"Are you sure you two are ready for your first day?" Francis asked, placing a plate of crepes on the table for his sons and husband to eat. "Yeah, Papa. I'm sure this school will be a lot better than the hockey-obsessed shithole we were at last year!" Alfred exclaimed, teasing Matt. "Alfred. Language," Arthur warned as he sipped at his tea. Alfred rolled his eyes and shoveled crepes onto his plate. "I've heard their football team was worse than East Calgary's hockey team." Matt said, grabbing a maple crepe off the plate. "Good! I'm good at football! Unlike hockey, where I couldn't even lace my boots!" Alfred said, his mouth half full of crepe.
"You're just jealous that your brother was captain of the hockey team and you were a benchwarmer." Matt huffed, taking a bite of his own breakfast. "Oh, come on. Hockey is a loser sport anyways. There aren't even cheerleaders." Alfred sounded deeply offended. "You're just mad you busted your tooth the first game you played. And there are cheerleaders, they're called ice girls!" Matt was also deeply offended by his brother's ignorance of the greatest sport on earth.
"Now, now. Finish your food quickly, let me take you to school." Francis laughed. The boys finished their meal, and went out to the garage to Francis's Volkswagen. Francis pressed a kiss to his husband's lips as he left, ready to get his sons to school.
They got to school quickly. It was only a 10 minute drive to the school. Matt and Alfred could have easily walked, but Francis often was overbearing with his son. They got out at the school, and Matt had to admit, he was nervous. He had lived in Canada all his life. Arthur and Francis adopted Matt from Alberta when he was 3, and they lived there for Matt's whole life. (They had adopted Alfred from a Montana adoption center when Matt was 6.) Moving to a suburb outside of DC was a huge culture shock for Matt, and he was sure school was going to be the same way.
The brothers got to school a while before it started, so they could get their schedules and find their classrooms. Matt and Alfred's schedules clashed pretty badly, but Matt didn't expect to have any classes with his brother. Both were smart, but Alfred was smarter in math and science, while Matt preferred language and history. Their classes were all pretty close together, though, and at least they could talk to each other in the halls so they wouldn't look like total losers with no friends.
By the time they figured out their classes, the bell hang rang signaling them to go to 1st period. They both had math first period, but, Matt had Personal Finances while Alfred sauntered into Calculus II. Matt, who tended to cling to his brother at times in order to make friends, was surprisingly okay with not having that class with Alfred. Personal Finances was way more his speed.
Since he was already in the hallway, Matt was the first one in the class. Well, the teacher was there. He was a pretty short blond dude with green eyes. "Hello. Who are you?" He asked, and his accent sounded Germanic. "I'm, uh, Matt Kirkland-Bonnefoy. I'm in this class." Matt answered. The blond man thought for a moment, before nodding. "You're the new student. I'm Mr. Zwingli." The blond extended his hand, and Matt shook it.
"Great. Where is everyone?" Matt said after taking a seat in the front. His eyesight was bad, he liked sitting in the front. "Considering my class is known as the 'lazy math class,' plenty of slackers take it. I've dealt with this for years now, they'll all show up 2 minutes before the bell rings." Mr. Zwingli said, and Matt nodded. And Mr. Zwingli was right. When the clock struck 8:28, 20 or so less than reputable looking students came into the class. One of them caught Matt's eye; he was tall, lean, extraordinarily pale, with a white shock of hair. He had on extremely dark glasses, and he had a white cane. He was hitting a small brunet with said cane. Said brunet seemed like he was going to go off on the apparently blind albino. Matt sat in his seat, laughing.
The brunet took a seat in the back, and the albino approached the front row. When the class had started, there were plenty of seats in the front row, but, they had all been moved further to the back by the less than reputable looking students. There were two seats left in the front row. The albino hit Matt's seat with his cane, which startled Matt. "Anyone sitting in this seat?" The albino yelled. He had a very loud, very German accent. "Uh, yes?" Matt said. "Cool, cool. What about this one next to Canadian here?" Albino hit the seat beside Matt. "Empty. Uh, how do you know I'm Canadian?" Matt asked.
"Well, when you're blind, you pick up some dumb skills. I'm good with picking out accents." The albino said, and leaned back in his chair, propping up his feet. "I'm Gilbert, by the way. I'm guessing you're new?" The albino, Gilbert asked. "I'm Matt. And, yeah. Just moved here from Calgary." Matt said, a hint of annoyance in his voice. "And, you weren't happy about that?" Gilbert asked with a smirk. "No, no, I was fine with it. My dad needed to move for work, it's cool." Matt replied. He didn't really want to get into his life annoyances with some blind kid he had just met.
