Edit: Didn't really like the very end, so I changed a few things. Nothing that changed the story or anything, but it just made the timing seem better.
Hi there! This is the first FrUK fanfiction I've wrote, so I'm still not sure if I have their characters down right, but I'm using this as practice. This idea came to me during one of my own tutoring sessions, actually, and it wouldn't leave me alone for months, so I hope you guys enjoy it!
Warning: Rated M for a reason, meaning there will be some FrUK smutty goodness in the future. How much longer in the future? I'm not sure, but it will happen.
Disclaimer: I don't own Hetalia
Chapter 1
xXxxXx
Normal people walk away from an interview fussing over their hair or clothes, questioning if they had looked that bad during the meeting, or going back over the conversations in their mind, finding every little wrong line that slipped. Sometimes, they would go out for ice cream or a drink to calm their nerves. Sometimes they even just went home to drown themselves in the "gift" of internet and TV just to get their minds off of it.
Well normal people just didn't include me. There was only twenty minutes - correction: seventeen minutes - until my shift at the flower shop began; it took twenty-five minutes to get there from here, and I couldn't afford to be late again. Taking the staircase down two at a time from the large office building, I tried to sort out the jumbled schedule for the rest of the day and hurry across town at the same time.
After my shift was over I would have to stop and buy more frozen dinners for Alfred and myself from Walmart. I'd long since learned to appreciate how much of a miracle those boxes with dubious looking food in them could be. Alfred needed more instant ramen, and one does not simply have too much tea, so I knew I'd be buying more of that as well. All of that would take maybe an hour. Not to mention I had to study for the science test tomorrow and finish those two other assignments. I hadn't had time this past week (more like month) to do a thing, and I already knew this wouldn't be my best grade.
Nothing was my best grade these days.
Speeding up my pace as I rounded the corner, I checked my watch to see how drastic my excuse would have to be this time. Five minutes 'till six and seven blocks to go. At this rate I'd only be a few minutes late. Good. That meant I wouldn't have to pull the "family emergency" excuse again, but only if I kept it up. People and people were just colors and shapes in the corners of my eyes as I focused on the challenge at hand. I cursed the city bus out loud for the third time that day; why couldn't it run at place and time I needed it to? Oh yes, because the universe hates me.
Finally! I mentally cheered as the large cursive letters hanging above the glass doors came into sight, proudly displaying in golden paint, "Bonnefoy Flowers". Half jogging the rest of the way, the door opened for me with a jingle.
"You're late," Francis tsked as I pushed past him, not sparing him a glance. I responded brusquely with an offhand, "I know." unceremoniously, I dumped my school bag onto the nearest open chair. The overwhelming aroma of hundreds of flowers was doing little to sooth my already hypersensitive brain.
A loud sigh escaped my lips, giving away how tired I really was. The day - the week - was finally starting to catch up to me, and I could feel the lethargic weight begin to way down my body as I slumped myself over the counter, idly checking the laminated rotation sheet that I had taped to the counter for convenience.
At least today I was on cashier duty instead of cleaning or arrangement. I didn't think I could handle having to move around for much longer. Resting my chin in my palm as I leaned against the counter was much more appealing at the moment.
I didn't use to be like this. I used to enjoy setting up the flowers and filling the vases with clean water, making the small shop look dashing to the eye. That was when Alfred was still in middle school, and I wasn't the one keeping the house together.
But times change.
My head snapped up to glare at Francis when he let out a small chuckle. "What's so funny, stupid frog?"
"You're still wearing your nice suit. Let me guess, another interview?" he asked, hoisting his French arse onto the counter next to me. I grimaced, knowing I'd need to bleach that spot just to get rid of his French germs.
"Yes, actually. What about it?" My jacket fell from my shoulders easily enough with a small shrug. It was placed on top of the discarded backpack, albeit more carefully than the poor bag.
"That's the fourth one this week. You shouldn't be so worried about getting a full time job right now. Isn't this shop enough?"
I sighed. Of course he wouldn't understand, he wasn't the one who had found his first gray hair this morning from all of the stress. "No, it's not. Not for me at least. Now get your bloody ass off the counter before I hit you and get back to work." Who was I kidding? I was too tired right then to properly glare at him, let alone hit him. I could threaten, though.
Thankfully, he scooted off. He pouted dramatically, but recovered quickly and strutted to the window, flipping some hair behind his ear as he began to arrange some red roses.
