A/N: Thank you for reading this far~

Chapter Eleven.

The first thing I did when I got to the changing room that day was shriek and jump backwards.

It was terrifying. All I could see was half nude ladies, bras all in my face, as I've said before, I'm delicate. I can hardly cope with this sort of thing.

"Come on Arthur, don't be scared, we're all decent enough!" I heard a womanly voice that I couldn't quite put to a face called out followed by a succession of laughs and giggles.

So I did it. I boldly entered the floral smelling room.

I was running as fast as I could with my eyes closed. Of course I ran into the wall and fell on my arse.

An onslaught of laughter came as I got up, nursing my poor backside. These girls really would be the death of me. Honestly, they found it a laughing matter that I simply didn't want to see them in their underwear. I did see their reasoning, "Aw, it's no different from seeing us in our swimsuits!" But it just felt wrong. And somehow it was 'cute' that I didn't want to look like some breast hungry peeping tom.

I stumbled into my little private corner and stuck my head into my locker, taking out the folded pile of clothes that made me feel half masculine and took off and replaced the clothes in the locker with the skirt and other cheerleading gear in a slightly less neat fashion.

And so I stood there. In my underwear. And suddenly there was a crash and slam behind me.

"Bonjouuuuuur, my little robins!" I was still turned to the wall when the unfamiliar male voice came from behind me. French, clearly French. Fucking brilliant. Not.

"Ahaha! Francis you pervy freak! Awesome, you found the hotties!" Oh god, I wasn't even going to turn around, by the sounds of it there was an obnoxious Frenchie and German kraut behind me.

"Hola! I came along too, Lovi ran off~ Sorry, ladies, I'm afraid they found you!" There was a third?! Bloody hell... Actually I knew this one, Antonio. But really, why on earth were there three more men in here!? Wasn't I, lurking in the corner, enough to make people cringe!?

"'Toni! You found us, bro! Awesome, look, we can show you some real women! Now you won't have to keep following that little fucking brat around!"

"Gil! Lovi isn't a brat, I told you he's just misunderstood... He's a little sweetie!"

"Bullshit."

"Oh hush, the three of you!" Oh finally some control, Elizaveta's clear voice rung out over the other bickering Europeans.

"Lizzie, 'sup girl! How's the girly man?" The German laughed again and I heard a light hearted slap, probably from Elizaveta herself.

"Gilbert, stop insulting everyone," She scolded but there was no malice in her voice. Had we all gone mad?! "Rodereich is by far man enough!"

"Oh you'd know." He laughed again. Did he ever stop laughing?

"Gilbert! You asshole I'll—Ack!"

I heard Elizaveta squeak in surprise. Bloody hell, I could only imagine the scene that was taking place behind me.

"Now, now let's not be so aggressive, you suit your feminine beauty, like a delicate rose laced with dew, non?"

"Francis that's really not going to work." Antonio sighed, chuckling under his breath.

"Oh what would you know?" Growled Francis.

"Actually, he's quite right." Elizaveta sounded rather unimpressed. "Get off me."

"Well then." Francis said shortly and I heard him backing away. "Miiiiicheeellllle, my little beach beauty, come give your uncle Francis a hug!"

"Not on your life, Francis." She replied; I maybe did under estimate these girls a little bit. They had backbone.

I could almost hear Francis's pout, "If only you ladies acted as cute as you look..."

"You can't blame me. You're always all over everyone and it's weird." Michelle shot back.

"He's just sucha playaaaa~!" Gilbert sang which got a laugh from some of the other girls, as well as himself.

Francis was pretending to be deaf as I hear him saunter closer; he must have found some new prey.

So imagine my surprise when a large dry hand landed slap bang on my bare shoulder.

I whirled around to see a blonde man with hair the same shade of mine and blue eyes, not Alfred blue, just blue. His skin was not tanned but more sun kissed. I noticed he also had some stubble on his chin that he probably thought was classy; I would use the word 'unkempt'.

"What the bloody hell do you think you're doing!?" I shouted as I slapped his hand away.

"Merde! You're a male!? And English!?" He seemed genuinely shocked as he stumbled back.

"Too fucking right I am! Don't you touch me, frog!"

Francis turned to the crowd behind him, who were all in hysterics watching the scene.

"Why is there a man here!?" He pointed at me as he looked at Antonio and Gilbert, he was completely panicked.

"Francis, have you been living under a rock? That's Arthur Kirkland the schools male cheerleader!" Antonio approached him and slapped him on the back.

"You... Fucking idiot!" Gilbert was breathless as I stood back bright red and Francis raged in front of me.

