Hello guys! It's been a while, right? Sorry about that but don't worry! I'm still going to update this fic frequently. Especially since lately I've been gaining more support of the international part of the fandom than I get writting in my own language. No, seriously. You guys are awesome and you deserve many virtual hugs and 100 points to your house in Hogwarts.

Now, I would like to give my special thanks to lovely, wonderful, truly generous miss Zeplerfer who helped me a lot by making revisions on my translation and leaving a review(Glad you liked this chapter, dear, Gilbert calls Vash of Guillotine because Vash loves to talk about the weapons created during the French Revolution!), also to Noire Nightmare(Thanks for praising the way how I deal with the maneirisms of the characters because that's a important part of my writting! I'm very glad to see that you've been impressed so far and I hope that I can keep you in this way for the rest of the story.), Autumn Moon Fae(I love your review AND your name! Yep, I had the intention of making the two characters very human and it's good to hear that people could understand my point.), CardFighter By Marple(Your review made me laugh and smile a lot because it's just so honest and straight-foward! I like you!XD) and Steelgray(Oh, dear! Many emotional moments are yet to come so BE PREPARED! - "Scar singing voice") for leaving amazing reviews that served as my motivation to keep translating this work and to everybody that favorited and/or followed this fanfiction.

ヾ(・∀・`*)ノ

I really hope that I can keep you guys that interested in my works and I really wish to see you in a near future. Have fun and have a lovely day! Cya ~

\(○^ω^○)/

PS: Kinda short chapter because the next one is going to be huge.


Chapter 07.

On the next day, I received no calls or e-mails from Roderich and that was when I started to get scared. The young lord contacted me regularly, including on dates in which it was hard to find a good excuse for it, so it was a very worrisome thing to see that he was completelysilent about the wedding rehearsal.

Not even a message with complaints about the ballroom that I rented or some grumpy words about last night.

As a comfort, I tried to convince myself of this … Hey, don't let the aristocrat distort your common sense. Usually, clients don't contact their wedding planners every day. Don't be nervous because of a single day in which he didn't talk with you. Sure, it was a super important day, but it was one day. Maybe he forgot to pay the electricity bill? He hates paying bills. Maybe he forgot his phone at home?

After I finished my problems at work, I went to my apartment, ordered a large pizza and started a game night with my friends online. Since there was less than two weeks left before the wedding, there was few things left to do but the waiting, so I had more free time on my hands and, man, I would enjoy it fully. My morning was free the next day, which basically meant: time for a marathon of "Dead Island".

It would be nice to forget some of that stuff about weddings and young lords with drastic changes in temperament and just relax and distract myself with the slaughter of zombies on an island.

A 600 mililiters bottle of soda, four pieces of pizza and three dozen zombies later, my intercom started buzzing, leaving me very suspicious and astonished. After all, except for the pizza that was already on my plate, I hadn't ordered anything eles so I wasn't expecting anyone.

Very quickly, I said goodbye to my friends and got up to answer it, dodging pillows scattered along the way.

"What?" I asked impatiently on the intercom.

"Good evening. There is a visitor for you, Mr. Beilschmidt."

"What?! A visitor?!" I may have screamed it too loudly because I wasn't prepared for this at all. Something weird was going on. "I'm not expecting any visitors!"

I heard in a voice in the distance, my doorman warning "He said he isn't expecting any visitors!" and the equally loud answer from my visitor, shouting something like "That's nonsense! Let me go up immediately! What part of my appearance suggests that I am a burglar?".

I covered my face with the palm of my hand. There was no need for a familiar picture or a sound to recognize the identity of my visitor. Among my acquaintances, there was only one person who could give a reply like that…

"Should I send him away, Beilschmidt?"

Goodbye, my peaceful night. I deserve this.

"No, no. Wait. I think I know this person," I sighed, pressing the center of my forehead and shaking my head sideways, already regretful. "You can let him in."

"As you wish. Good evening, sir Beilschmidt."

"Good night, dude, and good luck on your work."

