Chapter 3

Arthur's POV

I practically followed Alfred everywhere after that. True to his word, he introduced me to Kiku the next period. The boy seemed normal enough. A little on the quiet side, but that was about it. I glanced down at his feet after a minute and felt really bad for him. While the path leading out from Alfred's feet was falling apart and fading, his side was still there and in fairly good condition. Sure, there was a tear here or a fading spot there but for the most part, it looked like he was still in love. Had I been thinking, I would've left the two alone to allow the path to fix itself. I hadn't been thinking though and sat on the other side of Alfred after introducing myself to Kiku. Alfred and his friend talked about their summer for a while before the teacher walked in and began her lesson, making the room go quiet. Well, about as quiet as a high school classroom can be. I couldn't help but notice the glare Kiku was sending me throughout the period. I was almost glad when the class was over and Alfred dragged me away from the glare. After that, the day went on with nothing more than a few glares from Kiku here, a few gropes from Francis there (did I ever mention I hate that French bastard?) and a new nickname picked out by Alfred. Despite my protests, Alfred had declared my new name to be Artie.

It turned out I only had one class without Alfred-art. He introduced me to a young, hyperactive boy named Feliciano who introduced me to everyone in the classroom with a brief description of who they were in under a minute. From what I caught of his rapid speech was that he had a moody brother named Romano, a boyfriend named Ludwig, and a best friend named Elizabeta. There was also a boy from Canada named Melvin or something like that. Or was it Matthew? I think that was it. Anyway, there were also two members of the Bad Touch Trio (where they got that name from, I didn't want to know) by the names of Gilbert and Antonio. I was glad Francis was a year below us after discovering he was the third member of the trio. That class went well, as did the rest of the day. Because my dad was at work and my mum was picking my little brother up from school, I was forced to walk home. It was a short walk but confusing nonetheless. I managed to get completely lost before I heard a voice calling out from behind me.

"Artie, wait up!" Alfred shouted, almost sending me to the ground when he grabbed me in a bear hug from behind to stop himself.

"Wha-Alfred, what are you doing?" I gasped, practically feeling my ribcage being crushed.

"I'm hugging you," I could practically hear the smug smirk in his voice.

"Well stop. I can't breathe." I felt Alfred's grip on me loosen but he didn't let go. I groaned and stepped forward, ignoring the complaint I got from Alfred. "What do you want?"

"I dunno. I just saw you and wanted to say bye I guess." He said with a laugh.

"Oh," I said with a scowl. "Well I appreciate the gesture but I should be getting home." I began walking in a random direction, followed by Alfred's laughter. I had walked for no more than thirty seconds when the laughing became simply annoying.

"What is so funny?" I asked, crossing my arms and sending him a glare.

"Unless you live in the river, the houses are that way." Alfred laughed, pointing his thumb behind him.

"I…I knew that. I was just, erm…"I stuttered, imagining I looked rather stupid. "Shut up."

Alfred laughed and sent me that huge grin of his.

"So where do you live?" He asked.

"Why do you want to know?" I retorted, crossing my arms.

"Well a hero can't leave his damsel in distress, can he?" Alfred asked with a cocky grin. I wasn't sure whether to be embarrassed or angry so I just settled on glaring in an attempt to keep down a blush. "Alright, so where do you live?"

Still glaring, I walked over to him and handed him the folded up sheet of paper that had my address on it. After a minute, Alfred began to chuckle and handed me back the paper. I was about to ask what was so funny when I remembered I had begun to doodle on the paper during math. I let out a sigh of relief, seeing as I had only drawn a couple of characters from my favorite novel at the time instead of my typical unicorns. I had a small obsession with the creatures, I wouldn't lie. I just hoped I would never meet one and have my vision of them crushed. After all, that was exactly what happened when I met a cupid for the first time, but that is a story for later.

"What's so funny?" I asked, pocketing the paper.

"It's not funny, just kinda coincidental." Alfred said and, seeing my confused look, continued. "My house is just a few down from yours."

"Well I guess that is a coincidence." I mumbled, walking past Alfred.

"Artie, wait for me!" He called, running the short distance to catch up with me.

"What is it now, Alfred?" I asked with a sigh.

"Well I wouldn't want you getting lost on your way home? Didn't I already say a hero doesn't let his damsel stay in distress?" I could've smacked him. Instead I just sighed and gave into his million-watt grin.

