He was sore. His muscles burned with every movement, and there was a bruise on his jaw that ached when he talked and chewed. Even lifting his arm to hold a pencil and write was uncomfortable, but he didn't mind it. This was a type of pain that Gilbert had always enjoyed, the soreness in his muscles that meant he'd worked hard, a sensitive bruise to show that he'd taken a hit and come out on top, especially considering that the male student who'd given him the bruise on his jaw had ended up with worse injuries, though nothing too serious.

It was a matter of pride that Gilbert didn't bother trying to hide any of the injuries he received from boxing matches. Why should he be embarrassed? Boxing was a dangerous sport and anyone who came out of it without even the smallest bruises wasn't fighting hard enough. Besides, he thought the bruises made him look like a badass.

"Is Feli coming over tonight?" the albino asked out loud without looking up from his homework.

"Ja, to vatch zhat movie ve rented," Ludwig replied from his place at his desk with his own text books. The two brothers spent at least three hours on homework every day even though midterms were over. This was common practice for Ludwig, who had always considered his studies to be important, but it was new and still strange for Gilbert, as he'd only been doing it for about a week.

Ludwig put down the notes he'd been looking over and sat up so he wasn't quite lounging on his bed. "Do you vant me to leave vhen he gets here und give you some privacy?"

"Nein, you do not have to do zhat. Actually, Feliciano asked me to ask you to join us."

"Vhat, you mean, vatch it vizh you?"

"Ja."

A small smirk appeared on Gilbert's face. "I zhought your little Italian vas scared of me. Vhy vould he vant me to join in on your movie?"

Broad shoulders rose and fell as Ludwig shrugged. "He isn't scared of you anymore, not since you started being nice to him. He likes you."

The smirk turned into an outright grin. "Of course he does. I am Zhe Awesome Me, after all. How could he not like me?"

"Shut up, Gilbert. You're being an asshole again."

Gilbert laughed at his brother's response—the blond had been more forward lately about his opinions on what Gilbert did and said—and laid back down again. "You don't mean zhat."

"Ja, I do. You're an asshole."

"But you love me anyvay, bruder," the albino sang, unable to help himself. Yes, he knew that Ludwig cared for him, probably more than just about anyone else in the world, save for their mother. But that didn't mean the blond wasn't going to give him a hard time now and then.

Zhough, being zhe older bruder, I should be zhe vone giving him a hard time.

Well, he'd always given Ludwig trouble, even through things as simple as not being as neat as the German wanted him to be while they were sharing a dorm. It wasn't exactly hard to get on Ludwig's nerves. Gilbert thought it was kind of funny when his little brother tried to scold him for being cocky. They both knew it wasn't going to do much to change the albino's behavior, but Ludwig seemed to have reached his limit for simply ignoring those moments when Gilbert annoyed him. So every time the blond accused him of being an asshole or some other thing, he grinned and laughed and just continued whatever it was that he was doing.

They hadn't gotten along so well in a long, long time.

It's strange, but not bad.

Red eyes settled on the back of Ludwig's head as Gilbert decided he'd earned a short break from homework.

Lud's still a pain in zhe ass sometimes, but ve've gotten along better since I started boxing again.

There was no denying it. Gilbert's mood had greatly improved over the last week and he knew it was because he was exercising and boxing again. It made him feel more awake, more prepared and ready to take on the day. That, and he could already see a difference in his physique—the strain of boxing was quickly adding size and definition to his muscles—and definitely liked what he saw.

Just vait. A malicious grin spread over his face as he continued to stare at the back of Ludwig's head, though he wasn't really seeing him anymore. I'll show zhat priss vhat I can do. He'll never fuck vizh me ever again. Vonce I'm officially on zhe boxing team and finally make a name for myself, he'll see zhat I'm not someone to mess vizh. Zhey'll all see.

He didn't let himself think it in so many words, but he also wanted to show Matthew what the blond was missing out on. Of course, he wouldn't actually know if Matthew really noticed him, since they weren't speaking anymore. Not for about a week now.

That was weird to think about. Admittedly, he missed the quiet Canadian. Matthew had been fun to spend time with, fun to talk to and, hell, he'd definitely enjoyed flirting with the younger boy. Not having Matthew around was a little lonely at times, not that Gilbert gave himself many opportunities to think about that. He tried to keep himself as busy as possible lately, what with boxing and homework and classes and spending time with Lud.

