I hope you all had a happy new year and holiday season, and I hope you enjoy this chapter. Thanks so much for all the reviews! On a completely separate note, it turns out my studying abroad program won't work out because it's too expensive for me right now, so I'm a bit distracted. Sorry if I missed any errors.
Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia Axis Powers
Age Thirteen
Ugly Duckling
"You're just special, bruder, that's all."
That's what Gilbert would always say. It was his job as the big brother. To make sure his little brother wasn't in any more pain than he had to be, right? Ludwig had long ago figured out that special just meant weird.
"Ludwig, my special boy, have your words appeared yet?" His mom would ask him every morning, and every morning Ludwig would reply with a 'no'.
Every morning the blond boy would shake his head upon being asked that question, watching as his mother's tight smile twisted into a sad grimace one again. He never had that heart to tell her that he didn't care if he had a soulmate anyway.
"Oh, liebling, it's okay. Your words will appear soon, because you're special. Words have to appear for someone special like you."
Ludwig was really starting to hate the word special.
They all said it with that same tone. The pitying, forced gentleness. Like if they said any other word in any other tone he would break. They all said it cautiously, their eyes shining as if they were looking at a puppy trying to stumble around on the street in the rain with a broken leg instead of looking at a human being.
'Otherwise different from what is usual' was the dictionary definition of that accursed word, and that's all it was. Special was just a synonym for different. Extraordinary. But what if he didn't want to be special, or different, or even extraordinary? Ludwig just wanted to be Ludwig. A plain ordinary Ludwig with words like a normal person.
Special was just another word for uncommon, unique, outstanding, exceptional, freaky. He wasn't exceptional in looks or intelligence. He wasn't outstanding in personality or traits. He didn't have dashing good looks that made all the girls swoon or intelligence that made prodigies jealous.
He didn't have anything.
He didn't even have words.
One rainy night, Ludwig lay exhausted in his bed, wanting to close his eyes and fall asleep but not being able to. He had been up for hours, just thinking and thinking of all the bad things the word 'special' meant. Oh, how he wished to just close his eyes and slip into a dreamless sleep.
But still, he wasn't special. Perhaps it was everyone else who was special, and he was just nothing? He wasn't anything at all. Just boring, wordless Ludwig.
Sighing with frustration, he pulled himself out of bed, deciding it would be best to clear his head with a cold glass of water. Or maybe warm milk would help him fall asleep? Quietly walking into the kitchen, he crossed the threshold to be greeted with the sight of his mother, poised with her one hand on the doorknob and her other hand clutching a large bag and her car keys.
"Oh, Ludwig, you're awake?" She asked, biting her lip and looking away from his gaze, her hand still not leaving the doorknob.
Ludwig nodded, still watching his mother curiously. "Yeah," he paused before asking "are you going somewhere?"
There was silence in reply, and just as Ludwig was thinking that perhaps he should turn away and pretend this never happened -screw his glass of water- his mother spoke up.
"Y-yes I am. They needed an extra person for work tonight, and I was the only one free. Besides, they offered to pay me double." She flashed her classic tight-lipped smile. "And we can always use the extra money for something my special little Ludwig wants, right?"
Once again the blond boy nodded, choosing not to ask about the bag or why her work would need someone coming into the office at 1:36 in the morning, for he was far too tired to even start to think of forming those questions into words.
Forgetting his desire for water, he turned to leave the kitchen to make his way back to the staircase, but softly spoken words stopped him.
"I'll see you when I get home, liebling." A silence covered the room like a layer of dust and she shuffled her feet before picking up her large bag once again. "You'll get your words, okay? You have to. You just have to. I know you will, I know it. Please, get your words and just be happy..." She trailed off, once again biting her lip.
At this, Ludwig turned to her, his drooping, tired eyes filled with other emotions. His blue orbs swirled with confusion, love and something close to hope. And her eyes of a different blue hue sparkled in the dim light, unspoken apologies lingering in the air.
She gave a smile, although it was small and turned into more of a grimace. The rattling of the keys and the faint metallic twisting of the doorknob filled his ears, and she muttered her words of goodnight. Ludwig turned away and headed back up the staircase, the click of the door closing the only sound. That night he lay in bed, the click of the door shutting echoing in his ears.
Finally managing to fall into a restless sleep, Ludwig went to bed with a heavy heart without knowing exactly why his chest felt like there was a large weight resting on it.
The next morning when he woke up, cobalt eyes opening a sliver before blinking and trying to adjust to the light. With a yawn, Ludwig shoved the comforter off his body, and got out of the warm bed. As he was walking down the hallway, the German boy remembered it was Saturday.
Saturdays were Ludwig's favorite day. Saturdays meant he was done with school for the week and didn't have to worry about it for a couple of days. Which meant he didn't have to hear about soulmates or words or the muttered teasing and whispers of hatred from his peers.
Either way, Saturdays were his favorite days. Besides the fact that he didn't have school, his mom always woke up before him, although Ludwig was constantly waking up far earlier than an average thirteen-year-old boy would like to, and she would always make pancakes for him and Gilbert. The pancakes were so mouthwatering that even nineteen-year-old Gilbert tried to come home for as many Saturdays as he could, although that wasn't many.