"I think you're lying, but, let's talk later. Vash is about to get to teaching." Gilbert laughed. "Just because I'm friends with your cousin doesn't mean you can act so casually in my class. Put your feet down." Mr. Zwingli seemed disgruntled at the albino's use of his first name. "I usually don't pull the blind card, but, my feet are sore, and I'm definitely pulling the blind card." Gilbert said smugly, and kept his feet up. From the tone in his voice, Matt assumed that Gilbert was lying, and he pulled the blind card a lot.
"Put your feet down or I'm opening the shades on the window," Mr. Zwingli warned. Gilbert gave him a shocked look. "That's harsh. And probably cruel and unusual punishment." He said, but defiantly kept his feet up. Mr. Zwingli made exaggerated sounds as he walked to the window and opened the shade slightly, making sure Gilbert knew what he was doing. A ray of sunshine hit Gilbert's arm, and he made a dramatic scream. "It burns!" Mr. Zwingli didn't relent, in fact he opened the shade a little more. "Fine! Before you give me melanoma!" Gilbert shouted, and put his feet down. Matt laughed. This was sure to be an interesting class.
And boy, Matt was right about that. Turns out Zwingli used to be really involved in offshore banking in Switzerland, and knew a whole lot about making money. Gilbert also knew a whole lot about Zwingli. Apparently, their teacher had been best friends with Gilbert's cousin Roderich for basically his entire life. They talked about him almost through the entire class, much to Zwingli's dismay.
"So, what's your next class?" Gilbert asked Matt as they left Zwingli's class. "Uh, Current Events." Matt asked after checking his schedule. "Very awesome. Mine's European History. Probably. I don't fucking know, I had a bit of a problem reading my schedule." Gilbert laughed, and Matt laughed back nervously. Was it okay to laugh at blind jokes? Matt didn't know. "Come on, don't be scared. It was a joke. I can read my schedule, I'm not that blind. My baby brother printed it out really big for me, see?" Gilbert pulled out his schedule, and wow, that was some big font. "But let's talk about my sight, or lack thereof, another day. Right now, you're about to get your first blind kid escort to class."
Gilbert grabbed onto Matt's arm, and pulled him down the hall, swinging his white cane wildly. "Blind guy coming through! Let the blind guy and his friend walk! Make way!" He yelled, occasionally hitting a student with his cane. Matt tried apologizing, but eventually he gave up and tried to get to the end of the hall as fast as possible. "Wait for me after class. I've got something to show you." Gilbert said once they had reached their classes. Matt nodded, and he went to his Current Events class.
The teacher was a total hippie. Matt was pretty liberal himself, but, this guy made Gandhi look like Rush Limbaugh. His name was Mr. Jones, and for the first 20 minutes of class, he talked about the Free Palestine protest he had attended earlier in the month. He was a total hippie, and he actually had Marxist writings on his bookshelf. Matt was looking forward to that class for the rest of the year.
After class, Matt met up with Gilbert to see whatever it was the albino wanted to show him. He didn't have to wait long; Gilbert got around pretty fast for a blind guy. He also seemed to know the school pretty well, and dragged Matt down a hallway towards an undisclosed location. "Gilbert, where are we going? I have AP English after this!" Matt tried to protest, but Gilbert kept dragging him. He was a pretty small dude, but man, he had a grip.
"Really? Me too!" Gilbert exclaimed while they walked. That confused Matt. AP English Language was about writing and reading, and he wasn't sure how Gilbert could do that with his limited sight. "Ha! I'm totally joking. I have to take a special needs English class with large print books and screen-reading software. But you should have seen the look on your face!" As soon as it was out of Gilbert's mouth, Matt knew what phrase was going to follow it. "You really should have, because I sure didn't." Yep, Matt had known him for 3 periods and already could predict things like that. He didn't know what that said about Gilbert.
Eventually, Gilbert stopped in front of the cafeteria. "So, what is it you wanted to show me?" Matt asked. The bell had rang a while ago, and Matt hated the fact that he was late to a class so soon in the school year. "What? Oh, I just wanted you to skip class with my friends and I." Gil smirked, and Matt gave him an uncertain look. "Uh, this is my first day here, I shouldn't skip class-" Matt tried, but Gilbert cut him off. "Oh, please. It's just the first day, you won't miss anything." Gilbert started pulling him into the cafeteria. "But what if we get caught?" Matt was pretty fearful of punishment. "I'll pull the blind card. Works every time. But we won't get caught, because no one cares at this school."
