So, back to the life of a fangirl by this little piece. Before that, let me say: HAPPY (belated) BIRTHDAY YO LITTLE S***!
I made this story for my friend, yo can call her L***y. Yes, with the stars and all that jazz. Though, I'm pretty sure I defeated the purpose of this story by having her beta-reading it. But, hey, it's the thought that count, right? RIGHT?
Her birthday was last month, and I only got this up today. I feel like I failed big time *shifty eyes*
This will be a fluffy UsUk, because apparently L***y dislike angst... which is usually my style...
So yes, this story will have abudant of fluff... after the angsty part is done with.
NB: Check out her instagram Chosuika. Don't ask me what that means, I'm pretty sure she doesn't know either.
Vinyl Chapter I
In an empty hallway lined on one side with wide windows and the others with evenly spaced doors, a boy with blonde hair is walking all by himself. When he glanced down and noticed how the sunlight is now creeping up nearly past his knees, he lifted his left hand and stared at it.
His watch blinked, showing the number of 08:19.
Yup, it's official. The bell has rung twenty minutes ago.
Alfred F. Jones cursed for the countless time as the panic that used to choke him ten minutes ago now has shimmered down into miserable resignation that settled with a sickening feeling on his stomach. In his hand, he held a crinkled and badly abused piece of paper that supposed to be a school map, though it didn't really help him finding his first class. Just how can anyone navigate in this labyrinth of a school anyway?
Helplessness crept up to him and he wondered if he should just go outside and look for someone to help him, just to realize he's too lost to find the exit anyway. He can't even pinpoint his current location on the poor excuse of a map in his hand. Alfred adjusted the backpack that was slung over one of his shoulder, feeling the books and writing utensils shifting inside.
His footfalls were gunshot loud in the empty hallway lined with white walls and occasional windows that show a large rose garden that separated this building with another large building. If he wasn't feeling so miserable, he thought that he might actually be able to admire the grandeur beauty of the school. But currently he's too busy wallowing in self-pity to have the presence of mind to do anything else.
Oh, how he wished he hadn't forgotten to charge his cell last night. He would have been able to call Matthew for help. He's sure that his twin brother is currently sitting in his first class like the good, demure student he is.
If you tell Alfred two years ago that he would go into the prestigious Winchester High he would have laughed on your face and asked you to play football with him, in which he will tackle and wrestle you to the ground under the excuse of a friendly game. But last year his joint science project with his twin brother somehow won an award that landed them in a school three hour drive away from their parents and the countryside they used to live in.
Currently, they both shared a flat and each had a part-time job because their parents refused to accommodate their fancy living in the expensive city.
Alfred sighed heavily and ran a hand through his blonde hair. Maybe he should have gone with Matthew when he decided to go early from their flat, but the bed is such a seductress, he couldn't be a normal human to leave it for anything! Well, maybe a hamburger might be able to, but that's just because burgers are the true love of his life.
The boy scowled again at the wrinkled map and tried looking at it from many angles to no avail—it's still impossible to decipher it. Winchester High is not only wealthy and prestigious, it's also very large. Housing over four thousand students from across the continent and even the world even though it was built no longer than three decades ago, it is now one of the most desirable schools in the world.
Alfred knew that he and his brother was the equal of having a horseshoe shoved up their asses and four-leaved clover growing in their nostrils to go into Winchester High with fully paid tuition for a whole three years of their stay, knowing how popular the school is.
And now, he's lost in a random hallway in a random building on a random area of the goddamnably large collection buildings that made up his new High School, on his first day nonetheless.
Alfred groaned for the umpteenth time. "Just how could a hero like me got lost in his own school?! Dammit, this is so uncool." He whined and began to pout, showcasing the childish side only to the thin air. Hell, he can almost hear Matthew's scoff and eye roll, blaming his laziness and air-headedness for the misfortune he brought upon himself.
"Lost, aren't you freshman?"
If you ask him later, he would deny till he's blue on the face that he jumped two feet into the air with a strangled yelp, accompanied by the loud thumping of his backpack hitting the ground. Because heroes does not jump out of their skin. Nope. No way in hell.
