So fanfiction has yet to tell me the last chapters were updated (as of Friday; and I posted them Thursday)…I guess they're experiencing some delays because this happened last week as well. :/ Anyway, moving on to happier (and probably more comical) things…

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Alfred glanced at the secretary when he stepped into the office, Antonio right behind him. She looked up at both of them over her glasses with a questioning gaze.

"Can I help you two?" The secretary asked, lifting her head to look at them through her glasses, "Or did you get sent down here for misbehaving again?"

"Actually we're here about the announcement." Alfred leaned on the writing desk.

"Yeah they kinda announced loud and clear for the people responsible to come to the office, so here we are." Antonio stood next to Alfred, though he didn't lean on it like his friend.

Alfred grinned cheerfully at the secretary who stared at them as if to say someone-actually-answered-that-stupid-page? "So here we are!" Alfred waved with his unbandaged hand.

"So you are." The secretary frowned, "One moment. I'll tell Mr. Smith and the board members you're here." She stood up and walked over to the closed door.

Alfred hummed to himself and looked over the papers on the desk curiously, waiting for her to tell them to go in. 'We are so gonna get yelled at for this.'

"Mr. Smith, the two students claiming to be responsible are out here..."

Alfred looked over as the secretary opened the principal's office door slightly. Yup. He could definitely feel some tension coming from the room. That or it was nervousness coming from Antonio. Alfred patted him on the shoulder reassuringly, "Right here with ya, man."

Antonio just stared at him. He didn't seem to able to put words together to form a coherent sentence.

"You two can go in." The secretary walked back to her desk, "Good luck." She smiled cheerfully at both of them and sat down in her chair once more.

"Thanks~" Alfred smiled at her and skipped over to the waiting door.

"Going to need it…" Antonio followed along behind Alfred, "Find a happy place…"

"Oh cheer up. We have no regrets~" Alfred patted him on the shoulder again.

"Right. No regrets." Antonio didn't look like he believed what he said for an instant.

Alfred grinned and walked into the office, ignoring the sound of the shutting door behind Antonio. Only four school board members plus the principal to deal with. No issues with that. At least they didn't have the whole group in here. Of course it would have gotten rather crowded…

"You two again?" Mr. Smith glared at both of them.

"Us again~" Alfred kept the cheerful smile on his face, despite slightly worrying about what was going to happen as a result of this, "Someone called, so we answered!"

"Well at least you two are willing to step up and take responsibility for your actions!" One of the female school board members huffed angrily, "What you two did was irresponsible! Someone could have gotten seriously hurt!"

"Could have, didn't." Alfred shrugged carelessly, "Like we really would go that far without thinking of that already. Why do you think the water was poured down the stairs before whoever-that-was got more than three steps up?" 'That was probably the quickest excuse I have ever made up in my life. Why can't I be that quick-thinking when it comes to taking a test or something?'

She seemed to be dumbfounded by the quick response, so the next person in line stepped into the argument, "There were arrows shot at us as we got out of our cars for crying out loud!"

"They were soft-tipped arrows." Antonio spoke up flatly, "They couldn't hurt you no matter if there was a master bowman shooting them or a novice bowman. They bounced off of your head. You can't honestly tell me those hurt."

'Way to go Antonio! Shoot 'em down with their own words!' Alfred looked at Antonio with sparkling eyes. 'I knew he could be a hero!'

"T-They punctured a tire of one of the cars we got here in!" The board member still looked angry, but his voice gave it away that he was running out of things to argue with. Alfred smiled a bit.

"Ever hear of a spare tire? And if whoever it was wouldn't have moved, then maybe the tire wouldn't have been shot." Antonio commented.

'Yes!' Alfred let out a mental cheer as the board member backed down finally. 'Two down, three to go! We can do this!'

"Then what about the tomatoes thrown at us? And the silver pots!" The next board member stepped forward angrily.

'Huh…seriously what's wrong with throwing tomatoes?' Alfred stared at her, "Food fights happen all the time…what did you get hit with a rotten tomato or something? They're soft either way."

She stared at Alfred in disbelief, so did Antonio. 'Did I say something wrong?' Alfred tilted his head in confusion.

Much to Alfred's surprise, she stepped back and the fourth person stepped forward, "You dumped soapy water all across the main lobby, and set up a trip-rope in the hallway!"

'That was totally me.' Alfred suppressed the urge to grin and listened as Antonio spoke up.

"Well now you can't honestly tell me that you know for sure it wasn't a careless janitor who might have forgotten you guys were coming, but I'll let that slide." Antonio shrugged.

