"You said what?!" Alois cried loudly, slim body toppling over in the grass from the force of Ciel's kick to his side.

"You're too loud!" the blue haired boy hissed, slamming his book shut and shooting daggers at his so called "friend". "What if someone hears you?"

Alois probably would have responded right away, though he was too busy convulsing on the ground, covering his mouth to escape what was no doubt his most obnoxious laughter at the situation Ciel explained to him a few seconds before. He rolled around a bit squealing, and Ciel threw his book at him. "Just shut the hell up you bloody git!"

"I-I can't h-help it…too f-funny!" The blond managed to rasp out in-between his laughter. "Can't breathe…!"

"Good, please die now," Ciel growled, standing up from their usual spot at the tree with the intention of walking away. Before he could, however, Alois shot forward and grabbed his sleeve, stopping him. "Wait—hehe—I'm done, I promise." The grin the older boy gave him didn't look too promising, though Ciel knew this was the best he was going to get. Yanking his arm out of Alois' grip, he huffed and sat back down, turning expectant eyes to the older student.

"Alright, say your piece," the smaller student ordered, crossing his arms.

Alois, to his credit, looked thoughtful for a moment, before all respect Ciel held for him vanished as he burst out laughing again, shoulders racking with unconcealed giggles. "You—you volunteered to dress up as a girl…casually! You realize that don't you?" he laughed, holding his gut. Ciel could feel a few wandering eyes on the two, and his ears heated up out of embarrassment. A quick glare sent the students with the courage to stare scrambling away before he focused his fury back on the boy in front of him.

"Yes, I get that. Honestly, I don't understand why I bothered telling you something like this. You're reacting exactly how my good judgment said you would."

"Sorry," Alois apologized, finally calming down enough for a real conversation. "But this means you're totally into Sebastian though, right?"

"Ugh, no," the ocean-eyed boy sighed. "It's something I'm doing for myself."

Alois scoffed. "Yeah right, no one would go through that again for someone they didn't want to bang."

"Why the hell do you have to be so crude all the time?"

"It's part of my boyish charm."

"'Boyish charm' my arse," Ciel argued, rubbing his temples with his hand. Whenever Alois was around he always got a major headache. Coincidence? He thought not.

Still, the blond continued watching him. "Well, if it isn't for the fact you like him, why else would you agree to be his arm candy?" he asked, genuinely curious to the point Ciel wasn't sure how to answer.

He didn't need to, however, as the bell rang and the students began retreating inside the large Academy. There were fewer and fewer of them each day as the weather got colder, and Ciel dreaded the day it would be too cold for him to sit outside like this, free and unconstrained by bland beige walls.

Alois shot up, pulling the freshman up beside him. "Tell me later. I have first period with Claude and there's no way I'm missing out on that."

Ciel stumbled when he remembered the strange senior propositioning friendship with him. He had no idea why Claude had taken an interest in him, but if he would have done it a day or two earlier then he could have avoided the mess with crossdressing and running into Sebastian. The thought made him scowl in frustration at his luck, and he wondered if he should try to sic the man on his obnoxious blond friend. He didn't need more "friends" to complicate his remaining school years.

After Alois ditched him, Ciel rushed to class from his locker. Fortunately, the hallway was clear of teachers and students, and if he ran a bit faster he should have been able to beat the bell. However, when he rounded the corner towards his class, a sudden yank on his collar sent him stumbling back and his book slid out of his arms onto the floor, notebook pages flying everywhere.

"Phantomhive, no running in the halls."

Junior class student William T. Spears stood there, releasing Ciel's collar in favor of pushing his silver-rimmed glasses further up his nose. His posture was stiff straight and uniform perfectly neat and tidy (not that Ciel's wasn't—just that William made everything seem even more orderly), befitting of the Student Body President. In fact, if Ciel remembered correctly, he'd been elected as President sophomore year, the youngest anyone at that school had ever been elected. He took his position very seriously, even delegating himself as a sort of hall monitor before class to help cut down on tardiness and prevent violent outbreaks amongst students.

