And so, he smirked from afar at the group of boys walking up to the building.
A new school year.
Some old people.
This would be fun.
"I'm tired."
"Deal with it."
Alfred pouted, puppy dog eyes glued onto his brother's, "How mean…" he grumbled, but gave up when Mathew refused to crumble (ahaha hey that rhymes).
The violet-eyed boy looked out his dorm window, which, unfortunately was not blessed with the scenery of their green campus streaked with blue from a stroke of a paintbrush that was called 'Seattle', instead it was dabbed gray by a paintbrush that was known as 'September'.
"This city bores me…" Alfred muttered, "I want to go back to New York."
Matthew made no comment. His eyes were still far away, though a strange half-smirk occupied his usual innocent face, making it clear that he was in no agreement with his brother's statement.
"Matt?" Alfred raised a lazy eyebrow and chucked his sneaker at Matthew's head, who dodged with a yawn.
"Sorry Al, I'm a little sleepy too." He beamed, emitting a light of pure innocence that made Alfred think that he must have imagined his brother smirking. For the Matthew he knew did not smirk.
Alfred coughed a little more awkwardly than he intended, being attracted to his own bro was not cool (nobody broke the bro code under Alfred's supervision), "Anybody interesting?" He asked weakly, slamming his head against the floor.
The blond blew a wayward curl away from between his eyes and hummed, his thoughts elsewhere.
"Yeah…" He murmured, half-lidded violet eyes holding an emotion that Alfred could not grasp. It was intoxicating, and much too dangerous to be appearing on Matthew's face.
Alfred banged his head against the floor again.
(*)
Arthur flipped through the messages in his old, horribly hot pink smart phone, his expression a little less than friendly as he tore a hand through his sandy hair.
"Bloody frog…" he seethed, venomous green eyes practically burning a hole through the shaking pink ugliness of death in his hand.
"Mon cher, there really is no need to text when I'm right behind you." A creamy sing-song voice murmured, a hint of a smile behind the slightly exasperated words. The wavy blond-haired man grinned, though his eyebrows were clenched together, giving an overall rather awkward half smile, half frown that the other did not bother to see. Instead, Arthur jumped, swore, and texted a rather cruel and unnecessary message to the poor man.
"Might I remind you that I am your professor?" Francis enquired flatly, his voice still honeyed but an obviously dangerous tone hung at the end of each word.
The Brit stuffed the phone into one of his worn jean pockets and slammed his head onto the table, grumbling what sounded like curses under his breath.
At that exact moment, another blond stumbled into the room, grabbing his sides and gasping for breath.
"Sorry I'm late professor! I'm really sorry!"
Francis winked cheerfully at the boy, restraining himself from jumping onto him; he would have to find time for that later…
Instead, he simply waved a hand at the slightly blushing boy and allowed him to seat himself before starting the lecture.
Arthur paid the new guy no purpose while he shut his bright green eyes behind his eyelids, waiting for sleep to overpower the frog's annoying voice.
"Hi," Matthew smiled shyly from under his lashes at the punk, who continued to mutter darkly under his breath without noticing Matthew.
"Hi." He tried again, with no luck. Pouting, Matthew slapped a hand on the punk's forearm.
That did the job.
"SWEET MERLIN'S PANTS!"
The whole lecture hall turned to him, even Francis looked up with a raised eyebrow, pausing his powerpoint.
"Mr. Kirkland," he said tiredly, "After your complaint last week, the staff did a thorough search but unfortunately did not find any… ah… nymphs."
The students snickered, a couple had to stuff their fists into their mouths to stop the laughter. The boy on the other side of Matthew, though, didn't even bother restraining his outburst ("Whoa nymphs! Fucking awesome!")
Arthur did not seem to find the whole ordeal funny, but instead turned into a brilliant shade of prune all the way to the roots of his tawny hair.
Matthew smiled.
"Matthew Williams." He supplied after the class settled down and Francis' voice echoed around the walls again. Arthur jumped at Matthew's voice, but thankfully did not scream again.
"Bloody hell mate! How long have you been there?" Arthur asked with an incredulous look, a hand placed gingerly over his heart.
"The whole time!" Matthew replied cheerfully, pushing his glasses against his nose.
"O-oh, is that so? I didn't notice, I'm sorry." The Brit scratched his head, obviously fazed, "But oh, Goodness, I haven't introduced myself yet… Arthur. Arthur Kirkland." He nodded at Matthew, all three of his ear rings on his left ear blinding the latter with the reflective light, "and you are?"
Matthew didn't even cringe, "Matthew Williams." He said again, just as sweetly as the first time.
"It's nice meeting you, Matthew." He nodded stiffly, before plugging his earplugs back in place.
