America/England – The Corn Maze
Note: This was a contest entry on deviantArt. I don't know how I've done yet since the deadline hasn't hit yet, but I don't really care if I place or not. I enjoyed writing this (and it helped me get rid of my writer's block). The Wildcats reference, however, is a reference to a comic I saw on tumblr (the artist was user hubedihubbe, and they based the comic off a post by user brimerica).
Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia, High School Musical, or the comic/post the High School Musical reference comes from. They all belong to their respective owners.
"Remind me again why I'm here?"
"Because you can't go in alone and I broke up with my girlfriend the other day!"
Arthur sighed. His step-brother Alfred had dragged him to some sort of harvest festivity out in the fields near the outskirts of town, and now he was tugging him into the entrance of a corn maze. He sighed, shaking his head, and allowed Alfred to pull him into the maze.
As they walked, they heard laughter of children in other parts of the maze. Alfred grabbed Arthur's arm and let out a nervous bleat of laughter. "This is just like 'Children of the Corn' all over again!" he said. Arthur just sighed and shook Alfred off his arm. Leave it to Alfred to get scared while walking through a perfectly normal corn maze during what was supposed to be a happy and upbeat town festival.
After about ten minutes of walking and over twice as many dead ends, they reached a wall of corn with a wooden sign posted in front of it. "Stuck? Here's a hint: This maze isn't a maze! Pay attention to the way you walk!" it read.
"What do they mean by 'this maze isn't a maze,' Artie?" Alfred asked.
"First off, don't call me Artie. Second, it must be cut into some sort of design you can only see from above," Arthur replied. "We should have climbed that tower before going in here, but of course you just had to come here first."
"Hey! Don't go pinning this all on me! You let me pull you in here!" Alfred replied.
"Yeah, well, I didn't want to even do this! I'd rather be at home reading!"
"You're no fun! You just sit there and read all day, drinking your stupid hot-leaf-water-stuff! I wanted you to have fun!"
Arthur snorted. "Coming from the one who can literally be woken up from deep sleep and come running to reply to a shouted quote from a little kids' movie!"
"Well I can't just leave that question unanswered!"
Arthur shook his head and crossed his arms, turning away from his brother in frustration. As if it was mocking Alfred, an echo of a voice shouting "WHAT TEAM?" floated over them. Alfred sucked in a deep breath and shouted out his reply: "WILDCATS!"
Without turning around, Arthur spoke. "Look. Let's just get this over with and get out of here. We can even stop by that dis- I mean, your McDonald's place afterwards." He turned around and looked at his brother.
Alfred grinned. "Really? Awesome! Alright, let's go!" He grabbed Arthur's wrist and began leading him through the maze.
The two brothers spent about an hour longer wandering the maze. Now, they were communicating and trying to logically figure out which direction they should head (though it was mostly Arthur doing the deductions as to which way they should turn when they came to forks in the maze). After the hour passed, they could hear the sound of the festivities growing louder and louder. They would test all directions they went in now, trying to see which way took them nearer to the din of voices and carnival music.
Finally they reached the end and emerged from the corn field. A pretty but simple-faced girl with freckles and red-brown hair plaited into twin braids smiled at them and handed each a caramel apple. "Good to see you guys! Hope ya had fun, and that you'll have fun at the rest of the festival!" she chirped in a drawl similar to what one would hear in movies set in the old west. "You guys wanna see what the corn maze is shaped into?"
Arthur and Alfred looked at each other. Arthur's glance screamed "I told you so" at Alfred. They looked back at the girl and nodded. She picked up a laminated photo from the table behind her and handed it to them. After a moment of staring, they realized what the image was.
"THE MAZE WAS IN THE SHAPE OF AN EAR OF CORN THE WHOLE TIME!?" Arthur shouted. He threw his hands up in frustration for a moment before biting into the caramel apple, grumbling the whole time. Alfred laughed, handing the photo back to the girl.
"Sorry about my brother, dudette! I kinda forced him to come with me! Anyways, thanks for the apples!" he told her. She smiled.
"Aw, 's alright. See ya both later!" she replied with a trill. She turned away, waving, and began to interact with the small group of people just emerging from the corn maze. Alfred walked up to his brother and placed his hand on Arthur's shoulder.
Arthur glared at his brother. "I can't believe I let you drag me into this."
Alfred just smiled. "But you got a caramel apple out of it. Don't you like those?"
Arthur sighed through his nose. "They're alright. Stick to my teeth too much, though." Alfred nodded slowly.
"Alright, now that we're done with that, can we go to McDonald's now? You promised!"
"Only if you promise to shut up and leave me alone when we get home!" Arthur said as he socked Alfred on the arm. Alfred laughed.
"No promises! But you already said we can go so you can't do anything about it!" Alfred cried, galloping off toward the car with an obnoxious laugh.