'Let's enter this sweepstakes, he said. It will be fun, he said.'

The thing was Alfred's fault.
The whole thing.
It was all his fault.

"Why did I even listen to you," Matthew Williams sighed as he propped his arm up on the sill of the open car window as he waited for his brother to finish loading his last suitcase into the back of his shiny, blue , and brand-spakin'-new 2014 Honda Civic Tourer. Alfred practically slammed down the hatch and for a second, Matthew was concerned that he'd break the car -which he only had for a day. However, he clearly saw that his brother did not share the same feelings since he got into the driver's seat with a huge smile on his face.
He took one look at Matthew and playfully jabbed him in the shoulder; the other hadn't meant to be so rough, that was just how Alfred was, but pain from the punch instantly traveled up Matthew's arm from the impact sight and into his brain, causing him to grunt and grab his arm with his right hand. He shot Alfred a look before his brother chimed in with, "Aw, don't look so down, Martin. It's just for four weeks, I mean, how bad can that be?" Matthew opened up his mouth to say something pertaining to Alfred calling him by the wrong name -something that happened all too often- but shrugged instead, agreeing with Alfred. "It can't be that bad, I guess," he admitted.
The "it" that they were speaking of was a sweepstakes for the first season of a reality television show called "Battle of the Sexes" that Alfred had won. He seen the advertisement in the Sunday paper and informed Matthew about it; the sweepstakes was an amped up version of Boys versus Girls.
Fourteen guys and fourteen girls were to enter a supposedly "haunted mansion" called The Candle House, located in the town over and live with each other for twenty-eight days. All the while, the guy team and the girl team would have to prank each other. There would be cameras all around the house recording what happened and, first, it would go through the owners of the game then be broadcast to the public; once out in the media, watchers were able to send in votes to see which team had the better pranks.
The teams had to work together if they wanted to stay in; since the show's owners were recording everything that went on, they were able to show the audience which teammate hadn't been a good sport and, of course, that particular person would possible receive negative responses from the people watching, thus becoming a liable candidate subject to being voted off the show.
Lastly, whoever either had the most teammates left or had a higher score at the end of the show, they were awarded $200,000.
All in all, Matthew thought that the whole thing was entirely all too cheesy, knowing full well that it was only meant to make couples among the contestants and get them together in order to boost the ratings of the show. Though the thought of participating in this challenge made Matthew want to gag and he rejected his brother's requests to join him, since each member who won had to bring a partner along, but after a few more "pretty please with sugar on tops", Matthew gave in. He knew he'd regret it later on, however. He told himself not to a sourpuss over it; there was a chance that the Boys' team would win and his and Alfred's relationship was in need of some brotherly bonding. So, twenty-eight day? He could make it.
"So, we ready to go, Mickey?"
Matthew snapped out of his stupor by the name and thought, 'Oh mon Dieu, Alfred. Really? That one's not even close to my name.'
He looked over at Alfred with that goofy grin everyone loved plastered on his face, blissfully oblivious that he had used yet another wrong name to address his brother. "You...know that's not my name," Matthew said slowly. He cocked en eyebrow a bit accusingly at the other man's embarrassed face as he gave a nervous chuckle. "Yeah, yeah. Of course I know that's not your name," he said. "I mean, how can I forget my own brother's name, Marcus?"
Matthew immediately face-palmed. "Ouais. Let's go."
He braced himself by gripping the armrest as Alfred punched his foot down the accelerator and made the car jerk forward and down the driveway. The vehicle barreled down the gravel-covered drive and pulled out onto the black asphalt of the street and Matthew could barely hear himself screaming, "Alfred Jones slow down! Slow down! Slow down!" over his brother's loud and obnoxious laughter and roaring announcement that went along the lines of, "Candle House, here we come!" The blond at the wheel only let out a whooping holler as he kept increasing his speed and skidded around a right turn.


