A warm tingling sensation on his lips registered in Lavi's brain. It took a while to realize and process what had just happened; though the whole process part took a while.
He slowly brought his hand to brush against his lips. What was this feeling brewing inside of his chest? His eyes then glance down at his hand; there wasn't anything on it, then why were his lips warm and wet?
Lavi stood stock still in the middle of a park walkway. His mind was so frazzled and that he hadnt realized how dark it had gotten outside. The eerie yellow street lamps turned on, shinning right next to him, casting their glow on him. Lavi glanced over and walked that was as if an invisible force was pulling and guiding him closer. Under the glow of the lamp, he was still looking with a confused expression at his hand. His steady breath made a puff of white air in the cold night. Lavi's current brain state made him think that if he stared down his hand long enough that the answer to his questions would come to him.
What woke Lavi from his very important stating contest was the familiar ring of his cell phone playing Marina and the Diamonds. Shaking his head, Lavi reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. He checked the collar ID, letting the light of his phone illuminate his face. After the fifth ring he decided to answer.
"Hey there," greeted Lavi, slipping back to his normal, not shellshocked, self. A smile spread across his lips and he breathed out heavily, another white cloud of fog float from his mouth.
"Where are you? Your parents have been knocking on my door for the past hour asking where you are?" The heated voice cause Lavi off guard and he paused a while before replying; apparently he took too long to answer because the voice continued to reprimand and scold him. Lavi cringed at the shrill tone that was taken; he actually had to lower the sound of his phone so his ears wouldn't be permanently damaged.
"Calm down. Everything's all right. I'm just chilling at the park," he said and stuffed one cold hand into his jacket pocket. He hadn't realized how cold it got at night; the temperature had dropped twenty-six degrees since earlier; was he ever thankful that he had grabbed his jacket this morning.
"Do you even know what time it is?!" His efforts were in vain, and only proved to upset the caller more. Sometime Lavi wished he could just throw away his phone and all contact to the world around him. Sometimes he just needed to get away.
When he didn't reply the voice got angrier and less coherent. He no longer cared what he was getting yelled at for. Lavi tuned out the rant coming from his phone; instead he started wandering the deserted park, counting how many lit street lamps he could find.
In the darkness of night he found the park very relaxing compared to during the day when it was inhabited by screaming kids, barking dogs, and the like. It felt like a whole other world now; a world where things were silent except for the crickets and owls and other nocturnal animals. Lavi would have been at peace right now if his phone would stop yelling at him. He sighed and put the phone back to his ear.
"Okay, okay. See you tomorrow at school, Yuuchan." He then ended the call and closed his phone, putting it back in his pocket. Lavi groaned, thinking of what would happen tomorrow when he faced Kanda after hanging up so rudely like that. Kicking a stone with his shoe, he decided to not dwell on thoughts like that for now.
After walking around the park for another hour he settled down on a cold park bench. Retrieving his phone, he checked the time; it was quarter to eleven. Lavi groaned the leaned back.
The stars shinned bright like rows of LED lights hung randomly in the sky. The crisp night air seemed to help him clear his mind of unwanted thoughts; it let him focus on the major event of today.
She had kissed him. It had been a real surprise when her warm lips touched his; after all it was his first kiss, well first kiss with a girl anyway. Lavi would admit that when he was younger he kissed his beat friend, Yuuchan, a few times but they were kids back then and it didn't mean anything.
He didn't know what to make of his feelings. When they had kissed he had felt his heart pick up pace, but that might have just been because it was his first kiss since he was little. It's not like they had any deep chemistry or history. She had just transferred to his school one weeks ago, and she had just moved to this state two weeks prior. Lavi barely knew her but here he was contemplating their kiss, maybe even contemplating asking her out.
Groaning he sat up and checked the time; it was about midnight. He was getting cold and his parents were likely to murder him if he showed up any later, so Lavi decided to start walking home. Luckily he lived only three blocks from the park. He knew he was in for a scolding when he got home and maybe he'd get grounded for a few days.
On his way home he passed Kanda's house; Kanda lived three houses down from him. This got Lavi wondering about what Kanda would do to him at school; maybe he should bring bandaids or tell Allen to all the paramedics first. Allen was Kanda's step brother; the two had a bipolar kind of relationship; sometimes they got along really well, other times they were at each other's throats.
Lavi knew that he could trust Allen with his life. Also Allen was well known at the hospital so Lavi could get treatment quickly if he needed it. So far he hadn't needed any immediate medical attention because of Kanda, but he never knew how things would turn out, so better safe than sorry.
Standing in front of his door Lavi got out his keys and jingled them in the door knob till it unlocked. He tried to be extra quiet; maybe he could sneak to his room without his parents finding out. He was sure out of luck then since as soon as he shut the door behind him his parents were standing in the foyer looking disgruntled.