Ciel mentally scowled. He'd heard rumors—this guy was one of the last people you wanted to bump in to. Not just because he heard he'd had a black belt in karate as well. Ciel narrowed his eye and bent down to pick up his flyaway pages. "Sorry, I was about to be—" he started when the drone of the bell cut him off, "—late for class. Nevermind." Damn. Well, hopefully his teacher Mr. Agni wouldn't mind. It wasn't like he'd made a habit of being late his first week.

"If you would have walked to your class at a decent time instead of waiting until the last possible second, you would have been fine," William scolded in his bland, monotone voice. Ciel briefly wondered if he and Claude were related.

"Yes, thanks for the oh-so helpful advice, I'll be sure to remember that next time," Ciel responded sarcastically through grit teeth, getting up and moving across the hall to collect the rest of his papers.

William, if he detected the sarcasm dripping from Ciel's voice, continued on. "Yes, well if you would like me to print you off a schedule for the bells, I'd be happy to do so. We can prevent this mess from happening again." His pale hand gestured towards all the remaining papers Ciel still had to pick up from the ground. "And you wouldn't be late."

Nevermind the fact that he could have just let me run past, Ciel growled to himself. That would have been too easy. "Aren't you late as well?" he asked, glaring up at the taller teen as he shuffled his papers.

"I am exempt the first five minutes," William explained easily, emerald eyes flickering down to the watch resting on his wrist. Some laughter sounded through the halls, and both the freshman and junior turned their heads towards two students casually walking towards them yet not paying the slightest bit of mind to anything but their conversation. It appeared to be a boy and a girl, donning both the yellow and blue variants of the uniform respectively. Ciel didn't know who they were, but he instantly felt irritation radiating off the student council president.

"Ronald Knox, do you have any idea what time it is?" William asked, his voice calm though twitching brow revealing all the irritation he currently felt.

Ronald froze and looked up, seeing his classmate in front of him. "O-Oh, hey Will," he laughed, scratching his blond and brown mop of hair. "We were just going to the bathroom… honest! Teacher even said we could!"

"Your hall pass?"

"Um…"

William ran a pale hand through his slicked back hair, and suddenly he looked tired. "Thought so." He turned to Ciel. "Please excuse me, and make sure you get to your next class on time." With that, he walked towards the couple, grabbing Ronald by the arm despite his protests and pulling him back towards the front of the school where the offices were, the girl taking her chance and running back towards where Ciel assumed her class was. Well, at least that took care of one of his problems.

Ciel still had a few papers to pick up, but when he stacked the ones in his hands he stood up to go over towards the remaining few, he stumbled and sent the ones in his hands all scattering about once more. "Dammit!" he hissed, feeling the urge to throw a tantrum and stomp his foot. Seriously, why the hell did he buy loose leaf paper?

"Need some help?" a mildly amused voice asked, and Ciel mentally cursed once more at his rotten luck. He didn't even need to turn around to know Sebastian was casually leaning against the wall, arms crossed and his usual smile on his face.

"Not really," the younger student responded coldly, going back to his mission of picking his papers up. That didn't stop Sebastian from kneeling on the ground beside him anyways and helping with the task. Ciel didn't fight his help, though he wouldn't admit he was grateful for it.

"I saw Spears scolding you and considered jumping in to help," the older teen started casually. "Wasn't needed though, Ronald has impeccable timing as always."

Ciel didn't know why Sebastian was starting a conversation with him that wasn't about his "Skye" persona, and half heartedly muttered "feel sorry for that guy."

Sebastian chuckled. "I don't know them well, but I think Spears has a soft spot for Ronald. Grell spends a lot of time with those two I believe and says they're very close." Because when Ciel watched Ronald Knox practically being dragged to what would undoubtedly end up being detention, he couldn't help but think Wow, those two must be such great friends!

