OMG I'M BACK. AND A DECENT UPDATE TOO.
YOU ALL ARE SO LUCKY.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Sadface.
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Arthur actually didn't go too far before Alfred caught up to him. The American was after all showing him around, whether he liked it or not, and he was mildly curious about the layout of the hotel. The pamphlet had only told him about the different areas, so he didn't really have a good idea of where they were. He had usually been helping Ludwig out with maintenance in his free time, so he hadn't been able to explore yet.
Never in a million years would he admit how helpful the tour was to Alfred though. That would be like the equivalent of chopping off his foot and then cauterizing his leg to stop the bleeding—painful and altogether not very fun.
As they came onto the ground floor, Alfred looked over at the Englishman, who only returned the gesture when he knew that the other wasn't going to stop until he did.
"Yes, you twit?" growled Arthur, who could successfully hold onto a glare now that he had ceased to blush.
The American grinned a little at him, and he couldn't figure out why (and wasn't sure he did want to know).
"You're so cute when you're jealous."
The Brit choked on some of his spit, coughing a bit before sputtering, "W-What? I-I am not jealous!"
Rolling his eyes, Alfred turned away from Arthur and focused on walking again. "Uh-huh, that's why you glared at Katya and me instead of staring at her huge jugs like every other person, man or woman, who isn't busy being jealous."
He wanted to make a snappy retort, but he couldn't because honestly hadn't noticed whether the woman, Katya, had been well-endowed or not. He'd been too busy being mad at Alfred because he was sure they were flirting, and…
'Bloody hell…' thought Arthur bitterly as he internally recognized that he had, most definitely, been jealous.
Alfred glanced over his shoulder at Arthur, who was slowly trailing behind him, face down so he could focus on his feet and not on the American. He didn't want to see that damnable triumphant smirk of his that he knew would be there.
"Anyway, Mr. So-was-jealous, I was just telling Katya that if she wanted Vash to behave, she should go see Mr. Roddy. Vash hates him for some reason, but always grudgingly obeys him."
Didn't matter that he wasn't looking up—he could hear the damn smirk in his voice.
Instead of dwelling on the conversation that was undoubtedly going nowhere Arthur liked, he just decided to silently accept the other blonde's explanation, marching a little in front of Alfred so the younger man couldn't see his blush.
"Where are we going next?"
For once, the American had the tact not to comment on the Briton's obvious embarrassment at being caught in a lie. Either that or he was saving it for later blackmail like he had with the boxers. A smile on his face, Alfred calmly answered, "I was thinking we could stop by the flower shop before cruising into the offices for people you haven't met yet."
Determined not to show his excitement at visiting the flower shop (The notion itself felt so stereotypically homosexual, the Englishman thought he'd puke rainbows.), Arthur merely grunted as he allowed Alfred to retake the lead as they made their way over to The Scarlet Pimpernel, which hid back behind the stairs underneath where the restaurant was on the next floor up.
It was still early, so the shop wasn't open yet to the public, at least this was definitely the impression Arthur got when he saw the shut doors. This didn't deter Alfred as he smoothly walked up to the clear glass doors and knocked on one of them. Arthur was about to say that they could just come back later when he heard a feminine voice shout out from inside:
"We are closed! Please come back later!"
"Mei~, it's Alfred! I'm showing Arthur around today!" The Englishman raised an eyebrow at the man beside him, wondering how he being there made a difference in their admittance to the shop. Alfred merely grinned at him when a Chinese woman opened up the door, a large smile on her face as well.
"Ah, Arthur! I've been wondering when you would stop by here!" The woman practically drug Arthur into the shop, Alfred following after them, shutting the door behind him.
"What am I, the local celebrity?" grumbled Arthur as the woman dragged him all the way to the counter that sat in the center of the store.
The Asian woman laughed merrily as she let him go and hugged Alfred. "Aw, you were so right about him! He's simply adorable!"
Blushing, yet again, Arthur stammered, "E-Excuse me?"
"I'm Mei Xiu, Yao and Enlai's half-sister," she paused to shake his hand, grinning, "It's a pleasure to meet you!"
"I would introduce myself, but I'm afraid it's useless as everyone seems to know who I am…"
"Haha, we've probably come off as a little crazy, though it isn't too far from the truth, but we don't get too many new employees, so when we do—it's exciting." Mei seemed nice enough, considering all of the weirder people he'd met in the past week.
"I hadn't noticed," mumbled Arthur dryly, making both Mei and Alfred laugh.
"Ms. Mei, I thought we weren't open yet…?" came a soft feminine voice from the back of the store, the apparent employee-only area.
"Lili~! Guess who finally visited!"
