Chapter One: September 24th

"Alfred! Wait up!" I called out to him as I raced behind him to get to the gym. He didn't hear me and kept running, turning around a corner and suddenly smacking into something that made him fall.

Panting, I caught up to him moments later. We had run all the way from our dorm room, hoping we wouldn't be late to orientation. Which at the moment seemed like a very probable outcome to our hastiness... I glanced down at Alfred who was sitting and holding a hand to his forehead. Rolling my eyes, I looked over at the boy he had managed to run over. He was pretty slim, almost like me, brown/auburn hair, with amber-colored eyes, tears visible in the corners.

"Damn it, Feli! I told you not to run ahead of me!" I glanced up at the voice, seeing another boy who looked exactly like the first one—Feli, I guessed—with the exception of his hair being slightly darker with eyes that had a greenish haze to them. "See! You already ran into someone!"

"Ah, sorry, fratello!" Feli said about to cry, still on the ground. From the sound of the accent in their voices, they had to at least be of European descent, if not actually European. I guess that made sense since this was an international school.

Behind him, the look alike growled. I nervously glanced at my brother. "Um, Alfred…?"

Once again, he didn't hear me. He just stood and helped Feli up, checking him over to see if he was fine. "Whoa, sorry dude! I didn't mean to run into you!"

"It's okay!" He instantly jumped to his feet upon hearing the apology, geez—he sure got over it fast. "I'm Feliciano Vargas, I'm new here and this is my older brother, Lovino!"

"Hey, I can introduce myself just fine." Lovino grumbled walking forward and standing next to his brother with a cross expression. That was sort of weird… weren't most people nice when you first met them?

"Haha, I'm new here, too." He smiled before glancing back to point towards me, "that's my brother, Matthew, and I'm Alfred F. Jones, the greatest friend-person you'll meet!" I facepalmed as my brother struck a 'hero' pose as he called it, chest out with his hands on his waist. Looking around he deflated slightly, "er, do you guys know where the gym is?"

"We were just heading there! Why don't we sit together?" Feliciano asked excitedly. He started walking ahead with Alfred. Meanwhile, Lovino cast me a glance. Had he noticed I'd stayed silent and let Alfred introduce me?

All four of us walked toward the gym, which somehow we managed to miss on our way there… though I could have sworn that we hadn't passed it. Maybe we turned the wrong way down one of the halls…? I was pretty sure that we hadn't passed the wall with trophy cases before we ran into the Vargas brothers… As soon as we were in the gym, Feliciano pulled all of us to seats near the middle, both him and my brother talking to each other a mile a minute.

"Matthew, right?" I glanced up shocked at whoever was talking to me; usually no one ever even bothered when they noticed I was the quiet type. It was Lovino. "Why didn't you introduce yourself or even say anything back there?"

"Hm? Well…" I paused unsure of what to say. "I'm not sure, my brother is more outgoing… I guess I've just let him introduce me." I said, sometimes my soft voice didn't help me out that much. "He has an easier time making friends too."

He snorted. "Of course. So your brother is the popular guy as well, huh?" I gave him a questioning glance and he just pointed at his brother. "We're one year apart, I'm the older one and yet he's always had the most friends; he's extroverted as hell and practically drags me along to everything with him. It's always, 'Feli this' and 'Feli that'. Not that it really matters, I'd rather be left to my own things."

I laugh a bit. "Alfred's my younger brother, too. Though, it's by less than a year. He's always been more noticeable than quiet me. He just loves the spotlight," I responded, shrugging my shoulders.

Lovino just looked at me, a short burst of a laugh escaping him. He nodded. "No one ever really pays attention to me either unless they're criticizing my behavior or complaining about me messing something up."

"No one notices me, period," I joked. We shared a small laugh, snickering to ourselves while our sibling's laughter sounded out next to us. "I'm guessing you're in second year, right?"

~ooXoo~

Matthew dropped his bag onto his desk and immediately threw himself on the bed, landing right on top of the fluffy, red and white striped, micro-fleece blanket. Behind him, he heard the door close as Lovino shut the door and placed his own book bag on a chair. Lazily, Lovino threw himself down on his bed and pulled out his laptop.

"I still can't believe that Francis got the lead role. I mean how the hell does he get the lead in a Shakespeare play? Especially this one! He's all laughing and 'love is beautiful, it must be shared by all'." Lovino stressed the word 'love', imitating the Frenchman to perfection. Matthew shrugged, sitting up against the headboard of his bed and struggling to stifle his laughter. "That's nothing like the lead at all!"

"You have to admit, he's a good actor. And plus, you're playing one of the lead's friends, still a lead role," he answered. It would be their third-no, fourth-production to participate in. Sometimes he wondered just how Lovino hadn't landed a lead role as the protagonist…

"Yeah, well your cousin's a fucking perv, and so are his idiotic friends." Matthew shrugged again. Maybe Francis was a pervert at times, along with Antonio and Gilbert his friends and 'partners-in-crime', but not all the time… "I mean they call themselves the Bad Touch Trio!" He didn't bother responding, knowing that Lovino still considered at least one of them his friend. "I don't know which is worse, Francis's perverted side, or his philosophical side. Tch, actually, they're both just as bad." Matthew shrugged, yawning slightly. Lovino fell silent, mouthing a few words to himself as his laptop finally finished booting up.

