head in disgust. "Let's just get this over with." He pushed open the door and the two boys padded inside. Alois blinked a bit in surprise. Sure, he knew libraries were supposed to have a lot of books, but this was…really impressive, he had to admit. It was three stories, absolutely wall to wall with books, save for a few tables and desks for reading them. The books were all well-organized, and the floor and tables were spotless. If only his house was this clean – well, if you could call living in a shabby apartment a house.

Ciel went to grab a few books on the endocrine system and, after telling Alois to sit still and be quiet, the blonde boy found himself seated at one of the tables, just glancing around. He sniffed a little at his previous awe. Sure, the place might have had a lot of books, but were books worth anyway? Just words on a page, nothing more. Who'd waste their time on them?

Then, out of the corner of his eye, a flash of movement piqued his interest. Alois turned his head and saw, sitting behind a rather large and important-looking desk, a man with expertly cut black hair, a professional-looking black suit, and square glasses that he was currently pushing up the bridge of his nose with a white-gloved hand. Alois blinked. You could find people this handsome at the library?

A slapping noise a few inches behind him shook him from his stupor. "I found the books," Ciel said, monotone. He sat down at the table and grabbed the book on top, taking out his notebook and pen and instantly beginning to jot down information. Alois blinked. He hadn't thought to bring anything. Cautiously, he grabbed the second book and opened it. "Um…it says here that the endocri-"

"You didn't bring a notebook again, didn't you." It wasn't a question.

"Um…no…"

Ciel scoffed. "Honestly, I'm going to end up doing this entire paper by myself. You're so incompetent."

"I-I'm not incompetent!" Alois responded angrily. "I-I just-"

"Oh, so then you're stupid?"

Alois slapped his pale hands on the orangey-brown wood table. "Just because you skipped ahead a year doesn't make me dumb!"

"What's your GPA?"

"A 78!"

"I've got a 97. Would be higher if I wasn't forced to take an art class or PE considering my asthma." He snorted. "Can't you just accept that you'll always be sub-par to everyone else?"

"That's a lie!" Alois now stood up and began to shout, completely forgetting where he was. "I can make something out of myself! Not like you'd know what it's like to work hard at all! You live with your rich aunt and cousin and have a huge inheritance from your parents! My parents and my brother are dead! I live with my dumb stepsister, who makes a living off of scrubbing floors! Do you know how humiliating that is? I-"

A sudden grip on his shoulder caused him to stop. "Please be quiet, young man, or I will have to ask you to leave." Alois turned his head and felt as if he might die of embarrassment. It was the handsome man from behind the desk! Shit, he must have been the librarian! The young boy bit his lip, feeling the man's stern golden gaze boring into him, suddenly feeling very small and insignificant.

"I…I'm sorry," Alois stammered, much quieter, almost whispering even. "I-I didn't mean to-"

"Just keep your volume down and everything's fine." He gave a quick glance at the blue-haired boy as well. "You, watch your tongue too. It's obvious you said something to set him off." With that, he let go of Alois' shoulder and walked back to his desk. Alois felt twinges of butterfly wings in his stomach. If elegance were a scent, this man would have positively reeked of it.

"Good job," Ciel muttered bitterly, shaking Alois from his thoughts once again. "Now you got us both in trouble."

Alois decided not to try and fight back and simply sat down, trying not to look like he was staring. "Ciel, who was that?"

"Um, the librarian. Or maybe in your barbaric terms, 'king of book land.'"

Alois sniffed. "I figured that much out, dumbass. I mean, what's his name? Do you know?"

Ciel shrugged. "Nope. Not a clue. I don't come here that often." He went back to his book and notes. "If you're just going to sit there and not take notes, you might as well go home. You're useless to me otherwise."

Alois felt stung, looking downcast for a moment. He wasn't useless! He was just…a bit on the forgetful side. At least that was what Luca used to tell him. No, no, don't think of Luca, don't...! he screamed in his mind.

Alois shuffled through his pockets nervously. When his hand hit flat plastic, he was confused for a moment. Then, once he removed the offending bit and gazed upon it, he remembered. Right, his library card. He'd brought it because Ciel had yelled at him to for the past two weeks. He couldn't remember when he'd gotten it but apparently it didn't expire until next month. Hannah must have taken him at the beginning of freshman year.

