Hello, and welcome to "Lower the Shields"! This story will be focusing on Austria/Switzerland, as well as Liechtenstein/Romano (both are pairings). And, of course, they'll have some more minor crack pairings - perhaps Japan/Belarus and England/Poland? Well, apart from Austria/Switzerland and Liechtenstein/Romano, no other pairings are set :P
Before you begin, please note that I will be writing somethings in other languages, such as fratello, danke, bruder, etc. I won't be writing in accents, however.
Also, since this is Liechtenstein/Romano, there will be no Spamano. I know that, like, pretty much everyone in the Hetalia fandom ships that (I do too!) but it won't appear in this story. (I'll be posting one soon, though!)
Also, there is some swearing, because this is Romano, after all. I haven't yet decided whether I'll bleep out the cusses or not - so far I'm kind of avoiding them.
This chapter is more of a prologue - the next chapter will be more interesting, I promise!
Anyway, let's begin! I don't own Hetalia, but I do own this story!
Vash knocked on his little sister's bedroom door.
"Ah! Please come in, big brother!" was her sweet response. The blonde boy opened the door and walked in, taking in everything with a strict, yet protective glance.
"How are your preparations?" he asked. Lili nodded with a smile.
"Quite well, I believe. I have notebooks for all my classes, a pencil case with pencils, pens, erasers and so on, as well as a couple of books to read in my spare time." She replied, motioning to her school bag.
Vash nodded approvingly. For the first day of high school for his little sister, that definitely seemed to be enough. He, being a year higher up than his little sister took great pride in preparing her for the first day of school, telling her where all her pre-chosen classes were, which teachers were to watch out for and so on. In all honesty, he just wanted Lili to be ready for all of this – after all, it seemed that such an innocent and fragile girl wouldn't fit in with all the other students at the rather strange school.
…Or perhaps he just didn't want her to grow up.
His efforts, however, although they were with good intention, were probably unnecessary. Tomorrow morning, each of the sophomores would be assigned to be an older class "buddy" to a freshman, so they'd tell her everything that she needed to know, as well as take her around classes and all.
But what if she gets assigned to one of those weirdoes, like Francis, Mathias, Gilbert, or God forbid! Roderich? Vash thought, worrying over. He had, with his best efforts, raised his younger sister and managed to help her retain her innocence, but what if this so-called "buddy" would corrupt her? Her best chances were amongst the quiet kid, Kiku or perhaps the cry-baby Katyusha. It was a terrible thing, he thought, that older siblings couldn't be the "buddies" of their younger relations.
"Well, you should get to bed, Lili. I want you to be rested for school tomorrow." Vash said after a while. His younger sister nodded and smiled at him.
"Good night, big Bruder." She said sweetly with a curt nod. Vash nodded back in return and walked out of the room, only somewhat relieved by what he saw for his sister's preparations. Oh well, only the day itself could tell what was going to happen next.
"Here's your homeroom, Lili." Vash said, stepping aside to let his younger sister enter the room. He managed to get a glance of some of the other students in that class, and almost sighed with relief. Sure, he didn't know them, but none of her classmates from homeroom looked like troublemakers. In fact, most of them just sat at their desks, nervously awaiting the arrival of their teacher. A couple students would steal glances at others, but quickly turned away, completely unsure of what to do and how to behave around this new bunch of people.
"Danke, Bruder." Lili replied, and after smiling up at him, stepped into the classroom. Vash nodded, averting his eyes slightly.
"I'll be in front of the school gates when school's over, alright? I'll wait for you there." He said to her, and, satisfied with her curt agreement, stepped out of the classroom, turning to his own.
With his mind on his younger sister, he hardly remembered that he would be assigned a "buddy" of his own later today. All he could hope for was that the person wouldn't give him too many problems, like a certain person – no, some certain people – in his grade.
Upon arriving to his homeroom, his eye twitched unhappily. Delivering his sister to her classroom had taken much longer than he had expected, which resulted in everyone else getting there before him.
"Take a seat, Mr…." the teacher, an older woman said sternly, looking at the Swiss man.
"Vash." He said, finishing her sentence.
"Yes. Please take a seat, Mr. Vash, next to…" the teacher stopped here, trying to remember her student's name. She was pointing in the direction of someone Vash knew all too well. That snobby attitude, fake glasses and cowlick were impossible to mistaken.
"Roderich!" Vash exclaimed, rather angrily.
"Why yes, that's the name!" the teacher said, finally remembering, "Take a seat next to Mr. Roderich."
Growling, Vash did as he was asked. It really was the only seat left in the class, anyways, so he didn't have much of a choice. He sat down, slinging his school bag to the floor as Roderich crossed his arms and looked the other way.
"It's good to see you too, Vash." He replied sarcastically.
Insults stung Vash's tongue, yearning to burst out of his mouth and simply let his frustration out at his (self proclaimed) arch enemy. But before he could do so, the teacher interrupted him with her talk.
"As I was saying, in a moment you'll all be assigned a Freshman buddy. Your job will be to take them around school, make sure they're feeling comfortable with everything going on and so forth. When I read out your name, please come pick up your buddy's schedule." She said. Murmurs erupted from the class, but the teacher quickly silenced them as well.
Taking out the list, the teacher put on her reading glasses and started to read out the names (with rather terrible pronunciation, no less!).
"Antonio, you'll be taking care of Peter Kirkland." A scoff was let out from Arthur, Peter's older brother, clearly not pleased that the Spaniard had been assigned to him.
"Arthur, you'll be with Feliks Łukasiewicz."
"Ivan, Toris Laurinatis."
"Roderich, TinoVäinämöinen."
"Kiku, Natalya Arlovskaya." (At this point, Ivan let out a sigh of condolence in Kiku's direction; his younger sister really was a pain.)
"Vash,Raivis Galante." The blonde boy shrugged. He had no idea who his buddy was, but he could deal with that later. Oh well, he didn't seem like much of a troublemaker, or so he hoped. Vash went up to pick up Raivis' schedule.
"Lovino, your partner is LiliZwingli."
Vash froze in that instant. His younger sister was assigned to Lovino Vargas? The boy glared at the Italian who had been assigned to his Lili. Lovino was infamous for his potty mouth, as well as being rather weak, both physically and academically. Why, out of all people, must it have been Lovino with Lili?
The Italian shrugged, and stood up, walking over to the teacher's desk as he heard his name. Vash could hear the boy mumble something about how tiresome it would be, having to take care of a younger student, no less a girl.
It wasn't that Lovino didn't like women – no, it was completely opposite. But if this unknown girl turned out to be anything like most girls he'd met, then she would not be worth the bother. All of them were the same – stupid media monkeys, wishing for nothing more than to appeal to the rest of the class. And they were all so girly. Just makeup and short skirts.
Ugh.
"Alright, now that we've sorted all that out, it's important for you to find your buddy's homeroom class and wait outside there for him or her, and take them to their first class. So please move out of the classroom." The teacher said, boredom seeping through her voice. She waved her hand, ushering the students to hurry out of the classroom so that she could have some peace at last.
Vash threw his bag over his shoulder, wanting to pack up quickly to get a word with the Italian boy who would be his sister's buddy, but Lovino was fast. Vash had no idea when the boy had managed to pack his bag, for he was already well on his way out of the classroom.
"It looks like we have the same first period." Roderich said, after managing to steal a glance at Vash's schedule (accidentally, he protested).
Vash groaned, "What luck." He replied sarcastically. Not only had the Italian boy gotten away, but he had also figured out that he'd be spending the next hour and a half in the same classroom as the Austrian.