The Riddle

by Jenna Jean

When Alfred was young, he received a riddle from his dying grandfather that has never made any sense to him. Will he ever find the answer? How does his probable answer change thanks to his brother and a certain Briton?

10. Some Eclipse of the Moon

WARNINGS: Long chapter, profanity, sex jokes, mentions of suicide and gore, and foreign languages

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Several days had passed when a car pulled up into our driveway. It was an old, bright red wrecker that probably shouldn't have even be running at that point. Hearing the car engine, Matthew and I peeked out the front window. Whoever were in the front seats argued for a bit before the driver shoved the passenger out the door.

As he got out, Matthew started fidgeting, nervous and anxious about something. The guy ran a hand through his hair, clutching something white in his fist, before banging loudly on the front door. Throwing me a quick glance, Matthew answered the door.

"Hey, Randy," he said in a hushed tone, still fidgeting with the hem of his shirt. Randy, where had I heard that name before? Wasn't there some guy in a book named Randy? I thought as I walked over and stood a couple feet behind Matthew. Looking at him, realization swept over me. He was one of Matthew's friends from school. A knot twisted in the pit of my stomach and I stepped a bit closer to Matthew. Randy recognized me because his eyes got big in alarm.

Coughing a bit and rubbing the back of his neck, Randy said, "Hey, Matt. I, uh, thought you might want this back." He held out the white thing that had been scrunched up in his hand and dropped it into Matthew's. Staring at a slightly disfigured Kumajirou in his hands, Matthew stuttered out a, "Y-you took it?" Nodding shamefully, he rubbed at his neck again looking at his shoes.

"Man, I'm real sorry for how I was treating you...the others as well. Those girls twisted around the way we thought about everyone, but we shouldn't have actually listened to them." He chuckled dryly for a moment. "I guess that's easier said than done, though." Finally looking up, he sighed. "Matt, I turned into a real asshole this year and it was absolutely terrible how we've been treating you. I'm so sorry for what I did to you personally. The rumours that have been flying around about you, stealing your bear, not talking to you, stealing your homework so you'd get in trouble with your teachers...all of it."

Matt was visibly shaking a bit. Letting out a quivering breath, he replied, "Randy, you're all forgiven."

Surprised, his gaze snapped upward and his head cocked to the side. "I...what? I wasn't asking for you to forgive any of us! You have no reason to! Does that mean-"

"No," Matthew intoned, his voice oddly loud with finality in it, "we're not still friends and we probably never will be again." He was still quavering a bit, but something told me he could handle it on his own.

Randy gave him a nod, and muttered a, "Guess I'll see you around then." As he started to turn around and quickly said, "I told everyone the truth about the rumours Friday after school. Most of them know that you didn't do those things, and us getting suspended only back it up." He laughed a bit, no humour added.

"I also broke up with Marcia, so watch out for her."

"Like I wasn't already. Bye, Randle."

"Bye Matthew." With that, Randy hopped off the porch and walked down the little path to our driveway, putting an end to that part of the story.

Sighing a bit, Matt closed the door and looked down at the little stuffed bear in his hand. Rolling it over a couple times in his hands, he uttered to me, "We should throw him in the washer."

"Yeah, okay," I said, turning and moving towards the stairwell. Hopping down three steps at a time, Mattie followed after me "the safe way," nagging me about my "dangerous way" about going down stairs. Somethings will never change.

"Whatever dude," I said nonchalantly, landing at the base of the stairs and started to saunter off to the small, enclosed room on the right. The basement had never exactly been "finished." Sure there was paint covering the drywall, and Mom threw down a couple rugs in places to cover up the concrete, but in a couple rooms wiring and plumbing were still visible and none of the lights had covers. Barely anyone spent a lot of time down there, so it didn't really matter that much, but it bothered me. Our dad left before he had gotten around to most of the stuff and Mom didn't have the money or time to do it herself when she still cared. Over the years she had thrown some old furniture down there in a feeble attempt to make it look like it was actually habitable.

Opening the door to the boiling room, I pulled the string to turn the single lightbulb on. The washer and dryer sat in the corner, tucked away next to the boiler and heater. Jeez, how that room used to scare me to death when I was a kid. All the strange noises coming from it and how odd the shadows loomed in there, thanks to the single window near the ceiling. Flopping down on top of the dryer, I pulled the washing machine door open, pouring detergent into whatever that thing was called. Matt just threw the stuffed bear into the metal cylinder, slammed the door and sat down next to me while turning the knob.

We sat there for a while, feet swinging and the sound of the washer running drowning out any other noise. After quite a while, I asked over the rumble, "So what are you going to do at lunch?"

Smirking a bit, Matt randomly joked, "Haven't you ever heard of the bathroom?"

"Ha ha," I said sarcastically, something I had kind of picked up from Arthur. "But seriously who are you going to sit with? I'd totally offer if we weren't in different schools."

"There's a couple new kids that I sit next to in a couple classes, they knew me before the rumours started and didn't believe a word of it. I can probably sit with them if I ask."

"Good," I said, hopping off the machine as the buzzer rang. "Tell me how that works out Monday."

Thankfully it did work out for him. Monday he came home and eventually told me about the two new kids, Carlos and Lars, who he had started sitting with at lunch. Apparently, several others had decided to sit with him as well, after hearing Friday about what had really been going on.

Arthur had also been having a better time at lunch as well. Mostly everyone at the table was beginning to accept the fact that he had a permanent spot at the table; meaning people decided it was high time to actually try to talk to him instead of waiting for him to eventually give up and leave. Weirdly enough, he had started smiling more and his old friends actually gave up on him.

He and Matthew gradually started looking happier as the months progressed. Something in Matt filled again, allowing for his smiles and jokes to come back. Kumajirou sat on his bed, not having to actually go with him anymore. I stopped waking up to his tears in the night and the fact that he was actually sleeping soon became apparent as well.

Soon enough the school year was ending and Matthew was graduating from Middle School. The Bad Touch Trio were actually the ones who convinced me to sneak out of class that day. Not showing up to sixth hour, the four of us hid in the bathroom near the entrance until we heard the hoard of kids in Grade Eight come trampling through.

Quickly concealing ourselves in the mass, it was actually certainly difficult to pick anyone out. Imagine that. Next to me, Gilbert grumbled, "So many tall-short people." I guess he was trying to be funny to some extent, but I got the feeling that he was just bitter about just how many people were taller than him. That part was kind of humorous.

Sneaking into the auditorium where they held Grade Eight graduation every year, the four of us loitered near the back where there were no seats or teachers. Kids continued to file in separating into classes and sitting down in the ancient chairs. Honestly, we tried to watch for Matthew or my mom-she had some work meeting, but there was always the possibility that she skipped-but there was too big a crowd, too many kids.

Once they all seemed to be seated, Mr. Manders-the older than dirt middle school principal-tapped a couple times on the microphone, creating some mild feedback. "Hello?" he said in his old, rickety voice. "Can you hear me?" The student's chatter increased which he took as a "no."

Sighing in defeat, he pulled at the string that had been neatly hidden under his dress shirt. Elbowing Gil and nodding towards the stage, I watched his eyes widen as his face dropped and he blindly hit Franny and Antonio, trying to get their attention. Looking over at him, their gazes quickly transferred over to the stage where their faces lit up in panic as they clasped their hands over their ears, Gilbert and I following suit.

Probably half a second before we did so, Mr. Manders put that death whistle of torture into his denatured mouth, and blew into it like the Big Bad Wolf, right into the microphone. An earsplitting screech tore through the speakers. All other noise was drowned in an ocean of squealing pain. I'm gonna do it, I could barely hear myself think as it droned on and on and on. Eventually I managed to get my thoughts going again, I'm going to find out where he lives and shove that damned whistle down his throat.

After a moment, he decided to give our ears a break and took the accursed thing out of his mouth. I can use Gilbert as my get away. No one probably would have complained if that whistle-or Mr. Manders-went mysteriously missing.

"Thank you," he said in monotone. "And welcome to the grade eight graduation. We want to congratulate you all on your work and your time..." Tuning him out, I looked over at Gil and whispered, "Are you willing to be my get away car if I break into his house in the middle of the night and shove that goddamn whistle down his throat?"

"Yes," he said quickly, before adding, "And you won't even have to pay me."

"Who's to bet that he sleeps with that thing more than his wife." That got a snicker out of Gilbert. The crusty old guy liked to blow on the whistle no matter what the occasion was, and it was usually near something that amplified its sound.

Looking over at the sound, Francis and Antonio forced themselves into our conversation. Elbowing him a bit, Francis raised an eyebrow at Gil, making him lean over to whisper to the two. A snort and a chuckle erupted from them, but no one seemed to hear us...or they just didn't care.

Still laughing a bit, Francis joked, "I bet the whistle is the only thing in the house getting blown." Smiling as we started snickering, Francis followed it up with, "That mouth should really be put to better use."

"Mis dios, Francis," Tonio managed to get out with a smile. Still no one looked over at us, so I assumed we were being quiet enough.

"Davis, Gabriella," Mr. Manders called out in a tired tone. There was still a long way to "Williams," so I zoned back into our joke-fest.

"...the sun hasn't even seen," Gilbert finished, a smile plastered to his face. A small snort came out of Antonio while Francis just chuckled a bit. Smiling, pretending to have heard the joke, I rolled my eyes a bit when Gil looked my way.

"Screw you guys," Gilbert said, looking forward, "I'm hilarious."

"Whatever let's you sleep at night, dude," I said with a smile, earning me a whack on the shoulder.

"Jackson, Andrew," Mr. Manders droned on. There's this little thing called inflection and humour, buddy. I thought, trying to send a mental message to him. Having tried the same thing all through middle school, I was doubtful of how well it would work.

"Why doesn't Matthew have the same last name as you again?" Antonio asked, bored and impatient.

"Antonio!" Francis scolded, hitting his arm, while Gil just muttered, "Herr, wirf Hirn von Himmel."

"What? I was just wondering!"