Five hours had passed, and Matthew was half dozing off and half fiddling with the map he had bought for the trip. He had forgotten the Alfred's car was equipped with GPS and there was really no reason for him to even bother looking at the paper guide now, so he idly tossed it back and forward from hand to hand. "How many more hours until we get there, eh?" he asked and looked up at the man behind the wheel, who answered with, "Three more."
A tired groan passed by Matthew's lips and he sunk deeper into his seat.
'Why did I agree to this again?,' he asked himself, turning his head over to look out the passenger side window. 'Because you really cannot say no, can you?'
As the scenery passed by in a blur of colors and shapes, Matthew felt his eyelids growing heavy. He had a good fight with himself, falling asleep after a couple of minutes of forcing his eyelids to stay open.


"Hey, Mattie! We're here!"
Matthew let out a shriek that was so not girlish and instinctively jumped at the booming voice in his ear. He forgot that the seatbelt was still strapped across his chest, so that didn't help him out much; as soon as his body lurched forward, the seatbelt locked and caused him to abruptly jerk backward. He hit his back hard on the seat he was sitting in and took a few moments to steady his shaky gasps of air. "Alfred!" he snapped rather angrily, "What was that for?" His voice had soften down to its natural tone as he said this.
Beside him, Matthew's brother pointed his thumb out the open window, toward a large three-story mansion with a wrought iron fence surrounding it; the fence had already been open in order to allow the contestants through with no trouble at all. Matthew saw that there were already thirteen cars parked across the ginormous paved driveway of The Candle House. Some of the vehicles' passengers were standing outside of their cars, chatting amongst each other, or walking around and checking out the mansion. One white-haired passenger in particular caught Matthew's attention as he tapped the blond standing beside him on the shoulder and pointed to the mansion's front porch. After the other paused to shake his head "no" and went back to talk with whoever was in the car he had previously been leaning on. The white-haired man let out an annoyed groan, but the other guy remained unfazed. He turned toward the blue Honda. Matthew flinched and sunk lower in his seat, thinking, 'Please don't notice me, please don't notice me, please don't notice me.' His prayers were not answered and the other man smirked devilishly. He had spotted him. The man raised a hand in the air to wave and yelled out, "Well look who's here!". This caused everyone else to put whatever they were doing on hold and turn their attention to Alfred and Matthew's car. Some of them had happy looks on their faces, some shook their heads as if to say an unheard "Tsk, tsk, tsk", and the rest showed off their own wicked smiles. Matthew felt his cheeks flush out of embarrassment. He knew it; as soon as he had saw all of those cars parked in front of The Candle House, he knew it; Alfred's timing was all wrong, again, and they had arrived late. By the looks of things, a few hours late.
"Birdie! It's great to see you!" Matthew reluctantly looked up to see the white-haired man approaching his open window, that smirk still playing on his pale lips. "Hey...Gilbert," was the reply. "And can you please not call me Birdie?" he added in a hushed voice so that his brother wouldn't-
"Birdie? That's what everyone's been calling you? That's the nickname they gave you?" Alfred questioned before he started laughing loudly.
Hear. 'Merveilleux.'
Outside of the car, Gilbert laid his arm across the window and nodded. "Yep, that is what everyone's been calling him." His red-violet eyes looked down at Matthew's reddened face. Gilbert snickered. He had been the one to start that terrible nickname for Alfred's younger brother during the beginning of the school year. Matthew used to hang out with Gilbert often, more often than he did nowadays, and whenever he was around Gilbert, there'd be a small yellow bird perched atop of Matthew's head. Gilbert thought it would be fun to make a silly nickname for his friend about his new pet bird (Matthew always corrected him, though, saying that the bird flew over to him from Gilbert's head. He had no idea what Matthew was talking about; he was allergic to birds, so why would he have one tagging along with him?). At first, the "nickname" stayed between Gilbert and Matthew, but it suddenly spread through the school and everyone else was making fun of Matthew Williams by calling him "Birdie." The blond had begged Gilbert to get everyone to stop, but the albino only told him to "stop being a little pussy"; the other guys "were just having some fun." After it came apparent that his friend wasn't going to put an end to the name-calling, and Matthew had no luck either, he distant himself from Gilbert, doing so just a little bit at a time. Gilbert soon found out and pretty much stopped talking to Matthew, only speaking with him when he had his group to back him up.
