I'm back! Before I start, I want to say that I am not against Catholics and/or religion. I'm a Catholic myself. I just wanted to get that out of the way before I got any hate mail.

Because of the success of "The Horrors of Our Love," (200 REVIEWS!) I decided to write another story. This will have drama and sad parts, but it DEFINITELY won't be as sad as the last story. I don't think this will be as long, either.

I will be HEAVILY basing the surroundings and people (that I made, not the Hetalia characters obviously) on my school and teachers.

I CAN'T FUCKING WAIT TO GO TO MY FIRST ANIME CONVENTION ON SATURDAY!

Enjoy~

The last year of high school, 12th grade, is a crucial time in a teenager's life. It's the time when kids make mistakes. Make friends. Form relationships. Break up. It's a time full of drama and fun. Most teenagers around this time would reach their peek in trying drugs and alcohol. It is the time in which teenagers start to think about college, a job, a future. It is supposed to be one of the best times of a person's life. Notice the phrase "supposed to be." For a certain German and Italian, it was the exact opposite. It would become one of the worst times of their lives.

What could be so hard about moving to America from Europe? A thousand things, but most people tend to forget them and immediately discriminate. Let's think of a few problems. American society is a tricky thing, you see. It is very strict, but can vary from region to region. You have the Northeastern states, the Midwestern states, and of course, the South. Each region had a different version of one society. You had to adjust very quickly. No exceptions. There was a certain cookie-cutter definition of masculine and feminine. If you didn't fit it, you would either be called gay or a tomboy. Plain and simple. You have the rebels, but they're considered weird. Another thing, people just seem to trump over the whole learning another language thing. Most people think "this is America; speak English." A terrible, but true attitude. And of course, there's the whole money problem. And, if you have children, you must decide what school they will attend.

A teenager named Ludwig Beilschmidt read through his Englisch für Dummköpfe (I don't know if that actually exists) book when he heard a knock on his bedroom door. He put a bookmark in his page, took off his reading glasses, and got up from his bed. He opened his bedroom door and saw an older teenager with scarlet eyes smirking in the doorway. He sighed, "What is it, Gilbert?" he asked in German.

The older brother put on a fake pout. "Aw, I just wanted to visit my darling little brother!" He ruffled Ludwig's hair, messing up the gel and releasing it from its usual confinement. Ludwig grunted. He ran his hand through his now messy blonde locks and attempted to push them back. "Get out. I'm trying to study English, and you should do the same."

Gilbert shrugged. "Eh, nah. The Awesome Me already knows a lot of it anyway."

Ludwig went to shut his bedroom door when his brother put his hand through. "Wait! I wanted to give you some big brotherly advice before your first day or school!" Ludwig knew his brother's advice would only give him a migraine. He denied his brother's help, bid him goodnight, and shut the door. "Fine, be that way!" his brother yelled from the other side of the door. "I was just going to wish you luck and tell you to make sure no one finds out! You don't want that to happen in that kind of school!" Ludwig stopped what he was doing and became nervous. There was a tiny problem; he would be attending a Catholic school. It's not that he minded Catholics, but he wasn't Catholic. Actually, he didn't even know what religion he considered himself. But, that's not the crucial problem. He knew how Catholics felt about people like him… Being the new kid is one thing, but being the gay new kid in a Catholic school is something else entirely. But he would attend because the public schools in the city were dangerous. There were a good bit that weren't, but Ludwig's parents didn't want to take the risk of their son being hurt. So, they worked their asses off to come up with the money for Catholic school tuition. Ludwig decided to get ready for bed. With a heavy sigh he stared at the ceiling of his new home. He missed his native country, Germany. He wasn't the kind of person who made friends easily, so he was more nervous than the average person. He closed his eyes, but sleep never came.

Ludwig silently walked through the halls of his new school, anxious. He didn't know anyone, and he still wasn't confident of his English skills. He should have studied harder, despite his brother teasing him about studying before school actually started. He looked down at his paper and read the numbers. Room 210. His sapphire eyes looked at the door in front of him and saw the same numbers. He cautiously entered the room and looked around. The room was fairly small with 26 desks. Like every room in the building, it had a crucifix and a statue of some lady dressed in a blue cloak. The statues made the place even more intimidating. Some students had already arrived, and were talking to each other in little groups. There was a boy student sitting at his desk with a wild curl sticking out the side of his head and bunch of girls gathered around him. Lucky him, the German thought. The boy was talking with extravagant hand motions and in a relatively high voice. Probably flirting with those girls. Ludwig sat down in a vacant seat in the front and set his book bag down on the floor. A woman, presumably the teacher, stepped in the room. She was woman in her late thirties with black hair and a stocky build. She smiled. "Good morning. Stand for prayers." The class immediately stood up and pushed their chair under the desk, and he the same. He mimicked their actions and made the Sign of the Cross. The whole class started to recite a prayer; one he was not familiar with. He wasn't particularly religious himself, but he was absolutely clueless since it was in English. Soon the class stopped and sat down, and he quickly did the same, trying to be as inconspicuous and possible.

