Sorry that this is so late; I have been so unbelievably busy recently as a result of Halloween, homework, Mozfest, and a bunch of other time-consuming things, but I will try my hardest to keep with my update schedule from now on! Thank you once again to all the lovely people who have supported this story so far! I hope that you enjoy this chapter!
Disclaimer: I don't own Hetalia.
I awoke the next morning to a thin beam of light hitting my face through a narrow gap in the curtains, making me squint and turn over with a stifled groan. I wriggled under the covers a little, trying desperately to preserve the little feeling of sleepiness that I still had left, though my efforts were futile as I found myself sitting up in bed amongst the criminally comfortable sheets and stretching my arms up over my head with a long yawn. Lazily reaching around the bedside table for my glasses and putting them on, I practically flopped out of bed and ambled over to the curtains, pulling them open so that I could look out over the city.
It was really quite a remarkable sight first thing on a Saturday morning. The glistening rays of the sun were a peachy shade, slowly seeping over the tops of buildings like treacle, casting them in a god-like aura. Little flecks of colour dusted the sidewalks, roads, and pavements, scurrying around into coffee shops and boutiques. I could see the A.H.A building from the window, looking ever-foreboding like usual, yet still coated in the pastel rays like a blank canvas waiting to be painted.
Looking down to my wrist, I briefly glanced at my watch (which I had forgotten to take off last night before going to bed) and ran my left hand through my soft, unkempt hair, playing with the lock that always refused to stay down, but instead stuck up and bounced like a spring. On my watch, the time read 8:07, which was a surprisingly late start for me as I usually would have gotten myself a coffee and be at work by now. Not that I was complaining, though, I mean, it had been a really long time since I last had a lie-in.
I turned away from the window and begun making my way towards the kitchen to get myself a drink when I remembered and looked up at Arthur, who was still fast asleep in his bed, his perpetually bed-headed hair spread out messily on the pearl-white pillow. Next to his head, on the bedside table, sat a stack of Sherlock Holmes books, one of which with a fancy-looking bookmark sticking out of it. He must have spent all damn night reading them- what the hell possessed him to do that? That was probably why his phone was completely dead.
Either way, the first thought that sprung to my mind was, "Aw, he looks really adorable.", and I found myself smiling,to which I immediately asked myself aloud why I would ever think or do such a thing. I decided to try and rid these forbidden thoughts from my head by strolling back to the kitchen to go make a coffee. I momentarily considered pulling my gun from my briefcase and delivering Arthur a quick couple of shots to the head to end my mission here, but then I remembered what my boss had said yesterday about the cameras and any suspicious activity. Preferring not to end up in jail, I decided to let him be for now.
In the kitchen, my first thoughts upon seeing Arthur that morning kept running through my head as I was making my coffee. "You've known the guy for one day, Alfred!" I told myself mentally, aggressively fumbling with my pyjama's sleeve, "One day! And besides, you can't get attached to him or be even remotely close in any way, though he is a really nice person and perhaps you could become friends over time or…"
I paused my train of thought and brought my hands down tersely on the kitchen counter, "No no no, what am I thinking? I'm not even allowed to..."
"It's perfectly normal to think something is cute without being attached to it, right?" My internal monologue started to take over again as I desperately tried to salvage the coffee I had been making, "Yeah, that's how it works! Goddammit, Alfred, why did you have to choose this line of work when you get attached to people so easily? Wait! No, I do not like him in any way," I started pressuring myself as if I were two people locked in an argument for eternity, "He is my enemy. I must kill him. It's your job, so stop beating around the bush and get the hell on with it! Arthur Kirkland must die by my hand."
After a while of beating myself up over a little compulsive thought, I somehow manged to produce a somewhat edible cup of coffee and ambled back into the bedroom and, to my surprise, my target (who had just caused me an awful lot of inner turmoil) was casually sitting on his bed, fully dressed in casual attire not too different from what he was wearing yesterday, reading the Sherlock book which had the bookmark in it earlier. He greeted me with a nod of acknowledgement and a quick, "Good morning, Alfred. How did you sleep?"
"Mmm, great, dude. What about you?" I replied absentmindedly, plopping myself down next to the window and sipping my drink whilst leaning against the smooth curtains. Arthur put his book down and bought over his laptop with the mission screen from yesterday open.
"Fine, thank you." He peered over the top of the laptop, "Is that coffee?"
"Yeah. You want some?"
"I'm certainly more of a tea person myself."
"Would you like me to make you any?"
"No, I'm alright for now. I can just get some in the meal hall downstairs, anyway, but thank you for the offer."
