The Polar Star Dorm residents try to get Ryo to spill Alice's 'secrets'.

There were some things that aides just don't spill.

While Ryo was Alice's good friend, there was also a professional relationship in effect, and there were some things he knew about Alice that he just was not going to talk about. Ever. He was pretty good at keeping her secrets. It was something he was secretly proud of, especially compared to Alice's lack of ability to keep her mouth shut.

There were the obvious things, like how much Alice had in her bank account. How much her shopping bill was. Personal things, like if she had an argument with her parents. If she'd been crying that night, or having a mood swing.

And then there were things like…

"Have you ever seen Alice Nakiri naked?"

This was supposed to be a bizarre drinking game that the residents of Polar Star Dorm had thought up. Everyone took turns answering a pointed tell-all question, or else drink the unholy liquor mix that Satoshi Isshiki had made from god-knows-what. As the night drew on, everyone started growing bolder with the questions that they were thinking up. Well… mostly Yuki, and Daigo and Shoji.

Ryo flinched ever so slightly-and that was all the reaction he had to that question for a while. He tried to remember why he was even here, and why he hadn't even bolted for the door yet. Oh, right. Alice was away. She'd gone on a trip with her mother, and left Ryo with the odd day that he had free time. That, and he had been confident that he could drink everyone here under the table, anyway.

"Uhm… That's a little bit too much, don't you think?" Ryoko told Yuki, who had posed the earlier question. Unlike the other members of Polar Star dorm, Ryoko seemed fine. The girl could hold her drink very well.

"Nah, it's fine!" Yuki, however, was totally red in the face, speaking with an audible slur. "He's her aide! I'm super-duper-mega-curious! I'm sure he's seen a lot of stuff! Maybe they even-"

"Pass," Ryo said, taking a glass and gulping the contents down. With that, Yuki and the others only giggled, and quickly dropped the question, as were the rules of the game.

As the night dragged on, the Polar Star Dorm members eventually realized that Kurokiba Ryo will absolutely not answer any scandalous questions about Alice Nakiri.

It became a game now, of trying to see if they could make him break or finally answer a question… or if they could actually end up getting Kurokiba Ryo drunk and wasted.

What type of underwear does Alice wear? What's her cup size? You're her aide, surely you know her measurements! Did she have a boyfriend? Is she still a…? Have you ever seen her…? Do you think she reads…? Have the two of you…?

Ryo had avoided each and every question, instead opting for another shot of alcohol.

Some things, aides just don't spill.

"...Miss Alice," Ryo struggled to call out to her, a little bit stunned as he returned to their beach umbrella, seeing Alice laying on her stomach, her pale skin almost blinding under the sun.

She had asked him to fetch her a drink a while ago, and now that he'd gotten back, her bikini top had magically disappeared. Her bottoms seem to have gone as well, but she at least had the sense to cover her behind with a towel. Her chest was down on the sand, so no one could see anything, at least… but he could still tell she had no clothes on.

"...You're naked," Ryo said, in a monotone. A statement of the obvious.

"I'm trying to get a tan now, Ryo," Alice said, matter-of-factly, her voice slightly muffled by the sand under her face. "I'm going to sunbathe as long as it takes!"

"...Miss. That's not going to happen," Ryo told her. "We both know you just turn red. You're just gonna catch a skin disease. Put your swimsuit back on."

Alice made a disagreeing noise, and Ryo was certain she was pouting, even when her face was buried towards the sand. He set the drink he asked for down, by her hand. And then he sat by her, as he always did-but this time a bit further away, so that she doesn't get the idea that he was… interested, or notice that his cheeks felt like they were burning, and it wasn't because of the sun.

"...Someone's going to get the wrong idea, miss," Ryo said, his voice low. Alice could be stupidly dense about these things sometimes.

"Oh, come on now, Ryo. No one's really around." True enough, they were in a secluded part of a beach resort, and there were no onlookers around them. "And you're not looking anyway, are you?"

"...Nope. Not looking." Ryo tried to distract himself, opting instead to look out at the sea, and ignore Alice's obvious disregard for his unease.

Alice made no move to put her swimsuit back on, and she just lay there, with her bare back exposed to the air. If she wasn't humming softly to herself, Ryo might have thought she'd fallen asleep.

Just another day of Alice being unpredictable and doing whatever the hell she wanted. Ryo reasoned that this was just Alice being Alice, or probably trying to test something only known to her… "for science". Eventually, Ryo convinced himself that this was just how she was-nothing unusual. The warmth in his cheeks started to fade, and Ryo managed to let go of the breath he didn't notice he was holding in.

...Until a gust of wind came, blowing away the towel that was barely covering Alice's bottom-

"Oh my god!" To make things worse, Alice got up from shock, trying to chase after the errant towel. And when she did…

If she managed to look back at Ryo at that moment, she would have seen how his entire face went red.

"Ugh, that stupid wind! Now I have sand all over my-Ryo?"

As Alice walked back to their beach umbrella, towel now snugly wrapped around her body, she noticed that Ryo was not there. She looked off towards the distance, into the sea, and noticed him almost furiously running towards the ocean, with a red swimming cap over his head.

"Ryooo! What are you doing? Don't just leave our stuff here!" Alice sat under the umbrella, back to her previous spot.

"Yeah, I'm just going to go for a swim!"

He needed cold water, fast.

"Uhm… Hello? Nakiri-chan?"

"Ugh… Ryo? Where's my coffee?" Alice drowsily mumbled into the phone, her eyes trying to adjust to the light. It took her a few moments to figure it wasn't Ryo calling her-or that Ryo was nowhere around at all, which was unusual.

"No, no. It's Satoshi," Satoshi Isshiki said from the other end of the line. "And well, yes. It's actually about Kurokiba-kun. He's… kinda passed out drunk on the Polar Star Dorm couch? You might want to pick him up…?"

"He's what now?" Alice almost seems to have woken up from shock. "Ryo? Drunk? You're pulling my leg, aren't you, Isshiki-senpai?!"

"No, no, I'm serious! Uh, I guess everyone kinda got carried away with this drinking game last night and snuck out this experimental drink I was mixing…"

"Just what kind of game and drink is that to knock down even Ryo?" Alice said, now remembering that Ryo wasn't there when she got home the previous night, and that she dialed him a couple of times and fell asleep in the process. "I'll be there in a bit, Isshiki-senpai."

Alice was soon helping Ryo stumble into his bed. Just as Isshiki said, he was flat-out drunk, reeking of last night's drinks.

She rummaged around his mini-fridge, trying to check if he stashed some hangover drinks. "I swear, Ryo. Those Polar Star kids getting you drunk? Everyone at the pub back home is going to laugh at you. What the hell was that drinking game all about, anyway?"

She heard Ryo chuckle a bit, and then finally say:

"It's a secret."

There were some things that aides just don't spill.

a/n: Poor Ryo. So sexually frustrated.

hello. I am alive. This is a plot bunny that just came to me last night and it had to be written out asap coz it was haunting me-

My writing is a bit rusty now, so I apologize.

Anyone still there? Hello!