After his run in with his once friends and now strangers, Allen Walker was in the nearest men's bathroom.
"Am I hiding?" Allen looked himself in the eyes; slowly his eyes deviated to his scar, the jagged ugly, deformity that marred his pale face that was quickly losing it color.
Allen couldn't stop himself from letting his gloved fingers reach up and lightly begin to trace his scar. A gloved tipped finger slowly made the shape of a jagged pentacle. Then downwards. The jagged scar cut over his eyelid and down his cheek, curving down. His index finger lifted but once again he brought it to his face, gently running it across the line of scaring that lay horizontally under his eye.
Allen clenched his teeth couldn't stop the flashbacks to when his appearance had so dramatically changed.
"Allen! Get out of the house! I told you to run!" The said boy stood at the bottom of a set old wooden stairs, in his hand was a small, dull kitchen knife. Allen had to save Mana, the one who took him in regardless of his deformity.
A hooded man walked into the bathroom, he wasn't wearing a uniform. His clothes where expensive but still casual, too casual for a teacher's clothing. He seemed to be expecting to find Allen. The man stood at the door, just out of Allen's view in both peripheral vision and what the mirror in front of him reflected.
Allen could see his guardian being held against a wall, his form already looked defeated and his left arm lay limply by his side. "M-MANA!" Screaming, Allen ran at the figure, the large dark shadow with gleaming glasses. He held the knife in both hands and right before he knew he'd stabbed the figure he closed his eyes.
The late bell rung loudly, snapping Allen away from his flashback. Coming back to his senses he was shocked to see his hands clutching the edge of the sink while trembling. Slowly Allen pulled his hands off the basin, flexing his left hand since his fingers felt stiff. Then he felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. In an instant he swiveled around and looked at the spot he could have sworn had been where someone had been watching him.
There was no one there. Allen let out a held breath and slowly left the bathroom, trying to forgot about his unhappy memories for the moment.
From deep inside his pocket the white-haired student pulled his map, ruffled but readable. His classes had been highlighted and then numbered; Allen even had planned routes for himself to get to the classes. "If I could just figure out where I am-"
"Do you need help?" Slowly Allen turned his head towards the voice, a pleasant, polite smile on his face. The one who addressed him appeared to be staff, most likely a teacher. The older man wore black slacks with a blue button up; his voice was tinted with an Australian accent. Even though it was the first day of class the man looked worn out already.
"Is it that obvious I'm lost?" Allen muttered to himself before asking, "I'm looking for the gym, sir."
The blonde haired teacher pointed in the opposite direction the student had been walking before lightly rubbing his facial hair, "Go that way and turn right at your first opportunity, it should be easy to get to it from there." Allen nodded and noticed the teacher look at the clock, both decided to stop talking and hurry off to their class.
The gym was relatively easy to find after turning the corner as the gym teacher stood around the entrance talking with each other and looking over the new freshman entering the gym. Allen received their attention, they didn't say anything as he passed but he could feel their stares. Allen Walker was used to stares, he got them everywhere, he wasn't normal. Signs were posted above the bleachers listing teacher names and he quickly sat off to the side in his section. Other students were present but Allen didn't bother with greeting them yet.
After the bell rang the teacher began explaining the physical education course to his students just as he explained that they'd have to buy twenty dollar uniforms the doors to the gym opened. Allen would have looked to see who was late but he was currently dreading buying a gym uniform. 'There goes my careful budgeting.'
When Allen finally snapped out of his budgeting plan daydream he was being stared down by no other but Kanda.
The two were silent for ten seconds, ten long seconds.
Finally Allen broke the silence, "Do you need something Kanda?"
"Move over Moyashi. That's where I sit." Allen's eye twitched but in order to not make a scene out of this he scooted over, leaving Kanda the corner to himself.
Kanda seated himself and glared at Allen for a moment and Allen stared back but when the teacher began to speak to the class Allen paid attention again. Kanda's hard stare softened as he curiously thought about Allen's hair and face. Kanda could assume the scar was real since he'd never seen a tattoo like that and he assumed Allen wasn't dumb enough to choose to have that on his face. His hair could be dyed though. Kanda scrutinized the boys head, trying to find any sign of his brown roots.
Caught up in his staring Kanda failed to notice the teacher stop talking and Allen turning to face him. "Take a picture," muttered Allen in response to Kanda's staring. Instantly Kanda turned away and said, "Tch, why would I want a picture of you?"
"Well you were staring at me for a while, a picture would last longer." Allen stood up and stepped down from the bleachers, walking over to the table where they were selling uniforms and assigning lockers. Kanda walker over as well, he already owned a uniform but he just needed a locker for the year.