Alfred whirled around and met the amused green eyes of a boy he could have sworn weren't there five seconds ago.
"Never guessed I'd find a lost sheep in this area." The boy said as he detached himself from the shadow of a hallway Alfred hasn't noticed. The freshman scrambled to get his heartbeat under control and wrecked his brain for something to say. "Well, I guess since the morning assembly will be over in another fifteen minutes anyway, so I can let this slide."
"M-morning assembly?" he stuttered.
"Yes, the new term morning assembly." The green-eyed boy took the abused map from Alfred hand and pointed to a building in the middle of the school ground. "There's the assembly hall. Just sneak somewhere close to the door and wait for the others to come out and just blend in the crowds, the teachers won't know better." he instructed with mischief in his eyes.
"You made it sounds like you did it often." Alfred remarked.
"I did." The boy smiled "Why else do you think I'm here right now?"
"Oh" Alfred blinked. The boy before him doesn't look like the type to skip school. In fact, the neat uniform and binder cradled on his arm screams one of those uptight Johns who stays late in school for extra credit, not skipping morning assemblies and wander the school ground.
But when Alfred's eyes caught the boy's ears, he saw small holes along the appendage and decided against his earlier judgment. Surely, rather impossible for someone who has that may piercing just on one ear to be the honour roll kind of student Alfred imagined him to be. Maybe the uptight John persona is just how most Winchester High's students looks like.
The blue-eyed boy shivered when he imagined that he might have to become someone like that too.
"Well," Alfred started while picking up his backpack from the floor "can we go to the assembly hall together then? You can show me the ropes of being a delinquent." He said with a flash of his infamous sparkling smile. Surprisingly, the boy before him didn't swoon or got tongue-tied like most people that fell underneath his smile's charm, he just scoffed as if knowing the kind of manipulation Alfred attempted at him.
"I have somewhere I need to be, so you can go to the assembly hall on your own. Now that you know we're on the second hallway of the music hall, I believe that you're not stupid enough to miss where you are." He said snappishly and returned the map. Alfred glanced down briefly at the paper, spotting the square named 'Music Wing'. It was not that far from to the assembly hall. Now, if he can make it to said hall without getting lost, only then he will be ecstatic out of his mind.
Alfred grinned when he imagined his brother's shocked face who must have thought Alfred is lost for good and have to look for him through the teacher's connection.
"Hey, thanks for—" he was cut off when he realized that the green-eyed boy is no longer in front of him.
A shiver ran up his spine when he realized how eerily silent the building has become. When he peeked into the hallway where the boy appeared from and probably disappeared to, he was unnerved by the seemingly unnatural gloom. Alfred took a deep breath and tried his hardest to not run his ass out of the building as fast as humanly possible, because he brushed against that boy's skin and it was soft, warm and human. Ghosts should have cold skins…. right?
When he reached the outside of the building and was greeted by the cold air, only then he can feel his heartbeat normalized itself. From then it was not a challenge to find the assembly hall and follow the boy's instruction to blend into the dispersing crowd.
As Alfred shocked his twin brother by his timely return, he ran his gaze over the student bodies and wondered if that boy was one of them, blending in just like how he taught Alfred to.
Unbeknown to him, that was his first meeting with the enigma of the school; Arthur Kirkland.
The first time he heard the boy's name he thought it was fitting to that green-eyed boy who told him how to escape from the maze of school.
Apparently, he came from England with his scores practically shooting fireworks. Add that with the good look Alfred himself has noticed, it was the recipe for an easy ticket to the inner golden circle of Winchester High. But not only he reject the chance of being the school's king and let it be ruled by an admittedly handsome German narcissist named Gilbert, he also seems to be keen to distance himself from pretty much everyone in school. The only person who can claim to be close to him is Kiku, a junior Japanese student in Alfred's class who met him every week for tutoring, and that is pushing it. He didn't join any clubs, missed every party and never seems to be sitting with anyone at lunch despite the many students that approached him.
In short, he's the living personification of Isolation- Although, despite all this, he had quite the considerable fan base in school ranging from rabid fan girl to more subdued boys because of his apparently 'Cool' image.