The first words that left Lavi's mouth was, "I'm sorry!" Obviously that wasn't what they wanted. His dad pointed to his room and said that Lavi was grounded for one week. Lavi didn't even try to argue because he knew they were right and he had come to the decision that he'd accept whatever punishment they gave him, so he sighed and trudged to his room.
At least it was warm inside. Once he got to his room, Lavi kicked off his shoes and threw off his jacket, then rolled onto his bed; now he just lay there in his jeans and t-shirt ready to think about whatever crossed his sixteen year-old mind. Three minutes passed and his stomach gurgled; Lavi then remembered that he hadn't eaten in twelve hour, he should probably get some food.
Cautiously he peeked outside his door; his parents were watching TV in the family room and it was a clear dash to the fridge. Lavi decided to risk it and made a break as quietly as he could to the kitchen. On his way he had almost slipped but caught himself. He did a quick over the shoulder glance then opened the fridge and grabbed the first thing he saw and ran back.
The door made a soft click as he closed it. Lavi momentarily just pressed his back against the door; that had been a heart racing mission as usual. Sliding down to the floor Lavi took some time to actually see what he had gotten.
He had grabbed a container of cold leftover lemon chicken mixed with rice and roasted vegetables. Lavi sighed thankful that he had grabbed edible food this time. Getting up from his position on the floor he shuffled through a mess of loose leaf paper and textbooks on his way to his desk. He grabbed a fork from his desk drawer and sat down on the edge of his bed to eat.
Getting sent to his room without supper was a common thing when he got in trouble so Lavi had planned ahead and stored silverware in his drawers. He also stored soda in a mini fridge, that he had purchased in secret, in his closet behind his clothes.
Cracking open a can of soda Lavi gulped it down, and began eating the cold leftovers. It probably would be better heated up, but Lavi wasn't going to complain right now; he was just satisfying his hunger.
After finishing the food, Lavi left tge container and empty soda can by the other trash: empty chip bags, soda cans, and candy wrappers. He was a growing boy; not to mention a teenager at that. It was practically his job to eat half the fridge and make a mess.
Now content, Lavi laid back in bed and stared up at the ceiling, hoping for sleep to overcome him. He didn't dare check the time; he knew it was sometime around one in the morning probably. Eventually he dozed off and drifted into a pleasant dream.
The blaring of an alarm woke up Lavi. He rolled over and tried to blindly find the snooze button. After a few hits to his alarm clock he managed to hit the snooze button, and rolled over to sleep a few more minutes.
Five minute later his alarm went off again and Lavi rolled around in a futile attempt to sleep more; finally he bolted upright, grabbed his alarm clock and tossed it into a messy pile of papers. Groaning Lavi rubbed at the sleep in his eyes, feeling rather disgruntled.
Untangling himself from his nest of blankets, Lavi ran his hand through his fiery red mess of hair. The wood floor was cold on his bare feet, which didn't motivate him very much to move but soon he got up and shuffled his way to the bathroom to wash up.
Lavi felt refreshed afterwards and came back to his room to grab clothes from his not so neat dresser drawers. Throwing on his favorite pair of blue jeans, which have a pizza stain on them, and a green long-sleeve turtle neck Lavi slipped into his sneakers, grabbed his backpack and left for school with a piece of toast hanging from between his teeth.
He had all but forgotten about rudely hanging up on Kanda the other day; that is till he saw Kanda waiting for him at the school gates. Lavi knew he was in for something, and he had forgotten to tell Allen to be ready to call the hospital for him if Kanda beat him up a lot.
Speaking of Allen, Lavi didn't see his friend anywhere in the vicinity; that wasn't a good sign. Slowing down as he got closer to Kanda, Lavi came to a halt and nervously played with the hem of his shirt.
"...Soooo Yuuchan...how's...the weather?" He laughed nervously trying, and failing, to diverge the main topic. Lavi visibly flinched and took a step back when Kanda glared at him.
"Just fine and how was your night yesterday?" asked Kanda in an irritated tone. Kanda dropped his backpack on the ground and took another predatory step in Lavi's direction.
"...Now slow down their Yuuchan...let's not cause trouble for everyone here..." Lavi held his hands up in the universal sign of surrender, and quickly glanced around at the other students. He hoped that one of them would butt in and stop Kanda. He seemed to be quite out of luck this morning, seeing as everyone just quickly shuffled past him and Kanda. Lavi's last hope was that Allen would miraculously appear and hold Kanda back.
"Cause trouble? For everyone else? DO you know how much trouble you cause me?!" Kanda started yelling and grabbed ahold of Lavi's collar, lifting him up off the ground. Bringing his arms up Lavi tried to shield his face from any punches that were destined to come his way.