"Alright, class," the teacher walked to a podium in the front of the room. "As I told you earlier in the week, we have a new student joining us today." Ludwig felt all eyes on him, and his fair cheeks turned pink. "His name is Ludwig Be-Beil..schmidt? Beilschmidt? Is that correct?" she looked at him. He looked up and nodded, a little annoyed with the woman. Honestly, his name wasn't that hard to pronounce. She continued, "Okay. Ludwig Beilschmidt. You're from Germany, right?"

Ludwig nodded again. She smiled. "I'm Mrs. Tori. Welcome to Room 210. I will be your Homeroom, religion, and English teacher."

He offered a small smile. "Thank you," his heavily accented voice spoke for the first time. He felt his cheeks burn again when he heard the reply come from his mouth. He pronounced the "th" as a "z". Mrs. Tori then began to talk to her class for a good ten minutes about how they must treat him with kindness and respect. Ludwig sat there awkwardly and waited for class to start. He looked at the walls of the classroom. There were many posters and paintings of saints, and one giant picture of Jesus in the center. Eventually, she finished talking and reached inside the podium where books were stored. "English books, please."

Oh, great. Just what he needed to start his first day. Ludwig reached inside his book bag and removed his English books and pen. He then began the difficult task of comprehending the foreign English words that were printed on the papers in front of his face.

Meanwhile, in the back of the classroom, amber eyes were staring at Ludwig. The eyes blinked and a cloud of daydreams washed over them. Pink lips turned upwards into a smile. Veh, he's cute…and German! A small Italian chewed on the cap of his pen and stared at the new boy intently. He noticed the German's hair was slicked back in gel and well kept. The color reminded him of lemons.

"Feliciano!"

The brown-eyed boy in question jumped and directed his attention to Mrs. Tori. "Ah! Y-yes?"

The teacher stared at him. "Yes, Mrs. Tori," she corrected.

"Yes, Mrs. Tori?" Feliciano asked. He gulped and felt tears threatening to form.

She narrowed her eyes. "I asked if you knew the answer to number 8. Is the phrase restrictive or nonrestrictive?"

He averted his eyes. "I don't know," he answered quietly.

She huffed. "I knew you weren't paying attention. Can I see you after class?" Feliciano looked down at his desk, his cheeks burning with embarrassment. "Yes, Mrs. Tori." She turned back to the chalkboard and continued to write a sentence on the board. She began to analyze some passage from a book and students raised their hands to answer the questions. Feliciano sighed. He knew how to speak English pretty well, but analyzing it was a completely different story. No matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't figure out all the bullshit rules like not being able to end a sentence with a preposition or those very suggestive sounding dangling participles or some other nonsense. He sighed and decided to give up on his work. He had more important things to do, like staring at the hot foreign student in the front of the classroom.

After 45 long minutes, the bell rang and class ended. Here's a funny thing about this school: the people there are dirt cheap. They will act like they're struggling for money, when they're really not. This is why one teacher teaches multiple subjects, like Mrs. Tori. Ludwig exited the classroom and went straight to his locker, which was right across the hall. He put his bag in his locker and grabbed his books for the next subject, social studies. He heard a thud next to him. He turned away from his locker to see books sprawled out all over the floor and an Asian boy trying to get every one of them. Ludwig bent down and grabbed the books. He handed them to the Asian, who smiled in return. "Thank you," he stood up and Ludwig did the same.

Ludwig processed the English words in his mind and responded, "Don't mention it."

The boy walked to the locker next to Ludwig's and unlocked it, placing his books inside. "My name is Kiku Honda," the boy said over his shoulder.

"Ludwig Beilschmidt," the German replied and held out his hand. He and Kiku shook hands and offered each other a small smile. "So, you are from Germany?" Kiku asked.

"Ja, I am."

"Very nice. Your English sounds good, too."

Ludwig closed his locker. "Thanks, but I'm still having some trouble."

"I am, too," Kiku rummaged through his locker for his books.

Ludwig raised an eyebrow. "English isn't your first language?"

Kiku shook his head. "No, Japanese is. Luckily, I started to learn at a young age so I have less trouble. But, I heard that German and English are similar? I don't mean to offend if it isn't."

Ludwig began to feel a little more comfortable with his acquaintance, noticing the Japanese boy's politeness and the calmness in his voice. "Well, certain words are alike. But the grammar is different. The thing I have the most trouble with is pronunciation."