"No, it's fine," I put in. "Most people ask at one point or another." Francis turned his attention back to whomever was on stage and Gil and Tonio looked back at me.

"Our dad left us before he was born so when he was my mom was so pissed off that she just went ahead and put her maiden name as his last name."

Gil nodded a bit before asking, "Is that legal?"

"No one stopped her." A snicker erupted from him, causing Franny to clamp a hand over his mouth. Putting a hand to his face in return, Gil tried to push Francis off him with no prevail. Within seconds they were slapping and hitting each other, actually causing a couple people to look back at us.

"Vargas, Feliciano." Antonio's head snapped in the direction of the stage. Whacking the both of them, I angrily whispered, "Guys it's Feli." They both perked up at that, hands falling to their sides and gazes shifting forward.

There was little Feliciano skipping up on stage, excited about getting a stupid certificate and an insincere "Congratulations." His older brother, Lovino, was in my grade. For some reason he hung out around Antonio a lot even though he acted as though he hated him. It was odd to see just how different the two were even though there was only a year between them. It occurred to me that people thought the same thing about Matthew and I.

Skipping up on stage, he happily bounced while the dinosaur in front of him spoke. "Congratulations on graduating." And that was all he said to anyone. Standing there for a few seconds, Feliciano quickly shuffled off stage, all bounce and perk leaving his step. Poor kid.

We were all friends with him, the trio was closer to him than I was, and I felt bad that he had to deal with Mr. Manders, the principal that hadn't cared in over three decades. That man could kill anyone's spirit with just a glance, not to mention the blasted whistle...

"Oh let's see," he said monotonously with a bored sigh, flipping his packet page over again. Searching slowly with his finger for the next name, he licked the lips he didn't have. After several seconds, he called out loudly with extreme dullness, "Williams, Matthew." Standing up a bit straighter, I searched the packed seating for someone getting up. Somehow, I missed him until he was actually walking up on stage, shoulders slouched a bit, playing with the hem of the sleeve of his dress shirt, gaze searching the audience wildly. Just before the blinding stage lights captured him, he caught sight of me. Giving him a slight nod and a thumbs up, a smile suddenly ripped across his face as he made his way over to Mr. Manders. "Congratulations," Mr. Manders said with ennui, shaking his hand for barely a second and handing him the cheap diploma. Letting out a quick sigh, he continued with a, "That concludes the Grade Eight Graduation Ceremony. Good luck next year in high school class of 2003."

"Such a way with words," Gil said sarcastically, wiping away a fake tear. Antonio chuckled at him as we quickly exited the auditorium.

People started pouring out of the double doors, chattering like birds in the morning when you're trying to sleep. We skimmed over the mass, keeping a distance from them all and trying not to catch the teacher's attention. Looking for Matthew, I wondered why it was so hard to find him, I saw him ever single day and his weird little curl should have been a dead give away. But no, we didn't see him until he was right in front of us.

"Hey, thanks for showing up guys," he said in an undertone, smiling at us.

"You're welcome," Gilbert returned, smirking. "As long as Mr. Goudie doesn't figure out what happened, otherwise I'm going to kick you-"

Delivering a hard, subtle kick to his shins, Gil shut his mouth and I continued with a, "I don't really like my sixth hour anyway. Thanks for graduating." Mattie smirked a bit, rolling his eyes.

Francis ruffled his hair, with a grin and a, "We'll make sure you're freshman experience was better than ours, don't worry."

"Yeah," Tonio followed up beaming, "the Bad Touch Trio has your back!" His head lolled to the side giving away that he was actually trying to be cliche. Laughing a bit, Matthew simply stated, "Alright, I have to go now. See you guys later." Then he hustled off to join the last of his classmates.

Just as he got out the glass doors, the bell rang, admitting everyone out of class. "I'll see you guys," Antonio said with smile, looking off into a group of people and then rushing off into the crowd. Francis muttered something about them being "so cute," with a grin spreading across his face. "I should get going myself," he said, ruffling both our hair and finishing with an, "Au revoir." And then he was gone as well.

Flattening his hair and shaking his head a bit in disgust, Gilbert looked over at me for a second, before his elbow made slight contact with my ribs. "Gotta go find West. No small fires," he said to me as he stalked off, down the hallway.

That happened practically every day, assumably. Some days I would meet up with one or two from the Trio and something like that would happen within a minute or so. I was okay that they left me standing alone in the main hall, I just found it weird how they were actually capable of hanging out with other people besides each other. Smirking to myself, I headed down the Literary Hallway.

Last hour I had journalism down that hall. Arthur had ended up in the same hour, making that the only class we had together. I don't know why I had decided to sign up for it; probably because the teacher was one of my former football coaches, or the fact that it was just long enough to fill my last semester. Whatever it was, I was sort of glad that I had took it. Even though we were supposed to be writing articles for the school newspaper, I could convince Arthur to stop being so uptight for a while and goof off. Since he was one of the teacher's favourites, whenever we got caught, he could play it off as he was trying to help me and we accidentally got off topic.

"Alfred!" Speak of the devil. "Where were you?" Arthur practically boomed, marching over to me.

"There's my favourite Brit!" I exclaimed, turning to meet his gaze and throwing an arm around his shoulders. Thrown aback for a moment, he shoved my arm off of him and snapped, "Again, where were you, Alfred? Do you know how many times Mr. Kendall called your name? Eight! Do you know how awkward it was when everyone looked at me, expecting me to know the magical answer, when I had no bloody clue?" His ears and cheeks were flushed. I just smiled.

"Matthew had his graduation ceremony and our Mom had some work meeting that she couldn't get out of, so I skipped class and watched him get a cheap diploma and fake 'Congratulations.'" I explained as we started down the linoleum tiled hall.

A snicker escaped from Arthur and with a smirk he aggravatedly stated, "That was sweet Al, but you're an idiot." I smiled a bit, shoving him playfully, I jokingly told him to shut up. He simply chuckled and retorted, "That'll be the day."

Somewhere behind us, from a voice I didn't recognize, someone shouted, "Alfred and Arthur!" Our heads snapped back in the general direction from the call, but no one presented themself as the source. A second after they had our attention, they followed it up with a, "Just kiss already!"

Freezing a bit in the flow of people, my face dropped for about half a second. You always could, I told myself before smirking a bit and I shouting back, "There's no PDA in the lobby!" Several snickers and giggles erupted from the mass of people.

Blushing a bit, Arthur just glared at the backs of the people in front of us as we continued on. What's his problem? I wondered looking at him a bit. It's not like we would have actually kissed or anything. We were friends, just friends. I got that he was gay and everything, but it wasn't like he would have actually like me that way. Besides, I didn't want to kiss him either. Get a hold of yourself, Alfred, I panickedly thought. You've had a girlfriend before, you can't like dudes. Right?

Coming to the decision that thinking wasn't helping much, I randomly asked, "So what else did I miss in journalism, besides you dying of embarrassment?"

"Shut up," he said a bit coldly. "But you missed all of the same old bad literary puns, which are so entertaining." He rolled his eyes as he pushed open the door to the outside. "And the paper has to be done by next Wednesday, so we can put them together Thursday and have a free day Friday."

"Fun," I smirked, shoving my hands into my shorts' pockets. "I guess I'll actually have to work tomorrow."

"I'm not writing another article for you, Al, just so you don't fail."

Laughing a bit, I calmly replied, "I wasn't going to ask you to."

"Whatever," he said with an eyeroll.

I never did get that final article done completely. Wednesday I managed to make myself focus enough to get it to a point where it sounded done. Ending the semester with passing grades, I spent the last two days of school stressing over passing exams. Arthur found them, "awfully easy, really. The teachers repeated all that information several times if you listened." Smart people just never understand the struggles of the dumb.

Soon enough school let out and Mattie and I were in the back of Gil's car, Antonio squished between us, windows down. We had only had the radio on for thirty seconds when "Pretty Fly" came on and there was an uproar of approval. We spent the majority of the car ride home blasting that and sing-screaming along to it.

"AND ALL THE GIRLS SAY, I'M PRETTY FLY! FOR A WHITE GUY!" We shouted in unison, except Matthew who just laughed at us. Tonio, Gil and I tried to flip what little hair we had to the song with no such luck. Franny just snickered at us, while Matthew chuckled, "You three might just cause a crash!" There was a smile plastered to his face, but I got the feeling he was being serious...mostly.

"Don't tell me what to do!" Gil got out over the music. "I do what I want!"

Antonio followed it up with something like, "Too soon, Gil." What that meant, I had no idea, but I decided not to question it.

We had started going home together on the last day of school in third or second grade, but since the Bad Touch Trio was a year older than me and two older than Matt, there was a two year gap where we were unable to. A couple years we had all tried to cram into a single seat on the bus for the entire ride. Now that had been fun! But it had ended in two of us getting stuck between the seats when the bus randomly braked.

"...SO HE BOUGHT VANILLA ICE!" Suddenly I realized that I had missed most of the verse and I was staring out the window. Laughing a bit, I joined back in with the off tune choir. "Now, cruising in his Pinto, he sees homies as he pass, but if he looks twice, they'RE GONNA KICK HIS LILY ASS!"

The song continued on with us yelling along to its lyrics. If anyone had any complaints about our taste in music, they didn't vocalize it, so we didn't stop.

"OH THE WORLD LOVES WANNABES! SO LET'S GET SOME MORE WANNABES! And HEY! HEY! DO THAT DO-NAH BRA-NU-THAG" Our singing died off in the mumbling of being unable to tell what the singer was actually saying, just as Gilbert pulled on to Symphony Lane.

Smiling as he turned the radio down a bit, Antonio loudly announced, "This is going to be the summer!" After we all stared at him for a while, he elaborated, "This is going to be the summer we look back at in twenty years and be like, 'Oh yeah! That was hilarious.' I can just feel it!"

Gilbert just clapped him on the back, chuckling, "Okay, broha." While Francis shook his head a bit, smiling as well. Matthew and I just gave him a smile and didn't say anything for once.