Since I was 91% sure of the identity of who was coming to my flat, I concluded that was the end of my game marathon. I said goodbye to the guys, put the pizza in the fridge and the cushions over the couch, heard the bell and went to the door.

Through the peephole, I could see the young lord. To my relief, he seemed "normal" again. No eyes on the floor, rapid breathing or a uncomfortably uneasy expression. Only the good old Eldestein in his (comically) stoic appearance. After seeing him back to normal, I put my hand on his chest and let out through my mouth all the air from my lungs at once. Phew.

"What are you doing in my apartment at 11 PM, Rod?" I asked, opening the door, while using my arm to block his entry.

"This is not the right way to receive a visitor," was the answer he gave me, while dodging me, until finally slipping through the space under my arm to invade my house and settle on my couch. Just like his visits to my office to request my services, his movements showed without any shame a carefree and totally annoying nonchalance.

"This is not the right way to make a visit!" I exclaimed equally amazed and accusatory. "I checked my email and my phone all day and I am 124% sure that you didn't inform me that you were coming here, aristocrat!"

"It was not obvious that if I didn't give news all day, I would come at night?" he asked, as if that reasoning were perfectly logical.

Damn it. The young lord was really someone special. In the worst and best possible ways. Simultaneously.

"It's amazing how someone like you really exists in this world!" I opened both my mouth and my eyes widely. I'm not gonna to lie, at that moment, I was kinda dazzled by him. "Sit on my couch and wait a minute." I surrendered, moving my shoulders to stretch them and heading for the counter of my kitchen. "I'm going to prepare two cups of cappuccino. If we're talking in the night, we'll need a little caffeine first."

"The empty bottle of Coca-Cola does not suggest to me that you need another dose of caffeine," he pointed out, lowering his eyelids with some disapproval.

How ironic on his part, complain about my amount of caffeine, considering that he was the reason why I needed much, much more of that substance in my blood.

"Well, young lord, being so awesome all the time consumes a lot of energy!" I snapped, turning a bit my head to relax the tension in my neck. "I don't know about you but I need a cappuccino now!"

There was a short silent pause, anticipating what I already knew Roderich would answer.

"I also want one," he said to me in a low volume.

"Tell me something new." A smile escaped the edges of my mouth. "Young lord, you are the biggest coffee fan I know. Do you want me to put Nutella on the edges of the cup?"

Another predictable pause.

"Please."

I let out a small sigh and smiled again.

"Hey, Rod. I'm aware that you hate spending money and such but still, I don't understand why you don't have a decent coffee machine by now," I commented, picking up the pods to put in the machine. "I mean, it costs less to buy instant coffee and prepare it at the ordinary way, but I know you can't compare that kind of coffee with the one made with good beans in a decent machine. You have piles of money. Why don't you stop renting an ice statue at every wedding and use the money to purchase a good coffee machine? If you want to be stingy, aristocrat, it is important to pick the right priorities."

"Your opinion is biased," he huffed, crossing his arms. "You always had a bad relationship with my ice statues."

"Pfff. Truth." I laughed, shaking his head slightly. "Anyway, you like the coffee I make, right? Get your own machine to prepare them. I don't even like coffee that much and I have one of these."

Judging by the disaffected way he watched me over the lenses of his glasses, the young lord wasn't too impressed by my arguments.

"You also have an umbrella-hat that you have never used, a necklace made of screws that you only used for a Halloween party, and a lighter that glows in the dark, although you do not smoke …" he listed in a soft voice with subtle criticism. "If you buy ten thousand items on impulse, some of them, obviously, will be useful. How many of your objects ended up in my house in these last six years?"

"Lucky you!" I exclaimed, arching my eyebrows and barely containing my laugh. "It's an economy for you, after all!"

"I cannot see how I saved any money by storing three lucky pandas charms in my closet." He curled his lips in disapproval.

"Of course you can't see how! If they give you luck, your gain was indirect!" I opened my arms, letting a smirk forming on one of the corners of my mouth. "Simple simple answer, young lord."

It was then that happened one of those rare and unique moments whose mere existence was almost unbelievable.

