"Alright class!" Arthur yelled as the bell rang and the final students ran into the room and sat down so that they wouldn't be late, "Today we are going to work on honing the force, so pair up and- I did not say to go to your partners yet! Don't make me select partners for you all."
The students that had hopped out of their seats and ran to their friends flinched under Arthur's glare.
"Now, as I was saying, you will all pair up, then as a pair you will go to one of the tables set up around the room. There are many different objects on the tables, varying in size and weight. I want the lot of you to practice using the force to move these objects. I have you in pairs because I only want one person from each pair to move the objects at a time, as a precau-"
Arthur stopped talking as someone knocks on the door and glares at it in annoyance, as if he could burn a hole through it with his stare and destroy whoever was on the other side.
"Go ahead and pair up while I go see who this is." He sighed, walking over to the door.
Whatever he expected to find on the other side, what he saw wasn't it. The Grand Master of the Jedi Counsel stood there, with a boy who appeared to be a few years younger than Arthur beside him.
"Hello Arthur," the Grand Master said, smiling, "I'm terribly sorry to disturb you class, but I have a favor to ask of you."
"Hello sir! Whatever you need, I'm happy to be of assistance!" Arthur smiled a false smile, hoping it would fool the man. The Grand Master was indeed a good head to the counsel, but he could be very annoying at times, and he could be picky about the silliest things. Arthur always felt rather wary around him.
"Good, good. Well, I want you to take Alfred here into your class for a few days. He's one of my best Jedi warriors, but his performance of late has been rather lacking. Since you are our best teacher here at the academy, I was hoping you could brush up on the basics with him and see if it helps his skills return to their normal level." The man replied, putting his arm behind the boy, apparently named Alfred, and pushing him forward.
At this, Arthur took his first good look at him. Alfred was a very beautiful boy, with sky blue eyes that rivaled the blue of any light saber, and blonde hair the seemed to shine in the light coming in from the windows. He was taller than Arthur, enough so that to look into his eyes Arthur had to look up. Also, he was rather muscular, not unattractively so, but enough that Arthur could see the muscles in his upper arm strain through his sleeves.
Arthur wondered what it would be like to run his hands through that hair and over those wonderful muscles, and then he wanted to smack himself upside the head. He responded quickly to the Grand Master's request, realizing that he could have been staring at Alfred for any amount of time without even realizing it.
"I-It's no problem sir!" he cursed himself for stuttering and scowled, fixing his voice quickly, "I don't mind taking on another student at all."
"Fantastic!" the man smiled, then turned to the boy. Arthur watched intently. "Alfred, this is Arthur Kirkland, and I want you to do whatever he tells you, understand? If your skills aren't back up to par by the time you've finished this class, well… you know what will happen then."
Arthur wondered what would happen if Alfred didn't meet the Grand Master's expectations once he completed Arthur's class. The way he talked about it seemed rather suspicious.
"See you soon!" Master exclaimed, abruptly turning around and walking away.
"Well, come on in." Arthur said to Alfred, gesturing towards the door. When he walked in, he saw that all of his students had paired up and they were working on the activity he had explained. He smiled a little, knowing no one was looking at him, at how well behaved his students usually were.
When he turned to Alfred to explain what they were doing today, though, he realized that someone had been looking at him while he smiled, and he frowned as a small blush appeared on his face at receiving the attractive young man's attention.
"I suppose since I had an even number of students before you came in, I'll work with you on this activity." Arthur said leading Alfred over to his desk. He noticed that some of the students were staring at the new addition to their class, but he chose not to fuss at them about it.
Arthur explained the activity to Alfred, apologized for its simplicity, and sat down at his desk, setting down some objects there for Alfred to work with. When the boy began to use the force, Arthur didn't see what the Grand Master could have possibly been displeased with in his performance. It was flawless.
As the days went by, Alfred's performance continued to amaze Arthur, because it seemed that he could do nothing wrong! Every activity Arthur has the class perform, Alfred understood right away, and he did it perfectly on his first attempt. His personality also increasing surprised Arthur. As Alfred typically had to perform the daily activities with Arthur, and he completed them quickly, the two of them normally had quite a bit of time to talk. Arthur learned that Alfred's parents were dead, but he had a twin brother. He also learned miscellaneous other things, and he shared various facts about himself throughout his time with Alfred, which was strange for him since he had never been close to anyone like that before.
