Matthew snapped awake at the sound of his alarm clock. He was very tempted to turn it off and stay in bed; to finally succumb to his pain, but Arthur would worry about his 'education' and make him get up anyways.
Matthew was a smart kid; he made almost perfect grades, but he was costantly stressed about his future and everyone around him, so as his final school year continued, he found it harder and harder to keep his grades up. To Francis, that meant no more skipping school days. But he never really enforced the 'go to school' rule with Alfred, and that bothered him. Alfred would probably lay in bed for another hour or so before even waking up, and then it was up to him if he decided that he wanted to go to school or not. Arthur always tried to get him to go, but Alfred had a way of using his words to get under Arthur's skin. It always made him stop talking.
He pushed himself out of his bed, sighing loudly as he reached into his dresser and pulled out his favorite hoodie. It was red with a white maple leaf on the front. He knew that he was from Canada, so he thought that he should have something relating to his home land. However, he remembered nothing of his birth place, and only remembers his mom's face because of the few visits he had with her during his life.
Arthur was from London, England, and Francis was from France, obviously. He just never told where specifically for some reason. Alfred was born here in America, and was given up for adoption almost immediately after he was born. He never saw his parents again.
Matthew put on his pants, which were thrown onto the floor at the edge of his bed and picked up his phone before heading into the bathroom in the hall.
He had a message from Ivan, so he answered it as he closed the bathroom door.
You don't have a fear of animals, do ya?
No. No, I love animals. Why? Do you have some?
He set his phone down on the sink's counter and glanced at his reflection in the mirror. He stood there, staring at his own face. He wasn't sure if he liked what he saw.
He never looked tired. He didn't today, but something was off. He looked like he'd seen hell.
It was strange, since nothing serious had happened to him lately.
His phone's loud buzz startled him. He looked down and quickly flipped open his phone to reply. He glanced at the time and realized that his alarm didn't go off at the right time, or he had been staring at himself for ten minutes straight.
Ivan said he had a dog and a cat, and sent a picture of them both, fighting for the same toy or something.
"Him and his fancy phone... Sending high quality pictures... Whatever." Matthew muttered as he set his older type of phone down to brush his teeth and fix his hair.
When he was finally done in the bathroom, he rubbed his eyes again, trying to get the thoughts of sleep out of his mind as he walked down the hallway. When he got to the living room, which was across from the kitchen, he stopped in his tracks quietly.
Francis was just sprawled on the couch, watching a very sensual type of movie with no concern for Matthew's presence. He didn't remember Francis coming home last night, not even for dinner.
Matthew started to feel his face heat up because of the movie, so he quickly walked into the kitchen to find some pancakes for breakfast.
He didn't find any. He was half tempted to just drink some syrup and call it breakfast, but he needed to get walking soon, unless he wanted to be late.
He gave Francis one last glance before heading out the door.
He lives about ten minutes from his school, and luckily no one had bothered him on his way there. Usually one of Alfred's buddies rode up to him in their car, taunting him until another car came up from behind.
When he got to the school, he went directly to his first bell. It's not like he had any friends to talk to in the hallways, so he sat at his seat quietly. He played on his phone, conversing with Ivan before the bell rang.
The first three classes went by without any problems, other than something hitting him in the back of the head when he left first period. He ignored it, but took notice of who threw it. One of Alfred's friends, Xiao Wang, a transfer student from China. The main people Alfred hung out with weren't even from America. He had long redish-brown hair that he kept back in a ponytail all the time, and wore these red contacts that always creeped out Matthew.
In fact, a lot of Alfred's friends did stuff like that. Mainly Kuro, Lutz, Luciano, and Gilbert, except Gilbert had the exception of having actual red eyes. The red contacts must be their little group's 'thing' because of Gilbert.
Matthew sat in his fourth period class, sneaking texts to Ivan when the teacher was turned towards the board.