Due to the fact that I couldn't make a cup of tea to save my life, I was incredibly glad that he had turned me down. I inclined my head slightly to the side so I could breathe a sigh of relief before taking another long sip of my coffee, gazing out of the window. The pair of us were then suddenly startled beyond description when my phone started playing my ringtone at full volume, which caused me to abandon my coffee and sprit across the room to check the caller ID. It was my boss.
"Mind if I take this?" I called across the room to Arthur, who nodded and waved his hand dissmissivley; my que to escape into the bathroom, and lock the door for good measure, so he couldn't hear my potentially dangerous conversation. Reluctantly, I answered the call.
"Hello, Jones." The boss's ever-icy voice crept into my ears and made me shiver as I leant against the sink, "Have you carried out the main objective yet?"
"No, sir, I haven't," I replied quietly. I could practically feel his eerie presence behind me, making me freeze up and tense, preparing for the likely torrent of passive-aggressive hatred which would then follow his disappointed sigh.
"I see…" he mumbled with a growl, "Have you even tried? You're supposed to be my best assassin, so why can you not even complete your mission swiftly?"
I felt my chest tense up as I gulped, "I have tried, sir, but he's so damn quick-only ended up with a nasty cut on the back of his head."
"Right. Well, it seems you're growing idle, Jones. I have more important matters to attend to, so I'll leave you with your target. Carry out your mission without fail and don't contact me until it's done. Don't break the rules." The boss paused, and I could picture his slits of eyes narrowing and his crushing hands tapping on the desk, "After all, I'm fairly sure you value your life."
With that, he hung up the call, allowing me to catch my breath for a second and contemplate the situation. Firstly, I was having a conversation with my superior over the phone at the crack of dawn in my pyjamas, but secondly, if there was one thing my boss knew how to do, it was definitely how to manipulate people with his life-dependant rules and menacing glares. Though I didn't get anywhere near as stressed around him as the other employees would, I can't say that I felt comfortable in his presence.
Unlocking the door and walking briskly back into the bedroom, I saw Arthur now sat with a cup of tea still by the window, his briefcase lying open, displaying a vast assortment of knives and blades. In all honesty, I was more than a little surprised at his efficiency (something I would have to get used to) so, sneakily, I grabbed my clothes and ran back into the bathroom to get washed and dressed, thundering back into the bedroom about fifteen minutes later and kicking my briefcase out from under my bed, which then skidded across the room and hit the other man directly in the back.
Arthur turned around as the case hit him and scowled at me, mumbling "You bloody git…" under his breath, closing his laptop and concealing it with the curtain. I giggled, opening my briefcase and reaching up to ruffle his hair, but paused my motion once I realised that it may come across as "too friendly" to my boss, whose cameras were watching the apartment.
"So…" I began, getting his attention, "Got a new mission already?"
"Yes, actually, I do." He answered, not meeting my gaze but instead studying his weapons of choice for today, which were ten black throwing knives in a leather quiver that looked like a wallet or purse of some description. "Our target being in this building as we speak."
"Really?" I was confused, but glad we wouldn't have to go on a stuffy train again like yesterday, "Is it someone who works here?"
"No, they're guests. A family who goes by the Vos name. There's three of them in total: Mr Vos, Mrs Vos, and their daughter, Yara. The parents are in their mid to late forties, and their daughter is around twenty-five."
"Ok." I nodded, glancing at my briefcase quickly, "Have they done anything?"
"Indeed. They sell and keep animals illegally, primarily foxes, and, according to various other sources, their daughter likes to act disgustingly cruelly towards them. Many animals have died under their so-called 'care' and even more are being sold to even worse places. One of their consumers has contacted us, since they only buy them to set them free, and want them killed. Does that make sense?"
That seemed a little extreme to me, but who was I to judge? I mean, my own company killed people who didn't even do anything except not see eye-to-eye with a particular person, the client generally being someone wealthy with too many grudges to count. We took requests from anyone, but Arthur's company only took requests to kill people who were legitimately bad. Interesting.
"Yep!" I said peppily, "Got a plan?"
"Yes, but it's not completely fool-proof." He admitted, "But I do have information. At around 9:30, they have plans to go out shopping o-"
"How do you know that?"
"I have a colleague who is working undercover here and provides information about potential targets."
"Oh."
He put his throwing knives aside, closing the leather quiver, "As I was saying, they have plans to go out very soon, so that will give us the perfect opportunity. Do you have a sniper rifle?"
I got it out and presented the gun to him, already loaded, "Of course I do!" I laughed, "I'm pretty good with it as well!"
