Matthew came home that night around seven. He was late for dinner by a couple minutes so Mom made me stay as he took his time on finishing. The whole time I wanted to rip my hair out and scream for him to shut up. He just kept going on, and on, and on about how cool Arthur was and how much fun he had playing soccer with him.
"He hadn't heard of hockey before, but that's okay. I think I'm going to teach him to play this winter. He thought it sounded fun." Matthew was the only kid in the neighbourhood who played hockey, had since he was about five. Almost every winter he tried to teach someone else how to so they could play together. First time it had been me, but I couldn't skate to save my life. Then he tried to teach some girl who lived down the street that we didn't talk to much. Her name was Elizabeta or something like that. Gilbert had started acting all weird when he did and so Matthew stopped. The next winter he tried to teach the whole Trio, but they fooled around too much and wouldn't listen to him. Then came Gilbert's little brother, Ludwig, but he was clumsier than me and it was an utter fiasco. Last winter he tried to teach me again, and even though I could skate, I just couldn't play hockey.
Snapping back into reality, I realized how strange Matthew's story had became in the time I zoned out. "...about how he couldn't see the fairies here. I've never seen fairies here either so maybe they just live back in England." He stopped for a moment, looking as though he just accidentally spilled a bunch of secret government information. "Arthur told me not to tell anyone, so Al, you better not tease him about it!" Raising my arms in surrender, I quickly replied, "What makes you think I would?"
"Oh you know-"
"Boys!" Mom was giving a both a hard glare.
"Sorry," we mumbled to each other looking down at the table. She let out a breath and said, "Now tell me more about Arthur's magic, Matthew."
"Well, he says he's going to become a wizard one day and that is whole family is magic. He has a bunch of old books in his room about magic too. We made an agreement that he'd teach me magic to bring Kumajirou to life if I taught him hockey." Mom shook her head and said, "You boys and you're wild imaginations," while I confusedly asked, "Kuma-who?"
"Kumaguru is the polar bear Grandpa gave me."
"You named it?" It took me a few seconds to realize that he said a different name both times. "Wait didn't you say Kumajirou the first time?"
"I called him that both times."
"You said something-" Mom was glaring at me. I had been in enough trouble for one day so I decided to just shut up.
The conversation ended there and dinner finished a few minutes later. Putting dishes from the sink into the dishwasher, I couldn't help but wonder why one guy that I hated had impacted my life so much all in one day.
That night I couldn't sleep. I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling wondering about who had really messed what up. Maybe if Mom hadn't tried to force the two of us together, I wouldn't be grounded. If Matthew had spoken up, we wouldn't have thrown the water balloons at Arthur. If Arthur wasn't such a dislikable person then we wouldn't be in this mess to begin with.
After a while, I gave up on trying to pin it all on the others. Though I still felt like they had a fault in it some how, but the real problem in the whole thing was me. I was supposed to be there hero and I had messed up. Just as I started to drift off, I realized that to be a hero, I was actually going to have to try.
I was okay with that.
As it turned out, Gilbert had gotten grounded as well because he wasn't allowed to come to Matthew's and my birthday party. He walked down to our house on the second of July and apologized to Matthew for being a day late for his birthday. Handing us both a wrapped present, he then said, "I got grounded for the water balloon thing, so I can't come to your party tomorrow. And I can't stay much longer than this, so bye." He proceeded to run the whole way home.
Sitting down in the living room, we opened both our presents at once. Wide eyed, Matthew held up a large book, all on polar bears. "MOM!" he yelled, excitedly running upstairs. Quickly ripping the paper off of mine, I sat staring at the box laying in the wrapping.
"A model plane," I almost half whispered in awe. How much did Gil spend on us? I wondered suddenly, looking more closely at the thing. How did he know I even wanted this?
I could hear someone walking down the stairs. Turning back, I saw Matthew with his nose in his book and Mom behind him, a hand on his shoulder, trying to prevent him from face-planting into the stairs.
Compared to what Gilbert had gotten me, none of the other presents were exciting at all. Okay, except for maybe the Gameboy Mom got me.
By the time August ended, I was basically ready to go back to school. At the end of July, I had discovered that one, Gilbert was grounded for the rest of summer, and two, Antonio had gotten shipped off to live on his grandparents' farm a couple towns over. Of course I still had Francis, but we got bored too easily and without the crazy ideas from the other two.
That left Antonio's older brother-who I didn't know well, but from what Antonio had told me, the two were nothing alike-Ludwig, who I knew wasn't anything like Gilbert, Elizabeta and some fifteen year old guy, who lived up the street and had green eyes and long blond hair. There was also Arthur but he wasn't exactly an option. So my last month of summer was spent between playing with Matthew and trying to entertain myself.
