-Julian's POV-

"And at that moment, he wasn't my big brother anymore. He was a part of me. That I had to let go of… Forever." I look down, making sure to look and feel as sorrowful as I can.

Hearing a soft sniff, I look up at Ossi with a smirk, the Kwami is knee deep in tissues, face streaming with tears. "Damn kid, that was powerful. You wrote that entire thing from a line in a sitcom?"

Giving him a playful bow, I walk towards my glass of water and the script I had written out. "Yeah, I figured if some guy with great hair can do it, I can do it too." I said, picking up my script, uncapping a highlighter with my mouth. "Although there are still some parts that could be improved…"

"Kid, anymore perfect and you'll drive the rest of the world to tears." Ossi says, flying up to my head, reading my script with me. After Lady WiFi's attack, I got into some trouble with my parents since I skipped half a day's worth of classes that day, even if school was cancelled from the Akuma attack they were notified of my absence in class before that. As a result I'm now stuck at home for a week, suspended from school by my own parents with no internet or electronics (the staff were ordered to keep all of them, it's possible when you can afford it). To be honest it feels more like a reward than anything, to be stuck in my house again, almost as if my parents just looked up 'how to punish your kids' and chose the most cliché option without any consideration. Although the no electronics and internet thing is kind of harsh, if I didn't have Ossi here with me it would just be another lonely week of staying in the house library, again…

Suddenly a loud piercing sound plays throughout the house, quickly diving off my chair and hiding behind the table, I peek out of it to check my surroundings. "What was that? Another Akuma attack already?"

Quickly reaching for my pen, Ossi flies in front of my face. "Kid! Kid! Calm down! It's just ya doorbell!"

"Oh, right yeah, I have those…" I mumble, blushing heavily as I slowly walk towards the intercom. Maybe the one of the staff forgot the remote and needed me to buzz them in, it is around the time for them to send me my homework for the day after all.

"You can leave it by the front door." I say through the intercom, pressing the button to open the gate before heading to the kitchen to get something to munch on while doing homework.

Setting some water to boil and pulling out a tin of biscuits, there is a knock at my mansion's front door this time. Raising an eyebrow at Ossi, who looks equally as confused, the two of us carefully make our way to the entrance.

Arriving at the front door, I regret not just looking at the security cameras at the gate before letting them in, why are they knocking instead of leaving the work by the door? It's not like the staff here to go against what I say like that…

Is it a burglar!? A… knocking on the door burglar?

Grabbing a walking stick I have laying around, I sneak to the front door like a hunter approaching its prey (Even if I'm feeling more like the prey at the moment). Maybe I can set up a bunch of traps around the house like that one boy in the movie, albeit this house might be a bit larger than his, probably not possible, even with a montage.

Holding the handle, I slowly inch the door open, just wide enough for me to peek through the crack.

"H-hello?" I said, looking through it only to see Alya, Marinette, Nino and Adrien smiling back at me.

"Hello Julian!" They all say at once, and I quickly stand aside to pull my door open completely, I stare at the four of them with wide eyes.

"What… What are you all doing here…?" I ask, confused, we were nowhere near close enough for a surprise visit right? That's almost sitcom levels of close.

Alya smirks at me, holding up a folder. "We're here to give you the materials for the latest project, wanna let us in?"

I look at her in shock before hastily standing to the side, throwing my walking stick towards its container but missing completely. "Sorry! Please, come in." Closing the door after the four of them enter, I lead them to the living room and grab the bunch of folders from Alya.

"Thanks, umm… I'm going to put this in my room, can I… can I get you all anything to drink?" I ask, before receiving way too many requests, hopefully Ossi can help me out. "I'll… I'll be right back."

Breaking into a run as soon as I get out of their line of sight, I rush to my room and fling the folder in a random direction before rushing towards the kitchen, opening the fridge as I give a sigh of relief at the sight of a fully stocked refrigerator.

"Doin' good kid?" Ossi whispers from my pocket.

I give him a small smile, pulling the drinks out of the fridge. "I'm fine, just really caught off guard, I don't really even know what to feel about this yet…"

"Well sometimes that's a good thing, just act like ya normally would."

"I thought I was supposed to save the real me until they're in too deep to run away." I joke as I put all the drinks on a tray before walking back out to the living room…

The… empty living room?

Looking around the room with wide eyes, I put the tray down on the table to rub my eyes before looking again, sure enough, no one is here.

"Am… Am I finally going crazy…?" I whisper to no one in particular, before a shout can be heard from somewhere deeper in my house, followed by a loud crash.

