Musubi's Fried Rice Corner
I am so sorry this took so long to write. The part from when Matt and Al go to the garage to the end was rewritten like three times because the scenes wouldn't sit right. But, I managed to get something I'm happy with and I hope you're happy too. I fear that this chapter is just as long, if not longer than last, and I'm afraid it's not as humorous as last chapter. But in the end, I hope you're enjoying this as much as I am. So here's to chapter 2 and you guys!
Despite nearly being responsible for two deaths that afternoon, Alfred considerably enjoyed the rest of the day, especially when they opened presents. He received the Lego Movie Set from Jakob and while it was an old product, it was one he'd been longing to have for months. A Lego set designed for those with an eye for film composition. It came with a small computer camera, it's own editing program. Props, actors, dinosaurs, a stunt ramp for a car explosion! Heck, it even came with a little Steven Spielberg! It. Was. Awesome. One of the best part of the afternoon. No, the best part! It almost made up for his tearing of Arthur's sweater vest (though the thing needed to be destroyed; it made children smaller than he weep)
Mr. Williams patted his son on the head and had that beam in his eye. That beam that spoke volumes of pride, of glee mutely. "That's my son: movie producer, director, writer, star," Mr. Williams said to the other parents, as if they needed any reassurance that Alfred Franklin was his son, spitting image as he was. Mr. Williams hailed heritage to the Deep South and despite living in Yankee territory for fifteen years, still spoke with the silken word of the Mississippi Delta.
Alfred had to look up to see his father and smiled back, resulting in a hair ruffle. He caught a whiff of his father's cologne: woody, spicy, his dad.
As Matthew opened his gift (they'd been opening them sequentially so Mrs. Williams could take pictures and the children could ooh and ahh without being distracted), Alfred looked for his mother in the crowd of smiling parents. He caught her wavy blonde hair tied messily into a ponytail (but still able to look so elegant) at the end of the table. As far away from Dad as possible, Alfred noted quickly. Alfred tried to see her left hand, but there were too many people in the way for him to glance without being overly conspicuous. Was she wearing it today?
Matthew had ripped through the red wrapping paper on the long rectangle shaped box from Ice and Kris and was now clawing at the white box as if it had stolen his favorite bottle of imported Canadian syrup (his parents only bought it for him once a year; the stuff was next to gold!). Could it be? Oh, he hoped it was! It just had to be, nothing else came in boxes like that. Never mind that it never really came in boxes to begin with. He pulled the last piece of tape off the box and popped the top to reveal a long, skinny, brand spankin' new two-pieced carbon fiber-combination hockey stick in red and white with a maple leaf pattern in the grip! And it was made by Carbon4 the best hockey stick company in the world based in Toronto oh man this was the best birthday ever!
He could hardly keep himself together as he squawked out a thank you. Which, of course, resulted in a good number of chuckles from the adults and Matthew to turn a ferocious shade of pink. He hated that his voice was changing so early. It caused so much unnecessary attention to turn to him at one time. Matthew wasn't like his little brother; he didn't like mass amounts of attention (though he would appreciate it if once and a while teachers wouldn't confuse him for Alfred). He could only imagine what the girls in his class (especially Mindi Thompson, the pretty redhead who sat behind him all last year) would say when school resumed in August, assuming his voice hadn't plunged to a baritone and what a nightmare that would be. To be the only kid in his class with a voice so deep…
It was then, at the moment he thought of Mindi Thompson and her opinion of his sudden dropped voice, that Matthew noticed the distance between his mother and father: his father standing behind Alfred, the favorite; his mother somewhere in the crowd by the Vargases, a distance of at least twenty feet. It dampened his spirits, a lot more than he was willing to admit to anyone, even himself, though he could have sworn that after last year's Fourth of July fiasco, that they'd be better this year. He returned his attention to the hockey stick, the party, the moment. It was a Carbon4 two pieced carbon fiber hockey stick after all.
As the boys opened their gifts, they found the contents to be as varied as the individuals who gave them. Some were practical, like Ludwig's books on proper etiquette which he reassured either twin was not a slant against them at all. He just felt that everyone should have these sorts of books in their personal library since one never knew what kind of engagements would come up in the future.