Just after, Gil pulled into our driveway and yelled, "Now get your asses outta my car!"

"We're going!" I yelled back, collecting my stuff and throwing open the door. Getting out, I said, "Bye guys! Don't do anything fun without me!"

"Oh please, Al," Franny responded, while Mattie just followed up with a, "Thanks for the ride."

As soon as we were out and away from the car, Gilbert tore out and down the street. Who gave him a driver's license? I wondered in awe as I watched him almost take out a mailbox. And I have actually gotten in that car and let him drive like that all year.

Turning my attention away from the street, I said to Matt, "So summer... What'cha wanna do?"

A smirk pulled at his mouth and he simply replied, "Burn all my school stuff."

And with that, summer began.

Having become bored within the first couple days, I started going over to Arthur's practically everyday. Mom thought it was sweet and didn't protest, she even let him in when he snuck over in the middle of the night-he tried to get in through my window but climbing up onto the roof is harder than it seems, even with the tree in the yard. Several times, he came over around one or two in the afternoon and physically got me out of bed. Usually I woke up on the floor with him sitting on my bed, reading a book.

Matt for some reason didn't protest about getting woken up by him-whether it was one in the morning or the afternoon. Usually he just grinned at us and either just rolled over with the pillow over his head, or just got up-depending on what time it was. Sometimes I swear I heard him mumble something about a ship.

June flew by, and then it was July. Having decided on the second, Mattie was more excited for the day after his birthday than even phased by the fact that we almost forgot about it on the first. Almost, we almost did. I remembered around eight and made the excuse of taking him out to a movie to give mom enough time to make him a cake and wrap his presents. He probably figured it out as soon as we got home and mom presented to him messy cake with random patches of vanilla frosting on it-apparently she ran out of chocolate and improvised. After we all had a slice or two-or five-Mom agreed to just buying us one the next day. She might have been a chef, but she could not bake a cake for the life of her.

The second rolled around and for once, I actually woke up at a "reasonable" time, meaning I got out of bed at eleven instead of two. Having showered, dressed, and not fallen back to sleep, I went into the kitchen for "breakfast." Sitting at the table eating a couple slices of cold pizza the doorbell rang. "I'll get it," I yelled to whomever cared, taking my pizza with me to the door.

Opening the door, I made eye contact with a boy I'd never seen before in my life. He was probably around fourteen or fifteen, heavy set, with a slight mustache. I had to give him a round of applause on how well he took care of his skin, which was practically flawless, and I was tempted to give him a high-five on the dreadlocks.

We stood there staring at each other for a moment before I simply stated, "Al. You?"

"Carlos," he answered back unsurely, giving me a weird look. I just nodded and yelled over my shoulder, "Matt one of your friends is here!"

There was a loud bang from somewhere upstairs, followed by a faint, "One second!" Carlos looked at me wide-eyed, glancing nervously back behind me. It took me a couple seconds to register what it was about as I stepped aside, letting him into the house. "He'll be fine," I said to him, proceeding to continue eating my cold pizza.

As I walked back into the kitchen I heard him whisper, "Some brother you are." Almost shooting something back at him, I was interrupted by Mattie's sudden appearance. "Hey Carlos!" he called happily, hanging off the railing of the stairs a bit.

Carlos smiled a bit, cheerfully replying, "Hola." It took me about a full minute to comprehend the switch in language, and by then I felt stupid, after taking a full year of Spanish to fill a foreign language credit. Goddammit.

"...ready met, this is my brother Alfred."

"Are you two twins?" he asked, the curiosity in his voice apparent.

"Nope," I answered, finishing off my pizza slice. "He's almost a full year younger than me." Shooting me a thanks-for-that look, Matt followed my brilliant statement up with a, "Anyway, you wanna hang out upstairs?"

"Sure." And then I was alone with the muffled sound of them talking as my only background noise. For a couple minutes, I considered calling Kiku up just to have someone to talk to, but then it was evoked to me that I had invited him as well so he was probably already on his way over. Screw this, I thought, flopping onto my back on the couch. Thankfully I was only there for a couple minutes before there was someone pounding at our door.

Swinging it open, I excitedly got out, "Hey!"

"Hey!" Jett yelled, practically tackling me to the ground. My head hit the floor with a THUD but it weirdly didn't hurt automatically. Pushing him off of me, I asked, "Did you miss me?"

"Not one bit," he retaliated with a smirk. Hitting him on the shoulder, I got up off the floor to close the door, a sharp pain poking its way through my skull. Jett picked up his bag and strutted into the living room, blissfully unaware of the stake in my brain.

"Someone else is here, mate!" Jett was suddenly right behind me watching for who it was. The back doors opened, leading me to be confused for a minute. I don't remember anyone having a twin, I thought, knitting my eyebrows together a bit.

An ashy blond head ducked out of the low-ceiling Mustang, and I stared at him trying to figure out who it was. For a quick second his face was too blurry for me to see, but it focused and I just shrugged it off as something that had to do with the beating my head took. Smirking as the second head bobbed out of the back, I opened the door a bit more and yelled, "Hey, you guys!"

Kiku's and Eduard's head snapped up in my direction, smiles spreading over their faces. "Need help with anything?" Jett called leaning over me.

"No, thank you," Kiku yelled back pulling his out of the back, while Eduard said a simple, "You wish, Jett." Clutching his chest dramatically, whipping his head to the side, in a mock-serious tone, Jett stated, "Ya wound me, Ed."

"Please don't call me that!"

"Ed, Edd and Eddy!" Jett sung from the doorway, as they approached.

"You watch cartoons?" Kiku questioned quietly, though he never got a response.

The mustang pulled out of the driveway and tore down the street without so much of a "goodbye." Raising an eyebrow I nodded my head in the direction that it left. Eduard just gave a quick shrug and answered back, "I have a friend who's a junior." Accepting the answer, I didn't question more of it and let the two of them inside, ignoring the throbbing pain in my head.

Jett flopped back down on our couch and loudly asked, "Ya guys got food?"

"My mom will be back later with a cake," I answered simply, definitely feeling the tackle then.

"Should I put my bag up in your room, Alfred?" Kiku questioned behind me.

"Nah," I said with a shrug and a grin, "Matt and his friends claimed that. We get the basement." He just nodded a bit, leading to an odd silence.

After a moment, I decided on at least doing and saying something. "We can go down there right now if you don't want to hang out up here." There was another nod from Kiku, Eduard simply shrugged, while Jett did a flying leap off the couch, grabbing his bag, and yelling, "Beat ya down there!"

We watched him race down the stairs, before I spoke up with a, "Or if you're like Jett, you make the decision for the group." There was no chuckle or laugh in response, only a smile and a couple nods. I really did have a weird mix of friends.

"We should follow him," Ed said, taking off in the same direction that Jett had gone with Kiku and I right behind him.

The three of us barely got halfway down the steps when there was a loud CRASH from somewhere at the bottom. "I meant to do that!" Jett called out in response to the noise. Moving a bit quicker, we walked into the room to find an old recliner tipped backwards with Jett laying in it, feet high in the air.

"Man, don't break anything," I whined a bit walking over to help him up just as he hopped up off the floor and picked the chair up.

"Can I almost break things then?"

"Don't you da-" the doorbell suddenly rang from upstairs, making Ed jump a bit and my head snap backwards towards the sound of the noise. From about two floors up, I vaguely heard Matt yell, "I got it Al!"

"Okay!" I shouted back over my shoulder, as Kiku sat down next to his bag, Jett flopped back into the recliner, and Eduard placed his bag in a corner. Standing kind of awkwardly in the almost centre of the room, I fiddled with the hem of my shorts a bit.

There were voices upstairs. Matt's I recognized every time he spoke, but there was another one I couldn't place. No one came downstairs after a couple moments, so I naturally just assumed it was one of his friends.

"So how's your guys' summers?" I asked, now leaning back against a white painted wall.

"Well I wasn't shipped off for once, and I'm beginning to realize just how cold it is here even in the summer," Jett reported with a smirk. Chuckling a bit, I joked, "Welcome to Michigan where things are frozen eleven months out of the year. But, man, that one month when it isn't, that's the best." It earned me a snicker from Eduard, and a chuckle from Jett. Kiku just sat on the ground, smiling slightly.

The bang of the front door slamming echoed from upstairs. Mildly surprised that Mom came back so earlier from the...wherever she went-she liked to talk a lot-I moseyed over to the based of the stairwell and vociferated, "Hey, Mom. Why are you back early?"

"I'm not your mum!" a clearly male voice shouted back in an borderline hostile tone. Looking over in the direction of the sound, Kiku happily greeted him with a, "Hello, Arthur!"

There was a hurried moment of confused silence before Arthur appeared at the top of stairs and replied, "Okay, Kiku is actually here, and hello."

"Ya just let yourself in?" Jett question, now the one leaning against the wall.

A blush started creeping along Arthur's already sunburnt cheeks, as he simply responded, "Yes." Shrugging it off a bit, Jett and Eduard didn't say anything in response to his answer, whilst Kiku got out a little notebook and proceeded to scribble something down.

Thankfully the delicate, uncomfortable moment passed quickly. Apparently everyone in the neighbourhood-who I actually talked to-decided to show up at our house at the same time.

"My mom invited her parents over from Estonia to stay for the summer," Eduard began, trying to start up some sort of conversation. "They just got here last week and can barely speak English. Do you know how hard it is to try to 'talk to your grandparents' when they have no idea what you're saying and vice versa?"

"Ever try talking to my brother Jack and you will," Arthur replied cooly, a blush tinting his cheeks and a smirk pulling at his mouth. Why did the way his face look make my heart skip a beat?

Randomly, the entire scene seemed to fall out of focus for a moment, everyone becoming blurred figures. What the...? was the only thing that crossed my mind before everything readjusted and went back to normal. Blaming it again on the betting my head had taken, I tried to force myself back into the conversation.

"...and he never gets anything I tell him!" Jett complained, arms unfolding and leaning forward off the wall. Wait, what? I thought trying to figure out who he was probably talking about. Who was 'he?' Crap, I really needed to pay better attention.

