Alley: Just Another Day

Day after day, it was the same routine for Alley. Get up, go to school, endure the preps, jocks, and a certain English tutor that was the living definition of 'cruel and unusual', go home to her family. That was her routine. And the best part: she was a neko which meant she was a target for discrimination and her classmates' bullying for being different.

Nekos, human hybrids and other magical creatures were not uncommon, most of them do not display their features proudly and were mainly seen as humans. The most obvious reason was that there were people that exterminated hybrids and they would stick out like a sore thumb.

Alley had more than enough magic skills to disguise herself but chose not to. She liked the way she looked. She was average height build, although a bit pudgy, and had a cute face with brown eyes and soft showing cheek bones that were somewhat hidden by her glasses. Her skin was normal, a light shade with a but of a tan from taking cat naps in the sun often. Her short scruffy dark brown pixie cut matched her cat ears, tail and paws that replaced her hands which clearly identified herself as a neko.

As much as she liked being a neko, it had its quirks. She often had people pulling on her ears and tail, from bullies, curious people or otherwise. Although she loved the gentle affections.

What she absolutely hated was her English tutoring sessions: her demonic English teacher also served as her tutor and he was trying to force her to get rid of her verbal ticks and make her speak like a proper human. And his 'master' was a bratty terror to boot.

'What's the big deal?' she thought as she swished her tail discreetly under her desk. 'I'm not human so why should I have to speak and act like one if I don't want to? It's not like I want people like those twigs to like me.'

"Psst, Alley, Alley!" Booker, her best friend from manga club poked her in the back with a pencil which made her hair stand up on its ends and her claws extend. "Relax, it's only me. You were zoning out." he had messy red hair and thick glasses that covered most of his face and usually wore neatly pressed sweater vests and slacks.

"Mya? What's going on?" she looked around and saw everyone leaving. "Is it lunchtime already?" she really could go for something with fish right now.

"No, we're having an assembly. General monthly announcements and we have a new assistant teacher and a couple new students I think." he said as he stood up.

"Myun~ " She flicked her tail happily, finally a good change! As she was walking by towards her locker, she waved hello to two of her other friends, Matthew Williams, a shy and sweet Canadian boy that liked to hide in hoodies, and Ivan Braginski, a gentle giant Russian. They were really nice and she completely supported them as a couple. They were fun to hang around with and gave her snacks and a petting every so often.

She noticed her neighbour across the hall trying to fix the coffee machine in his locker, Lukas Bondevik, a Norwegian student that had a bit of an odd air around him. He was nice as well and she knew he had some major problems recently with his now ex-boyfriend. She didn't know the details, just that they broke up and Lukas got really hurt. "Hey Lukas, you look well." she smiled

"Thanks, you t- FAEN!" he swore as he got his hand caught in the machine and some hot water splashed on his hand. "I'll chat later."

She mewed as she continued heading out with Booker towards the gymnasium and got a seat with him as the students started rolling in.

"So~ what were you daydreaming about Alley?" he grinned as he leaned to her and she blushed lightly. "Nyothing~ not saying anything~" she said as she turned her attention to the stage.

Truth be told, she had something on her mind for a while. She had met one of the students as per invitations of her adoptive parents who were head of this school, Kiku Honda and Yao Wang. Laurence Moore was his name, he was a very energetic and friendly boy with asbergers. Her parents invited his family over one day before school started so they could get to know each other better. As expected, they became fast friend but he was not the one that was occupying her thoughts.

There was a crow that perched on her windowsill several nights over the summer. Several nights in a row, he would just sit there and watch her. After about a week, she got the courage to speak with him, and he was very kind, even complimented how cute she looked with her neko features. No one doted on her like that before aside from her adoptive parents. And she absolutely loved the attention, especially from him for some reason.

He said that they would meet again, both the nights and the dreams thereafter. He mentioned that he was a demon and that he had a human form, but he never showed it to her and the suspense was killing her. She couldn't wait to see what he would look like. She wanted him to pet her and be close to her.

After a few moments, once everyone was settled in, Kiku stepped up to the podium to give the announcements for November. Alley heard the girl's whispering excitedly and scanned around the stage to see why they were so worked up. She spotted Laurence, who gave her a wave once they made eye contact. He looked as lively as ever, with his vibrant hazel eyes and his silver blonde hair and a gentle smile on his face.

She shook her head as that wasn't the reason and saw a girl next to him. She looked about Alley's age but Alley immediately detected there was a very dangerous aura around her. She had pale skin as if the sun barely touched it, with long medium brown hair and calm, dark eyes and wore a black and white school uniform.