The more he thought about it, the more Arthur suspected that he might be falling in love with Alfred. He began to dread the day that the boy would finish his class and go back to the Grand Mater. His problem was that he knew he could never admit his feelings to the boy because the thought of opening up to someone in that way terrified him far too much. He tried his best to conceal his feelings and make sure that Alfred would have no idea how he felt.
So, of course he was surprised when Alfred stayed behind one day after the bell rang, a week before graduation for the normal students, and a return to the Grand Master for Alfred. He still hadn't explained what would happen if he didn't meet the man's expectations, which concerned Arthur greatly.
"Arthur?" Alfred asked, standing in front of Arthur's desk where the man was seated, sorting papers. He had an incredibly serious expression on his face.
"Yes?" he replied warily.
"How do you feel about me?" Arthur froze at the sudden question, dropping the papers in his hands onto his desk.
"I'm sorry, what?" he managed to say, keeping his voice as steady as possible.
"How do you feel about me? Do you have romantic feelings towards me? Platonic ones? Or am I just another one of your students?" Alfred elaborated.
"Why do you ask? This seems to be coming from nowhere! Since when do you care how I feel about you?!" Arthur exclaimed, staring at Alfred intensely.
"I've always cared. I just didn't work up the guts to ask until today. I only have a week left in your class, Arthur, and then I have to go back to work. I want to know before I'm away from you and back on missions to other planets, where you'll probably never speak to me again, how you feel about me, because, to be honest…" Alfred hesitated, then looked directly into Arthur's eyes, with seemingly renewed purpose and confidence, "I think I'm in love with you. But, I understand if you don't return my feelings, or…" he trailed off, looking at Arthur for a response.
Those three words meant more to Arthur than he could express with words of his own, so he decided to use action, rather than words, for once. He stood up, walked around the desk, grabbed Alfred's shirt, and pulled him down to kiss him.
"I love you too, of course I do! How could I not with how beautiful and bright and charismatic and kind and just… wonderful you are?" Arthur mumbled into the kiss, finally being honest about his feelings.
After a few minutes, the two of them pulled away for air. As Arthur began to turn away, embarrassed, Alfred grinned and pulled him into a hug. "I'm so glad. You can't even begin to understand how happy I am right now." The boy said into Arthur's head, snuggling his face into his hair. "You'll stay in contact with me after this, then? Even once I go back to work where I'll be gone for weeks on end?" Alfred asked, still insecure.
"Of course, I would be glad to keep talking to you forever, even if it means I have to wait and go without you like that." Arthur replied, smiling. "By the way, what happens if you don't meet the Grand Master's expectations after this class is over?" he added, wondering if Alfred would finally answer the question.
"Oh, that? Well, he said he'd fire me and make sure I never got a job as anything better than a janitor ever again!" Alfred exclaimed. "So, I guess if I don't please him, you'll get to see a whole lot of me! I'd probably never leave you alone!" he laughed.
"Why wouldn't you tell me before?" Arthur asked. That punishment didn't seem very bad to him, considering that he had expected the punishment to be something like exile with the way Alfred was being so secretive about it.
"I dunno. I just really didn't feel like talking about it. It feels like if I talk about it, then it's more likely to happen!" he shrugged.
"Ah, well, okay." Arthur replied, content with his reasoning.
Arthur smiled, looking out at the sky. It had been 2 years since Alfred graduated from his class. He met the Grand Master's expectations easily, and returned to work immediately.
Arthur hadn't seen him since then. Sure, they had been communicating a lot, and Arthur never stopped thinking about Alfred, but he still found himself missing him whenever he looked out at the sky, wondering where he could be out in the distant cosmos.
He jumped as he felt a sudden pair of arms wrap around him, but relaxed once he heard his captor whisper "Shh" in his ear.
"Welcome home," Arthur said, smiling.
"It's good to be back," Alfred replied, turning around the love of his life and kissing him, expressing all of his feelings of love and his desire never to be apart from him again.