"Hey Moyashi," Kanda waited until Allen looked over his shoulder, "Who were you adopted by? And why did you never come back."
"Allen."
"What?" Kanda growled at him.
"My name. It's not 'Moyashi' Bakanda!" Allen smirked and moved forward in the line, while pulling his wallet out of his bag.
Kanda frowned and asked, "Your arm. I thought you couldn't use it. That's what Lavi told us."
Allen looked down at is arm and said, "I got it fixed." Slowly Allen counted out the money he needed to purchase his uniform. In his head he decided he needed to get a job soon, or find someplace to swindle cash with poker. Unknown to Allen, Kanda was quietly fuming, every question he asked got a vague answer or Allen changed to subject. Kanda didn't care that much in the first place, he'd just let the Moyashi count his pennies in silence.
-Lavi's location: AP US History-
Lavi had briskly walked to his first class; he greeted the teacher with a wave and asked if he could look at the years textbook. The teacher simply nodded and muttered something along the lines of put it away when at the end of class.
Sitting in the back Lavi set to work on memorizing each page of the textbook, to the students walking in Lavi appeared to be skimming the text of each page, flipping through them at a rate that was too fast for reading. A minute or two before the bell would ring a girl with two pigtails walked in.
Lenalee was nervous about this class, supposedly it was hard but she signed up for it because she wanted to make her brother proud. As she entered she immediately noticed Lavi sitting in the back flipping through the book. "Lavi!" Lenalee smiled when he looked up. The girl sat next to him since the other students were avoiding the red-haired boy since no one knew who he was.
"Lenalee… I didn't think we'd have classes together, well I guess this is a class quite a few sophomores take."
Lenalee peered over at Lavi's desk, he was already a good chunk of the way through the book, "What are you doing?"
Lavi smirked and said, "Memorizing the book so I won't have to lug this thing home ever."
"Memorizing… I didn't know you could do that. You never did as a kid. You actually refused to do schoolwork."
Lavi frowned and mumbled, "The Old Panda forces me to memorize books every day. As a kid I had more of a choice of whether or not to read. The teachers were never mean to us."
Lenalee though back and nodded in agreement, the teachers were always nicer to the orphans that attended the school which often cause rivalry between them and the other kids. The teachers though were pushed to their limits whenever they had Allen or Kanda in their class, both of them were rude and didn't get along with others.
"Lavi… who is 'The Old Panda'?" Lenalee couldn't help but imagine a literal panda even though she doubted a panda forced Lavi to memorize books.
"Ah- that's my nickname for the gramps that adopted me. So Lenalee I guess your brother adopted you." Lavi flipped the page, he was still memorizing but slower so he could still talk to Lenalee.
"Yes he did… now he's getting married though, it's really exciting! You should come to the wedding, and Kanda and Allen too. My brother would love to meet you all. I know, you, Kanda and Allen should come over for dinner. My brother's taking me out to celebrate going to a new school."
Lavi thought for a moment and said, "I couldn't say no to free food plus the old man is out tonight on some sort of meeting." Even while talking Lavi flipped through the pages of the textbook, running his vision over the small print. Quickly before the bell rang Lavi pulled out his phone, and opened his contacts, it was mostly empty. "Your number?"
Lenalee recited her cell number and slowly pulled out her phone since Lavi texted her already. Lavi looked at her phone and asked, "What phone is that?"
Lenalee glanced up as she edited her contacts which was also quite barren of names, "Oh, uh, my brother made it for me. He said that I deserve something better than what is on the market." Lenalee smiled and turned the phone off just as the bell rang.
Lavi used the time the teacher spent talking about the class to continue to flip through the book while Lenalee was actually paying attention. Towards the end of class the teacher decided to let the students talk amongst themselves, Lavi was about three quarters of the way through the text book so Lenalee decided to try to find someone else to talk to until the end of class.
Surprisingly the students in the class were curious about her and Lavi, two students no one knew. Lenalee introduced herself, the boys in the class swooned a bit yet felt uneasy, as if this girl was off limits.
Suddenly Lavi threw his arm over Lenalee's shoulder and whined, "Lenalee! Introduce me to all these girls!" With a smirk he winked at the girls but with his eye patch it appeared he was simply blinking.
Lenalee pushed the red-head's arm off her shoulder and frowned, "I see you've grown up to become a pervert!"
"Lenalee! I'm not a pervert! I'm just a growing boy." Lavi pouted before introducing himself to the girls that were talking to Lenalee. To the Chinese girl it all felt strange, meeting up with her childhood friends, it was almost like it was planned. Lenalee knew that she and Lavi were new students at the school but what about Kanda and Allen? Both seemed surprised to see the others.
