A thousand eyes bore holes in my flesh the moment I walked into the room. The way they glared at me so intensely made me nervous. Did they do this to all the children? Or was it simply because I was new? Did I have a stain on my uniform? Or did they hate the way I looked? Was there any chance they enjoyed my appearance? Or was I just fooling myself? I didn't have the answer to any of those questions and it horrified me. It horrified me almost more than Squalo did. I stared at the floor as I moved until I bumped into my instructor's desk. He glanced up at me, staring intently into my soul for only a moment with his beady, black eyes. He quickly returned to his papers.

"Ah, you're the new student. You must be-" he began, only to have his sentence sliced sharply in half.

"Meca. Um... Meca Latta, right? I think that's right. It should be..." my interruption trailed off. I had somewhat forgotten the last name of my new alias. He looked back up at me, glaring this time.

"Please don't interr-"

"Oh, yeah, sorry. I won't." I bleated. I dug my thumbnail into my thigh as punishment. This was not the time to be socially awkward, Meca. Be charming and adorable. Finally make some friends who aren't psychopaths. My attempts at encouragement failed rather brutally. I pursed my lips, nibbling at their flesh contently as the teacher began to lecture me. I toyed with my hands as he spoke, undoing the hem of my skirt and tearing off small bits of fabric until very little of my uniform was left.

"... Do you understand?" he finally looked down at me, his sharp eyes searching for any sign of weakness that may have touched my body. I wanted to answer truthfully, but saner heads prevailed after a long moment of thinking.

"Yes." I gave myself a nod of satisfied approval. No longer socially awkward. It felt extremely pleasant to know I could answer someone and not interrupt them. I headed for my seat triumphantly.

"Oh, Ms. Latta, I'm afraid you aren't allowed to wear anything other than your uniform so-"

"I'm only required to wear my uniform. The student handbook specifies nothing about what can be worn over or under the uniform. I won't be changing." I took a seat in a desk adjacent to Tsunayoshi Sawada while a stunned teacher glared at me from across the room. Most of the students began sniggering in their seats, passing around rude comments about both my offended, adult acquaintance and me.

He took charge of the classroom immediately and began giving a rather startling lecture about the American writing style. I shrunk down in my desk to avoid being seen while he prattled on about laziness and other stereotypical traits. My eyes traveled over to the boy next to me.

He was staring out the window whimsically; his brown eyes covered half way by taunt eyelids. The young man was surprisingly scrawny. I leaned a bit farther away from my desk to get a closer look at him. He lacked any trace of muscle tone or even really anything that may have been considered a muscle fiber. His brunette hair was so enormously puffy I was tempted to stick small items in it just to see if he noticed.

"Mr. Sawada and Ms. Latta! Is something that pertains to American writing out that window?" the now extremely cranky old man at the head of the room cracked a ruler over his desk. It split in half, one end remaining in his grip while the other sped around the room and ricocheted directly into someone's face.

Sawada whipped his head around to face the front of the room but was instead greeted by the very eerie sight of a socially inept idiot looking him up and down, literally taking notes on his outward appearance. We stared at each other for an intensely long few moments, almost as if we had engaged in a contest to decide who was just that much more awkward. I won. Unfortunately. He turned away sluggishly to respond to the teacher's summons.

"No, sorry..." his annoyingly squeaky voice trailed off as his gaze shifted back out the window. This time, I kept my distance. It was only a short twenty minutes before the bell rang and dismissed us all to our next class. Surprisingly, in that time, I had managed to actually get a great deal of work done. By which I mean I doodled a small picture of my boss with monster fangs next to one extremely rude sentence about Sawada's hair. I gathered my books before walking slowly towards the bathroom.

I had decided to be late. I'd memorized the school's layout last night, but nobody other than me knew that. I locked the door when I got there, lying flat on the floor and rolling around for a little while. If I wasn't so awkward, I would explain how participating in an act like that is calming and relaxing. But I am just that awkward. So you, dear elf inside my head or whoever is documenting these thoughts, will simply be stuck with the image of a thirteen year old, Italian mechanic splayed out on the tile flooring of an expensive school bathroom.

A good thirty minutes went by before I was overtaken by the sudden need for strawberry milk. The initial stress of this predicament was beginning to wear away and my less mortified self was starting to poke through. I stopped by the mirror on my way out in an attempt to asses just how fantastically strange I looked in a sea of identical uniforms. Following my profession's classic stereotype, I was almost constantly dressed in a grease stained, brown jumpsuit.

Granted, this one was special. I had reinforced the fabric and turned the suit into armor by strategically placing small, steel plates over my vital organs. I had also fitted the ensemble with a hood and a gas mask after one faithful day where I incidentally mixed ammonia and bleach together and nearly died. It often occurred to me that the event might have caused my crippling awkwardness but then I remembered I had never been graceful in any manner.

I peered back at my reflection a second time. There was a small tin soldier perching on my shoulder. I hadn't realized he'd emerged during class. As a young female in the mafia, I obviously wasn't particularly fast or strong so I was forced to rely on the toys I could make with my skills as a mechanic to fight for me. TinTin was the first thing I had used my abilities on and he remained both my best friend and my most useful creation so naturally I kept him with me at all times. The rest of my appearance was not nearly as interesting.

I was bland. My face wasn't attractive, my hair wasn't curly or lengthy, and my chest could hardly be considered anything more than okay. I shrugged, not really interested in giving any thought to how I could fix my face. I was one of those girls who didn't want to. In fact I'm almost positive I was the only girl who didn't want to. I slunk out of the bathroom after brushing my smock off. I didn't want people to know I'd been rolling around on the bathroom floor. TinTin wriggled on my shoulder, repositioning himself as I walked.

The quest for strawberry milk had just begun and I had no intentions of failing. However, my objective changed a bit when I noticed a very tall young man wandering around in the hallways. He was Takeshi Yamamoto. The baseball star, the class heartthrob, the giant-like in stature young man who was at the very top of my list.

Under Hayato Gokudera, naturally. An ex-mafioso boy ranked higher than what appeared to be the most enormously tall child I'd ever seen. While my perception of his height may have been sullied due to my crippling shortness, he was still terrifyingly monstrous. I kept my distance as I tailed him. God only knew what someone so tall might do if they found themselves being followed. This time, I actually did take noted on his appearance. Non-cynic ones as well. Except for a few crass comments about his height.

He was a rather gorgeous boy with short, spiky black hair that lined his muscular face. His brown eyes bugged out to convey a sort of child-like innocence that I found adorable. This was the enemy, but this also was the cutest enemy I'd ever faced. His body looked much like a baseball star's would, toned in all the right places. I tried not to let my guard down and keep my distance as I followed, but my awkward nature had other plans in store.

Yamamoto stopped abruptly to pull a small note out of the duffel bag he was using to carry his bats and such. I, however, did not stop nearly so soon. He turned around, being greeted by a socially inept idiot with a dumbfounded expression on her face. I made a dash in the other direction the moment we locked eyes. Bad call. I went sprawling, face first, into a wall. My body crumpled upon impact and I oozed onto the floor. My cover was blown. I stared up at him.

"H-"

"Hi." I interrupted his greeting with the utmost beauty and grace as my nose bloomed into a fountain of blood.

My total fucking apologies for that hiatus school has been WRECKING me lately. Anyhow, here's the second rewritten chapter! Sorry for the length, the probable shitiness, all of that good apology stuff! I should start updating faster though, at least until school hits that horrible STAR testing point again... Bah, I'm droning on about stuff you don't care about! Thanks for reading, Mooncalves!

~DNS