"Oh," Kiku said from inside his locker. "Hai, English pronunciation is very difficult and random." As Kiku spoke, Ludwig noticed he wasn't pronouncing the letter 'L' correctly. Knowing it was not right to ask why he wasn't pronouncing it right, he dropped the subject. He looked around the hallway and saw Mrs. Tori standing outside her classroom with a boy. It was the same boy that was flirting with all those girls when he came into the classroom. Wait, why was the boy crying? All he did was answer a question incorrectly. Seeing Ludwig's confused expression, Kiku followed the German's eyes. He saw the crying Italian and made a quiet "oh."

"That's Feliciano," Kiku said to Ludwig. "He spaces out a lot and gets scolded for it."

"That's it? Why is he crying?"

Kiku smiled. "That's just the way Feliciano is. He cries a lot. He gets scolded a lot. He gets just as upset every time it happens."

They saw Feliciano wipe his eyes and nod to his teacher. The Italian walked over to them. Ludwig and Kiku quickly pretended that they weren't just staring at him.

"Hi, Kiku!" Feliciano beamed.

Ludwig stared at the boy. Wait. What? He was just crying! Was he bipolar or something? Feliciano turned his head to Ludwig and gave him the brightest of smiles. It was so bright it made Ludwig's heart beat faster. Don't think that, not in here, Ludwig scolded himself.

"Ciao!" the hyper boy cheeped. "My name is Feliciano Vargas!" The boy abruptly grabbed Ludwig's hand and shook it vigorously. "Yours is Ludwig Beilschmidt, right? You're German? Ooo, that's cool! I'm Italian! But you could probably already tell that by my name, and…your hand is big! And strong!"

Ludwig stared in astonishment at how Feliciano was able to say so many things in such a short amount of time. He turned to Kiku and gave him a look like "is this guy serious?" Kiku simply smiled. Ludwig heard a distant voice say, "The new kid's talking to him? I feel bad."

"Uh," Ludwig retracted his hand. "Ja…Nice to meet you, Feliciano." He was taken aback by the enthusiasm of the kid. Also, he had never seen someone look so happy. His eyes were so bright...

The bell rang and the three quickly scurried to their classrooms. Kiku had to run to be on time for his math class. Ludwig and Feliciano both had religion class with Mrs. Tori. They sat down in the same seats, Feli in the back and Ludwig in the front. Mrs. Tori pulled up a brown chair in the center of the classroom and sat down with a large, red book in her hands. "Bibles out, please." Ludwig took out the book and awaited his next instructions. To be honest, he never read one word of the Bible. She told them to read the first 20 chapters of Leviticus in the Old Testament. Ludwig searched through the index of the Bible and found the page. It was in chapter 18 verse 22 where Ludwig read words that made his blood go cold.

"Thou shall not lay with mankind, as with womankind. It is an abomination."

Ludwig felt very uncomfortable. He shifted in his chair and did his nervous tic: rubbing the back of his neck. He didn't know why he felt so nervous. After all, it's not like anyone knew; he had only been there for a little more than an hour. He pushed his reading glasses back up against his nose. He remembered his brother's advice. He would not let anyone find out. He feared discrimination more than anything. He stared at the words on the page. His upper lip twitched. This is why he was never big on religion.

"Not today," the teacher spoke, "But sometime this week, we'll be discussing these passages."

Oh, wunderbar, Ludwig rolled his eyes. He could already imagine what kind of things would be said…

Soon, noon came and lunchtime occurred. Ludwig made his way to the cafeteria with his brown paper bag clenched in his hands. He entered the large lunchroom and looked at the tables. Everyone was in little groups, much like they were in the classroom. He sighed and figured he would just sit at the empty table. He sat down at the blue table and moved to open his bag.

"Hey!" a hand was placed on Ludwig's shoulder. Ludwig jumped and turned around to see who the hell was touching him. Standing above him was the hyperactive Italian with the weird curl, Feliciano. "Why are you sitting all by yourself?" his smile quickly turned into a frown.

"Oh," he gently removed Feliciano's hand. "Well, I don't really know anyone…"

"You know me!" Feliciano's eyes sparkled with enthusiasm. "I'll sit with you!"

He hopped onto the bench next to Ludwig and set down his paper bag. He took out a container with pasta inside.

Ludwig raised an eyebrow. "You bring pasta to school?"

Feliciano put a giant mouthful of pasta into his mouth. "Hm? Si!" he said through bites of spaghetti. Noodles dribbled on Feliciano's chin and sauce covered his mouth. Ludwig winced. He was so sloppy!