Gilbert seemed to have some issues with finding wherever he wanted to go. He stood in the middle of the cafeteria, waving his cane around. "They've moved all the tables around. I know my friends are here, but I don't know where." Gilbert looked vaguely annoyed. "Damn it, you're going to have to help me out. They're probably sitting somewhere in a corner but I can't guarantee that. Look for a big Spaniard and an even bigger Aryan, among a few others." Matt could tell Gilbert didn't like having to have people help him, so he tried to find the guys as fast as possible.
Turns out, it wasn't that difficult to find a motley crew like Gilbert's friends. They were in the far right corner, and Matt pointed that out to Gilbert, who grinned and held out his arm. "Your turn to drag me around. Take me to them." So Matt did, blushing slightly. People were staring, it was a bit embarrassing. He got Gilbert to his friends as quickly as possible and turned to leave to go to class, but Gilbert grabbed his arm and kept him from doing so.
"Alright, friends, this is Matt. Matt, this is my friends. The big Aryan I told you about is my brother, Ludwig. The Spaniard is my lifelong best friend, Antonio. There's more people here, I can tell that. I'm not that blind. But I can't tell you who they are. You'll have to find out who they are on your own, Matt." Gilbert said, and hit around with his cane for a while until he found an empty seat. When Matt didn't sit, Antonio called him out on it. "Go ahead and take a seat, Matt! If you're friends with Gil, surely we'll get along great!" He said cheerfully.
"Uh, that's fine. I actually need to get back to class." Matt stuttered. "Finally, bruder, you get a friend with sense!" Ludwig exclaimed, and Matt laughed nervously. "Oh, please. You're skipping class too, Lud." "No, Feliciano and I actually have this lunch. You all are the skippers." Ludwig said defiantly, and the small redhead beside him (Feliciano?) nodded excitedly, probably not even registering that Gilbert couldn't see it. "Feli is here? Tell the little scamp I said hi," Gilbert grinned. "You're blind, not mute. Tell him yourself."
While the brothers bickered back and forth, Antonio once again tried to get Matt to sit down. "Come on, sit! We won't bite. Okay, Lovi might." Antonio gestured to the brunet beside him. Matt recognized him as the brunet that Gilbert was harassing with his cane in 1st period. "It's Lovino, not Lovi." He corrected. Matt nodded. "I-I understand that, but, class-" Matt tried again to get away from the group and to his English class. "Come on. There's an empty seat beside Jan. Eat with us." Antonio insisted again.
Gilbert seemed to perk up when he heard the name 'Jan.' He turned to Antonio, and grinned. "Flying Dutchman's here? Where?" He asked, and the large, handsome blond to his left tapped his shoulder. "Been here this whole time," he said. "Oh, Jan! I haven't seen you all summer!" He pulled the man at his left into a haphazard hug. "Sorry for being rude, I just didn't see you there!" Gilbert laughed his very distinctive laugh, and Jan just chuckled and pushed the albino off.
"Matt, right? Come sit next to me." Matt was startled when he heard his name called. He hadn't even been paying attention, he was worried about getting to class, but Jan had called his name and was beckoning for him to come and sit with him. And, for some strange reason, Matt did. He went and sat right beside Jan. He talked to all Gilbert's friends, and got along with all of them, but for some reason, he got along best with Jan.
Matt discovered the reason why he got along so well with Jan about halfway through lunch, when they were all discussing the countries they moved from. Gilbert and Ludwig moved from eastern Germany when Gilbert was 5 and Ludwig was three, because their grandfather who had raised them grew up in the Soviet Union, and wanted to leave the area as soon as he had the available funds. Lovino and Feliciano were born about a year apart in Italy while their very American parents worked in Rome, but were American citizens. Antonio wasn't even born in Spain; his father was a Spaniard, and his mother was Hispanic. He was born in America. Jan, however, had only moved to America a few months before Matt did, and was still experiencing the same culture shock that Matt was.
By the time Matt had really stopped worrying about the class he was skipping, the bell rang, signaling that this lunch period was over. The entire table groaned in response to it, but all got up anyways. The blind kid and his friends could get away with skipping every once in a while, but two lunch periods in a row would definitely get them caught. They threw away whatever food they had bought, and headed to their next 4th period class.
Matt's 4th period was AP US History, which was also taught by Mr. Jones. The class flew by; Matt was good with history, and he was really starting to like Mr. Jones. After that, Matt went to his 5th period, Chemistry. To Matt's pleasant surprise, most of the friends he had made while skipping English were in the class. Gilbert, Lovino, and Jan were not only in the class, Matt got to be in their group for the entire year.
The 4 ended up goofing around all class, and they would surely goof around the entire year. The teacher, Ms. Hedervary, was Gilbert's cousin's fiancée, and generally let them do what they wanted. That was pretty great. Matt went into the class dreading doing any sort of science, but it ended up being actually not that bad.
