Alfred slowly let his gaze drift from the Frenchman, to his brother, to Antonio and Lovino. All were staring at him with varying degrees of surprise. "I think someone close to Arthur pushed him in front of the train." Gilbert stared at him for a moment, hesitating before he began to speak, which was unusual for him. "How close to Arthur?" "One of us," Alfred said.

Warning: Swearing. A lot of it. Hurt/Comfort/Tragedy

Hetalia belongs to Hidekaz Himaruya.

The halls of the high school were filled with an odd sort of quiet. Usually it was like any other school, noisy with the chatter of students. Groups of friends would crowd around, laughing away at something or other, all the while remaining blissfully unaware of the fact that they were blocking someone's locker or the entryway to a classroom. Today, students stared at each other with nothing to say. Others shuffled down the hall quickly, eager to get to class despite the fact that lessons didn't begin for another twenty minutes. There was a sort of awkward tension in the air, and yet, despite the silence outside, he found that the ringing in his head wouldn't go away.

Those who were brave enough to speak did so in hushed whispers. Their gazes flitted around the school, taking in face after anxious face as though they were all searching for the answer to some question they were too afraid to ask. No one smiled that morning. No one could find the strength to.

And that included everybody. Teachers, newcomers who could sense something was wrong, and Alfred F. Jones. The blond American was known for being cheerful and just seemed to radiate an aura of happiness. But he too was part of those with a blank expression plastered across their face. On any other day, this would be strange. Today, no one could blame him.

The ringing in his head persisted.

Classes began a short while later, leaving those still in the halls to wordlessly make their way to homeroom. Alfred found himself in his math class, seated beside Gilbert at the back of the room, where they'd claimed their spots on the first day. Gilbert was leaning on his hand, red eyes staring dazedly at the back of Matthew's head; Alfred's brother, who was sat in front of them. Alfred, on the other hand, couldn't take his eyes off the board, where Friday's date was still written in the teacher's messy, almost-too-small-to-read writing. Friday October 4, 2013.

Today was Monday October 7, 2013.

October 7.

He kept repeating that over and over in his head.

The dreaded day wouldn't get out of his mind. He should've just stayed home. He should've spent the whole day sleeping. He should've pretended nothing happened. He should've… He should've…

There were so many things he should've done.

The teacher strolled in. She was a petite woman with curly brown hair and a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. It was there now. She was probably the only person in the whole school who was smiling.

"Morning, guys!" she chirped. No responses came and her smile dropped. "We're all quiet today, huh? Tired 'cause it's a Monday?" she asked, then walked up to the board, picked up a piece of chalk and wrote in the blasted October 7.

Even she hesitated, the chalk lingering in its spot on the board just a second longer than it should have. Then her lips pressed into a thin line and she hurriedly scrawled in the day's date.

"Bring out your homework from Friday. We'll take it up after announcements," she said. No one complained.

The familiar ring of the P.A system seemed to shake everyone from their daze. They stood as the national anthem played, staring ahead. Alfred imagined that they seemed like zombies, blindly doing nothing but the bare minimum. His gaze travelled the room. Francis stood at the front with an odd expression on his face, the bags under his eyes becoming apparent as he briefly glanced back. Alfred wasn't sure whether the look was meant for Gilbert, Matthew, or himself, but it didn't seem to matter. They'd all seen it.

Lovino, the older brother of the well-known Feliciano Vargas, stood a few seats away. He was a senior and like Gilbert and Francis, was only in Alfred's class because he'd failed it the previous year. He may have looked unaffected, with his usual furrowed brows and frown, but Alfred knew him well enough to notice the dead look behind his eyes.

The anthem ended then, before Alfred could think any more, and they all took their seats. Elizabeta, another senior, began to recite the announcements, as was part of her job as the grade 12 student representative.

"Coach Alaric would like to remind everyone that boys' volleyball tryouts are today at lunch in the gym," Elizabeta murmured. The enthusiastic tone she always spoke with was missing, and if you listened closely, you could hear a slight tremor in her voice. "Girls' tryouts are tomorrow."

They heard some noise as the microphone was moved around. Elizabeta was quiet for a moment. "U-Um," she said, sounding nervous.

Alfred sat up straighter. He bit his lip and glanced at Gilbert from the corner of his eye. Instead of snickering at Elizabeta's stuttering, he met Alfred's look with one of his own. Elizabeta continued.

"The vigil for Arthur Kirkland will be beginning tonight at six. Students from all grades are welcome to attend. Those are all of our announcements for today. Have a marvellous Monday, AP High."

"Okay," the teacher said, clapping her hands together. "We have an assembly at nine, which means you have about fifty minutes to make the necessary corrections on your homework. That should be more than enough time. Please get started."

Alfred let out a sigh and pulled the worksheets out of his binder. He idly glanced up at the screen as the teacher put the answers up and began to fix the ones he had gotten wrong. He used to be one of the best when it came to math, but now he found himself making silly mistakes and being unable to concentrate.

"So," Gilbert said after a few minutes. "We're having an assembly."

"Today of all days," Alfred grumbled. He paused in his writing and his grip tightened on his pen. "Anti-bullying and all that shit, I bet. No doubt they'll mention him."