There was an excited squeal and not even a minute later, a little blonde teenage girl came running out of the back, and right into Arthur.
"S-Sorry Mr. Arthur!" she exclaimed, blushing as she scampered around him to stand behind Mei, who was smiling warmly at the girl.
"This is my assistant, Lili Zwingli." The little girl nodded her hello, still hiding behind Mei.
"She's Vash's little sister!" added Alfred as he reached over and patted the girl's head. Lili smiled brightly at the mention of her brother, though Arthur felt himself pale. That gun-toting maid had such an innocent and sweet little sister? Surely she was adopted or something…
"You know Vash?" she asked excitedly, and despite his fear of the male maid, he nodded slightly in response to the girl, who immediately beamed at him. "Isn't Vash wonderful? He's the best big brother, ever!"
Arthur had honestly nothing to say back to that. He just sort of half-grinned at her, but that seemed to be enough. She just giggled, whispered something in Alfred's ear after she got him to bend down, and then ran back to the employee area without another word to the Londoner.
Alfred was smiling fondly after her before he turned back to Mei and asked, "Where's Michelle?"
Mei rolled her eyes good-naturedly as she replied, "Late, as usual. I suppose she's probably up talking with Francis and/or Matthew. The three of them love to babble on to each other in French just to gossip about others in front of them."
Laughing heartily, Alfred nodded, "They do indeed. I should know—I had to grow up with it."
"And yet you still don't know a single word, Al," remarked yet another female, but this one entered from outside the shop, like Arthur and Alfred had.
This new face was perhaps the first person of actual, well, color, Arthur had seen at Tortuga. Sure, there were those he had seen with the natural tan that had become part of their genetics, and a couple Asians, but this girl was obviously from the "darker" end of the spectrum. She was lighter-skinned than most African-Americans he'd met, but it seemed to suit her fine.
She noticed his stare, and smiled at him, curtsying slightly. "My brothers and father have told me about you, Mr. Kirkland. It is nice to finally meet you. I am Michelle Bonnefoy."
Out of reflex, Arthur bowed to her in return, mumbling, "I didn't know that Bonnefoy had a daughter…"
Michelle kept smiling, "Papa likes to keep me a secret. I'm like his "prized jewel" or something."
"Really Dad just doesn't want her to find a boyfriend and leave," murmured Alfred into Arthur's ear, loudly enough for everyone to hear. The Englishman blushed at the close proximity, something he just wasn't used to in general, and he felt like the three of them were laughing at him, not at what Alfred had said.
"That is sadly true. Papa has yet to approve of a single one of my boyfriends." Michelle gave a dramatic sigh.
"Pfffttt, like that ever stopped you?" countered Alfred, a playful grin on his face as he watched his sister, but he remained at his spot right behind Arthur.
"Shush you," said Michelle lightly as she just moved to go join Lili in the back. "Take ton petit ami and leave us to get ready."
"Yes sister~!" called out Alfred sarcastically as he waved bye to Mei and pushed Arthur out of the shop, making sure the door shut snugly behind him. Turning back to the Brit, Alfred grinned widely and said, "So you've officially met my family now!"
"Your sister is nice," Arthur commented lightly, and then because the overly chipper American seemed far too happy, he added, "Nicer than you anyway."
Frowning in confusion, Alfred tilted his head and asked, "When was I ever mean to you, Artie?"
Arthur fumbled with the fact that damnit did Alfred look insanely adorable doing that and goddamnit he had to stop thinking those things! Clumsily, the Brit stuttered, "N-Never mind. Let's just go on with this stupid tour."
Although still confused, Alfred's grin returned as he starting walking towards where the offices were. They actually managed to walk in silence for a while before the Londoner realized there was a question he had forgotten to ask the American about.
"What did that little girl, Lili, whisper to you?"
Cocky grin back in full-force, Alfred glanced back at Arthur and said, "You won't like it~."
Scowling, Arthur repeated, "Tell me what she said."
"Alright, but don't say I didn't warn you!" Alfred warned, his grin never wavering. "She told me she was happy that my new boyfriend was so nice."
The Englishman couldn't help it; he stopped walking, staring blankly, in horror, at Alfred.
"W-What?"
"I told you that you wouldn't like it, Artie…"
"I am not your bloody boyfriend!"
He immediately regretted how loudly he'd yelled that the second after the last syllable exited his mouth. Everyone in the lobby was watching them, and Arthur hated it. The man and woman who worked at the front desk were whispering to each other with smirks on their faces, and Arthur felt his heart drop when they pulled out their phones and began txting. It had been bad enough that some teenage girl had just called him this obnoxious twit's boyfriend, but now the whole entire hotel would be talking about this. Now blushing profusely, Arthur wished desperately that he was back in his room—away from Alfred, far, far away.
