Hello, lovely readers~ (You guys probably forgot my existence, LOL) Kill me if you may, but I'm back from an unannounced hiatus (oops) from school, and now summer's here! Which means that I will have time to update this fanfic more! :3

On another note, I wonder if you guys have noticed the different image of Alice and Oz on this fanfic~ It's another fanart of Pandora Hearts that I recently finished last month, to which you can view on my deviantArt page. (www. neyuchi. deviantart. com) w/o the spaces, and the video of the making of it on my YouTube page~ ( www. youtube .com user/neyuchi) without the spaces. I would really appreciate it if you guys took a look at them~ Direct links are at the end of this chapter.

Disclaimer: I do not own Pandora Hearts or any of the characters. It solely belongs to Mochizuki Jun~

Please excuse the errors that I probably missed from my quick proofreading and enjoy~! o u o)/

True My Heart

neyuchi

Chapter 8:

Relent Feelings

'...You've got to be kidding me.'

Silence. It was all that could be heard between the trio, excluding the faint ticking of the clock resounding from the music room and the confused mewling of the kittens that were snuggled safely in her arms. The two men were standing in front of her, unmoving. She did the same from her position on the floor, realizing that she must have stumbled over her feet and fell from surprise in that short moment. Despite the quickened, hammering sounds of her heartbeat practically bursting inside of her chest, she took a deep breath. Attempting to calm her wracking nerves, the Prefect tried to not look so suspicious from what had just happened a minute ago (even though she was just caught red-handed). However, that proved difficult when she felt two gazes practically boring holes into her scalp as if they were watching her every single move.

'S-Say something, Ada!' the blonde girl encouraged herself. 'You're just making this more awkward than it should be!'

Mustering whatever courage she had left, she lifted her head up before making contact with their bewildered eyes and giving them a stiff wave. "U-Uhm, hi...?" she squeaked lamely. '...Oh Abyss, kill me now.'

No reply was uttered from neither of them. Discouraged at how unresponsive they were, she was about turn around and inch away from the two, knowing that she was already screwed when suddenly, a large hand was thrusted in front of her face.

Wondering about whose hand it was, she looked up at the hand's owner and was stunned to see Elliot standing there with his hand outstretched towards her. His gaze was directed towards the wall beside them, looking at anything but the girl on the floor. She was confused though. The last time she checked, she was definitely sure that he didn't really give a crap about his manners towards girls, or to be more specific, her.

Elliot, seeing how the blonde Prefect wasn't even taking his offered hand after a good minute, he turned his gaze to glare irritably at the girl, only to meet with an astonished face. She was looking at him as if he had just grown two heads. 'What is she doing?' he thought. Didn't she see that he was actually helping her? A Vessulius, for Abyss's sake?

Sucking his teeth out of annoyance, he reached down to grab the still-dumbfounded girl's arm, opting to dragging her ass up from the floor instead. What he didn't expect, however, was her sudden change in demeanor when her entire body flinched violently at his rough touch as if he had just slapped her across the face.

'What the hell—?' Letting go in surprise of the possibility that he had somehow injured her in some way, he took a step back as a precaution. The kittens in Ada's arms began to struggle out of her grasp, rubbing against her legs in worry of their young owner. The Prefect quickly stumbled to her feet, her arms hugging herself tightly as if they were holding her entire body together in one piece.

"I-I'm sorry," she mumbled in a quiet voice, "I-I should probably leave now. Ex-Excuse me." Taking that opportunity to escape from the two, she swiftly whipped around and began to walk away.

Elliot couldn't help but raise his eyebrows. He was suspicious about the way she was suddenly acting, sensing that she wasn't being like her usual, stupid self, as mean as that sounded. Shooting a confused look towards Leo, who stood beside him without a word, he wondered what was her problem. He gave one last glance at the receding girl without much thought.

And that was when he saw it.

His hand instinctively shot out and grabbed her upper arm firmly before he could even comprehend on what was happening. Nonetheless, that effectively stopped the blonde girl dead in her hurried steps. "Wait," he ordered. With one good look at her pained expression, he knew that she was extremely terrified. For whatever reason, he didn't know, but he was going to find out soon.

His long fingers deftly slid under her chin as he gently tilted her cheek towards him, causing her to squeeze her eyes tightly at his unfamiliar touch while he inspected the skin on her cheek.

Before Ada could even begin to protest for him to release her, she felt him turning her entire body so that she faced him. Without a word and a stern expression on his face, he promptly yanked her school uniform's jacket off of her body before he proceeded to pull up her school shirt's long sleeves. 'No—' Instantly horrified at his actions, she desperately attempted to break free from his firm grasp, hoping that he wouldn't see what was under her clothing.

