Title: The Bet
Genre: Romance / Drama
Pairing: USUK, Implied PruCan, GerIta and others
Warning: AU!, OOC!, Gakuen! Fic, Human!Countries, Smut (Later chapters)
Rated M for smut in later chapters.
Synopsis: The most popular pupil, Alfred F. Jones, decides to make a bet with the student council's president, Arthur Kirkland. If Arthur can give up his hobby for one whole semester, he will not expose Arthur's secret.
Disclaimer: Axis Power: Hetalia belongs to the great Himaruya Hidekaz-sensei.
A/N: While I was reading an admittedly confusing USUK doujinshi, the idea for such a story popped up in my mind. I told an America roleplayer that I mainly roleplay with and we decided to roleplay the story idea out. This fanfiction was based on our roleplay.Any coincidence with other fanfictions in this story are unintentional and I hope we do not offend anyone with this fanfiction. I shall stop my ramblings here, please enjoy reading the story!
Chapter 1: Declaration of Bet
Promise only what you can deliver. Then deliver more than you promise. ~Unknown
Arthur looked around the quiet park as the sun began to set, spotting a tall blond standing next to the railings. He briefly wondered to himself whether it was the sender of the letter that requested him to meet the person. In the beginning, he had thought that it was a mere prank orchestrated by a random pupil in the school but then, the letters had continued to arrive, claiming that he would expose Arthur's secret if he did not agree to meet the other. Deciding to take the risk, he walked up to the other male.
Alfred, a tall blond blue eyed boy of around 16 or 17, looked up from his phone as he heard someone approaching. He smirked slightly as he saw who it was.
"Hey," he stated simply, turning around to face the newcomer.
"I assume you're... 'Alfred the HERO!' ?" Arthur inquired, scowling as he thought of the pen name that was always hastily scrawled in red ink at the end of the letters. He detested the colour red, preferring the colour of sky blue for some unexplained reason.
He walked towards the railings and looked at the landscape before him as he asked the other, "...what do you bloody want in order for you to not expose the secret, git?"
"You have to swear to give it up for the entire semester." Alfred challenged, jabbing Arthur with the sharp end of a pencil. His smirked widened into almost cruel grin. "Or I'll tell the whole school."
Arthur widened his eyes in surprise. H-him giving up his hobby? It was inhuman to try to make him give up it for a semester, let alone a week. He shuddered, remembering the time that he had gone into withdrawal after being deprived from it for two days. However, if the secret was exposed... he let his thoughts trail off, unwilling to think about the consequences of it.
"F-fine. What will you do if I give it up for one entire semester though? You can't expect me to be satisfied with only my secret on the line," he folded his arms and frowned.
Alfred's hand twitched slightly as if he was forcing it to stay still.
"Its payback time, Arthur." It made the American's heart sore that Arthur could forget him so easily, so easily as if nothing had happened.
"Are you in or not?" He asked, though it resembled more like a growl.
Arthur was confused to say the least. 'Payback...?' He thought to himself, lifting an eyebrow in curiosity. Nevertheless, he nodded silently to the other male, randomly fishing out his emerald-green phone from his pocket as he rapidly started to take pictures of the surroundings.
"How do you know I won't go back on my word though?" Arthur smirked at the blond, fingering the camera button before clicking on it, taking a picture of the other.
"H-hey, what was that for?" Alfred put up an arm to cover his face from the camera. He glared at Arthur, though it seemed to be a little half-heartedly.
"I know you won't..." he turned away folding his arms across his chest.
Arthur smiled, looking at the picture. It had turned out looking pretty alright, even though the male was frowning in the picture. He directed the camera of his phone at himself before taking a picture, a grin plastered on his face.
"Alright then... our bet will commence tomorrow?" He turned to the other, satisfied with his photo as he briefly glanced at it before shoving his phone back into his pocket. Unknown to Alfred, a small green stone was hung on the shorter blond's phone like a phone charm.
"Fine." Alfred said, turning around to face the other again. 'You're so gonna lose...' his thoughts trailed off as he leaned on the railing. Looking out into the sunset, he let out a long sigh, his breath could be seen hovering in the cold air. The American shook his head, sadly.
Arthur silently left, starting to trudge in the direction of his abode. If he was to stop the hobby of his, he would have to hide and lock everything up to prepare for the next day. After all, he was sure that he would go into withdrawal when he became deprived of it.
When Arthur reached home, he shrugged off his coat and started to shove single piece of merchandise he had bought into an empty cupboard. He even removed the key chain that hung from his house keys before taking down the posters and calenders that were hung on the walls of his room and rolling them up, placing them inside the cupboard. He replaced the stack of books that were sorted according to volumes with different kinds of novels.
Finally when he was finished, the once empty cupboard was crammed full of stuff. Arthur Kirkland would rather not admit to anyone, but he was a closet otaku. He loved to collect anime, manga, light novels, doujinshi, games and other merchandise such as figurines, soft toys and calenders but he refused to tell anyone else in the school except for the few people who already knew his secret. After all, he was notorious as the student council president who frequently confiscated manga from students whenever he caught them reading it in school, claiming that it wasn't 'proper' literature. How the students would respond if they knew his secret was something that he did not want to think about.
He collapsed onto his bed, shutting his eyes as he began to drift to a dreamless sleep, which frankly, was welcomed by him. He would need a lot of rest if he was planning to stop reading manga and light novels, watching anime or play his collection of galge games for one whole semester.
Yup~ Arthur is secretly an otaku. How many of you guessed that in the beginning or when he was clearing his room? The green stone mentioned in the above passage will be something crucial to the story though the story behind it will be revealed in a side story. I apologise for the fact that this multi-chaptered fanfiction might be rather short as I am still unused to writing multi-chapters, having experienced author's block at the beginning of a story whenever I attempted to write one... I also apologise for any horrible grammar mistakes as this fanfiction wasn't beta-ed before I uploaded it...Feel free to point them out, I won't bite. However, please do not tell me that I spelled 'apologise' or 'colour' wrong as I am using British English spelling and not American English...
Terminology:
Otaku - In modern Japanese slang, the term otaku is most often equivalent to 'geek'. However, it can relate to a fan of any particulate theme, topic, hobby or any form of entertainment.
Galge - A gal game, often shortened to 'galge', is a type of Japanese video game centered on interactions with attractive anime-styled girls.
Light Novel – A light novel is a style of Japanese novel, called ranobe or rainobe for short. They are typically not more than 40,000–50,000 words long and rarely exceed 200 pages long, with illustrations. It is normally published in a bunkobon (A6) size and it is a paperback book, allowing it to be affordable and portable.
Doujinshi – They are essentially manga created by fans for fans. Typical doujinshi features characters from popular manga, anime, video games and the like.
Reviews and constructive criticism are greatly appreciated! I also welcome any suggestions given by the readers.