ROLL THE DICE

"What? How is going to a party punishment?"

"I'm not going," Ciel snapped, for the umpteenth time that afternoon.

It was Alois' tradition to get everyone to come to his apartment on Saturdays. This Saturday was no exception, except for the absences of Elizabeth and Finny. Agni was also absent, claiming he had to work.

"Ciel! You have to!" Alois pleaded. "If you miss this party, you're gonna regret it for the rest of your life!"

Bardroy, who was stretched across the couch with his legs resting on Meyrin's thighs, spoke up.

"As much as I'd love to disagree with Alois, this party is gonna be bitching. I mean I'm going, so it has to be, right?" he finished with a grin.

Meyrin laughed loudly. "As if anyone cares that you're gonna be there, Bard," she commented snidely. "Sebastian and Claude are gonna be there, so I bet the entire student body is gonna show up. At least that's the only reason I'm going."

"Question," Soma spoke, raising his hand. "What does bitching mean?" He was ignored.

"What?! You mean you're not going because your boyfriend asked you to go with him?!" Bardroy shouted incredulously.

"Going with you is just a plus," Meyrin offered.

"She's just going so that she can ogle Sebastian," Alois scoffed.

"Shh!" Meyrin laughed, putting a finger to her lips. Bard frowned, although he was already fully aware of his girlfriend's crush.

"Who's even hosting it?" Ciel asked. Alois looked at him with wide eyes.

"Only the legendary ADRIAN CREVAN!" He shouted excitedly.

"Holy shit, really?!" Meyrin cried. "He's like the most famous alumni at our school!"

Ciel's face had soured. "That guy is the creepiest person I have ever met."

Alois looked offended. "He's eccentric!" He corrected.

"He told me that I was born to be seen in a coffin," Ciel deadpanned.

"I keep trying to tell you, Ciel, that's just his way of complimenting you!" Alois argued and Ciel just rolled his eyes.

"I heard that this party is specifically for Claude and Sebastian, too, because it's their last year of high school and everything."

Soma, who had gone into the kitchen to get a snack, came back to sit on the floor near them happily nursing a bag of oreos. Alois noticed this immediately.

"Hey! Don't just sit down to an entire bag of my fucking oreos! Take a few out and buy some of your own!" he snapped, snatching the bag from Soma's hands. Ironically, he sat back down on his beanbag chair and began eating out of the bag himself.

"Oh, I almost forgot!" Bardroy said suddenly. "There have been some rumors going around- besides the great ones about you, Ciel- that Aria is supposed to be going." He wiggles his eyebrows at both Ciel and Alois.

"Really?" Alois asks, intrigued.

"Well, they are rumors but I've really been hearing them, yeah. Apparently a few people overheard their conversation yesterday."

…

Friday was "avoid-Aleistor-at-all-costs" day. I was worried about what Claude might do if he saw us together and I was even more worried about what I'd do if he tried to talk to me.

I'd been the first one in Mr. Spears class because I'd gone straight there when I got to school. Sure, I may not have had the notes from yesterday with me since they were in my locker and been the target of Mr. Spears wrath, but sacrifices had to be made. I'd even made the smart decision of going to my locker after third period because I thought Aleistor may have caught on to me and gone to wait outside my classroom before the next period started.

The only problem was lunch. I hadn't thought of a way to avoid Aleistor yet. Sure, I could just skip it completely and even go home early, but he always waited outside my classroom for me.

"Aria?"

We still had the same idiot substitute teacher, so I could probably get away with leaving class early and going home. No. I had a test to take in Physics that I couldn't miss. Dammit. Well maybe if I-

"Aria!" Freckles elbows me in the ribs.

"Ow! What?!" I cry out in shock.

"You've been completely spacing out for the last five minutes!" she chastises.

"Oh. Sorry, I've been… thinking about something," I mumble, looking down at my blank piece of sketchbook paper. I had intended to get some drawing done but my focus was elsewhere.

