Finals had come and gone, now all that was left was the final academy wide bizarre to celebrate the year's end. For over a month of planning, she and her team had worked to make sure this was the best end of the year send off that had ever been done before; she didn't spare a single attraction. They had a carousel ride, a portable mini roller coaster, arcade booths, food stands, and even a Ferris wheel. Of course the wheel couldn't compete with the London Eye, but it still gave the riders a decent view of the city. Construction had begun the weekend before the date on Tuesday, that way the noise would not obstruct the students taking tests and would still be done in time. When the time came to let the students in, everyone was pleasantly amazed. However, as the head overseer of the festival, she herself wasn't allowed to participate in any of the commodities, but she loved seeing the look on her brothers' face when they walked in, it made it all worth it.
"This is amazing, stupid Alice!" Peter cried joyfully as he ran off towards the arcade booths, followed quickly by the twins who only gave her a smile and a nod before they ran off.
"Good job, kid." Scott said and ruffled her hair. Pouting, she batted his hand away. "Yet it doesn't top what I put together when I was president."
"I'm pretty sure most of you ideas were illegal, Scott." Dylan nudged him in the side. "This is wonderful Alice." He smiled at her. Alice felt elated at his approval and was about to show her gratitude, but had no time when her mother walked up behind them and made herself known. She gave the bizarre a once over before looking back to her daughter, a scowl on her face as usual.
"Det er tilstrækkeligt," Said she. "men alt for barnligt." (It is adequate, but much too childish.)
Alice was taken slightly off guard by her mother's words, for that was the closest her mother ever gets to complementing her children.
"Det glæder mig, at du tror det." Alice bowed her head. (I am pleased that you think so.) Her mother huffed and walked away, commanding Scott to show her around in Danish, while he replied in English. Alice let out a breath once she left and sat down on a nearby bench. Dylan looked down at her sympathy and walked over, setting himself down next to her.
"You look tired." Dylan spoke.
"Yeah, well a lot has been going on lately. Finals, presidency and the like." Alice responded and laid her head back against the bench and looked up to the sky.
"That's not all, there's something else troubling you?" He pressed, becoming worried for his sister. Alice sighed as she looked around the families of the other students, how healthy and happy their relationships appeared. Dylan followed her gaze and sighed. "You know I wish you would put more trust in me. I know that you've been going through a lot lately, yet you haven't told me." He noted dejectedly, worry and concern etched into his face, as well as a bit of hurt.
"You'd think since mother wants me to be self dependent that she would want me to settle down so early as well."
"Ah, so she brought in another suitor?"
"Indeed, and he was just as boring and uptight as the rest."
"Well if anything this has to do with the scam father got tied in. Otherwise I can't see her marrying you off so early either."
"Wait, scam?" Alice recoiled at his words. "What happened to father?" Dylan grimaced and turned to look down at the ground, obviously upset at the thought of their father's mistake.
"The fool's love for money brought him to sign a merger with another company; however the partner company's profits and reputation went south after corruption was revealed to the profit. The lawsuit has cost the Kirkland Company millions and has yet to be settled. Father has been in the states for the last three months trying to clear his name and regain his fortune, but his own greed was revealed and now it looks like he could lose all his profits in order to buy his way out."
"So that's why mother wants me to marry, so father can buy his way out with still having a fall back plan to keep us rich, me?"
"Most likely, you know the length of their love for money."
Alice felt the anger inside her rise for her mother and morph into cold contempt. How dare her mother send her away like an object simply to stay well off and rich. She is not a fall back plan for her parents to keep incase their business went south!
Alice looked over to her brother and saw that he was also angry for her, and that notion made her calm down somewhat.
"I'm sorry Alice; if possible I would marry so you wouldn't have to." He said to her as he clenched his hands into fists. Alice smiled and placed her small hands over his fists. Dylan looked up to meet her grateful eyes, full of conviction. He smiled back as well. Ever since she was little, Dylan has always acted more like a father than a brother to her.
"I appreciate it, Dylan, but that won't be necessary." She told him and stood up off of the bench. "All this time I thought that if I listened and did what I was told mother and father would love me. But now I see that is not so, I don't need it anymore."
"Alice, what are you going to do?" Dylan asked his little sis- daughter. She turned to him with a sort of gleam in her eyes.
"I'm taking control, Dylan. I've been working on a plan for the past week."
