GAH! I'm so nervous to post this…..
Thanks to everyone who reviewed! It was majority awesome, I freaked out about everyone of them :3. So, someone asked if Romania was really taking notes in class. The answer to that will be explained a bit later.
So far, I have plans to have chapter 3 up by this weekend.
Aaaaaand….hmm…nope that's about all I can remember to address at the moment. Hope you enjoy this one, and sorry if this entire things seems to be moving at a snail's pace, I apologize for that…I'm either a really rushed writer or a really slow one.
So, enjoy….
Nikolai leaned against a pole on the train, ignoring how difficult it was to stay standing as the train rocked and went over bumps. The movements did bother him but he cared more about the fact he was attempting to text his thoroughly enraged girlfriend, who'd just sent him a text threatening to set his house aflame.
'She's really pissed this time.'
'Look, I'm sorry. I didn't hear what she said until you got mad. I was talking with Miles,' Bulgaria sent back. He had, in fact, heard what was said and just had hoped to get away from getting involved in the conversation.
Wrong choice, obviously.
'So now I have to get mad before you decide to stick up for me? What the hell kind of bullshit is that!'
'It was kind of true...'
'Kinda' was the understatement of the century there. Vladamira, Miles' girlfriend, had merely pointed out that Milica was just being a demanding, moody, bitch. Vladamira was the only one who ever actually gave Milica what she dished out right back at her. The only notable physical difference between the two was that Vladamira's hair was more of a dull-gray in contrast to that of Milica's and Croatia's, and was a good two feet longer than Milica's. The most notable social difference was that Vladamira actually acted sane towards her boyfriend and everyone else in the school. Nikolai had decided at the lunch table in a spout of rebellion, that he was now regretting, that if Milica didn't like it then she should change how she acted, not how he responded.
Of course he had never told her that to her face, and never would tell her that. And after having time to lose his little rebellious attitude, he instead replied with:
'No, I just have to be paying attention. I already apologized. I really am sorry.'
As soon as he put his phone in his pocket it began ringing with an incoming call. He didn't have to check to know it was Milica. No one else ever called him.
Nikolai waited until the call went through before taking out his phone and turning it off. 'That'll piss her off even more, but I don't want to hear it ringing all the way home and there's no way she'll stop calling until I answer if it goes through,' Nikolai thought bitterly, moving aside a bit so another person could grab onto the rail he had been leaning on.
It took Nikolai only a moment to realize the blonde next to him was the same annoying bastard he'd met in his first hour.
'Dont look at me. Ignore me. Ignor-.'
"Oh, hey Nikolai! I didn't know you rode the train home."
Nikolai cringed as Adrian began speaking in that sickeningly cheerful voice, going on about how the last time he rode the train he'd gotten off at the wrong stop and wound up walking over three miles home.
Nikolai contemplated getting off the train and just walking home from the next stop.
'My home's too far away from here….I won't make it before dark.'
Nikolai picked the lesser of the two evils and stayed on the train as it slowed to a stop and let people off. Unfortunately not too many seats were opened up by the people getting off at the unpopular stop and they were quickly filled by people tired of standing. Nikolai glared as a man, who had walked onto the train at the last stop, immediately sprang for one of the few empty seats.
'Selfish asshole..' Nikolai thought darkly, shifting his own tired and numbing legs.
"So where do you get off at? Wouldn't it be funny if we got off at the same stop? I live over on.."
'My god, doesn't this idiot realize I'm ignoring him? I haven't said two words to him since he started speaking. Actually, I haven't even spoken to him since he got on the train...Asshole…' Nikolai let his eyes fall shut to hide the dark glare he'd been giving the chatty boy, hoping he'd shut up once he did. Nikolai's eyebrow began twitching a bit as the blonde continued ranting on and on about his past experiences with trains.
'SHUT THE HELL UP!'
Nikolai was ready to stab Adrian for the second time that day when the train began to slow and the automated voice came on over the speaker.