The boys weren't sure if they should consider Roderich's gift practical or completely useless. He'd given them piano music, despite knowing that neither of them played and Alfred certainly had no intention of (or attention span conducive for) actually learning.
"If you'd just let me teach you," Rod said, like he had so many times, noticing the twins' strained grimaces, trying to hide their obvious distaste of the gift. "Listen to the greats and I promise you'll want to play like they do."
They gave him the answer they always gave him, "Maybe next week."
Other gifts were dangerous, like Tino's salmiakki and Vash's Air Soft guns both in the shape of AK-47s. Mrs. Williams gave her sons that look which immediately spoke, "If I ever see you playing with those, so help me God, you'll be grounded until your teeth rot out of your head."
One gift, in particular, Gilbert's, was a lewd piece of paraphernalia purchased from Spencer's. As soon as Alfred and Matthew opened the gifts, Mrs. Weillschmidt was so embarrassed by her son's audacity that she, and rightfully so, took her son away from the party and thoroughly beat the polite back into him. The party's chitter had been cut, sliced cleanly with a katana, as everyone listened to Mrs. Weillschmidt's screaming.
"Don't—you—EVER—disrespect me like that again, do you understand me, Gilbert Weillschmidt?" Where there were pauses, there were smacks of bare palms against bare faces. When the Germans returned, Gilbert was alive, albeit pinked, teary eyed and ego thoroughly obliterated.
By the time it was 5:30, 6:00, the boy's twelfth birthday had gone significantly better than last year's. Nothing was broken, nothing was stolen, no houses set aflame, no one filed for lawsuit.
Because it was what he did, avoid human contact for as long as he could (he was anti-social, not socially awkward as his stupid second cousin often confused) and once presents had been opened and cake had been eaten, Arthur skirted inside. He sat on the stairs and watched the neighborhood kids bunch together: talking, shouting, pointing, laughing and back-slapping. Whatever childish game they were about to embark on, he didn't care. It was quieter in the house, despite the parental chatter (which, if he listened hard enough he could probably learn a thing or two, unlike the drivel of twelve year olds). Sitting on the top stair, out of sight and out of mind, Arthur slipped into his happy place, a quiet place without younger cousins claiming to be heroes, without violence or obscure American TV show references. A place where he could just unwind, relax in the air conditioned cool.
"Artie! Artie! Come outside!" Slam. Alfred tore through the house like a twitching cockroach on a variety of speed drugs. Arthur slumped into the shadows, hoping his belligerent second cousin wouldn't find him. He'd already lost a sweater vest. He was down to jeans, Converse and a button-up short-sleeved shirt. He didn't have much extra clothing to lose without being lewd.
Where'd he go? Alfred thought as he weaved through the adults, their Jell-O shots and mindless "adult talk." Really, who had the stomach for discussions of "economy class syndrome" whatever the heck that was? He could have sworn he saw his dirty-blonde cousin duck somewhere in the house. Silly British kid, Alfred thought. Sneaking's for Americans.
He charged up the stairs. Maybe his cousin would be—
"A-ha! Found you!" Alfred said. There, at the top of the stairs was his cousin, curled up and pressing his body as far into the shadows as physically possible.
"What do you want?" Arthur asked, with an exasperated sigh.
"We're doing World War II reenactments. We need a Britain. Come on!" Alfred hadn't waited for his cousin's reply, instead grabbing Arthur's wrist, and giving him a rightful pull to his feet. He was halfway down the stairs, not paying attention to Arthur's grumbles as per usual.
"Wait, wait, wait, Al," Arthur said, yanking his arm out of Alfred's grip. "What do you mean you need a Briton? You don't really need to specify ethnicities and nationalities. You just need a team of Allies and a team of Axis players, yes?"
"Well," Alfred started. His face scrunched in concentration, like he was searching for the words to describe a Nirvana concert at the Grand Canyon to Helen Keller. "On Hetalia Boulevard, we don't really play like that."
"What do you mean?" Arthur asked with a perked eyebrow. "How else would you play?"
"We play by country. Like, I play America. Since Matt spent some time in Canada, he's played Canada ever since. Tino's Finland, Baltic Bros are…well, the Baltic States. Elizaveta is Hungary. Gil is…I can't remember what country he is, but it doesn't exist anymore, I know that."