He met Arthur the second time at prom with Elizavéta as his date, helping her to make Roderich jealous. He spent the first hour dancing with her and sweating bullets from Roderich's icy glares and also Gilbert's heated ones. Well, the latter one was a surprise, even for Elizavéta.
One and half an hour into the party found him stumbling around in near panic trying to lose the tail he had who he suspected is some sort of super assassin sneaked into the party to kill him for his transgression of dancing with one of the prettiest girl in school.
It was when he escaped into the patio that he saw Arthur leaning over a railing to a steep cliff drop and gazing at the sky while smiling. When he glanced upward to try and pinpoint what the other boy see, Alfred can see nothing but darkness and clouds, not even the moon is present.
When he returned his gaze back to Arthur, the boy was already looking back at him, a small smile playing on his lips as if he's witnessing something particularly amusing. Alfred noticed that Arthur's eyes are not focused on him, but rather somewhere just above his head.
Before words of confusion or gratitude for Arthur's help months ago when he was a freshman can escape past Alfred's lips, the boy was already brushing past him and back into the party, leaving him flabbergasted and alone on the patio only with a small "Goodnight, Jones."
His confusion over the boy's antics is reinforced when at one autumn afternoon his football practice ran late and he forgot to bring an umbrella. That predicament left him standing in front of the school while staring at the rain just a few inches in front of his face. He wondered just how soaked he will be if he decided to run all the way to the flat which was a few blocks away.
As minutes passed and became an hour, Alfred finally decided that he already ran out of patience and with no hope of Matthew helping him because they just had an argument that left his introverted twin sulking, Alfred braced himself and ran through the icy rain.
Thanks to his football experience, he can keep running until he was stopped by a green light. Alfred stopped his rushed sprint and glanced at the traffic light in disappointment while cars whizzed past him. If his books weren't soaked yet, they would be very soon.
As he wallowed in his cold and miserable state he didn't notice the presence beside him until the rain suddenly stopped hitting him.
Alfred blinked and titled his head upward in confusion just to see his vision of the cloudy sky is covered by a pale blue stretch of umbrella. When he saw who was holding said umbrella to him, he shocked to meet a pair of vivid green eyes of a certain Briton.
"It's not like I particularly care for you." He said blandly as he handed the umbrella to Alfred "But our school has a reputation to uphold in the football competition next week and we can't afford to have you sick." Was the explanation he gave before walking down the sidewalk in the rain, drenching his previously pristine uniform.
Before he can shout at him and make him take back the umbrella a particularly fast car went pass him and splattered unmentionable and unidentifiable on his shoes. In the stretch of two seconds that his attention snapped to the considering cursing the car for all its worth and his pitiful brand new shoes, Arthur has disappeared just like their first meeting.
Alfred was left scowling in frustration at nothing.
It was one of the only times he can meet eye-to-eye Arthur discounting the time he saw the other boy on the boy in hallway but last wasn't quick enough to catch him and return the umbrella that is still in possession. He found himself saved by the umbrella from a few surprise attacks by Mother Nature because he now always brought it with him to school so he can return it. Matthew thought he actually learnt his lesson about going unprepared, so he didn't tell him the real reason behind him always bringing it to get his twin off his back.
And yet it seems like Arthur already get a new umbrella if the one he saw walking down the rose garden in the middle of a cloudburst with lime green umbrella is him. He debated for a few days whether or not to return the azure one still in his possession because it seems like the owner didn't particularly want nor need it back, heck he seems like he forgot that he lets Alfred borrow it. But he decided to return it anyway because it was the right thing to do.
And yet, despite his determination, he can never seem to catch the ever elusive upper class man and when he did, he didn't bring the umbrella with him. It was frustrating to say at least. He can still remember one lunch break when he finally caught the boy and having him gazing at him flailing in frustration because he forgot that he's not bringing the umbrella to the cafeteria.
The next two weeks Alfred brought the dang thing everywhere he goes just in case he caught up with the other boy again. But the odds are not on his side, because the moment he thought he saw a flash of that ash blonde hair they would disappear on the next second. Going straight to Arthur's classroom were also always a vain attempt, apparently he skips classes like Alfred's flat neighbour eat pasta. It seems like Alfred's assessment of him being a delinquent is not that far off the mark after all.