"I'm not your 'damsel in distress,' thank you very much." I said with a glare. Part of me was screaming to just shove him away and try to do my job. I had actually thought about the situation I was putting him and Kiku into. Alfred had spent the entire day talking to me while all but ignoring Kiku. I had glanced down at his feet at about lunch and kicked myself for my own ignorance. It seemed like with every word he spoke to me, a little of his path was fading away. I had planned to just ignore him and let him catch up with Kiku, hopefully mending the path. Yet here I was, being walked home with the same person I had been telling myself to ignore. I sighed again.

"So, Kiku didn't seem to like me." I blurted, unsuccessfully attempting to take my mind off of the worries circling around in my head.

"Yeah, I noticed that. You just need to give him some time to warm up to you, you know? At first he was scared of me a little. He said I was too loud." He said with a laugh.

"I can see why he thought that." I mumbled, just loud enough for him to hear.

"You wound me." Alfred pouted, throwing his hands over his chest over-dramatically. "Anyway, I actually kinda had a crush on him for a while. Up until summer break, actually."

I stopped walking for a second. What did he mean, used to? Sure, the path was disappearing but it wasn't completely gone! I had seen paths in much worse condition than his and the people still had feelings for one another. I looked down at his feet for the third time that day. His path was still there so why-

"Artie, you okay?" Alfred asked, pulling me out of my thoughts.

"You used to…?"I trailed off, hoping he would get what I was asking about without actually asking it.

"Oh yeah, I guess you weren't expecting me to say something like that." he said with a sheepish smile. I shook my head, trying to think of what any non-matchmaker would be most concerned about. After a moment, I walked back to his side.

"So you're gay?" I finally asked, going for what the most obvious concern would be.

"Not fully," He answered, "I'm just bi."

"Oh." We were quiet for another minute. "So, why did you stop liking Kiku?"

"I spent the summer at the beach, if you get what I'm saying." He said, cupping his hands in front of his chest.

"Of course that'd be it." I rolled my eyes.

"So what about you?" Alfred asked. I sent him a confused look.

"What about me?"

"Are you straight?"

Oh.

"To be honest, I hadn't really thought about it." That was true. Being so focused on my job had left me with no time to think about dating anyone, let alone what gender I would prefer them to be. Now I had something that would keep me up thinking that night. Damn you, Alfred. Said blond just shrugged. After that, we just talked like any normal teenagers. I had found out that Alfred had lived in America until third grade when he got accepted into Hetalia Academy and had to move to Italy. He told me he had a slight obsession with super heroes, especially Captain America, and could recite every line from 'Watchmen.' I was told that Matthew was his brother and was a year younger but, because Alfred had gotten sick and missed too much school to move on to the next grade, he and Matthew ended up being in the same grade. He also said that he would often stay up late during the weekends with Kiku watching horror movies but had found out that his brother Matthew was just as good of a movie-buddy as Kiku. He also told me I was the second person he'd told about his sexual preference, the first being Matthew. Not even Kiku knew about it and, from what I'd heard, Alfred would tell Kiku just about anything. He also told me that, despite what everyone thought, he really wasn't a good athlete. He was just built like one.

In return, I told him that I had just been accepted into the Academy and had moved from England at the beginning of the month. Like him, I wasn't a good athlete. When I told him, he just laughed and said something about sitting out together at gym like a couple of girls on their periods. I also told him about my minor obsession with folklore which Alfred had teased me about for the next few minutes. I was honestly surprised when we stopped in front of my home.

"Your destination, m' lady," Alfred said with a smirk, gesturing towards my home.

"I refuse to be called a woman." I glared at him before turning around, walking up the steps to my door.

"I'll walk you home again tomorrow, okay princess?" I could tell his smirk had turned into a grin.

"It's Arthur!" I shouted before disappearing into the house.

Alfred's POV

I stood there grinning like an idiot for about a minute after Arthur had gone inside. Sure nothing extraordinary had happened but still, I had just met the sexiest guy I'd seen in a while, walked him home, and told him I was bi. The most awesome part-he wasn't freaked out by it! As far as first days go, today seemed like one of the better ones. Once I had stopped grinning a little, I made my way down the street to my house, shut the front door once I got inside, and allowed myself to sigh. I knew I was acting like some love struck 14 year old girl but at the time, I didn't really care. All I knew was that I may have found myself a potential boyfriend. That thought alone made my grin from a few minutes ago appear again.