"And you play this all the time?"
"Well, sometimes we do other wars. But, today we're doing World War II 'cause everyone's here. Come on, Artie, it'll be fun." Alfred gave his signature, straight, white toothed smile. Arthur ran his tongue angrily over the metal bumps desperately trying to push his teeth into submission. Damn Al and his dental perfection.
Arthur hated to admit it, but his interest was piqued. He wasn't so much a military tactician like Alfred, coming up with new and possibly more dangerous ways to defeat the enemy, as he was fascinated with history, in particular, the Second World War era. He'd read as much as his thirteen mind could understand, which was a good chunk of his father's library.
"So, I suppose you'll be sitting out for the majority of this round then," Arthur said as-a-matter-of-factly. Alfred's grin exploded off his face.
"Peh, no way," he said. He thumbed his chest. "America always comes to save the day."
"I'd beg to differ," Arthur said with a slight lip curl. "Well, anyway, what year are we looking at then?" He clapped his hands and rubbed them together, trying to reduce his excitement to a cool, suave exterior. He didn't want to show his cousin that he was actually interested in something Alfred had come up with. That would simply signal the apocalypse and the Briton didn't have a death wish for the entire world.
"Umm…" Alfred said, twisting his face in concentration again. "I can't remember. But since me and Matt are playing the States and Canada, it's gotta be sometime after 1941."
"You don't have a bloody clue, do you?" Arthur asked, cocking an eyebrow. "Brilliant. You can't do a reenactment without dates."
Of course, Arthur was going to be a brat about the game. Of course he was going to demand perfection at every turn. Of course he wasn't going to let children do what they're good at, running around and not caring. "We're not looking for historical accuracy, Artie," The area around Arthur's left eye twitched. "Just giving people countries to play and we shoot at each other and at the end, we beat up Gil and Ludwig because they lost."
Alfred began rattling the game's finer points and highlights from past victories like an ESPN anchor, but Arthur wasn't paying attention. He scanned the backyard and categorized Hetalia Boulevard's children into the countries they would represent. Some made sense, others did not. For instance, Ludwig Weillschmidt made absolute sense to play Germany, not only for his heritage, but by attitude as well. If the boy slicked back his hair, he could pass a very stereotypical SS officer. Then there was Feliks who was Polish, and could probably pull off the part, but as soon as he opened his mouth, all bets were off. The kid was originally from Southern California, and unfortunately, carried the accent with him though, Arthur often mused, he'd picked up on the wrong gender's speech patterns.
"Then we'll move to something else, capture the flag maybe. I don't know. Why do you have to screw everything up with your… Britishness anyway?"
Arthur snapped his attention back to Alfred. His ears prickled, turning a lovely shade of red.
"If by 'Britishness' you mean sticking to historical accuracy, then it's because I value keeping the integrity of—"
Alfred held up his palm, cutting Arthur's building rant to a sudden and complete halt. "Stop. Your nerd is showing."
"My what?" Arthur's cheeks pinked and he had the sudden urge to duck behind something large and readjust his appearances.
"Your nerd," Alfred said again flatly, as if it was the more obvious than Francis' arrogance, or Feliciano's uselessness. "Your nerdishness. Your I-read-too-many-books-and-know-words-college-kids-don't-know-ness. Your Inner Carlton." He tossed in that name again, making Arthur fume. Since he'd been dropped so unceremoniously on the Williams' porch four months ago, Alfred had always used that term, one's Inner Carlton. Being a Briton, a rich Briton at that, Arthur of course had no idea who he was talking about and was often left wondering if the term was one of endearment or simple insult. Arthur rested on the latter, but made a mental note to investigate who this "Carlton Banks" to avoid further embarrassment.
"Hey Al! Did you get the United Kingdom yet?" Gilbert asked from the door. His Nerf gun was draped over his shoulders. The rest of the "Axis Powers" were outside, on the picnic bench, adjusting their gear, putting on bike helmets to resemble Kevlar and applying camouflage paint. Even though he was the youngest in the group at eight, Feliciano was in charge of the paint. At that moment, he was busy compiling the right mix of browns, greens and dark greens to Jakob's face, though Jakob just wanted the standard two black bars under his eyes.