Next was lunch. He sat by himself every day, and didn't eat anything either. He felt Alfred's group staring at him as he typed away at his phone.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Gilbert stand up, and immediately wanted to run. But where could he go? They were in the cafeteria and he couldn't leave until the bell rang. Gilbert and Lutz were often the ones to beat him up, as the other three stood by to watch and taunt.
Panicking, he shoved his phone into his pocket as Gilbert approached him. He pulled another chair and flipped it so that he was facing the wrong way on it. Gilbert got right in Matthew's face, smiling. He pushed some of his white hair out of his face, before crossing his arms on the top of the chair.
"So, Mattie, how've you been?" His German accent mixed with his rough voice always sounded scary to Matthew.
"I-I'm fine. Thanks for asking-"
"Where's your brother?"
Matthew didn't answer at first. He wanted to just be a smart ass, for once, but was too scared. He didn't really understand why Gilbert would even care if Alfred was here or not, since it seemed he was the leader, not Alfred, or even Lutz. Alfred and Lutz always got into fights, and you could see the hatred Kuro had for Alfred at first glance, but he was too composed to ever fight. Matthew could never wrap his head around why he remained friends with them.
"He's probably still at home. I don't know." Matthew answered uncomfortably. He was never sure how things would turn out with Gilbert. Their confrontations could either get Matthew beaten up or left traumatized, but unscathed.
Gilbert made a sound of acknowledgement before standing up and strolling back to his original table.
Matthew stared at them for a few seconds before pulling his phone out again. He knew that Lutz and Gilbert were brothers, but it didn't seem that way. They weren't really like each other, and not just because of Gilbert's appearance. Gilbert was louder and way ruder than Lutz.
Only three more periods, then I can go to Ivan's house.
Slowly, those three periods came and went, and the final school bell rang.
Matthew practically ran out of his last classroom, apologizing to the random people he shoved as he ran towards the doors.
Once outside, he made sure to spot Alfred's friends so that he could avoid him. Since school was out and it was Friday, the school board wouldn't care what they did to Matthew, even if it was right outside the school.
Yeah, Matthew really liked his school.
They were standing under a tree, two of them smoking, huddled around to talk. As Matthew walked in the other direction, he kept looking back to make sure they didn't follow him. As soon as he turned around, he noticed that Luciano was looking right at him.
Whirling around, he quickened his face and hoped that he wouldn't tell the others he spotted him.
Matthew shut the door to his house, which was unlocked, and sighed happily. Luciano was nice enough to keep his mouth shut, something that Matthew was grateful for. He looked to the couch, where Francis still laid. He was passed out, probably drunk.
Matthew walked past him to turn the tv off.
If he's not watching it, why waste electricity? Matthew thought. As he passed by Francis again, he noticed that his hair looked longer than before and he hadn't shaved in a while.
Matthew's never had to shave before, but he didn't mind. He'd look weird with a beard.
Matthew walked down the hall quietly, checking upstairs to see if Arthur was up there. He wasn't, so Matthew shrugged it off and went to his room. Passing by Alfred's room, he heard the gunshots from the game he was playing, so obviously he was awake.
When he got into his room, he set his backpack on his bed, sighing heavily. Then he shut his door to put on a different tank top underneath his hoodie. He had decided during art class to take it off so paint wouldn't get on it. He made a good choice, because pink lines ran down the back of his shirt since someone thought it would be funny to draw a penis on him. He put on a new white one and then put his red hoodie back on.
When he was done changing, he texted Ivan to tell him he was coming over.
He tossed his dirty shirt into the laundry bin at the other end of the hallway and made sure to leave a note for someone to find before heading outside. Arthur didn't have a phone, so he couldn't leave a text, and trying to call the home phone was useless if Francis was the only one home. He never answered it. Alfred would just ignore him if he tried to tell him.
Ivan had texted him his address, so Matthew figured he'd be walking for about fifteen minutes.
But he didn't get very far before Alfred's crew showed up.