Gilbert had left for college the previous year, and although the college wasn't far from here, the albino teen didn't always manage to drag his ass from the dorms to their house by the time breakfast was ready, so he tended to only come home for holidays. But when he did come home, the 'awesome' Gilbert would crawl out of his bed for pancakes.
It was an unspoken tradition between Mrs. Beilschmidt and her two children and Ludwig loved it. The smell of pancakes would fill the house for the afternoon, and the scent of maple syrup would follow him throughout the morning. Sometimes, his mom would add things into the pancake batter, like blueberries or chocolate chips. If he wanted to, he could add whipped cream on top like Gilbert did.
Making his way down the stairs, Ludwig inhaled deeply, prepared to have the warm sweet scent of freshly cooked pancakes in his nose. But this Saturday morning, there was no sweet blueberry pancake scent, nor the scent of maple syrup. Crossing the threshold into the kitchen, he saw that not only were there not the expected pancake breakfast waiting for him, but also no mother.
This struck Ludwig as odd, seeing how his mother was an even earlier riser than he was, and she had never broken the unspoken Saturday morning agreement before. Eyebrows scrunching in confusion, the blond turned back to the staircase and trekked his way to the door of his mother's bedroom.
The door was shut, and Ludwig briefly wondered if she was sleeping. Curiosity getting the better if him, he lifted his fist and knocked lightly on the bedroom door before pushing it open and walking in. The room was as it always was, clean and tidy. Not a speck of dust lay put of place and the most curious thing was that her bed was made neatly, as if no one had slept in it at all. The pillows were fluffed to perfection and the quilt had not one wrinkle.
If she wasn't sleeping, then where could she be? There's no way that work would keep her until eight –almost nine– in the morning from the time she left last night... although he knew some work places created shifts like that, his mother's tended not to. Where could she have gone? About to turn away, Ludwig halted upon seeing a notecard lying atop the pillowcase.
Reaching a pale hand out, he flipped the card open and read the words written in dainty German letters with widened eyes.
"I'm so sorry, my special little Ludwig..." The blond read aloud, translating the written German to English as he spoke with glassy eyes and a trembling voice. "I just can't be with you anymore."
The card continued, and his mother's voice echoed in his head with each word. He kept reading, voice shaking more with each sentence. Stomach twisting into knots, he choked out the words. "I'm sorry for giving you this life, and I'm sorry you don't have words." His eyes burned. Like hellfire.
"I'm sorry I'm a failure of a mother."
No. That wasn't it, she wasn't a failure, didn't she see that? Ludwig was the failure, he was the one who failed to be a good son.
He was at the end of the card.
The lump in his throat grew larger but he swallowed it down. "Auf Wiedersehen." Slipped from his mouth in his native tongue. "My special little Ludwig. I'm going home to Germany to find your father. I'm sorry."
His first thought was a series of the same question: why? Followed by confused angry rantings towards his mother. His eyes continued to scan the small notecard, hoping that somehow it would tell him the answer to all his questions. This couldn't be happening, not on pancake Saturday. Or ever. How could she? Why? Why couldn't she stay with him?
She was his mother, and now she had left him too. No one wanted to stay with him. He would just be alone. If his own mother couldn't stand to be with him, who could? No wonder he didn't have a soulmate.
Tears pooled in his eyes, before slipping down his cheeks. Ludwig harshly swiped at them, hoping they'd stop. He shouldn't be crying, he couldn't cry. If he cried, it would mean that this was real. That he was actually being abandoned, left all alone.
His father had left. Gilbert was off at college. And now his mother had left too, and it was all his fault. His dad left because he was a wordless child, and now his mother left because of him also. Hell, Gilbert probably left because of him too. His older brother had probably been so desperate to get into a college somewhere that just wasn't here just so he wouldn't have to be with Ludwig anymore, right? This was all his fault. No one wanted to be stuck with a wordless child.
He re-read the card once again. 'My special little Ludwig' she had called him. Special. Gilbert called him that too, as did the teachers. Special. Oh Gott, he hated that word. The sound it made when it left someone's lips was worse than any curse, and he hated it. He loathed being called special.
Ludwig remembered how his mother would get that hurt expression on her face whenever he said that he still didn't have word, or that pitying look she would give him whenever she said she loved him.
'I love you, I love you.' She would say, and Ludwig wanted to scream that it isn't love if you have to force yourself to say the words, it isn't love if you're only saying it out of pity. She said it because she knew that no one else would ever say it to him.
To say he was special was a lie. A stupid lie to tell a wordless, unloved child. He wasn't special, he wasn't anything. He was nothing. Ludwig was different, that was true. He wiped at the fat tears coursing down his cheeks, and the card fell from his hand, brushing gently against the floor like a fallen rose petal.
He wasn't different in a special way, he was just different. He was the 'ugly duckling', the unwanted one. He was the boy who was never welcomed into groups, he was the kid who was never invited to the birthday parties when everyone else was. He was the child even his own mother didn't want.
He was the boy nobody ever wanted.
To be continued
Coming next: Age 14