She was too late, though. He saw it.

His eyes widened at the view in front of him when he confirmed his suspicions. "...Bruises...?" he quietly murmured in pure shock. Terrible, discolored splotches tainted what used to be flawless skin on Ada, almost covering half of her frail arms. Hell, if he were to take off her entire uniform, he was sure that half of her body would be covered in bruises, some of them new and some old. He decided against the choice though, knowing that it was unnecessary and that he would sure get a slap on his face in return for stripping a female student.

Even so, he was completely enraged. Never in his life had he seen such harsh treatment to a girl. A pure, innocent girl, on top of that, even if she was the daughter of one of the people he despised so much. Just with one look at her face, he could tell that she was terrified to the core.

"Who did this to you?" he bit out between gritted teeth, his eyes narrowing dangerously. She didn't respond and opted to remain silent, only turning her head away in response. Resisting all urges to shake the girl senseless until she said a word about the culprit, he reached over and grabbed both of her shoulders in his hands, careful to not bruise them more than they already were. In a calmer tone, he attempted to ask her again. "Tell me, Vessulius. Who did this to you?"

Ada bit her lip, feeling a bit pressured. She couldn't tell him. Not now, and she didn't think she could with a straight face anyway. Shaking her head furiously, she kept her mouth shut, not daring to say anything. Attempting once again to shrug his hands off of her, she wished that he would just let her go, that he wouldn't ask her about it anymore—that he would just continue to ignore her like he always did.

"Pl—Please, let me go, Elliot," she almost cried quietly. "This is none of your business—"

What she was about to say immediately made him snap. "What?" he growled. "'None of my business?'" He almost gave out a scoff of exasperation. "Will you look at yourself, you idiot?! You're in no position to be telling me that it's none of my damn business and act like nothing happened!"

He was pissed. He knew that he shouldn't be yelling at her, but he couldn't just be oblivious to the situation, even though they weren't on close terms. Not only would that make him look like a selfish bastard, but a coward as a teacher as well to not take action. And he definitely did not want to stoop that low and turn a blind eye towards one of the students, especially her.

Once her emerald eyes finally made contact with his angered sapphire ones, he felt a pang of guilt when he saw how they were brimming with thick tears. Taking a deep sigh and running a hand through his beige strands of hair, his expression softened as if he was never angry. "Look, I'm just...I'm just worried about you, Ada." When she stared at him in bewilderment, he felt a warm heat crawling up into his face. Quickly whipping his head away from her, he stammered out, "D-Don't misunderstand, you idiot! I'm just worried as an adult, that's all!"

He was about to walk away from her from embarrassment when he heard a giggle coming from the girl. He turned back to her to throw an insult at her for laughing at him, but the words once again died on his tongue when he saw the tears streaming down her face as she tried to maintain a smile on her lips.

"S-Sorry," Ada said, "I-I'm really happy that you said that, Elliot—I really am." She was overwhelmed with feelings. Full of happiness. Full of relief. Full of...guilt.

He was surprised when her smile vanished and she burst out into a small sob, her knees shaking before they buckled under her. The next thing she knew, she was clinging onto Elliot like a scared baby, releasing all of her pent-up feelings through her bawls. The man was bewildered, wondering for a slight second on how he was in such a predicament. He honestly didn't know what to do with situations like this. But seeing how the girl was clutching onto him as her body shook with her sobs, he couldn't help but wrap an arm around her shaking body and pat her head awkwardly in an attempt to comfort her.

"...It's okay, Ada," he mumbled, "It's okay."

.:truemyheart:.

It's been a week ever since the clean-up at Alice's apartment.

And oh, how she hoped that her life would finally go back to normal. She hoped that she wouldn't have to be involved with that idiotic blonde teacher once again. She hoped that she could just stay hidden from the rest of the world and go back to school like what a normal high-schooler should do. She thought that she could really do just fine by herself on her own.

However, The Will of Abyss must really hate her, because none of her wishes or desires came true. To be exact, the complete opposite was happening to her.

'...I hate you, Abyss.'

.:truemyheart:.

Three days ago...

"Wh-What did you say?" The words came out of Alice's mouth in utter shock as the brunette stared at the elderly woman standing in front of her with blank eyes. The brunette's apartment had been tidied up that , but had been previously stuffing her face with the plate of chicken in glee in her now-clean kitchen when her doorbell suddenly rang, disrupting her lunch much to her distaste. Now, they were standing in the doorway of Alice's apartment and right beside Alice was Oz, who had invaded her home uninvited with food and was now leaning on the wall with his arms crossed as he listened to their conversation silently without being noticed by the elderly woman.

