Well, it took me long enough to update this... But now I am back, and I hope to update this fic weekly until WiB resumes, at which point this fic will either be complete, or be continued as a secondary project.

That being said, on to the chapter!


Chapter Two: Friend

Eduard watched, waited, wondered why it was that everyone in this neighborhood was older than him, already had friends, or wanted nothing to do with him.

The three oldest boys-Gilbert, Francis, and Antonio-were always together. There was an Italian boy, Lovino, who was Eduard's age and stayed by himself for the most part, but who appeared to have some sort of love-hate relationship with Antonio. Lovino's little brother, Feliciano, was around eight years old and quite outgoing, but he appeared to be permanently attached to Gilbert's twelve year old brother, Ludwig.

This, as far as Eduard could tell, made up the neighborhood. For a time, he tried to make friends with the others, specifically the equally isolated Lovino, but found his attempts rebuffed at every turn. Lovino seemed utterly uninterested in being on good terms with anyone, including Antonio, whom he only occasionally tolerated.

Sometimes Eduard thought he heard a child crying in the house to the left of his own. But there were no children in that house, no one at all except for a severe, rather frightening woman, whom all of the neighborhood children avoided.

The house on the right of his was empty, and it had been empty since long before his family had moved in, Feliciano had informed him at their first meeting.

Eduard took to reading as an escape from his loneliness. He had moved to the neighborhood in late summer, and he spent much of the autumn and winter indoors or at school, always carrying a book. He read more that winter than he had ever read in his life before, and he began to rely on carrying a book even in social situations, as a distraction from what seemed to be a constant loneliness. His mother seemed concerned for him, but Eduard was not concerned for himself, except for one day when it snowed and he watched the others take their sleds up to the hill behind Gilbert and Ludwig's house.

He sat at his window, his book lying forgotten next to him, and watched the others, noting that Feliciano seemed frightened of the tall hill and the quick ride down, refusing to touch a sled without Ludwig or Lovino holding his hand. He thought that Lovino might be scared, too, but that the older boy was trying very hard not to show his fear.

"Eddy!"

His mother's voice, the tone she always used when she was concerned for him. Eduard sighed, knowing full well what was coming. He glanced ruefully at his book, and then ran downstairs to his mother, who was standing at the bottom of the stairwell, looking up at him.

"Why don't you go out and play with the other kids, sweetie?" his mother asked. "They're all outside sledding."

"I don't have a sled," Eduard murmured.

"And they don't want or need me. They all care about each other already, so there's no reason for them to include someone like me. Apparently nerds are not socially accepted in elementary and middle school circles."

"I'm sure they'll share with you." His mother's smile was so warm, so hopeful. "Go play with them, Ed."

He went reluctantly, wrapping a scarf round his neck, pulling on his mittens as he trundled out into the snow. For a moment, faced with a bright, sparkling wonderland, Eduard felt lighter, happier, almost hopeful.

"Maybe today will be the day that I won't be lonely anymore!"

His steps quickened, small feet in black snow boots hurrying across the snow toward the hill. He stopped at the bottom, looked up, closing his eyes for a moment and enjoying the cold air on his face.

"Hey! Hey you! You standing there! Hey, are you listening? Open your eyes!"

Gilbert Beilschmidt's shouts reached Eduard a few seconds too late. The blond boy's eyes snapped open, just in time for him to see a sled hurtling toward him, with a shrieking Lovino Vargas clinging to Gilbert for dear life.

The sled knocked Eduard off his feet, and he found himself lying in the snow, fighting back tears as pain shot through his small body.

"I told you to move," Gilbert said, frowning. "If you can't listen then you should stay out of the way. Stupid tiny nerd."

After that, Eduard pretended not to hear when his mother told him to go outside and play. There was no one to play with, and the last thing he wanted was to be hit with another sled.

Gilbert's words still echoed in his mind, and he wondered if they were merely the words of an older brother, habitually annoyed by the stupidity of younger children, or the words of someone who hated him. He realized that he did not know the difference, and, in a way, the not knowing was frightening.


Finally, mercifully, spring came, and Eduard could read outside again. He sat on the front steps of his house, his head always bent over his book. He was watchful, however, and he saw how the neighborhood children passed by, pretending not to see him. Feliciano and Antonio sometimes cast him friendly, if pitying glances, but he pretended not to notice. He did not want pity. He wanted a friend who would be his friend for friendship's sake, and although Antonio sometimes stopped to talk to him, he knew that it was not because the older boy really wanted to be his friend. Antonio was friendly to everyone, and so he even stopped to talk to the tiny, pitiful boy who sat alone on the front steps.

In May, only a few weeks before the end of the school year, a moving van arrived at the house on the right of Eduard's, the house which had sat empty for so long. The moving van arrived first, and a few hours later, a car arrived. A man had driven the moving van, but it was a woman who pulled up in the car, and there was a little boy with her.