"You look awfully happy considering today was the first day of school." I opened my eyes to find Matthew standing in front of me, a smug smirk on his lips.

"Am I not allowed to be happy after school?" I asked, the smile turning into a glare. There were times where my brother really annoyed the crap out of me.

"I was just surprised. Usually on the first day, you come home, complain about your teachers, and go play video games until dinner." I sighed. That was usually what would happen on the first day. I mean, I had a reason! Apparently, the school only hired teachers who were constantly PMSing, even if they were a man. Where do they even find all these people? Personally, I think the people who hire teachers just go out to bars or something, find the people that get kicked out, and ask them if they wanna teach a group of kids or teenagers. For some reason, all of them freaking agree! Seriously, that is not healthy for anyone! Anyway, back to the original story.

"Did something happen that I need to know about?" Matthew asked, the smirk going from smug to perverted.

"Get your mind out of the gutter, perv." I rolled my eyes, shoving past him to get to the kitchen. To most, Mattie was just an innocent little Canadian who didn't even know how sex worked. Once you got to know him though, my brother was one of the biggest perverts on the face of the planet. I blame it on having a French dad.

"My mind lives in the gutter, Al. But seriously, what happened that made you so uncharacteristically happy?" There were another two things about Mattie-he was proud to say he was a pervert and used a lot of really long words.

"It's really nothing. There's just a new kid." I said with a shrug, walking over to the 'fridge.

"That's it?" Matthew asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah," I said, rummaging through the 'fridge. "Where'd the soda go?"

"You took the last can of coke to school. Now tell me more about this new kid. Is it the kid from England?" Matthew asked.

"His name is Arthur," I mumbled, attempting to ignore Matthew's giggle. The guy probably found something in that sentence that could be taken in more than one way. Maybe it was because I was being defensive? Which I totally wasn't being, by the way. Knowing Mattie though, he probably thought I was being defensive.

"He's in my art class but I didn't really get a good look at him. Is he as strange as everyone says he is?" He finally said after he stopped laughing.

"Well other than having eyebrows the size of Russia and a slight obsession with unicorns, he's pretty normal." I said, closing the 'fridge.

"…unicorns?" Matthew asked, attempting to keep down a smirk.

"Technically its folklore and legends and stuff like that but he really likes unicorns. At least, that's what he told me." By now, Matthew was nearly doubled over laughing. "What's so funny?"

"He sounds even gayer than you!" Mattie said between laughs. I sighed. How many times was I gonna have to explain this to him?

"One, I'm not fully gay. Two, he said he hadn't really thought about it." I said, holding up a finger for each number on my list.

"Still in the closet," Matthew muttered between laughs.

"Whatever you say," I rolled my eyes at him. "And three, aren't you still dating Gilbert?" At this, Matthew stopped laughing, his cheeks going a little pink. "So technically, you can't be talking."

"Shut up, hoser." Matthew muttered, sticking his tongue out at me. I simply ruffled his hair before flopping down onto the couch. I was quickly joined by Matthew.

"So where exactly did you learn all of this?" He asked.

"I walked him home." I said, immediately regretting it. I knew he was going to make a big deal out of it.

"Why did you walk him home?" And there it was. Leave it to Mattie to not just let something be.

"Because he was completely lost. A hero can't leave someone unable to get home." I answered with a shrug.

"Sure," Mattie said, stretching out the 'u' so it sounded more along the lines of 'suuuuuuuure.' I simply sighed and pushed myself up from the couch.

"Well I'm going to my room now." I began to walk towards the stairs.

"To play video games, right?" Matthew asked. "Or to think about your damsel in distress from England?"

He was really lucky he had good reflexes because if he didn't, he would've been hit in the face with a book I'd thrown at him. Why there was a book on the stairs remains a mystery.

AN: YAY! UPDATE! So now we know that Alfred is kind of over Kiku, Kiku officially hates Arthur, Arthur has a slight obsession with unicorns, and Mattie is a perv. This is gonna be fun :3

So yeah, moving on to the reviews from last chapter:

Sarpndo: He's not stopping 0_0 (your review made me chuckle, by the way)

Love-Peace-Anime: YAY :3 and I don't think its bad...thanks :)

Just saying, reviews make me write faster and this is the last chapter I already wrote...just saying...