"Yeah! He's coming," Alfred shouted back. He turned back to his cousin. "Please? For me?" He stuck out his bottom lip, wibbled it a bit, and looked at his cousin with those God awful puppy dog eyes. Alfred knew it was one of his strong points, looking so young at his age. He could usually get his babysitters to do whatever he wanted to just because he looked cute. He wondered if he'd get the same result with the heartless cousin.
Alfred could see his cousin crumbling and trying hard not to show it. He kept his arms crossed and his nose in the air. So, to up his game, Alfred added whimpering noises which dropped his cuteness from one year old learning to walk to stray puppy in a storm. "Please?" he asked.
Arthur grumbled and shoved his ridiculous cousin out of his way and walked toward Gilbert.
"If we're going to play, I'm England, not the bloody United Kingdom," Arthur spat, poking Gilbert in his chest with two fingers, "I could care less about Scotland and Northern Ireland."
"Fine by me," Gilbert said. "Your side is over there." Gilbert pointed to the other end of the backyard, where a large group of kids had congregated; each with a look of slight irritancy. Arthur wondered how long they'd been waiting for an England.
Alfred jumped and whooped and dashed back, meeting up with Matthew, Toris, Feliks, Berwald, Romano, Vash and the Baltic Bros. Even the older kids decided to play this reenactment. Heracles, Sadiq and G were busy moving the picnic tables to either side and setting them down, table tops facing each other; a sort of lazy man's trenches.
"Romano, why aren't you on our side?" Feliciano whined across the backyard. He'd managed to climb on Ludwig's back and was waving his hands madly. "Famiglia sticks together, remember?"
"Shut your face and eat your stupid linguini, Veneziano," Romano shot back. "This is for breaking my CD two weeks ago!"
"But I said I was sorry!" Feliciano whined, wiggling and falling off of Ludwig's back.
Gilbert was in the background tying Francis, Tino, and Heracles after he'd moved the benches, to the spindly cherry tree in the corner. His face scrunched in concentration as he tried to remember off the top of his head who exactly his family's country had invaded 60 years ago. The bickering from the Italian brothers was not helping as he couldn't remember if he needed to tie Jakob up, or just let him roam. Though, the youngster had had orange soda; in a few moments, he'd jerking around like a two-bit crack whore off her stash for a weeks, so maybe tying him up would be a good thing anyway.
"Both of you shut up," Gilbert said sharply, instantly silencing Feliciano; Romano gave a puh sound and leaned on the back fence. "We still have to split up everyone and I can't concentrate with your yappin'." He gave the knot a final tug, making sure the three "nations" were secure and looked to his friend. "Al! Who do you have on your side?"
"We've got me, Canada, Unit—England, England sorry! Jeez, you don't have t'hit me! Australia played by Romano, the Baltics, China by Berwald, Poland—"
"If anyone gets Poland, it should be us," Ludwig piped. Hearing Ludwig speak was about as rare as Arthur actually giving a damn about something. Every time he spoke, conversations would halt and people would just stare at him. His speech usually so spread apart, that people forgot what he sounded like and were always thrown back by how deep his voice was for his stature and height.
"But, like, Toris is over here," Feliks-playing-Poland said, giving Toris-playing-Lithuania's arm a playful punch. "I don't want to go to your side."
"But Poland was invaded by Germany," Ludwig said.
The boys of the Allied and Axis teams did their best to stifle their laughter, making the back of Ludwig's neck prickle with heat. Elizaveta-playing-Hungary rolled her eyes and smacked Gilbert on the back of his head.
"You know, since, like, we represent these countries…that like, sounds totally gross," Feliks said with a wrist flick.
"It makes sense. Now come over here," Elizaveta said tapping her foot impatiently.
"Fine! You don't get to use my flat iron," Feliks said as he stuck his tongue out and sauntered to the Axis side. He was immediately greeted with a fist-tap from Jakob and given a Nerf gun byGilbert.
"Who's playing the Soviet Union?" Arthur-playing-England asked Alfred, "If we have the Baltic area?"
It was as if Arthur had accidently launched a nuclear warhead. The neighborhood boys groaned and Matthew threw down his gun.
"Great. We might as well not even play," he said.