The boy had blond hair and violet eyes, and Eduard, who was eleven now, thought that the marginally chubby blond boy was one of the cutest people he had ever seen. He could not decide if this was a normal thought or not, and while he was pondering it, he looked up to find the stranger grinning at him.

There was no malice and no pity in the strange boy's gaze, merely an open, carefree friendliness.

Cautiously, Eduard put his book down and began walking across the grass toward the new neighbors' house. He half-expected Gilbert to come flying out of nowhere on a sled, but he reached the next yard with his entire body intact, and found himself facing a smiling boy.

"I'm Tino!" the stranger chirped, sticking out his hand. "It's nice to meet you, um…?""

"E-Eduard." It had been so long since he had tried to introduce himself to someone without a parent by his side that his voice shook uncontrollably, but Tino did not seem to notice, merely smiled wider.

"Do you live in that house? Okay, good. You know, some people don't live in the same house all the time, so I wanted to check. Also, if you were visiting, that would have been some rotten luck for me, huh? I meet someone on my first day here and he's only visiting. But as long as you live here, I'm glad!"

"A-are you saying you want to be my friend?" Eduard stammered.

"Surely not. There's no possible way that someone…would want to be my friend. Is there?"

Tino cocked his head.

"Is that okay? I mean, if it's not okay, then it's not okay, and that's okay…"

"N-No!" The loudness of Eduard's cry seemed to startle both Tino and his mother, and the bespectacled boy felt his cheeks grow hot with embarrassment.

"No," he repeated, his voice barely audible now. "Please don't go. I want you to be my friend, if it's okay with you."

Tino grinned, violet eyes fairly beaming with excitement.

"This is really great! I thought it would be hard to make friends here, but I pretty much met someone right away! That's really great, isn't it?"

"Y-yeah," Eduard murmured. "Yeah, it is."

"Be glad that no one in this neighborhood was lonely when I came here, Tino. As much as I hate to admit it… If you had moved here, and I had already had a friend, I would certainly have never come over here to make friends with you. But… I think I'm glad I did. If you stay, I won't be alone anymore."


Raivis watched from his window all through the winter and into the spring, watching Eduard whenever he could, watching the others when he could not. Eduard remained his favorite person, but he could not often observe the bespectacled boy, who was almost constantly inside during the winter months. And when Eduard was inside, the window to his room, which was directly across from Raivis', seemed to always be closed, with the curtains drawn.

Raivis' room was an unused bedroom, which, had any visitor looked inside, would have looked utterly deserted. There were boxes piled around the room, and at the center of the pile of boxes, placed in such a way that a thin, almost unseen pathway ran through them, was Raivis' bed.

It was a pile of blankets in the midst of the boxes, which looked as if it ought to have been home to some sort of pet, not to a little boy. It was here that Raivis slept, here that he was expected to stay.

He had created another pathway through the boxes, from his bed to the window, and it was at the window that he stayed whenever his mother locked him in his room. He was not supposed to leave his room at all, but his mother sometimes brought him food, and there were times, very rarely, when she left his door unlocked.

At these times, Raivis waited until she had left to do whatever it was that human beings did in the outside world. Then, quiet and unseen, he snuck out of his room into the empty house.

He had not been allowed outside of his room for a long time, but he did sneak out sometimes, although he rarely snuck downstairs. Downstairs was forbidden, and he would doubtless be forced to go a long time without food or water if he was caught downstairs. Being caught upstairs and out of his room was a comparatively minor offense, but nonetheless, he was careful not to be caught. Being caught would earn him a beating and another reminder that he was ugly, that ugly things had to be hidden.

He wondered if there were any other ugly children in the world. Perhaps there were more on his street, perhaps their mommies, too, kept them inside, where no one in the world would see them and hate their ugliness.

He did not know if there were more creatures like him, but he did know that he liked watching the people outside, especially the real children. Not being a real child himself, Raivis liked to watch them.

"Maybe if I watch long enough, I'll learn to be beautiful," he mused, sitting at the front window, watching the house next door. Eduard was sitting outside, reading.

"I don't know how to do that thing. Would Mommy like me if I could read books? I don't have any books. Mommy doesn't let me have them, since books aren't things for ugly creatures. No pretty things for ugly creatures, but I can't learn to be beautiful unless I see what beautiful means, can I?"

He sighed wistfully, watching Eduard, marveling at how quickly the other boy could scan the pages of the book, at the wideness of Eduard's eyes, the way he gasped at certain points and laughed at others.