"So anyway," the albino said and turned to Alfred. "What took you guys so long? Don't tell me you were doing something in the bathroom-"
"No, Gilbert, Alfred just got the time mixed up. That's it." Matthew was quick to jump in. That was another thing that Gilbert had accidently started yet refused to stop; "Birdie" sounded so girly that everyone began to think that Alfred's younger brother was a homosexual, or a bisexual with a preference for men...anything that wasn't straight and involved a sexual attraction to males. And to top their theories off, Alfred had proudly told the students that, even if Matthew had never been with a girl a day in his life and even if they had roomed together for as long as he could remember, that didn't mean he was gay. Matthew knew Alfred was just trying to help, but he only succeeded in making his brother's young life oh so much more worse.
Gilbert's red eyes sparkled with what one could only describe as mischief before shrugging. "Sure. Whatever you say." He turned and walked back to where the blond-haired man was standing, his arms folded across his black muscle shirt. He and Gilbert exchanged a few words before the albino reached into his pocket, pulled out his cellphone and shoved it into the other man's hands. He then practically skipped merrily up the mansion's stairs and posed in front of the door. That was when Matthew noticed that there was a large statue of Chimera-like creature sitting on top of a grey pedestal; the mouth of the lion's head was opened wide, showing off two rows of stoney fangs. Gilbert saw these and yelled, "Guys! Get a load of this!" He leaned over and jutted his head into the jaws of the sculpture, laughing as he did so. "Take the picture, take the picture!" he chanted. At the base of the stairs, the blond sighed. He pointed the phone's camera at Gilbert and snapped a few pictures. A girl stepped out from the passenger side of the car Ludwig had been leaning on before Gilbert wanted to take pictures. Opening the door, she reached in to pull out a small green suitcase; she placed that on the ground and pulled out another suitcase identical to the first one. As she was unpacking, Matthew watched from the security of the car. She wasn't familiar to him.
Not familiar, but very beautiful.
From where he was, he could tell that had flawless skin, slightly curly blond hair that was cut a few inches above her shoulders, and big green eyes. Matthew saw a ribbon in her hair, the same color as her suitcases, and immediately decided that green was her favorite color.
He must have been staring because he hadn't realized that Alfred had already exited the car and had unpacked all of their stuff. When Matthew happened to see his form out of the corner of his eye, Alfred had walked up to his side of the car. "She's really pretty, isn't she?" he asked and all his brother could do was nod. "If I remember correctly, her name's Laura," Alfred continued. "She's pretty much new to the school and this country. She came all the way from Belgium! Anyway I think she transfered to my Chemistry class last Tuesday." He leaned against the car and looked down at Matthew with a beaming smile on his face, blue eyes widening as he came to realization of something. Alfred snapped his fingers and jumped into Matthew's line of sight, causing his brother to utter a "Hey!", but Alfred waved him off. "Oh yeah, I just remembered that me and Laura are lab partners. I can introduce her to you if ya want!"
"N-no, Alfred, that won't be-"
"Hold tight, bro! I'll be right back. Hey! Laura!" The more obnoxious of the siblings turned and sped off toward the ribbon-wearing girl. Matthew blinked in utter amazement of the speed his brother was capable of reaching. "Necessary..."
"Laura, hey!" Alfred greeted once he was near her. The girl looked over her shoulder to see the athlete approaching her with a friendly smile on his face. "Oh. Hallo, Alfred," she kindly replied back. "Do you need something?" A man with spiky light brown hair came around the other side of the car, a smoking pipe in his mouth and two heavy suitcases in both of his hands. "Laura, is this the last of your stuff?" he asked rather gruffly then his green eyes locked onto Alfred.