I don't miss him, the albino told himself firmly, finally tearing his gaze away from Ludwig and forcing himself to pick up his homework once more. He lied to me in order to flirt vizh Francis and zhat's it. Ve're not friends anymore.

He'd told himself that exact thing countless times during the past week. Somehow, it wasn't making him feel any better, and that was the most frustrating thing in the world.

Damn Canadian.

About another hour of near-silence went by as the two brothers continued to study, only to be interrupted by the sound of a soft knock on the door.

"I'll get it." Abandoning his homework, Ludwig got up from his desk to answer the door; he smiled. "Hallo, Feliciano."

"Ciao!" the happy Italian replied as he entered the room; he offered a small wave to Gilbert. "Ciao, Gilbert!"

The older boy grinned and sat up on his bed, shoving his homework to the side for later. "Hey, Feli. Vhat's up?"

"Ve~Ludwig and I are going to watch a movie!"

There was that odd little sigh thing the brunet always seemed to make, the one that put a stupid, sappy smile on Ludwig's face and that even Gilbert had to admit was pretty cute.

"You're vatching Insidious, ja?" he asked, though he already knew the answer to that question. Ludwig had shown him the rented DVD earlier that day and it looked like it was going to be a pretty scary movie. It had seemed a little odd that Feliciano—as cowardly as he openly admitted to being—was willing to watch it for no reason other than that Ludwig enjoyed scary movies just as much as Gilbert did. Though, when the albino thought about it, he decided he wouldn't mind watching a scary movie if he was Feliciano as long as he had someone like Ludwig to protect him from the monsters.

Oh, now you're turning into a real sap, Gil.

"Si!" Feliciano answered the older student's question with a wide smile; he looked up at Ludwig. "Are we having popcorn, too?"

The blond chuckled and nodded as he reached out to ruffle Feliciano's hair, though he avoided the brunet's long curl of hair. Seeing it made Gilbert remember when he'd done the same to Matthew, except he hadn't been careful of the blond's curl because he hadn't known.

Damn but that moment had frightened him. He'd been terrified when Matt's knees suddenly buckled and the Canadian collapsed—how had he even managed to move fast enough to catch the younger student? And with Gilbird's cage pinned between them? It still upset him to think what could have happened if Matthew had hit his head, if Gilbert hadn't caught him, all because of that one curl.

Feliciano's curl must be zhe same as Matzhew's. Is zhat really such a common zhing? Zhey're not even zhe same race.

Maybe that didn't matter, though. Plenty of people who came from completely different parts of the world could have similar interests, could look alike. The hair curl thing probably wasn't even unusual. Besides, turning Matthew on was as easy as blowing on the back of his neck or touching that curl or, hell, Gilbert knew he'd gotten the Canadian into a state of pre-arousal shyness more than once simply by flirting.

So easy to mess vizh, the albino thought fondly, his lips starting to curve in the very beginnings of a smile. As soon as he realized it, though, he bit his tongue to force the smile to fade and mentally scolded himself. He wasn't supposed to be thinking that way anymore, damn it. For a moment, though, he couldn't help but picture Matthew's face just the way he'd looked when Gilbert had confronted him. Blue-violet eyes shone with tears behind glasses that were always slipping down the Canadian's nose when he wasn't paying attention. His hair had been hanging in his face a little, arms held to his chest as if to protect himself or like he had instinctively moved to hug something. The blond's lower lip trembled even as he tried, ever so quietly, to defend himself.

The memory made his heart hurt; he didn't like the way things had played out, didn't like that Matthew had started crying because it made him feel like he was supposed to comfort the younger boy, yet now he couldn't even bring himself to look at the blond. Not in class, not when Matthew had tried to talk him on Wednesday. He just couldn't look at him because if he did, if he looked into those blue-violet eyes and saw how upset Matthew was then he wouldn't be able to help himself. He'd cave and hug the Canadian, promise to never say a single harsh word to him ever again.

"Hey, Gil."

His focus broken, Gilbert blinked several times before looking up at Ludwig, who was watching him with mild concern. "Yeah?"

"Ve're starting zhe movie—are you vatching vizh us or not?"

Oh, right. The movie. Something to help keep his mind away from matters he didn't want to think about.

"Ja, I am."

"Then come on!" Feliciano urged in his usual sleepy-happy tone. "We made popcorn!"

Gilbert didn't try to hold back a quiet laugh at the Italian's enthusiasm as he got up and joined them on the futon. Feliciano sat in the middle while Gilbert and Ludwig sat on either side of him with a blanket covering their laps—Ludwig had an arm around the smaller male's shoulders—and the small TV they had was set up on the coffee table where they could easily see it.