Instead of getting his face hit, Lavi got punched in his stomach. That would leave a bruise. The punch took all the air from his lungs and soon he was hunched over on the ground heaving and gasping for air. While he was down Kanda walked away, growling at all the people who had the audacity to stare.
After heaving some more, Lavi spat onto the sidewalk one last time and slowly stood up. At least he had gotten it over with so he could go through the rest of the day without fearing being attacked by Kanda. Lavi grabbed his things and headed into the school building. He headed straight for his first class, calculus.
Finding his seat at the back of the room Lavi sat down and laid his head in his arms. He just needed to take slow, pregnant breathes otherwise his stomach felt like it was on fire. Between his eighty-ninth breathe out and his eighty-eighth suck of air in, Lavi noticed that the classroom was mostly full of students.
He sat up so as not to look like he was taking a snooze first thing in the morning. He had had enough bad things happen already; Lavi didn't need to add detention for sleeping in class to the list. Taking out his notebook and pencil he started taking notes on the mathematical gibberish printed on the front board. After his third page of notes his hand was tired and he decided to idle himself for the rest of class by playing with his pencil. He would pretend it was a skateboard or that it was made of rubber, anything that took his attention from today's lesson.
Finally the bell rung; math had been uneventful. Lavi had no hopes that economics would be any better, except for the fact that Allen was in his class, although they were positioned at opposite ends of the classroom.
On his way to class he bumped into one of the prettiest girls in school, Lenalee; she was a smart and fun loving girl who happened ran with the popular crowd, and had a very overprotective brother in college. She could get any guy in the school to date her with ease, and many people wanted to date her, but her brother made it practically impossible. Lavi had never spoken to her, except for during assigned group projects, since he knew a lost cause when he saw one, though it would be nice to be friends with her.
As predicted economics was boring. Lavi tried to entertain himself by throwing things at Allen. He managed to do it in secret for the first six minute but then he got caught and was told to stop. Lavi grumbled something incoherent, but finally did stopped using Allen's head as target practice for the small miscellaneous items that he had in his backpack.
After class Lavi got a light punch to his shoulder from Allen. He grinned and punched Allen back in a friendly manner.
"Hey, are you okay?"
Lavi wasn't surprised by how sudden and off topic the question was; he simply answered that he was fine, nothing time couldn't heal. Allen who had been genuinely concerned, seemed relieved by the answer.
"So where were you when I was getting roughed up by Yuuchan? Hmmmm?" he asked in an accusatory tone; being taller would be useful right now, so he could stare down Allen for the proper effect. If only he was as tall as Kanda; instead he was stuck at the measly height of five-foot-six, perfectly even with Allen. Lavi really was hoping for one last growth spurt.
He noticed Allen's face turn a bright shade of red. Now he knew Allen was guilty of something, and Lavi had a pretty good guess of what it was. Allen even tried to fake cough and change the subject, but Lavi would have none of that.
"You were stuffing your face weren't you," he accused. He knew he had hit his mark when Allen jolted.
"N-No...What would lead you to that answer...?" It only took one skeptic look from Lavi to crush Allen's weak diversion. "Okay. I was," admitted Allen as he hung his head for effect.
Lavi sighed and said, "Well next time you better be there to back me up...or call the ambulance.." He shuddered at the thought of going to the hospital all broken and bloody, though going to the hospital would be better than dying in the middle of the sidewalk. Pushing that thought to the side he grinned and said his goodbye to Allen since his class was on a different floor.
Third period, meaning chemistry for Lavi. At last a class Lavi actually enjoyed and paid attention in. Also it was his class where he could have a break from everyone he knew; it was just him and the periodic table. The class whizzed by; before he even knew it he bell had rung and it was time for fourth period, which was art. As usual he paid no mind to the class.
Then it was lunch. On his way to join Allen for lunch, Lavi spotted someone and ran ahead to pull them over.
"H..Hey.." This couldn't be any more awkward. Lavi stumbled through a greeting, trying to be casual.
"S-So...about that kiss...um..I was wondering if...maybe...you'd like to go out?"
He shut his eyes and crossed his fingers in anticipation for the worst. This was the first time he'd ever asked someone out, so he was really nervous.
Soft fingers cupped his cheek and before he knew it his lips were flush against moist pink ones; and then they were gone. "I'd like that," replied her quiet, caring voice as she walked away. "Sorry I have to catch up to my friends!" Like the wind she was gone.
In the excitement of the moment Lavi did a little happy dance. She had said yes! He was ecstatic, unable to contain his joy. He was sixteen and in high school, nothing was better than getting a girlfriend.
Lavi was practically prancing to meet Allen, he was so giddy. "Allen! Guess what! I have a girlfriend!"
Between mouthfuls of food Allen asked, "Who?"
"The new girl, Mimi."