"Oh, sorry, Arthur…" Matthew interrupted again meekly, shaking the Brit gently on the arm. Arthur jumped, tore his earplugs off, looked around wildly (his gaze seeming to just go straight the poor Canadian) before landing his eyes on the still smiling violet-eyed boy.
"If it is alright, would you mind giving me your number, please? In case if I were to miss class?" Arthur raised an eyebrow, who ever bothered with university lectures anyway? But the boy's eyes seemed to glisten, and before he knew it, he was nodding.
"Sure thing, mate. I'll have yours too, mind."
Matthew grinned, his amethyst eyes practically shooting out rainbows.
"Oh, sorry, may I have your name again?" Arthur barely started when-
"Oh for God's sakes…" the boy who sat on the other side of Matthew slapped a hand on Matt's shoulder and leaned in, an irritated look on his face as he regarded Arthur.
"It's Matthew." He said, rolling a pair of blood red eyes and shaking his mane of snow-white hair, "not that hard to remember. I'm Gilbert, by the way, also not hard to remember."
The Canadian looked over his shoulder to beam at the newcomer, "Thanks, Gilbert." He said quietly, earning a lazy grin and a click of the tongue from the albino.
"Sure thing, birdie. What else do you expect from the awesome me?"
Matthew cleverly decided not to enquire why he was referred to as "birdie".
The forgotten Brit snorted, "Well, if you mean your ego-"
"At least I don't have the memory of grandma Vickie."
Arthur looked genuinely affronted.
"Here birdie, have my number too… Gilbert Beilschmidt, but you can just put me in as 'Awesome Five Metres'."
"Five metres?" Arthur eyed Gilbert's height skeptically, and the silvery haired man grinned wickedly.
The other snickered under his breath (kesesesese) as Arthur's eyes widened in horror and indignation.
"Ew." He choked out, all other colourful vocabulary forgotten. Still blinking in a way that looked as though he wished could open his eyes and Gilbert would just disappear, Arthur turned away slowly and plugged the earplugs back into his ears one final time.
Matthew simply smiled and turned away as Francis dragged Gilbert off Matthew's shoulder with a gentle 'excusez-moi' and threw Arthur's iPod down the lecture hall, where it crashed against the chalkboard.
The class posted on the school forum to 'never listen to music in Monsieur Bonnefoy's class' and to 'never be British, or more specifically, Arthur Kirkland'.
(*)
"You're moving dorms?"
Alfred winked at his brother, who leaned against the doorframe, an eyebrow raised and pouting.
"Well, a damsel in distress 'could no longer tolerate the behavior of their roommate'… well, that's what they posted on the bulletin board at least. And as a hero, of course I would never resist…"
Matthew rolled his eyes, "so then you're switching with them?" He didn't particularly care if he had a new roommate or not, he had been trained well with all of Alfred's dirty boxers all over the floor and the sound of snoring as well as midnight showers.
The American laughed obnoxiously, "Of course not! I'm switching with the roommate!"
Matthew's eyebrows disappeared into his hairline.
Shaking his mass of blond hair, the Canadian shifted his weight onto his other foot and picked up a pair of blue and white and red boxers from beneath the bed and tossed it in Alfred's rucksack. He felt sorry for the 'damsel in distress' already.
Right on cue, their dorm door burst open and in came a pretty girl adorned in a flowery green skirt and a white blouse.
"I'm like, so happy to meet you!" She spoke, and whereas Alfred smiled happily, mumbling out of the corner of his mouth to Matthew something that sounded like 'why can you not stand somebody so cute', Matthew's curl of the lips was more wry. His eyes shifted to the Adam's apple on their little visitor's throat that was only barely there.
Well, it looks as though his life would at least be un-boring-ish (Totally! Like… duh!)
(*)
Feliks was loud, enjoyed cosplaying, and Polish. In other words…
"Fabulous!" The jade-eyed blond grinned, "You play hockey?"
Flipping a pancake on the stove, Matthew smiled at his room mate, who was dressed in Matt's maple leaf T-shirt, but (thankfully) his own boxers.
"Maple syrup?" The Canadian asked, handing the Pole a stack of pancakes.
The other nodded, "Oh, go on, but, like, just a little bit."
Matthew winced, in his opinion, syrup should be dripped everywhere, anywhere.
Nevertheless, being Canadian taught him at least two things: smile no matter what (though that doesn't always prove to have the effect it should) and never mind other peoples' preferences of maple syrup, the rest of the world simply didn't understand the beauty of its simple delicacy, the way it flowed like honey but contained the trace of fresh wood that –
"Whoa, like, this is pretty amazing." Feliks gave Matthew a somewhat obnoxious wink and both thumbs up, which Matthew replied to with a docile grin.
"Feliks, why did you move out?" He murmured quietly, chin resting on his palms and elbows propped up against the marble counter.