"What? What did I say?" Arthur asked, poorly waxed eyebrows pinched together. Alfred sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.
"We usually get into long arguments trying to find a Soviet Union to play. Every time we've tried to play, we try to find a USSR, and it always fails because somebody always has a problem playing commies. Watch this." Alfred turned his attention from his cousin to the older neighborhood boys. "Hey, Kris, wanna play Russia?"
"Don't see why I have to," Kris said with a shrug and with as much passion as a pineapple in Alaska," I'm already Norway."
"Ice?"
"I'm Iceland, Al. Sorry."
"Berwald?"
"'M already Ch'na. Y'gave me th'spot yerself," Berwald grumbled. It wasn't really fair to say that Berwald "said" anything. His voice was so entrenched in baritone that everything he uttered simply came out in gruff syllables. Some said it was a speech impediment. Others said he had rubber banded braces. Others said he was just that weird. But neither Williams twin could confirm nor deny anything; they hadn't been brave enough to check the hulk's teeth for rubber bands or ask him to say several phrases which would indicate an impediment.
"Come on guys, we need a Soviet State to play right," Alfred said, trying to gain control of his peers again. "Hey, Toris, how bout—"
"No. And don't bother asking Raivis and Ed. They've been listening to Nana's stories of the Old Country since they were kids and you'd think they actually lived through the horrors of the Soviet Union."
At the mere mention of the Soviet Union, Raivis ducked behind his older brother.
"So they're not big fans of the Soviets either then?" Alfred asked and Toris shook his head no. Alfred sighed, wanting to bang his head on the fence or cement out of frustration.
"See, Arthur? This is why we try not to bring up the Soviets," Alfred said. He sighed again. "We could have this argument for hours."
"Hey Allies! You figure out a Russia yet? Come on, my hair's turning white," Gilbert-playing-Prussia asked with an impatient huff across the yard.
"Your hair's already white anyway, Gil," Alfred retorted. "That's what you get for bleaching it so many times."
"Hey! I like the color. It makes me look dangerous," he said with a devilish grin and wiggling his fingers. "And Eliz likes it, don'cha, sweetheart?" He wrapped his arm over her shoulders; before he could finish the movement, she'd already pushed him off.
"Shove it, Chicken Man. You look like an albino," Elizaveta shot back. Her face contorted to make it very clear that she was not anyone's sweetheart, especially Gilbert's.
"I love you too, babe!" Gilbert gave her an air kiss.
"Do you guys have a Japan?" Alfred asked.
"Yup, Antonio's playin' him," Gilbert said. "The Asians are invading California Yao and Kiku won't be back until close to school starting."
"We ready to play yet?" Matthew asked. "The sun's gonna be down before we've even done anything." He paused, sautéing a thought for a moment. "We can play without a Soviet Union."
You would have thought Matthew killed Arthur and Ludwig's beloved pet with the horrified looks on their faces at the mere implication that something could be done with slight historical alterations.
"That'd be historically inaccurate, though!" Arthur and Ludwig said in unison.
"The Russians were a vital part of the Allied front," Arthur said slapping the back of his right hand into his left palm. "Without them, the cause would have surely been lost and the Axis might have…" Arthur descended rapidly into his historical lesson, with a few quips from Ludwig thrown in for good measure. Arthur would often recognize said statements with a polite thank you, I hadn't thought of that or, wow, Ludwig, that's fascinating. How did you know that?"
"Oh look, you started it," Alfred deadpanned to Matthew.
"Does he ever stop?" Matthew asked. Arthur had now fully fallen into story-telling mode and was enacting the Pacific Wars with flailing arms and different tones for different world leaders. Apparently he wasn't paying attention to his audience, because if he were, the Briton would have realized the boys were losing consciousness like ants sprayed with Raid.
Matthew was the first to speak, cutting the narrative off at the hip.
"Thank you Professor," Matthew said, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "Look, seriously, we should just start playing. It's 6:30, the sun'll be down by 9:30 and by the time we figure out a Soviet Union, Gilbert's roots will have grown back."
"Never gonna happen, Williams!" Gilbert shouted.
"Do you even remember what your real hair looks like?"
Gilbert's face contorted in thought. He gave a hmm sound, as if were honestly trying to remember the color of hair he was born with. After a moment, "No. And quite frankly I don't care."