"Bethalto Station. Please stand clear as the doors close."
"-and once I got there.. Oh, this is my stop. It was nice seeing you Nikolai, I'll see you in class tomorrow! I'll finish my story then."
'Oh god. Can I just die now,' he thought bitterly, refusing to address Adrian as he got off the bus and wondering if there was still time for him to change his first hour class. Only when he'd left the bus did Nikolai notice that this station was in the extremely dangerous part of town. Only seriously shady people lived here so what the hell was someone who went to his school doing getting off in this shit hole? Adrian didn't look badly dressed or stereotypically poor in the least. As a matter of fact, his hair seemed to resemble that of girls he knew spent hours doing their hair before school.
'Idiot probably got off at the wrong stop,' Nikolai thought, rolling his eyes as the doors closed and the train began moving again.
Nikolai moved to sit in a seat that had been freed up, but stopped when a very large and very scary looking man who'd gotten on the train at the last station gave him a look that threatened to tear him in half with his bear hands, before looking down at the seat Nikolai was about to take.
"Sorry.." Nikolai couldn't help but mutter the apology as he moved back to his pole. He stayed there the rest of the train ride. It was odd, but for the rest of the train ride he didn't think more than twice about his girlfriend and instead was heavily pondering why the hell Adrian got off at Bethalto and not in some respectable area of town. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't shake his curiosity over the matter.
"Huntsville station. Last stop of the day. Stand back while the doors open."
The sun was already on it's way down as Nikolai made his way down the street towards his house which was a small, rundown and quite dingy looking townhouse sandwiched in between two others just like it. It wasn't that he was poor, not in the least. His brother was just a scrooge and didn't spend money on anything other than beer and food.
It was cold outside, but not nearly as cold as it should be this time of the year-a month before spring officially started.
'Looks like rain... I'll have to bring some of the plants in,' Nikolai thought, looking up at the quite dreary looking sky and thinking about his quaint little garden he kept in his backyard.
"Oi! Nikolai! You got your house key? I gave mine to Kat."
'Of course you did you whipped asshole.'
"Yes, I have mine. I thought I told you to stop giving your key to people. I'm getting tired of changing the locks every time you break up with someone." Nikolai said, walking past his brother up the front stairs to their door.
Alesander was twenty one years old and had been taking care of Nikolai ever since they moved to the states for school. He had brown hair that was slightly longer and slightly messier that Nikolai's, and had brown eyes that matched Nikolai's exactly. He was nearly half a foot taller than Nikolai, and rubbed it in any chance he got. Alesander had graduated from Nikolai's high school two years ago and was now working as a secretary for a law firm in town. It was weird living with someone only five years older than you and still having to follow them like a parent, but Nikolai had learned to deal with it.
"I tried to call you but your phone was off. Trouble with the psychopathic girlfriend?" Alesander asked, standing behind Nikolai as he unlocked the front door to their apartment.
"Watch it, you'll wind up locked out all night," Nikolai growled in response, not even bothering to give Alesander the benefit of the doubt that he was just being conversational with him. Alesander had made fun of him for his relationship with Milica from the day he found out about it, and he brought it up any chance he got to do so.
"Whatever pipsqueak, like you could keep me out of the house. You can barely shut your own window without my help."
'That's because you bought a shitty house because it was cheap and next door to your girlfriend at the time.' "Whatever, did you already eat or do you want me to make something?" Nikolai offered, having to throw his weight against the door to get it open since it had an uncanny ability to get jammed every other day.
"Naw, I already ate with Kat. She's so nice, why don't you get a real girl like her? She has a sister you know."
"Yeah, no thank you. Milica's perfectly fine." 'Well, at least she's not batshit insane like Natalia.' Nikolai thought, taking off his backpack and putting his key back in his front pocket before going to the kitchen to get something to eat.
"Oh come on, Natalia isn't that bad," Alesander said as he flopped down lazily on the couch and turned on their very old and very cheap television.
"She's in love with her brother," Nikolai replied evenly, "How is that not that bad?"
