He was an idiot, I assessed, for coming up and calling me Juliet in class although I'd never met him before and my ID tag clearly stated Allen. Upon my correction, he scoffed , said that I was a prissy before claiming that the name of Shakespeare's tragic heroine suited my looks , just cuz I had my hair up in a lil' ponytail. I didn't like it one bit so yeah, I stood up to the sexist moron.

' Juliet's supposed to be a fair maiden with flowing locks of deep gold. Seeing how long-sighted you are, let me tell you that I have white hair.'

Green eyes twinkled, as if they were dancing from the mirth reflected within while his lips pulled into a mocking smirk. I didn't see it coming till I felt that damn flick on my forehead.

' Litreature is subjective, dude. Juliet could have had a bob, a 'Rachel' or even a Mohawk and she'd still be Juliet 'cuz in the end, it all boils down to our imagination. Our definition of her beauty.'

I snorted.

' Fact of the day: Juliet's a girl, I'm a guy. Thus, I rest my case.'

' Fact of the day: You're prissy enough to be one, you've got that ponytail and no matter how much you protest or how many times you come up with plots to cut my tongue off and boil it in, say , carrot soup, I'm sticking to Juliet.'

With that, he shrugged and grinned so wide that it was maddeningly similar to a certain fictional head-juggling striped purple cat. To be honest, nobody ever had me this riled up.

Or this stumped.

I wasn't much of a social animal, never had the knack for all the getting chummy-chummy and opening-your-heart-to-people shit so I generally steered away from my fellow homo sapiens, with the exception of my good for nothing guardian and the old lady next door. I liked the way her aged features eased as she smiled whenever I came over to play with her cat, Babar.

So when this total stranger, messy red hair and all, popped up and awarded me that honourably-feminine-my-ass title, my first move was to raise my defences, to push him away with rudeness. Other people, well, NORMAL people would have been offended and left in a huff but he didn't. There he was, right in front of me, not giving a damn about randomly giving a random person so irritatingly random a nickname.

I scratched my head, frustration pounding at my abused brain. The idiot had me stumped alright.

The next damn minute, the next fucking thing he said threw me completely off my feet.

'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.'

He paused for breath.

I silently begged for sweet mercy.

He continued reciting in that nauseating British lilt.

I kissed my tattered sanity a painfully dear goodbye.

' Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.'

By the time he finished, I was barely keeping it together, a victim to poetry crap-induced mental breakdown. Without warning, I grabbed his shoulders and shook him madly.

' What the fuck is the purpose of that horrendously horrid rubbish!'

' I can tell that you're allergic to fine poetry, Juliet.'

More violent shaking.

' IT'S ALLEN, DAMMIT!'

' That was Sonnet 18, a poem by Shakespeare to honour and forever preserve the beauty of his beloved on ink and paper.'

I stopped and let go.

Damn him. No, even better, damn Shakespeare. GODDAMIT, FUCK BOTH OF 'EM FOR THIS MINDFUCKERY.

' Why spout it out?'

He blinked and tugged at his collar, as if in deep thought for a logical reason before yet another shrug and Cheshire-like grin.

' Cuz I think you're beautiful.'

I.. I was afraid.

Afraid of how his annoyingly familiar grin seemed to exhibit the glory of his pearly whites.

Afraid of how his green orbs unflinchingly stared into mine, reflecting neither mockery nor jeer but plain honesty.

Afraid of how his voice never faltered even as he praised a fellow male as beautiful.

Afraid of how openly, how carelessly he aired thoughts and opinions as though words never weighed a thing from the very beginning, not once leaving his emotions unspoken.

His stubbornness, his idiocy, his unabashed indivuality all left me afraid..and guilty for desiring to leave my self-cage of isolation, just so he could shock me, anger me and open my eyes to more nonsense.

Why did Fate have to be such a vicious, old dog for giving in to this ass was like having to down cough mixture. Its bittersweet aftertaste always confounded me .

' S'name.'

'Hmm?'

' Your name.'

He smiled and extended a hand towards me.

' The name's Lavi. Nice to meetcha, Juliet!'

Darn.

' Shizz it, Romeo.'

Laughter errupted as Lavi bent double and gave me a shove on the shoulders.

He was definitely an idiot.

An unusual idiot with an unusually nice laugh.