The landlady gave out a long sigh, obviously not wanting to repeat the dreaded news to the girl. "Like I said, I want you to move out, dear," she repeated her words. "The damage that was done to your apartment room will take quite a while to repair, and those thugs are scaring away the other residents." She gave Alice a sorry look. "I'm sorry, dear, but I think it's best and safer for you to move somewhere else."

...She must be joking. This was bullcrap. "W-Wait a minute—" Alice stuttered, "I can't just move out on such a short notice! And what about the rent and fees? It's not even the end of the month yet and I haven't even gotten the bills! What am I supposed to do?" She felt as if the life was slowly draining away from her as each second passed. She couldn't believe that this was happening to her.

"Of course, you'll still have to pay, dear. I can just send you the bills to you whenever they come later," the woman replied, much to her dismay. "In the meantime, you'll have to move out soon by the end of this week."

Great. Just great. It was a Thursday, which meant that she had to leave in three days. Alice barely had any money in her bank account, and now she pretty much got kicked out of her house? Well, it wasn't really a house, but still. She knew that she wouldn't be able to find a place nearby convenient all of a sudden that could fit her budget. Ugh. She suddenly had an urge to rip out her hair and slam her fist into the wall (and possibly make a hole in it and end up adding more money to her bill), or better yet, the idiotic blonde named Oz.

So what's next in her already-crappy life? They're going to take away all of her belongings and then throw her out onto the dirty street?

Her body began to shake in anger at the thought. Opening her mouth, she was about to let out a rude retort when she suddenly felt a hand clamp down onto her shoulder before giving it a short squeeze in an attempt to calm her. Glancing at the hand's owner, her words and thoughts were stopped when she saw Oz standing alarmingly close to her in the doorway, making his presence known to the landlady. Seeing that disgustingly flirty look on his face, she immediately knew what he was going to do. 'Oh Abyss, don't tell me he's—'

A gasp of surprise slipped out of the elder woman's mouth when she set eyes on the handsome blonde man, and Alice knew right then and there that the woman was already dazzled by Oz in just a few seconds.

"Oh my~!" the landlady cried out in a much softer tone than she had a few seconds earlier with Alice, which pissed the brunette off. "I've never seen such a handsome man like you around this neighborhood before! What's your name, sweetie?" Alice couldn't help but grimace at the woman's overly sweet tone. 'Gross,' Alice thought bitterly.

A charming smile instantly graced Oz's lips. With a bow of his upper torso in respect, he introduced himself to her. "My name is Oz Vessulius; Alice's teacher. It's a lovely pleasure to meet such a beautiful woman like you, Miss," he said in smooth voice.

...Oh Abyss, was that a blush Alice saw on the landlady's cheeks? Surprised by the teacher's flattering words, the elder lady fumbled for words. "O-Oh goodness, what a charmer you are!" Grasping Oz's hands into her owns, she caressed them ever so gently. "I believe I haven't introduced myself yet; I'm the owner of this place. You can just call me Miss~"

Alice silently gagged behind them, horrified at the sight beginning to occur in front of her eyes. She knew that Oz was a flirt, but even towards old women? Ew. Just ew.

"It seems that my student has been causing trouble for you and the other residents. I should say sorry in her stead." Oz was about to bow again for forgiveness, but was immediately stopped by the landlady who profusely refused his apology. "Please, Miss, you should at least let me pay for the expenses. I don't think I would be able to sleep in peace from seeing one of my students suffer from debt."

A vein throbbed in Alice's head. 'What the hell does my debt has to do with you, idiot?' she began to think, but when she felt his hand that had somehow slipped out of the landlady's grasp squeeze her shoulder again comfortingly, it dawned on her that he was actually trying to help her.

"Oh no! No, no, that won't do!" The elder lady shook her head in disagreement. "How can I let such a sweetheart like you pay the bills for your own student?" Right when Alice thought that she was going to demand Alice to pay them for herself, the landlady said something that was much, much better. "How about this? The bills are free of charge! But in repayment...I'd love a lovely day out with you!"

At that, Alice suddenly felt a burst of emotions crash into her. She felt like she was going to cry, laugh, and jump in the air all at the same time. Hell, she could even jump off of a cliff too. Instead, she suppressed those overflowing emotions of hers and allowed a huge grin to lift her face. With a deep bow, she felt the tears prick at her eyes. "Thank you very much, Miss!" she cried out to the elder gratefully.

