I'm so sorry for late update, I've been lazy (it's been about a week!) but I just had a massive writer's block, it's fine now so hope you enjoy and forgive ^.^

Don't forget to review any ideas or improvements, or general stuff, I don't mind :p

~I do not own Fairy Tail~

"Lucy, wake up, I'm afraid we're running a bit late." My eyes opened to the sound of Zeref's voice, who was busying himself by cooking in the kitchen.

At the bottom of my bed I noticed there were neatly folded and ordered piles of clothing, all of them looking like they were newly bought. Zeref walked in whilst wiping his hands with a handkerchief.

"I completely forgot about your uniform and sports kit so this morning I bought these from the school shop down the road. I didn't know what styles you preferred so I chose a variety." He was wearing a white school shirt with a dark red tie loosely hanging around his neck, then a woolly, dark green jumper with a white Fairy Tail logo on the right chest. The trousers he wore were wrinkle-free loose, cream chinos and his feet were obviously in his typical black loafers.

I guess the uniform wasn't that bad.

However, I was shocked with the amount of clothing he had purchased for me. There were a big pile of white school blouses, two cream, pleated skirts, and four pairs of knee height white socks, 3 pairs of both nude and black tights. Next to them was cream polo shirts with a black Fairy Tail logo and two pairs of dark green skorts, on top of them were black, nylon socks.

"Zeref, you shouldn't have..." I was astounded by his generosity, I couldn't imagine how much this would have cost him, plus he's already bought me so many things.

"Nonsense, I couldn't even find a jumper your size! I have ordered some though, but they will arrive in a few days, until then you can borrow one of mine." He placed two plates on the glass table in front of the sofa and then walked over to his wardrobe and retrieved a green jumper.

As soon as he passed it to me, I locked myself in the bathroom and experimented with some of the uniform. I ended up choosing the clear tights, tucking the blouse into my high-waist cream skirt, which fitted me perfectly, until I unfolded Zeref's jumper.

This is twice the size of me, I can't fit into it!

Waddling my way out the bathroom like a overweight penguin, I managed to fold the long sleeves up to my elbows but the bottom of the jumped his my skirt beneath it, looking as if I was wearing nothing underneath. I raised my eyebrows at Zeref, who had nodded approvingly at my attire.

"You look good." Then he continued to eat his egg on toast whilst gesturing me to join him for breakfast. "Eat. We've got to go soon. I made sunny side up eggs on toast with half a grapefruit and some orange juice to the side." Happily, I sat on the plush sofa pillow and greedily munched into my delicious breakfast.

After we finished, he took my plates and painfully forced himself to leave the dirty dishes in the sink, convincing himself that he had no time to wash them. Whilst he was contradicting his own mind to rebel against his OCD, I frantically brushed my teeth, combed my hair and then wrapped the scarf I wore yesterday around my neck.

Even though the other bruises and scratches were clearing away astonishingly fast, the finger marks around my neck still tainted my fair skin.

I shoved on my old leather school shoes and soon was accompanied by Zeref, whose jet black eyes waited for me to signal my readiness, which caused an odd joy to flutter through my heart. The only two things which annoyed me on the way was the massive jumper overtaking my skirt and that I was late for the first day of school.

"How did you know my size?" I wondered as we were walking swiftly towards our classroom in the never ending corridors, I had to follow Zeref around until I get my own timetable, but since the clothes fit me perfectly I was just curious. He looked at me blankly and did not answer.

"Well, 'cause all the clothes were my exact size and I just want to know." I stuttered awkwardly.

"Oh right, I measured you." He simply answered and looked forward. Taken aback by this blunt reply, I gulped down saliva and widened my eyes.

"You did... what?" I forced those words out of my tightened lips, speculating if I even wanted an explanation anymore.

"In the morning I realised I needed a proper size to buy your uniform, so I measured you." I froze to the spot.

Please don't tell me that he...

"What?! Whilst I was sleeping? That's so creepy and weird, Zeref! You just don't do that to people, especially girls! This is beyond..." My face was burning with so much embarrassment and anger, I didn't know what else to do but slap him hard across his confused face. I didn't want to but that was a direct invasion of my personal space. He groaned and held his bright red cheek; his eyes were as innocent and misunderstanding as a puppy dog being scolded at.

"You don't even realise what you've done wrong." I sighed at his puzzled reaction. "Forget it." I rolled my eyes and purposely walked ahead of him, despite the fact I had no idea which classroom we were in.

"Room 42: double philosophy." (If you get that reference then whoop!) Zeref called out to me. Coincidentally, I was already in front of that class number and impatiently waited for him to catch up. His solemn eyes almost placed guilt into my heart but I snapped my head away from them and opened the door.

Suddenly, something hard hit my stomach and cracked against my skin, drenching my jumper with the terrible-smelling gooey liquid inside of it. It was a rotten egg and it had exploded all over my new clothes! The force pushed me back into Zeref, who had held out his arms to support me; I could feel his body tensing with fury.

All I wanted was a perfect start to my beginning, without the numerous calamitous disasters, and now I smelt of rotten eggs, my stomach stung from the impact, and my mind was angry at Zeref. Everything was so overwhelming I just began crying in front of the whole class and tried to run away.

Zeref abruptly stopped me, he looked intensely at me and I witnessed his eyes transform into their angry, glowing red, which were then aimed at Natsu; the perpetrator of the prank.

"That was meant for Gray, I'm so sorry Lucy!" Natsu quickly apologised and cowered under the evil glare of Zeref, who began sternly approaching the pink-haired boy, easily towering over him.