"Thinking? About what?" Freckles, who had been using this class to get homework done, finished highlighting a line of text with bright orange and looked up at me expectantly. It was an odd thing. I'd only known her for a few days yet her extremely overbearing presence had quickly become a normal appearance in my life. Though, I still wasn't convinced that she wanted nothing from me.

"How to avoid Aleistor."

Freckles giggled. "Trouble in paradise? You two have a fight?" she jested. A shiver crept up my spine at the thought. Disgusting.

"Like I said, we aren't dating. But, I'm in no mood to deal with him right now."

Freckles hummed in a way that told me she didn't believe me at all. "Well… Seeing as you've allowed me to sit next to you for the past week, I figure I should do something for you." I began packing away my sketchpad and charcoals.

"So, I'll go tell him that you weren't feeling well and went home early. Then, I'll convince him to go keep you company all alone at your house. There's no way that he won't fall for that. After he leaves, I'll meet you in the cafeteria and we can eat together."

What did I have to lose?

"Why not?" I respond tiredly.

Once again, the bell rings and Freckles is not at all prepared to leave. The rest of class eagerly files out and soon it's just Freckles and I.

Though, a shuffling noise behind me quickly argued the opposite. I turned around, curious as to who it could be and was surprised to see a head of familiar blue hair.

"Okay, I'm going!" Freckles called, drawing my attention back to her. I nodded to empty space as she was already rushing out the door.

I turned back around only to meet eyes with Ciel, who was already looking at me. His cheeks flamed pink and he avoided eye contact immediately. I strangely found myself looking away as well. I could hear the shuffling of his things as he packed them into his bag and soon the firm thump of his shoes on the tile as he made his way to the door. When he reached the door, he turned and nodded politely towards me before making his exit.

Three minutes passed by quickly and I was growing extraordinarily tired of waiting for Freckles to return. Five more minutes went by and I was picking up my things and heading to the door. I had no idea what Freckles was doing or why exactly it was taking so long but I'd rather spend my lunch period in the library than in a classroom.

Just as I was about to put my hand on the handle, the door suddenly flew open and a flustered looking Freckles stood in the doorway.

"Aria!" she breathed, readjusting the strap of her bag on her shoulder. She had been holding it by the strap as if she ran here.

I frowned at her appearance. "What happened?"

"I-" She paused to take a breath. "I got him to leave. But… He… uh-he…" My impatience from waiting ten minutes for her return diminished what little patience I had left.

"What?!" I snapped. "Spit it out!"

"He only agreed to go check up on you if I agreed to be his plus one to the party on Saturday. I-I tried to refuse, I didn't see what that had to do with anything, but he refused to go anywhere unless I agreed! I-I'm so sorry! I know that you two are a thing and it's so rude of me to butt in on your relationship by going to a party with him! I think this is some weird way of trying to get back at you because you said you guys fought so don't fall for it! I don't even like him like that and even if I did I would never-" This girl could compete to win the Guinness World Record for most words spoken in the shortest amount of time. When I said spit it out, I did not expect her to word vomit all over me. But considering how much time she had been spending with me lately, I suppose I should have.

"It's fine," I interrupted. Then, a frown formed on my face as I processed what she had said.

"He didn't believe you at all, then," I sighed.

"W-What? Why not?" Freckles sputtered.

"He's trying to apologize to me in a roundabout way. That's what he does. Are you sure that he left? Did you see him leave?" I peered down both sides of the hallway.

"No… I didn't see him leave. But, he went the other way towards the parking lot!" I sighed again. Regardless, the bell was going to ring soon and I didn't want to be the cause of her not getting the chance to eat. I motioned for her to move out of the doorway and started walking towards the cafeteria.

"But, wait! How is asking me to a party with him apologizing to you?" Freckles asked, walking next to me.

"I asked if he would take you. I thought you might want to go," I answered, avoiding her gaze.

She gasped and threw her arms around me in makeshift hug. "Thank you! Thank you!