"Well that can't be good." Ossi says from my pocket. Nodding in agreement, I take off towards the sound, but pause for a second to pull out the nearest first aid kid since it sounded like glass broke. Arriving at the blackbox studio my parents had installed, I peek in. Currently crouched in the center of the stage are the four troublemakers, a puddle of water in the middle as Alya and Adrien desperately tries to dry it up with the blond's overshirt.

"Hurry! Before Julian finds out!" Marinette's panicked words can be heard from their chaotic whisperings.

"Find out about what?" I ask, causing Nino and Marinette to scream, jumping away from the water like it's on fire.

"Julian! Hi! We can explain." Marinette says terrified, Nino looking just as scared, Adrien and Alya still frantically trying to clean up.

"Uhuh…" I reply dumbly, looking at the scene of the crime, the cup I had on the table here just now probably got knocked over and broke, the table is on its side too.

"Umm well, you see! We were curious about your home, and we were only walking down the hallway when we saw the door to this room was opened! So we thought 'hey, just a peek wouldn't hurt!'" I try to stop her word vomit but Nino just takes over. "Yeah! This room is dope by the way, my house doesn't have a room like this, what's it called?"

I tilt my head at the unexpected question. "Ah… It's called a blackbox theatre… meant to provide actors and actresses flexibility with stage configuration and audience seating." I explain, before looking at Adrien and Alya still panic cleaning. "You two really should stop, before you accidentally cut yourselves…" I warn, the two of them look at me sheepishly before standing up, the true extent of their mess visible to me now.

"What Marinette means is we were messing around and accidentally knocked over your table, we're sorry." Adrien apologizes, looking guilty.

"Yeah! We didn't mean it, please forgive us." Marinette joins in, I feel a blush slowly creep up my face at the sincerity of it all.

"I-It's no problem, really. I would've been more upset if any of you had hurt yourselves cleaning up… You guys didn't hurt yourselves right?" I ask, relaxing a little when they all shake their heads. However the stress comes back immediately when I realized that something that was on the table before is now missing.

"Umm… Y-you guys wouldn't have happened to see a bunch of papers on that table… did you…" I ask timidly, maybe it would be best if I don't bring it up, but there are a bunch of suggestions I wrote on it that I need for rewriting.

Watching Adrien, Marinette and Nino eyes shift to Alya, the blogger gives me a smirk as she pulls out a roll of papers from her back pocket. "You mean… this?"

Letting out a sigh of relief, I reach for it. "Yes! That, thank you." I reach for it, but it escapes my grasp just before I could touch it.

"Hang on there mister, you didn't tell me about your crazy talent to write scripts." Alya teases.

I stare at her in shock. "You… You read it?"

"Only the first page, don't want to spoil the surprise when you perform it."

I gape at her in even more shock. "You want me to... perform ?"

"Course I do, we're friends aren't we? And judging by how this room had its lights on before we got here, and a glass of water too, it's not a stretch to think that you were practicing."

Dang, she's smart. Wait.

"We're... friends…?" I ask hesitantly.

Alya gives me a smile. "Of course we are! Don't think I forgot you heroically defending me at Mr. Damocles' office. Plus I feel bad about you being grounded for skipping class cause of it, so here we are, to keep you company!" She declares. I listened to her explanation with wide eyes, I completely forgot about our encounter in the principal's office.

"I… I see… thank you…" I mutter, giving all of them a small smile.

Alya pushes the script back into my hands. "Well then, now that that's settled, lights, camera, action!"

"W-what?" I feel my heartbeat picking back up, I scratch the back of my neck nervously. "Sorry, I just, umm… I don't perform in front of others…"

Not anymore.

"What? Why not?" The blogger pushes.

"I just… I-it's just…" I stutter, feeling cornered, I don't want to share the reason but what am I supposed to do to avoid this!?

"It's okay Julian, you don't have to tell us, right?" Adrien reassures, looking at the others, Nino nods, Marinette nearly trips over herself nodding, and Alya lets out a gasp.

"Adrien's right! Sorry Julian! I didn't mean to pry." The reporter apologizes and I let out a relieved sigh, although a small part of me feels a little grumpy, wasn't I the one who promised to look out for Adrien? Why are the roles reversed now?

"It's fine, maybe we can just… watch a movie…?" I suggest, looking at the four of them with wide eyes, a small bubble of excitement wells inside of me…

Until I remember a crucial detail.

I wince. "Nevermind, forget that, we don't have any TVs here..."

"What? You're saying you don't have TVs in a house this big?" Nino asks in bewilderment.

"Well, normally we would, but… They got removed, no electronics are part of the punishment…"

The look the four of them have on made me realize just how sad that sounded.

"You mean you've been living for a week without any WiFi?" Alya finally asks after the tense silence.

I nod. "Yeah I guess, I suppose if you guys are interested we have a pretty great library, or- actually, wait!" I snap a finger before looking at Adrien. "Can you help me with something?"