"Is this movie really scary, Lud?" the Italian asked, suddenly sounding nervous. Ludwig smiled and kissed his boyfriend's temple.

"Ja, a little. But don't vorry—you can hide in zhe blanket during zhe scary parts."

His response calmed Feliciano enough for the brunet to snuggle down in the blanket, leaning against Ludwig as the movie began. Beside them, Gilbert had never felt so lonely.

XXX

Frowning, Matthew stared at his fingers, watched them tremble and examined how they'd somehow become even paler than before. They were bonier, too, and he couldn't force them to hold still no matter how hard he tried. He'd noticed the shaking a few days ago but hadn't paid much attention to it—now it was to the point when he dropped his pencil if he didn't make a conscious effort to keep a good grip on it. It was as if his fingers simply had no strength left.

Come to think of it, he felt like his entire body had grown significantly weaker, and his clothes felt like they were fitting looser than they'd used to.

I've lost a lot of weight in a really short amount of time.

The thought was slow and he couldn't help but be a little frustrated by that because he knew he was smart and knew that he was capable of understanding why he felt the way he did. He knew full well it was because he still couldn't bring himself to eat more than a few bites of this or that each day. And for someone who'd always been on the skinnier side of things, he was starting to think he would soon resemble a skeleton. Yet he couldn't bring himself to care.

Even now he was curled up in bed, arms wrapped securely around his largest pillow as he cuddled it in a near desperate attempt to feel protected. God, he missed cuddling. He missed cuddling and watching movies, arguing over what to watch and what snacks to have, whether to do homework before or after, when to go to dinner. He missed all those stupid little arguments, and he missed the person he'd argued with.

Gilbert…

How could this have happened to him? He felt so…useless. His grades were going to slip soon because he couldn't dredge up the motivation to study and hadn't been taking notes in his classes. It probably wouldn't be long before he decided he didn't want to go to class anymore and simply stayed in bed all day. Yeah, he could do that. Just lay in bed, hugging his pillow, never having to deal with other people or pretend he was happy so that Alfred wouldn't worry about him too much.

His poor big brother. It was easy to see that Alfred knew Matthew lied about eating. The Canadian felt bad about that, but not enough to stop. Not enough to let Alfred convince him to leave the dorm and go eat an actual meal.

I'm not hungry. I don't want to go out. There's too many people. The world's so loud and busy and crowded. I just want to stay here where it's quiet and I can be alone.

Arms tightening, Matthew buried his face in the pillow and willed himself to imagine that it was a person, that instead of the soft pillow he was hugging Gilbert, had his face pressed into the albino's shoulder as a hand gently ran through his hair. Gilbert had done that on occasion, if Matthew was more frightened than normal by one of the scary movies the Prussian always wanted to watch. Those had been the best moments, when he knew without a doubt that the older boy cared about him because of the way Gilbert would hug him and stroke his hair and assure him that he didn't need to be so afraid of a silly old movie, anyway. It had always worked to make him feel better and at that moment there was nothing else in the world he wanted more than to feel that way again.

The Canadian heaved a sigh; it wasn't working. His brain simply refused to accept the imaginary Prussian he was trying to pretend was there with him.

"I miss you," he whispered, tears pricking at his eyes. That was a feeling he had become painfully accustomed to over the last several days.

"Miss who, mon cher?"

Startled, Matthew froze. He recognized the voice and of course he only knew one person here who spoke French, but he couldn't believe he hadn't realized that someone else had come into the dorm. He debated whether or not he should answer that question, since he knew full well that Francis didn't care for Gilbert and didn't consider the albino someone worth being upset over. But he was tired of lying.

"Gilbert," he muttered without pulling his face away from the pillow. "I miss him."

"Ah." It was quiet for a moment and Matthew began to wonder if he'd upset the older blond. "May I join you, Matthieu?"

What? Join him? In his bed? "U-um…sure, I guess…"

"Merci."

He could feel the loft shift as Francis began to climb up the ladder and quickly maneuvered himself closer to the wall to make room for the Frenchman. The mattress dipped as another body settled on it, and Matthew peeked at his new companion, the pillow still held to his chest. It surprised him how close Francis had placed himself to the younger boy—there was less than a foot of space between them, though considering how narrow the bed was, there wasn't really enough room for any more than that.