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One o'clock had come; the music played by someone's phone using Spotify was now switched for live entertainment brought by the school bands. Kiku was faithful in his word to put this together perfectly for her, getting the three bands including hers to play. Each band was assigned a different genre of music as to not be too redundant in the music played for the students and guests.
Right now the Soviets were playing Industrial and Alt Rock, the Nordic Five had decided on early 2000s pop and hip hop- due to Mathias's secret love of Britney Spears -and their band, Destination Nation, had decided on Alternative Metal/Rock with a hint of Electropop.
At the moment Alice was busy at work taking surveys from different booths of their popularity and commentary from customers to see if she should do this again next year. Most booths and games were a hit, though it seemed like the ring toss was the least popular of all, she might have to cut that one out next year.
"Having your face stuck in work even at a festival. You never change do you Ally?" A voice suddenly spoke from behind as two hands grasped her shoulders. Alice could easily recognize the voice, but it was the nickname that gave him away.
"What is it, Alfred?" She sighed and turned to face him.
"I want you to hang out with me!" He said excitedly, a twinkle in his eyes. "I've always loved carnivals, so you have to come with!"
"Alfred, I'd love to but I have ten more booths to visit, then I need to check up on-"
"Too late! Ahahaha!" He cheered with that ridiculous laugh of his. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her away from the ring toss and down the rows over to the shooting booth. The man behind the counter welcomed them and offered them the choice between three different types of guns, fake of course. Alfred naturally went for the rifle, and she decided on the western hand pistol, not really being into big guns all that much. Knocking over one bottle would win them a small animal, three a medium, and six (which was the number of rubber bullets each of them was given) would get them a mega sized stuffed animal.
"How about we make it a competition?" Alfred suggested as he loaded his rifle.
"You know just what a girl wants." She smirked back.
A timer was set to count down from five to when they could start, once the clock struck zero they began in a flurry of bullets. The booth guy ducked down in slight fear. Alice went across the entire middle row, not missing a single bottle. Alfred finished off the top row at the same time and went for the bottom row as she did; they both ended up hitting the opposite bottles from both ends at the same time, clearing the entire game of all twelve bottles.
"I win!"
"I won!"
The two students shouted at the same time.
"How many did you hit?" Alice inquired, placing her hands on her hips.
"Six."
"Well so did I, we tied."
"But I finished first."
"We finished at the same time!"
"Umm… excuse me?" The booth guy spoke up gingerly, poking his head back up from underneath the stand. "You're blocking the line."
Alfred and Alice turned and saw the line of people behind them, looking forward with interest at them. The two quickly snatched their prizes and went away in embarrassment; however their carrying two giant stuffed Pikachus only caused to bring them more attention. Alice tried to hide her embarrassment and look respectable, but that was hard to do when the Pikachu was bigger than her torso and was too big to wrap her arms around completely.
Next they went and got ice cream, while they were waiting in line Alfred saved her spot while she questioned one of the workers and interviewed a few customers on their opinions, returning just in time for their turn. She ordered a single scoop of mint chocolate chip, while he got a triple scoop of fudge, triple chocolate, and vanilla. They sat down together at a bench and she began to write her own review on her clipboard.
"Seriously Alice, still working?" Alfred exasperated in a puff of air.
"I just need to write a two sentence description of their success then I'll be done- hey!" She went from explaining to yelling out when, out of nowhere, he took her clipboard from her hands.
"You can have this back at the end of the day." He told her and but the clipboard in his backpack.
"Alfred, I need to work!" She argued with him.
"You need to have fun." He shot back and shifted his stance on the bench. "It's the last day of school, it's time to let loose and have fun."
"Even today is a day of work for me, I have too many responsibilities that I cannot abandon." Alfred immediately looked disappointed and saddened, but perked up at once by her next words. "Though I suppose I could for the next hour." Alfred's face then switched back to one of joyous excitement.
Alice smiled as he led her away, traveling from arcade booth to arcade booth, winning prizes over and over again. Eventually though they stopped because they couldn't anymore prizes in their bags or arms, besides she didn't really need all these stuffed toys, so they decided to give their prizes away to other students and small children instead. The only toys they did keep were the pikachus. Alfred's favorite game was definitely the water gun game, while hers was the balloon dart game.
It was a quarter to three when they decided to move away from the games and go on the rides. The Ferris wheel was definitely the most popular out of the few rented rides, so they had agreed to go on that one last. The mini coster was short but exciting, lasting only a minute and five seconds, but including a thirty-five foot drop that got the heart racing. They rode that ride at least five times before eventually went on to something else. Having only one ride on the carousel the two went on and finally decided to go on the wheel, but not before taking a breather on a small bench.
