It was around seven in the morning when Alfred F. Jones awoke with a start at the sound of his alarm clock across the room from his bed. Letting out a low groan, he brought one hand up to rub sleep from his eyes before rolling over onto his side from his odd position on his stomach. He glared at the alarm across the room and cursed Mondays for the rest of his life. After a few moments of lying there, he finally swung his legs off the bed and stood so that he could turn off the alarm. It took him only a few seconds to navigate his dark room, even with all of the various items strewn across his floor, and when he got to the alarm, he fumbled with the snooze button on the top of the device.
As soon as it turned off completely, he stretched before he headed across the hall to the bathroom. There, he turned on the shower and took a good look at himself in the mirror while the water was warming. He smiled into the mirror as he ran a hand through his hair. He was looking alright for somebody that had just woken up. His hair wasn't all that messy and the bags that had been under his eyes for days seemed to be gone for the most part. He hopped into the shower after making a silly face at himself in the mirror.
His shower lasted only around fifteen minutes before he hopped out and tromped back into his room with a towel about his waist. He carelessly went through his dresser, grabbing the essentials, a pair of jeans, and a random t-shirt. These he threw on before he grabbed his usual hoodie off of his desk chair. With one final look around his room, he zipped up the oversized jacket and went on his way to the lower floor of the townhouse that he lived in.
As soon as he got to the bottom of the steps, he was greeted by the soft smell of breakfast being cooked in the kitchen. He smiled at the smell and headed into the room with a content look. There he found his older brother, Matthew, hard at work in front of the stove. When the door to the kitchen swung closed, however, the tall man turned around to face his younger brother with a huge grin plastered on his face. Alfred immediately smiled back as he set his bag down so that he could sit at the table.
"Hey, did you sleep well, bro?" he asked casually, watching the other as he went back to work at the stove. Alfred had picked his phone out of his pocket while he waited for the other to stop humming and respond.
"Yeah, though it was a bit hard with your snoring in the room over," Matt said, throwing Alfred a look over his shoulder.
Alfred immediately stiffened up at that and a small, nervous smile flashed over his features. He flicked lazily through his messages and read a few of them as he tried to come up with a good retort for his brother's teasing. In the end, Alfred just shrugged his shoulders and decided to change the subject. "Oh hey, have you heard from mom lately? She texted me."
Matthew nodded his head, not that Alfred could see it, and slid one large pancake onto a stack of two. This, he brought over to Alfred with a now gentle smile instead of the big grin from before. The younger of the brothers offered up a little smile of his own before he began to dig into the pancakes, dumping syrup all over them before hand. Matthew went back to the stove, though he replied to Alfred as he went, albeit, he was much quieter this time. In fact, his voice was almost inaudible as if he didn't quite want to talk about that subject. "She did. She said that she was on her way to Paris," he said, swiping a strand of hair from his face even though it always swung back into the same position each time.
"Yeah, that's what she said in the text to me too," Alfred said, sighing softly as he pressed another mouthful of pancakes into his mouth. It wasn't that odd for their mother to send a vague little comment like that to them every now and again in her travels. She was a model and the boys had gotten used to being left alone at the house with only texts from her to calm their nerves on where exactly she was in the world. Alfred, being sixteen, had gotten used to it over since two years ago when she began leaving him at home with Matthew, not a nanny, who was only two years older than himself. "I love you, be patient and strong, mon cheri. I'm on my way to Paris. I'll be home soon. It's always the same message," Alfred mumbled around a bite of his breakfast.
Matthew went back to humming a tune as he prepared his own dish and Alfred went about getting the rest of his things ready for that day at school.
Alfred arrived at school around eight in his brother's small, used car. He said a small goodbye to the other before he hopped out and headed up to the steps where his best friend, Kiku, would always wait for him to arrive. Immediately, he greeted the other with a smile and a wave which earned him a nod in return from the quiet boy as they headed up into the school building. Most of the fifteen minutes before the first bell was spent walking to their class after grabbing their things. Alfred constantly talked all the way to the room, though Kiku didn't seem to mind much as he chatted back with Alfred happily every once in awhile.
"So like, then I was just sitting there staring at the TV, totally confused and sort of disgusted," Alfred said, sliding into his desk at the back of the English room. He dug through his binder for his essay that was due, not finding it easily as he tried picking his way through the mess of papers inside. A soft hum told him that Kiku had heard him and he continued on in his usual boisterous voice, "Like, I shipped her and him so fricken hard, you know. Then the game makers go and pop the whole father and daughter thing out of nowhere."