Thank you! I'm so flattered that you actually thought of me! I've been wanting to go to this party so bad but I don't really know that many people and it'd be so awkward if I went alone! I thought that maybe you'd take me with you if you went, but then you said you didn't want to go so I gave up on it!" she squealed excitedly. "This is so great! I never thought the day would come where you thought of me as a friend! I'm so happy!"

My eyebrow twitched in irritation. "Who said anything about being friends?"

Freckles deflated immediately. "W-what…? But… getting me something I really wanted as a surprise is something only a friend would do, right?"

My head was honestly starting to hurt from the amount of talking she was doing. "I didn't put that much thought into it. He kept bothering me about going with him, so I suggested he went with you instead. That's all." Freckles pouted in silence.

Since I was walking slightly ahead of her, I opened the cafeteria door for her. However, as she walked past she paused and turned to me. "Even if you say we aren't friends… I think we are. So, I'm going to believe that you did what you did for me, even if you didn't think about it," she said firmly.

I rolled my eyes at her. I could feel the stares on us as we walked to our table. Ever since Ciel had fallen on me, people had been showing me way more attention than I would have liked.

"Believe whatever you want. You're the one insisting to hang around me." Somehow I felt a twinge of guilt for saying that to her.

I sat down at our table and without Aleistor there, it was much quieter than I had gotten used to. But, I preferred the quiet to his usual rowdiness anyways.

Freckles had gone to the lunch line and because we were so late, returned fairly quickly. She began eating without saying a word. The twinge that I felt earlier was getting stronger.

Suddenly, the cafeteria erupted into hushed whispers of excitement. My mind instantly went to my brothers but since Freckles and I were so late, they couldn't possibly be entering now. The hushed whispers only got louder.

Freckles, apparently just noticing the commotion, looked up. Her cheeks flamed bright red and her eyes became larger than saucers as she noticed something behind me. Despite her shock, I found no desire to turn around. If that was her reaction to whoever it was, it couldn't possibly go well for me.

"Aria…~" Sebastian's sing-songy voice rang out from directly behind me. I could feel him leaning over me to make me even more uncomfortable.

"What do you want, Sebastian?" I snapped grouchily. I hated when he talked to me at school.

"It's not what I want; it's what Claude wants," Sebastian whispered, knowing that the entire cafeteria was straining to hear what he said.

"Well, tell Claude he can wait until after school. You're making a scene and I hate it." Sebastian moved until his face was next to mine.

"Claude has been scary lately and it's your fault," he pouted. "Take responsibility."

I pushed his cheek away from me and turned to face him. "I still say: what does he want? " Sebastian glanced at an incredibly flustered Freckles behind me. He seemed pleased that it wasn't Aleistor.

"Come sit with us for a minute."

Irritation bubbled inside of me. "If you wanted me to sit with you, you could have told me this morning instead of making a scene," I grinded out between clenched teeth.

Sebastian smiled brightly at me. "Claude needs to talk to you about something and I'd rather not make him more upset. So…"

I sighed in frustration. "Fine." I picked up my bag and slung it over my shoulder. "I'll be back in a minute," I said to Freckles. Sebastian waited for me then we walked together to his table.

There were many reasons that I never sat with my brothers at lunch. One reason may be the way Victoria glared at me as I made my way over. Another reason may be that Sebastian always annoyed me whenever he talked to me at school. He was incredibly touchy-feely and lovey-dovey and it creeped me out. The downside to not sitting with them was that I had little opportunity to talk with Angela and Ash. They greeted me as I grew nearer.

"Hello, Aria," Ash began.

"It's been some time since we last spoke," Angela continued.

"We missed you," Ash finished.

They moved so that I could sit in between them. The two of them were an oddity, despite their similarities: albino like features and snow white hair; they weren't actually related in the slightest. Yet, they did everything together, finished each other's sentences and in the rare times they weren't together, they were practically the same person.

Surprisingly, Grell wasn't sitting with them today but he's not as much of an idiot as he may seem. It was obvious that Claude was in a terrible mood and with his flamboyant personality, his life was at risk.

