"So, you're back," the man with a long blond hair said to the another one in front of him.

"It certainly seems like that, you frog," the sandy blond haired man - Arthur - snarled.

"I was already worried that you wouldn't come back, mon cher," the long haired one said with a low voice.

"No need for that," Arthur mumbled. "Of course I'll come back here."

"I know," another smiled. "Parce que cet endroit est notre maison, après tout."

Chapter Four of Memories
----home of dreams----

"Alfred!"

The one mentioned slowly cracked one eye open and was greeted by blinding rays of sun. He groaned and turned his back to the window.

"For maple's sake... Al! We're going to be late!" Someone yelled. Wait, that voice sounded kinda familiar... Oh, it was just his brother.

"What, Mattie," Alfred mumbled against his pillow. "Why are you disturbing my holy sleep?"

"What 'holy sleep'?" Younger of the two brothers asked. "Anyways, wake up! We really shouldn't be late, on our first day here on top of it."

"You can go, just let me sleep a little bit more..." Alfred sighed and snuggled against his oh-so-soft matress, trying to fall asleep again.

But all his attempts failed when his twin brother promptly grabbed his sheets and pulled them away from Alfred. Latter, trying to get them back, soon found himself from the floor.

"Geez, Mattie! At least let people sleep in peace!" Alfred whined, rolling around on the floor and mumbling incoherencies.

"How old are you again?" Matthew wondered. "It's already almost quarter to nine! You slept through the breakfast just because I was stupid enough to trust you to actually stay awake after I left!"

Alfred actually didn't even listen to him. Instead, he just kept on whining, but at least he didn't roll on the floor anymore and had settled on one position, facing the wall and curled up like a cat.

Matthew sighed, threw the sheets back on the bed and kneeled next to his brother.

"Just get your clothes on and brush your teeth, will you? Our class starts in fifteen minutes," Matthew asked and poked his brother's side.

"...Fine," Alfred mumbled and sat up, now facing Matthew. "But not because you ask me to."

Alfred stood up from the floor and went to get his school uniform that had been delivered at the previous evening after the supper to them by a kinda grumpy Italian, who apparently was principal's another grand-son. Seriously, how old that guy was? Did he have some kind of beauty surgeries or something to look younger than he really was?

While waiting for Alfred to get his clothes on and to brush his teeth, Matthew glanced around the room where they would be living for the next few years. It was a fairly big, square room with light blue walls. When one would have stepped inside of the door, they would have seen the large windows on the opposite wall, which had violet curtains. At the either side of the room, there were two beds, the one at the right side for Matthew and one at the left for Alfred. Next to the beds, there were desks, chairs and wardrobes.

Between the two windows at another wall, there was a blue couch and in front of it was a table. Next to the Matthew's wardrobe there was another door that led to the bathroom. There was toilet and a shower.

In whole, it was a nice room. No problem using it.

"I'm ready!" Alfred suddenly yelled, sprinting out of the bathroom. He was fully dressed in his school uniform - blue and violet pants that had a pattern like tartan, white shirt with a yellowish vest on top of it and a blue jacket. Matthew's was exactly the same.

"You don't have your glasses on," younger of the two noted to his brother. "And you have tooth-paste on your cheek."

"Geez, Matthew, you sound just like Mom!" Alfred muttered and went to get his glasses.

"At least wipe the tooth paste away as well!" Matthew complained and wiped the white substance away by himself from Alfred's cheek. "I seriously sometimes wonder how old you really are. Anyways, let's go or we're going to be late!"

Alfred murmured something incoherence and then they finally left their room, Matthew making sure they locked it. Then the younger one noted to his brother:

"Didn't that boy who gave us our uniforms tell us to go to principal at first?"

"I guess so," Alfred mumbled. "Where was the office, again?"

"You're unbelieavable," Matthew sighed. "Let me show you the way."

After turning right, left from few corridors, they were before the door that announced Principal Julius Vargas. Matthew knocked on the door a little bit hesitantly.

"Come in!" Someone told them from the other side. Matthew opened the door and let his brother step in before him and the came in himself and closed the door.

"Ah, North American brothers!" the principal noted with a blinding grin. "I was already starting to get worried if you wouldn't show up at all."

"I apologize for being so late, mister Vargas," Matthew said politely. The principal laughed.

"No need for being so stiff!" He announced and Matthew nodded quietly. "Now, please follow Diederich. He's your class's main teacher and also teaches you history. Be nice to him~!"

Twins' attention turned to the German man, who tried to look like he didn't care. And succeeded.

"Follow me," the blond said stiffly and when he stepped towards the door, two brothers automatically stepped to the side and let him go before them. As they left, both turned to look at the principal over their shoulder, Matthew nodding nervously while Alfred gave his widest smile and waved with his hand before shutting the door.

Julius Vargas sighed. He was once again left alone, sitting in his large office behind the desk on a nice chair. The light coming from behind him was framed in front of him on the floor into a shape of a window and its many smaller squares. The corners of the room were dark there where the light couldn't reach.

You could say the same about the path he was walking back then.

