The small store that sat on the normally empty street was packed to the brim with people on that Friday evening. Everyone was shouting and bumping into one another, irritated with each other. Yet, no one left the crowd; rather more people just clambered into the mess of customers.
It was honestly too hot to go find out what was going on down there, I briefly thought from my view of the chaos. Beads of sweat rolled down my face and I wiped the itchy irritations away. I was sitting on my balcony that was right above the store, watching the idiots buzzing around the helpless store like vultures on a fresh kill. It was amusing, yet at the same time, it was disgusting. I took a sip of ice cold beer from my large glass that also had sweat dripping down the sides. Just before I put my cup back down in the cup holder, I stared at the golden liquid thoughtfully.
"WHO DID THAT!?"
"My hair!"
In a minute, more screams and shouts filled the air. I snickered, now with an empty cup and a lifted mood. The sacrifice of my beer was well worth the satisfaction of making pesky people's lives a bit harder. I made an epic escape to the glass door behind me to escape from angry eyes, leaving the beer glass on my chair. I allowed myself to laugh out loud as soon as I made it safely into the air conditioned apartment. No one could ever catch the awesome me!
"GILBERT! I'm going to kill you!"
Well, almost completely uncatchable.
The stairs that led up from the depths of hell squeaked as an angry, blond man pounded up the stairs. As an amazingly awesome and smart person, I did the most logical thing that came to my brain.
I slammed the door that separated me from the stairs with the advancing man with rolls of steam coming off his head (was that beer in his hair?) and locked the door. Immediately, the shouting picked up a notch or two in a split second.
"OPEN THE DOOR RIGHT NOW!"
The wooden door rattled under the fury of the very angry man. I frowned at the hinges on the shaking door. Those old rusted things had better hold. However, one should always be prepared for the worst. I quickly jogged over to the closet where everything was neatly organized and clean. My eyes scanned the small closet to find anything that could be possibly used as a weapon. Only problem was, the things that I could have used weren't freaking there! The pounding against the door was sharply becoming more violent and hard.
I glared at the door, wishing that the source of all that noise would just stop it.
"Hey, don't break down the door, Ludwig! It would be un-awesome to fix that," I shouted while moving down the hallway. Perhaps my weapons were in my bedroom.
Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say. The beating upon the door ceased for just a couple seconds before a really ugly scream sounded behind the old door. Suddenly, the fit of rage ended as soon as it had began. Which was… rather worrying. Not that I was concerned for that guy. More like I was scared for the door. Yeah, that was it.
I crept a bit closer to the now silent area. I cocked my head to the side, a little bit confused at the sudden turn of events. The floorboards groaned as I moved towards the door keeping me from harm. Nothing. No curses or commands. Just eerie silence. That type of silence was never very good for my health. I felt my face fall into a frown and muscles tensed in anticipation. My pale hands twitched. Verdam-!
The silence was replaced with the rattle of a key being shoved forcefully into the lock. Crap, he got his key! I started to run towards the turning lock to stop its motion. Too late! The walls of the entire building shook under the force of the poor wooden door being slammed open. From the doorway, out came a furious mass of muscle, still in his slightly dirty work clothes from the mechanic shop down the street. His light blue eyes had turned icy and carried the promise of death. Those cold and calculating eyes locked onto mine and his face twisted into a snarl.
I didn't even have enough time to think up a curse word before he came running with the intent of bodily harm. I was no coward, but even I knew that I had no room in the hallway to defeat an enraged German. So, running to the kitchen wasn't retreating or running away. It was brilliant tactical move!
I slid into the small yellow kitchen, feeling my socks wanting to slide across the smooth surface. Bruder must have waxed recently. Well, that was just great! However… I did like seeing my amazing face reflected on the wooden floor.
Shoot! No time for admiring! I was at war! I grabbed the nearest weapon lying against a wall and ran around the small island in the kitchen to face my enemy. I raised my wooden broom (don't judge!) and stood my ground with a smirk on my face.
Kesesese! He had no chance.
At least, he didn't have a chance, until he came barreling through the doorway and kept running around the island to me. Idiot! You were suppose to face me like a man and lose to my uncontainable awesomeness!
I jumped away as he pounced in the area that I previous was at and landed with a thud on his chest. An opening! Feeling the adrenaline pumping through my veins, my arm decided to bring down my powerful broom on his back.
Somehow though, the blond man actually caught it with his bare hand without even looking up. Stupid show-off.
I tried to rip the broom out of his hand, but he just tighten his already death grip even more. He slowly lifted his head to look at me. I swear that women, children, and that sissy neighbor across the street would have screamed in terror at the unholy glare that he levelled at me.
Of course, I didn't shriek. I didn't even make a peep. I am too strong for that.
His mouth opened, likely to give out death threats or something boring like that. I stopped tugging the broom, knowing it was rather useless to wrestle it away from him at that point. I still kept my hands on the broom.