He opened one the cabinets to get a cup for his water and cursed as the door fell right off the hinges and toppled to the ground. "Dammit Al, I thought you fixed this?"
Alesander waved his hand in dismissal, " I never said that I fixed it. I just stuck the door back on this morning so you'd stop bitching at me about it. I meant to do it before you got home, but I got caught up with…"
Nikolai stopped listening and just stepped over the broken door to the fridge to get his water before going upstairs.
"Hey, come watch TV with me!" Alesander whined, turning towards Nikolai as he went upstairs.
"Homework," Nikolai replied shortly without realizing he'd left his backpack downstairs.
Nikolai lay in his bed. Half asleep half awake as thunder rattled the panes on his window and lightening lit up his room every few minuets.
He hated storms. He had no idea why, he just did. He thought briefly about going to get his plants from outside, but then decided against it as another crack of lightening came followed by a loud rumble of thunder. He'd forgotten to get them while talking to Alesander this afternoon and hadn't felt like going back down there to do so since Katyusha came over and there wasn't a very high chance that they were just playing chess down there.
Since he knew he was not going to be able to go back to sleep, Nikolai decided that maybe it was time to respond to Milica. After all, maybe she'd calm down after six hours.
'Tch, wishful thinking.'
Using the blue glow of his alarm clock, which read two twenty-seven, Nikolai found his phone. He flipped it open and turned it back on.
Immediately it began to vibrate with signals from numerous messages, everyone of them from Milica.
'Answer your phone you bastard!' 4:13
'Are you ignoring me!' 4:15
'You turned your phone off again didn't you?' 4:20
'NIKOLAI, YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE! THE NEXT TIME I SEE YOU, YOU BETTER BE READY TO RUN LIKE HELL!' 5:02
'THAT'S IT! I'M COMING OVER THERE!' 5:36
'I had to tell her where I live…' Nikolai thought bitterly, wondering where Milica was as the last few messages came through his phone, all of them in all caps until he last one. The last one made Nikolai sit up a bit in bed to read it, not trusting what his eyes were seeing at the moment as he read it.
'Nikolai, I don't see what the point in our relationship is anymore. It's more than obvious I make you completely miserable. I feel like I've known since we first began going out that it wasn't going to work. I know you think I'm crazy and insane, but that's just how I am. Obviously you don't plan on coming to terms with that anytime soon and I have no plans to change anytime soon either, so I think it's best we stop confusing people and just get on with our lives.'
Nikolai had to read her message two times to make sure it was actually what he was reading before he processed what Milica had texted.
'It's kind of weird…I don't feel sad at all,' he thought to himself, locking his phone and setting it down on his bedside table.
"Do you even want to date me?" Milica had demanded this morning.
'No…I'm not sad….just…'
Nikolai lay back down on his bed, and stared up at the ceiling. Lightning still was flashing outside every few seconds, but Nikolai found that he really didn't care as much about it.
'Lonely….'
Now that Milica and he had broken up, that also broke off his friendship with Miles.
Nikolai was absolutely alone.
Sorry for not telling you in the first chapter but Milica is an OC, Serbia. I created her when I started writing the 100-prompt challenge so if your curious about her than I guess you could wait a few chapters or look at her character in that…it's pretty much the same.
Vladamira is also an OC and so is Miles. They're Slovenia and Croatia.
And Alesander isn't a country, he's just here for story purposes…everyone say 'hi Alesander'. :3
You probably already figured out who Kat was by the Natalia talk. I couldn't figure out which name to use for Belarus as I've seen it as Natalia, Natascha, Natasha, Natalie, and Natalya. The same thing with Ukraine, who's Kat or Katyusha (am I spelling that right? I believe so, I cant find it anywhere).
Milica will probably fade out of the picture as the story goes on, I do have plans for her in later chapters, but this story is mainly going to be focused around Bulgaria and Romania (Nikolai and Adrian)
Thanks bunches for reading!
~Alicia