"It is sort of disappointing, I suppose," Kiku said, glancing up at Alfred who was still looking through his binder for his essay. The Japanese boy had already pulled his out of his bag and set it down on his desk carefully beside his pencils. It wasn't too much of a surprise to the boy that Alfred couldn't find it. After nearly six years of knowing Alfred, Kiku had gotten used to both Alfred's rambunctious attitude and his disorganized ways.
Alfred, finally, let out a sigh and plopped his binder down on the desk. It was now completely obvious that he was missing his paper and he flicked his eyes over to Kiku. The other teen rolled his eyes and suddenly pulled out a small packet of papers from his binder which he handed to Alfred. The teen took them and he grinned at his friend, "Dude, you're like, a life saver. I totally am doing your math homework for like the next month."
Kiku smiled back at Alfred and they quieted down as the teacher began taking roll. The rest of the day would go by rather uneventfully before the final bell of the day would ring. Alfred immediately headed over to his locker and he grabbed out his bag, shoving everything inside before he made his way just down the hall to Kiku's. They would be walking home together as they had been for the last week or two after some circumstances that Alfred had had to deal with.
"Are you still nervous?" Kiku asked, raising a brow as they began to head towards the front door of the school. He noticed Alfred as he shifted a bit uncomfortably at the question. Almost immediately, Kiku tried to mend the awkwardness that his inquiry had dug up. "I mean…he hasn't been around for a long time since I've started walking home with you."
Alfred nodded though he shrugged his shoulders too. They walked in silence out of the school and a ways down the sidewalk out front before Alfred finally spoke. Kiku was immensely relieved when he did, as it wasn't normal for Alfred to be silent, though the topic turned out to be just what Kiku didn't want to talk about then. "Sure, the stalker hasn't been where I normally see him, dude…but that doesn't mean that he's not…you know, around."
Kiku nodded his head and he quickly attempted to change the subject to something lighter. He managed to get Alfred onto the topic of the game he'd been talking about that morning, though Kiku's mind still dwelled on the subject from before.
Alfred had run into a problem a few months before, though Kiku had only learned about it about two weeks prior to that day. His American friend had stopped him one day after school and asked Kiku to go talk with him in a part of the school that was usually not too crowded. There, Alfred had disclosed to Kiku that he'd been encountering a stalker of sorts while walking home from school and the raven haired boy was immediately concerned. He demanded to walk home with Alfred and the next week he began to do so, though the stalker had seemed to disappear.
From what Kiku had the other describe of the stalker, he was tall and really creepy. He always stood outside the cemetery that Alfred passed on his way home. Every time that Alfred would pass by, the man would say hello, specifically to Alfred, and then proceed to wander behind him until Alfred had to cross the road at the far edge of the cemetery. At first, Alfred said that he had thought nothing of it, though steadily the man had grown more demanding that Alfred actually talk to him when he walked by. He apparently had also offered to help Alfred home or to drive him home on a few occasions, obsessively insisting on it.
As they approached the cemetery, their pace slowed down and they both held their breath as they rounded the corner of a house to stare down the street at the gates of the place. Alfred immediately clapped his hands together with a loud sigh of relief. There was nobody standing near the cemetery meaning that they were in the clear. Kiku promptly gave Alfred a smile and a tiny punch in the arm as they headed down the road and past the pretty little gate of the cemetery.
It would take them about a half an hour to get to Alfred's house and about ten different conversation topics. When they finally got there, however, they were quickly stopped by a voice from the house over from Alfred's. There, on the steps of the house, stood a short man with messy blonde hair. His green eyes stared at the two boys as one of his large brows lifted up in a little teasing look. "And what are you two rascals doing?"
Immediately, a big grin spread over Alfred's face and he hurried past the steps of his own house to go wrap his arms around the man who'd come down from his own steps to meet Alfred. "Dude, Mr. Kirkland, you're back! I didn't think I was ever going to see you again!"
The man laughed and he pat Alfred's back before he let him go to look him over skeptically. He tisked before sighing, pressing one pale hand to his forehead as if to show off his woe at something. "My, my and how small you were when I left all those years ago. I feel as though I hardly know you anymore," he said, his voice raising a few octaves along with the intensity of his already thick English accent. Suddenly, however, he stopped and gave Alfred a completely poison look, punching him swiftly in the arm none too gently which caused Alfred to whimper with pain. "Oh, man up, you wretch. I was only gone a week. No need to cry over it! Ah, Kiku, I see that you're the one keeping this one in order still, eh?"