He couldn't understand how badly I needed a full-time, decent paying job. The three part-time ones only got Alfred and me so far. With school expenses, food, transportation, it added up to more than most would think. With a decent work, I could provide for our two-man family just fine - maybe even put Alfred into the local college. Unfortunately, to get a job like that, I had to get a GED first. A few month away, and I would have it.
For now, I was stuck in this flower shop with Francis.
There were no customers yet, which was typical for Thursdays. We had never really figured out why the traffic was so mellow on certain days, but I couldn't care less at that moment. I watched in disgust as Francis flirted with a rather pretty girl that walked by outside, holding a rose out to her from behind the glass.
It looked like she giggled, then came in through the door - that damn jingle hurts my head - and took the rose with a blush. They got to talking, and even from the other side of the room, it was painfully obvious Francis was trying to make plans with her for tonight. I gagged at him when he turned his back to me, waving as she left the store, rose still in hand.
He was only eighteen, and in the same grade as I was, yet he acted like a lecherous thirty year old. It had always been strange to me how he could be so...so flamboyantly perverted. I didn't want to think about how his upbringing must have been for him to turn out like this. Actually, I didn't want to think about much of anything right then.
I sighed again, running my free hand through my hair, getting out the tangles, and undoubtedly messing up my previously combed hair. It was rather hot in here so late in the day. With a small struggle, I loosened my black tie and undid three buttons from the top of my shirt. It was enough to let my body breath without looking like...well, Francis.
Speaking of whom, he had stopped messing with the flowers to stare at me, an inward smirk across his mouth, like he knew something I didn't.
"What the hell, git?"
He simply laughed turned around to mess with the arrangement of some tulips. "Nothing, nothing. Just thought it was a strange time to start stripping."
I stared at his back blankly. "Sod off." Shaking my head, I began to trace the patterns in the granite.
The rest of my shift passed uneventfully, with no more than five customers, only three of which actually bought anything. Turns out the clock was broken and was thirty minutes slow, so I ended up being late.
The trip to Walmart was kept short, and soon as I was back at home, preparing the microwave dinners for Alfred and I.
"How long does one tray of food take to cook? Aren't microwaves supposed to like, make it faster?" Alfred stared into the small appliance, watching the plate spin around and around.
"This is faster. If one of us were to make it, it'd take at least an hour," I pulled him away from the appliance, pushing him towards the table, "There's only a minute left, anyway. Now sit down and stop complaining."
We ate our dinner like we usually did; Alfred talked at me rather than to me for the most part, before I told him to stop babbling about nonsense. Then came the school conversations and bets on if the weather man would be right about tomorrow's forecast for once.
We ended normally, and I went straight to my room to sleep.
As I lay in bed waiting for sleep to come, I remembered about the studying I had waited to do, along with the other homework I had. Groaning, I checked the clock.
Midnight.
I only had five hours before I had to wake up and go to my morning job. If I started studying now, I would be too tired to do anything productive the next day. Going with the logic that it was better to have a somewhat good night's sleep than study for a few hours, I was finally able to fall asleep after such a long day.
xXxxXx
The perks of working a morning shift at Starbucks? Discounted coffee. Personally, I believe employees should be able to have it without paying, especially if that employee is me, but the world (aka, my boss) doesn't always agree with you.
With a caffeine high in my bloodstream, my first few classes went by relatively painlessly. Silly me, I forgot that with a high, however, must come a low. And that low had the worst timing I could think of. As I slumped into my usual seat near the back of the room in science, I felt that everything else about me slumped as well.
"I hope everyone studied," Ms. Jeanne announced as she entered the room, later than most of her students. The rest of the room breathed out one long groan.
As she began to pass out the sheets of doom, I silently prayed that she had only been trying to scare us these last few days by telling us this was the hardest test yet. What started out as a simple prayer to anyone that would listen quickly escalated into a panicked mantra as I realized that the test was multiple pages. I was pretty much screwed, and I knew it. My mind went back to the speech they had given us in school in ninth grade about what to do if you're stressed before taking a test. Funny, back then it was considered the most useless thing they'd told us all year, yet now I was holding onto every word they said (that I remembered) like it was my lifeline.
Breath. Write your name. Breath again. Read through the whole test once. Breath again. I'm going to fail this. Think positively. I'm positive I'm going to fail this. Attempt the first question.
When an aqueous solution of sodium sulfate is electrolyzed, a gas is observed to form at the cathode. What is the gas?