He didn't say this aloud, and only when Sebastian handed him his stack of papers did Ciel mumble a questionable "thank you". Sebastian didn't seem fazed in the slightest, standing up and brushing himself off before lending a hand to Ciel, who obviously didn't take it. Honestly, if the whole situation with William hadn't just happened, the blue-haired boy would probably have been much kinder towards the senior who was practically trying to court him (well not him exactly), but Ciel wasn't a generally kind person to begin with, and when he was irritated it just created an awful mix of emotions that was just easier for most people to avoid then to actually deal with.

With a small nod, Ciel wordlessly turned to walk away, before Sebastian spoke and stopped him once again. "You like to draw?"

"What?" The shorter teen asked in confusion stopping and looking back at the senior. "What are you talking about?"

"Your papers," Sebastian pointed to the binder in Ciel's hand, "some of them had doodles all over them. They're quite good, actually. I'm impressed." Ciel felt the tips of his ears burn, turning back around and making his escape much more quickly, feeling the red-hot ruby eyes burning on his retreating back. Sebastian didn't stop him this time, which he was grateful for.

What am I doing, what am I doing, what am I doing?

He loved art. It was a quiet, calm way to relieve stress and get his emotions out in a way only he understood. Besides art class projects from early in middle school, he never ever let someone see his actual work, because he wasn't sure he'd be able to handle negative criticism. He didn't have high self esteem at the best of times, and, despite his usual chilly your opinions make no difference to me façade, appearance and opinions did bite at him, which is why he kept to himself and preferred if everyone else did the same around him.

It was the first time in years someone commented on something he'd done. And, despite the fact they were just little doodles of some foliage and trees, Sebastian liked it. Ciel was pretty good at detecting dishonesty, and he felt the raven-haired senior was being completely honest, no hint of malice or sarcasm anywhere. He wasn't sure if he should appreciate the compliment or chew the teen off for looking at his stuff, but he couldn't help but savor the little pang of pride that came with having his talent recognized, even if the doodles weren't much to look at. He still wasn't going to let the world see what he could really do, but that was a given. He was a private person through and through, after all.

After he apologized profusely for being late, Mr. Agni smiled warmly and directed him towards his seat, understanding evident in his voice. It was Home Economics and they usually didn't start cooking until the end of the week, so he wasn't missing much anyways.

He was forced to share his table with an annoying freshman named Souma who quickly became Mr. Agni's teacher's pet within the first week, probably due to the fact they both originated from India. Despite Souma's accent having faded slightly with years of living abroad, Agni's was still strong and, often times even difficult to understand if you weren't listening closely. He was a kind man, however, and Ciel didn't think he'd mind class with him this semester.

His second class that day, Geography, Ciel hated with a passion. Mr. Randall, the teacher, was an old, angry faced no-nonsense type who was way too smart to be teaching high schoolers. Very few passed his class with good graces, and Ciel knew the man hated his guts the moment he entered the room and sat in his usual desired spot in the back of the class.

"Phantomhive… I recognize that name. I believe I taught your father when he was your age," he recalled Randall saying the first day of class.

"Really?" Ciel asked, chin resting on his hand as he waited for the bell to ring and for the other students to pile in so he wouldn't be stuck having to make small talk.

"Yes," the elderly man replied, turning a harsh glare at the blue-eyed student, "I remember him well; worst academic year of my life."

And from then on, Mr. Randall decided to take out all his past aggression on Ciel, deciding that his old student being dead wasn't a good enough excuse not to do so. Because of that, Randall looked for nearly every reason he could (though never succeeding) to find ways to get Ciel in trouble, such as keeping the door locked until the last second so Ciel couldn't get in the room without being tardy, tiptoeing around his raised hand when Ciel had a question that needed answered, and calling on him when the boy obviously didn't know the answer or even had his hand raised. Ciel briefly wondered what kind of student his father was to have earned such malice, before he decided it was best he didn't know.

Alois, who happened to be in that class, never helped matters when he threw paper wads at Randall's back and Ciel instantly got blamed for it, but a good punch to the gut administered by said boy later that day quickly ended that.

So far, the day was proceeding normally, until he used his free period to go to the library when it happened.

Hello Skye, this is Sebastian from the bookstore. Your brother gave me your cell phone number the other day, I hope you don't mind. It's my free period right now, so please feel free to text me around this time if you want.

