"You dropped your bag, Alfred!" someone called, tinged with a clear British accent.
"Yeah, yeah, I'll get it later," came the response.
"You mean when we're already in the car?" Arthur rolled his eyes at his brother. "Besides, if you make a wrong move today… I dunno if Dad'll be angry, sad, or just tired."
A pause, a silence. "Okay." Footsteps signaled Alfred's climbing of the stairs up to his room to fetch the backpack on his bedroom floor. Once Arthur was sure the younger boy had went back downstairs, he grabbed his smartphone, quickly tapping in the password and opening the "call" app. Scrolling through his contacts, he located "Bonnefoy, Francis," the phone number of which was at least twice the length on an average one, indicating that it was an international call. Arthur leaned against the wall of the empty box that had once been his room and waited for Francis to pick up.
"Allô?" said the slightly distorted voice. "Following the beginnings of a response from the caller, he said, "Ah, Arthur! Aren't you supposed to be in an airport right now? It sounds much too quiet for that."
"Hello, Francis," Arthur finally said. "yeah, that's what I thought too, but, one, Alfred couldn't get ready in time, and two, I don't think Dad is quite prepared to leave either. Honestly, I wouldn't be able to either if I weren't ignoring it all. I suppose it'll come to me on the plane, or now, now that I've said it." Arthur sighed, missing his homeland, although he had yet to depart even his house, which now felt cold, soulless, and empty. "Anyway," he said, changing the subject. "You're already in the airport, aren't you?"
"Oui, I'm just sitting in the car – don't see any point in being stuck in the airport's chaos when they'll start checking bags and boarding passes hours from now."
Both of them let out a melancholy breath, not quite a sigh, happy to be moving from their past lives, but overwhelmingly regretful of leaving their friends, schools, and lives full of promise behind.
"I had gotten a scholarship, you know," Francis finally said. "Full ride. Even with Maman's salary, which was rather high, my fa –" he faltered for a moment, then picked back up, mentally attempting to brush off his own words. "My father's drinking habits, along with everything else, took too much toll on our finances. So I managed to earn a scholarship. Full ride; I was even doing rather well in my part-time job… Well, they do say that America is the "Land of Opportunities," non?"
"I suppose so," Arthur replied, lacking much conviction. "I wish I could think of it as hopefully as you do; I bet it'd be a lot easier. I don't understand how Alfred is so excited, I mean, he had so many friends here."
Francis lightly laughed. "Now I wish I was in your situation. Mathieu, he's never been outgoing, or very friendly with any kids, or noticed at all. Add that to an entirely new country… I guess it's only expected for me to worry."
The two sat in each other's company, a bond that stretched across the Channel and formed a small space, somewhere in a theoretical dimension, occupied by solely Arthur Kirkland and Francis Bonnefoy, transient. It shattered with the loud cries of the former's younger brother.
"Artie! We're leaving, c'mon!" Arthur did not hear this, but Alfred then muttered, "Look who's running late now."
"I'll see you at the house then, Francis," Arthur said.
"Lucky that it actually turned out that way."
"Yeah."
A pause, in which Alfred again called up to Arthur.
"Je t'aime, Arthur."
"Me t—" Arthur stopped. "I love you too, Francis. In America?"
"Ameriqué."
Arthur grabbed the jacket beside him and darted to the waiting cab. Alfred demanded his own sweater, seeing Arthur, once they boarded the plane; the garment was in the suitcase in the cargo hold of the plane. So, Arthur surrendered his jacket to Alfred, who draped it over himself as he watched a movie on his phone. Arthur eventually fell asleep, novel abandoned on his lap, earphones still playing and slowly slipping out.
•••
The "house," which Arthur had doubted the capacity of when it was advertised for two families, proved his suspicions correct. There was no plausible way a total of six people could possibly live there – they would need three more to prevent it from feeling unnaturally quiet and empty. The previous owners had taken the liberty of having the Kirklands' previously shipped furniture and items moved into the house; the key had travelled in the opposite direction, sent to the family and arriving three days prior to their departure. There was already life in the building; clearly, the Bonnefoys had already arrived and begun settling in. Arthur and Francis, who had met over an exchange program, had subtly prodded their parents into deciding to allow their new home to be shared by a family of "strangers," a word only true for four of the total six. The Kirklands, weary in body, soul, and mind, unlocked the door and stepped inside to see the other family gathered on the hardwood floor of what would become the living room. At this moment, however, its only furnishings were the boxes upon boxed stacked on top of each other.