"Are all brothers hard to speak with?" Kiku questioned from the floor, looking up at us expectantly.

Shrugging a bit, I simply, sincerely stated, "Matt isn't too bad, most of the time, unless he started talking about biology and stuff. Then he gets confusing."

"Biology is easy, mate!" Jett exclaimed, mildly offended.

"Whatever, dude," I started before being abruptly cut off by a heavy pang that came from one of the windows. Since the two windows were basically at ground level, it wasn't an anomaly for a small animal to run into one every once in a while. But they never hit the windows hard enough to be that loud.

Our five heads spun suddenly to the source of the sound to see someone crouched outside smiling at us like a mad-man. Tapping on the window pane a couple times, Gilbert made a couple hand motions to someone inside and proceeded to start to take the window out of the frame.

In the time it took me to register what he was actually doing, he was wiggling his way inside, feet first. "What the hell are you doing?" I asked, sounding border-line irritated. With a soft thump, he landed feet first onto the concrete, threw his hands in the air and shouted, "The awesome me has arrived so you may rejoice!" An arrogant smirk was plastered to his face.

"There's a thing called a door!" I yelled at him, stalking over and hitting him a couple times on the back, a smile starting to spread across my face. Quickly throwing his arm around my shoulders, Gil pulled me down into a headlock and yelled somewhere behind him, "I've got him! It's okay to come in now!"

"Say what?" I asked dumbly, struggling to get out of his grasp.

"Gilbert, mon ami, no," I heard Franny finalize from somewhere outside. "I am not getting this shirt dirty by getting on the ground. I'm going through the door."

"Killjoy!" Gilbert stated exaggeratedly loudly. A couple seconds later, there was another thump and someone crashed into my back, knocking Gilbert and me over onto the cold concrete. "Hola," Antonio stated sheepishly, getting off of us and helping us up.

Gilbert grinned again, slapping him on the back and saying, "At least someone else is almost as awesome as me." I could see Arthur rolling his eyes at the statement. Jett chuckled a bit and asked, "What ya doing here, mate? Usually I only see ya at soccer!"

"Well," Gil started, holding out each sound in the word, "if Francis would HURRY UP AND GET HIS BUTT DOWN HERE, I could tell you! But, alas-"

"Stop complaining, Gilbert, I am here!" Francis pointed out, jumping off the last step and hurrying over to the other two. Gil's smirk got wider as he loudly announced, "We are the Bad Touch Trio and we are here to fuck shit up!"

Shaking his head a bit in mild disgust, Francis followed it up with a, "He's wanted to do that all year." Eduard looked a bit confused, and Kiku started fiddling with his pen and notepad, while Arthur kept shooting Francis glowers. Jett on the other hand sauntered up basically shouting, "Look what the cat brought in! How are ya, mates?" He slapped both Gil and Tonio on the back a couple times.

"Still as awesome as ever!" Gilbert announced to the already aware world.

"Just great, and how are you Jett?" Antonio responded, ruffling his hair a bit. It took me a couple seconds to remember that Antonio was also a big soccer player as well and that's how the two were acquainted.

"Freezing up here, mate! Does it just never get warm?" He was joking. It was almost ninety degrees fahrenheit outside, which he would always describe as "comfortable." What messed most people up was that he only stayed in Australia for three months maximum and was located here through the winter, when there was usually five feet of snow and sub-zero temperatures. Maybe he just liked the extremes of both temperatures or something? Who knew. Jett was crazy and that would probably never change.

Tonio and Gil laughed at him a bit, stating that they figured as much from him. Pretty much anyone knew knew anything about Jett would expect such a response, being as predictable as he was.

It was a second or so later that the sound of footsteps in the stairs became audible. Glancing over my shoulder long enough to see Matthew come into view, his one hispanic friend-Carlos or something-and some really tall kid behind him. The latter I hadn't met yet and I assumed he was the one I heard talking with Matt earlier. Blond hair spiked up, lips slightly pursed, his icy pop bottle green eyes ran up and down me before glancing over at Matt. Jeez he was unnerving. Why's Mattie hanging out with him? I questioned to myself, trying to keep a pretty open mind to him...trying to.

A chuckle randomly escaped from Matt when his gaze landed on the trio. "I should have assumed as much," he got out with a grin.

"Hey, Birdie! Wondering where you were!" Gilbert requited, same joyful looked spreading across his face once again. At the same moment, while sashaying over to him, Francis basically yelled out, "Mattieu!"

"Hello, Francis," Mattie respond, smile turning into something unusually similar to a smirk as Franny threw an arm around him. His two friends behind him threw each other a couple of confused looks. After several almost silent seconds, Carlos chimed in with a, "Hola, I'm Carlos. I don't really know most of you."

Antonio's eyes got big and his grin wider. "¿Hablas español?" he spluttered out excitedly. Bug-eyed, Carlos smiled a bit and happily responded, "Sí, ¿cómo te llamas?"

"Soy Antonio," he said smirking a bit and motioning toward Gilbert and Francis continued with, "Ésten son mis amigos, Gilbert y Francis."

A chuckled escaped from Carlos as he nodded back at the tall silent dude behind him and stated, "Éste es Lars. Es callado ves."

"Veo," Antonio followed up, grinning like a mad man. Gilbert had a scandalized, befuddled look going towards his friend beside him. Seconds after Antonio gave his last statement, Gil spat out, "English!"

Carlos shot him a subtle glare while Tonio laughed it off with a, "I don't get after you with your German."

"Well that's because German is awesome!" Gil countered, looking wounded. Laughing a bit, I frankly told him, "Whatever lets you sleep at night" to which he flipped me off, making me snort. At that point Arthur was standing behind me, trying not to draw attention to himself whilst angrily watching Francis and Gilbert hug and head-lock Matthew playfully. Eventually he jabbed me in the arm and nodded towards the three, eyes narrowed. Smiling at him sheepishly, I just shrugged it off as though they did that a lot...which they did sometimes.

Over the noise of Spanish babble and general English chatter, I heard the front door slam as though it had been kicked. That was followed several seconds later by the clicking of heels on hardwood and the shouting of, "I have cake!"

"Cake!" Jett and I exclaimed simultaneously, squeezing past the five people in the stairwell and racing upstairs. Gilbert sprinted after us a few milliseconds later with Antonio on his heels.

Skidding to a halt in the kitchen, three people crashed into me from behind almost taking me down to the floor. Mom never looked back at us as she started delicately forcing candles into the cake. "Hello boys!"

"Hello miss Jones," Kiku said, entering the kitchen behind us. She laughed a bit and half glanced back for barely a second. "Kiku I have known you since you were eight," she said with a chuckle, "I really think it's about time you call me 'Miss Amy,' don't you think? And that goes for all of you." She added on the last sentence as she heard the last of the footsteps stop.

Finally turning around to get more candles out of the drawer, her eyes landed on the trio. Another laugh escaped her as she rhetorically asked, "Why am I not surprised? The party crashers have arrived."

They all smirked at the comment, seemingly proud of it for some reason. Pulling a second pack of candles, she turned back around to put the last fifteen of the thirty-one candles into the cake. Since we shared a cake anyway, Mom had decided a long time ago that she might as well divide it in half and put the correct number number of candles in for each of us. We were positive that one day that there would be more candles than actual cake, we had yet to see the day.

"When did all of you get here? I wanna know how long I left all y'all here alone," she asked, still focused on the candles. Matthew and I had made our way over and had started helping her but she slapped our hands simultaneously. "Go back to your friends," she told us with a light glare. "You two take up too much space in here now anyway." Mattie just backed away with his hands up, while I rolled my eyes a bit and smirked. There were a couple chuckles that came out of my friends, so I just stuck my tongue out at the lot of them.

"I got here maybe ten minutes 'go," Jett responded to her earlier question which was followed up by Ed saying, "And Kiku and I got here just a couple minutes after him." Turning around as they spoke, Mom starting digging in a door for a lighter. "Okay, that's not too bad." Then her attention turned to Matt's two friends and she pointed out, "You two I don't know. Names?"

"I'm Carlos," the not-so-little Hispanic cheerfully introduced. Smiling at him, she said it was nice to meet him, and then turned expectantly to...Lars? After a minute he realized she was looking at him and he said, "I'm Lars."

"It can speak," she joked quickly before continuing on with, "and you two got here...?"

"I was first here, probably fifteen or twenty minutes ago, and Lars showed up about ten minutes after me." Mom just nodded, as she kicked us out of the way and moved the cake to the table.

"Alright, so the triplets probably just got here then?" she questioned, giving them a look.

"Yes," Gilbert and Francis answered in unison, leaving it simply at that. Antonio, on the other hand, built off of that with, "We broke in through your window in the-" The other two managed to get their hands over his mouth at that point, cutting his sentence off short. She laughed heartily at them, starting to light candles.

Taking part in the small, semicircle the rest of them had started to form, I took my place back by Arthur, whom muttered something like, "What an interesting mother you have." Or something like that. I wasn't really listening because Gilbert crashed into me saying, "Oh sorry Al, you're taking up too much space." He then proceeded to lean into me more and more. Chuckling a bit, I just rolled with it jokingly saying, "Sorry, sir" every time Gil almost knocked me over.

That only lasted a minute before Mom shouted from three feet away, "Alright, sit your asses down for cake!" Mom's command got a couple chuckles out of the Trio, Jett and I think Carlos. Once again, I heard Arthur mumble something about my mom being interesting. I don't know why, she seemed like a pretty normal to me. Then again I didn't talk to a lot of moms and usually my friends' moms only said two words to me when I was over.

"Sitting our asses down for cake," Matt and I fought each other for the seat at the front of the table before I just threw my legs over his so we could share. When I did, he just gave me a look that was either "Are-you-serious" or "I-will-actually-murder-you." My only response was a smile and a shrug. Probably no one else noticed or cared because no one said anything, but Mom rolled her eyes at me.