"What the hell?" He turned to Antonio, "You're supposed to be the idiot here!"

"Dios mios... I can't help it if you're this unaware... I was telling you about him the other night!"

"Don't bother reminding him, 'Toni, he was too out of his face drunk to hear you that time!"

"I was not drunk! I was enjoying the night with a glass of red wine..."

"A glass? More like a case."

I rolled my eyes as the three tossers bickered, joked and teased each other. I dressed quickly, I had to admit, I felt rather violated after that frog touched me.

I decided to discreetly take my leave when I was ready, opening the door and practically sprinting from the scene.

.oO0Oo.

As if things couldn't get worse. Alfred was in my next class.

And history had to be the most boring subject in... Well, history.

Back in England we had an old bald man named Mr. Bowin. He had the quietest voice in the world and just loved handing out dusty old textbooks and slowly liquidising our brains.

In America we still had an old man teaching us and we were still always given similar dusty textbooks telling us just to 'learn'.

Only now it was worse. I had that ball of unlimited energy beside me. Alfred had insisted that he should be sitting beside me so he could help me. Though most of the time I was helping him, telling him how to spell things and repeat the things the teacher had said while he wasn't listening. And that happened a lot. Last week he had asked to not only to copy half my work but also how to spell orange.

But lately Alfred had been in his forte. It was mid June and the school's history department decided that it'd be a great idea to do a section on the American independence war since July was coming up. Not just July, July the fourth. When this was said in class something just clicked in Alfred, suddenly he was alert and answering all the questions with ease. I think he's taught the students about it more than the teacher has.

"Hey! Artie, what's up? How you doing?" Alfred threw himself onto his seat beside me so forcefully that he nearly toppled the chair over.

"Alfred, you just had football practise, stop having so much bloody energy."

"Hey don't get me wrong I'm pooped!" He grinned at me before slamming down his books on the table.

"Then stop running around! Try acting 'pooped'." I shot a glare back at him.

"But... I just get all excited when I see you, Artie... I can't help it!"

Oh bollocks. I made myself busy by fumbling through and opening up my books to hide my flushing face, just as the teacher made his unceremonious entrance.

The lesson started and I read along as Mr. Morris spoke out, occasionally explaining the last paragraph.

I flicked my eyes over to Alfred, he was listening intently but also doodled in his book, almost absent mindedly, I leaned in to get a closer look at the drawings.

I quickly discovered that Alfred was actually drawing... Me...

I blinked twice to make sure, nope, it really was me. There was about four of them, all of different moments in our time together.

There was one of me looking surprised, must have been of our first meeting... And there was another one of my stubborn blush... Oh shit so he had been noticing that blush?

I also noticed that the drawings were not actually very good.

Wait no... Suddenly I felt quite bad for thinking that, immediately trying to justify it. They weren't too bad just... Unique, simplistic, abstract... Or something.

Why was I even doing all this? I put my head in my hands; this wasn't like me at all. Never before had I tried to retract a criticism, in fact I would have said that the doodles were terrible too his face.

Suddenly he looked up, something that totally threw me off guard.

"Oohahhno!" I let out a tumble of words as his eyes suddenly locked right onto to mine, he laughed at my bumble happily.

"Arthur, dude, what are you talking about? I just said we gotta work in pairs now~"

He had spoke? "Wha... yes! Right, what are we doing?"

He pointed to the board where about five questions were scrawled across it.

I nodded and we studiously worked through them. Alfred explained the answers to me and we actually got on as a pair rather well. And when he wasn't so overexcited he had a nice voice... I liked listening to it. He sometimes leaned over and corrected something that I had written wrong, his hand would push mine away and I noticed how warm he was. For a football player he did have nice soft skin.

He leaned back in his chair and eyed me up and down, "I wonder what would have happened if all this stuff never happened?"

"...I don't understand what you mean?"

"Y'know... this independence stuff... Do you think we would have ever met?"

"I don't know, Alfred. Maybe?"

"I hope so~" He closed his books as the bell sounded, getting up, slinging his back over his shoulder and leaving me sitting at the desk and looking puzzled. "See you later, yeah?"

I just nodded as he waved a farewell.

.oO0Oo.

I was out of tea.

I stared at the spot where my jumbo boxes of Tetley tea bags usually sat that I had taken here from England.

And I really wanted some tea. So putting all that together could only mean one thing. I was going to have to brave the American supermarket.

I had tried my best to avoid going and so far I had managed to keep to stealing Alfred's food or keeping to one small shop that sold microwave meals. But today I was going into to new territory... It was actually quite frightening.

