My dearest readers! I love you so so SO much and YES YOU SHALL GO TO HEAVEN OF SIDNEY'S PASTRY inside an ice castle with your back massaged by the handsome Jericho~!

Look at me. Just – Just LOOK AT ME. Freaking THREE DAYS after publishing and OH WOW A NEW CHAPTER!? Oh, calm down, girls, really. And please stop throwing your panties at me, I ain't Justin Bieber! It's nothing, really! It's all because I LOVE YOU! *hugs and kisses*

This chapter we'll explore a bit about Julius and Alice, their relationship. You know, in canon, Julius can play violin….*whispers* and much better than Gowland! And he's so handsome when he does that. SO THAT'S THE DOOR PRIZE, GIRLS! Yes, review this chapter and you'll have the HONOR of watching and listening to Julius Monrey's violin concert! AND SINCE I LOVE YOU, I'D EVEN ASK HIM TO GO TOPLESS IF YOU'D WANT THAT, MM YESS~ So please, please, please review~!

Fine, fine, let's get to the story!

Agreement

Julius and Alice had quite the history between them. First of all, it's unavoidable for Julius to find out Alice's true gender as a female. Though he surprisingly reacted to it nonchalantly. On their first year together, Alice had spent months sneaking into the bathroom, trying to change in there, always locking the door, hiding her undergarments away after coming back from Laundromat.

Even though Julius seemed nonchalant and busy, absorbed with his busy college, he did, noticed it very soon. As soon as the second night they're sharing room. He was going to take a towel and the door was unlocked; he saw Alice was drying a bra with the hair-dryer, cursing the unexpectable rain and the undependable weather forecast for tricking her. She wasn't wearing her thick nerdy glasses and yes, she's very pretty. He didn't make a sound and made his way out.

Well, sure, it was unexpected, but that's none of his business.

Though it was infuriating to see her sneaking around like a thief, awkwardly telling him that she's going to Laundromat, sometimes he caught her buying a pack of pads and she lied that it was for their neighbor upstairs. So Julius decided that when she was eating pasta with extra meatballs would be the perfect occassion to come clean.

"I know that you're a girl."

Alice was so shocked that she spent almost five minutes trying to get the meatball out of her throat. Somehow she broke her glasses in the process. Julius just nonchalantly went to his PC desk and began to work as usual while she was rolling and crying for help, hitting her neck numerously. After the meatball was freed, she then knelt beside Julius' chair.

"P-Please don't tell anyone about this! I'll do anything, Monrey!"

Julius sighed, eyes still on the screen.

"I don't care. I'll just ignore you like usual, just don't get in my way. You don't have to sneak around and explain anything to me everytime you have to do something about your femininity needs. It's annoying."

"You won't—"

"Leave me alone, I'm trying to work here."

Alice let out a relieved sigh and smiled. Well, this Julius guy was probably a nice guy after all. Maybe just ignorant, but hey, at least he's not one of those guys who loved to gossip like a desperate housewife. Though ever since that, she couldn't help but wanting to be nice to Julius. He had always been seeing her as a trouble, so she wanted to show her gratitude to him.

She didn't know much about Julius, and she doubted that asking would give her answers. He's just that kind of person. She could only observe him from afar. Julius took quite a lot of same lectures as she did. When they had an assignment to make a program, Alice found out that Julius was creating a program that resembled an android application for wrist-watch device.

"You surely love clocks, huh. They even come in pocketwatch version!"

Julius cleared his throat, stopping to give her an indignant stare. Alice grinned and stepped back, returning to her laptop. Her glasses gleamed from the screen's light.

While Julius preferred to make android programs, Alice aspired to create games. She looked up to Miyamoto Shigeru like a God. The creator of Mario Bros. That semester she made an advanced game-hacking program that would allow any game to have a mod-application. At first it sounded ridiculous, because everyone could just make their own games with RPG Maker, but Alice then presentated it differently.

"For example, we hate that monotonous Harvest Moon FoMT, right? And the characters—not everyone can go through playing 100 years and watch Mary and Stu not growing an inch or Grandma Ellen and Saibara not dead. By entering the Mod-Application, we can put in our own designs and events into any game."