There was a younger looking boy, shorter at least that had black hair, a sapphire blue eye and an eyepatch. He looked extremely bored with all of this and fidgeted a bit in his school uniform.

"I'd like to introduce our two new students: Robyn Hunter, Laurence Moore, and Ciel Phntomhive." Kiku motioned to them. "Furthermore, we have two more staff additions. Strigoi Dennski," Kiku motioned to a tall man with spikey red hair and a sharp looking face with a bit of a dark stubble forming on his chin with piercing green eyes that held joy behind them, although she felt it was more of a mischievous look. He was handsome, but she didn't think it was him that created all of the attention.

"And Sebastian Michaelis." he motioned to a tall black haired crimsoned eyed man that had glasses on and his hair pushed back. He looked over the students with a thin smile and he was drop dead gorgeous! All of the girls were talking about him for sure. Who knew a guy could look so good in all black?

She had her focus fixed on him during the entire assembly, he gave a short speech on who he was and what he was going to do. Apparently, he served as a butler for several years and had done other jobs as well. He would be tutoring English, French and Latin for selected students. Alley crossed her paws that by some miracle she would be chosen and switched out. Not because that Mr Michaelis was hot, that was part of the reason though, she desperately wanted to be out of the other teacher's tutoring session.

Once they were out, some of the students swarmed the new students and staff with questions. Laurence and Strigoi were the only ones that happily took them, as she noticed, while Robyn and Ciel looked very uncomfortable through their stiff and cold features. Ciel moved towards Sebastian and stood by him through the crowd of girls and whispered something in his ear to which Sebastian gave a nod.

Alley noticed that the atmosphere suddenly intensified once Robyn and Sebastian met eye contact before being broken and Robyn shifted her eye contact to Alley.

Alley shivered and felt like there was something familiar about her. Something she'd rather not remember, it felt like she was being analyzed.

"Alleeeeey!~" She suddenly snapped out of it when she was glomped by Laurence, almost being knocked off her feet. "Hiya~ you've gotten taller~" he chimed and startled Booker a bit. "Hi, are you Alley's friend? So am I, I'm Laurence." he held out his hand and shook it happily. Laurence chose not to wear the school uniform and had a red hoodie on along with dark ripped jeans with dirty white runners. Booker shook his hand meekly.

"You just moved here?" He asked and Laurence shook his head.

"I've been here all my life but I've only had private tutors. This is my first time in an actual school." he grinned.

"Mya? ...oh right..." Alley folded her ears. "I have to go or Claude is going have a fit." she quickly headed off to Claude Fautius' office on the second floor above the main school entrance. Claude himself was a demon but he knew no limits to sadism. She couldn't get what his deal was, why he had Draconian methods of teaching. She might have been exaggerating that part but he was still a jerk.

"You're late." he said as he pushed his classes on his face. "Not very fashionable, Allison. Let's not waste any more time and get down to business." he drilled her on words that started and ended with with 'n' and 'm's' and 'ians' . But her 'annoying sounds' as he called them kept on popping up and got fed up.

"You stupid girl! You hear the words and you are perfectly capable of speaking them so quit wasting my time with this nonsense!" That was the last straw for her. She was on the verge of crying and wanted to make him pay for that. She started spouting out some Japanese and Mandarin words along with her ticks and it sounded extremely annoying.

"ENOUGH!" he shot up and was about to yell at her until a cane suddenly appeared in front of them.

"Yelling at a young lady is so uncouth." a cool voice said. Alley turned her head and her cheeks flushed as she saw Sebastian holding the cane up. "You really need some manners, Mr Fautius." She felt there was some tension between them. "I'll be taking this delightful young lady as my student from now on and this is for you from the governors." He smiled as he handed Claude a pink slip. Claude read it over quickly before leaving without another word. "She's your problem now."

Alley stuck her tongue out at him as he left but felt like crying. She felt Sebastian stroke her ears and winced as a natural reaction and stepped away. Although it felt good.

"Forgive me, I could not resist." he smiled as he retracted his hand. "Your ears just look so soft and I simply had to touch them." She was wary of him and analyzed him carefully. He was friendly, good looking, and he got rid of Claude! He was too good to be true. "Don't listen to him. You are not a nuisance." he walked over to the door and drew the shade, his eyes reflecting the light as he turned his head to her. "Shall we get started, my little kitty?"

Alley froze and fixed her gaze on him, he was the crow, he had to be.