I walked into my dorm that afternoon and was immediately hit with a waft of flower scent. It made me sneeze.

"Oh, hi, Adrianne!" Elizabeth chirps, waving at me cheerily. Her peppiness and positive energy made me want to puke, to be perfectly honest. "How was your first day of classes? Did you make any friends? Meet any cute guys?"

My English Lit professor, I wanted to say, but I didn't. "Whatever. It was boring. It's all just a waste of our time until we start doing some actual academics."

Elizabeth stared at me blankly with those shiny green eyes of hers. Then, she started to giggle. "You're so funny, Adrianne!"

THAT WASN'T A JOKE. This floral scented room spray must be killing your brain cells, I thought to myself.

However, I forced myself to be a bit more pleasant. I was going to have to put up with Elizabeth all year.

"Yes, I'm a regular comedian," I said flatly. "That's me. Class Clown Adrianne." To be honest, people really did laugh at me here, but it wasn't because of my sense of humor. "Moving on now. Sorry for the late notice, Elizabeth, but I'm having a friend over here this afternoon. She needs to get the English notes from me because Mr. Michaelis decided to be a git and not let latecomers in."

Elizabeth blushed a little. "He's not that bad. He was, um, my teacher at the school I used to go to. He's strict, but he's nice and he's helpful, you know? And he's certainly not bad looking, either."

"I will not dispute that last part. I was scared I'd drool over him so badly that we'd need to get a wet floor sign," I admitted.

We were interrupted by a knock on the (newly replaced) door.

"That's probably my friend Morgan," I said. "I'll get it."

I swung the door open, and Morgan stepped inside. She looked around, spotted Elizabeth, and blushed. Elizabeth, though, didn't seem to notice her embarrassment.

"Oh, Morgan! Hi!" Elizabeth greeted her. I raised my brows at Morgan to ask how the two of them knew each other, and Morgan kind of shrugged in response.

"Adrianne, Morgan's in, like, all of my classes except for English and chemistry," Elizabeth filled me in, having noticed our nonverbal exchange. Morgan's pink blush deepened to red, and I could tell she was trying (and failing) to find something to say.

To spare us all a little awkwardness, I grabbed my English notebook and flipped it open to let Morgan copy down the notes she'd missed.

We worked in silence for a few minutes before another knock on the door interrupted us. Elizabeth opened it to reveal a brown-haired, brown-eyed lady standing there with an overstuffed bag of supplies. When she sees Elizabeth, the women squeals and hugs her.

"Elizabeth! How I've missed you. It seems like you've gotten a bit taller since I saw you last," the woman said, her words sounding unnecessarily theatrical. "And I see you have two new gorgeous friends with you. I can't wait to get to work on them."

Elizabeth smacked herself on the forehead so hard that part of me thought she might get a bruise or a concussion. "Right. I forgot I invited Nina here this afternoon to make some new dresses for me. It's getting cold out, so I need some warmer stuff," she said, oddly defensive about it. she must have sensed that I didn't really want this woman in our room. How like a student at this school to put her own shallow needs before the preferences of everyone else around her. (I say 'needs' somewhat sarcastically, since Elizabeth already had enough clothing to stock an entire chain of boutiques.)

I sighed.

"I can make some new outfits for you girls, too," Nina added. "You're both so darling that it'd be a shame if I didn't make you look your best!" As she said this, she- I kid you not- groped my left breast (not that there was much to grope). Morgan had just recently finished copying the notes down, and now I had my notebook again, which I wasted no time in hitting Nina with.

To my shock, she just laughed. "Oh, a feisty one, huh? I know just the kind of outfit to put you in."

I was bright red now.

"Nina's a little … forward," Elizabeth whispered to me. "But she's one of the best designers in London and she's a friend of the family. I promise you she gets more serious once she actually gets to work."

Be diplomatic, Adrianne. Just because Elizabeth is an obnoxious little rich bitch doesn't mean you have to be enemies with her.

"Okay, I'll put up with her. You can even talk me into trying a few things on," I said at last. And those green eyes of Elizabeth's lit up in celebration like fireworks.

I glanced at Morgan. "Are you okay with all this? If you're not, you can just go back to your dorm. I'll talk to you later."

"NO!" Elizabeth said. "Please stay, Morgan. I really want to be able to get to know you better, since we're in so many of the same classes. Pretty please? I'll be your second best friend if you do!"

Now, I've already made it quite clear that out of me, Ellis, and Morgan, Morgan was the least outgoing one. I figured that if I was barely willing to stay in here with Elizabeth and Nina, then Morgan would be out of there in no time flat. But, to my surprise, Morgan nodded in agreement.

"Why not? It's not like I have any homework on the first day of school," she said tentatively.

Except in English Literature… thank you so much for that one, Mr. Michaelis.

"Great!" Nina said. "Now I'll just need to get all of your measurements. Elizabeth, I know I already have yours, unless they've changed." Elizabeth shook her head to say they hadn't. "Then let's start with the dark-haired one..."

And so, for the next three and a half hours, I was prodded and poked and violated in so many different ways that I don't even want to go into it. Nina kept insisting that, with my figure that she'd deemed 'perfectly slender, like a model' (she was probably just trying to be nice, since I've always been fairly scrawny and boyish-looking), I needed to wear every piece of clothing she threw my way. I don't know how on Earth that woman had so much energy and could make so much clothing in such little time. She must have energy drinks coursing through her veins instead of blood. As for Morgan, Nina didn't stop gushing over how pretty she was and how nice she'd look in some of her designs. She even said that she'd recruit Morgan to model for her next catalogue if she wanted, but of course she declined.

Elizabeth had been the least fussy of the three of us, probably since she was the most used to being fussed over. But she kept a steady conversation going with Morgan, to my shock, and they actually seemed to have become friendly by the end of it. To be honest, I was a bit jealous- hey, I admit it, I'm an envious person. Being an underprivileged person at this school, you can't expect me not to be- of how quickly she'd warmed up to Elizabeth. It took over a month before Morgan was willing to talk to me so kindly and openly, and yet it only took Elizabeth a day.

Elizabeth and Morgan exchanged cell numbers, and then Morgan was off.

"See you in world history tomorrow!" Elizabeth shouted to her.

And that was when I realized that Elizabeth was in the same grade as we were.

I felt like a moron. Of course, Elizabeth was in her junior year, too. At Alexandrina, they assigned roommates based on gender and grade level; your roommate had to be the same as you in both respects. Still… it sounds bad to say this, but Elizabeth just didn't seem mature enough to be a junior. She was too peppy, too bouncy, too willing to make a fuss over everything. Granted, a lot of my classmates were great at making things more self-centric and complicated than they actually were, but it still seemed odd to think about.

But this was the weirdest part: at Alexandrina, you either start in the seventh grade like I had, or you start in the ninth grade at the upper school. To transfer in with only two years until your graduation? That was basically unheard of.

So what was Elizabeth here for?

A/N:

So this is where the plot is officially starting to build up. So far this has been a pretty lighthearted story (at least among the things I write), but I guarantee you this: this is a Black Butler fic I'm writing, so it can't stay that way for long. Expect it to get a little bit darker with each coming chapter.

By the way, I figure I'd clarify this: in this story, Elizabeth and Ciel have both been aged up. Elizabeth is a little older than Ciel in the manga canon (not sure about the anime), so that also applies here: Elizabeth is a high school junior and Ciel is a sophomore.

Please read/review! There's really no point in writing this if no one's gonna read it