A/N: I'm finally updating, oo~ Mr Edelstein/Roderich is Austria, Vash [Zwingili] is Switzerland, Lili is Liechtenstein, Mrs Edelstein-Héderváry/Elizaveta is Hungary, and Jensi [Edelstein] is Budapest
Ablactation; the weaning of a child from its mother's milk. That was exactly what it was, in terms of metaphors. Vash had been home schooled since he was very young after numerous fights with other students, so it was as if the trip to the high school was his weaning. He absolutely hated it. He wanted to thrash about, throw himself into the middle of the road, scream until his throat grew dry, but he instead opted to remain completely silent and calm as they approached that place. To be perfectly honest, he rarely spoke anyway, unless of course he was spoken to. The building was abnormally large with a shield-like emblem containing the name of the school. The "World Academy", supposedly. Vash cringed at the name alone and lowered his head. His blonde hair flopped over his eyes as he tried to reduce as much eye contact as possible. Both hands balled up in the pockets of his dark green jeans as he followed his parents into the building. As usual, he scowled, and even more so when someone walked into him.
His eyes locked with those of a tall brunette man, who seemed particularly shocked, having clearly not expected anyone to be in the building at that time. Not that that Vash intended on being in the building anyway. There was a long silence between them, during which both simply stared into each others' eyes. He adjusted his jabot vainly. "Uh... Sorry," he mumbled before continuing on his way. After muttering a few curse words under his breath, the Swiss boy continued walking towards the headmaster's office. As slowly as physically possible to avoid having to discuss hell for as long as possible. Upon getting there, he sighed softly and sat lazily on the nearest chair to the door, ignoring the protests from his mother about having proper manners. He found little interest in everything that was happening around him. He was a sixteen year old boy, so naturally there was nothing that he could muse over in a bare, silent hallway. He didn't want to make conversation, eye contact or physical contact in the slightest.
Hence, he glared as the head teacher clapped a hand on his shoulder. His blood boiled. During the entire conversation he continued glaring angrily, not taking a single word in and only nodding or shaking his head when he thought it appropriate to do so. In fact, the only words he caught were, "Meeting your teachers now." The adults all stood up, and he hesitated to follow for a moment until they walked towards the door. He finally lifted himself out of the chair and stuck close to them on the way there, much like a small animal. The walk was much shorter than he had hoped for, as the classroom was just down the hallway, but Vash couldn't help dropping the scowl in favour of a more curious expression as they entered the large room to see the teachers all gathered. Some obviously did particular jobs, whereas others didn't even look as if they fitted into the school environment. His eyes drifted towards a fairly tall tutor with a pale green tint to the tips of his hair, who was wrapped in the arms of an oblivious-looking gym teacher. Both seemed to having a hard time refraining from acting like teenage lovers, but they admittedly seemed nice enough. "So... firstly here's Mr. Kirkland, your English teacher, and Mr. Jones, your gym teacher." He simply stared at the couple as if they were aliens.
"Why do I need to take English? Why not German?"
"You have a German teacher too, Mr. Beilschmidt over there," he pointed to an albino man with a huge grin, who waved frantically upon being pointed out, "But every student who attends here must learn English for various different reasons. One being that we're in an English-speaking country, and another being that you already appear to know at least the general gist of the language." He rolled his eyes upon realising that the point was actually valid and understandable, having naturally not assumed that there would be such a point made. Even so, he mentally noted that he wouldn't be paying attention to the subject from the first lesson he has with the teacher and would do anything to push that lovey-dovey Brit's buttons until he flipped.
"Here are Mr. Wang, the physics teacher, Mr. Bonnefoy, the chemistry teacher, and Miss Arlovskaya, the biology teacher." Vash glanced up at the somewhat creepy looking teachers and quickly decided to glance away again upon noticing the deranged look upon the blonde woman's face as she stared intensely at the tall man near the physics teacher's arm. Surely they would be better when he got to know them, but they were unusual to say the least. As he looked away from them, his eyes locked with deep violet irises across the room. Slightly familiar irises at that. He didn't recognise where he had seen them before until his eyes wandered down towards the unmistakable piece of white pleated fabric around his neck; a jabot. Damn.