Before really anyone knew it, it was September first and I was getting up a whole two hours earlier than Matthew. While he was just starting fifth grade, I had my first day of middle school to look forward to. I can't be all that bad, right? I thought as I walked to the bus stop at the end of the street. The guy with the blond hair lived in the house where the bus stop was. I'd never really talk to him before that day when I found him already waiting in his driveway.
"Oh! Like, hi!" he said as I got closer to him. Looking him over, I couldn't help but notice that he had a pink shirt on. "Hi," I said almost nervously as I stood a few feet away from him.
"You, like, live down the street, right?"
"Uh...yeah."
"Is your name Alfred?" a feminine voice behind me asked. I turned around to see Elizabeta walking up behind me. She was fifteen but just shorter than me by a couple inches. Her long, light brown hair fell down past her shoulders and her bottle green eyes seemed to glow in the early morning light.
Straightening up a bit I replied, "Yeah, I'm Alfred."
She gave me a smile, "Gil talks about you sometimes."
"He does?" This came as an utter surprise to me. I didn't really think that the trio thought much of me outside of when we hung out, much less talked about me.
"He told Feliks and I," she nodded over to the blond boy, "that you were the one behind the big water balloon mishap."
"Oh, yeah. That." How long would that be following me around?
"Hey!" Feliks suddenly said. "Like, speak of the devil." Looking over I saw Antonio and Gilbert running towards the bus stop with Ludwig walking a few yards behind them. Before either could stop, Gilbert crashed into Elizabeta and Antonio ran into the mailbox.
"Ha!" Gilbert exclaimed, jumping up. "I so beat you!"
"No fair," Antonio whined, still smiling. The two of them came over and stood by me as Elizabeta brushed herself off, muttering under her breath. Ludwig stood behind us by himself, not wanting to draw attention to him. I always forgot he was in my grade.
Antonio looked over at Feliks and randomly said, "I thought you got your driver's license."
"Oh, yeah! Well I totally wanted to but, like, the teacher said that I couldn't because I didn't pass the class. It was totally not cool. So now I have to retake the, like, entire class this summer."
"That sucks, mi amigo," Antonio said with a slight frown. Was Feliks seriously sixteen? He didn't look sixteen, just like Elizabeta didn't look fifteen. Maybe it was because they were both so short.
We hung around chatting for several minutes, Francis even showed up and we just added him right in. I almost completely forgot about school and all of summer until he showed up.
In the middle of talking about what would happen if Feliks got turned into a pony, Arthur had joined us at the bus stop and was standing there watching us, as if waiting for us to let him into our conversation. Francis was the first to notice him. When he did, his eyes narrowed into little slits and he hissed something that sounded like, "Black sheep of Europe."
"Frog," Arthur snapped back causing us all to look over at him. "Oh! Like, hey!" Feliks exclaimed obviously not realizing that the rest of us weren't making a move to talk to him. I suddenly felt guilty. Did the rest of them not like him because I didn't? Or was it because he was obviously hostile towards Francis? I couldn't hold that much power in the mismatched group yet. Could I?
Thankfully no one got much else out because the bus pulled up to the end of the street and it was time to go to school.
The bus ride was unusually quiet compared to the screaming Kindergarteners that I was used to. Gilbert sat with me in the seat across from Francis and Antonio. Ludwig awkwardly sat with some kid in front of us. He had brown hair and darkened hazel eyes. There was an odd curl sticking out from his head. It took me a moment but I recognized him, Lovino Vargas. He glared at Ludwig and muttered something. I had forgotten that he was in my grade as well. Maybe I just pay that good of attention to them all.
Before I really knew it, we had driven the two miles to the school and the high schoolers were filing off. Apparently we stopped at the high school first and then went to the middle school, which I just found odd since there wasn't that much farther of a drive to go to one or another first. Soon we were all getting off as well.
The day moved too fast. First hour blended into second hour, second hour somehow turned to third hour and, if it were a snake, fourth hour would have bit me. There was one thing that I noticed in the time of third and fourth hour, Arthur. He was in both of my classes. Great, I thought sarcastically on my way to lunch, trying not to let the discovery put me in a bad mood.
Finally finding him, I sat down next to Kiku who had been my best friend for about five years at that point. He looked up at me, "Hello, Alfred. Are you having a good day?"
"Yeah, my day's been fine. What about you?"
"I made a new friend today in first hour. He said he might come sit by us later."
"Oh cool! What's his-"
"Alfred!" Jett called out, clapping me on the back. "Haven't seen ya all summer, now have I?"
I smirked at him. "How was the crocodile wrestling?" Jett had gone to Australia over the summer to visit his grandparents, which happened basically every summer, and he usually came back with a story to tell. That and we constantly joked about how he had developed an Aussie accent thanks to the trips.
"This one got a pretty good chomp outta my-"
A lunch tray was slammed down on the table. "I'm here!"
