I'm so so so so so so so soooooo SORRY everyone! I didn't mean to not post these past few months. It's just some depressing things happen in life and yeah... I'm really sorry again for being gone for so long! Here's a late Christmas gift I guess to you guys! Oh, and just so you people know, I finished working on the chapter after this (Ch. 9) and I'm probably going to post it tomorrow. Nah, I'll post it today also 'cause I feel bad for not posting for so long. Also, I'm in the middle of working on Ch. 10. I should be finished with it later today. Enjoy the chapter folks! (Sorry if there's any mistakes in there. This chapter was really hard for me to write for some reason. :P)

Disclaimer: I, ThePerfectNoble, swear that I have no ownership over Death Note and its characters whatsoever! If I did, that would be so freaking amazingspecialawesomeness coolioyoloswagswag perfectnoblerules flyingmintbunnies algebraicmathmatical! (In shorter words fan-tucking-fastic.) x3

I sat there on my bed, playing games on my PSP, quietly. Once and a while my goggled eyes- yes I was wearing my goggles right now- would glance over at my blond friend. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but he was acting really strange.

"Take a picture Matt, it'll last longer." Mello said in an annoyed tone. He then took a bite from his chocolate bar.

Crap. He knew I was staring at him, but the only reason why I was doing so was because Mello was acting weird today. Actually he had started acting weird for a while now, but it had just gotten worse yesterday. Even stranger was how he would get mad at me for no reason at all sometimes. Really? What was up with the dude lately?

"Let's get breakfast." He suddenly said, standing up at the same time.

I shut my game off and got up as well. We both opened the door to leave the room after that, but we both just stood there staring at the door right across from ours. Why were we staring? Well, I'm not sure why Mello was staring, but I was staring at it in hopes that Alice might walk out of the room it led to.

I'm not afraid to admit this reader. The truth is that I really like Alice. She's the most amazing girl I'd ever met. The way she was so smart and so caring. Not to mention how freakin' cute she was. Man, I could remember how on the first day she arrived I already thought she was gorgeous. It made no sense in my mind how Mello could hate her so much. She even likes video games! Alice is no doubt the most perfect girl in the world.

"Hey, stupid! If you don't hurry your ass over here, then I'll just have breakfast without you!" I heard Mello yell from down the hall. I shut our room's door and then ran to catch up to him.

As of yesterday reader, I finally figured out that all that hatred I had towards that pipsqueak, Alice, was actually l-lo...like… It was weird, but I liked the girl. I also found out why I had been finding Matt really irritating lately too. It was because he was way too close to her! Not to mention that it was pretty damn obvious that he liked her too. Damn it! He needed to stop getting in my way to Alice!

I walked down the hall pretty quickly, as if hoping my red haired, goggle wearing, annoyance of a friend wouldn't be able to catch up, but he did. We walked quietly down the hallways for a while until we ran into Alice. At that moment I felt like my day had brightened up just a bit and in the corner of my eye I noticed how Matt seemed to perk up a bit too. Arghhhh….

"Alice? You're up pretty early today." Matt suddenly said.

"Yeah, I guess I am…" She mumbled nervously back.

Oh hell no! "Where are you going? The dining room's that way, girly." I said loudly as to draw her attention away from Matt. I then pointed in the direction of the dining room.

"I already had breakfast. Well, I have some things I need to do! Catch you two later!" Alice yelled as she ran past us.

I noticed Matt was about to run after her, but I quickly stopped him from doing so. His response to this was a rather long death glare. Ha! Matt didn't scare me though. I practically taught him all he knew about fighting. Anyway, there was no way in hell I was letting him get any closer to her.

When I woke up this morning, Alice was gone. Strangely enough I had a dream that she had been staring at me while smiling for the longest time. I felt my cheeks start to heat up a bit from a blush that had most likely appeared on my face. Alice's smile was absolutely captivating; too bad it was just a dream. Sighing, I then got up to go and take a shower.

I gathered some fresh clothes to wear and headed for the bathroom. Luckily I didn't run into Mello or Matt along the way. If I had they would have surely caused me some trouble. I could never possibly understand how Alice could be so friendly towards them. Speaking of Alice, right then I stopped at a window. Outside, was said cream haired girl opening the gate and leaving. Where on earth could she be going this early in the morning? Oh, well. It really was none of my business. I then continued on my way to take a shower.