Blue eyes examined what little of his face was visible and a concerned frown appeared on Francis' elegant face. "You've lost weight, mon cher, and you look exhausted."

Matthew didn't try to deny it. Obviously he wasn't eating as much as he should and he wasn't sleeping well, either, so he simply nodded because Francis was completely correct.

"'ow much 'ave you been eating, Matthieu?" the older boy questioned, reaching out to take the Canadian's hand into his own. Matthew watched him watch his fingers tremble and the frown deepened. "Not enough, I see."

There was no use trying to deny that, either. All of Alfred's friends knew that he wasn't taking care of himself anymore, including Francis.

"Matthieu, please, you cannot do zees to yourself. It is un'ealthy and I cannot stand seeing you so…so…miserable. Eet absolutely breaks my 'eart, mon amour," Francis admitted quietly, still holding Matthew's hand. "Please, do not torture yourself like zees. 'e does not deserve you, anyway."

They looked at each other, Francis concerned for the younger boy's well-being, Matthew silent and all but unresponsive. He couldn't think of anything to say to that, especially considering that his mind was stuck on what Francis had called him.

"Mon amour." He called me "my love."

"Matthieu?"

"Why…why'd you call me that?" the Canadian asked softly, lifting a little more of his face away from the pillow so he could look at Francis more directly.

"Call you what?"

"'Mon amour.'"

A smile graced Francis' lips and he took one hand away from Matthew's in order to gently touch the younger boy's pale, slightly bony face. "Because, mon amour,"—Matthew blushed to hear it again—"zhat ees what I call zhe people I care about."

Francis…cared about him? Well, of course he did. Otherwise he wouldn't be lying in Matthew's bed, trying to comfort him and make him feel better.

"I…I care about you, too, Francis," he whispered, overwhelmed by the sense of gratitude he felt towards the Frenchman. "Really. I…thank you."

"For what, mon cher?"

For the first time in days, Matthew managed a genuine smile. It was small and feeble, but genuine all the same. "For making me feel better."

"Ah." That soft, gentle hand caressed his cheek and Matthew let his eyes fall closed as he enjoyed the comforting touch. "It ees zhe least I can do."

His eyes opened again and Matthew summed up his courage. Pushing the pillow out of the way, he shifted closer to the older boy and looked directly into those blue eyes. "Francis…"

"Oui, mon amour?" The Frenchman's smile was still in place, though it had grown softer; his hand fell still, cupping Matthew's cheek.

Matthew opened his mouth to say it, but couldn't bring himself to form the words. He was just too shy to say it out loud, so he closed his mouth again and quickly leaned forward to brush his lips against Francis' in a chaste kiss before moving away again, his cheeks turning a dark pink as he looked down shyly.

Surprised, Francis blinked rapidly then chuckled. "What was zhat for, Matthieu?"

"Because…I like you…" The words were less than a whisper, quiet even for Matthew. It was silent for a moment before gentle fingers tilted his chin up so that he met Francis' gaze once more.

"Et je vous aime, Matthieu. Tu me plais bien." His free arm wrapped around the younger boy's waist to draw him closer and for a moment Matthew thought the Frenchman meant to kiss him, but Francis simply tucked the Canadian's head under his chin and held him close. Matthew's only reaction was to press his face into the older student's neck, his own arms winding around Francis to hold onto him tightly.

This, this contact, this comfort and sincerity and unadulterated, genuine affection was the best feeling in the world. Francis cared about him. Francis wanted to be there for him, wanted to make him feel better. And as he lay there, comfortably snuggled against the slightly larger male, breathing in the delicate scent of roses—he'd never noticed it before, but he thought it suited this elegant man—Matthew decided that he was going to let Francis do those things because Francis was the only person in his life who could do those things.

"Merci, Francis," the younger blond sighed, eyes closing as the warmth seeped into him and he began to doze off.

"Vous êtes les bienvenus, Matthieu."

AUTHOR'S NOTE

I'm going to post on time eventually, I swear, though 2:30am on Wednesday isn't bad. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter—though perhaps you're unhappy with the way things are going. Feel free to let me know what you think about how the plot's developing! My apologies if the translations are a bit off or if there are typos. See you next Monday!

(Rough) Translations:

Mon cher

French: "My dear."

Merci

French: "Thank you."

Mon amour

French: "My love."

Et je vous aime, Matthieu. Tu me plais bien.

French: "And I like you, Matthew. I like you very much."

Vous êtes les bienvenus

French: "You are very welcome."