Just as the bell rang Lavi put the textbook away, he had almost gotten through it but he was distracted by the other students before then. Lenalee got up and asked Lavi, "If you see Kanda or Allen could you tell them about coming to dinner tonight?"
"Sure, see you later Lenalee!" Lavi didn't rush to leave like the Chinese girl who had a sewing class next that was on an upper floor.
-Back to gym-
It was getting to the end of class and Allen was already pissed at Kanda. The guy kept making fun of his hair, his height, and calling him 'Moyashi', as much as Allen tried to be well-mannered Kanda tried to be fowl-mannered.
"Why are you following me?!" Allen glared at Kanda from over his shoulder; he was heading to the locker room to put away his athletic uniform. The outfit consisted of some black shorts, black jogging pants, a red shirt and a red coat with black trim. It was deal to get it all for twenty dollars, he knew that but twenty dollars could buy him a lot of food. Allen did love to eat.
"Tch. I'm not following you. We're just going to the same place I guess." Kanda sped up, walking a bit in front of Allen, "Now you're following me Moyashi."
The shorter of the two picked up his pace, overtaking Kanda, then Kanda picked up his speed. Soon they were sprinting down the hall to the locker room, zooming past confused students. Kanda wasn't the type to lose a challenge and without thinking stuck his foot in front of Allen's.
The younger teen was sprinting normally; he didn't think Kanda would sink as low as tripping him so his sudden loss of footing was a shock. Not wanting to go down alone Allen grabbed Kanda's hair, tugging the Japanese boy backwards.
Both boys were on the ground Allen underneath Kanda, face down, his head was smacked against the cold tile. Kanda was mostly cushioned by Allen but his own head had smacked against the tile. "What the hell Moyashi!" Slowly Kanda rolled off of Allen, rubbing his head and trying to nonchalantly make sure his hair looked okay as he got off the ground.
The boy still on the ground mumbled something incoherent at first but then sat up and pointed at Kanda, "You started this! Why did you trip me?!"
Kanda looked down at Allen with wide eyes. "Uh."
"What? Cat got your tongue?!"
Still he stared, Allen's face had blood running down it from just above his hair line. The white haired boy was too angry to notice at first. Slowly he brought his right hand up and lightly touched his face. He pulled the glove away and noted the blood staining his glove. "I'm going to go to the washroom…" Allen slowly got up and walked in the direction he assumed the washroom was in. Kanda watched Allen and jumped a bit when the freshman walked into a wall.
A few students were looking now. Kanda muttered, "Shit," while gathering up Allen's dropped uniform, "I'm not getting detention the first day of school." Kanda grabbed Allen's arm and tugged him to the nearest washroom, luckily it was empty.
The ponytailed boy chucked a few paper towels at Allen, letting the other wipe his own bloody face. "I could have got here myself." Standing in front of the mirror Allen continued to wipe his face after removing his white gloves to keep them clean. After he got the warm liquid off his face he continued onto wetting a couple of the paper towels to try and clean his hair. Red blood was difficult to get out of his white hair, leaving it pink at first.
Kanda stood against the wall on the far side of the bathroom, watching Allen out of the corner of his eye. He couldn't help but stare at his left hand; he had only seen it once before and back then Lavi had told Lenalee and himself that Allen said his left arm didn't move so he kept it covered. Kanda guessed that Allen kept his arm covered because of its appearance.
While applying pressure to his hairline to stop the bleeding Allen asked, "Are you going to call me disgusting again. Well you don't have to; your eyes say it all." Allen crumpled up his paper towel and tossed it in the trash bin. The shorter of the two turned to leave the washroom but Kanda grabbed his left wrist and tugged him around. Kanda looked at his hand and frowned, "You really think I haven't changed since then? We have all changed Allen! Maybe you should try to let go of the past a little." Kanda shoved Allen's uniform at him and left the washroom right as the bell rang.
Allen sat in a bed. Mana was dead, it was his entire fault. The boy was determined to sit in the bed forever, if Mana wasn't around then he was alone Not once did he move and if the people around him trying to 'help' touched him he'd scream until his voice stopped working but his mouth still stayed open. Cross… that was the man who was caring for him while he remained curled up in his own ball of pain and regret. Allen would have never changed if he didn't remember Mana's last words to him, "Don't stop walking. Keep moving forth." So Allen did but he was unable to forget what happened that night so he changed, acting as Mana would so his dear guardian wouldn't disappear from his world.
AN: Here's chapter two. Please Review. Next chapter shall be dinner :3