The America just took the explosive statement with stride, laughing loudly to help ease the tension. He happily wrapped an arm around Arthur's shoulders and continued leading him towards the offices that were just past the front desk. The whole time, Arthur couldn't help but think that their closeness was not redeeming him in the eyes of those who witnessed his outburst.
If someone had asked him how his day was going, Arthur Kirkland would have replied, "Bloody fan-fucking-tastic."
He sincerely hoped they spoke sarcasm.
-La Tortuga de Oro-
"So I know you know where Ludwig and Roddy's offices are, but I don't think you're gotten to meet anyone from Administration yet! They're the ones who do all the boring business stuff that Dad, Gilbert, and Tony don't like to handle," explained Alfred as if nothing had happened mere seconds ago as they walked down the hallway leading to the offices.
Arthur had already decided that it was probably for the best if he just stayed quiet.
"Ah! Here we go! Administration!" The American beamed as he knocked on a lone door, not that far from Ludwig's door, and then just proceeded to walk in without waiting for a reply. "Anyone home?"
"Alfred-kun!" exclaimed a male voice as the two men entered the room.
"Haha, hey Kiku!"
The Englishman found himself eyeing the man Alfred was addressing warily. It was another man who was of Asian lineage. He had short black hair and brown eyes that seemed to express more emotion than his face did. Arthur hadn't realized he had been staring until he found himself looking into the man's eyes directly.
"I am Kiku Honda. You must be Arthur Kirkland-san. It is a preasure to meet you." The man, Kiku, bowed deeply towards Arthur, who immediately followed his example not wanting to offend the incredibly polite man.
"I-It's nice to meet you too, Kiku," replied Arthur nervously. Out of the corner of his eye he could see that Alfred had caught him watching the Asian before being spoken too. Trying to ignore his dratted American guide, he focused on Kiku, who seemed to be struggling with speaking his mind and being polite. "D-Did I say something wrong?"
Kiku practically winced at being caught in his momentary inner war, and looked back up at Arthur with an embarrassed smile. "Ah, I am simpry not used to people who I have onry met call me by my first name. It is nothing though. A friend of Alfred-kun's is a friend of mine."
"O-Oh…" murmured Arthur, a blush threatening to appear on his face. He hadn't meant to be rude; he was just so used to everybody just accepting him calling them by their first names that he had forgotten his manners! That's what he got for hanging around Alfred, the damnable twat.
"Anyway, are the others here? I just wanna introduce Artie so they know his face," stated Alfred as he rested his elbow on Arthur's shoulder, even though the glare the Londoner was sending him was obviously telling him to revise that decision.
"Noah-kun and Eduard-kun are in, but I'm afraid Gupta-kun is out at the moment. He had a meeting at the advertisement building," elaborated Kiku as he led the way further into the Administration office, past the little lobby-like area they had first entered.
When they got to the main office area, there was a table in the middle of the room, but there were also four doors that led to their individual offices. All were open except one, but the blinds were open and Arthur recognized it as the one that also has a view into the main hallway. It would be hard not to remember the office he'd seen on his first day that had been full of clay pots…
"Hey everybody, I came here to present to you our newest family member: Arthur Kirkland!" proclaimed Alfred loudly to the people who were in their offices working. There was muttering, some of it angry, following the announcement, but slowly the two men who were in the separate offices came out.
Arthur had the distinct feeling that they only did it because Alfred was one of the bosses' sons, not because they actually cared who he was.
The blonde man with glasses was closest to him and made the first notion of greeting. He first pushed up his glasses back over his green eyes before holding out a hand to Arthur. "I'm Eduard von Bock. I'm the main accountant and in general, head of business affairs."
"Noah van Rijn," grumbled the other man, who was also blonde, but had no glasses and his eyes had blue in them as well as green, "I'm in charge of the legal shit."
"Noah-kun!" chided Kiku, who simply looked aghast that Noah had said something so vulgar in front of someone he barely knew.
The young man just shrugged his shoulders before crossing his arms in another show of indifference. "It's the truth. I don't know why we keep Mr. Bonnefoy around; all he does is create lawsuit after lawsuit and hell if I'm not damn sick of it."
Kiku remained looking scandalized, especially since now Noah was bad-mouthing Alfred's dad in front of him. Arthur could relate, he'd probably feel the same way in Kiku's place, but at the moment he was more curious as to why Noah seemed familiar. The Londoner was almost positive he'd seen that particular spikey hairstyle before…
As usual, Alfred let the insult just roll off him and laughed.
"Yeah, Dad isn't the most discreet. I'm sure Ludwig would've made him leave if he wasn't so crucial in the kitchen!"