The boy frowned, "Probably because, well, like," he said in between bites, "the dude's totally got a pole stuck up his ass so deep the submarines won't reach."
Matthew stifled a giggle, "how so?"
The Pole cleared his throat, "Feliks, you prat, how improper! Change out of that skirt right this moment!" The uncanniness of it all almost made Matthew choke on his own syrup drowned pancakes.
"An Englishman?" Matt's eyes glinted dangerously for a fraction of a second, so brief that Feliks frowned and rubbed his eyes, then decided he must have imagined it when the usual shiny Matthew-beam greeted him.
"Totally!"
Maybe he ought to pay his brother a visit from time to time.
Sarah Machlachlan's "Do what you have to do" filled the silence while the two continued their breakfast for dinner.
Clearing the thought that he should visit his brother, it seemed that his brother had needed him first.
"Hi Al, what's up?"
"Mattickins! Come over to my dorm! Truth or dare PARTAY!" Alfred's voice blared through the phone, being Alfred's brother, though, Matthew knew enough to hold the cell at arm's length. Unfortunately, by the time he finally brought the phone back to his ear, only the ring tone greeted him.
Ah well. His goal has been reached either way.
"Hey Feliks," (The other's head bobbed up and down) "why don't we visit your old roommate?"
(*)
"Aw man, you were so slow Matt, not heroic at all!" Matthew waved an apologetic hand at the American, whose face was tainted slightly pink, most likely from the beer in hand.
"Sorry." He said again, peering over Alfred's shoulder and seeing that others were already there, most of whom did not pay any attention to his presence.
"Oh, hey Birdie!" Well, at least someone noticed him.
Gilbert, who had been previously very involved in a game of Monopoly with a buff blond and a pair of rather violent twins, one of which had been swearing profusely at a green eyed good-looking young man while the other clung to the tough looking blond. Matthew was both scared of and in awe of how well the little Italian was able to seemingly hold onto the tough blond.
"Hey Artie, old man." Alfred waved, pulling Arthur out of thin air to Matthew's both glee and horror, "this is Matt, my not-so-heroic-but-really-good-at-cooking-pancakes brother!"
Arthur, a foul look on his face, simply nodded at Matt, and it wasn't until Gilbert reminded him rather violently by jabbing the silver cross hanging across his neck into Arthur's temple that the Brit remembered who Matthew was.
"Ah, well, couldn't have imagined… you being this git's brother… well, I'm sorry, lad."
Feliks piped up beside Matthew before the Canadian could put 'sorry' and 'please' into one very well phrased sentence.
"You sound like, less chic than my grandmamma."
"Shame," Arthur eyed Feliks up and down, acid dripping from his tone, "unfortunately, I almost miss you compared to this… absolute freak of nature." He muttered in disgust, a corner of his eye peering at Alfred as though the rather excited in nature American was some kind of slug, or worse.
"Really? So Alfred can, like, see fairies too?"
The Brit refused to speak to the Pole after that.
Matthew, meanwhile, snatched the can of beer from Alfred, "you'll wake up with a hang-over." He warned gently.
"From this water? Comrade, you must be mistaken." Laughed a light voice.
The Canadian turned to the voice, which belonged to a silvery haired Russian sitting in a corner of the room, grinning, though his eyes were oh-so-very-bored.
"Shut up, Ivan." Alfred muttered, "who told you to come here?"
Matthew's eyed widened mildly, Alfred rarely spoke like that.
The Russian shrugged and poured a substance that could only be vodka down his throat.
"Long time no see, Ivan." Matthew chimed, a smile on his lips, "sorry we beat you so badly in our last game!"
Feliks gasped exaggeratedly, but he wasn't the only one surprised, even Ludwig, the buff blond, looked appraisingly at the Canadian.
"Ah well, Matvey, it was a good game nonetheless." Ivan waved an over-sized hand, eyes glistening oddly.
"It was," Matt agreed, "too bad it was the finals."
Matthew's high school and Ivan's were both absurdly good at hockey. Needless to say… the two had developed a bit of a rivalry.
Before Ivan could counter, Alfred had already brought out a deck of cards.
"it's simple, King asks questions, and people answer."
Unfortunately, quite a few people did not understand Alfred's instructions.
"What do you mean by that, you giant prat?" Obviously, Arthur was one of them.
To everyone's incredulity, it was the small clingy Italian that spoke up, "Ve~ everyone will get a number, and the 'King' can order the number to do things."
Feliks wrinkled his nose, "isn't this game, like, totally girl?" Arthur scoffed at him, but held off his retort as Alfred shoved a card up his mouth.
"So then, who's the king?" Someone asked, and a hand shot up behind the buff blond and the small Italian.
"It is I, desu."
All eyes turned to the Japanese kid the mushroom styled haircut.