"I'll play," came a strange, accented, male voice. The voice wasn't like Francis', an American trying hard to grasp to roots he almost had no ties to. But instead, resembled Arthur's, the voice of someone who'd just stepped off the airplane and hadn't developed the proper way of speaking yet. Actually, scratch that. The voice was neither, because it was the voice of someone who'd just stepped off the airplane and hadn't been speaking English for longer than three years at the most.
The voice belonged to a young boy none of the neighborhood kids knew. He looked about twelve with a tall, lanky body, but his face hadn't lost its youthful fullness. His hair the color of beach sand and his eyes an odd shade of blue, close to purple. He wore a white and red stripped t-shirt, denim jeans, Nikes that looked like they'd been stolen from the set of the Fresh Prince, a jovial smile and a scarf.
He stood in beteween two girls. The one to his left looked older, maybe 13 years. She had cropped yellow hair, held back with a black band. Her eyes, wide and cobalt. She wore overalls. The second girl, she couldn't have been a day over seven, wore a pink party dress, pink shoes and ash blonde hair held back by a pink bow. She clung to the boy in the middle and stared blankly at the neighborhood children; her eyes the color of icicle puddles. Overall Girl and Scarf Boy had enough similarities to be called siblings, but Pink Girl shared none. The three of them stood in front of Mrs. Williams.
"Kids, these are the Braginski siblings: Ivan, Ekaterina and Natasha, did I pronounce those right? They're new to the neighborhood from St. Petersburg was it? Yes, St. Petersburg, all the way in the Russian Federation, isn't that fascinating you guys?"
Mrs. Williams' enthusiasm was not shared by the neighborhood children, to say the least. In fact, their reaction would have better suited the welcome of a horde of an intelligent beetle species wielding ancient Germanic weaponry and modern vehicles from Japan. A breeze kicked in, ruffling the children's clothes and hair. Leaves rustled in the background, a quiet hush amongst the chilling scream of distrust.
Raivis was a nervous wreck when the Soviet Union was simply spoken of. Now, there were three citizens from that country. Here. In America. In the Williams' backyard! The nine year old felt the prickling of tears as he clung to Ed and Toris.
Gilbert's jaw pressed together and his hand gripped around the hilt of his gun tighter. Ludwig backed to his cousin.
Berwald's already intimidating eyes flickered and darkened. Even Sadiq, the oldest and quite possibly the most mature, pinched his lips together, white.
Alfred automatically felt that desire to protect everyone in the yard.
He was the first to step forward.
"I'm Al," Alfred said, extending his arm to the siblings, trying to soften his expression; it was a diplomatic and mature move, which surprised Arthur, Matthew and a good number of the rest of the neighborhood. Ivan shook his hand.
"Hello," Ivan said. He said the "he" part from his throat, making the word, the familiar English greeting, sound odd, foreign. Alfred shook the hand of the girl in overalls, Ekaterina, and the young one in the party dress, Natasha.
"You kids play nice, ok?" Mrs. Williams said to everybody, though the statement was obviously directed specifically towards her youngest and Gilbert. Gilbert quickly nodded yes, having already received the backhand of his angry mother once today, not wanting a repeat of the event. She turned and retreated to the house, but not before both Alfred and Matthew noticed she wasn't wearing her wedding band.
"Looks like we've got a Soviet, eh?" Matthew said, slipping involuntarily into the Canadian accent he picked up last year. Alfred quickly silenced him with a Nerf bullet to the head. He turned back to the newcomers.
"So, you guys got Nerf guns?" Alfred asked, he jerked his chin out on you guys and looked at them over his nose. He relished the moment, wondering if this slight sense of empowerment was what Arthur felt every day.
"We hoped that you had…more," Ivan said, sheepishly, truthfully, a blush reaching the tips of his ears. His w's came out like v's, his t-hs like d-y's and words he didn't know, awkward and jilted. "We weren't allowed Nerf guns back home."
"I think we have a few in the garage from two years ago," Matthew piped. "Al, why don't you help me?" he spoke the last part with a fake smile , through his teeth and jerked his head towards the garage, in a pitiful attempt to be discrete.
