There's a cricket under my bed right now, and I can't get it out of there no matter what I try. I'm so freaking tired from getting two or so hours of sleep a night from the damn thing.

Anyway, here's the next chapter. I hope I haven't been losing too many of you guys...

Alfred had heard of it plenty from around town, but he'd never been to this restaurant, "Alimento Veleno." Generally, he tried to stay away from restaurants with names that he either couldn't pronounce or didn't know the meaning of - so far it'd been working out for him. Mattie wanted to eat here, though, and he was up for really anything right then. The food had to be decent; Feliciano, who the younger of the two Italian boys at their school, was one of the waiters and part time chefs, and his grandfather, who probably had pasta sauce contaminating his blood, was the owner of the small diner.

"Damn, this place is packed. This must be a good day for Italian food," Alfred mused to no one in particular. There were young couples, families, and friend littering the place, with extra chairs pulled up to accommodate everyone. Alfred briefly worried that there would be a wait for an empty table, but a young boy who looked around their age with dark brown hair and a peculiar hair curl ambled up to them with a scowl.

"Ciao, and welcome to Alimento Veleno. How many?" he spoke irritably, and in a thick Italian accent. This must be on of the Vargas twins - presumably the older one, since Alfred remembered the other being happy and a little ditzy.

"Um, just two," his brother answered softly. The waiter nodded curtly before leading them through the cramped dining area to the first empty table he saw, setting down two menus. Alfred and Matthew sat down, Matthew deciding it was best not to irritate the man any further, but Alfred not sensing that it wouldn't be a good idea to mess with him.

"Can I get anything to start you off?" he asked.

"No, but you seem really tense. What happened, girlfriend dumped your or something?" Alfred asked jokingly.

Matthew lightly hit his side. "Al! That's personal. Just let him do his job, okay?"

They looked back at the disgruntled Italian, who's eyes shone in more malice than before. Without staying to see if Matthew wanted anything, he huffed and stormed away to who-knows-where.

Alfred twiddled his thumbs around the edges of the table cloth, pouting to himself. He just wanted to have some fun, and you had to admit, there was no question that seeing the kid flustered was as entertaining as seeing a couple fight over a cereal brand at the grocery store. Oh? That was only entertaining for Alfred? Oh well, you get the point.

"That wasn't very nice, you know," the soft but chiding voice broke through the silence. From the tone in Matt's voice, it was easy to tell he was used to his brother saying stupid things at the wrong times. Sometimes it was on purpose, but mostly it was just from lack of the ability to pay attention to detail and comprehend what was going on around him. After so long of dealing with this, the little scolds didn't hold much threat.

Alfred shrugged it off and flipped open the menu and started reading over its contents. They spent ten minutes alone just trying to teach Alfred what each dish was, then another for Alfred to decide what he wanted while Matthew sipped on his lemon water which was brought to them somewhere in between.

They ordered their food finally, and when it arrived a while after, Alfred dug into his like Henry VIII after a chicken wing.

"Ludi!" a very happy, and very loud shout almost topped the volume of the loud hum throughout the restaurant. Alfred paused - halfway through fitting as much pasta into his mouth as possible - to see what was going on.

Behind him at the front door a man with slicked back, blonde hair was groaning (well Alfred assumed by his posture, he couldn't really hear him through the buzz), as what had to be their cranky waiter's younger brother, Feliciano, latched himself onto his arm.

Alfred scoffed. It wasn't a secret that those two were totally in love, not since years ago when they first met, but Alfred was still surprised that a guy like Ludwig hadn't strangled a guy like Feli by now - he knew he would have. The kid was so pathetic, it wasn't even worth joking about. He cried easily, and if there was ever an argument that involved him, he would be out of the room faster than that time Matthew was five and heard there was an ice cream truck outside selling maple syrup flavored sandwiches. Alfred had blinked and the other blonde was gone, and he didn't blink slowly.

Matthew was always trying to tell him to be nicer to the Italian, because he was a, "really nice person to be around," or whatever. Then again, Matthew thought well of everyone, save for a few people here and there.

Alfred could here Feli bursting about being happy Ludwig had come to his families restaurant and other things, but he didn't care to listen anymore. The whole lovey-dovey air was rubbing him the wrong way. That had been happening a lot lately.

Matthew sensed Alfred's discomfort at the loud couple (Feli spoke enough for both of them), and decided it was time to bring up something else.

"So, I decided to dress up this year, too," he sounded like he could be talking about the weather that day by his casual tone.

"Really? I thought you said you didn't want to...Wait, please tell me you aren't going to go as a polar bear," Alfred stared at his brother worriedly.

"What? Why?"

"Because! Commie bastard is, too. Well, I kind of forced him to, but that's beside the point."

For some reason, the thought made Matthew nearly choke on his food in laughter. The mental picture of Ivan in a polar bear costume was too ridiculous to not laugh.

"You're seriously making him do that? Wow, Al..." Matthew drank some more of his water, shaking his head at his brothers antics. It didn't surprise him much.

"Yeah..." Alfred mentally wanted to flop down on a bed and scream into a pillow or something; the whole point of today was to forget about this whole damn thing, but here they were, talking about it again. "Hey, can we not talk about that? This day was sort of dedicated to shoving him out of my life for at least a little while."

Matthew frowned. "Why?"

"Why? Mattie, you just don't get how weird everything is for me right now, do you? It hasn't even been a month since I found out Arthur was cheating on me with Francis of all people, a couple weeks since I broke up with him, and now I'm stuck with going to the same dance where I was going to have the best night ever with Arthur, but now instead of going with my now ex-boyfriend, I'm going with the guy I've sent enough death threats to in the last three years you could read one everyday for the rest of your lifetime. I used to hate the commie bastard, okay? I need a break," Alfred huffed and stuffed more food into his mouth than necessary.

Matthew smiled sympathetically as his brother, but a thought came to him and his gaze turned more curious. "You just said you used to hate him...Do you not hate him anymore?" He prayed that Alfred would say yes; he was beyond ready for a change in the subject of complaints that were dumped on him on a regular basis.

"What? Of course I still hate him - I mean, well, sort of maybe not as much as before but - you see, not really I guess, but - it's really complicated, okay!" Alfred stumbled, looking for a right answer. Maybe he didn't really despise Ivan as much nowadays, but he sure as hell didn't like him or anything.

Did he even hate the Russian at all anymore? Surely just a little...

Alfred thought back to their time at the mall. He had been laughing so hard when they were in that shop, and it was fun to drag the older around and then take him to lunch. It wasn't normal to have that much with your enemies. Albeit, it did get super awkward there at the end and at other points during the meet up, but it wasn't a bad time.

Alfred hated admitting it to himself, and wouldn't dare tell anyone else, but he found himself getting excited every time he thought about the festival next week and what they would do this time.

That never came out from Alfred's deep inner conscious though, and he assumed it never would.

He was grateful that Matthew had decided to leave the topic alone, and the food was devoured quickly. The older Vargas brother brought them the check, and after paying and leaving a five dollar tip, the two blondes left the still excessively packed restaurant and agreed to go home.

They were somewhat successful in forgetting about everything and just enjoying the day, and all too quickly the night fell over the city, and it was time to get ready for the next day.

One of the shorter chapters, I know. But that's all I want to type for this chapter. I'm going to try to get some more sleep, so goodnight!