Shit.
xXxxXx
Ten minutes later found me only on the fourth question, and doing just about as well on it as the first. I checked the clock - forty minutes to go. That was okay. I still had plenty of time.
My head hurt from a mixture of stress and crashing from the caffeine. Focus, turned away from the test in front of me for a few moments, I started to think of Alfred. Did he mention having any tests today? This week? Surely he did; everyone did. We were all preparing for the spring midterms - something I was not looking forward to.
Now that I thought about it, Alfred hadn't told me much about his life outside of home at all for a while now. I knew he was on the football team, but I'd never gone to any of his games. How were his grades? Did he have a girlfriend? I briefly wondered back to his Asian friend he had in middle school. What was his name? Kiku? Then there was another one he used to mention a lot, someone who'd come down from somewhere up north, but that was all I could remember about him.
Oh yeah, the test.
I nearly dropped my pencil when I glanced at the clock again. There was only twenty-five minutes left, and there was still the backside of the page I was on and the front of the second. I really felt like just punching myself in the gut right then, or maybe banging my head against my desk, or the wall, or maybe against the back of Francis' head right then (he made a dangerous choice in sitting in front of me) - any thick surface would be good. How stupid could I be, to let precious time slip like that?
Shaking my head of any thoughts that weren't related to the test, I forced myself into power-drive. For every question with multiple choice, I used process of elimination where I could, and made educated guesses if I had to. Short answer? Give the shortest answer possible with what little information I could remember from whatever I learned from being in class.
As they had told us in the lecture: Answer everything.
I mentally thanked our teacher a thousand times for not putting an essay question at the end, because as I struggled to scribble in the answer for the last question, she stood and announced that the test was over. I joined the rest of the class in walking to her desk and nervously turning in my work.
I could confidently bet that I got below an 80% at that point, but as I returned to my seat to collect my things for the next class, I tried to tell myself to stay hopeful until we got the scores back a few days later after the weekend.
xXxxXx
I was wrong. I did much worse than an 80. The following Monday, fourth period, Ms. Jeanne waltzed in later than the rest of us as usual, stack of graded tests in her hand. Class began with her passing out the grades in her usual stoic manner. In a way, I was glad that she didn't show any sign of what she was thinking when she gave anything back to you - it always made me feel less guilty about the bad score.
This grade was worse than bad, though. As I stared at the two digit number written in an intimidating shade of red, I yearned to reach out and flip that first six upside down and make my score an amazing 92.
Unfortunately, I couldn't.
"Bloody hell..." I muttered under my breath. There was a manilla sticky note next to the score, and a brief note written on it in the same pen.
Four words. That's all there was. But it was enough to effectively ruin my whole day.
"See me after class."
I groaned quietly, resting my head in my hand and stared down at the gradient of wood on my desk.
A slightly pained suck of breath from in front of me brought me out of my internal moping. I whipped my eyes up to look at Francis. He was twisted in his chair and facing me, giving me a sympathetic look.
"Ouch," was all he had to offer.
"Hey!" I angrily dragged the returned test toward me, out of his sight. "Keep your eyes on your bloody paper, frog."
He shrugged and remained twisted in his chair. "What went wrong? I would find it hard to believe that Arthur Kirkland didn't study," he said mockingly.
"The only thing that went wrong was that couldn't see the paper because the fumes of your stench made my eyes water." Of course I wasn't going to tell him the truth.
He only scoffed. "Please. I smell like a rose, unlike you. You just smell like burnt couch stuffing." Finally, he turned around again. Ms. Jeanne had begun to speak again, talking about the next lesson we were about to cover.
Great, I thought. Another chance for me to fail.
In my own world of self pitying, the rest of class passed quickly, and we were all dismissed. All but me. I was the only one of the few stragglers left in the class that was there because I couldn't leave. Why couldn't they all hurry up and get out? It was embarrassing enough to have to talk to the teacher after class, but I knew she wouldn't wait for the other students to leave before she started. I didn't want the others to know how I'd gone from being on honor roll a few years before to flunking what most deemed the easiest class of all of them. It didn't help that the stupid Frenchy was one of the ones who decided to linger.
With the way the teacher was looking at me, I knew I couldn't just wait for him to leave, though. Head hung, I made my way to the front and stopped in front of her desk.
She wasted no time in beginning the talk. "Mr. Kirkland, I assume you've looked at your test score."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Then I'm sorry to say that this grade is low enough that I'm going to have to require you to take it home and get your parents to sign it. It's a class rule."