The landlady, realizing that the girl was still there, smiled at the younger girl and patted Alice's head. "No need to thank me, dear. You should thank your teacher for giving me a chance for a date with him~"

Alice lifted her head and glanced at the said teacher in amusement. Holding in a snort, she nodded at the lady in agreement. "Yes, I hope you enjoy your date with Mr. Vessulius, Miss!" she giggled, only to feel daggers being glared at to the back of her head.

After the landlady had left, Alice gave out a sigh of relief as she closed the front door. When she turned around, she saw Oz standing there with a disgruntled expression on his face, obviously not pleased.

"You owe me, you bra—" He was cut off from finishing his sentence when suddenly, the brunette crashed into his body, her arms wrapped tightly around his neck. He froze at the abrupt contact. The girl's body shuddered slightly as she felt a huge weight being lifted from her shoulders, and she couldn't help the happiness that was bursting up inside of her.

"...Thank you so much, Oz!" She loosened her hold on him and leaned her head back enough to face him. "I'm just so—happy! I don't know how I can repay you for pulling me out with that debt."

At that, a smirk lifted the man's face. "Hmm~" He faked an expression of thoughtfulness. "How about a date—"

"No."

He pretended to look hurt. "I didn't even finish my sentence!" he whined.

"I knew what you were going to say, you creep!"

"Aw, come on! Why not, Alice? It's just one petty little date~"

The girl had completely let go of the blonde and was now back in the kitchen to her plate of meat. "Why the hell should I go on a date with you, of all people? I'm pretty sure that the landlady would just love to go with you."

Oz made a face at the mention of the owner. "Don't even. I'd rather die than have myself being seen with her."

"...Would you rather a homeless man then?"

"Alice!" Oz cried out exasperatedly. His expression of horror soon changed to a serious one though when he locked eyes with the brunette. "Enough with that. Look, we need to talk about where you're going to live, now that you just got evicted from this place."

The amusement on Alice's face died down when she heard that, and her meat suddenly became unappealing to her. Sitting down on a stool nearby, she forced herself to swallow down the food in her mouth before she sighed. "I can just go find another place to crash at; no big deal," she said in a dismissing manner.

"Oh yeah? Like where?" Oz challenged her.

"...My mansion."

At the mention of that place, old memories flooded Oz's mind during that Christmas at Alice's place so many years ago. As far as he had remembered, it was pretty far from Sablier, and he knew that Alice wouldn't have the money to travel from here to there and back every day. He shook his head at the choice. "I don't think that's a good idea, Alice."

Alice stayed silent for a few seconds before she opened her mouth. "If not, then where the heck am I supposed to stay at?" she demanded.

A thought must have entered Oz's mind, because she saw the guy brighten up instantly. What he said next made her regret asking that question.

"...What about my house?"

.:truemyheart:.

With a grunt of annoyance, Alice squeezed through the doorway of the house carrying a cardboard box bigger than her torso, the tips of her brown hair and the rest of her lower body was all that could be seen behind the stuff in her hands. Leaning onto the side wall of the entrance as support, she quickly slipped and threw off her shoes before stumbling inside of the slightly familiar house for the second time in her life. Placing the box down next to another cardboard box on the floor, the brunette gave out a heavy sigh before she heard another person entering the house behind her. She also heard him curse quietly when he almost slipped over Alice's shoes that were astray on the floor, which made her smirk.

"Sheesh, Alice," a guy's voice called out to her as he walked in. "Do you usually have so much junk?" He set the box down next to the brunette, scanning his emerald eyes over the new luggage that was now taking up a small portion of his living room.

That earned him a sharp jab in the ribs and a glare from the girl. "Oh, shut it," she muttered. "You call three small boxes of my stuff a lot? You must be out of your mind. Besides, if you don't like it, I can just leave."

Oz let out a chuckle at how Alice showed a bitter expression as if she knew that she had too little for a typical teenager from her own entire apartment. "I was just joking," he told her. Her expression didn't change, so he tried a different approach. "Oh come on, don't get your only pair of panties in a bunch, Alice~"

Said girl's mouth dropped in shock as her eyebrows shot up, completely flabbergasted. When she recovered a second later, an expression of anger masked her features. "I do not have one pair of panties, you disgusting pervert!" she practically hissed at him. "Why the hell did you think that I only have one pair?!"