Kiku smiled softly at Mr. Kirkland as he approached and he held out a hand to the man to shake. The Englishman took it firmly and shook it strongly like a true businessman, though truthfully the man was only a simple librarian at the local library. He then let go of Kiku's hand and smiled at them both with all of his crooked teeth showing. Alfred and Kiku couldn't help but grin back at Alfred's young neighbor.
Even if the man seemed really old at times, Alfred had to remind himself that the man was only twenty-four, although, a widower to a wife he had at just nineteen. He had moved in next door to Alfred two years prior and he was a close to Kiku in Alfred's hierarchy of friends. Alfred returned the punch to the man, though his landed softly on the other's chest as Alfred laughed at his two friend's overly formal ways. "You two are like," he began, pausing to think of a word, "like old men or something. No offense, Mr. Kirkland."
The joke earned him a glare, but the man waved them up the steps of his house anyways. He informed Alfred that his brother would be home late and that he'd gotten permission for Al, as well as Kiku, to stay at his place in the meantime.
Both boys were quick to raid Arthur's kitchen, making off with some chips and soda even with Mr. Kirkland on their heels about being thieves. They settled down in the living room and they quickly got to work on their homework. As promised, Alfred got right to work on Kiku's math. All the while, they quietly joked back and forth while Mr. Kirkland wandered around the house getting settled back in after his weeklong trip back to his home country. It was around six when Kiku's mother showed up to pick the young man up and it was about an hour later when Matthew came home with dinner in hand.
Alfred said a quick goodbye to Mr. Kirkland and he headed inside to hang out with Matthew for the rest of the night.
The next day, Alfred awoke to the sound of his phone pinging beneath his pillow instead of his alarm across the room. He sat up in bed groggily and he stared down at the screen with a frown. It was around six in the morning, an hour earlier than when he usually got up, and the message was from Kiku. He slid his finger across the screen and promptly went to check out what his friend had woke him up for. Nerves instantly washed over him as he saw the message.
Kiku couldn't walk home with him anymore due to tutoring that he had to do afterschool.
Alfred, tucking the phone back under his pillow, swiped a hand through his hair and sighed. He would have to find another way to get home if the man showed up at the cemetery again later that day. Even if it meant finding a whole different route that took him thirty minutes longer, he didn't care.
Alfred spent the next day at school wracked with nerves. All day he kept getting glares from people in class for tapping his pencil and another, which he borrowed from Kiku, was shamefully returned with teeth marks all over it. Kiku had promptly thrown that one away. Then, at the end of the day, Alfred found himself confronted by the shorter boy who looked up at Alfred with a frown.
"I am worried about you, Alfred," he said and Alfred shrugged his shoulders dumbly as he stared off down the hall, past the other boy. Kiku seemed to notice this and he turned to look off in the same direction. When he found nothing but open space, he raised a hand to snap his fingers before Alfred's face. This seemed to startle Alfred back into consciousness as he looked down at Kiku with wide eyes. It wasn't a usual occurrence for Kiku to do something like that, albeit, Alfred himself had been rather off that day about almost everything.
"Kiku, I have to go," he said, moving past his friend and down the hall. Kiku let out a loud sigh and followed Alfred to the doors of the school. All the time that they were walking, Kiku seemed to keep going on and on about how Alfred should just tell Matt what was going on. He explained to deaf ears that Alfred should tell Matt because Matt could help the American get rid of the stalker.
Alfred simply shrugged again and he left the school without looking back at his friend. He walked slowly down the street and he stopped every so often to check his phone for the time. When he did, he fidgeted with the screen, turning up the brightness and then dimming it just to pass time. Finally, he seemed to realize how pathetic he was acting about the whole situation. He thought to all of the superhero stories that he enjoyed reading or the games that he liked playing at home. The hero, or heroine, was almost never a nervous wreck like this. He was a disgrace to the heroes of his favorite worlds.
Picking up the pace, Alfred made his way towards the cemetery in record time. He approached the corner and stopped right as he was about to turn it and look to the cemetery. The teen took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, calming himself as he thought to the words that his mother always told him when she was around or in texts when she was gone: be patient and strong. When he felt brave enough, he turned the corner with his head held high and stared straight down the road at the gates of the cemetery. His heart thumped in his chest and his bravery almost faltered at the sight of the tall man waiting by the gates.
Alfred stared, though pretty soon he felt himself moving forward towards the man as a sort of rage filled inside of him. He was tired of being so afraid of this man. He would give him a piece of his mind and the other wouldn't be stalking Alfred any longer. Alfred had enough.