"You're terrible, Gilbert," he spoke with a subtle little smile that passed by his expression like a moving shadow.

I got distracted so much with this surreal vision that almost left our cups overflow. Then, realizing that a few drops were falling on my leg, I woke up and quickly turned off the machine. The panic rushed my movements and I finished putting the Nutella in our cups in record time.

"Here's your cappuccino." I picked up our cups and went to my couch, sitting down beside the young lord. My couch had three places. Roderich was in the middle, so I was on his left, the closest side to the kitchen. "Be careful because it's hot, okay?" I warned, passing the cup to his hands.

Turns out that warning Rod to be careful because the drink was hot was like telling the fire to stop spreading through the forest because it burns. Entirely useless.

As soon as he touched the surface of the porcelain cup with the tips of his fingers – why he didn't take it by its handle like a normal person?, don't ask me – he immediately let it go, as if taken by surprise with the heat, and jumped to the other side of the couch, letting it fall to the floor and spilling its contents on the cushions and over the floor tiles. If I had not jumped off the sofa, one of my legs would be affected as well.

Fortunately, since the young lord had retreated to the other end of the sofa and was more safe than most of the people on the planet, there was no need for me to ignore my annoyance to focus on a emergency at hand and therefore I could I authorize myself to get angry about what happened.

Goddamnit, aristocrat!

"I just told you to be careful, Rod!" I yelled unabashedly upset. Those pillows had been washed only few days ago!

"I didn't think it was that hot!" he dared to protest. "It's your fault!"

What? Really?! He'd put the blame on ME?!

"Mine?! I warned that the cup was hot!"

"Y-Yes, but you should … should not have given me such a hot cup, in the first place!"

As soon as he finished speaking, our eyes met and, little by little, mine were filled with mockery and his with defensiveness. We both knew very well that this excuse was terrible.

"Oh, Rod." I smiled and lightly pulled one of his cheeks. Pfff! They stretched so much!

"Stop it," he muttered, his voice coming through the corners of his mouth, looking in a dull and slightly embarrassed way to the sides.

"At least, we were lucky." As my mood that night was fantastic, I sought to be optimistic. "Your cup didn't break so I'll clean up this mess and prepare another cappucino for you." I decided, cleaning my palms on my pants and heading to the kitchen to pick up a mop to dry my furniture and the floor. "It was a legitimate mistake on my part to deliver you such a hot drink!" I remembered to comment, pausing for a second, in the kitchen, to smile widely for the aristocrat. I had a look of pity and sympathy so, so, so intentionally false it would be disappointing to see it confused with real compassion. "This time, I will blow it for you and serve it in small spoonfuls, and when you are older, I will teach you about the use of cutlery and other …!"

"I get the idea, Gilbert!" He interrupted me. Raising his voice with impatience at first, which was more hilarious than intimidating. Then, as if there was startled by his own tone, he changed his position on the conflict, making it a little more friendly and resigned, while I returned to the room and focused on cleaning of my furniture. Possibly he wanted to keep his pride and, as the saying goes, if you can't beat them, pretend you didn't want to beat them anyway and that such disputes were too wild for the most respectable members of society take part. "Very well! I'm not going to oppose your habit of picking on me." He snorted rather snobbish. "For a quality cappuccino, even this terrible hypothetical scenario you proposed becomes relatively acceptable."

"'Habit of picking up on you,' huh?" I repeated, kneeling before the couch while cleaning the last traces of spilled cappuccino, amused by his choice of words. "I don't plan to defend myself." I got up and shrugged while showing him a half-smile. "Your face is extremely funny when you're so embarrassed that you pin your guilt on others. Also, I'm glad to hear you directly assuming that you love my cappuccino more than anything in this universe, so I'm gonna add some cinnamon on top as a bonus to you."

Then, I headed back to the kitchen, intending to throw the dirty and wet cloth in the sink and prepare a new cappuccino for Roderich. I got distracted performing these tasks, only returning to watch Rod after finish them. In fact, I was just about to pick up my neglected cup to drink its contents, waiting for my coffee machine complete its work, when I came across something that confused me for a moment.