"Wait a second, Al. You mean we can get the characters to die or grow up and design how they look?"

"That's right. For now it can only work on RPGs with endless cycles—and Pokemon, of course it has to work on Pokemon."

"We can get another ending for 'The Witch's House' game?"

"Sure, and it will create an expansion file that you can share. Everyone can download it to enjoy your mods. Though any monetary benefits and copyright claiming are strongly prohibited, of course. It's like making fanfictions, but on the games."

Of course that program popped up a lot of nerd boners. Alice—well, 'Al' easily became popular at the campus. She could talk about everything and discussed anything. If she didn't know a topic, she would ask about it and discussed about it. Because she was so happy being there—she was so proud to go to Lewis Academy.

"You know, Al. We should make a project. A visual novel or something for our debut. We can even use voice-actors."

"Sure, but we need to pay a studio, then."

"Studio, huh. Hey, aren't you Monrey's room mate? You should ask him!"

A snort, mocking laugh from the others.

"There ain't a chance for that, mate. You know he's such an obstinate, stuck up guy. Lots had asked him, he won't help a mate. What a bloody douchebag, innit? Just being the son of a studio owner and he thinks he's all that."

That was the first time Alice knew something about Julius other than the subjects he took. Julius was the son of the famous digital studio, Clockwork Studio. A lot of games and projects with high quality were done there. It was a national company so the games were distributed for locals only. Of course, any games stamped with that studio's mark would have a high chance of hit.

And no wonder Julius had such a forlorn look all the time. His back was always cold-looking, and he never stared at anyone directly. Alice began to hear more things about Julius and they were never nice. Stuck up, mostly.

She began to observe more. Sometimes wishing to cheer him up with simple things; treating him to coffee, offering to help him with his books, cooking dinner for two. Julius would always frown and scoff at her, but accepted those kindness anyway, without thanking her. But Alice didn't need his thank, because she's trying to thank him for keeping her secret.

One day, Alice noticed the long navy-hair on the first floor, Julius was cornered by three students. One of them was snapping angrily, another one was holding his collar. She began to run downstairs.

"Come on, mate, take our proposal!" one of them whined. "Can't be that hard, innit?"

"You don't understand anything." Julius coldly scoffed, glancing away, bored. "Childish amateur games don't have a place in our studio. Even if we stamp it with our mark, no one would play it for free."

"You better shut your twat mouth and just do it. We can make your life here a living hell."

"I'm already in hell."

Alice stopped recording the event and walked up to pull one of the dudes and grinned to them.

"A'right mate, playtime's over!" and she hit him in the face.

"Al, what the—"

"That's not nice, mates." Alice sighed, crossing her arms. The guy she just punched was stumbling backwards, groaning in pain. She checked her smartphone casually. "I just sent the video of you harrassing Monrey to my e-mails. I'm sure everyone would love to watch bullies, eh? Get it? Rock Star's Bully game?"

One of them scoffed. "Right, you're not the only one who can hack, Liddell."

"Did you hear me clearly? E-mails. With 's'. I have more than twenty of them and you'd probably die before finding all of them and hack them. Not to mention it won't be easy to hack me." Alice smirked, and watched the three began to step away from Julius. "That's right, dismiss your blood cluts away. And I better not see you around him anymore, else some trio are getting kicked out of the academy."

One of the spat on Julius' feet and glared at Alice.

"Fucking faggot, Al. You faggot ass-sucker."

"Yeah, burn. Ow. Wow."

They cussed and left the two. Julius crossed his arms, frowning in distaste. He glanced at Alice coldly, and she replied that glance with a smile.

"Yeah, want to grab some Chinese, mate?"

"Is that why you're nice to me?" he snorted and started to walk away. Alice walked behind him. "You think being nice will get your way to the Clockwork. Well you can stop now because you're not getting anything from me. I don't have any sort of power over my father's studio, get it?" he glanced at her once again, coldly. "He never looks at me anyway." He muttered beneath his breath, and opened the front door of the main corridor.

Alice jumped down the stairs and looked up to him, not smiling, but no negative expression at all. She adjusted her glasses; they gleamed.