Alfred didn't question the blatant lack of tact, instead trotted to his brother who practically speed-walked to the garage. His brother's eyes were flashing again. This couldn't be a good sign. Matthew punched in the code for the automatic garage door. With a ping and a whir, it opened.
The garage, well, it really wasn't a garage, a room that was supposed to house cars, as much as it was a place that had thrown up boxes of stuff. There really was no better word for the piles of boxes and random trinkets which decorated the area. There was a couch, an ugly artifact from Mr. Williams' college years, placed in the front, a table, a hula girl light. Boxes with dust. Some without. Some with names Sharpied into the side. Others without. Boxes stacked against each other like some sort of three-dimensional wallpaper. Sports paraphernalia on the opposite wall. Rollerblades, baseball gloves, football helmets, soccer cleats, ice skates. A small path parted the Red Sea of Stuff, and it could barely be called a path as bits of debris from the box pillars had settled on the ground.
Matthew actually began looking for the guns while Alfred leaned on the table. A silence swept over them, not the kind of silence of two people who actually had nothing to talk about, but that awkward and lingering silence, thick like the body odor of Bret Farve after practice, of two children who refused to talk about something they needed to.
"So, new kids," Alfred said, just barely penetrating the silence. Matthew, entrenched in the shadows of Under the Table (a place bordered with more boxes, a chest-of-drawers, and the Ugly Couch, making it a musty fort configuration.) Matthew gave a noncommittal grunt. He shifted some boxes, moved out a baseball bag, from their days before football and hockey. "They're Russian. Guess we're gonna have to lock our stuff up at night."
Matthew shifted another box. "They're not the commies anymore, Al," he said. With a clink, he put the found, albeit dusty and dirty, Nerf guns on the table. "Mom said the Cold War ended right around the time we were two." He began to move to get out from Under the Table and hit his head with a deep thump and an ow.
"I know, but still. They have bad juju. They can't be any good."
Matthew leaned on the back of the couch and cleaned his glasses lenses. He looked tired, a little crestfallen and Alfred was positive it wasn't because of the new kids and their heritage.
"Looks like they moved in the house at the end of the block," Matthew said.
"Pfft," Alfred waved his brother's comment like he would an irritating insect. "None of the houses on the block are for sale."
"Yes there are. Old Man Johnson's house." Alfred sampled the implication in his mind, let it swim around between his ears like a tadpole. Someone living in Old Man Johnson's house? Impossible.
"Matt, don't even joke about that. Three people died in that house. It's cursed. No one lives there anymore."
"Check it out, Al," Matthew pointed and Alfred turned. Lo and behold, Old Man Johnson's house, the creepy brick house from the 1930s with a porch and overgrown weeds and decaying shutters and paint—had a small Toyota sedan and mover's truck in the driveway. Two men moved a couch inside the home.
Alfred couldn't describe the moment any better than simply saying it was like being punched in the gut. Someone was living in Old Man Johnson's house! The spirit of the cranky geezer of Hetalia Boulevard's folklore was sure to have been unleashed with the disturbance! He didn't want to die, not while he was so young and still had so much to do! And the New Kids—they were either working with the evil spirit or they'd be dead by Friday. Either way, it would be best not to get too close to the Braginskis.
"Matt?" Alfred asked, still staring at the wilting house being filled with strange people from a strange land, voice just barely above a whisper.
"Yeah, Al?"
"Are we…are we going to die?"
Matthew wasted no time in slapping the back of his little brother's head.
"Hey, Mattie?" Alfred asked, nursing the injured spot on his head. Matthew climbed over the Ugly Couch and handed Alfred one of the old Nerf guns. "You saw Mom's—"
"Come on, shrimp, let's go back," Matthew interjected, throwing his arm around his brother's shoulders.
"Who're you calling shrimp? I'm an inch and a half taller than you."
***
"So, you see, Ivan, it's a fairly simple game," Arthur said, explaining the Hetalia Boulevard War Game to the new comer. The boy readjusted the beige scarf tied tight against his neck; so tight, that Arthur couldn't see the contours of the boy's neck. He thought the boy daft, since it was close to 79 degrees and even the thought of trousers was enough to make him sweat. He was silenced before he could get the question out.