"W-well, I was wondering, y'know...if you do something for me?" he said slowly stuttered, a sudden wave of nervousness washing over him due to the man's piercing green eyes trained on him. Laura cocked her her head to the side before follow Alfred's gaze up to her brother. Her lips curled up into a cat-like grin. "I don't think I've introduced you two. Alfred, this is my older brother, Govert. Govert, this is Alfred. He's my lab partner in Chemistry class.," she said, putting emphasis on "lab partner" and "chemistry class" due to the judging look in her brother's eyes. She rolled her eyes at him then noticed her bags he had in his hands. "Just put those over there with my other ones," she ordered and turned back to the guy in front of her. "Okay, Alfred. What do you need me to do?" She gasped when Alfred suddenly grabbed her hand and started pulling her over to his car. "I wanna introduce you to my brother, Matthew," he said and when they both reached the car, Matthew was no where to be found. "Mattie? Where are you?" Laura stood back as Alfred ducked into the passenger side window, searching for his missing brother. "Hm. He was just here..."
Hiding on the other side of the car, Matthew swallowed hard and braced his back further against the Honda. He scolded himself for hiding -'What is wrong with you? She's just a girl. Oh my god, Matthew, if the others see what's going on, they're going to think you're gay for sure!'- and also took time to pity himself- 'She's never going to want to talk to you. I mean look at you! Cowering behind a car that's not even your own...'
He inhaled deeply before getting off the car and walking around the back of it. "Uh, h-hey," he cleared his throat, "Hi, Alfred."
Across from him, his brother pulled out of the window and smiled really big. "There you are, Matthew! Hey, this is Laura. You know, my lab partner I told you about." He stood off to the side and pointed his hands at her as if she were the main attraction at a grand opening. "Laura, this is Matthew. Matthew, this is Laura. You guys say hi or somethin'. Oh, hey, did I mention that she was my lab partner in Chemistry?"
Matthew bit his lip. "Um...bonjour...Laura," he said slowly and nervously readjusted his glasses on his face. The girl gave a short wave before returning the greeting and Matthew looked up. "You know French?" 'No, duh. She did come from Belgium; they speak French over there, too.'
"Mhm. Do you know, Francis Bonnefoy?" Matthew nodded and Alfred laughed loudly. "Ha! Who doesn't know that perverted Frenchy?" Over where the rest of the contestants were, someone sneezed.
"Oh, come on. He's not really that bad," Laura laughed.
"Yeah, right," was Alfred's response; he stopped laughing and asked, "So what about him?"
"Well he's my older cousin. We've only known each other for a few months now, but he's been teaching me French ever since we found out we were related. Govert doesn't like him, even if we are family...now that I think about it, my brother really doesn't like anyone..."
A scream from Gilbert sliced through the summer air and everyone turned to see that he had been hit with the front door. At the bottom of the stairs, everyone was laughing, but Ludwig was trying to stifle his. Gilbert quickly shot down the stairs, snatching his phone from his brother's grasp in the process; Gilbert angrily glared down at the screen while saying, "You didn't get that, did you? Tell me you stopped recording before that unawesome thing happened to me."
In the doorway stood a slightly overweight, balding man dressed in faded blue jeans and a white T-shirt that had "Battle of the Sexes" as its logo. His eyes were wide as he watched Gilbert fly down the stairs. "Sorry, sorry," he apologized and Gilbert glared daggers at him; still clutching the phone with one hand, he pointed a finger at the man. "You should watch where you're opening doors at, old man!"
"You should watch where you're standing at, kid."
"Look, guys. They're already getting off on a good start," Laura snickered.
"We already know he's screwed," Alfred smirked. He, Matthew, and Laura watched the events unfold from where they stood by the car.
"Anyway," the man turned his attention back to the rest of the contestants. "I am Arnold Logan, producer of "Battle of the Sexes." I want to welcome all you to the show," he said. Everyone nodded a few "thank yous" arose from the crowd. "Anyway, you all can come on inside and set your stuff down. The rooms have already been set up; beds, mattresses, things like that."