"Matthias!" Jett and I called, grinning at him. Eduard sat down next to him, not making a scene of it. Him and Kiku were the only quiet ones in our group and usually kept us from doing stupid things, though it didn't always work out like that. Soon the jokes were flying and we didn't even notice as someone sat down next to Kiku.
"And then the potato said..." I suddenly zoned out, feeling a pair of eyes rest upon me. Looking over, I made direct eye contact with irritated, narrowed eyes. What's he doing here?
Kiku noticed Arthur the same moment, and almost loudly said, "I am sorry to interrupt but this is my new friend Arthur."
"Hey Arthur," Jett and Matthias said in almost perfect unison. I gave him a nod while Eduard gave him a simple, "Hello."
"Arthur this is Eduard-"
"Hello."
"-Jett, Matthias-"
"Nice to meet you." Why was he so overly polite?
"-and Alfred."
"We're acquainted," he said, sounding almost bitter about it. Eduard gave me a sideways glance and I shrugged a bit. They didn't have to know about what happened this summer unless the limey-the word seemed to fit him-went ahead and told everyone.
"Right," Jett said slowly. He turned back to Matthias and me and continued, "Did I tell you what happened with the kangaroos and the dingos?"
"No," Arthur said, adding himself into the conversation.
Jett smirked a bit, "Right, so we were drivin' down the street when we see this dingo come running towards us. Now that wasn't really weird, but no, here after him comes five or six kangaroos. So we stop to watch it and they eventually catch it and they just start basically start beating it up. And I have never seen anything more unnatural than it."
"Sure," Matthias said, rolling his eyes. "Just like the time you hugged a shark."
"I did!" There was more eye rolling and laughing from around the table. Jett was smirking like he always did when he knew fully well he was talking bullcrap.
Chuckling a bit I said, "Okay whatever, dude." Kiku had a partial smile on his face and Eduard was grinning and shaking his head.
"I believe you," Arthur said, sounding almost innocent. Jett's face dropped a bit. "Oh, uh...sorry, mate. I was actually just joking around." A pink tint creeped along Arthur's cheeks.
The rest of lunch continued like that; us making our same stupidly lame jokes and Arthur trying to fit into a group where he obviously didn't belong. Eventually, the lunch lady yelled at us to go to class and we all made our way back to our lockers, back into an unwanted reality.
As it turned out, Arthur was in my last two hours as well. It wouldn't have been so bad, if they hadn't been my two favourite classes and if he wasn't making a point of trying to show me up. With every single question, he raised his hand to answer even if he didn't actually know, each time throwing a glance back at me. Angrily gripping my pencil, I half glared down at my paper realizing that I was the one who told him we were rivals and he was trying to beat me at my own game.
If he wanted war, he had war.
The next day he didn't sit by us at lunch again which was quite alright with me. But in each of our core classes, we were passively aggressively trying to outdo each other.
Apparently that put our science teacher under the impression that it would be a good idea to pair us up together. It didn't turn out well to say the least.
"No, we're supposed to line them up in a sequence of events," Arthur said rearranging our papers again.
"He just said that we had to put them in reverse order, starting with present day locations and end-"
"Now why would anyone-"
"He just said-"
The argument was continuous, dropping off and picking back up. It didn't end until our science teacher, Mr. Maetter, told the class to start cleaning up because the bell was about to ring. Thankfully we didn't have to sit near each other on the bus, otherwise a fight might have started again.
Unfortunately, we never did stop arguing in class and we ended up getting a "C" on the project. Arthur seemed to hate me even more for it even though it was partially his fault too. After that, our competition of seeming to be smarter than the other came to a hault. It wasn't because we had both given up, no, it was largely because of some girl that also happened to share almost every class with us. Her and her curly hair and bucked teeth, acting all smarter than us.
Well she was, but that's besides the point.
Being only a couple months into school, I accepted the fact that I would have to interact with him more often, but for some reason, that just didn't happen. Maybe the word got around to our other teachers that we were physically incapable of getting along. Or fate just kept us apart.
It was a long time before Arthur played any role in my life again.
Well, so there's that. I promised you guys in like chapter two or something that I would have another chapter out by Memorial Day and here it is!
I'm sorry my writing probably sucks right now because my head hurts thanks to my nose being plugged (allergies) and I'm just a mess. You have every right to be upset with my writing currently.
If you have any suggestions on how to get rid of the pressure in my head or on how to improve my writing at all (fic or book suggestions, articles to read, all that jazz) just leave a review or try to contact me somehow.
I'd also like to point out that I was still fairly young during the late 90's so I don't remember much of them other than falling off my bike when I was three. So I apologize if any of you are reading this and it doesn't seem like it's based in the 90's at all. The 2000's on the other hand I remember well so I'll have an easier time writing about them later on.
WARNING: Next chapter will skip a gap of time and there will be bullying involved in it. I'll provide more warnings for when I actually post it, but I'll tell you this right about now.
Anyway, have a nice Monday!
P.S. Any of you guys watch Eurovision?