"Books must be wonderful. Of course they are, if Eduard likes them. Everything Eduard likes is wonderful, isn't it? I wonder, if I was Eduard, would Mommy like me? Mommy's a little hard to understand sometimes. She acts like I could be beautiful if I tried harder, but I don't really understand how to be beautiful. I just know that if I'm good and beautiful, Mommy won't hit me anymore. But… I don't understand…"

Raivis was nine years old, now, and he could not tell how old Eduard was. He only knew that he, Raivis Galante, was nine. And he knew that Eduard had a new friend. He was glad for Eduard, who had always seemed very lonely, and he decided that he liked Eduard's other neighbor, who was running across Eduard's yard now.

"Tino. He is called Tino. He is something called Finnish and I think he is probably what Mommy would think of as beautiful. Not as beautiful as Eduard though. I think Eduard is the most beautiful thing of all. But Tino, since he's allowed outside… He must be beautiful. I wonder why I wasn't born beautiful. It sure seems like lots of people are beautiful…"

He smiled as Eduard and Tino came toward his window, along the sidewalk, probably headed for somewhere down the road. He knew that most of the children on his street went that way happily, as if there was something good in that direction, and he wanted to see what it was. He could not go outside, though, and even if he had dared to try, he would not have made it far. Even opening the window was overwhelming to him, for he had never set foot outside, rarely ever breathed fresh air and heard the birds sing.

Eduard and Tino were directly below him now, but Raivis' eyes followed Eduard alone. He noted that the blond boy's blue eyes were not as lonely or pained anymore, and he smiled, leaning his head on his hand.

"I'm very glad Eduard has a friend now. Since he's the most beautiful person of all, it wouldn't be fair for him to be alone. I wonder… Why is it that even beautiful people are sometimes alone?"

He did not know, but he knew for certain that Eduard was the most beautiful person that he knew. The older boy was nearly out of sight, now, but Raivis continued to stare after him, remembering the way Eduard smiled, shy and uncertain but with such honesty. He did not think that any real humans could lie, but with Eduard, at least, he was sure. Eduard could not lie.

Eduard and Tino were gone, now, and Raivis knew that they would not return for some time. He glanced at the clock, which read 3:37. He would not have time to wait for them to come back, for his mother returned home at 4:30, and if she were to catch him out of his room, he would surely be in deep trouble.

Smiling, Raivis slipped back to his room, weaving his way through the pile of boxes until he reached his bed. There, in the pile of blankets, he found his only toy, a tattered stuffed rabbit which he had carried with him since birth. His mother had given him no other plaything, saying that he did not even deserve one. Raivis hid the rabbit whenever his mother was at home-he could not risk losing his toy if she became angry. It was better to be beaten than to watch his mother destroy his only comfort. Tattered though it was, the soft grey rabbit was something that Raivis could hold, truly hold, as his own.

He could not hold Eduard; he did not deserve to hold Eduard or Tino or anyone else. This was why his mother never held him. He did not deserve to be held, but only be hurt.

But he wanted to pretend that he could become beautiful, good enough, and so he lay down, clutching his rabbit close to him, the bruises on his small body throbbing as he sought a comfortable position. Finally, he curled up, hugging his knees to his chest, the rabbit still clutched to his chest.

Raivis closed his eyes and drifted into his imaginary-world.

The sun is shining. I wake up and go downstairs, and Mommy is in the kitchen. I walk into the kitchen-not shaking, I don't ever shake around Mommy in imaginary-world. Mommy smiles.

"Good morning, Raivis."

"Good morning, Mommy," I say. I go sit at the table and Mommy comes a minute later and gives me orange juice and two chocolate chip muffins. She has some too, and we sit and eat and Mommy asks me what I want to do today.

"I'm going to play with Eduard and Tino."

Mommy doesn't say no, Mommy doesn't tell me I'm wrong to want to go play with beautiful children, when I'm just an ugly, not-beautiful thing. Mommy smiles again. Mommy has the most beautiful smile ever.

"All right, Raivis," she says. "Have fun, be safe, and come home in time for lunch, okay?"

"Okay!" I say, and I run out the door with my last muffin in my hand. And Mommy doesn't yell at me to come back, she just laughs and smiles at me.

Eduard is waiting outside for me, reading a really big book. I know how to read in imaginary-world, so I look over his shoulder and understand the words in the book. Eduard looks up and smiles at me. He closes his book, and right as he stands up, Tino comes running down the sidewalk to meet us. And all three of us go to whatever is down the road, out of sight, because in imaginary-world, going to that place is okay for me. Mommy is not mad at me; she's watching from the window and she waves as we walk by.

And in imaginary-world, Mommy does not shout at me, Eduard is my best friend, and I am beautiful.


Things Shadow is not sure how to write: scenes not involving large amounts of angst and torture, Tino, and Raivis' imaginary-world. This was an interesting chapter to write, but hopefully I did okay?

The next few chapters will be structured about the way this one is, switching between Eduard and Raivis' point of view. Pretty soon, though, things will get more interesting. Thank you for reading this story so far; I really appreciate it! :)