Everyone who had did the smart thing and unpacked their belongings as soon as they arrived followed behind Mr. Logan, bags in hand, up the stairs and he held the door open for them as they entered. "C'mon, Mattie, let's go!" Alfred said. He grabbed all of the bags -save for two of Matthew's- and ran after the group. "Alfred, wait up!" Matthew grabbed his remaining bags and was about to run off when he remembered that Laura was still with him. He turned to her and she said, "Well, I guess I'll see you later?"
"Oui. But, uh, you do know that after this we're going to have to be sworn enemies, right?" he asked her. Laura gave a little laugh to that. "Yeah, but who said we can't be friends just because the Boys' team won the cash prize and the Girls' team didn't?"
"Hey, don't go around assuming who's going to win and who's going to loose just yet," Matthew replied, "For we know, the guys could loose. I mean, we do have Alfred on our team." He smiled when Laura giggled. "Aw, come one, don't talk about your brother like that! He's a really nice guy, and though he's a bit..." She pondered over the right choice of words before continues with, "Loud, but I'm sure he means well." She looked up when Govert called her name in a rather irritated tone and she sighed. "Guess I should get going now before my brother throws a fit over lifting my bags. He's subject to just leave them there. See you later." With that, she gave a quick wave once her name was called again, followed by, "Come on," and she quickly went to meet her brother at the car. Matthew watched as she picked up her bags and followed Govert into the house.
"Guess I'll get going, too," he said to himself and walked forward to join the last two stragglers as they made their way to the house. He noticed that Mr. Logan was no longer standing at the door. 'I guess they were talking too long.'
Matthew recognized the last two people as Vladimir Funar and Lovino Vargas; the latter was the twin brother to Feliciano Vargas and was claimed as Antonio Carriedo's best friend. Lovino always begged to differ. The other straggler was a Romanian foreign exchange student who was the source of the school's most popular rumor. Other students claimed that Vladimir was a vampire because he came from Transylvania, had red eyes and long fangs, and he sounded "like Count Dracula" when he spoke. While Lovino did not have many true friends because of his fiery attitude, Vladimir didn't have many friends because everyone shunned him and believed that he'd suck their blood once he had the chance. Matthew couldn't believe that his fellow students thought that. 'They are always too quick to judge others.' As far as he knew, both Romano and Vladimir were pretty cool guys; he had only spoken to the exchange student a few times in the past and was surprised when he told Matthew to just address him as "Vlad." Lovino on the other hand, it was a bit...tough talking to him, but the Italian wasn't as rude with him as he was with every other guy in the school.
Vladimir had long since passed by Lovino and had carried his stuff into the house, while Lovino was too busy dragging his large luggage along the driveway. Just then, Antonio poked his head out of the door to check on his friend and when he saw Lovino struggling with his bag, he walked out and leaned onto the porch railing. "Lovino, do you need any help carrying that into the house? It seems pretty heavy."
Right at the end of his sentence, the curl in the center of Lovino's head went distraught, and he looked up and shouted, "This is the fifth time you asked me that! I can handle bringing my own luggage into the house, bastardo!"
The Italian went back to tugging at his bag and Antonio was about to go down to help him, but decided against it. He saw Matthew looking at his friend with a slightly worried expression as if he was scared that Lovino would eventually pull a muscle while trying to get something far too heavy to move fast. "If Lovino says that he can handle it, then Lovino can handle it," he said nonchalantly to Matthew and retreated back into the house. Matthew didn't get it. How could you stay so calm when your so-called "best friend" called you out of your name in front of others? He knew he more than likely wouldn't say anything at all, but there'd be some sort of anger bubbling up on the inside. Antonio, however, didn't seem fazed in the least. The way their friendship functioned would always be a mystery to Matthew.


Matthew had already put his luggage down and went back out to aid the Italian. It took a bit of convincing and a few moments of "Pleas just let me help you," before Lovino Vargas allowed Matthew to help him bring his bag into the house. Together, they managed to get the heavy bag up the stairs and into the front room of the mansion, which was the sitting area. Well, it was one of the Candle House's sitting areas; the other two were in the back of the house and upstairs.