With dull, coffee brown eyes, the boy bowed, "Would number three please list an especially embarrassing moment in their life, please-masu."
Eyeing his number, Matthew smiled expectantly at the crowd, until finally, the ruder of the Italian twins slammed his poke card to the floor while jumping and swearing in rapid Italian simultaneously.
"Someone mistook fratello for me once." He said after he shocked half the room with the large amount of activity and a loud scream to 'SHUT THE HELL UP, DAMN BRATS' from the room next door.
Most people winced; the other Italian twin was… a good word to describe him would be happy-go-lucky, or idiotic. True, Feliciano was well liked, though the reason he was well liked was rather pitiful.
"But, Lovi, how is that embarrassing?" the emerald eyed Spaniard asked, an arm hooked shamelessly around the Italian's waist.
The Italian started to redden, and unbeknownst to most, the buff blond was also tainted a light pink.
When the older of the twins did not answer, Alfred threw his can of empty beer at him and Gilbert nudged him with his foot.
"Alright, alright, Bastardos! I was in a gay bar and we were both drunk, okay?"
Alfred roared in laughter whereas both Lovino and the buff blond looked ready to melt into the ground. The Spaniard looked slightly crestfallen and Arthur treid to drown them all with his MP3 player.
"Man, you're too uptight. Even the awesome me have done that a couple of times."
Most people chose to ignore Gilbert with glazed grins, the buff blond chose to stare at him in horror.
Round 2:
Arthur was King.
So everyone changed monotonously, "King Arthur! King Arthur!"
The poor Brit turned an odd shade of prune and called, "2 and 4. Describe your first love. Oh shut up, you great big oafs!"
Gilbert threw his card into the middle before Arthur even finished, it lay face up, the two of diamonds stared at Matthew.
"That's easy. Me, myself, and I."
A dozen beer bottle and a distinct vodka glass bottle tore through the air at the albino's head.
"Trying to kill the awesome me? OW! Geez, I get it! It was my childhood friend, I thought she was a boy for like, forever." He muttered, a hint of redness threatening in his ears.
Everyone shifted a little uncomfortably and looked away from Gilbert, the buff blond patted him gently on the back.
"Me! Me!" The other Italian brother bounced, grinning from ear to ear.
"When I lived with Grandpapa Rome, there was this boy in my neighbourhood!" He finished dramatically.
Everyone stared.
"Round three?" Gilbert suggested, "Damn you for messing the whole thing up, 'prat'." He added to the Brit, who looked rather offended.
Everyone nodded.
Round Three:
Feliks jumped up and down, "Life, finally!" Without hesitation, he grinned nastily, "one give six a lap dance!"
Ivan waved his card with a smile: ace of hearts.
Matthew beamed back: six of spades.
Awwwww… yeah…
Nobody was to speak of the ordeal again, Alfred's coffee table broke apart, the two must use the public bathroom for about a week, and everyone silently agreed to never bring Ivan to the nightclub.
Heading back to his dorm, supported by Feliks, Matthew heard Alfred complaing, "Aww… I'm the hero, and I didn't even get to play…" And Arthur's reply, "Oh put a sock in it, you bloody git."
Matt grinned, winced, leaned into Feliks, and clutched his side where the vodka bottle had been a moment ago simultaneously
(*)
Kiku hid behind a bush, dark cocoa eyes murkily regarding the somewhat short, and baby-faced Chinese.
He had done this since school started.
Today, he will make a move.
Stamping down his feet and clenching his hands, 'a samurai never goes back half-way' he thought to himself.
He was going to talk… at the very least.
The Chinese was wearing a red QiPao, hair tied in a shiny ponytail under the sun.
Kiku swallowed, shuffling his feet. From beneath his white T-shirt, he could feel sweat accumulating. How ungraceful, he thought.
"Mr. Wang!" A rather sore-sight on the early morning, Alfred sprinted down the gravel path and nearly knocked the Chinese into the pond.
Kiku frowned… Mr? Why did he call the Chinese lady 'Mister'?
"Careful-aru, Alfred." Wang said, charcoal eyes smiling. ("Sorry, Professor.")
Kiku turned scarlet. The girl he was planning to take out for dinner was not only a man, but an old man! In a wave of anger and embarrassment, Kiku lost his footing and fell backwards. Pain on his buttocks and the freezing water of Sepember greeted him.
"Are you alright-aru?"
Kiku looked up, a pair of soft, ebony eyes greeted him, and at that moment, Kiku didn't care if this 'Wang' was double, triple, or quadruple his age, nor did he care if he owned the wrong sexual organs, hell, he didn't care of the Chinese owned any sexual organs.
"Honda Kiku-desu, and, will you make me miso soup for the rest of my life?"
A/N: Hi, actually, no pairings are actually decided in this at all…