Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia. All rights go to Hidekaz Himaruya
Ch. 4 Success
The morning couldn't come fast enough for the two. Why were they like that they asked themselves. But soon enough the morning began and the two meet with each other at school but both were a bit edgey so they came earlier. Somehow they came at the right time, just as if they had some sort of telepathic connection.
"So did you figure out what was wrong?" asked Mei.
"Yes, I did some research and found out what's the source of their reaction last night."
"Well out with it already. The tension and anticipation is killing me."
"Right so you know how Kiku is the head of a large business?"
"Right but how would you know that?"
"I looked it up online. It says he's the head of Honda industries. Anyway Arthur is also the head of Kirkland industries and the two are large rivals. They compete in almost every department and they go head to head in those things. Although Arthur's food department is quite horrible as you can imagine."
Shuttering from the memory, "Yeah."
"Also Arthur's magic trinkets are doing surprisingly well in the kids department."
"So what are we going to do about this? Disobey them?"
"I don't think that's a wise decision. But they never said we had to stop being friends and we could still meet outside of our homes."
"You're surprisingly sly when you want to be Xiang."
Xiang nodded. "So are we going to initiate the plan today after school?"
"Yep, since the shop's closed today, we'll move on with the plan. We can't let our guardians stop us from putting two people together right?"
Xiang pulled the plans that they had been working on out of his bad and laid them out on his desk. "Everything is here. The steps, the music and most importantly this contract that gives us all legality to be doing this stuff."
Mei grabbed the plans and started to read them out loud; "Step 1: Use the spare keys that Yao gave us to go inside and set things up. Step 2: Call the both of them to the store with some sort of emergency or other. Step 3: Lock all the doors and exits and close off all the lights besides a few candle lights. Step 4: Start to play our instruments while being hidden behind the rice screen. Step 5: They start to confess, fall in love, and we all be happy. Sound good?"
"The last one is questionable."
"Oh shut up. Let's do this."
School flew by before the two knew it. The plan had to be initiated before night time so that there wouldn't be too many people wondering what the two would be doing yet enough light to still make their move. The time in between this, they used to better synchronize with each other with their instruments. Xiang took out his cell phone with a little panda shaped charm. He told Mei that it was about time and they cleaned up and headed out of the school's music room.
The town was surprisingly quiet and the two entered the shop. Everything was cleaned up and the chairs were stacked on top of the tables. Mei moved to make some tea and Xiang started to close all the blinds and set up the rice screens to hide themselves. Mei took out her phone and pressed the speed dial button for Yao and began to clear her voice for the act she was about to put up.
"Hello? Mei? ~aru"
"Yao! Quickly come to the shop! I was making some tea and I accidently set something on fire while I was boiling the tea!."
"Aiyahh! I'll be there right away ~aru." Mei closed the phone and gave Xiang and thumbs up. Xiang started to lit the candles and moved over to the doors to shut them in when Ivan and Yao came. Mei then dialed Ivan's number that she got from the counter. It seemed that he was a regular. She cleared her voice again but only this time she would have to try and mimic Yao's voice only it wasn't going to be too difficult. She had done it before.
"Hello? This is Ivan speaking."
"Ivan? This is Yao, could you come over to the shop? I want to talk to you ~aru."
"Da, I shall be over in a moment." Mei closed her phone and she gave Xiang a victory smile and Xiang just rolled his eyes. Mei grabbed their things and moved over to the rice screens; also turning the lights off as well.
All was silent as they waited for the two soon-to-be couple to show up. Yao burst through the door and began to shout, "Mei! Where's the fire? Why are the lights off ~aru?" Yao began to walk further into the shop and he then noticed the candles that lit a table at the corner of the room. He walked over there and suddenly Ivan came through the door.
Yao turned to look at him, "I-Ivan? W-why are you here ~aru?"
Ivan began to walk over to Yao, "I received a call from you and you said that you wanted to talk to me."
Xiang took this moment to silently lock the door. Blending in with the shadows he quickly moved over to the rice screens where Mei waited with his xiao. He gently took it from her and placed the woodwind instrument close to his mouth. Mei then sat down and placed her erhu between her legs and readied the bow.
"W-what? I did no such thing ~aru."
"If that were true then why does this scene seem a bit too romantic for nothing," answered Ivan.
Mei gave Xiang the signal and he began to gently blow into the xiao. After a few melodies in, Mei began to bow her erhu and a soft song came into being. Yao and Ivan didn't take notice of who would be playing the song but enjoyed it nonetheless.
"I don't know ~aru." Yao began to blush and tried to turn his face away from Ivan.
Ivan then took Yao's chine with his hand and turned his face toward him, "If you don't know then why are you turning away from me?" He asked seductively.