"I wonder if this'll ever stop," Gilbert said quietly. "It's so weird, the way everyone acts. Why's he so special? Something happens to you and all you become is an example for future idiots. The world is fucked."

"Don't be so sour, Gil," Matthew said, glancing at them over his shoulder. "I thought you and Arthur were friends?"

"Friends don't go and fucking die on each other without an explanation," Gilbert growled.

"You don't know what happened," Matthew tried to reason.

"Everyone knows!" Gilbert spat. "Not everything, but enough."

Matthew rolled his eyes, then frowned. "I was just saying. No need to get so defensive. You'd think you had something to do with it."

OoOoOoO

The fall leaves crunched under his feet as he made his way down the sidewalk. It was sometime past seven in the morning, and the sun was beginning to rise, throwing the sky into an array of fiery colour.

With his hands in the pockets of his plaid indigo pants, he slouched over slightly. He never had been a morning person, and the cooler weather wasn't helping that. His leather bomber jacket helped to fight off the cold, but a chill still managed to bite at his neck.

"Winter is gonna be hell this year," he muttered to himself, pulling a face at the mere thought of snow. "How that moose-loving pansy can stand it is beyond me."

There were footsteps behind him and he turned, cringing at the breeze that blew at his neck. He managed to grin.

"Yo, Artie! This is new. Usually you're at school way before me."

Arthur rolled his eyes, catching up to Alfred and then slowing his pace to a walk. "Alistair thought it'd be fun to turn off my alarm. I slept in."

Alfred glanced at his watch. "You still managed to be on your way to school fifteen minutes before it starts," he grinned cheekily. "You're so late."

"Shut it, git," Arthur grumbled, burying his face into his dark grey coat. "I have club budgets to manage. I'll have to do them at lunch now."

"No!" Alfred whined, dragging the word out. "You're mine at lunch!"

Arthur bumped shoulders with him, a small smile on his face as he glanced at him. "Tell that to the club leaders who need money for their activities."

"Well, I can deal with them!" Alfred claimed.

"And you plan to do that how?"

Alfred stilled for a moment, causing Arthur to glance back at him. Then he stuck his hands out in front of him and began slowly moving forward, shouting in a robotic voice, "Exterminate!"

He knew Arthur was about the biggest Doctor Who fan out there, and it was because of this that he'd gotten into the show as well.

Arthur chuckled. "Are you sure you should be exterminating fellow students? I might have to give you detention for that."

Alfred grinned, sidling back up to Arthur's side and leaning in to speak into his ear. "I wouldn't exactly object to detention with you~…" Arthur's face flushed slightly and Alfred took his hand in his, entwining their fingers together as they walked slowly the rest of the way to school.

Suddenly it didn't feel so cold anymore.

OoOoOoO

At 9:00AM sharp, they all made their way to the gym for the assembly. Rows of seats filled the large area, about half of them already holding students. Those just arriving found their friends and then made their way to any available seats. Alfred found himself between Gilbert and Feliciano, a sophomore.

The lights were shut off once all of the students were seated. All attention was drawn to what was being cast on the large screen at the front of the gym by a projector. As the few whispering students were hushed by a teacher, a police officer walked up to the front of the gym.

"Good morning, APH!" the officer exclaimed. "A few of you may recognise me from past years. I sure remember some of you, considering an event involving the science lab frogs that occurred two years ago," he grumbled, gaze drifting from Gilbert, to Francis, to Antonio.

"It wasn't even that big of a deal," Gilbert whispered as he slumped further into his seat.

"Anyway, for those of you who are new, I am Officer Køhler," the man said, brushing back his sandy blond hair. "We're going to be going over bullying, as per usual."

Officer Køhler changed the slide on the screen, bringing up a photo of a stop sign that said "Stop bullying!" on it. Alfred resisted the urge to groan. He wished they'd at least be more serious about this. If they had to suffer through assemblies like these then they may as well get an actual talking to. People needed to realise what their actions did, and they weren't going to do that by looking at silly photos.

"I'm going to get straight to the point," Officer Køhler said. "I hate assemblies like these as much as you do, I'm sure, and I know I wouldn't want to sit through this. Alright," he let out a sigh.

"Last year," Køhler continued. "Our regular anti-bullying assembly had a small addition to it. This year we're going to expand more on that. Arthur Kirkland…" he paused, letting the name sink in, and changed the slide to Arthur's Photo Day picture from his sophomore year. "He was a student of APH two years ago. He'd be in his senior year now. Arthur had done a lot in his short time at APH. He was on the honour roll, though I'm sure most of you better remember him as the student council president. Arthur was a smart kid. Happy, too. I would know; I knew the kid for quite a few years. He wasn't the best at showing it, but I think everyone could see that he was satisfied with life. Or maybe that's just what he seemed like to me," he sighed.

"Two years ago," Køhler said, voice rising. "Arthur Kirkland was found dead on the train tracks north from APH."

Hey guys I'm not dead, back with this fic and planning a new one. I won't go into details, but I'd appreciate any ideas and suggestions for pairings and I'll see what I can work in :D Anything is possible since it's barely started. This one on the other hand is finished so you can expect regular updates (since I suck at that kinda thing)

Please review! :3