Hell, my life might be at risk. Claude hadn't spoken to me directly since our dispute and he almost never spoke to me at school. He hadn't said a word to me since I had sat down and Victoria was glaring holes into the side of my face. She probably knew that Claude's bad mood was my fault.

Sebastian cleared his throat and I looked over to him. "Claude and I finally agreed on your punishment."

Annoyance flared. This really couldn't have waited until we got home?!

"Punishment? For what, exactly? I didn't do anything." Sebastian narrowed his eyes at me and I realized that I was treading on extremely thin ice.

"Oh? Then let me inform you- you're grounded. But because we thought you might complain about that, we decided to let you off with a punishment." He still didn't say why but I knew better than to ask again.

"You're going to the party."

Even Victoria looked confused.

"What? How is going to a party punishment?" I asked in complete confusion.

"It's punishment because we both know you'd rather be anywhere else. Claude came up with the idea. If you have any complaints, you should take it up with him," Sebastian informed with a bit more sharpness in his tone.

I glanced over to Claude at the mention of his name and he was staring at me blankly. It was easy to tell when Claude was in a terrible mood. He didn't usually express any emotions that he was feeling, but when he was in a terrible mood, everything about him was cold. His gaze was cold and unnerving as if he was chanting hellish curses in his mind as he looked at you, he spoke not a single word that was unnecessary, and avoided as much contact with others as he could, and somehow while doing that, he made it seem that you were constantly walking over thin ice in his presence which, if broken, would swallow you whole with hellfire.

My gaze quickly moved back to Sebastian. "Fine. Is that all?" I responded, tiredly. In truth, I was nearly boiling over with irritation but I valued my life too much to complain in front of Claude. Maybe I could persuade Sebastian to talk Claude out of it later.

Sebastian smiled brightly at me and I could tell that he was glad I hadn't protested in front of Claude. "Yes, you can go back to your table now. Nice talking to you."

I stood back up, completely ready to leave, when a gentle pull on my sleeve caught my attention.

"You're leaving already?" Angela asked.

"Stay for a while longer," Ash continued.

"We don't see you enough," Angela finished.

Their eyes were sad and it was always a pain to turn them down on anything, but I could still feel both Claude's icy gaze and Victoria's fiery glare.

I gave them both my best smile. "I have someone waiting for me right now. Sorry, we'll definitely talk later though." They nodded solemnly, and I quickly made my escape.

Freckles seemed to have calmed down in the past few moments and she was shooting off questions before I even got to my seat. The cafeteria had resumed its usual clatter once Sebastian had sat back down at his own table and only a few curious eyes followed me.

I was only half listening to Freckles as I dropped my bag and sat down in my seat with a huff.

"Aria! The suspense is killing me! What was that about?! Are you even listening to me?! I nearly had a heart attack… my goodness!"

"Guess I'm going to the party," I sighed in frustration.

"What?!" Freckles cried. "Why?!"

"Claude has a sick sense of humor."

…

"They really made all that commotion just to talk about the party?" Ciel asked curiously. Sebastian standing up in the middle of lunch simply to go talk to his sister had caused so much distress within his fangirls that nearly everyone had stopped talking about Ciel's accident with Aria. Nearly.

Bard shrugged. "I guess. That's what people were saying they were talking about and a lot of people were saying that Claude's been in a shit mood lately too."

"Maybe that's got something to do with the party then?" Alois suggested.

Bard shrugged and returned to staring up at the ceiling, apparently done with contributing to the conversation.

The group was silent for a moment, all lost in their own thoughts, until Alois suddenly started. "CIEL!" he cried, reaching out and smacking his blue haired friend.

"Ow! What?!" Ciel snapped, rubbing his reddened forearm.

"You never fucking told us what that whole thing with Sebastian was! You were probably hoping we'd forget about it, weren't you?!" Alois yelled. Ciel's face heated. He had, in fact, been hoping his friends had forgotten.

"I already told you I don't know what it was about," Ciel muttered tiredly.

"That's bullshit and you know it!" Alois snapped.