Ciel stared down at his phone like it was a foreign object. Only two people in the world ever sent him texts these days: his aunt and Alois. And even then, those were few and far inbetween. His aunt messaged him to let him know where she was when she couldn't call and tell him herself. And Alois liked to send the occasional penis joke and disturbingly inappropriate meme that acted as a poor excuse at humor. The cold teen usually only gave one word responses just so they knew he was alive, but even then they never usually responded back, because if they did than chances were he wouldn't. Once upon a time when Lizzie managed to get a hold of his number, she spammed him with a million texts a day. However after enough one-sided conversations she gave up and now only messaged him when she absolutely had to. And these people were family and friends.

Sebastian was clearly neither. Why should he bother to respond? Sure, when Sebastian had asked for "Skye's" number when they met last at the bookstore, obviously Ciel had to give him his own. He thought nothing of it, because people just didn't text him. And now, here he was in school nonetheless hearing the ping that alerted him to a new message. He hadn't even bothered to put his phone on silent in months, that's just how rare of an occasion this was. What if he was in class?

He didn't have to respond. Normally he wouldn't. But Sebastian thought he was texting a sweet, shy young girl and not the stone-cold boy he'd helped pick up papers just a few hours before. And if he didn't respond, the black haired teen would probably come harass him and Ciel would have to make up more lies to cover his butt.

He checked the time, and didn't realize he'd been staring at his phone screen for nearly five minutes contemplating what to do. Finally, he settled on the best reply he could muster;

Its fine

That was alright, wasn't it? He didn't want to seem eager, because clearly he wasn't, but his usual one word response of okay might be taken as offensive. He didn't like this situation—his heart was pounding just from two texts.

Ciel stared at his phone again until the screen illuminated with a ping and the alert of another message. He swiped the screen quickly to read it.

It was enjoyable talking to you the other day. Would you be willing to meet up with me after school? I can meet you somewhere if you'd like.

No Ciel typed on reflex, quickly backspacing and deciding against it. The whole point of willingly dressing up as Skye was so that he could have someone to talk to, wasn't it? As Lizzie said, it was like being able to de-stress himself without anyone knowing it was actually him. Granted, there wasn't a whole lot that stressed him out that he actually could talk about, and it wasn't like he could talk about his day at school without Sebastian knowing who he was and dear Lord why was he doing this again? It seemed like such a good idea at the time, but he was constantly lying, pretending to be someone else and now there was texting involved and he wasn't ready for this kind of thing—

Don't over-think it.

He swore his heart lurched when he heard his phone go off once more. Quickly reading the message, he took a deep breath, calming down the racing organ. Was Sebastian a mind reader now? Or was he just that easy to read, even over text?

Though it was true, he was overthinking it. They were just texting, what people usually do when they are far away and want to contact each other. Convenience. He felt silly making such a big deal about the whole situation, and he felt better knowing that Sebastian wouldn't force him to go if he didn't want to, and he could end this whole charade with "Skye" any time he wanted. Besides, it was rare to find intelligent conversation at that school when you were an outcast (and the only one who considered you a friend was a creepy masochistic sophomore). Pulling out his phone, he took another deep breath and began to type his response.

However, before he could put two words in the message, his phone was swiped right from his hands.

"Naughty naughty," a crazed voice said, followed by a trail of psychotic sounding giggles. Ciel's head shot up to see a man with long gray hair sitting on the table beside him, face obscured by long bangs that laid over his eyes and a trim black suit that looked more like funeral clothing than anything else. "I was wondering what those sounds were. Texting in school is prohibited, you know~" the man laughed again, and if he didn't look so strange and out of place Ciel probably would have tried to swipe his phone back.

"Who are you?" the boy asked warily, eyeing the small device in the man's pale grip. His fingernails were painted black. Huh.

He received another Cheshire cat-like grin in return, followed by more giggles. "Ah~ you must be a freshman to not know me! Phantomhive, right?" Ciel didn't have to respond before the man leaned closer, tilting his chin up and looking him right in the eye. Or, at least Ciel assumed he was, considering he couldn't see this man's eyes at all. "Don't tell me, I can see the resemblance. Amazing!"