And thus began the Ancient Birthday Ceremony with the out-of-tune singing you could only get from a large group of teenagers. It was seriously like they had never sang a day before in their life. But it was over in under a minute so the suffering didn't last too long, thankfully.

Blowing out the candles took a lot longer than it should of. Mom had joked for the longest time how one year she was going to buy trick candles and embarrass us in front of everyone as we tried to blow them out. It had finally became that year. So we blew the candles out about four or five times before it finally dawned on us. Mom was turning a bit red as she tried to hold in a laugh. "Seriously, Mom?" Mattie and I asked together. She just doubled over laughing in response.

A Mom can only be cool if she's not yours.

After cake was dished out and we ate about three fourths of it, Mom offered to let us open presents since her camera wasn't completely dead yet. We agreed to it and most of the guys ran back downstairs to grab something out of their bags.

I ended getting a couple decks of pokemon cards from Kiku, Eduard just gave me money-not that I was complaining or anything-while Arthur bought me the Star Wars trilogy, and Jett gave me a string with a shark tooth on it. The Bad Touch Trio pitched in all together and bought me keys. A complete ring just full of keys that went to who knows what. They also requested to come with me when I figured it out.

Matt received a gift card to some ice cream joint down the street from Carlos, and Lars got him a couple biology books. Both made his face light up like a Christmas tree as boring as they may seem. The Trio also "pitched in" and got him a huge deck of vintage hockey player cards. A couple were signed and others Matt claimed were "really hard to find," to which all three of them nearly died because they apparently bought them all for about a dollar at some thrift shop. Nice to know.

Most of that went by fairly quickly and wasn't awfully interesting, so I will spare you the horribly drawn out details of it all. Matthew and his two friends decided to accompany us back downstairs as we made our descend where we sat chatting about nothing and boredly sitting waiting for something to happen. It was at the end of those five minutes that Matthew suggested something that we could actually work with.

"We could always go outside. The weather's nice," he offered glancing around at everyone. Eduard gave a smiling shrug to it, while Arthur and Kiku politely agreed to it with, "Okay." Jett leaped out of the recliner and exclaimed, "Yes! Let's go!" Antonio and Francis agreed just after Jett's command, while Gilbert put in a "Whatever, Birdie." Matt's friends had concurred at some point at well, I just never noticed.

So once again, we ascended up the stairs, pulling on shoes and walking through the kitchen. Mom was washing plates and silverware in the sink when she stated, "Don't even ask, I will have food for you later," without even turning around. A couple snickers came from Jett, Gil and Carlos, so I smirked and answered, "We'll do it later then." Probably shouldn't go into comedy, I told myself as no one laughed or chuckled at it.

A minute or so later we had all piled outside and were walking around to the back yard. It was within this time range that Gilbert came up with an "awesome" idea. As we trooped through the grass, GIlbert started smirking, which was first noticed by Francis who elbowed Antonio in the ribs sneering as well. We noticed this all when Antonio randomly busted out laughing.

"What?" Arthur coarsely asked, glaring at Francis' smirk. Answering his snap, Francis happily replied, "We should have a water balloon fight." Arthur's face dropped a bit when there was an uproar of approval for the idea from Jett, Matt and I, followed by Ed and Lars agreeing as well. Carlos was in there somewhere-I seriously could not pay attention to him for the life of me-and Arthur finally gave in when he realized everyone else wanted to.

"Awesome," Gilbert said smiling. "I will be right back." After running off to the bushes beside the house, he somehow managed to produce two large bags of balloons, much to the surprise of everyone but the Bad Touch Trio. Tossing a bag into the middle of the group we had formed, Kiku caught the bag while Gilbert ordered, "Start filling," and turned on the hose that hung off the side of the house.

With all eleven of us filling balloons we got through both bags in about five minutes. Somewhere in the middle of that I heard Matt ask in a hushed tone, "Arthur, are you alright?"

"Course I am," he answered back automatically. I don't know why Matt thought there was anything wrong, Arthur looked fine enough. He didn't look like he did back in the locker or bathroom, not even in the slightest. I just shrugged the whole short conversation off and help Gilbert divide people into teams, which didn't last long.

It started out with Matt, Carlos, Lars, Ed, Gil and Jett on one team and Tonio, Franny, Art, and Kiku on mine. To be honest, Matthew probably got the better team to start with.

Clumping together in the on the grass, no one was entirely sure how to start the whole thing until Gilbert chucked one hitting me in the face. I threw one back, missed and hit Carlos in the side. Wasn't who I was aiming for but close enough. Francis-I think-threw a green plastic blob of water at Matthew, hitting him in the shoulder. Matt threw back but hit Arthur. Then I lost track of who threw what, all I knew was that I hit Lars a couple times but he missed me when he tried to get me back. I also hit Gilbert in the face once and the plastic stuck over his nose.

At one point, I saw Arthur hit Francis in the face with a balloon, taking the opportunity in the chaos. Dazed for a second, Francis looked over at me and whipped on at me hitting me in the side. "Hey!" I exclaimed chucking one back, but it came in contact with Antonio. Gilbert actually fell over from laughing so hard at us. Tonio and Francis managed to hit him with a couple balloons at the same time while Carlos smashed a balloon into Lars' hair. Lars retaliated but ended up whipping a balloon into Ed's ribs as Carlos ducked behind him.

It had gone from five against six to every man for himself...for like twenty seconds before we all ran out of balloons. By then we were all beaming and cachinnating while picking multicoloured bits of plastic out of our hair.

"You're welcome for the awesome idea," Gilbert said, bowing, red in the face. There was still a popped balloon stuck to the top of his ear, making him look a bit elfish. None of us told him about it until it just plain fell off, much to our disappointment, as we trudged back inside. Mom met us at the door.

"No, not in my house," she said looking us over, her voice bearing more disapproval than her face. "All y'all have to dry off before coming back in. I'm not mopping."

Not wanting to challenge her, we all sat out on the usually sun baked lawn which was now a giant mud pit, the summer sun searing our backs. The peaceful sitting only last maybe a good two minutes, before boredom bore down on pretty much just Gilbert and Jett.

Normally when someone rips up handfuls of grass to put on the person sitting next to them, mud doesn't come with it. Unfortunately for Gilbert and Antonio's shorts, this time it did.

Tearing the grass up without really looking at it, Gilbert lazily let it fall into Antonio's lap, who jumped seconds later and glared at him. "Hey," he exclaimed, irritation working its way in. Ripping up a handful of bespattered lawn, he smashed it into Gilbert's dark tank top.

His angry gaze cutting into Gilbert, yanked up a fistful of dirt and maybe grass and chucked it. Of course Antonio managed to get out of the range of fire, so it flew past him into the side of Carlos' head. Bug-eyed Gilbert ducked behind Francis as Carlos looked over at him as him as though he was about to murder him.

Naturally with things such as this, Carlos whipped back a mud ball and it of course landed on Kiku. His eyes shot open so they were unnaturally large and he cautiously reached up to wipe it off his shoulder. Since he wasn't going to lash out about it, I decided to do that for him.

"Hey!" I yelled at Carlos, throwing one back at him. Even though I was a baseball pitcher, I ended up missing him and hitting Matthew. Smooth, Al.

Ignoring everyone's previous examples of just throwing dirt and sod back, Mattie got up, calmly walked over and freaking tackled me into the ground. "Matt!" I cried out when he landed on top of me, elbow digging into my ribs. "Sorry, Al," he said into my ear as he started to roll off of me.

In the maybe two seconds he was on top of me, chaos unleashed around us. Just as I was relieved of being crushed by Matthew's weight, Gilbert came crashing down into my stomach. Flinching a tiny bit, I tried to sit up just as he bounced back up and basically jumped on Antonio. It's like we started a bar fight... I thought as I just stared in awe at the scene before me.

Gilbert was smashing mud into Antonio's hair who was just trying to get him off of him. Arthur had knocked Francis down into sludge who was now yelling at him for, "ruining his outfit." Oh Franny, let it go.

Kiku sat silently off to the side just watching everything go down and trying to get mud off of him, Lars was as well as I later realized. Carlos mostly just sat back, sometimes randomly throwing a handful of mud at someone. I caught sight of Eduard calmly getting up and sitting by the side of house, mud splattered along his back and side.

Looking over at Matthew, wondering what we had started, he glanced back at me, the same perplexed look on his face. "Should we do something about this?" I asked him just as the front door opened back up.

As it slammed shut, we all froze, petrified. Daring to look up, I found Mom standing on the porch, hands on her hips, shaking her head. "Don't move," she said irritatedly, a threat hidden in the undertone of her voice.

Frightenedly gaping at each other, we got up in unspoken unison waiting for whatever Mom was going to do to us. Gilbert shuffled his feet a bit in the noisy summer silence, nervousness apparently having taken hold of all of us. Francis glared down at the chestnut muck that ran down his front and was clumped in his hair, while Arthur smirked a bit. Kiku, Ed, Lars and Carlos looked the least concerned, having mostly stayed out the whole ordeal. I watched Antonio's smile falter for a second as he swallowed hard, mud caked on his clothes and skin. Jett put on an arrogant facade as though he didn't know exactly how hard a mother can come down on people. Matt and I probably weren't as anxious as we should have been, having grown up with her temper.

After a couple moments, the front door flew back open, slamming against the side of the house. Eyebrows knitted and eight bags thrown over her left shoulder-how I'm still not sure-and a couple shirts and shorts in her right hand, she dumped everything on the porch. As her eyes narrowed and her arms akimbo, she simply stated, "None of your asses are allowed back in my house until you have clean clothes on. I will be doing laundry and you will be changing out here, boys. Knock when you're done."

With that, she turned around and glided inside, door right behind her and followed by the sound of the deadbolt locking into place. Okay, she really wasn't kidding. I realized in half-awe, half-shock as I gapped at the door.

A whistle came out of Jett before he observed, "She's really something else." I think it was partly in an attempt to break some of the growing awkwardness of it all; it didn't help.