However, before any sound could come out of his mouth, Ludwig's pant's pocket suddenly lit up like a beacon and started to ring.
RING! RING! RING!
Ludwig's other arm that wasn't holding my weapon robotically moved to his buzzing pocket and withdrew his phone. Still glaring at me, he tapped the phone and lifted it to his ear.
"Hallo?...Feliciano, I am busy right now…. I am not coming over just to find your shoe!... I don't care how much you "need" it… You should be more organised! -" His glare disappeared as his gaze fell to the floor. His attention on me was now gone. Kesesese, loser. One call from bruder's best friend and he was left completely side-tracked. What a loser.
I let go of the broom, quietly snickering as he kept holding the broom in the air, completely ignoring me now. My stomach growled. Right, I didn't eat lunch today. I walked over to the fridge and opened it, peering inside. Dang-it! Someone ate the last bratwurst! And why is there twice as much pasta in here than last time? I swear there wasn't this much this morning! They must be multiplying.
As I pondered over the mystery of the fast breeding pasta dishes and rummaged through our food supply, I had semi forgotten about Ludwig lying on the floor. I also forgot to keep listening to when he stopped talking.
So, in my momentary lapse of distraction, I may have accidently allowed the blond German a chance of getting up and positioning himself behind me.
I had turned around and nearly ran into the now standing and still quite angry man. I will deny any and all accusations that I had yelled in fright because those aren't true at all! I was just surprised to find him looming over me like some creep. Seriously, that was uncool!
"Listen, I am going to give you one chance to explain yourself. One chance of redemption and that is it. Do not waste this," Ludwig's deep voice rumbled as he stared down at me. I felt the cold metal of the fridge pressed up against my back.
"Now, what do you have to say for yourself?" He asked, face now stone cold.
The air was quite tense. Literally, I could have tried to cut the tension with a sharp knife and get the knife stuck.
I stared deep into his eyes. I opened my mouth, perhaps to speak what my bruder was hoping for: that I was sorry; that I should have talked things out before doing anything stupid. I took a deep breath to say:
"I should really invest in a better lock."
Psh, like I would be "sorry" about my actions! Only a stupid loser would have had any regrets about this! I just wished I had a camera to capture this amazing victory of me! Then I would replay it over and over and bask in it's amazing glory!
"WHY YOU- AUGH! I AM GOING TO SHOOT YOU UNTIL YOU ARE DEAD!" Ludwig's face broke from it's poker face to a "I'm hating you so much right now" kind of face. I laughed at the transformation as I narrowly ducked from an incoming punch to the head.
"Kesesese! You should totally see your face right now, bruder!" I shouted while slipping through a small opening that Ludwig had unwilling created by trying to knock my lights out. Such a loser!
"GET BACK HERE!"
I heard the thundering footsteps following my own through the apartment. I felt a large grin settling on my face, even with all the shouting behind me. This was more fun than messing with that angry Swiss man at the bank!
Crap! He almost caught up! Pay attention, Gilbert! I ran down the hallway and flew down the squeaky stairs to hell. Immediately, I noticed the temperature go up by a lot and that there was a lot more people in hell today than yesterday. Oh, wasn't that all wonderful?!
As I charged through the horde of people in the store, most weren't all that happy to be pushed around, I briefly saw the owner of the store. Antonio Fernández Carriedo, who was one of my cool friends, in the middle of the entire horde of people. Was that Lovino yelling at him?
I faintly heard over the dim a shout of "What ! $% are you doing here, $%&#*$?" followed by a heavy sigh from my bruder. My grin widen. Yep, that was definitely Feliciano's older brother as his usual cranky self.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw some bright red signs that had the word SALE plastered all over them hanging from the ceiling. Huh, that was must have attracted such a crowd. However, I couldn't see if Antonio still had anything left of whatever he was selling (he liked to give out awesome steals). I still had a small matter of escaping from a rampaging bruder.
I pushed aside another rather heavy set man, who then insulted my mother and I. Normally, I would have turned around and made him eat those words for insinuating that I was less than amazing than what I actually am; however, I was a bit pressed in the situation, so I could only send him a friendly little warning with a less than nice hand gesture as I plowed through more people.
It felt like a sea of endless idiotic people, but finally I got to the end of the crowd. I belted out a laugh in the heat of the evening, urging my legs to run faster. I felt stares from other folks on my back. Like I cared. Their simple brains just couldn't handle the awesomeness before them.
"GILBERT, GET BACK HERE!" A muffled shout came from the horde of people behind me. Ludwig must been still stuck in traffic. Poor loser.
"KESESE! I THINK NOT!" I shouted back without looking behind as I dashed down the street. Sweat dripped down my face from the exercise and the humid air, my hair was plastered to my forehead, making it quite itchy, and my mouth was stretched in the largest grin it could make.
I loved my life.
Author's Note: Hello! Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed the start of this tale. Hopefully, the story will go well and that you will laugh or cry. Either one will do. Have a wonderful day!