The hair on their heads were both windswept and wild, especially her tangled hair suck in her pigtails. Alice tried to take out her hair ties to try and fix her locks, but instead ended up further knotting her hair.
"Need some help there Ally?" Alfred chuckled from beside her.
"No thank you, I can very much manage this on my own." She replied as she carefully untied her hair from the band as if it was a bunched up mess of wires.
"Common," he took hold of her hair and neatly combed out her golden locks with his fingers, "let me help you."
Alice pouted as her face began to heat up, turning her head down so he wouldn't be able to see her blushing.
"I guess it can't be helped." She sighed and subjected herself to his help. Alfred smiled but said nothing more, happy that she didn't argue with him any further. After he got all the knots out he began to style it once again, but in a different fashion. He let her hair fall down around her with a cascading flow all on the left side of her body. Alfred grabbed hold of her shoulders and turned her to face him, then proceeded to braid down the front of her body.
His touched sent electric chills down her spin, heating up every part of her that he touched. The concentrated and focused look in his eyes brought out their color and made the sky blue pop out and shine bright. Before she knew it he was done braiding and began to pull away; her body followed along with him against her will.
"There, what do you think?"
Alice looked down at his words to observe his work and was pleasantly surprised; he had done a good job.
"Amazing, where did you learn to braid hair?"
"Francis, I used to braid hair back when he was into dresses."
"Ugh, I remember that phase." Alice grimaced. "But besides that I love it, thank you." Alice smiled and leaned in for a hug before catching herself, awkwardly offering a friendly hand shake instead. Alfred took her hand strangely and gave it two shakes, obviously just as uncomfortable as she with how exactly to express themselves anymore.
She didn't know if it was okay to hug, if they were allowed to sit closely or hold hands, and neither did he. They were both struggling with what it was they wanted, or really if they were ready. They both knew what it was they wanted: each other; but was it alright to patch it up so soon? Less than a month had passed since their break up, they've only been 'friends' again for about a week, when was it that they'd finally allow themselves another chance.
It had been months that she's been denying herself the ability to go after Alfred as she was, for she didn't believe he could ever love Alice, but now he did and she was still denying herself. It still shocked her to find out that he had chosen her, that he loved her, she didn't understand it, and she wanted to find out why.
"Alfred-"
Riiinnnggg
Alice verbally groaned and pulled out her phone to answer the incoming call. Looking at her screen she saw that it was Kiku who was trying to reach her.
"Hello?"
"Alice-chan, where are you? Were due on stage in ten minutes." Kiku informed her. Alice looked down at the clock on her cell and saw that she indeed had ten minutes before she was supposed to perform.
"I'm on my way now; I'll be there in a few. Bye." She bid farewell and hung up the phone, then turned back to Alfred. 'Well the mood had just been shot down and slaughtered' Alice mentally sighed. "I have to go."
"Where are you going?"
"I signed up my band to perform live at this festival." She told him as she stood and began to gather her things, but was halted when his hand reached up and grabbed her arm. His eyes connected with hers, contained with what looked like worry and speculation.
"Are you gonna disguise yourself again?" He inquired, sounding as if the return of England was unwanted.
"I don't know yet… but most likely I will." Alice answered and pulled on her backpack.
"I thought you were past this, Ally… this isn't right. You should open yourself more to others, show everyone who you truly are. This is no different from lying."
"And I thought you were past me." Alice countered back, "Alfred, I can't afford to be so open to others, if everyone knew this about me they would question my authority."
"Authority doesn't matter Alice, trust does."
"Then trust me on this," Alice said in a lower voice, placing a comforting hand on his bicep, "I not going to hide anymore."
Alfred looked at her with concern and doubt. Slowly he reached out and pulled her small frame into a warm embrace, Alice didn't fight it and wrapped her arms around his chest. Today was the day she enacted her plan, today was the day it all changes.
"The lies all end today."
Alice then left on her way to the awaiting stage, Alfred accompanying her hand in hand. She was about to make the biggest decision in her life, she needed all the support she could get, and even though Alfred doesn't completely like the idea of her dressing up as England again after the fiasco her disguise caused, he refused to leave her troubling side. This is what she needed from him right now, as a friend, she needed him to understand what she was about to do.
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Well hello I am back and busier than ever. SO MUCH STUFF TO DO. Two more chapters left, thanks so much for reading my work and I'll see y'all in the next update.
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