After chemistry was lunch. Since Jan and Lovino weren't juniors, they ate lunch at a different time, but Matt shared his lunch with Gilbert and Alfred, which was fine by him. The two friends took their seat at the table they had claimed when they had skipped before. Matt sort of half hoped that Alfred would show up and sit with them, but Matt never found him. Matt decided to use this time of relative solitude to ask Gilbert something that had been eating him alive all day.
"So, you're blind, right?" Matt asked. Gilbert gave him a very done look, and reached his cane up to tap Matt on the head with it. "I thought we had established that already." The albino laughed, and put his cane back down. "No, I mean- I'm legally blind without my glasses. I've got 20/200 vision, I'm just wondering what your vision is? Because you had said that, you weren't totally blind." Matt stuttered out. He was sort of embarrassed; he didn't know if that was something that it was okay to ask.
"I'm 20/4000. Being an albino severely messes with your sight, and it also means that contacts and glasses don't really work. My vision's been really declining, and at this point the best it can be corrected to is 20/800. Which is still damn-near blind. So about 9th grade, I said, fuck it, and I adopted the black-glasses-white-cane look I sport now. And I'm glad I learned to be blind before it got as bad as it is now." Gilbert said, and Matt hummed in understanding. "Okay, so I answered that question. Now you get to tell me why you were so pissed about having to move here." Gilbert smirked.
Matt sighed. He felt obligated to answer after Gilbert spilled his guts about his eyes. "A few reasons. One is the fact that I was probably one of the best hockey players in Alberta, even counting the two NHL teams in the province. I was going to get scouted by the NHL, I was sure of it. Now there's no hockey team, and there goes my dreams of the NHL." Matt said.
"You said there was more than one reason, you can't just stop now. My interest is piqued." Gilbert said, and despite the fact that he was staring off behind Matt, he looked enthralled. (Matt really couldn't blame him for his lack of eye-contact.) "Then there's the fact that I have two gay dads, and America is a pretty homophobic place." Matt said, and Gilbert 'ahhhh'ed, as if he had just understood something. "Matt, all my friends are gay. Every one of them. I'm pretty gay myself, at times. I think we're the only queer people in the entire school, but, we're all out. It's not a homophobic place." Gilbert said. "Oh, okay. That makes me feel better. I mean, I'm bi, so hopefully I can fit into your homo club?" Matt asked jokingly, and Gilbert laughed. "You're welcome in our homo club any day."
After lunch, Matt had a block class. It was Advanced French Language and Literature, a class that Francis had forced him to take. Matt was fluent in French already, and didn't need a class teaching him things he already knew, but he took it to please his Papa. That didn't stop him from being bored out of his mind the entire 90 minutes he was in the class. The teacher, Ms. Talma, was a beautiful, dark-skinned woman from Seychelles. She kept her dreads in pigtails, and she was a really sweet, fun teacher, but she assigned reading on the first day of class. It was just the French version of Candide, something Matt could finish in 30 minutes, but it still made him groan.
But luckily, after French, school was over. At the front of the school, Matt met up with Alfred and they found Francis easily. On the drive home, their papa was eager to ask them about their first day at an American school. "How did it go?" He asked as he drove them back home. "It was okay. Classes are a lot more challenging here." Alfred said while toying around with his phone. "Yeah, my French teacher is making me read Candide by Monday. And I'm pretty sure my history teacher is a communist." Matt chipped in, and Francis laughed.
"So what about friends? Did you make any new friends?" Francis always had cared more about the social aspect of school. Arthur was the one who cared about the academics. "Yeah, I met most the football team. They're all pretty cool. Except there's this one big Russian guy, he's really competitive with me already. We haven't even played yet." Alfred said, and Matt wanted to groan. He hated when Alfred got competitive. "What about you, Matt, did you make any new friends?" Francis asked. "A blind guy tricked me into skipping English with him, and I think I'm pretty cool with him and his friends now."
"Woah, you're friends with the blind guy?" Alfred exclaimed, throwing his phone onto the seat. "Uh, I guess?" Matt asked, kind of confused about how Alfred knew about Gilbert. "His brother is on the football team, and he hosts a lot of parties. All the guys on the team say that Gilbert is the coolest guy in the world." Alfred said. "Well, I guess he's pretty alright." Matt said. He wasn't sure if Gilbert could live up to Alfred's image of him. "He's basically a school legend." Alfred said. "He hit me in the head with his white cane," Matt told his brother. "Yeah, Ludwig said that's a habit he's picked up. When he can figure out where your head is, anyways." Alfred laughed. Matt laughed back in agreement.
It certainly was going to be an interesting school year.