Arthur felt his eyebrows furrow as he looked up at Alfred (and damnit did he hate the fact he had to look up), "What does Ludwig have to do with anything? I thought he was just the maintenance head?"
"Ludwig-kun has many jobs, and since neither Gilbert-san nor the other two are very…diligent, Ludwig-kun usually in the actual one in charge, even though Roderich-san holds a higher position," explained Kiku patiently, a small smile on his face.
"Still don't know why that damn Austrian isn't doing this job instead. I never even went to law school and I somehow got stuck with it," grumbled Noah some more as he just walked back into his office without another word to any of them.
'Isn't he a ray of sunshine?' mused Arthur sarcastically, though he couldn't say too much because he knew he could be just as bad sometimes.
"Whilst Noah does have a point about Roderich, I must say he complains too much for someone who has the easier job. It isn't fun and games keeping all the hotel's purchases and receipts in order." Arthur had honestly forgotten that Eduard was still there. The guy was just…forgettable and the slightest bit annoying even though he'd only heard him talk twice now. "Well, I must get back to my job. It was nice to see you Arthur."
Arthur merely waved at him slightly, honestly not caring that he left.
"Well, that's everybody except Gupta, but I'm sure you'll see him eventually. He sometimes hangs out with Mattie and Lars, and when those two get together usually everyone hears about what they did." Alfred broke off as he reminded a fond memory of one of Matthew and Lars's adventures. "My favorite one was when they took catching turtles too far…Tony really wanted to fire Lars for that one, but Gilbert wouldn't let him."
Staring in at Alfred with a form of disbelief, Arthur said flatly, "I'm not sure if I want to know, but who is Lars?"
"Lars? Haven't you met him? He works at the front desk with Elise, his sister. They're Noah's older siblings." The American relied the information as if it should've been obvious.
That explained why Noah's hair had been familiar. It was identical except for color to Lars', the man at the front desk who had been dozing when he was talking to him and his sister that first day. It seemed the whole family was uniformly very…unique.
"Ah," mumbled Arthur, not really wanting to voice his opinion of Lars. He felt that one actual meeting wasn't really that much to go on, and he had actually been more helpful than his sister.
"I think that's all for now. We'd better get moving on to the rest if I wanna make it to my shift on time." Alfred turned around, grabbing Arthur's upper arm to pull him with him, and waved bye to Kiku. "See ya later, Kiku! I'll txt you if something happens!"
Kiku waved back, but Arthur could've sworn he heard the Asian man murmur something about how it would be easier to just txt Elizaveta directly if something did happen. The Brit didn't get a chance to question it because he was, yet again, being dragged off to another part of the building.
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A/N: Hi guys! Missed you all~! So NaNoWriMo wasn't a complete success, but it wasn't a complete failure either. I only got about halfway, but that's further than I got last year, and I was dealing with my first semester of college, so I'm proud. :)
This actually would've been up a day or two earlier if I hadn't gotten sidetracked by World of Warcraft...a lot...
Also I saw Tangled this weekend and it made me think of PruHun. I mean, come on! Rapunzel wields a FRYING PAN. Flynn starts off as some kind of sorta narcissistic fends for himself jerk.
TOTALLY OBVIOUS. /is shot
So yeah, I introduced a BUTTLOAD of new people. In the flower shop it was Taiwan, Liechtenstein, and Seychelles. Administration: Japan, Estonia, and Luxembourg (with mentions of Egypt). Yes, I am aware that Luxembourg isn't technically a character yet, but I love him anyway. (Haha it's not even shown what the gender is, but I like it being a boy.) I actually kind of stole his personalization from tatterdemalion (his name from them too), but I tried to put a little of my own spin on him. He's kinda like England for some reason, just with a total disregard for niceties. IDK. Just my thoughts about him.
People who haven't appeared yet: Belarus, Denmark, Norway, Sealand, Egypt, and Cuba. (Also the rest of the Kirkland Clan, but they arrive in due time.) Pretty much everyone listed should appear next chapter. If it works like I want it to. We'll see.
Also, you should all listen to Simon Curtis's album, "8bit Heart" because it's amazing and sexy. I only say this because it was pretty much what I was listening to while writing this. XD
Soooooo review! Reviews help Gupta at his marketing meeting, where he's probably trying to sell the CEOs pots instead of actually doing his job.
Oh, and the reason Noah was like "God, why isn't Roderich doing the legal shit" is because Roderich actually went to law school and passed the bar, but he discovered his love of cake-making and decided not to do it anymore. He makes all the desserts for the Dragonfly.
I LOVE YOU GUYS. REVIEW TO TELL ME HOW YOU MISSED ME~!