Ciel pulled his face away, schooling his expression back into neutral, and held out his hand. "Great, yes, the previous Phantomhive to come here was my father. Now give me back my phone before I go get a staff member." It was bad enough Mr. Randall had to bring up people he didn't like to talk about anymore, but now this man had done it too.

His threat did nothing to deter the guy, however. "Well, lad, luckily for you I am a staff member, the librarian, to be exact, or the Undertaker, as the students like to call me. This means you're in my domain~"

He blanched. This was the librarian? Funtum High was an elite private academy where usually only the smartest or richest families could get their children in. The teachers were top notch and the rest of the staff was trained to adhere to the students' needs to the best of their abilities. And this was who they hired for their librarian?

"They call you… 'Undertaker'?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"You seem surprised, Phantomhive," the "Undertaker" giggled, resting his chin on his hand in obvious amusement. "Something wrong with that?"

He was. "You just…don't seem like the librarian type," he said, keeping his features calm despite the growing impatience he was feeling. Who would call their librarian the Undertaker? However, if it was true that this man was the librarian, there was no way he could go off on him now; despite how he looked the man had authority over him. Great.

"Not really," came the Undertaker's response. "I'm only here part time. I work in a morgue with beautiful corpses the second half of the day~" That explained so much and yet so little. The librarian continued. "Now then, for breaking the rules… what should we do with you?"

The man seemed way too eager for Ciel's comfort, and he felt a chill go up his spine. "I'm sorry," he said, trying to sound as sincere as possible. "I'll turn it off right away."

He must not have looked sincere enough, for then the Undertaker began laughing again, tucking the phone away in his breast pocket. "Apology accepted! You can pick it up tomorrow morning."

Ciel blinked. "Wait, what?"

The gray haired man's grin widened, which Ciel thought would have been almost impressive if he wasn't confiscating his stuff from him. "I said," Undertaker repeated, "you can come pick your phone up tomorrow. I'll take good care of it!"

Ciel opened his mouth to argue, but the man was already happily walking away, a spring in his step. "Wait!" the boy called after him.

"Shhhhh, we're in the library," the Undertaker chided with a laugh, his bony finger raised to his lips. "I'll see you tomorrow, and bring a joke!"

Ciel was going to follow after him and continue complaining about the unfairness of it all, but after the man turned a corner and disappeared behind a bookcase, Ciel couldn't find him anymore. In his defense, the library was huge. "Just great," he sighed, angrily running a hand through his hair and collapsing on the chair nearest to him. He never even got to text Sebastian back his response, what the hell was he supposed to do now? He was invited out after school, but seeing as he couldn't confirm or deny the invitation, Sebastian wouldn't know what to do. That being said, he probably already thought Skye was ignoring him now, and Ciel actually felt a bit guilty. It wasn't his fault though, it was the librarian's!

Not that he could tell Sebastian that.

But what could he do?

Ciel had lunch after his free period, so in theory he still had about another hour before he had to go to his next class. Luckily Alois had this lunch too, because he needed him.

"Trancy!" he called out to the blond walking out of the canteen with a bag of chips in his hand. Alois stopped and turned around, spotting Ciel and grinning.

"Ciel! There you are! I got hungry so I didn't bother waiting for you, sorry," he said, though he didn't sound very sorry.

"Whatever," Ciel shrugged, opening out his hand. "I need to borrow your cell phone."

"Why?"

"I need to make a call, and mine got confiscated." He was still sore about that, so before Alois could open his mouth to obnoxiously ask why and tease him about it, he snapped "I'll explain later, just give it to me."

Alois blinked at him for a second before rolling his eyes, reaching into his pocket and pulling his phone out. "Geez, what crawled up your arse and died today?"

Ignoring him, Ciel unlocked the phone (Alois' password was dick, and of course he wasn't surprised) and instantly went to the keypad. Dialing in the number, without fail by the third ring the other party picked up with a friendly "Phantomhive Residence". Ciel sighed and fought the growing blush from his face.