So all eleven of us shuffled up on to the porch, collecting our clothes and then gawkily paraded to the mire of the back yard. On my way by, I turned the water back on, nonverbally offering to hose everyone down so we had a better chance of getting let back into the house. It started with me just washing the mud quickly off my skin, but progressed when I randomly sprayed Mattie. His confusion melted quickly with a chuckle as I spritz the hose once again, dirt flowing down his legs and running off his face. He threw his clothes towards the side of the house and held his arms out with his head up and said, "Get it over with and shoot me." With a laugh, I dosed him once again.

"My turn!" Gilbert called out, playfully half-shoving Matt out of his way. Both in response, Matt hockey checked him so he landed in a puddle, and I made sure the next spurt hit him directly in the face. Wiping at his eyes with a muddy palm, Gil gave a sarcastic fake laugh and stated, "Very funny, now help me up, Red Adair." Who he was, I had know idea what-so-ever. Sticking my tongue out at him, I grabbed his hand, yanking him back up onto his own two feet.

By the time all the sludge had washed off Gil, the others seemed to realize what I was doing. Shirtless, Antonio was trying to force his way into the jet stream, Jett joining him a few seconds later. Shooting the both of them in the face, they laughed it off as the muck started running off of them.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Kiku changing just his shirt, having already mostly rubbed his face clean. Lars had already changed his shorts some time before and was walking back towards the front yard as I helped Francis get the mud out of his hair, much to his dismay. "It's fine," I told him, tugging a chunk out, a couple blond strands coming with it.

"No it's not!" he basically cried, swiping the hose out of my hand. "Let me do it!" Putting my hands up, I stated, "Whatever floats your boat, man." Picking my clothes up from next to my feet, I became increasingly aware of the fact that I actually had to strip, outside. It probably wasn't as bad as I was making it out to be. The most they would see would be my back, if they did decide to look over at me.

Besides, who even cares. Most guys don't like other guys... Besides Arthur. But he most likely doesn't like any of us that way. Francis is a definite "if" but he's like that with-what am I thinking? At that point I was really hoping I wasn't blushing as I pulled on a clean shirt and gave a quick glance over my shoulder. Francis was still trying to get mud out of his hair, Gilbert was pulling up his basketball shorts, Jett was assumably looking for his shoes-seeing as he was barefoot-while the others were chatting in the front yard. Deciding it was safe enough, I quickly pulled off my pants and yanked on the clean pair Mom brought down for me. Why it had taken everyone so much longer to change, I had no idea.

Stuffing the mud-soaked clothes into a ball, and marched to the front lawn to join the others, ignoring everyone else still changing. To my surprise, they were mostly not talking, just standing around congregated on the porch. Joining them silently, my tolerance for the growing almost quiet was instantaneously depleted from every part of my being.

Coughing a bit, I said almost as quietly as Matt, "Sorry for getting all of you guys into this. And I'm sorry my mom is kind of insane." There was a couple chuckles and mutterings of, "It's okay" before I heard Mom screech from in the kitchen, "I HEARD THAT ALFRED FRANKLIN JONES!"

There was a moment of shocked silence that settled over the boodle of us, taking us all a quick moment to register her words. When we did, it was like a flood gate had burst. I could tell I was definitely blushing by then. Oh my god, no...no, Mom, no. Mom barely ever used my middle name, the last time was a year ago when I got an "F" on a quiz in History. The image of her reddening face, arms cross and intense, cutting stare came back to me for a few seconds as Jett and Gilbert walked up.

"What?" Gil asked, puzzled somewhere behind me. Matt was leaning against the wall, hand over his mouth. A smile was pulling at Lars' mouth and I could see Kiku and Ed choking back laughs. Arthur was biting at his lower lip, trying to hold back a grin. Antonio was basically doubled over, muttering, "Franklin" as he tried to take in breath. Carlos had a look plastered to his face as though he had just received the best news of his life.

Forcing a bogus smile onto my face, I grasped desperately for something even slightly humorous to respond with. Coming up with nothing to work with, I winged it. "Thanks, Mom, I feel so much closer to everyone now," I called back to her the sarcasm dripping in my voice. Jeez, Arthur is starting to rub off on me. Mattie gave me a look, still chuckling. Francis was climbing up the steps at that point, eyebrows knitted in perplexion. He gave Gilbert a questioning look, who shrugged in reply. In almost unison they looked over at Antonio, who was still having respiratory issues.

The door suddenly swung open next to us, making me jump a bit, revealing Mom. "You better not sass me again, or you'll sleep outside."

"Yes, Mom," I muttered in reply, glancing down at the whitewashed wood. There were a couple snickers behind me and I felt the need to hit them all over the head. Why am I even friends with them again? I thought as I walked inside.

"Just throw your clothes into the basket, and wait in the livingroom. Dinner will be done in a moment," she instructed, pointing over to the side of the door where a beat up plastic laundry basket sat empty. Following orders, my simple, "Thanks, Mom" was followed up by several other "Thank yous" and "Thanks, Miss Amys".

Jett pushed past the rest of us, flopping down on the couch once again. Calmly marching over, Antonio, Gilbert and I simply grabbed his arms and legs and tossed him onto the rug. "Hey!" he exclaimed as we sat down. Kiku took a quiet seat next to me as Jett scrambled up into a sitting position. "No fair," he claimed as he moped on the floor next to Carlos. Francis took his seat in the old La Z Boy while the five sat on the wood flooring.

Mom sauntered past us, taking the now full basket of mud and clothes down to the washroom. No one uttered a word even as she walked past a second time, giving Matt and I a sidewards glance. "You boys sure are quiet today," she told us from the kitchen, just before the buzzer on the oven rang. No words passed anyone's lips as we sat, awkwardly glancing at each other. For once, I felt no need to break it.

"Dinner! Come stuff your faces!" Mom called out, the clanking of plates meeting wood reverberating in the stilled silence. Wordlessly we all got back up and started over to the dining table. Elbowing me in the ribs, Arthur randomly muttered into my ear, "What an interesting mum you have here." Smiling a bit, I simply uttered a, "Yeah" in return.

As we sat down, Mom gave us all an apologetic look and said, "If you've all gone mute because I made you change outside, then I might have to send you all home."

"Mom!" Matt and I snapped, spinning around to find a grin plastered to her face. Laughing a bit, she leaned against the counter and answered, "Loosen up, boys. I'm sorry I've embarrassed you, but it's not like anything you wouldn't see in the locker room."

With the last words of the sentence out there, Arthur flinched slightly, gaze dropping down to the plate in front of him. Having sat across the table from him, I simply tapped him on the shin without anyone noticing...I think. He glanced up at me for a quick second before I smiled at him and then stated, "Yeah Mom, but there are just somethings that none of wanted to see." Turning back to the occupants of the table I then joked, "All of you are butt ugly, no offense."

"What are you talking about, Al?" Gilbert exclaimed, which was quickly followed up by Francis proclaiming, "There is no one more beautiful than moi!" Tonio then proceeded to almost shove him out of his chair with a smirk. Matt laughed a bit, stabbing a couple macaroni noodles with his fork. Carlos and Eduard grinned at the scene for a moment before Arthur muttered, "Alright, keep lying to yourself." Several chuckles escaped from the table and I could see Mom smiling at what she had started.

Thankfully no one choked on dinner as from then on we couldn't shut up. Eventually the conversation came to us talking about how Gameboys were probably some of the best things on the planet.

"Thank you, Miss Amy," Kiku muttered as she collected our dishes. With a sweet smile and a cheery tone, she happily responded, "It's nothing, Kiku. Hope you're having fun." He just nodded with a forced smile that we all had gotten used to over the years. Why he was so stoic most of the time was probably the question of the century, even though it was 1999 and Y2K would propose even bigger questions for us later.

As we descended down the stairs, I flipped the lights on, having not noticed before hand that the sun was setting. Just as I hopped off the last step, Jett pushed past me flopping back down into the recliner, simply stating, "Mine." No one fought him for it.

Our conversation about video games lasted for another couple minutes before that eventually faded off into the void of nonexistence. So we all derped in silence for a while before Gilbert randomly spouted, "Brohas, we should tell ghost stories."

No. Over my dead body, no! My thoughts shouted while my mouth responded with an, "Okay, why not?" There were nods of approval from Ed, Lars, and Kiku, whilst Matt smiled a bit with a, "Sure!" Francis just rolled his eyes at his friend, a grin pulling at the corners of his mouth and Antonio gave out a short laugh. Arthur shrugged, following it up with, "We have nothing better to do anyway." Carlos gave a quick approving shrug and Jett literally almost jumped out of the La Z Boy with an excited, "Yes!"

Plastering on a quasi-enthusiastic smile to my face, I attempted to calm myself without making it obvious that I really freaking hated ghosts.

Mattie ran upstairs for a second to get a flashlight while the rest of us sat in the faint lighting of the chilled basement. Yup, yup, yup. Ghosts! Sure love me some ghost stories. I tried to convince myself, awaiting my impending doom. Within the moment that Matt was gone, the nine of us-excluding Jett who wouldn't leave the chair-gathered in a good enough circle so that we could all face each other. Sitting close to Kiku and leaving a spot open for Matt, I caught Arthur moving out of the group a couple times as if he were purposefully trying to exclude himself. Just before I asked him about it, Mattie came back down and I had other problems to think about.

"Alright, who's going first?" he asked in a hushed tone.

"Of course the awesome me is," Gilbert announced, hopping up and grabbing the flashlight out of Matt's hands. Flopping back down onto the cement flooring, shining the light right up in his face. Matt rolled his eyes a bit, before quickly flipping the ceiling light off and sitting down next to Lars on the other side of the circle, leaving a large open space next to me. I feel so loved!

"And this is the story of 'Room 733,'" Gilbert began. Smirking at us for a second, he started, "A couple summers ago my grandfather shipped me and Ludwig off to some military camp that was hosted in some college in the outskirts of Germany." I remembered the summer that happened. At the end of Grade Seven the Bad Touch Trio had basically flooded their math teacher's room with water and had glued all of her stuff down to her desk. They got caught and when Gil's grandpa was informed about it, he completely flipped. Ludwig was sent off with him to "keep him in line." Poor kid.