When the light in the room began to fade, I sniffed my sadness up and quickly turned around and gasped with the rest of the students, the same all-to-familiar, black as night shadows were awakening around Zeref's body and began gathering at his bunched fists.

"You made Lucy cry, just like your other friends in Ultima-"

"Shut up! You don't know anything!" Natsu disrupted Zeref before he could finish his sentence.

"Kick his ass, Natsu." A deep voice boomed from the back of the class. It was Gajeel, who stood up and crossed his arms with a crunched up face.

"Yeah, I know you could beat him!" A girl with big blue eyes and short lilac hair confidently shouted at him, standing up along with Gajeel. She instantly annoyed me. Natsu fists began gathering a flame around it, slightly lighting the class with an orange tint.

"Zeref, don't do this." Finally, I heard a rational voice and it was Loke, he looked very serious but was backing off from the gathering shadow in the room, his eye caught mine and he tried to warn me of them.

Both boys had ignored their comrades and were glaring at each other with piercing eyes, the growing tension becoming so painful I wanted to cut it with a knife myself!

Zeref whispered something inaudible to Natsu, which caused him to gather up a gigantic flame on his right fist and punch Zeref. It was useless. Before the flame could even breach his skin, it disappeared like a candle being blown out within a few centimetres of Zeref.

"Your petty flames don't affect me, flicker man; my shadow can alter their state with ease." Zeref smirked sadistically, gathering a massive wisp of shadow around his hand and punched Natsu in the stomach. The force made him break through the glass in the windows and the class reacted with just 'whoa!'

They all ran to the window to see the fallen body and the sighs of relief suggests that he was okay, thankfully! But Zeref just turned around towards me, his eyes still glimmering dark red with a menacing grin planted across his face. I shook my head disapprovingly, my whole body still in shock of the punch, and backed away from him when he tried to walk towards me.

"Why did you do that?" I screamed at him. Once again, he shook his head quickly and his eyes returned back to their normal colour and the shadow leaked back towards his body, giving light to the room.

"Lucy, please understand I was not myself." Zeref tried stepping forwards again but stopped as soon as my lips began shaking and I was holding back tears, he looked down to the floor melancholically. "I'm sorry."

"Don't apologise to me." I refused to look at him, to give him any more of my pity and just make him remorse his previous actions.

"Sorry I'm late, class, I was in a meeting with the headmaster." A high pitched voice called from behind me, the voice was owned to a knee-height blue cat with detachable white wings on his back.

"Oh no, what happened?" He stopped and cleverly observed the room, then looked down outside the window.

"Natsu, Zeref meet me in isolation now." The cat hissed and angrily flew outside the classroom through the door, holding Zeref's ear with his little paws, refusing to allow him to collect his school bag.

Throughout the whole of the first two periods, we lacked a teacher and sanity in the classroom however I just sat on one of the tables in the corner and sulked by myself. I took off Zeref's contaminated jumper and put it in a shopping bag I carried around with me and thankfully the odour had only lingered with the jumper. Occasionally, Loke or Levy would come up to me and try to comfort me or engage in casual conversation but I brushed them off.

Even though I was furious with Zeref, I still eagerly waited for his lean, dark silhouette to appear at the door, plastered on a remorseful face. In all honesty, despite feeling utmost anger towards his prior actions, I missed his company and felt like an outcast in the class. That is why I was so relieved to finally hear the satisfying bell for break time ring. Everyone gathered their bags and quickly walked out of the class, leaving me alone by myself.

I couldn't help this melancholic, heartbreaking feeling bury itself deep into my stomach.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. I was supposed to be happy and refreshed with a new life and friends. All I did was reject the people who tried to be nice to me. Goddamit, why was I so stupid?

"So you're friends with the shadow walker huh?" The sudden voice behind me made me shriek from complete shock. I turned around and discovered Gajeel, the massive boy with metal piercings on his ears, eyebrow and nose, with his long, spiky black hair slicked back away from his head, what a total rebel. What I hadn't noticed before was his eyes; they were dark red with slit pupils, almost like a snake's eye. How creepy.

"Yes." I nodded and stepped away from him, who was slowly approaching me with a menacing look in his eyes.

"Well, I can see why he's taken a liking to you, geehee." He put his head right through my personal bubble and he was only a few millimetres from me then began leering at my body. I didn't do anything but back away from this boy, who then followed me until I hit the wall.

"I don't know you, please leave me alone." I said meekly, trying to walk away from his presence, but he stopped me by putting his arm against the wall.

"Come on, I'm just being friendly." He scowled and tried to place his hands on my head but I screamed and pushed him off, when suddenly I saw my saviour, my tall black knight who sometimes pissed me off but I couldn't stay mad at him when he comes in at times like these!

"Do you want to end up like Natsu, moron?" Zeref threatened with a bitter expression on his face, whilst gathering darkness around him. This was the first time I've seen him do this without taking away the light in the room or becoming evil-eyed, maybe this was how it looked when he could control it?

"Whatever." Gajeel shrugged away from me, gathered his tattered backpack and swaggered out of the room.

Zeref collected his bag, which he dropped near the teacher's desk before he punched Natsu, and looked back to me as if he was expecting me to explain something.

"What?" I snapped at him, picking up the strap for my travelling/school bag.

"Nothing, just... don't make a habit of being near him." Zeref demanded and, for once, I'll take his advice on that.

"Thanks, Zeref, for everything you've done." I sighed away my anger with one huge exhale and smiled happily at my friend.

"Anything for my little buddy." Zeref beamed his perfect smile, lighting up my heart with a spark like a firework, and calmly walked towards the door. "Let's go and spend break outside of this classroom, it's a beautiful day."