So one short walk later I was staring up at the buzzing neon sign, 'Wallmart'.

I peered inside; watching everyone inside look around, acting like it was the most normal thing in the world. I probably was for them.

But I was an outsider, I would be totally lost. Through the glass doors I could see bright yellow signs '2 for $1!'And various other deals. It really wasn't that different from Tesco and Asda at home.

With this thought I strided inside confidently, grabbing a hand basket and looking around. I started on the first isle, looking along the shelves for the things that I wanted, swinging my basket casually and humming a little tune under my breath.

The first thing that I noticed was how big everything was, the food was double the size and there was something like a billion of each thing in a packet.

I sighed; this was all getting a bit tedious. And I was only ten minutes in. Tea... Tea...Where the bloody hell was it?!

I passed women thumbing the tangerines, plucky teenage boys gripping beer bottles with white knuckles, pregnant mothers-to-be scrutinizing different brands of formula milk and adolescent girls all flocking around boy band CDs.

I found to coffee after about 20 minutes and grinned determinedly. It's not like I actually wanted to buy that caffeine full crap, coffee was seriously disgusting grainy bitter mud. But what came beside coffee? Tea. And everyone knows that tea is bloody wonderful.

Ahh, at last... there it was... But I couldn't help but feel sort of disappointed looking at the boxes of American tea bags.

They were all so big and booming... The tea that I was used to was subtle and calm. It would stand alone next to the coffee, never too attention grabbing. If you didn't like tea it would accept that and carry on being beautiful and harmonising alone.

Now this coffee demanded you bought it, the logos buzzed excitedly. The colours clashed and contrasted and hit me in the face. This was so different. I looked around, this whole place was all so different.

I spun around the isle a few times, it was all a weird blur and I suddenly felt a horrible pain in my throat, like a huge lump and all of a sudden I realised... Was I perhaps... Homesick?

I frowned as I felt my lower lip tremble. No, I wasn't going to cry... I just... Just... Wanted to go home.

I crouched down and hugged my knees; I didn't care about how I looked to everyone else. This was the position I always took up when I was upset. I sniffled in my little ball of sadness. I wanted my own bed and room. Tears were pricking at my screwed up eyes by now, but still I refused to let myself cry.

"Is the tea really that upsetting?" A voice came from somewhere above me, one I recognized. I let myself fall back and lie on the probably dirty hard floor to look up at a sympathetic Alfred, gazing back at me. Was this wanker everywhere?!

"What do you want?" I scrambled to my feet, dusting off my clothes.

"What's up?" He smiled at me, right at me, like smiling at me was the one and only thing that he had on his mind.

"Nothing."

"Homesickness? I know the feeling."

"No!" I looked at him. He was still smiling and waiting to comfort me, I decided face it, Alfred knew why I was crouched in a ball in front of the tea in Walmart, "Maybe..."

He pulled me closer and before I knew it I was being given an almighty hug.

I stood in the circle of Alfred's warm, firm arms. My head rested on his shoulder, letting the smell of fabric conditioner from his cotton blue hoodie fill my nostrils. Of course, my first instinctive reaction was to push him away and shout some obscenities at him. But I was too tired for that, besides, there were children around.

It was half comforting, half unnerving as he kept a hold of me for what seemed like hours. I was starting to think of ways to get out of the hug but in the end it was Alfred who broke the silence by pointing to one of the boxes of tea bags.

"That brand's okay~"

I turned around and looked to where he was pointing. This one looked no better than the rest but it was going to have to do. And I knew Alfred never drank tea, he drank the coffee muck. But it was still nice of him to make the suggestion, even if he knew the brands here just as well as me.

So we both took our goods to the counter in comfortable silence. He swung his hand basket happily and I tried to hide a small smile of my own. I felt better. I couldn't explain why, I just did.

"Dude, it's cool, let me get that~" Alfred took my tea from me and placed it amongst his own shopping.

"Huh? No, I can pay!" I took out my money, counting through my pennies and piecing together $2.95.

"Seriously, man, let me."

"No! I said that I can pay!" It was actually rather tempting to let him just pay. But it wasn't as if I was going to admit that.

Beep. The acne ridden high school dropout put the tea through the scanner and Alfred laughed triumphantly.

"Too late! Put your man purse away, Artie, you just got yourself twenty free tea bags!"

Tch. I scowled looking away. I had never seen a man so ecstatic about sending on money on somebody else.

He handed me the box and we left together. We talked for a while (well, he did most of the talking) before parting ways.

Damn that yank. Damn him.

I don't think I wanted to hate him anymore.