"Tanaka, it's me, I need you to do me a favor."

Feigning sick, Ciel managed to get out of class ten minutes before the final bell rang to dismiss the students. He used this time to go to the bathroom, get dressed, and climb out the window to hide by the school gates. Self consciously pulling at his shirt, waiting for Sebastian to leave the building was now Skye, clad in a white blouse that went mid thigh, laced around the collar and the bottom with black ribbon, black leggings, brown knee-high, low heel boots and a dark brown cardigan. The clothes were much less gaudy then what he was wearing last time he dressed up, thankfully. He tried to remain out of sight as the students swarmed out, all the while looking for a certain black haired senior.

He didn't have study hall that day so he hadn't seen Sebastian since they picked up his papers from the hallway floor. Hell, he wasn't even sure if the Senior even came out this exit or not. All he could do was cross his fingers and hope that he found Sebastian before someone like Alois found Ciel. The sophomore's insane laughter would no doubt draw attention to him.

"Excuse me—" a voice beside him started, and Ciel's heart nearly thumped out of his chest when he jumped and turned to see Claude standing there, honey-gold eyes staring down at him in slight surprise, the most emotion Ciel could ever recall seeing on the senior's face. Frantic that his cover had been blown, Ciel quickly looked away, hands coming up to his chest in a lame attempt to still his heart. Please, whatever God exists, just kill me here—

"Oh, my apologies, I thought you were someone else," Claude said after a few seconds of Ciel's mental breakdown.

"W-what?" he asked, still too afraid to look at the taller man behind him.

Claude didn't seem fazed by his behavior. "There's a boy that goes to school here, Ciel Phantomhive. I saw you from afar and thought you were him, but clearly you aren't. A relative, perhaps?"

Ciel, after his mini panic attack, wasn't sure he'd be able respond, still trying to find his voice. Luckily, he didn't have too; a voice from behind Claude answered for him. "She's his twin."

Both Ciel and Claude turned to see Sebastian standing there, his usual smile painted on his face, though with a much more threatening aura surrounding it.

"Ah, I see. That explains it," Claude nodded in understanding, not threatened by Sebastian in the least. "I apologize once more for thinking you were your brother."

Ciel didn't even try to respond as Claude nodded at him and the ruby-eyed teen before walking away the way he had come. Sebastian watched him retreat for a few more seconds before the vile aura dropped and the thickness in the air evaporated. Instantly Ciel felt relieved, the pounding in his chest calming down as Claude disappeared. He swore he was found out for sure.

"Skye, I can't believe you actually met me here," Sebastian began, taking a step closer. "When you stopped responding to my texts I thought that maybe I had upset you."

He seemed genuinely happy, so bright that Ciel felt he nearly had to shield his eyes from the smile Sebastian was giving him.

"Oh. Uh… sorry about that," he started, changing the pitch of his tone ever so slightly, just like he had before. "I… misplaced my phone, and h-had no way to get a hold of you. So…"

"…so you came to see me?" Sebastian chuckled, reaching up and running a hand through his hair. "How thoughtful of you."

It took everything he had to fight down the blush threatening to spill on his cheeks. It was for convenience more than anything else, but when he thought about it, he didn't have to have called Tanaka to bring him a change of clothes (thankfully the butler didn't ask why he had a trunk full of girl clothes to begin with)—he could have just told Sebastian what happened the next day when they actually had a class together. He was actually going pretty far out of his way for the sake of the taller teen not feeling bad.

He must have been too silent as he contemplated this, because next thing he knew there was a slender hand being offered to him, similar to when it was offered to Ciel this morning after the hallway incident, but with so much more intention by the smile and hidden something in the red orbs that watched him.

"Now then, my Lady, shall we be going?"

FOUR YEARS SINCE THE LAST UPDATE!

IS THERE ANYONE ALIVE OUT THERE?! PLEASE ACCEPT MY APOLOGIES AND ENJOY THIS CHAPTER!