Disclaimer: All the characters are Hidekazu Himaruya's.

A/N: I made two small alterations to the first chapter to make the idea (hopefully) more clear. But, here is the second chapter with Ludwig's point of view, introducing Gilbert.

Bruder = brother (German)

Lutz = Ludwig's diminutive form

Hope you like!

CHAPTER TWO – LUDWIG

"Bruder! I'm home." Ludwig closed the door behind him and stepped into the dark, small hall. "Bruder?"

"Hey, Lutz, come here!" Gilbert yelled from his room as his voice sounded muffled.

"Yeah, coming", Ludwig half-shouted half-muttered and ventured into the kitchen. It was cold and clean and looked unused which meant Gilbert hadn't cooked like he was supposed to. Ludwig stopped to sigh and place his bag to the kitchen table before he continued to Gilbert's room. "Gilbert", he knocked and entered.

Gilbert was sitting at the computer looking through the web pages of an amusement park. "Hi Lutz", he grinned over his shoulder. "Finally home."

"You haven't cooked", Ludwig said from the doorway and Gilbert winced guiltily.

"I kinda forgot…" Gilbert shrugged.

Ludwig shook his head. "I'll cook, then."

"Het, hey, I can do it!" Gilbert yelped and closed his laptop before hurrying after Ludwig. "I'm older: I'm supposed to take care of you."

"Even when we're both adults."

"Eighteen's just a kid to me, Lutz."

Once they had started cooking – Ludwig had insisted on helping because he knew Gilbert cooking alone usually meant disaster – Ludwig suddenly remembered Gilbert had asked him to come to his room like there was something important he wanted to tell. "Did you want to tell me something, Bruder?"

"Huh?" Gilbert looked at Ludwig from the onion he was chopping. "Oh, yeah." He grinned and some tears fell from his eyes because of the onion. "Guess who replied?"

"You got a job?" Ludwig asked hoping for the best. He was always telling Gilbert to apply for all jobs he just could to get at least one but he had a feeling Gilbert didn't actually do as he advised.

Gilbert's face fell and he wiped some of the onion-caused tears from his cheeks. "No, not that. Matthew."

"Matthew? Your pen pal?" Ludwig only remembered Matthew because Gilbert talked about him nearly every day. Ludwig still didn't know exactly how they had met – it happened over the Internet was as much as he knew – but they apparently kept in touch rather often, sometimes mailing several times a day.

"Yeah. I send him my pic and now he sent his."

"Oh." Ludwig glanced at Gilbert and despite him grimacing and squinting his eyes because the onion made them sting Ludwig could see he was happy. "So, um, what does he look like?"

"He's", Gilbert sniffed – again thanks to the onion, why else – "he's got dark blonde hair and one freaky hair stuck up. And he's kinda tan and got blue eyes and glasses."

"And?" asked Ludwig sensing there was something else.

"And what?" asked Gilbert but answered himself: "He doesn't really look like himself."

"How so?" asked Ludwig as Gilbert added the onion to the frying pan.

"I mean", Gilbert said, "he's said he's shy and it took me months to get him to meet me, but he doesn't look shy."

"Well, people don't always look like what they really are."

"Yeah, you don't look like a loving boyfriend, either", Gilbert chuckled. Ludwig blushed. Gilbert constantly had to comment at him for acting so soft with Feliciano, not that they were more than friends.

"How doesn't he look shy then?" Ludwig asked averting the topic away from Feliciano.

"Well, the pic he sent me… He just looks so loud and confident! Almost like the awesome me", Gilbert added quickly. Ludwig glanced at Gilbert poking the sauce on the pan. If he knew anything about his older brother, Gilbert was still happy about the reply but his ego was shaken because Mathias – that was his name, right? – didn't look like he had imagined. "But I guess it's 'cause the pic's from their birthday party and he was drunk then", Gilbert shrugged it off. "Did you put salt in this?"

"Yes. Let it simmer now."

They didn't talk about Gilbert's pen pal until after dinner when Ludwig asked when they would meet. He was thinking about cleaning the house thoroughly when Gilbert wasn't there to slow him down.

"Next Saturday", said Gilbert rinsing his plate. It looked like he had finally learned to rinse his plate after eating. "I'll probably be there most of the day so you can call Feli over."

Again with Feliciano. Ludwig blushed at the mention of his friend – it really wasn't anything more than friendship – and tried to steer the topic back in place with the first question he could think of: "What photo did you send him?"

"Come and I'll show you." Gilbert was excited again and went to his room.

Ludwig cleared the table and followed him in a moment and found his older brother already at his laptop. "I hope it was a decent photo", Ludwig said. Knowing his brother decent photos of him were few and far between.

"Of course!" Gilbert claimed with a mischievous grin that didn't exactly support his statement. "Look, it's this one." He clicked open a file titled to_matt and – "Oh shit."

Ludwig could only agree. The photograph of Gilbert that he had sent to Matthew was not exactly a photograph of Gilbert but of Ludwig and Feliciano. "You sent this to him?" Ludwig couldn't believe his eyes.

"Oh shit", was all Gilbert said. "Fuck."

"Come on, Bruder. You've still got time", Ludwig tried consoling his brother though he didn't exactly know how to do it. "It's only Thursday. You can still tell him you accidentally sent him my photo instead.

"I can't".

"Yes you can."

"No, I mean", Gilbert turned around on his chair and Ludwig saw he was both annoyed and shocked, "he said he won't be able to check his e-mail until Saturday evening.

Ludwig thought for a moment. "Send a correction e-mail anyways: it's only polite and he'll understand you better afterwards. And maybe he suddenly has time to check his e-mail."

"Alright." Gilbert turned around and with care he sought out the photograph he had meant to send. It was right under the wrong photograph and it had him and Francis sitting on their sofa and looking sober enough: it was a rather decent photo after all. He wrote a short e-mail to Mike – that was his name, right? – and sent it.

Ludwig was by his side watching as he wrote. "What are you going to do on Saturday?"

"I dunno."

Ludwig looked at his brother. His voice was unusually quiet. "Can you just go to him and introduce yourself and tell what happened?"

"He's a shy guy: he'll run away the moment he sees a stranger approaching."

Ludwig could tell Gilbert was down about this turn of events. He had been so excited over finally meeting his pen pal and now all seemed to go down the drain because of a simple mistake.

"What if I come with you to talk to him?" suggested Ludwig. He really wanted to find a solution to this.

"I told you he's shy. He'll run twice as hard if he sees two guys approaching, even if he recognizes the other."

"Then…" Ludwig didn't have more ideas. Well, kidnapping Matt – that was his name, right? – to tell him what had happened was one, but he didn't dare say it out loud in case Gilbert resorted to it. "We'll think of something, Bruder." At least he hoped so.