Chapter 4: Suspicious Approach

Alice rode her motorbike home with a smile after taking Ace back to the park—he had to take his car home, right?—as usual she was riding in an average speed. Realizing it was getting dark, she turned on the lamp, and thens slowly stopped as she saw a figure on the street. Alice pushed her glasses to confirm her sight.

It was a cat, bleeding; it lost its back left foot. Abruptly getting off her motorbike, Alice parked on the sideway and frowned at the blood and the poor cat, mewling in pain.

"Oh God...Hold on, boy!" she breathed and braced herself to scoop the cat, ignoring the blood spilling and staining her. Looking around, she noticed a trash can and went to rummage through it, without feeling disgusted and took the largest plastic bag and put the cat in.

Riding her motorbike carefully, she had the cat wrapped between her feet.

"Don't you dare bleed on me, cat! I will fucking kill you if you die—wait, that sounded wrong. Just don't die!" she yelled down at the bag, and then stopped as she noticed a certain car coming her way.

"Julius!" she called her uncle for a while, and the car stopped. Julius got down his car and approached her.

"What's wrong? You're heading home, right—Oh Lord, what's that?" he noticed the bleeding plastic bag on the motorbike.

"It's a cat! Can't we do something?" she pleaded. "I know it's a stray cat...but...I can't ignore that, Julius. You know I can't. I know it's my responsibility now."

Julius sighed and checked the time. "Vets are closed at this hour. We can only treat it the best we can at home."

"Fine, I just don't want to do nothing." Alice nodded in agreement. Julius took the plastic bag into his car and Alice got onto her motorbike.

At the other side of the intersection, a car lit up its lights. Ace stepped on the gas slowly and watched the van and the bike went away. His eyes were cold.

"Huh..." he sighed, draping his arms behind his back. "What's the point of my effort to crush that cat if she'd just try to heal it, then?" he fell silent and stared off emptily.

It was just a stray cat, no big deal. Not worth the effort to heal that cat. There were other stray cats around. Couldn't she just leave it? Couldn't she just ignore it? Wasn't she an ignorant girl? Why care so much?

"I can't judge her either." Ace shrugged, fixing his glasses on his nose and drove his car away, leaving trail of blood as he went.

~.X.~

After meeting Ace, Alice had a change of heart about school. If there was actually one guy out there who didn't mind her...Then she'd just act normal. Just do what she thought was right. Only her close friends and Ace could accept her, so she'd just put a sweet face for others, right?

"It's getting better!" Alice smiled at the stray cat in a box, which had found it strength to taste the milk. "Hey, Julius! Do you think I'd make a good Vetenarian?"

"Why not?" Julius chuckled and served sunny-side ups on their plates. "So in the end we're keeping him?"

"Can we?" Alice almost prepared herself to beg if Julius would give the nay.

"Well, I can't find myself to be cruel enough to throw him out." Julius sighed with a shrug. "I mean, it can die out there, since it only has three legs now."

Alice grinned wider. "Aww, that means we can keep your, Friedrich!"

Julius almost spit his coffee. "You already named—Why Friedrich?"

"He said his name is Friedrich." Alice stood and went to wash her hands. "Don't you know that I can speak to cats?"

Julius laughed at her joke, rolling his eyes as he flipped another page of the newspaper. "Next week's your school's Yearly Jog, right? Do you have comfortable jogging shoes?"

Alice gulped. "Oh, the Yearly Jog. Totally forgotten."

Julius scowled. "Alice, you haven't gone to that event ever since the tenth grade. This is your last chance. You've been saying; next year, next year...but this is your last to jog with your school friends as a student."

After a bit of argument, it was decided that Alice was going. Leaving her home angrily, she rode her bike off to school. Parking and getting off her bike, she took a deep breath and went for the school.

It started out normally. No one talked to her as usual unless they'd need something. No one even asked why she didn't came yesterday. Taking out her books and checked if she's done her homework—she never did it at home.

"Can I copy?" Alice glanced at Blood, who didn't even wait for her answer and just sat beside her, copying her Biology answers. Oddly enough, despite being a jerk, Blood always came to school earlier than anyone, even Alice. Nothing to say, Alice continued to work, pretending that he's not there.

Despite that, she was nervous and annoyed that her hands started to rub her face. Alice stopped, reminding herself to not touch her face anymore, or her breakout would never be cured.

"So where were you, yesterday?" Blood casually asked, leaning in to her textbook to read a blur writing.

The girl teen almost choked on nothing, but her face stayed still. From experience, no one at school really listened to her, so...

"I overslept." She shrugged, pushing her glasses.

"Huh." Blood didn't say anything anymore. Alice sighed in relief, thinking that she'd make a good answer.

After done copying, he didn't even had the audacity to thank her. But then again, it happened everyday that Alice didn't care anymore. Sighing, she dropped her head on the desk. Her eyes then met Rose's, who just arrived to the class.

Rose quickly looked away and sat far away from her.

It hurt a little, but then Alice sighed. Rose was dumb, at least she didn't have to teach that stupid bitch anymore.

But then she didn't expect what would happen at the first period...

"Hm? Where's your seatmate, Liddell?" Mr. John, her Math teacher, frowned at the empty seat beside hers.

"I...don't have one?"Alice nervously answered. If she said that Rose moved away, she'd be like an angry lesbian who blamed her!

"Sorry, sir!" Alice grimaced as Blood suddenly sat down beside her with a smirk. "Just a little business on the back seat. I'm back, now."

The class fell silent, and Alice glared at him in disbelief. Mr. John shrugged and went to the podium, reading today's material.

"The fuck are you doing, Dupre?" Alice hissed.

"Well, aren't you lonely?" Blood teased.

"Why do you care if I do? Stupid jerk." Alice shook her head and decided to ignore him for the rest of the day.

Blood just chuckled, deciding to play around more.