"Bon Matin, cher Matthieu! Good morning Matthew!" called France. He strode into his adopted son's room and began to draw the curtains. Sunlight from a pleasant Canadian morning seeped through the windows. Matthew whimpered into the blankets and tugged Kumajirou closer. He really didn't want to get up. Not only would Arthur try to feed him scones for breakfast (yet again), but then Alfred would push him around and Papa France would take forever in the shower, making him much later than usual.
Also, today was Matthew's first day at a new school. His brother, Alfred, was very excited about his making new friends, but Matthew was not looking forward to it at all. What if he didn't make any friends? What if he had to sit alone at snack time, and no one ever wanted to talk to him? Papa France gently shook him out of his panicked thoughts. "Come on, cheri! Go eat breakfast. I left some pancakes on the table, and I'll try to hold off Arthur and his gross cooking." Matthew smiled and gave his father a hug. "Merci papa. Je vais manger le petit dejuner. Thanks dad. I'll go eat breakfast."
Matthew happily munched on pancakes in his maple leaf pajamas as "mother" England yelled at Alfred about "putting on some descent clothing" and that "no, a hero cape DOES NOT count as proper attire!" France tried to smooth the situation over, but that merely got his a smack over the head. "Bloody hell! We're going to be late!" cried England. "France, you bloody git, help me get the kids into the car!!" France was driving them to school, and at the last minute England decided to come along with them. He reached into the back seat and gave Matthew a warm hug, telling him that he would make lots of new friends at this school. His intentions were good-natured, but Matthew was still far from convinced.
When they reached the school, Alfred jumped out of the car and pulled Matthew out with him. England helped them find their class room, whit France trailing behind so he could flirt with all of the female teachers. "Let's take a picture with your new teacher." England said abruptly. "Since my kids are growing up so quickly." There were tears at the corners of his eyes. His melancholy tone made Matthew a little uncomfortable, so he and his brother hastily stood next to their teacher, Ms. Elizabeta Héderváry, and tried to force a smile as he waited for their mom to take the picture.
After they took a few shots, they kissed their parent goodbye and went inside the classroom with Ms. Héderváry. She told them to call her Ms. Hungary (which made Alfred burst into giggles) and showed them where their seats would be and where they were supposed to put their backpacks. She said that they would always be on good terms, but she did add "If any of you little punks cross me, I'll smack you upside the head with a frying pan." Matthew shuddered as he walked back to his desk. He shook his head and sat down, scannin the classroom for friendly faces. Alfred was already taking excitedly about videogames with some other classmates, and everybody else already had a friend to talk with before class. Matthew felt a stab of loneliness as he looked around.
At the table in front of his, he saw cute little boy with brown hair and a tall scary looking older boy with blond hair and clear blue eyes sitting next to each other. They smaller boy was smiling brightly and chatting animatedly about pasta and "all the cute girls in their class, vee~". The taller boy listened intently, and surprisingly went completely red in the face when the little boy jumped up and gave him a hug. "Doitsu, you're always so nice to me. Thanks for always listening to what I say. You're my best friend!" he exclaimed, nuzzling him closer. The older one, slow to respond, stuttered a little and stiffly patted him on the back. "Sure, Feliciano. Whatever you say." In the corner, a similar looking boy was shooting a death glare at "Doitsu" or whoever, only restrained by a cheerful looking Spanish boy who was giggling at the current situation.
Matthew sighed wishfully, thinking that he would never have someone (besides France) who would give him hugs and listen to him so well. Unfortunately, few people actually noticed when he was around, and nobody could ever remember his name. It was like he was totally invisible. He dejectedly turned around, only to notice another boy walking towards his desk. Matthew took in his odd features: the boy was sort of tallish, but what struck out about him the most was his pale, almost completely white skin, and his unusually friendly red eyes. "He looks so cool!" he sighed to himself.
The boy came closer and Matthew saw a small yellow bird perched on his shoulder. At first, he just sat down and drummed his fingers against the desk in a complex rhythmic pattern, but soon lost interest and turned to talk to the adorably flustered boy sitting next to him. "So, what's your name?" he asked, hand resting on his chin with an amused expression on his face. How could the boy see him? Nobody ever noticed him..."It's just M-Matthew," he replied, still surprised at the sudden attention "What's yours?" he asked politely. The other boy grinned widely, and Matthew saw that he was missing his front two teeth. "It's Gilbert, and don't you forget it!" Cue the self-confident thumbs up.