"Excellent. My plan was that we get onto the roof of this building, and take them out when they step outside. I'll throw a few of my knives in their tracks and, because they'll hopefully stop to examine them, you'll be able to snipe them. We can't be seen, so you can just poke the gun over the edge of the rooftop. I'm hoping they won't see us because this place is so tall, though."
"And if they don't stop?"
"We'll try again, obviously." He said it as if I were stupid with a grin on his face, "Have you spotted any way to get up to the roof?"
"I have!" I cried joyously, "Last night, I saw a storage cupboard with a ladder on one of its walls which looked like it lead to the roof. A guy came back down from it as we walked past. But how are we gonna sneak guns and knives along the corridor full of security guards?"
Arthur smiled and started texting somebody at an incredible speed on his phone. "The colleague who's also here will be helping us. I just contacted him so he'll be here in a minute."
"Can I trust him?"
"With this mission, certainly. He may not look it, but he's a trained bodyguard and always keeps a gun on him, as well as an assassin just like us. I've known him for a while and, though he's a bloody pain in the arse half the time, I can't deny that he's a good fighter who knows what he's doing. We'll be just fine."
I closed my briefcase and slid it next to Arthur's, standing up with my rifle in my hand. I grabbed the Englishman's backpack and shoved my gun inside of it, though it was quite a tight squeeze, whilst he attached his quiver to the water bottle compartment. Putting the bag on my back, I asked, "Is there anything else I need to know about this guy?"
Arthur shrugged nonchalantly, "Not really. I mean, he's French, and his voice can be distinguished from a mile off, but I'll know him when I see him anyway."
"Hmm… French?" I thought to myself. I used to know a Frenchman who ran a bakery in my town. I played with his son a lot when we were kids, but they moved away up north and I never really heard from him again. He was almost a year older than me, and somehow was still in my class at school, but he wasn't stupid. I remember him being flirtatious and cheeky, with a trademark laugh which would tell you exactly what sort of thing was going on. A part of me really missed him when he left; my twelve-year-old mind couldn't and wouldn't contemplate why somebody would just up and leave like that.
I was startled out of my thoughts by a knock on the door, which Arthur went to answer. He spoke to whoever was there for a few seconds before the pair of them turned to face me.
"Alfred," Arthur called, "I would like you to meet my co-worker, Francis."
He gestured towards the stranger, who stepped out from behind Arthur's back to look at me, catching my eye and smirking. This had to be the French boy I used to be friends with. There was no doubt about it: the resemblance was uncanny.
Bright sapphire eyes like mine, only darker, paired with glossy blond hair that went down to just below his chin, which had a small stubble. A thin silver chain hung round his neck, and he wore deep blue jeans with a white dress shirt which had the first few buttons undone. He had long and thin fingers with a red rose held between two of them, which was what really convinced me that Francis really was the boy I knew back then. I remember that he always would have at least one flower with him, no matter the occasion.
It seems that he must have caught me staring at him because I heard that trademark laugh I would hear all those years ago, followed by a cheeky, "You like what you see?"
My words got caught in my throat for a little while before I manged to splutter out a, "Ugh… Are you the French boy who lived at 12 Pueritia Lane and moved up north when he was twelve and knew a boy called Alfred F Jones?"
Francis looked thoughtful for a moment before his face lit up with realisation and he ran up to hug me. "I thought I recognised you Alfred! How have you been? It's been a while!"
I grinned, "Great, thanks! You haven't changed one bit!"
He laughed again, running a hand through his hair, "Neither have you, mon cher! Well, other than the glasses. When did you get them?"
"After you left, actually. They're also pretty convenient for my job, too!"
"They look great on you!" he turned to Arthur, tying up his long hair into a ponytail with a red ribbon he pulled from his pocket, "So, shall we get started? We have ten minutes until they're in position."
The Englishman shrugged, "Might as well. I'd rather be early than late. You got your gun?"
"Oui." he tapped the pocket on his jean which was hidden by his dress shirt, "Now let's go. I'm meeting up with some people at 9:45 and I don't want to be late!"
Arthur rolled his eyes and pulled the door open, allowing Francis and I to stroll through, before he closed and locked it behind him. The Frenchman took his place in front of my target and I, his hand hovering over the gun in his pocket. No longer was he the laid back, flamboyant man I was talking to mere moments ago. He now had the aura about him that told me that this was an assassin that meant business-which was the only type of mood I could read.
We walked casually along the corridor as if we were just going to get breakfast, thankfully earning no odd looks as a result. The tricky part would be getting into the storage cupboard at the end without being arrested/ kicked out of the hotel by any of the security guards present, and I noticed that Francis had slowed down his pace considerably as we got closer to it, as if he were trying to think about how he should carry this mission out.