"Anyway, all of summer we were stuck in this crummy old building built in the twenties that was about eight stories high. We got stuck in on the seventh floor in room 731 in one of the tiniest dorms you could have imagined." There were a couple exasperated sighs of "Get on with it, Gilbert" before he continued.

"So there was this one kid who showed us up to our room was talking to us and mentioned how room seven hundred thirty-three was actually bigger but no one was allowed to use it. Naturally we asked why and he told us that five people had committed suicide in that room and they didn't want it in use." Pleasant! But why that room, out of every single room in the building?

"Course we thought it was stupid at first until the first night. Our room shared a wall with what was called 'Der Selbstmord Raum' and since we could hear the people talking in room seven hundred twenty-nine it made sense that we could hear into that one too. But the first night something...odd happened.

"It was around midnight and we were sleeping when we woke up to the sound of a window slamming. At first we thought someone broke into our room and we were freaked until we heard the sound of a window opening again, just to be slammed shut a few seconds later. That repeated for a while until Lud finally convinced me to go tell whoever it was to stop." He looked around at us for a second. All of us were staring at him intently trying to figure out where he was going with the story until he finally got on with it.

"When I got out into the hallway, I eventually figured out where the noise was coming from and it just had to the Suicide Room. At first, I just assumed it was some of the older kids trying to mess with us or something, but that was before I found out that the room was padlocked from the outside and there was no way that they could have just climbed in from outside because the windows could only be pushed open from the inside out. Thoroughly creeped out, I just went back to bed and told Lud that some teens were smoking pot and we should just ignore them.

"The next day we had some downtime in between being screamed at and running until our legs fell off. I had headed back to our room and was getting some stuff when I heard someone knocking. Of course, I had left the door to the open and I realized there was no one there by just turning around but the knocking didn't stop. Eventually I figured out it was coming from the closet which was also adjacent to the creepy room next door. So like the stupid kid I was, I decided to look under the door at what was in there. To this day I swear I saw this glowing, yellow orb in there." A couple of the guys looked at each other, skeptical, while I glanced out the small basement window.

"Overtime Lud and I would wake up to whispering and banging coming from that room and scratching on the wall, and we eventually put in a room change request because we couldn't sleep with all that racket. Of course this weird kid named Craig found out and he told us we were dealing with a 'vengeful spirit' and all that shit." Great! Just great! I thought to myself, eyes widening and my breathing picking up slightly. Ghosts! I just love ghosts! Why did I agree to this?

"The little shit actually offered to 'exorcise' it for us but he wouldn't do it unless we paid him and at the time the both of us were flat broke so that never happened. And of course our room transfers were denied as well so we were stuck with limited options on what to do about the thing." Starting to hear my heart pulsate in my ears, I glanced over at Kiku, intently listening to Gilbert like he was in the middle of a math lecture or something.

"All the stuff continued on and one day I was talking to this girl who so graciously informed me that apparently it all started in the early sixties with some ouija game gone wrong and the person who was there was still on campus, but of course we never got more than five minutes downtime and the bastard was actively avoiding the two of us after we tried to ask him about it the first time we got a chance." Gilbert where on earth are you even going with this? I thought, while shifting a bit. The story wasn't really "scary" yet, more creepy than really anything, but it still had the ability to make me lose my shit with all its talk of ghosts.

"After a couple weeks the guy apparently quit, leaving us with limited options on what we were supposed to do about our ghost next door. Ludwig eventually managed to convince someone to let him check out books from the library and was starting to read up on the supernatural and stuff. One day he started talking to the older than dirt librarian and she so helpfully informed him that when they locked up room seven hundred thirty-three and turned it into a supply closet, they had also switched the numbers around so that the old room seven hundred thirty-three became seven hundred thirty-one." All of our interests we piqued and we all shot him a look. Why did I agree to this?

Wiping my palms on my shorts a bit, I forced myself to take a couple silent deep breaths in a failing attempt to not get completely freaked out by a stupid story. Without really realizing it, Arthur had moved over next to me. Elbowing me in the side, making me flinch, he gave me an interrogative look, which I answered with a sheepish smile.

"At that point we had convinced a couple of the older boys who didn't believe the 'rumours' to trade rooms with us, so they had been sleeping in our room for only about two days. So of course we booked it back to our room to tell them. When we got there we found that one of them had...jumped just before we got there." For once in my life, I saw Gilbert actually become serious about something. Shaking it off quickly he finished the story.

"After that they actually did move us out of that room and one onto the fourth floor. This is the first time I've ever told anyone about what had happened, but the worse part is I called back at the beginning of summer, like I have for the last three years, they had had the seventh floor closed for a while, but they're opened it back up this summer."

We all went unnaturally mute for a minute before Jett piped up with a monotone, "Very funny, Gilbert. You better be making that up."

Scoffing a bit, Gilbert almost bitterly replied, "Believe it or don't, but you can always just go look it up yourself." My heart was still trying to break out of my chest cavity and goosebumps sprung up over my arms.

A conversation about who wanted to go next broke out and the flashlight was passed around several times, but I wasn't really paying attention to any of it. Receiving a second elbow to the ribs from Art, I looked over at him again. Basically speaking into my ear, he asked, "Are you alright? You look pale."

"I'm fine," I managed to get out with finality and not stuttering. Giving me an unconvinced gaze, he just sighed and focused over at Kiku who was holding the flashlight. Following his example, I turned my attention over to him just as the others did.

"Have you ever heard of the Bath Game?" Kiku asked simply. There were some nods but he mostly received blank looks. Taking in a quick breath, he elaborated that it was a "game" where you summon a ghost by turning all the lights off in the bathroom and wash you hair in the bath while chanting, "Daruma-san fell down" over and over again. "A couple summers ago, I managed to convince one of my cousins to try it while they were visiting."

"It didn't actually work, right?" Antonio piped up across from me.

There was a horribly silent moment followed by Kiku's, "We think so." No. Not this again. What is up with everyone and ghosts tonight? I thought exasperatedly as I continued to listen to Kiku.

"The four of us were left home alone for a couple hours when three of us convinced Miku to do it. So she did the ritual and came racing out the door, looking extremely panicked. We locked the door from the outside and told our parents that we were trying to teach the twins, Haruki and Haruka, about evaporation and condensation, even though they already knew about it, but they believed us to some extent." We all stared at him for a moment. Why am I friends with any of them?

"The next morning Miku woke up with a couple scratches on her arm, but we dubbed it as nothing at first. We drained the water in the bath later and we continued on with our day. Around midday, Miku randomly jumped to her feet screaming 'Tomare, tomare' while we were playing a card game. We were mildly confused until Haruka reminded us that part of the rules were to tell Daruma that when she got too close. Within the next hour she did the same thing about three more times until our aunt came downstairs asking what she was yelling 'Stop' for." As with Gilbert, there was still air of skepticism coming of most of the others, while I simply just shivered a bit.

Continuing on, Kiku stated, "In hindsight, we probably should have taken that as a warning that it was...aggressive. It was a couple hours before sunset when she started screaming. Gashes were opening on her neck and shoulder and a couple on her head." How nonchalantly he told the last sentence is probably what freaked most of us out the most. And I have known him for seven years... Oh jeez.

"The adults all came running in as Miku managed to get out 'Kitta' as she flailed her arms randomly. It worked apparently and she stopped screaming and collapsed on the floor. We got her to the emergency room before she bled out. She ended up with a total of about fifty stitches and they all left a couple days early because of the incident."

The rest of us were speechless, sitting just listening to our hearts beating. I could feel my pulse pound in my throat as I just kind of stared at Kiku in mute horror. Letting us stay like that for just a moment, he eventually asked, "Does anyone else want to share?"

"Since we all seem to be sharing personal experiences, I might as well go," Arthur piped up, accepting the flashlight from Kiku. Nonexistent ants crawled over my skin as I waited for him to begin.

"I should warn you that most of this will probably sound delusional as it happened when I was young. I was around the age of five or six when I made an imaginary friend, so to speak." Francis let out a chuckle, causing Arthur to pierce him with a glare.

"Anyway, at the time I was too young to think that there was anything odd about how my 'friend' was shriveled and grey, or the fact that its mouth was just a slit in its head or that its eyes were unproportionally large. My parents never thought there was anything wrong with it; two of my older brothers had also had imaginary friends so they just assumed it was normal. Well, until it started convincing me to steal things from my family, jewelry, books, toys, sometimes knives and such. I got in trouble all the time because of it and the thing always got mad at me when I wouldn't do what it wanted me to do." An icy finger trailed down my spine randomly, causing my breath to hitch for a second and a knot to form in my gut. Why do all my friends have ghost stories? What even is this?

"Maybe a couple months before I turned seven, I got in a fight with the thing. It wanted me to steal Jack's football trophy and I knew what the consequences of taking it would be. Of course it didn't like that, and before that I didn't think that it could actually touch things or at least interact with them. Unfortunately I was wrong and it threw a pair of scissors into my wall which I got grounded for later." At that point I could practically hear the blood rushing through my skull as fear prickled my scalp. He better be making this up. Arthur wouldn't have actually made friends with something paranormal, right? I know he's into kind of weird stuff, but there's no way this is real. Right?

"About a day later, I came home with a massive book from the library. I was resentful towards it and it was irritated with me. So eventually I tracked it down to the little towel closet in our loo and WHACK!" Several people jumped a bit, but it wasn't as embarrassing as my reaction.

Legitimately, I almost fell backwards from flinching so hard as an actual scream passed my lips. Clamping a hand over my mouth, my eyes widened as Arthur snorted a bit before doubling over laughing. Hitting him hard on the shoulder, I could actually feel the blush creeping over my cheeks. Gilbert's snicker suddenly metamorphosed into a guffaw and he actually fell over, bringing down everyone else's flood gates with him. I could hear Kiku and Eduard chuckling near me and Mattie had a hand clamped over his mouth as he at least tried not to laugh at me. Lars just smirked a bit, being as stoic as he usually was, while everyone else was just about ready to die from how much they were laughing.