When Graduation came around, Alfred thought that he might never see that boy again. By then he already very dang near on giving up to return the umbrella, the only reason he's of bringing it today is out of the habit he developed in last four months of his vain attempt of trying to capture Arthur.
At the ceremony, Alfred just zoned out on anything said on stage, preferring to whisper jokes with his football mates and only temporarily shut up when teachers start to send glares their way just to start up again in a few minutes. However, when the valedictorian was called up Alfred snapped his head up stage and consequently ignoring Matthias' joke about blonde girls, hoping to catch the sight of a certain blonde that he has been chasing for four months.
Wow, that comes out so wrong.
Alfred's forehead creased in confusion when instead of the Briton he was expecting, Roderich stepped up on stage. Vash, the football manager, noticed his confusion and explained why it's not Arthur up there. Apparently, said boy refused the position of valedictorian despite being the school's number one student and left the position to Roderich, who only have three days to prepare the speech. Poor guy. His pride must be bruised as hell along with his time for beauty sleep.
As he was forced to endure the boring speeches by Roderich and the principal so that he can properly congratulate his football captain for his graduation, his eyes caught the sight of that unmistakable mess of ash blond hair.
The revelation that Arthur didn't skip this event like he usually did with whatever the school pull out make him jittery for the rest of the ceremony. He even stole out into the hallway at one point to grab the master-forsaken umbrella and return back to his seat in record time.
When one by one student began to step up to the stage to receive their degree, it was all Alfred could do to stop himself from jumping nervously on the spot despite the looks he received from students and parents alike. Even Matthew seems to be considering knocking him out to stop him bouncing on his seat like a puppy in sugar high.
When proud graduate made their way to their family to show off the result of three years of gruelling torture known as high school, Alfred finally shot out of his seat and made a beeline for Arthur who stood all by himself, alone in the middle of the crowd.
"Arthur!" He called out when he was in shouting distance, turning a few heads to his direction. "Congratulation on graduating!"
Arthur seemed surprised when Alfred halted in front of him, grinning so wide you'd think you can see the sunlight glinting off of his teeth. Arthur, however, only raised an eyebrow.
"Thank you, that is very kind of you. However, to what do I owe the pleasure, Jones?"
"Wow, you're so stiff. Who shoved a stick up your ass?" Alfred chuckled to what he thought was a good joke, not noticing how a certain Briton's eyebrow twitched in annoyance. "Anyway, why are you all alone here? Where is your family? Girlfriend?"
"For the record, I don't have a girlfriend nor do I intent to look for one." He huffed "And my family is unable to cross the sea only for this occasion."
"Does that mean your family is still in the U.K.?" Alfred asked as he followed Arthur who briskly walked away. Is that a pout or a frown he saw shadowing Arthur's face?
"Yes. They are." He answered curtly. Oh it was a frown after all. Bummer.
"Wow that must be tough for you." Alfred replied as he finally caught up with the graduate, long legs made him fall into Arthur's fast pace easily. "You got to Winchester High by scholarship, right?"
"In fact, I did." Arthur sighed in exasperation. Five seconds in and he's already tired from hearing this boy's loud voice. "Otherwise, my mother would not have been able to pay for my tuition here."
"You're the same as me then! Me and Matthew also got here by luck, what with or parents farmers and all." The younger boy chuckled as they passed the clusters of people, heading straight to the patio. Alfred had to wonder what it is with Arthur and patios, remembering his brief meeting with Arthur at prom. "I mean, farmers are the most awesomest job ever, you got to ride horses all day long and all that jazz, but apparently my parents wanted higher education for us so that we can have better future than them. Although I always envisioned taking over the farm, you know? Sunlight and outdoor and all that."
Along his chatter, their steps have slowed as Arthur finally paid more attention to the boy beside him and his words. "But with knowledge you can better your farm, can't you? You can install automatic and hygienic machines, better soil panning and animal care for the herds."