His lips pursed a bit as he leaned back in the wooden chair, staring at the pale blue card. Well, if he couldn't take notes here, as long as he had this, he could take the books home and do the research there. It wasn't like he had much else to do there anyway.

"Fine, I'll go," Alois responded. He snatched up two of the books Ciel brought and went over to the desk. "See you at school tomorrow."

"Yep," Ciel responded, but his babyish face was buried in his notes, his voice giving away perfectly that he hadn't really heard a word Alois said. Which was totally fine with Alois. He didn't want anyone, didn't need anyone. As he turned back towards that desk though, he considered revoking that last statement. Maybe he did want someone… Oh, that was stupid. He was just a handsome librarian. Besides, he wasn't into guys. (… Right?)

He stood in front of the desk for a moment, holding the books in his hand and staring at the librarian. "U-um…" The man looked up from his computer screen, silent and waiting on the boy to continue. After a few awkward moments, the man coughed, causing Alois to jump a little. "I-I, um, I wanted to take these out…please," he added nervously, handing the books to him.

The man smirked for a moment, and though it was brief, Alois was pretty sure it was playful. As he checked the books out, the boy caught sight of a small nameplate on the desk, golden with the words "Claude Faustus" written on it. Claude Faustus. That sounded like a name one of the characters in his English books would have. Alois hated English. Read a poem, analyze it, write an essay on it. End class.

"Here you are," the librarian (Claude Faustus, Alois told himself, if only to remember) said to him, holding the books back out to the boy. "They're due back next week." Alois took the books and nodded in thanks. "Research paper?"

Alois nodded. "Yeah, for biology."

Mr. Faustus nodded, adjusting his glasses. "I never liked that class much when I was your age."

The blonde grinned a little. "Neither do I."

The man smiled back. "Looks like we have something in common."

The words held more gravity on Alois than the librarian probably imagined they did. No one had ever said that to him before. At least, not a total stranger. "Y-yes," he responded, unsure of how one even responded to a remark like that. "Um, I should probably be going now… I'll see you next week then?"

A polite nod and smile. "Certainly."

Alois smiled, nodding back, and then dashed in a half-walk, half-run out of the library with a grin. Maybe libraries weren't so boring, after all!

Alois opened the door to his apartment, not stopping to think why the door wasn't locked. Hannah always left the damn door open. "Hannah, I'm home!" he bellowed, slamming the door behind him.

A tall, brown-skinned woman jumped a little, causing whatever she had in her little pot to splash up out of the boiling water. "Alois, don't be so loud!" she scolded.

"Tch, you can't tell me what to do," he sniffed, kicking off his shoes and letting them hurl into the wall.

"I'm your legal guardian," Hannah retorted, but Alois only scoffed in response.

"I don't give a shit, you're just my stepsister. I don't have to listen to you!" Alois picked up the books he had placed on the floor to take off his shoes and walked towards the closet he called a bedroom. "I'm going to do homework, call me when dinner's ready."

"All right," Hannah sighed. It wasn't like Alois would listen to her if she objected. He was so stubborn. She went back to boiling the last three nights' leftovers and tried to make a decent meal out of it. It was hard with how little she got paid. Alois would have to get a job soon in order to support them with the way the economy was going.

Alois hopped on top of the little cot he called a bed and grabbed the only notebook he had, closing the closet door. He pulled on the string to light the incandescent light bulb and started leafing through the pages. Biology was so boring…

"The endocrine system is the system of glands," he muttered, scribbling the words carelessly onto the paper, not really caring about the lines telling him where his letters should go. "Glands secrete hormones that cause different changes in the body." Ugh, what did he care about any of this stuff? "Glands that signal each other are called an axis." Yeah, like he'd ever need to know that in the real world.

Frustrated, Alois threw the book down and curled up on the cot. Why did he have to learn all of these useless things? When the fuck was he ever going to use biology anywhere? And why couldn't they just look this stuff up on the computer? It'd be easier – or a lot easier to cheat, anyway.

Something poked his side as he rolled over to face the wall, and Alois reached into his pocket again. His library card. Alois stroked the blue plastic, recalling the conversation he had with the librarian. F…Faw…no, that wasn't it… Faustus! Claude Faustus! That was his name. He was nice to Alois, at least…even if he did hate books. And make that ruckus before. Alois bit his lip. He probably should have apologized to him…

Maybe he could do it next week when he went to give the books back.