"Took you guys long enough," Gilbert sneered as he approached them. He pushed the bag with his foot and whistled. "Whoa, other favorite Italian, you're going to have one hell of a time bringing this thing upstairs! Where all of the rooms are located! Did you know you had to go up two flights of stairs?"
"I am not your "other favorite Italian," potato bastard number two! And shut up already! I know I have to bring my bag upstairs; so, if you are not going to help, then get out the way!" Lovino spat and shoved Gilbert away from his bag."Matthew help me bring this thing upstairs."
He couldn't say "no", he could only say "yes."
Matthew sighed and approached the the end of the suitcase that was facing him, but froze when a high-pitched shriek reverberate off the walls of the nearly empty mansion. Eyes wide, he glanced over to see Lovino with a questioning look on his face and Gilbert who was frozen in surprise.
"Did you guys," he started.
"Hear that?" Lovino said.
Gilbert swallowed. "Ja," he aid quietly replied.
All three of them burst into action and ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time up to the second story floor. They thundered around a corner and kept running toward the direction where the scream had came from. Another cry pierced the air and the trio homed in on the room they heard it come from. Without hesitation, Gilbert raised his leg and violently kicked down the door. Lovino and Matthew ran up behind him and what they saw shocked them.
There, on the bed were twin sisters Feliciana and Lovina Vargas...
Jumping up and down. Lovina, however, did not seem to be enjoying herself, the boys could tell from her narrowed green eyes and the constant jerking of her arms as she tried to free her hands from the death-grip of her twin. "Feliciana, I know you like the place, but let me go already! I don't want to jump up and down on the bed like a little girl anymore! Feliciana, are you listening?!"
Of course she wasn't. The brunette kept bouncing up and down on the bed, sentences pouring from her mouth at one-hundred miles per hour; "Oh my gosh! I love this room! Oh my gosh, I love this bedside window! Oh my gosh, I love how this chair and this closest door match! Speaking of which, I love the walk-in closet! I love, love, love this house!" She giggled like a madman and continued jumping up and down on the mattress.
Matthew, Lovino, and Gilbert stood in the doorway with their mouths hanging open. "We ran all the way here all because she liked the interior design?"


A/N: Ooooh, I suck at time skips; I just skip two lines and but a break ;_;
Hey guys. I made up this story all of a sudden yesterday while putting two plot ideas together. Originally, Canada wasn't going to have a love interest, because Germany and Belgium were going to be a pair, but I sided against it when I realized that CanBel, or BelCan...whichever on you wanna call it, was an extremely rare ship and I really wanted to try it out. And thus a cheesy first time romance between the Canadian and the Belgian begins!
God, I'm really cheesy and lame when it comes to writing romance (see why I don't write straight up romance stories at all?)
Yeah, and there's no yaoi or yuri in this story, sorry not sorry. I just really did not want to have yaoi or yuri couples in this one, even though it could help me make up some more crack parings (kemmi, you're being selfish again) but I honestly wasn't feeling it ._.
This chapter is poorly written in my eyes; I have too many repeats, repeats, repeats. I hate being redundant on accident. Ugh. When I want to be redundant, my work turns out just fine. Ugh.
Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed it so far, and I know the plot of the story is a bit cliché and cheesy, but trust me, that will all change in later chapters. Also, I might be bumping this fanficion's rating up to Mature due to what's to come in later chapters. And for you guys who are reading my other story, Doggy Days, that one will have an update tomorrow; it'll be a one chapter update, I'm sorry. But if I could write two consecutive chapters in one day without getting distracted with other things, then I would. But I can't so I shan't ;_; Also to my Doggy Days readers, if you catch any references to that story in here, just know that I did those intentionally *wiggles eyebrows*
Okay, so go read, or review, or follow (or you could do all three of these, please...?) and thanks for reading ^^