"He must have said something, yes?" Mey-rin agreed, her face had gone red at the mere mention of Sebastian's name.

"I am most curious about what the most popular person at our school had to say to you, Ciel," Soma added, scooting closer to him.

Ciel sighed.

...

The last period of the day had just finished and Ciel was glad that he had the house to himself this weekend. The last two weeks of school had been so hectic and he was looking forward to the peace and quiet. On top of the gossip and rumors about him and Aria, Elizabeth had been ignoring him since their phone call and shooting him dirty looks. An unhappy Elizabeth meant for an even unhappier Finny who had been actively ignoring him since that day. Soma had been bothering him every day asking him to back out of the bet, but Ciel's pride wouldn't allow him to even if he wanted to, especially since Alois had been looking so smug lately.

While his problems and building headache occupied Ciel's mind, he mindlessly walked to his locker and began to put his things away. Though he hadn't been paying much attention to his surroundings, he began to feel a strong presence grow nearer to him.

"Hey," a voice suddenly spoke. Ciel turned in confusion to the voice. His eye grew wide as he saw who it was. A cold sweat began to form on his skin as reasons for the person's presence ran through his mind. Was he going to be threatened? Beat up? Killed and buried in a ditch for touching Sebastian's precious sister?

"Are you Ciel Phantomhive?" Sebastian Michaelis asked. Ciel's heart palpitated when he realized that he was being asked a question.

"Uh… y-yes?" he sputtered. He had stuttered. Ciel Phantomhive did not stutter.

Sebastian smirked. "Strange air about you, indeed," he murmured.

Ciel's brain was having trouble keeping up with the conversation. What on Earth was he talking about? "I...uh-what?"

Sebastian's smirk grew wider. "So, are you just a giant klutz or were you aiming to be on top of my little sister?"

Was Ciel breathing? He wasn't sure that he was. He was embarrassed at the way he was acting. He wasn't one of Sebastian's fangirls. He wasn't even attracted to him. His presence had shocked him and now it was overwhelming him. He couldn't really tell if Sebastian was angry or genuinely nonchalant. In any event, he struggled to pull himself together.

"I… a-apologize, but it sincerely was an accident," Ciel responded in a firm voice.

Sebastian raised an eyebrow as his smirk grew even wider. "Don't worry about it. You're alright," he said vaguely, patting Ciel on the head once before walking away.

Ciel watched him leave in complete confusion.

What the hell was that?

…

"He was asking about the incident," Ciel finally said.

"Was he angry with you?" Alois asked, frowning.

"Ooh! I've never seen him angry!" Mey-rin squealed excitedly.

"I don't know!" Ciel snapped. "He asked if it was on purpose or not and mumbled something about a strange air. He was smirking the whole time, so I couldn't tell."

"Then he patted you on the head!" Alois interjected. He had seen that part of the conversation.

Ciel groaned in annoyance. "Yes, then he did that."

"HE WAS SMIRKING AT YOU?!" Mey-rin exploded. She was dangerously close to getting a nosebleed from the excitement.

"It's not like it was a pleasant feeling," Ciel said, rolling his eyes. He had been seriously confused and disturbed by the look on Sebastian's face. "I genuinely couldn't tell if he was upset or not or what his purpose was at all."

"Have you washed your hair yet?! I want to touch where his hand was!" Mey-rin shouted.

Ciel gave up.

I would give up too, honestly.

Anyways, very very little feedback over the last 3 chapters... the views are going up but hardly anyone is following, favoriting, or reviewing. Please, if you're enjoying this story let me know in any of those ways! If you don't, how will I know that the majority of you aren't just reading- hating the story- and leaving? From here on out the game is officially starting! I'm dangerously close to where I am with the story again, and I want to make sure I write the chapters, you guys read it and like it and we actually finish this thing!

But thank you to everyone who has clicked on this story and deemed it good enough to keep reading and a huge thank you to the few that have actually followed, favorited, and shared their thoughts. It's you guys that are keeping me inspired :)

Get ready to party!