"You're right, that's actually where I want to direct my studies to, but you know I've wanted to become an astronaut after watching a sci-fi movie. It just sounds awesome!" Alfred chattered with enthusiasm. Arthur shot him an amused glance, the first reaction from him that wasn't stilted or annoyed.
"Astronauts are not as easy a job as the movies made them to be. I heard they have to put their feces I plastic bags." Arthur shot back with an amused smile at the sinking horror and disgust on Alfred's face.
"What? Dude, no! That information was like a millennium late! Now they got this multi-billion toilet installed!"
"Really? Hmm, I guess my knowledge of astronaut life is a bit outdated." Arthur tapped his lips, seemingly decided to stop teasing the younger boy.
"Yes you should, because farmer and astronaut is the best profession ever." Alfred answered with a slight pout that drew a chuckle from the older boy.
"Farmer and astronaut? That's an interesting combination." Arthur remarked.
"Well, without astronaut we won't know what's out there, you know? And without farmer the whole human race would go extinct from starvation, so there!" the boy crossed his arms and puffed his chest in pride, earning an exasperated eye roll from his companion.
"How do people stand gits like you on daily basis?" the older boy mumbled to himself before speaking aloud "Well, you have a fair point. But saying that the whole human race will go extinct is a bit overboard, don't you think?"
"What is true is true." Alfred nodded sagely with a satisfied smile as he uncrossed his arm, only then he noticed the object he has been holding on for the whole conversation. Force of a habit is something to be reckoned. "Oh, and here you go. I almost forgot."
"This is…" Arthur trailed off as he accepted the pale blue umbrella from Alfred, scrutinizing it like it was fine china to be appraised.
"The umbrella you let me borrow months ago, remember? I know you already got a new one and all, but I want you to have it back."
Right now they are standing face-to-face in the empty patio, one clutching a blue umbrella and the other scratching the back of his non-itchy head. Finally, Arthur smiled widely at him, t was an honest, dazzling smile that squinted his vivid green eyes and took away Alfred's breath.
"Thank you, Alfred."
He can never forget how Arthur smiled that day as they exchanged pleasantries and shared plans for university. He looks as if Alfred has saved him from an absolute loneliness.
At that chance, Alfred learned that despite being branded as the enigma of the school, Arthur is quite normal, if easily irritated and seems to possess a certain degree of hot temperament that was easily riled up with the simplest of word, like, for example, his uniquely impressive eyebrows.
After Graduation, Alfred really thought he would never see the other boy again. But six months later, he was proved wrong for he saw that familiar painfully vivid green eyes once again gazing straight at him with a familiar pale blue umbrella and long black cloak over a suit. The sound of rain is deafening as he stood still with his clear vinyl umbrella, meeting the boy's gaze with his blank ones.
Arthur moved to stand beside him without breeching his personal space, a silent gesture of comfort that he accepted with gratitude for it was vastly different from the pitying eyes and comforting words threaded with lies that he received.
He found it ironic that the first time he can be in Arthur presence for an extended period of time is here, standing together beneath the mourning rain in front of his twin brother's casket.
When the first tear fell and the umbrella fell from his hand, Arthur was there, dropping his own umbrella for the sake of pulling him into a warm embrace as he sobbed into the arms of an unknown boy who doesn't whisper empty words of comfort but just rocked him under the rain like the warmth of a mother Alfred never really known.
Arthur stayed beside him as the priest said words of encouragement to the family left behind, as he was called for a speech he can barely manage through the tears that nearly choked him and as the casket was lowered into the damp ground, tearing his other half away from him forever.
A stray bullet took his brother from Alfred. It was just another typical night when Alfred demanded Mac Donald's for dinner and his brother finally relenting under his puppy eyes. They were supposed to eat in peace while teasing each other and return home, just another night out of the many. But as they walked to of the fast food joint and to their car, a gunshot went off. Just when he whirled around to locate the source, he saw his twin kneeling on the ground, violet eyes wide with his hand pressed to his chest where red steadily bloomed.
Alfred remembered the cold dread that filled him and the scream that scratched past his throat when his brother went limp in his arms.
The ambulance never came fast enough.
He sobbed into Arthur's coat, unwilling to let him go.
~To Be Continued~