Before I reached the bathroom though, I literally bumped into someone. This someone was a girl named Emmelia. She had obscenely long silver hair that was always tied into two pigtails, crystal blue eyes, and pale skin. The girl was really not someone that important at Wammy's. For you see she wasn't as nearly as intelligent as me or the others, which means she could never be a candidate to be L's successor, but she was still pretty smart like any other child at Wammy's. Also she was the same height and age as me and Alice. Though let me just say that even though Emmelia was the same height and age as the two of us, she didn't share our birthday. Anyway, enough of my rambling.

"Sorry…" I mumbled.

"O-oh it was my fault Near. Don't worry about." She began saying shyly.

I nodded a bit and was about to walk away, but was stopped again by Emmelia. She looked at me nervously, as if she wanted to tell me something, but couldn't figure out how to put it.

"What is it?" I asked.

"It's… It's just you… You've got something written on your face Near…" She said quietly.

"Written on my face?"

"Yes, it says twiny…" Emmelia said while just staring at me with concern.

Twiny… My eyes then widened at the realization. The dream I had of Alice looking at my face and smiling was real. She was doing that stuff because she had drawn on my face again. Not wanting anyone else to see me, I quickly ran to take that shower so I could wash it off.

"…"

"…"

Mello and I had been sitting there eating our breakfasts in utter silence. I was too pissed off to talk to him right now. Why the hell did he stop me from going after Alice?! It shouldn't have mattered to him if I went after her. It wasn't like he liked her or anything. Wait… Maybe… He did like her and that was the whole reason he was so mean to her!

Crap! Why hadn't I noticed until now? The blond jerk did have feelings for her and that was why he was getting mad at me. It was because I'm closer friends with her. That also explained why yesterday when I made Mello hang out with Alice, he didn't get mad at me afterwards. It was all because he likes her too! Arghhh!

I felt frustrated with myself. This was why L hadn't chosen me to be a possible candidate to succeed him. It was because I focused way more on playing video games than other more important things. Oh, well. I don't really care if I become L or not anyway.

"Hey, Gameboy!" Mello yelled to get my attention. Snapping out of my thoughts, I saw that he had put our dishes away and was just standing there annoyed.

"What?"

"Let's go. I need to discuss something with you." The blond said while walking away.

Getting up, I followed Mello out of the dining room in search of an empty room to talk in. If my hunch was correct this "something" he wanted to discuss was Alice.

After sitting there eating breakfast in complete silence with Matt, I decided that he and I needed to discuss this little "I like Alice" problem we were both having. So I told Matt to follow me and we both left the dining hall and headed for an empty room. It took us a while to find one though, and this kind of annoyed me. You'd think that there'd be at least one empty room in this gigantic, fucking house, right? Anyway, when we finally found one, Matt and I started our little "discussion."

"So Matt, you like Alice don't you?" I asked, quick to the point like usual.

"Yeah, so what if I do? Is that a problem?" My red haired gamer friend questioned back.

"Yes it is problem!" I yelled. "I like Alice! So back off, got it?!"

At this point Matt and I were standing face to face, glaring at each other. He seemed to be getting pissed off at me, but I was way more pissed than him. Why? Well, one reason was because he liked Alice too and another reason was that he was trying to stand up to me. Oh, and how I hate, no loathe, when people try doing that.

"I'm not backing off! I saw Alice first, I liked Alice first, and I became friends with Alice first! So maybe you should back off!" Matt shouted while pushing me away from him.

That's when I snapped and punched him. I really hate it when people talk back to me. Oh, but you know what he did then reader. The bastard had the nerve to punch me back. He surprisingly punched me pretty hard too. I would have never guessed that he could hit that hard seeing how the dude never really does anything besides play video games all day. Anyway, I was now furious, and without thinking I tackled him to the ground and so our little fight began.

After I finished taking a shower and getting dressed, I headed down to the dining hall to eat. On my way there though, I passed by a weird room. It was weird in the sense that I could hear shouting coming from within it. The voices sounded like Matt and Mello's, so I stopped and listened a bit. Their words weren't really that understandable due to the door being shut, but I could've sworn I heard them say some things like "Alice is mine" and "I liked her first."