"Uh... Well, that brunette teacher is Mr. Edelstein, the music teacher, and Mrs. Edelstein-Héderváry, the home economics teacher," the head teacher explained as he obviously tried not to pay too much attention to the couple for whatever reason. It was almost as if he knew something but didn't want to bring it up. The blonde's tongue flashed out to dampen his lips as his eyes reverted in the opposite direction for a moment. As he looked back, he noticed the slightest of smiles on the dark man's lips and instantly felt an unusual fluttering in the pit of his stomach- probably sickness, he decided. That smile made him want to punch the stupid out of him. The student's arms crossed defensively over his chest as he rolled his eyes towards the door, ignoring the other introductions as best as possible.
~o~
"So, Vash, you seemed to take quite an interest in that music teacher and his wife. Do you think she's attractive or something?" his mother asked quietly on the way back from the academy. Green eyes snapped up, almost angrily.
"I do not!" he retorted loudly, earning an irritated hissing noise in response to his inability to speak without yelling. Admittedly, he had been thinking quite a lot about the couple since the introduction, but it definitely wasn't anything to do with attractiveness. Perhaps it was the strong hold that she had him in, which strongly resembled how a mother may protectively hold their offspring. Perhaps it was the slightly distant approach to each other despite being side by side and holding each other. Perhaps it was even the way that she gazed longingly in the direction of the German teacher whilst he seemed to be trying to find interest elsewhere in the room. He was over thinking everything, he guessed, and none of it was his business. Plus he hadn't ever been in a relationship so as far as he knew it could be natural for couples to look at other people. Maybe.
They soon got back to their house, and Vash made a wild dash for his bedroom as soon as the front door was opened in order to avoid unnecessary conversation. His bedroom door was slammed and locked, then he slowly approached the bed before flopping back onto it. He took in a long, deep breath. The events of the day had already stressed him out, and it was barely even mid afternoon. The last thing he wanted to do was go to a weird boarding school in an unfamiliar area, even if it was only around half an hour away from where he lived with his parents. Technically, he was an adult and rarely spent money whatsoever, so he could escape at any point. Vash didn't need an extra two years in a boarding school just for qualifications. Plenty had done it before and had had success, so why should he bother? Saying it was a waste would be an understatement.
Then there were the teachers. He sighed heavily and rubbed his eyes with the sides of his fists. It was clear that most of them had relationships with others teachers, which was perfectly reasonable considering that they were stuck living on school grounds for forty weeks a year. Yet, there were so many same-sex couples... Vash admitted to himself that he had some attraction to other men; mainly strong, tall, dark, frugal men (which made it rather awkward to stand in a room containing a fair few tall brunette men at the academy; the last thing he wanted was to fall for a teacher or another member of staff), so it would be easy for anyone to tell the sexual orientation of anyone who entered the school grounds. It was also likely that many of the students were at least bi-curious, seeing as some of the teachers looked as if they had been together since they were students. It wouldn't be surprising if he was outed fairly quickly, so it would be necessary to get a girlfriend immediately in order to cover it up. After all, it would be weird for the new kid to be crushing on random guys whom he had never met beforehand.
It felt obsure; he would soon be packing his bags and leaving the house that he had lived in since they moved from Switzerland around eleven years prior to the first term. Part of him wanted to escape and was completely sure of it, but another tiny part was terrified of being alone in the new place with nothing to protect him. Vash had no idea what to expect, had no siblings to guide him, and didn't even have friends to give support. The realisation of loneliness was quickly dawning upon him and it was causing a crippling fear that scared him more than anything else he had experienced. He would get on with it, obviously, but he wouldn't like it. He could never like it as if it were nothing.
