Ludwig
Ludwig Beilschmidt was both relieved and annoyed that Feli Vargas was waiting for him at school the next day, for the exact same reason: when he saw her, standing at attention in front of the Junior High entrance like she was about to subjected to a military review, he couldn't help but grin like an idiot.
Ludwig was not a bubbly extroverted person by nature, and tended to avoid those who were. He shouldn't like Feli; he should be annoyed and disgusted. And yet as she called a greeting, waving her hand back and forth in the air like a metronome, he found himself blushing furiously and stammering "H-hello Feliciano- um, good...good morning."
"Buongiorno, Ludwig!" She fell into step beside him, smiling cheerfully at him. "Did you sleep well?"
"
Um-yeah. Fine." How could she be so cheerful? And why did her chattering evoke the same emotion in him, so that as they walked to their lockers he found himself the focus of whispers, all of which were to the effect of 'Did you see that? Beilschmidt's smiling!' 'What, did he gas some Jews last night or something?' Annoying, but today they didn't bother him at all.
"Eh, Feli? Will...will you be sitting with us at lunch again today."
"Si! Miss Hedervary and Mr Edelstein said I could sit there whenever I wanted!" He couldn't help but notice that, while with everyone else his new friend spoke exclusively in English, she apparently felt comfortable using Italian around him. A good sign? He didn't know.
"You know, you don't need to call them by their last names, and definitely not Mr and Miss. They're only tenth graders, not your employers."
"I don't? B-but Mr Edelstein said-"
"Ignore Roderich; he's a snob. Thinks that just because he's a distant descendant of the Hapsburgs that the world needs to bow and scrape to him." Nut.
"B-but it's good to be polite to highschoolers..."
"Do whatever you like, Feli," he said, shrugging. His cell phone decided to take that as a sign that it was allowed to beep loudly. 1 new text. "Hey, I thought I turned this off." Well, he'd just check it quickly, though he didn't know who on earth it could be. At least, until he saw the screenname- then he knew exactly who it was. There it sat in the middle of his screen, a messenger of imminent doom that threatened to ruin his entire day.
das0rdenstadt: school cancled 2day so im coming for a visit k
Ludwig's cellphone clattered to the floor, dropped as though it had suddenly heated to a thousand degrees celsius; he muttered a rude word under his breath. "Ludwig, is something-"
"It's fine, Feli," he lied. Picking it up with shaking hands he quickly sent back a message.
BeilschmidtL: Gil, this is a REALLY BAD TIME!
Which was strictly the truth- it was always a really bad time for his brother to visit him a school. Of course, he shouldn't have expected him to even bother to read Ludwig's response, because within three seconds the phone beeped again:
das0rdenstadt: k its decided then ill be there at 12 lil bro
das0rdenstadt: over and out
"Ludwig..." Feli was staring at him with, concern written all over her face. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine; it's nothing, really." He looked away, not wanting to meet her eyes. "It's seven fifty-six, we should really- Hey, what's that?"
Angry red marks wrapped around his friend's wrist, already purpling into bruises, with the imprints of- nails- pressed into the skin. It was swollen nastily, too; it was a wonder she could even move it, and he realized now that she'd been favoring the other arm. His irritation quickly morphing into confusion, the German couldn't help but stare. "What happened?"
She pulled away. "I fell. Come on, let's get to class."
Ludwig was no doctor, but he'd seen enough bruises to know that you didn't get ones that looked like those from falling. From her guilty appearance, no doubt his friend was keeping secrets from him.
Tucking the treacherous phone into his pocket, he figured that that made two of them.