"Ee-van," Ivan corrected. Arthur's eyebrows furrowed, a little irritated that the Russian boy wouldn't let the slight pronunciation difference go. It wasn't like he harped on Alfred or Matthew for pronouncing aluminium incorrectly. Simply by being in America, he knew that things were said differently here. Ivan would be wise to learn this lesson as quickly as possible.
"Anyway, you will represent the USSR. And your sisters may represent it as well, if they would like to play?" He turned to the girls, who had been standing on the cement portion of the backyard, and smiled without exposing his metal-encrusted teeth. Try to be welcoming, he thought. They're kids just like yourself. Ekaterina nodded.
"Katya, she, would play Ukraine then, yes?" Ivan asked; Arthur nodded. Since they had the Baltic States, it wouldn't hurt, he supposed. "And Natasha…she too small, but if she were…bigger, yes, she would play Belorussia."
"How does that work, exactly?" Elizaveta asked, perking an eyebrow.
"Oh…well, umm…" while Ivan searched for the words he didn't know, Ekaterina spoke for him.
"Ivan and I are half siblings," her voice was smoother with English, someone who knew the language and had been studying it for far longer than Ivan had, though still pleasantly accented. "We share the same father, but his mother is Russian, mine is Ukrainian, and Natasha," she raked her fingers through her sister's hair, "is our step-sister with family in Belarus. Ivan it's Belarus not Belorussia in English."
"I see," Arthur replied dry as a California summer.
"Three orders of Nerf guns, comin' up!" Alfred said, returning with his brother, baring his usual overly happy grin. Any hostility he seemed to have towards the Russian siblings had dissipated, though knowing his cousin, that was probably far from the truth. Alfred wasn't one to just let go of grudges, no matter how poorly the foundation they were based upon.
"Who's ready to do this?" Matthew asked with a grin, handing the weapons to Ivan and Natasha. The little girl refused the gun by crossing her arms, shaking her head and pouting like a child much younger than she looked. Matthew was taken aback by her aggression and attitude. He was about to say something about it, when Ekaterina's hand touched his arm.
"I am sorry for my sister's behavior," she said, "but she is just a child and has not learned English beyond simple greetings. You can understand, of course?"
For a moment, Matthew forgot all of what he was going to say simply stared at the short-haired girl. There was nothing remarkably pretty about her appearance. She was a bit pale, maybe too thin for her height, plain dressed and even plainer spoken.
"O—of course," he thought he said. What came out was the screech of an animal caught in an electric fence. His whole body tensed and sweat ran down his back. His ears didn't tingle, neither did his face; his whole body, scalp to baby toenail was the same color of a Coke can and prickled like he'd been tazered.
And she laughed. Oh, God, she laughed! (And so did everyone else) But hers was a subdued sort of laugh, somewhere between a chuckle and a sigh. Subtle, not guffawing like his little brother and his cronies.
"Thank you," she said. She turned to her sister and whispered something in hurried Russian. The little girl dashed inside.
"Where's she going?" Matthew asked.
"Inside. The younger girls are playing in the guest bedroom."
"Oh. Well…um," his mind had suddenly fled its usual residence in his skull to a place far, far away from here and now. He rubbed the back of his neck, trying desperately to find the words to the question he wanted to ask her. "Since Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union, you can be on my team…if…you, uh, um…want."
She chuckled again, but this time he didn't feel like jumping off a cliff.
"Oi! Williams Number One with the Crush!" Gilbert's crash voice knocked him back to reality quite painfully. "Pay attention! We've only got a few hours of sunlight left."
Matthew shot back a twelve year old version of a swear (he couldn't bring himself to actually say the words). Katya slung her Nerf gun over her torso and followed Matthew behind the upturned picnic table.
"Finally, God!" Gilbert said exasperated. "Hey, Frenchie, how you holding up?" Francis responded with a string of French words, only assumed to be angry swears. "Excellent," Gilbert charged his Nerf gun. "Let's play boys!"
Awkward
(ôk'wərd) adj.
Not graceful; ungainly.Not dexterous; clumsy.Marked by or causing embarrassment or discomfort: an awkward remark; an awkward silence.Requiring great tact, ingenuity, skill, and discretion: An awkward situation arose during the peace talks.Difficult to handle or manage: an awkward bundle to carry.