"Nah, mate. I'm just trying to make us even. You kept my secret and I saved you from bullies all around the years, innit?" she shrugged and turned, walking away. "But the Chinese food thing isn't anything special. You have to pay your part, mate."

Julius stopped, looking down at her distancing figure. Alice didn't stop, but when she heard those steps, she knew that he agreed. And more than that, without having to say anything, they had created a silent agreement that they were sort-of friends from then on.

~.X.~

And sort-of friend was an understatement. Especially if Alice is on one of her snenanigans. Julius mostly tried to ignore whatever it was. And 'Saving a Suicidal Super Star thus Letting Him Free-Load' is one of the great examples.

"Why on the bleeding earth are you still alive!?"

"It's your fault for butting in. You stopped me from jumping off. So you have to take responsibility, Liddell."

Alice ruffled her hair and glared at Julius exasperatedly, only to find him already settled in with a headphone covering his ears, and eyes on the screen as usual. Boris was lying down on her bed as if he owned the place. She frowned at his care-free attitude. Though she was glad he's alright.

"Look, I'll call your manager. He's probably trying to frame me for a murder case—"

"Now that's where you need to shut it, man." Boris abruptly sat up, looking up at her with his golden eyes. "Here's the thing, a'right? I faked my death. Everyone now thinks that Airay is dead. Now I don't have to be a super star anymore. Technically, I was planning on suicide because I don't want to be a super star."

"I don't see why you're here—"

"Sshh, here's the best part. Since you saved my life when I didn't even want it, I think it's your responsibility to take care of me, Liddell." Boris dropped his back onto her bed again. "Ah, but if you don't want to, I can always jump off that cliff anytime. I'll make sure they'd find my body so Gowland won't frame you." He closed his eyes as if it's not his business.

Alice took a seat on the edge of her bed with a really thoughtful look. Julius of course, was actually listening because he didn't have any music on his PC. Obviously the answer would be 'OK I don't care, mate. You're better off dead for all I care.'

But then she's Alice Liddell. That crazy female who cross-dressed as a boy for three years so that she could attend Lewis.

"Okay, fine. I'll take care of you." Alice nodded, patting the ex-super star's knee. "Airay, right? I'm Al Liddell. You can use my bed, I'll take the sofa." She stood up and smiled, hands on hips.

Boris stared at her expressionlessly. "I don't even plan on taking the sofa. Well, I'm going to sleep." He turned on her bed and closed his eyes, pulling the blanket.

Julius pulled his headphone and slammed it to the floor before dragging Alice by the wrist, outside their flat. Alice had prepared herself for this as the navy-haired man glared at her coldly.

"Have you lost your mind!?" he hissed. "You've already been hiding your gender, now you're trying to keep a bloody pet, in our flat, nonetheless? Haven't you gotten enough shenanigans done already? What are you going to do if he finds out that you're a girl?"

Alice sighed, feeling really tired of today's events. First she just came home from Oxford, from her hellish holiday. Then she saved a super star from suicide and spent six hours of interrogation by the police. Now the super star was going to free-load in their flat and she had college tomorrow, she totally didn't have the energy to argue with Julius right now.

Besides, why should he care? Sure they're 'sort-of' friends, but that's all. Julius could mind his own business and just like he pretended not to know her true gender, he could just ignore Boris' existence the same way. She adjusted her glasses and opened her mouth to make her point.

"Look, Monrey...I'm sure he won't be that much of a fuss. Besides you can just ignore everything like usual. Yeah," she nodded, "Like how you ignored about knowing my gender. It's none of your business, right? Just - just ignore us. And about hiding my gender, it didn't matter anymore." She smiled wryly, and then stretched her arms, yawning. "Yeah...so, I'm going to take some Zs. G'nite mate."

She left Julius with a really deep frown, letting the door hanging open. He slowly let out a sigh and gripped the doorknob, entering their flat and closed it, going straight back to his PC. Alice already out like a light on the sofa, and that bloody former super star slept like he owned the place.

But of course, just as the lady had said.

"Of course, Julius. Ignore everything." He muttered to himself. "Like usual. It's none of my business."

The blizzard slowly came to a stop, and if anyone would venture outside, they'd gradually sense the slight raise of temperature. Winter was coming to an end, but their story had just began.