Alfred and Matthew followed their teacher, the vice principal, in silence. In Alfred's eyes, every single wall looked just like a copy of others, only difference in paintings. The one they were treating now had countless windows next to one another on the wall at the right side from them, showing a scenery of a field of flowers that name Alfred did not know.

"Mister Deiderich," Alfred then voiced out. The man acknowledged him with a lingering glance. "What flowers those are?"

"...There is three different kinds of flowers on that field," Diederich told him with a low voice. "Lily, cornflower and red carnation."

"The field looks very beautiful," Matthew noted, looking out of the windows.

"...Indeed," the vice principal agreed as the field disappeared behind the corner. Soon the man stopped and opened some door. When Alfred glanced up he caught a sight of a sign saying "1-B". Then the brothers followed their vice principal and teacher inside.

The chatting of their future class-mates quieted down when they stepped in the class. Now everyone's eyes were on the two brothers.

"Class," Diederich started with a firm and serious voice. "These two will be attending this class from this day on. Be nice to them." Then he turned to the twins. "Please introduce yourselves."

Alfred gave his brightest smile possible and said cheerfully:

"Well hello! I'm Alfred F. Jones and this is my bro Matthew! Nice to meet you all!"

When mentioning Matthew he swung his arm around his brothers shoulder and so Matthew just settled for simply nodding.

"Go sit wherever you like. Are we missing anyone?" Diederich asked from the class.

"Isandro ain't here!" some boy with dark brown hair and tanned skin announced. The boy next to him chuckled. One could have heard him muttering something along lines "hopefully won't show up in few days".

"Anyone else?" Diederich asked when he sat behind his desk. Alfred spotted free places for him and his brother and started dragging Matthew into the said direction. Matthew, still a little bit nervous of everyone's (almost everyone's) stares sat at the second row next to the boy who had delivered twins' school uniforms at the day before. Alfred sat behind him, still grinning brightly.

Their teacher continued checking if everyone was there. During that, Alfred felt a very weird stare on his head. He slowly turned to look next to him. He was sitting next to a girl with long and curly reddish brown hair and blue eyes.

He kept himself from shrieking in terror.

"Maria..." he whispered, eyes wide.

"Brother..." the girl called Maria whispered. "Are we finally going to get married...? Is that why you've followed me here, because you love me?"

"No!" Alfred hissed. "And I'm not your brother! What are you doing here anyway? I thought you were in Australia!"

"They transferred me here," Maria breathed. "Oh, brother, let me-"

"Aracelia and Alfred, have you something you want to tell us?"

Both of them snapped their head towards their teacher. Matthew turned to look behind him, surprised to hear a familiar name.

"Aracelia?" he asked quietly and was ignored pretty much by everyone.

"No, mister Diederich," Maria or Aracelia by her full name told their stoic teacher. "It's just a happy reunion. Right, Al?"

Alfred swallowed.

"Yeah," he said quietly. "Very happy."

"Very well," Diederich said. "Alfred and Matthew, come get your books so we can get started with the lesson."

Twins stood up and went to get their books. When Alfred sat back down, he took a look at the book he had been given. Cover of the book was a picture of bright blue sky and it said with big, dark blue letters HISTORY.

He had never liked history.

"At the beginning of the 21th century, one of the most known incidents around the world was the destruction of the twin towers of World Trade Center in New York, the United States in September the 11th..."

Alfred heard their teacher's voice from the distance. History is boring, he thought. Why think about past when we have future right ahead us?

He stared out of the window. They were in the second floor so he could easily see in the middle of the yard. It was like a very beautiful garden; a pond surrounded by thousands of flowers, this time ones he could see from that distance were roses, some white and red flowers that looked similar to bells, some complicated looking yellow flowers, tulips and some little trees with red flowers in them.

It looked very beautiful in the sunlight.

Suddenly Alfred saw someone coming to the pond. It was a tall boy (man?) who wore a creamy coloured scarf and his hair were silvery.

Then their eyes met.

Alfred was captivated by violet eyes while the stranger looked straight into his sky blue ones. But then the stranger looked away and the spell broke.

The American blinked. Déjà vu, he thought. He turned away from the window and stared at the blackboard while their teacher went on about something concerning the United Nations. Alfred stared right in front of him for a few moments. Then he nudged his brother's hair, pulling him gently towards himself.

"What?" Matthew whispered and turned to look at Alfred, who let go of his hair. The older of the two announced quietly:

"I lost The Game."

--the end of chapter four of "memories"

A/N: MERRY CHRISTMAS!! Consider this as my Christmas present to you guys. And the hiatus is over too. Finally. I found my inspiration again! Though damn, that took so long... Sorry for the long wait, really! From this now on I'll aim for regular updates. Though not promising anything.

Foreign languages:

(French) Quand ce position est nos domestique, après tout. = Because this place is our home, after all.

Tell me if the French is weird. I used online translator and what I remember of my French class from over three years ago.

And YES, The Game still exists at that time! Remember this all happens in future~. If you don't know what I'm talking about, take a look at this (remove the spaces of course): http:// en. wikipedia. org /wiki /The_ Game_%28 mind_ game%29

Anyways. We'll see again in the next chapter and there's something that you have been waiting for.