Frog Dissection pt. 4

"We're here!" Alfred sang into the empty house.

Matthew swatted his brother on the back of his head, "Al! Shut up or you'll wake up Kumajiro!"

His twin growled, rubbing the spot that was just assaulted. Matthew flipped on the lights, revealing a simple two story home. The floors were all hardwood; the walls were a pale blue that matched the couch in the living room. Gilbert could see the kitchen through a wide doorway; it was tiled and had red walls. Pictures of the brothers and their family were scattered throughout the house. One caught Arthur's eye that was quite unusual. Not unusual in the poses of the family, but the sight of a huge, white bear-dog creature in the corner. Matthew hung onto his neck as the thing chomped on his hand. Matthew saw the Brit's questioning look at the photograph and picked it up.

"That's Kumajiro, our Great Pyrenees." He informed, Gilbert cocked an eyebrow. "Usually he's nice, but if you forget to feed him he always goes for me."

Alfred snickered. "Yeah, the dog's confused for some reason, and always hangs around Mat."

Matthew placed the picture back in its rightful place, rubbing the scars he received that day. His twin was already in the process of dragging Arthur upstairs to his bedroom. Gilbert whistled, whispering to the Canadian that he didn't think the two were going to get any work done. The blond blushed as the air from the white haired boy's words tickled his earlobe, catching it and blushing as he nodded. A loud slam and shouting confirmed their beliefs.

To avoid any interruption, Matthew suggested working in the kitchen. Gilbert agreed, looking a little disturbed as the chaos in the other twin's bedroom suddenly stopped. The blond gathered his bag and spread the packet and references across the table. Gilbert sat opposite of him; once in a while he would glance up to watch Matthew, then avert his gaze when the said person would have to replace a reference sheet. At one point they reached for the same paper, both of them weren't looking as their hands touched, finally landing with one on top of the other. Realizing what happened, the white haired boy felt his face grow hot as he saw that his partner across the table was already sporting a nice shade of red.

"Maybe we should take a break," Gilbert took back his hand, "we've been at it for thirty minutes."

Matthew nodded, "Yeah, and look at how much we've gotten done!" He proved his point by flipping to the next page of the packet. "We only have three more pages."

The white haired boy blinked, getting up from his seat and stretching. Matthew grimaced at the soft pops of his back as he twisted to loosen up. "So where's your room?"

"Oh, upstairs, I have the old guest room ever since Alfred and I decided to stop sharing a room in 7th grade."

"If it were me I wouldn't share a room for any extended amount of time."

Matthew willed his study sore legs up. "Yeah, but we're twins, so it was easier that way."

"True," Gilbert pulled at the blond's arm, "Quit stalling, let's see your room!"

He sighed, letting the red-eyed partner lead him up the stairs. They looked at each other in sickened horror as they heard soft whispers and long amounts of silence from Alfred's door. 'Thanks for making it obvious, Al.' The Canadian rolled his eyes. 'You couldn't have played some music to cover up your face-vacuuming?' Turning a knob on a familiar door, he let Gilbert in first.

Turning on the light, it wasn't a very interesting room. Not to Matthew, anyways. There was a single twin bed wrapped in blanket with his favorite hockey team's logo. As opposed to Alfred's room, which had trophies of athletic achievements, he only had a few academic trophies and certificates. A simple desk and a desktop computer sat in the corner of the room. The walls were alternating white and red, with pictures of his family and friends. A Canadian flag (given to him as a gag gift for his birthday from Alfred) was tacked to the wall above his bed. One particular photo on Matthew's bedside table caught his eye. Gilbert treaded across the white carpet, carefully picking the picture up by the frame.

It was both of them, younger obviously. It was probably elementary school, because the blond clutched to a stuffed white bear. His glasses were almost the same width of his face, unlike the slim frames he wore now. It seemed like Matthew never grew out of the maple leaf sweatshirt and worn-in-the-knees jeans. Gilbert in the picture had an arm slung across the boy's shoulders, a smirk plastered on the white haired boy's face. There were cowboy hats on both of them, the hats way too big for their heads. It was probably taken by a teacher or Matthew's mother. 'This was taken in 5th grade, why hold on to it?' he asked himself, but put the photo back.

"That was field trip day to the horse ranch." Gilbert turned to see Matthew sitting cross legged on his bed. "I was too afraid to ride the ponies even though they were small."

The other boy nodded. "I remember now, I let you ride with me only if you would sit in front." He chuckled, thinking back to the memory. "I was secretly scared, too, because I wouldn't let go of you once we stopped."

"Then when I asked if you were okay, you said, 'Who do you think I am? I'm awesome!' and fell flat on your butt backwards."

"Hey, my tail bone ached for two weeks after that!" he shoved Matthew lightly, flushing at the blond's impeccable memory. "So what else did we do?"

Matthew tapped his chin, allowing Gilbert to sit next to him. "Well there was that time when we…"

Alfred burst through the door of his twin's room. "Yo, Mat, Artie and I -uh- couldn't understand some of the questions so we copied -I mean- compared your answers to ours… what are you two doing?"

Both Gilbert and Matthew twisted their heads away from the scrapbook. His twin shrugged his blushing betraying the aloof outside. "Just reliving some childhood memories, so what were you saying about you and Arthur?"

"Uuh, nothing," Alfred rubbed the back of his neck, "it's getting late, so we're gonna drop Artie and then Gilbert off at their houses."

Matthew nodded, leaving Alfred to shut the door behind him. His partner had already returned the scrapbook to its place on Matthew's shelf above his bed. "We should do this more often."

"Pardon?"

"The hanging out thing, we should do it more." Gilbert scratched his arm nervously. "You know, without the studying part first."

The blond smiled, another round of crimson returning to his face. "I'd like that."

[A/N]: Hey everyone, how are y'all after…two days of no "Frog Dissection"? It took longer than most parts because I couldn't figure out what to write after Al and Artie went to go… "study". So yeah, I'm thinking the next chapter is going to be Gilbert's third person POV. I wanna mention Ludwig and Feliciano. Oh yeah, and that "we should hang out more" bit? I totally pulled it out of my ass. It lead to wanting to do the Gilbert thing, though, so it worked out.

By the way, where I live, 5th grade is considered elementary school still. Sixth through eighth is middle/junior high school, and then ninth through twelfth is high school. And yes, I do "compare answers" from time to time.