This got me curious, so I walked into the room only to be surprised by what was going on in front of me. Mello was pinning a struggling Matt onto the floor. The position they were in looked very awkward and any other person might have misjudged this situation as some sort of rape, but I'm not stupid. The two of them were obviously fighting or wrestling or something of the sorts. Anyway, as soon as the two of them saw me, they stopped and got off each other and then just sat there staring at me.

"Near…" Mello said glaring at me.

"What were you two just arguing about?" I questioned while proceeding to sit down across from them.

"Nothing," the two older males said in perfect unison.

"It's obviously not nothing. I heard you guys yelling something about Alice and plus you're both trying to kill one another. Now what is going on?"

I really didn't expect them to answer my question, but shockingly they did. Both Mello and Matt had begun yelling out two different stories at the same time. From what I could understand, they both liked Alice and were fighting over who would get to date her. Hearing this made me feel rather upset. It felt like my blood was boiling, reader. I could only assume this was what they call "jealousy." Suddenly, they asked me which of them was better suited for the girl.

For a few moments I was silent. I just stared at them, trying to not show any sign that I was mad and wanted them to both just shut up and never speak of liking Alice again. Finally, I answered them, "well, if you want my honest opinion… I think neither of you imbeciles should date Alice. I'm the one most suited to be her boyfriend."

Did I just hear that right reader? Near said he should be Alice's boyfriend! I can't fucking believe this! Of course the albino kid liked her, but now what?! All three of us liked her, but only one of us would be allowed to be her boyfriend. Oh but which one of us would it be? Who did Alice like the most?

As thoughts like this began running through my head, I noticed Mello suddenly attack Near. Man, he needs to control that anger of his. I then proceeded and tried pulling my blond bud off the small teenage boy. That didn't turn out well, because instead I ended up being pulled into this weird fight again.

"W-what… What's going on?" A very shy sounding voice asked.

All three of looked up to see a very frightened looking girl standing at the door. If I'm correct it was Emmelia. An awkward silence filled the room then. Mello and I were caught in another weird position, except this time with Near in it too. I looked at the other two who were just frozen staring at the poor, shocked looking girl.

"This isn't what it looks like…" The three of us said at the same time.

Emmelia slowly backed away at first before running out of them room mumbling something that sounded like "boys' love." Great, we just made a girl think the three of us were in some weird love triangle. Just great! I got up after that and glared at the other two sitting on the floor.

"This fighting isn't going to get us anywhere!" I yelled in frustration.

"You're right," said Near. This kind of shocked me, the number one kid here at Wammy's just said I was right for once. He continued talking, "this violence will never solve our little Alice dilemma. So, how about we have a little competition on who can win Alice's heart?"

So this was where it all started reader. The three boys decided to have their little contest where the winner would get Alice, that is if things went well and one of them managed to win her over. Anyway, they ended up spending that whole day discussing this competition of theirs. They even went as far as coming up with rules to make everything fair. By the time they finished everything it was almost dinner time and Alice had finally come back. And that, dear reader, is when the games began.

Yeah! That's what the boys did while Alice was gone. Sorry once again for not posting for like five months now. I was going through depression... I'm better now though! I'm like super happy again now! xD Anyway, I'm probably gonna post Ch. 9 right away now since it's already done. Hey, you know what? I'm gonna tell you people a little story about Ch. 8 and Ch. 9. I actually wrote Ch. 8 in July, but only got half way done with writing it before I got a bad case of writers' block. I decided to take a little hiatus till my birthday after that, but during that time things went a bit crazy in my life and so I just forgot about my fanfics. Then when things went back to normal I remembered "hey I never published Ch. 8 of AWHR. Crap!" So I tried finishing that chapter the only thing was I still seemed to have writers' block, but I didn't stop writing this time. Instead I went forward and worked on Ch. 9 and finished that chapter perfectly fine. Then I went back and finished Ch. 8! Yeah, so I wrote and finished Ch. 9 before Ch. 8, isn't that funny? hahaha... Anyway! I've talked long enough! Sorry again! xP Bye!

Ch. 9 coming super soon!