The blonde guy turned away from the steaming brunette and proceeded to plop onto the couch. Not even throwing a glance over his shoulder at her, he just closed his eyes and propped his feet against the coffee table in front of him. "From you sorry excuse of a closet, there's where. I looked all over the place and couldn't find any of your underwear—" A slipper clocked him in the back of his head, effectively cutting him off.

"D-Don't go looking through a girl's closet, you pervert!" the brunette shrieked, a lovely shade of red beginning to blossom onto her face.

"Even if I still do, I'm pretty sure that there's nothing interesting to look at anyway."

That sent a painful stake through her entire body. "Wh-What the hell did you just say...?" she growled, stomping towards the relaxed blonde on the couch.

"Your. Wardrobe. Sucks," Oz chimed in an overly cheery tone as he emphasized every single word, his emerald eyes now looking dead at her amethyst ones.

Oh, she was pissed now. Very very pissed. He was trying to rub more salt into her newly-opened wounds, and she wasn't going to tolerate that any longer. "You jerk—!" She started to raise her arm to whack the crap out of the smirking man in front of her, but before she could do so, she was a second too late to realize that the situation had ended up in the opposite way than what she had expected.

He was embracing her.

'Oh Abyss, kill me now.'

She was pressed into Oz's own body as one of his arms wrapped around her waist while the other grasped her raised arm. He had taken that chance to yank her towards him, and now she was in an uncomfortable predicament. She didn't particularly like being pulled around like a rag-doll by this blonde man, but she couldn't deny that she liked being hugged by him. But before her thoughts could stray, she slapped herself mentally to get herself out of her delusions.

"Could you get your filthy hands off of me?" she hissed, pushing herself away from the man's body.

"Nope~" She felt like strangling him.

Before she could say anything else (most likely a negative insult), he spoke again. "You really should go shopping for some new clothes though. I mean, you're going to start living here now. Might as well have a fresh start," he said, pushing her shoulders up so that he could face her.

His grip on her had loosened a while ago before he said that, so Alice proceeded to slip away from his grasp and opted to sit next to him as she crossed her arms, a look of annoyance on her face. "It's not like I wanted to live here, you know," she bit out.

"You had no other choice," he pointed out.

Alice glared as her expression hardened. "I do have another choice. I could go back to my mansion like what I said before."

Oz flickered his emerald eyes towards the blank television screen sitting in the corner of the room. "It doesn't seem like you want to, though," he muttered. "Your expression says it all. You don't even have anything from your mansion, either. Not even a photo of your family or anything of the sort."

She was stunned. Had he been paying that much attention to her? Even though she felt a sense of gratitude that he cared, she was angry that he was assuming things about her. Standing up in one swift movement, she started to walk away from him and towards the boxes on the floor. She didn't want to talk about this anymore. "Don't act like you know everything about me when you left me in the dirt for five years, Oz," she spat out with malice before stomping away with all three of her boxes stacked on top of one another in her arms.

When she was gone, he couldn't suppress the bitter smile that appeared on his face. "...'Don't act like you know everything about me,' huh?"

And that's all for Chapter 8~ I was planning on adding more to this chapter since it's kinda short, but I decided to add that to the next chapter just so that I'd be able to update again soon~ I'm currently working on Chapter 9, along with rewriting Chapter 1 of this (since it's crap, lol), so look forward to that by the end of this month! o w o

So what's gonna happen now, now that Alice got kicked out of her home, crashed at Oz's place, and is already back to being hostile towards Oz? On the other hand, Ada's secret has been discovered by the guy who dislikes her so much, and everybody else in this story didn't make an appearance. = v =;; Where am I leading this story towards to, lol? It's turning into a cheesy, tragic romantic story. /shot/

Like what I mentioned above, I've recently finished another fan-art for Pandora Hearts, which is currently the cover art for this fanfic~ You can visit the drawing at: without the spaces ( fav. me/ d66ntv6)
I've also made a speed-paint of the drawing, which you can watch here if you'd like to waste 9 minutes of your life, LOL: without the spaces (youtu. be / wRNlOnK4BJE)

I'd love a watch, like, comment, subscription from you guys~ /totally fishing for more love, LOL/

Anyway, thank you so much for reading~ Now that summer's here, I'll be uploading at least twice or 3 times a month to catch up on the time I totally wasted for this fanfic, ahaha;; So hopefully by August, this fanfiction would be at around Chapter 13 or so. I'm sure you guys would really like that, right? xD

Again, thanks for reading, and I'd really appreciate a review, favorite, follow, or anything~ Give meh some love to inspire meh to get the next chapter up soon! I'll be giving you guys replies and shout-outs at the end of each chapter once again~ Love you guys! Until next time~