Oh. Parents. There were no parents in our home to sign around, I grimaced to see Francis was still there.
"Ah...You see, that's a bit of a problem for me..." I looked at me feet nervously tensely. This was a touchy subject.
"Really? Then would you care to explain why?"
She watched me expectantly. I looked everywhere but her or Francis (why was he still here?), but eventually realized I had to tell her. At least a little. As quietly and concisely as I could, I told her the situation at home. It only took about a minute, but by the end of it I felt like I was in an even more bitter mood than before.
"Oh," she breathed, dumbfounded. Never thought of that situation, did you?
I looked to my side again. Sure enough, there was Francis. I think he had packed that same binder about ten times now. It was obvious he was just trying to make this as uncomfortable as possible for me.
When the teacher let out a sigh, I returned my attention to her again as she folded her hands on top of the desk.
"Well, I guess that won't work, now will it? I can let it slide for your current situation. You don't have to get it signed. However, that doesn't change the fact that your score was disappointing, seeing as it contributes to a large amount of your overall semester grade." She rubbed her temple and sighed again. "Arthur, over the past few months, you're average has slipped from a mid eighty to below a seventy. Not just in my class, but overall. Basically, what I'm trying to say it, if you don't bring your average up to about an eighty within the next few months, we might have to consider holding you back."
My eyes widened at that. What? Held back? Nononononono, I needed to graduate! Didn't she understand? I had just explained this to her a few moments ago.
"W-What?"
"We may have to hold you back. I don't know, I'm not the one in charge of things like this, but it wouldn't be a far fetch to say it's a possibility.
I stood there silent for a while, thinking. "What can I do to bring my grade back up?"
"Well, turning in homework on time, quiz grades, test grades. All of that adds to it. But just guessing from what you told me, I'm assuming you don't have much time for any of that."
I nodded solemnly.
"Then the only thing I can think of is to get the highest score you can on the finals for the year. That might be enough to bring your grade up enough."
"I don't have time to study for them, though-"
"A tutor."
"A...a what?"
"A tutor. I know you don't have a lot of time, but getting a tutor is the best thing you could probably do right now. Given your situation, I'd say that the sooner you get one, the better."
A tutor...I thought about it for a few seconds, trying to wrap my head around the idea.
"When would we meet? I only have about thirty minutes after school before my first job. Something tells me I'm going to need more than an hour a day to be prepared enough."
She thought about it for a moment. "Well...I like you, Arthur. You're a good kid. A good student, too. So, how about this. I'll talk with the school head, and see if I can take you and your tutor out of P.E. for the rest of the year. You can use that time to study, along with whatever you have after school."
Smiling, I nodded slowly. It sounded like this might actually work. If I had a tutor, not only would I be better prepared for the finals, but it was given that my everyday average would rise as well...But who would tutor me?
It seemed the teacher was thinking the same thing. "I'll give you a few days to think on it, but the sooner you find someone, the better."
I nodded. "I understand. I'll try to find one by Wednesday, if that would be best."
She nodded and scribbled something into her planner. She closed it and stood up, stacking it on top of her other papers. "If you can do that, and if you give this your best, I have no doubt that you'll be able to bring your grade up. But it's going to be hard, so please take care of yourself whenever you can. Alright?" She waited for me to nod. "Good. Now, enough of that. Lunch won't wait for us, now will it?"
Flashing me a quick, but reassuring smile, she opened the door, holding it open. I shot a quick thank you to her as I scurried out of the room as fast as I could, hearing the phrase repeated by Francis as he left shortly after. No words were uttered between us as we headed to the lockers, and quickly we were heading off to lunch like everyone else.
Lunch was spent eating alone, picking at my food for a few minutes before taking a bite, then repeating.
I should eat more at lunch so I don't have to worry about dinner, I idly thought to myself. It wouldn't be following what Ms. Jeanne had told me about taking care of myself, but maybe I'd be able to save some money and only buy food for Alfred, or use more of it to stalk up so I wouldn't have to keep going back to the store twice every week.
Any spare time would be spent studying, though...
A large sigh escaped my lips. This was going to be a long few months.
*Laughs* Can you tell I started this at ten PM, and finished at three in the morning? Sorry for the ever declining quality, I hope it doesn't suck too bad at the end there. I'm too tired to do much fixing that will actually make it any better, so I'm sorry!
If you like it, please review!