The blond looks surprised at my request, but nods. "Sure Julian."

Giving him a smile, I turn to the rest. "You all can wait at the living room, help yourselves to the drinks I left there." I look at Adrien's overshirt lying on the floor soaked. "And you can leave the shirt here, I'll notify the staff to clean it and have it washed by tonight."

Splitting ways with the group at the door, I show Adrien up to the stairs.

"Where are we going?" The blond asks.

"Torture chamber." I say simply, snickering at the sudden shock look across his face. "I'm kidding, I remembered that I had something in the attic that might work for movie watching. Besides who installs a torture chamber on upper floors..." I mumble that last part to myself.

"You know, for someone so shy, you're pretty sarcastic." Adrien muses, I give him a weird look as I open the door to the attic.

"I like to think everyone has hidden depths, even me." I quip, truth be told the only reason why I can even talk to him like this was because he and his friends are in my home, a place that I'm extremely comfortable in, and talking to him as Faon Vert certainly helped too…

"I wonder what's yours, considering you aren't weirded out by the things I'm saying yet." I tease back, looking behind one of the many stacks of junk that was put in here for 'sentimental reasons'.

The blond gives an awkward chuckle. "Yeah, well I guess you can say I've had practice with that."

I turn to him with a raised eyebrow. "You know another nerdy recluse with a sarcastic side? You should introduce us sometimes, I'm sure we'll hate each other…"

"N-Not at all! I think you two are kind of similar, actually…"

"Well I'll just take your word for it…" I mumble, before finally finding what I came here for. A large white box way in the back of the room. "Found it!" I exclaim, lifting it up with a grunt.

"That's great! What is it?" Adrien asks.

Smiling brightly, I hand him the box before reaching for another item. "It's a projector that plays DVDs! I bought it a couple years ago for outdoor movie screenings, and this-" I pull out a long cylindrical metal case. "Is a screen that we can project it on." I remember something again and cringe. "We probably should've picked a movie before coming here, now we have to double back to the entertainment room…"

"Oh! That's okay! I'll carry these things to the living room, you can get the movie." The blond suggests, smiling at me.

I give him a wary look. "Are you sure? I asked you to come up so we can both carry these things, they're kind of heavy…"

"It's no problem Julian, I may not look like it, but I'm actually quite strong." He makes his point by lifting the screen with one hand and placing it on top of the projector box. "I'll get going to the living room, see you there." He continues before exiting, leaving me alone in the attic.

I gulp. Huh, so that happened, who knew that being a model would make you so strong...

I wonder if he would be able to lift me up…

"Kid? Kiiiid?"

I jump at the sudden voice. "What? What happened?"

Ossi is suddenly floating in front of me, smirking. "I dunno kid, what do you think happened?"

Feeling my face burn red, I stuff Ossi back into my jacket, ignoring his protests before power walking to the entertainment room.

Okay, so no romance. I decided first, no way, in fact I'm probably watching too much of them recently. However that still leaves almost three quarters of the collection.

Maybe a tragedy?

I smile devilishly, it won't be nice of me, but I've always wanted to cry with friends at a sad movie. Although they did take time out of their day to visit me, so I'll save that experience for the future.

Unless…

I show them a happy movie with a really cathartic ending, something so emotionally charged we all can't help but shed tears of joy.

Joy… Yes... This movie is the one.

Walking back to the living room, I was surprised to see that everything had already been set up. The coffee table and chairs had been moved back, and replaced with bean bags from the black box studio. Adrien, Alya, Marinette and Nino have all made themselves comfortable, Alya and Nino sitting behind Adrien and Marinette, with Adrien in the center and Marinette on his right (I'm surprised she isn't spontaneously combusting right now, but she is staring dreamily at his side.) and an empty one on his left.

"Welcome back dude, hope you don't mind but we made ourselves comfortable." Nino says, leaning back and smirking.

"Yeah! What movie did you bring?" Alya follows up. Smirking, I show them the limited edition DVD cover.

"Have you seen this one?"

Feeling even more excitement at their shaking heads, I rush to put it in the player. "You're all gonna love it! It's about how emotions live inside a preteen's mind, it's really great."

"Sounds fun, right Marinette?" Adrien looks to the bluenette, who instantly looks panicked.

"Fun does it sound! I-I mean, it does fun sound!" She stutters out, causing the blond to laugh lightly before turning back to me with eyes so bright I'm also ashamed at being the cause of his guaranteed tears later.

"Alright, let's do this." I whisper to myself excitedly, if past Julian was told he would be watching a movie with actual friends from an actual school, he would probably freak the freak out. But now…

Now I just can't wait for it to begin.