"What're you planning, Matt?" Mello grumbled a few hours later as his redheaded friend led him up the narrow steps of the Wammy's House bell tower. His trainers slid about on the wet stone, and he had to keep his hands braced against the walls to keep himself from falling.

"It's a surprise. Wait and see!" Matt called over his shoulder. Underneath his goggles, his eyes were sparkling with glee. Mello sighed. Whatever it was, he hoped it was good—for Matt's sake. He hadn't bothered with gloves or a proper coat or anything, and his fingers were stiff and going numb.

At long last, the two teenagers reached the top of the tower and squeezed past the great brass bell that had been silent for years. It took all of their strength to push the heavy oak door aside, and they were immediately greeted by an icy blast of frozen air. Mello screwed his eyes shut against the tiny shards of frost that swirled in the wind.

"Any particular reason we're up here on the roof in the freezing cold?" he asked sarcastically.

"Yeah, check this out," Matt said, grabbing his friend's arm and towing him over to the gutter at the edge of the roof. The roof had a very shallow, almost undetectable gradient, so there was no risk of falling. Even so, Mello took great care to look anywhere but over the edge of the mansion; heights were one of the few things he was genuinely scared of.

"Matt, if you've dragged me out here to look at a bloody snowman, I'll hide your GameBoy."

A brief expression of pure, unadulterated horror flickered across the gamer's face. "You wouldn't," he said in a disbelieving whisper.

"I would."

Matt swallowed hard, knowing full well that his friend wasn't someone to break a promise. "Um, okay then," he gulped. Now that his precious GameBoy was at stake, his ramshackle plan didn't seem quite as brilliant as it had half an hour ago. "It's over there," he said as he pointed towards a towering mound of snow a few metres away.

Mello carefully slid over to it. Now he was really wishing he'd worn something warmer, as the knife-sharp air was making his teeth chatter and the wind was whipping his fair hair around his head and over his eyes. "What's that supposed to be?" he asked as he flicked a few blond strands away from his face.

"It's a lever mechanism," Matt explained as he bent down and brushed some snow away from the base of the pile, revealing a large, half-rotted wooden plank and two large sticks wedged underneath it and balanced on bricks. The contraption was situated right on the edge of the roof.

"Where did you get all that?"

Matt grinned mischievously. "There's loads of bricks and wood and stuff lying around up here, from when they had to repair the roof last year. I come up here and have a smoke sometimes, and that's how I found it."

Mello frowned. "When do you do that? I've never seen you coming up here."

"Our room was starting to smell like tobacco, so I started coming up here at night. If I can do it without waking you up, that means I won't wake Roger up either. It just proves my awesome ninja powers."

Mello rolled his eyes; Matt was probably the least athletic of all the kids at Wammy's—the smoking couldn't be doing his lungs any good—and the idea of him being a secret ninja was almost laughable.

Matt fished a cigarette from his pocket and held it out. "Want one?" he asked as he lit one for himself.

Mello shook his head. He could never understand why Matt would want to smoke; it smelled foul. He had only tried a cigarette once, and that had made him cough for half an hour afterwards, much to the smoker's amusement.

"I think I can see what you're planning with this," Mello gestured to the crude contraption, trying to get the conversation back on track.

"Earlier I overheard A and B saying they were going to go out and take a walk later. All we have to do is lever this up when they come out, and splat! It'll all come down on their heads."

Mello felt a smile beginning to spread across his face. "We'll show those assholes what happens when you mess with us!"

The boys shared a jubilant high-five before hunkering down to wait for their victims, but not before Mello had run back inside to get their coats and a flask of hot coffee.


Roger Ruvie's back creaked as he bent down to tie his shoelaces. He winced. The cold weather wasn't doing the old man any good—he would have to get some painkillers from the school nurse as soon as he could.

"I don't see why I have to do this," he grumbled to himself. "Clearing snow from the paths is the bloody caretaker's job, not mine!" He grabbed the shovel he had propped up against the wall and gripped it in two gloved hands, as one might hold an AK-47. The quicker I can get this done, the quicker I can go inside in the warm, he told himself.


The afternoon sun was high in the sky, and it made the ice crystals on the roof glitter like... well, ice crystals.

"Hey, Matt?"

"Yeah?"

"How do we know it'll actually be A and B who come outside? I mean, we've got no way of seeing who's down there."

Matt appeared to have considered this. "All the other kids were too busy playing games and stuff to go outside. Anyway, even if they wanted to go out, Roger wouldn't let them 'cos the caretaker's gone on holiday and he wouldn't want to be cleaning up all the snow that would get traipsed in." Matt tapped his head proudly. "Don't you worry, Mels. I've thought of everything."

"Will you stop calling me Mels!" Mels exploded. "That's a frickin' girl's name!"

"Sorry. It must be hard enough looking like a girl, let alone having a girly name. I—" A large snowball to the face cut Matt off mid-sentence. "Oh, you asked for it!" he cried, scooping up a handful of snow and preparing to lob it at Mello.

"Wait!" the target yelled, holding up his hands. "I think I heard the door open."

Matt listened. There was the unmistakable sound of the front door slamming shut. "Let's do it," he nodded.

Together, both genius teenagers pushed down on their levers and the plank eased itself up, sending its load toppling over the edge. Mello managed to grab the plank before it too fell; they were aiming to surprise the people below, not kill them.

They waited eagerly for the cries of shock from their victims. When they came, however, they were not in the slightly squeaky tones of their adolescent targets.

"WHEN I CATCH WHO DID THIS YOU CAN BET YOUR ARSES YOU WON'T LIVE TO SEE ANOTHER CHRISTMAS, YOU LITTLE SODS!"

The perpetrators shared a horrified glance. "Shit..." Mello breathed.

"I think we got Roger," Matt murmured, cigarette hanging limply from his lips.

"You don't say?" Mello retorted, doing an excellent impression of the Nicolas Cage meme face.

"Run!" Matt cried, dragging Mello up by the shoulders and shoving him forward as they sprinted for the safety of their room.


"What now?" Matt flopped down on his bed, and Mello dropped down next to him. They were fairly sure Roger wouldn't find out who had given him a good soaking; they had left no incriminating evidence behind—they hoped—and none of the other orphans had noticed their absence—they hoped.

"However we decide to give them payback, I think I should be the one to come up with the plan. Your plans suck, Matt," Mello hit his friend over the head with his pillow. It was rather satisfying.

"It didn't work, then?" said a voice from the doorway.

"Near!" Mello cried. "You have got to stop doing that!"

"Stop doing what?" Near tilted his head to the side and widened his eyes.

Damn, Mello thought. The kid's adorable and he knows it.

"Creeping on us!" Matt answered, apparently unfazed by Near's creepy-but-cute act.

"Well excuse me," Near said, wandering into the room, twirling a piece of white hair between his fingers, "but I was going to ask if you required my assistance in exacting revenge on B and A."

"Why?" Mello asked. "What do you have against them?"

The younger boy sighed. "Getting called 'albino' gets tiring very quickly. Besides, watching B force you two to kiss was most uncomfortable."

Mello looked at Matt, who shrugged. "All right," he concluded. "You're in."


A/N: Finally, I've managed to update this! I apologise for the lack of MxM, but maybe we'll be seeing a little bromance in later chapters ;) I hope the mental image of Mello doing the Nic Cage meme face gave you lulz. XD See you next time! :D