Regaining his normal posture, Arthur managed to get out, "Your face!"

"Shut up, dude. I wasn't actually that scared," I countered, defensive. The second wave of roaring laughter came crashing in as I finished my sentence.

"Su-u-ure," Gilbert got out from on the floor. Eduard turned to me and chuckled, "If it lets you sleep, okay." Resisting the urge to flip them the birdie or roll my eyes at them, I just shook my head and folded my arms. Smooth, Jones, smooth.

"SHUT UP YOU DAMN HOOLIGANS! SOME PEOPLE ARE TRYING TO SLEEP AROUND HERE!" came the booming, brash bellow from our elderly neighbour next door. For the quickest couple of seconds, we all held our breath to listen to him before the dam burst once again and we were all consumed in a fit of side-splitting laughter-this time I was included.

Hearing his grumbling retreat, I made an attempt to sitting back up, with almost no such luck. Even in the dark, I could see how Gilbert's face started to match his eyes as he held his stomach and forced himself to stay upright; Antonio was half leaning on Francis for support. Kiku had a hand on his forehead, grin bunching up his cheeks, and Eduard appears to be on his giddy death bed. Lars was smiling-which was close enough-while Carlos looked close to passing out from lack of oxygen.

There was a thunk as Jett literally fell out of his chair onto the floor. None of us really gave him enough mind to check to see if he was alright. Matt made a move to but was pinned down by a guffaw, causing me to erupt in a second fit of laughter. Besides, part of me was trying to just burn the memory into my mind. It was times like this that Grandpa had loved to tell us about just as much as how he narrowly escaped death so many times over. And also because I had never seen most of them smile as much as they did then. Especially Arthur. Sure I got a chuckle out of him every-now-and-then but it was nothing like that. Nothing compared to when he laughed like that and I felt as though the world could just stop spinning altogether.

As with every good thing, it had to come to an unfortunate end.

The buzzer rang on the dryer-when mom had switched the loads around, I didn't remember and a shout came from upstairs, "Al or Matt! Take your clothes out!"

"Okay, Mom!" We both managed to almost yell back. While he was kind of stuck on the floor, I pushed myself up and sort of staggered over to the washroom. Yanking the single string for a light source, I was temporarily blinded for a second before I knelt down beside the dryer, emptying the content into a single basket. Carrying it out to my friends, I dropped it off to the side as their chuckling started to die off.

"I brought clothing," I stated simply which didn't set off a fit of giggles for the umpteenth time. Almost quietly Eduard reached over and pulled the basket over into the centre of the group allowing for the rest to start digging through for what belonged to them. Matt and I just left our stuff in the bottom and he kicked it off to the side, seeing as we could just come back down and get them the next day.

Bags were unzipped and pulled open, while sleeping bags were flung out on the frigid cement. Every once in awhile someone would start giggling again, but we mostly just stated in a muted state, letting those who wanted to sleep, sleep. Only staring at the ceiling for about a good moment or two, whatever I was thinking about at the time was suddenly interrupted but a spontaneous gasp from Francis as he bolted upright.

"Good god, what now?" Gilbert whined at his friend, sitting up as well.

Smiling like a Chesire Cat, Francis stated as though it were obvious, "I just realized the entire night has passed and I have not found out who any of you like." He ended up sounding as though he were whining.

Most of us just sat up to stare at him as though he gone completely off the deep end. Clapping his hands together, he his voice cheerfully rang, "I'll start it off with Joan d'Arc from the grade above me-now Antonio would you be a dear and continue." I had seen the girl around. She was weirdly rebellious, smoking just outside the school, skipping class, but from everyone who had class with her said she acted as though she did no such thing. I kind of wished that one day that I would actually get to talk to her.

Releasing a tense chuckle, Antonio whispered back, "Lovino Vargas" and simply just left it at that. It didn't come as a surprise. As soon as I had started high school, I noticed how Tonio hung around him and talked so passionately about him as though he wasn't some bitter, asocial asshole. At lunch Antonio would often get caught staring at him, a smile tugging at his mouth. For some reason, he never got the shit that Arthur had. Probably because he was so popular with everyone, being one of the biggest class clowns in the entire school; or people were just afraid of what the rest of the Trio would do to them if they did.

Before anyone in the room got a chance to question Antonio's answer, Gilbert snickered out, "Obviously, it's my-awesome-self!" It came as no surprise to anyone, knowing him.

Lars shrugged somewhere in the dark, translated as a simple "No" and Francis didn't push him-probably because he didn't actually care. Carlos admitted to some girl we had never heard of before from Cuba. Kiku got out a, "This is the part where I say, 'Maybe someone,' but I really mean, 'No one.'" It stirred up a couple chuckles from everyone in the room, though it quickly died out like a fire underwater.

"And you Arthur?" Francis questioned in a risque manner. I could practically see his sneer and eye roll as Arthur sarcastically, "The Queen."

Laughing just a bit, Francis inquired, "Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm bloody 'sure,' frog!" There was a scoff from Francis. Probably just trying to break up the sudden tension, Eduard cockily responded, "The only woman I need is my computer." No one really laughed, though it did pull a smile into my cheeks.

Following up the almost awkward quiet, Matt hushedly spoke. "I don't really like anyone."

"Shame," Francis said simply, not elaborating before continuing with, "And you Jett?"

Chuckling a bit, he dreamily responded, "There's this new girl that moved just up the street from me last week, and she is fine. I don't know her name but I think she's in our grade and she seems sweet." I could practically feel Francis' predatory gaze fall upon me.

Forcing myself to become quasi-confident, I just responded, "There was this one girl in my Algebra class that I sat next to, I think her name was Barbara or something. But yeah she was really nice and I guess I like her." I'm not sure why I felt the need to use my old math partner as my nonexistent crush, but for some reason I felt out of place. For most of my life I had always been infatuated with some girl and it just felt odd not to be.

Francis just chuckled a bit before stating, "Well, I love you all, and if you ever need a gay lover, you know where to find me" and rolling over so his back was facing us. Within seconds his breath evened and he was out like a light.

Gilbert chuckled brittly, drily saying, "You're so funny, Franny." No one else really said anything more except Jett's, "That'll be the day" and Arthur's utterance of, "That stupid frog."

Laying back down and rolling away from each other, we attempted once again to just stop thinking for a while and sleep. After a minute, Kiku stated, "Goodnight" with no responses in return except from a mumble from me. I was a little caught up in my own thoughts to actually properly respond.

Maybe it's just normal to think those things about another dude? It has to be? Girls act like they're "in love" with their friends all the time...but maybe that's just girls. It can't be that weird, right? I just...I just don't know. Glancing up at the shadows on the ceiling for a moment, my train of thought got to its final destination.

I'll just get a girlfriend.

---

Alright I got things I want to talk about with y'all and y'all're just going to have to listen so bear with me here.

Translations:

"Herr, wirf Hirn von Himmel" Lord, throw down some brains from the heavens (German)

¿Hablas español?" You speak Spanish? (Spanish)

"Sí, ¿cómo te llamas?" Yes, what is your name? (Spanish (These are a bit basic, I'm sorry))

"Soy Antonio" I am Antonio (Spanish)

"Ésten son mis amigos, Gilbert y Francis." These are my friends, Gilbert and Francis. (Spanish)

"Éste es Lars. Es callado ves." This is Lars. He is quiet you see. (Spanish)

"Veo" I see. (Spanish)

"Der Selbstmord Raum" The Suicide Room (German)

Sorry I just wanted to get that out of the way.
Four things I want to quickly apologize for: 1) I'm sorry it took so long to update. I got writer's block and this chapter is way longer than any of the others I've written (almost 17,000 words) and that all just took me a stupidly long time to get this chapter up. 2) I brought up Joan of Arc. I knew I shouldn't have, but yet, I did. 3) My portraying of Australia. I personally see him as an energetic-almost ADHD-goofball, so that's just the way he comes through in my writing. If you wish to fight me on it, kick my ass with some sources that state otherwise. Thanks. 4) Alfred's and Matthew's father will never make an appearance in this story. That's right. He won't even get a name let alone be in the story. Though I will tell you that I will expand more onto why he left in the first place later.
If you didn't catch it, there was another "The Outsiders" reference in here at the very beginning. Along with that there was a kind of cameo of two of my old teachers with Mr. Manders and his goddamned whistle. Speaking of which, I will add in that my grade eight graduation was nothing like Matthew's; it sucked more. But I won't bore you with that.
Moving on to the setting of the story. Yes! I have officially placed this in Michigan. To be more exact, in a suburb of Grand Rapids (which is in the lower peninsula) in a made up town with no name. I just live close to that area and I'm fairly familiar with it, so that's just where I'm placing it. There also might be a couple stories also placed in similar areas, or even my hometown, but that's not important.
OKAY, NOW LET'S TALK ABOUT ALFRED. So I had three different ideas going for his middle name and even though you know which got picked I want to just list them off anyways: 1) Franklin 2) Frederick-after Frederick Douglass 3) Fucking Freedom-thank you, Kyokoon64. Those are just my three headcanons of what the F in his name might stand for and you are welcome to use them.
Now what you all are probably flipping about; Alfred deciding to just get a girlfriend. Trust me that will play a roll in the story, especially the next chapter where I'm going to go into that a bit more. I can't give too much away, but this is the part where y'all can start putting bets on what his sexuality is. Shout outs will go to whomever get the closest or get it right.

Links to the Ghost Stories:
Room 733 - /post/113311806844/room-733-by-reddit-user-thedalekemperor-a-lot-of
The Bath Game - post/40306527273/deeper-down-the-rabbithole-daruma-san-or-the-bath
My Best Friend Never Happened - /post/94127690559/my-best-friend-never-happened

Anyway thanks for reading, darlings! Have a nice night!