Ms. Hungary went to the board and started talking about what they were going to do in class. Matthew was trying to pay attention, but Gilbert wasn't listening at all. He started drawing pictures of himself and the tallish blonde boy that Matthew had seen in front of him on the table with the crayons, and even began to sing to himself in a strange Germanic language. He started fidgeting with the art supplies, and looked like he was having a real problem sitting still. "Are you all right?" Matthew asked in concern. The other boy grinned back in his usually cocky way. "Of course I am. I'm too awesome to be un-okay!" he whispered. Matthew bit his lip and turned back around. Gilbert thought he looked adorable like that, all hesitant and uncertain, with wavy blonde hair falling inhis eyes. He mentally smacked himself in the face and blushed a rosy shade of red.
After a few minutes, Gilbert had a great idea about how he could get the smaller boy to open up to him. "Hey..." he whispered, trying to get the other boy's attention. Matthew shook his blonde head and tried to turn around. "You're new here, right?" he whispered "We should be friends! Best friends! Like Ludwig and Feliciano!" he pointed to the two boys sitting in front of them. Matthew froze and slowly turned around. Someone wanted to be his friend? No way! Stuff like that only happened to Alfred. "O-okay," He said. "That sounds like fun." Ms. Hungary finally finished talking, and told the class that it was time for recess. Gilbert smiled and did a little victory dance in his head as they both got up to get their lunches and go outside.
Recess was outside on the playground, and the class would have lunch right after it. "So what did your mom pack you for lunch?" asked Gilbert conversationally. He pointed to the tallish blond kid who was talking to the short giggly boy that they had seen in the classroom. "That really tall kid is my brother Ludwig. He makes lunches for me every single day." Matthew's eyes widened in amazement. "But he's just a kid!" he cried. Gilbert shrugged. Matthew bit his lip again and continued. "Well, my mom is a terrible cook. His name is England and he's always trying to make us eat these disgusting scones." He scrunched his face up in disgust, and Gilbert had to laugh at his reaction.
"Usually my papa France cooks for us." He continued "He says that child protective services are going to come after us if we get food poisoning too often." The two boys were really beginning to get into the conversation, until, Gilbert smacked himself in the face in annoyance. "Oh no!" he said "I left my lunch inside the classroom!" He looked at Matthew apologetically "I'll be back in a second. Don't have too much fun without me!" He shot him a lopsided grin that made Matthew's heart beat a little faster, and ran back inside the classroom.
Suddenly, two other boys came up to Matthew. They were bigger and looked really scary. One of them smiled a scary smile at Matthew. "What are you doing here, shrimp?" he asked. The other boy stepped behind Matthew. "I-I''m sorry!" cried Matthew. "Please don't hurt me!" This was awful. Matthew was going to cry. The boys started pushing Matthew around. "What do you have here?" asked one of the bullies. He took Matthew's lunch box and started looking though it. "Ham sandwich with mustard? My favorite!" said the boy. "I'll be taking this from you." He smirked wickedly.
Matthew was on the verge of tears. Those boys were so much bigger and stronger than he was. How could he fight back? He was about to run far, far away and never come back to this school ever again. "Hey, back off!" Matthew turned around and saw Gilbert coming back from the classroom with an absolutely furious look on his face. "Leave Matthew alone you big bullies! Go pick on someone your own size." The other boys didn't say a word. Gilbert looked really, really angry and he walked closer to where the bigger boys were standing. They ignored the puny pale kid, and continue to play keep away with Matthew's lunch. Gilbert finally snapped, and took a running jump onto bully #1's back.
He locked his knees around the huge bully, and started ferociously hitting the kid on his head. Matthew was truly afraid for a second, and a little bit awed as Gilbert single-handely beat the snot out of both the bullies. Seriously, he was completely vicious; he looked like he was going rip the tormentors to shreds. Finally, the two dense kids decided that bullying kids with really angry German friends was a bad idea, and ran away clutching their bloody faces with their equally torn-up arms.
Gilbert calmly dusted his hands off and started to smile back at Matthew. "Are you okay, best buddy? Did they hurt you?" he asked, a look of concern on his face. Matthew blushed at the attention and shook his head bashfully. "T-thanks for getting those guys to leave me alone. That was really nice of you" he said, looking at the ground in embarrassment. Gilbert came closer and planted a small kiss on a surprised Matthew's cheek. He looked at him is mild shock, thinking that he had hallucinated that last part.
Gilbert grabbed his new friend's delicate hand and pulled him towards the classroom. The lunch bell rang in the distance, and both of the boys started walking to the cafeteria. Gilbert pulled back and looked really pleased with himself. "It wasn't that big a deal," he said proudly, "And anyways, what are friends for?" Mattie smiled to himself. "With a best friend like that," he thought, "maybe school won't be so bad after all…"
THE END