"Konichiwa, Ludwig-san and Feliciano-kun."

The pair looked ahead to see Kiku sit down across from them with a plate of rice balls.

Ludwig smiled. "Oh, hallo Kiku."

"Ciao, Kiku!" Spaghetti spilled out of Feliciano's mouth. Ludwig resisted the urge to get a napkin and wipe away the mess.

Ludwig took out his lunch, wurst and a bottle of water, and began to eat. "Mind if we join you?" a girl asked. Ludwig looked up at the owner of the voice. It was a girl with long brown hair and green eyes, a boy with bushy eyebrows, blonde hair, and green eyes, and another boy with long blonde hair and blue eyes.

"Sure!" Feliciano squeaked.

The trio sat down on Kiku's side of the table. The girl held out her hand to Ludwig. "I'm Elizaveta, nice to meet you."

Ludwig shook her hand with a small grin. "I'm Ludwig, Nice to meet you, too."

"I'm Arthur," the boy with bushy eyebrows introduced himself in an English accent.

"I'm Francis," the boy with the long hair said in a French accent. Ludwig smiled to them all and gave a small nod. He was glad the people were being so friendly. He didn't expect to make friends this quickly, or at all, for that matter. He really didn't have friends back in Germany…

"So, Ludwig," Kiku spoke. "How are you enjoying your first day so far?"

Ludwig finished chewing before he replied. "It's alright," he took a sip of his water bottle. "I'm glad everyone has been so kind."

Kiku smiled. "That's good."

"We welcome everyone," said Elizaveta.

"Veh, you seem really cool!" Feliciano chirped. "We should be friends!"

Ludwig blinked. "Friends?"

"Si!" His expression quickly turned sad. "Or, d-do you not want to?"

Ludwig began to panic when Feli's amber eyes welled up with tears. The table looked around and shook their heads, used to Feliciano's sudden tears. "A-ah, no!" Ludwig quickly responded. Shit, was that the right response? "I mean, yes!" His brain struggled to process the English words as Feli began to cry. "Look!" he grabbed the small Italian by the shoulders, causing people to stare. Elizaveta beamed and whispered something into Kiku's ear, who blushed in response. Ludwig realized his error and let go and Feliciano stopped crying. "Yes, I want to be your friend. Okay? Stop crying."

"Yay!" Feliciano suddenly grabbed the German in a hug. Ludwig's heart stop and blood rushed to his cheeks. Now people were really staring.

"Don't do that to the new kid, you little shit."

Ludwig's brows furrowed. Who the fuck…?

"Oh!" Feliciano backed away from Ludwig as if he was on fire. His heartbeat quickened as he stared at the boy who insulted him. "I'm sorry, Nicky!"

Elizaveta stood up. "Hey, don't talk to him like that!"

Nicky completely ignored her and said, "You're lucky and I don't slap you right now."

Feliciano whimpered. Why did he have to come by and ruin everything? He hoped he wouldn't get beaten in front of his new friend...

Ludwig saw the boy, Nicky, standing behind Feli's chair, staring him down with a few other boys around him. Nicky was a little taller than average with a little bit of muscle and a hard face. His hazel eyes narrowed on Feliciano. "Just keep your hands off him."

Nicky turned to Ludwig. "Sorry, uh, Ludwig, right? I know this brat can be annoying."

Ludwig glared at the boy and his "posy." Who the hell did he think he was to pick on the Italian like that? He felt a strange bubbling anger in the pit of his stomach.

"Feliciano is my friend," Ludwig crossed his muscular arms over his chest. "Und I would appreciate it if you would not talk to him in that way." His voice was crisp and his eyes was sharp.

The boys looked at each other and laughed. "Ohhh, sorry," another boy jeered. The lunch bell rang. "Well, catch ya later, Ludwig," Nicky laughed and walked away with his little crew. When Ludwig turned back to the table, he saw the others trying to comfort a crying Feliciano.

"Feliciano," he slowly put a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Why did they…?"

"I have to go!" Feliciano shot up from his chair and practically ran out the lunchroom. He felt so sorry for his new friend. He looked at Nicky and the others from a distance. He wanted to punch them in the face. But still, why were they doing that? Confused blue eyes met a sad brown. "They bully him a lot," explained Kiku. "It's been like this for a few years, now." The other three looked at each other and sighed. They began to walk out of the room.

Ludwig couldn't fathom why someone would want to bully someone like Feliciano. Sure, he was a crybaby and looked a little week, but he was so nice. "Why do they pick on him?" he asked.

Kiku stopped walking. He stood there for a moment before saying, "I am afraid you will have to ask Feliciano. It's a rather…personal situation."

What did you think? Should I continue, or just delete it and pretend it never happened? Please review~