Reaching the end of the corridor, we loitered around the door for a bit, looking more than a little bit suspicious at this point. I started panicking when a guard came up to us, hands on her hips and short brown hair bobbing up and down as she strode over. "What do you think you're doing?"
Without a moment of hesitation, Francis handed something to Arthur before he began talking to the guard, slowly directing her attention to him leading her away from us and down the stairs. I looked behind me at my main target, who was stealthily picking the lock on the cupboard with the hairpin that his co-worker had given him. Once he had done so, he pulled me in and closed the door behind us, zipping up the ladder with me following closely behind. He reached down and grabbed his throwing knives from the bag and used one of them to open the ceiling's trapdoor, pushing it open and using his arms to pull himself up onto the windy rooftop.
After we had both gotten up, I used a spare book from the backpack to leave the door on the latch before I pulled out my sniper rifle. Thankfully, the roof was flat with a tall ridge wall round the edge of it, so neither of us had to worry about slipping off and falling onto the streets below us. I really hoped that Francis was still keeping the guards busy.
We shuffled up to the edge, putting our weapons down just behind us and peeking over the ridge so we could see the people on the pavement.
"What's the time, Alfred?"
"9:29"
"Perfect. Right on time. They shouldn't be too difficult to spot, by the way; they look like walking carnival floats."
I nodded in response, turning my attention back to the people down below and adjusting my glasses, putting my eye behind the gunsight. I heard the sharpening of knives next to me, sending shivers up my spine as I waited for Arthur's signal to go. My hand was shaking on the trigger from my nerves.
As we sat in a motionless silence, I kept thinking about if I could kill him today. On this mission, I had no chance whatsoever. I had already screwed up a bit the day before so Arthur was probably already very wary of my actions. Glancing away from my gunsight, I eyed the cut on the back of his head, which was being concealed by his hair, reminding myself of my previous actions. Why I somewhat felt bad afterwards was still a mystery to me.
Another five minutes passed until finally an elaborately dressed family of three stepped out of the hotel, taking up nearly the entire sidewalk as they flounced side by side.
"Is that them?" I whispered, ducking my head below the ridge.
"Yes. Now, commence in three… Two… One!"
He stood up for less than a second and flung two throwing knives down, making them fly through the air, sideways and silent. One of them landed in the path in front of the Vos family, making them pause just as planned. The other hit the mother square in the temple, striking her down and causing a bloody mess.
This was bad. Yes, one of our targets was dead, but the other two were running around and panicking, making it more difficult for me to get a perfect shot. The daughter was running away from the corpse and down the street, so I positioned my gun so I could take her out whilst she was running. I fired a couple of shots at her, listened to her horrifically high-pitched squeals, then glanced down to see her lying on the floor in her own blood.
I turned my gun so that I could take out the man, but found that he was lying near his wife with a knife through his skull. "Dammit!" I thought angrily, "Arthur stole my kill!"
Despite the fact that I was now mildly annoyed, I still worked with my main target and shoved my gun in the bag, taking the remaining knives and putting them in there too. Arthur put his foot in the gap where the book held the trapdoor open and kicked it, holding up the lid and giving me just enough time to leap through before he quickly shut it without a sound.
We waited for a while in the storage room behind the door, listening intently to the intense footsteps thundering along outside. After it died down, I opened to the door slightly, checking the coast for any threats, but saw none. Getting out and closing the door again, we almost sprinted back down the corridor and to our apartment, unlocking the door and running inside, Arthur locking it behind me before we went to the bedroom.
Not daring to look out the window, I simply lied on my bed and got my breath back, my hand resting on my chest. "Do you think Francis is ok? Are they gonna catch us?"
Arthur sighed, taking a seat on his bed and picking up one of his numerous books, "Aeternam is with the government, so we'll be fine. We only take missions regarding people who are genuinely posing a threat and the higher ups have asked us to deal with. As for the frog… He's probably negotiating and flirting with the guards and police so that he can get my knives back and explain everything. I have to hand it to him, he has a way with words and knows exactly how to manipulate people to (quite literally) get away with murder."
"The frog?"
"It's a nickname. Long story."
"Alrighty!" I said happily, grinning.
Although I was not aware of it at the time, the effect this green-eyed Englishman was having on my heart was growing by the second. It wouldn't matter how many times I would go over the rules first thing in the morning, he'd always be in the front of my mind. I was so completely oblivious to my own feelings that I failed to notice what others did so easily.
In the not-too-distant future, I would tell myself that what had happened to me was a mistake. Human error. My mistake.
But I gotta tell you, it was the best damn mistake I ever made.
Thank you for reading and I hope that you enjoyed it! Please do tell me how I did as constructive criticism is always appreciated! See you next chapter!