"Because I don't want you to see the embarrassment on my face ~aru."
"It's fine. You know you're cuter when you're truthful and when you have this nice shade of red."
Yao flushed even harder then. "T-then why do you care? ~aru"
"Isn't that obvious?"
"No ~aru."
"Well my little Jao, should I tell you?"
"I-if you want ~aru."
"Then I'll take that as your permission."
"Permission to do wha-" Ivan pulled Yao toward him and then captured his lips with his own. The kiss only lasted for a brief moment but it was enough to make Yao turn scarlet. "~aru."
"I like you Jao."
"I-I like you too."
Ivan then hugged Yao and Yao returned the hug gently. Just then the lights flicked on and Mei and Xiang emerged from the rice screens.
"Yay! It was a success!" exclaimed Mei. "Didn't I tell you it'd work Xiang?"
"Yeah." Xiang mentally sighed; he knew he wasn't going to hear the end of this for a while now.
"Mei? Xiang? I should have known you two set this up ~aru."
"Are you angry?" asked Mei.
"I'm angry that you would trick us into this but I have to say thank you ~aru."
"Da, I also have to say thank you to you two. Who knows how long it would've taken me to corner Yao like this and make him confess, kolkolkol."
"You're welcome?"
"Well we'll leave you two alone so you can do whatever it is couples do," said Xiang. He then grabbed Mei and their things and left the shop. They noticed that it was still around sunset so Mei decided she wanted to go to the flower gardens. They entered through a gate and they enjoyed the views of fields upon fields of flowers. As the two walked through the fields, they enjoyed the smell of the flowers. There were a few greenhouses at the end of the walk way so they decided to head over there. Mei pushed open the door and looked around.
"Hello! Is anyone here?" shouted Mei.
Footsteps started to move and a very tall man with light hair and bluish-green eyes appeared. Mei was about to talk to him until he came closer at which point Mei backed away behind Xiang. Xiang could see why, the man had a very intimidating aura. The two silent men started to stare at each other, neither moving a muscle nor even blinking. Mei now believed that she had started a competition between the two that would probably last all night if this were to be uninterrupted.
A short blonde man suddenly appeared and started to shout, "Berwald! There you are. Who are the kids?"
"Ehh, we're students that were just looking around the flower gardens," explained Mei.
"Oh, this is Berwald and my name is Tino."
"It's nice to meet you. My name is Mei and this is Xiang. Oh, could you somehow stop their stare off?"
"Sure," accepted Tino. He started to wave his hand in front of Berwald trying to get him to break his immobile state.
Mean while with Berwald and Xiang, they were sending messages to each other through their stoic faces and eyes.
Why are you two around here?
Like my friend explained, we're just enjoying the flowers. Are you the gardener around here?
Berwald gave an agreed stare and continued. I am the main gardener around here and this is my wife Tino.
Your wife? Does he know that?
He does not, not yet anyway.
I see. Xiang could predict the next couple that he and Mei were going to match up now.
So who's she?
She's my best friend.
Just then Mei came in and smacked Xiang over the head, breaking him out of his stare off with Berwald. "Dammit Xiang, why did you have to go off into another world or something."
Xiang gave her an apologetic gaze and she let out a sigh, "Fine I forgive you."
"Oh you two communicate so well," exclaimed Tino. "Is he your boyfriend or something?"
Mei turned into a deep shade of red from the question, "What! No no no. He's my best friend, not boyfriend."
"Oh, sorry for my misunderstanding."
Mei started to calm down, "It's okay. Well it's getting pretty late. We have to go now."
"Oh, well do come by sometime. Also you should come by to my hot springs when you can."
"Wait, you're not a gardener too?" asked Xiang.
"Oh no. I just come to visit Berwald. The hot springs are pretty slow until night time."
"That's interesting," said Mei. "We'll try and visit some time then. Well bye!"
"Bye you two."
As they began to walk out of the garden, Mei asked, "Xiang, what were you doing having the staring contest anyway?"
"I was talking to him."
"What? But you guys weren't even saying anything."
"We didn't have to. Anyway, I think you'd like to learn that Berwald likes Tino."
"Really? I thought they were already together. Wait, why are you telling me this?"
"Just because you know, since we helped Ivan and Yao, I thought we could help others too."
"Haha, I sucked you into this and now you can't get away huh? Well anyway you've figured out our next mission. We'll start planning tomorrow, kay?"
"Alright."
Authors Note:
This chapter was kind of fun to write you know with the whole Yao/Ivan thing and then a stare off with Xiang and Berwald. Prepare yourselves for a major plot twist in the next chapter and along with that I need to give even more credit to an OCs creator. Thank you for reading and hopefully reviewing
