I don't usually do modern-world AUs, much less highschool/gakuen so this is new - please bear with me. This 'fic' will be essentially an amalgamation of drabbles that come to me as they will, and hopefully somewhat satisfy those who want me to update things sooner (main project right now is the third chapter of Against the Sky). This will be lots of pairings and slice-of-life, so plot is kinda secondary. Fluff is premium.

For those who are interested, pairings that are decided so far will be as follows: UKUS, GerIta, SuFin, CanadaUkraine, AustriaHungary, with a onesided Belarus-Russia on the side for spice. Other pair-ups have yet to be decided. I am, however, open to input.

Without further adieu, here you are...

He was in the stands again. Kateryna allowed herself a tiny smile as she dried her face off with her sweat towel. She could feel the eyes of her male fanbase upon her as she sat down on the bench, towel about her shoulders. They were always there at games, with their watching, their signs declaring their adoration - We love Lyzhychko!, Yekaterina!, and I *heart* #13! were only a few common versions that she always saw. She wasn't stupid, no matter how naive she knew she could seem to be at times - she knew what they were there for. They wanted to watch her 'play'. They wanted to watch her breasts bounce as she ran, as she shot for the basket. If any of them ever came up to congratulate her on a game well played (which many often did), it was a miracle if any of them managed to drag their gaze above her chest.

She was wholly convinced, actually, that Matthew was the only straight boy in the entire school (besides her dear brother, of course) that knew what color her eyes were. Or perhaps not - Kateryna clearly remembered dropping her water bottle one time and turning to pick it up only to see the blond boy holding it out to her, his eyes firmly fixed off somewhere in the distance.

"Y-you dropped this, m- uh, m-miss Yekaterina." He spoke very quietly; Kateryna idly wondered where the bold young man from her chemistry class had gone, but took the water bottle anyway.

"Thank you, Alfred." She gave him a smile, expecting him not to notice - they usually didn't - and turned to continue down the hall.

"M-Matthew."

She turned back, blinking. "Excuse me?" she inquired politely, a bit puzzled.

"I-I'm Matthew. Not Alfred. He-he's my twin," he went on, so quietly!, gaze still somewhere not her, not on her breasts, below, or even above. "I'm in your Home Ec class. It's o-okay if you don't remember me, no one usually does..." There was maybe a vague memory, one of a quiet junior with downcast blue-violet eyes that made great pancakes, but nothing else, really. Even so...

She smiled again, this time for real. "I'm sorry about that. Well then, thank you, Matthew." A grateful pat in his shoulder, and she wasn't expecting to scare him, really!, but he just gave a little squeak and flailed back from her, face cherry-red, and fled in an instant, disappearing faster than she would have thought possible. She couldn't help but giggle a little. He's kinda cute.

After that incident, she started to notice him. Matthew. She would see Alfred in Chemistry, boisterous and loud, and then Matthew in Home Ec (Art and World History too, why had she not noticed this before?), reserved and quiet. He wasn't timid, not really, but he hardly ever spoke up, and no one seemed to hear him when he did. He would come to her games too, she noticed, always somewhere in the middle rows where he would cheer and scream for her, but not in they way all the other boys did, and he never stayed after long enough to come down and ogle her like them. She decided one day, when they had to choose partners for a paper on the Industrial Revolution, what she would do. Pulling up a desk, she sat down right in front of Matthew and pulled her textbook out. The poor boy's face was aflame, and he still wouldn't look directly at her. She frowned.

"Matthew?"

His eyes scrunched shut as he visibly gathered his courage.

"Matvey?"

When he finally did look her in the face, it was without guile, without lust. A refreshing change.

"H-hi... Kateryna..."

She smiled, such a shy little thing. "May I be your partner, Matthew?"

"I-I'd love that," came the shy reply.

TBC! Next up - UKUS, with a twist you may not have seen before...