"Ameriqué, Arthur?" Francis said, lifting one of his arms from his younger brother, Mathieu's, shoulder, and half waved towards Arthur.
"Yes. America."
Progressively, the rest of the Kirklands' thin eyebrows, most unlike Arthur's, climbed to their hairlines. Since when had Arthur been such close friends with a Frenchman, the type of person he'd claimed to hate his entire life – and why was he suddenly so at peace with the idea and, now, reality of moving to America, to which he had first been so opposed?
"Arthur, do you know this young man?" his father asked, not without a noticeable amount of suspicion. "Yes, Francis," the other's mother added. "Do you know him? You both seem to have been acquainted beforehand and already aware of the both of you moving here." She said this in French, with the intention of keeping her words from the Britons, who were strangers to her.
"Il était un étudiant d'échange," Francis said. "Premiére année, un semester."
He was an exchange student. Freshman year, one semester, Arthur knew Francis had said; he quickly told his father the same. Both parents nodded. Alright then, for now.
"Je suis fatigué." Mathieu made it quietly known that he was tired. Expectable, from a thirteen year old boy that had spent nearly all of the ten hour plane ride somewhat awake and was jetlagged. Francis, who had become very caring and tender towards Mathieu alone to replace the father Mathieu never had, said, "Well, the last owners even had our beds set up for us, so all we need to do is find the pillows and blankets. You and Maman just sit and relax, maybe talk to Arthur's family; I know which box they're in, so I'll get them." Both Arthur and Francis hoped this made a good impression on the British family.
Prior to the decision to move, Francis had spoken to Mathieu in more English than French, to help his brother learn the language. But, he knew that as Mathieu's English would exponentially improve, his French would slowly deteriorate. First it would be actual literacy, as there would be so little exposure to text fully written in the language, but it would eventually result in seldom speaking it, and thus, loss of fluency. As much as it may seem, thirteen ears is not enough. I hope Arthur tries not to lose his accent, Francis thought.
The Brit in question, understanding enough of what Francis had said to Mathieu, decided to do the same, asking his father which box contained all of their bedding. Drifting towards the mountains of boxes, he searched for while before locating the large, taped-over-multiple-times cardboard cube that had been described and vaguely motioned towards. The reinforcement proved to have been overly effective, rendering the box impossible to open with the average pair of hands, even when assisted with somewhat decent scissors.
"By any chance, does anyone have a small pocketknife I can borrow?" Arthur asked, hoping that Alfred had been willful and quietly retrieved his pocketknife from somewhere. Instead, Francis's mother reached into her handbag and produced a butterfly knife, causing subtle raised eyebrows from Arthur and his father. The former accepted it, saying, "Merci, Madame Bonnefoy," then proceeded to slice open the thick layer of tape. Lifting the bundle of heavy bedding inside, Arthur walked a few paces over to Francis, and they ascended the steps to the several bedrooms upstairs. They found that there were enough bedrooms for everyone to have their own; the smaller ones could actually be used by Arthur and Francis, for the house had a separate, decent-sized study. No one was up for the task of fitting mattress covers – another day. As they smoothed creases out of the blankets and fluffed the pillows, the usually loud, bantering, oftentimes arguing two were silent. None of this can last. I mean, who's going to be comfortable living with a family of strangers, in a new country? The only reason we're here is because we needed to get out. Out of Paris, out of France, out of anywhere that held remnants of the past that would stop us from starting over. There had also been a death in Arthur's family, but that's hardly a thing to bond over, nor will two families be brought together by suddenly finding out their eldest sons have been in a relationship for two years.
Francis sat down on his bed, then sunk deep into the pillows, half-upright. Sleep beckoned. A seven-hour time difference wasn't that bad, Francis supposed; there were a considerable amount of instances when he had gotten no sleep at all. And yet, the thin ribbon tying his hair back felt heavy and pulled at his scalp. Francis undid the ribbon, tossed it aside. He soon succumbed to sleep, as did Arthur, most of his body sprawled out on the floor, head resting somewhere around Francis's knees, where they began to dangle off the bedframe. And perhaps, maybe this is what love looks like, Alfred subconsciously thought when he located the two now-expatriates, or so they believed themselves.
"They're asleep, Dad."
"We all should be," he later added.
I suppose, that this is enough. At least two of our sons, the ones that gave up the most, are alright, the two parents thought. The natural bond that seems to form between two broken people is neither hopeful or sorrowful. It is often fruitless, but the most melancholy and beautiful of all.