Silently, Matthew rolled over and glanced around their shared room. It was a comforting light blue color and was spacious enough for the two of them. They each had a desk, closet, a small bookshelf… and right between the two beds were two small, rectangular windows, each with matching curtains. It was way better than sharing living space with Alfred in Matthew's own opinion. At least now he could actually see the floor beneath his feet and not clothes or wrappers.

He closed his eyes, without taking off his wire glasses. It was a Thursday, one more day of classes and then the weekend would finally be there.

That was the daily routine (if you could call it that) that they'd both fallen into this year. The last year had almost gone by the same way, though of course it felt like it had passed in the blink of an eye.

"Hey Matthew, what was the homework from Human Geo?" The carefully constructed silence shattered as Lovino's voice rang out. He blinked before realizing it was directed at him. Both were on the advanced track, one of the reasons they were at WP-the other being rich parents that could afford sending them to an international school.

"Questions… 24 through 36, but they aren't due tomorrow." Matthew answered in his ever quiet voice. Funny how only two people had bothered to get to know him, and the other wasn't even his brother. He had even managed to scare Alfred once, although he had been standing at his brother's side for a while. And all he had done was ask for notes from a class he had missed.

Alfred wasn't too smart. Well, at least when it came to the real world he wasn't too smart…

"Great." Lovino commented, still absorbed in the screen of his laptop. He was probably working on English or something. "There isn't any other homework might as well get it the fuck over with." Faintly, he could hear Lovino shuffling around, probably getting a book out of his bag.

They fell back into a brief silence, a knock on the door making them both pause and look at each other questioningly. "Lovi!" Lovino shook his head and motioned across his throat for him to stay quiet. Doing exactly the opposite just to defy him, Matthew stood up and went over to answer it.

As soon as he opened the door, Antonio smiled at him, tilting his head slightly, "is Lovino here?" Matthew wondered if he should pretend that Lovino wasn't there, but then it wouldn't exactly be fair to lie to Antonio.

He nodded, opening the door slightly wider to let him through. "Yes, he is." He pointed towards Lovino's bed, where the Italian was now looking through the pages of his book. Antonio walked in and gently took the laptop from Lovino's lap, closing it. He set it aside, sitting down in the space next to Lovino.

"The hell? I was using that!" Lovino complained, glaring at Antonio. Though to Matthew, it seemed as though Lovino was glaring at him instead of the Spanish student.

"I wanted to ask you if you wanted to come with me to a diner in town." A small blush appeared on Lovino's cheeks, his eyes widening slightly. It looked like Lovino was close to letting his jaw fall open.

The reaction elicited a quiet laugh from Matthew. Lovino slowly turned a bit redder while Antonio just chuckled awkwardly.

"Ah, did something happen, Matt?" Both of them turned to look at Matthew making him shake his head quickly in embarrassment. Now he was certain that Lovino was glaring at him with a great intensity.

"Ah, no nothing happened. Don't worry," he tried smiling, but he thought that he saw Lovino mutter something that looked like 'idiot' before saying something to Antonio that he couldn't catch. The Spaniard just chuckled at him, a hand going up to run through his own hair. Matthew sighed, falling backwards.

"So, do you want to come with me? They have delicious lunches; at least that's what I heard." The way that they were interacting made Matthew realize that maybe Antonio wasn't the only one with a crush. Everyone knew that the Spaniard liked Lovino more than a friend, it wasn't impossible to find someone who didn't. He wasn't completely sure if Lovino felt the same way, sometimes it was impossible to notice, but he was sure that the Italian did feel the same way… if going by the blush and way his mouth quivered meant that he liked Antonio.

"Fine," Lovino finally said, pushing off of the bed, "but you're paying, dammit." He picked up a jacket and his wallet from his desk, rolling his eyes at the Spaniard. Antonio stood up and started moving towards the door with a big smile on his face. "I guess I'll be back later…" Lovino grumbled at him, shoving Antonio in front of him. The Spaniard fumbled in his step, chuckling to himself with a prominent blush growing on his cheeks.

"Have fun! Make sure to have Lovino back before ten!" Matthew teased. Lovino threw a scowl at him, watching him smile. Antonio's blush darkened, sputtering something that sounded like "it's not a date", and waved at Matthew, leaving the room the room as quickly as he could.

The last thing Lovino said was an angry sounding "fuck you" before he followed Antonio out the door.

Matthew really did enjoy messing around with Lovino. Which if the other told anyone about, they wouldn't believe him. Then again, no one really believed that the two of them would be really good friends with the personalities that they had. He was shy, soft spoken, a very quiet personality while Lovino's was harsher and loud. Despite that, Lovino was a caring and fun guy, and would really only let his guard down around two people at most. One of them being Matthew. It was a fair trade off, at least they thought so. In fact, sometimes they acted more like brothers than with their actual siblings.

And maybe that's just how the world worked.