Alfred looked at him blankly. 'And he was staring at me like I had two heads for what I said? At least I don't try and pass the buck off on an innocent bystander, geez.'

Antonio continued speaking, "But really all we did with that was save the janitor the trouble of cleaning it later, it's not like we dumped anything harmful on the floor, it was just soap and water, and that can easily be skated across, and even if you did fall, all you would end up with is a wet backside."

Alfred watched as the four school board members turned to the principal, unsure of what to say. He turned his head towards the principal as well, waiting for him to speak up. Mr. Smith just tapped his pencil on the desk, staring at both Alfred and Antonio, "Somehow…I have a hard time believing you two came up with this entire scheme."

Alfred felt as if something snapped inside of him for a second, but ignored it and spoke anyway, "Yeah I guess two students who are managing to pass all of their classes with no problems, except for this morning where both of us flunked a test because we couldn't concentrate, probably in part due to my brother and our three friends committing suicide the other day, couldn't possibly pull off a prank of this magnitude by ourselves. It would have only taken the both of us like five minutes to pull it off. One handles the first floor, and the other the second floor. You can't honestly tell me it would take more than that to accomplish this." He knew his smile was probably coming across as slightly ticked off, but didn't make any attempt to put on a more cheerful one instead.

Mr. Smith wasn't fazed by his response, though Alfred did think it was funny that all four board members instantly took several steps away from him, "So who dumped the glue in the conference room?"

"I did." Alfred said, not hesitating at all, "I also dumped soapy water in the lobby, set up both trip ropes, and dumped water down the stairs. Oh and the bucket of water on top of the conference room door, that was me, too." 'Bring it on dude. We are a united front.'

Antonio sighed, "I filled the janitor's closet with beach balls, shot arrows at the school board members while they were getting out of their cars, and threw tomatoes at them when they were coming up the hallway. And kicked over buckets of water while running down a ramp to get to my class."

'That makes us sound awesome, listing it like we actually did everything…' Alfred glanced at Antonio for a minute before the principal spoke up again.

"The second barrage of tomatoes?" Mr. Smith asked, raising an eyebrow.

'Forgot about that one.' Alfred gave a more cheerful smile now, "That was me! I took the hall to the left and threw tomatoes before going to my fifth class."

Mr. Smith slapped the palm of his hand to his forehead, "You two…"

'You two what?' Alfred raised an eyebrow at the principal, waiting for him to finish his sentence.

"Then answer me one more question." Mr. Smith said finally, after rubbing his temple in frustration, "Why?"

'Uh…wasn't planned for this.' Alfred looked at Antonio, who returned the stare before moving his gaze away and back to the only person seated in the room, "Why? You're asking us why."

"I am." Mr. Smith raised both eyebrows.

Alfred gaped at Antonio. This was not good. Antonio sounded really ticked off now, and that was saying something for the usually carefree Spaniard. 'Something must have snapped in him, too.'

Antonio looked over at the school board members and glared at them before turning his head back to the principal, "You're asking two students why we started and finished a prank on the members of our stupid school board."

"Stupid…"

Alfred looked over and saw the speaker was the first female he had forced into backing down when they had started this argument. He smiled slightly and looked back at his friend. Hopefully Antonio had a good argument up his sleeve. Otherwise they were toast. Burnt toast.

"I've had this conversation with you before today." Antonio said flatly ('He has?' Alfred tilted his head in confusion) , "And I will repeat it. There is such pressure on us students from you all," Antonio glared at the school board members again, "For us to have good grades. And why? This is supposed to be the best years of our life, at least that's what my parents told me, but honestly I can't see that happening. ('Oh yeah. Mom and dad told me and Mattie that all the time!' Alfred nodded slightly in agreement) Every day is the same thing. We come to school, we're forced to learn things in the most boring way possible and we go home to study for a test on a pointless subject that we might never use again the rest of our life."

Alfred was now staring at Antonio in disbelief. He clearly was not happy, and ticked off was definitely starting to sound like a good description for him.

"I had a best friend, up until three days ago. He was always complaining about how school was boring, and so was I. We could agree on that no problem, but now he's not here anymore. Because of an assembly we had four days ago. And you even said yourself at the assembly the following day, that it was because of our reactions to that first assembly that they were no longer here. We had four students commit suicide here, because of the way we were taught to react to that kind of situation." Antonio looked at the school board again, "What are we supposed to do? That speaker told us to talk to the ones we thought were suffering, and I did. I honestly tried. But he killed himself the next day because he thought I was making fun of him! He didn't say my name in the letter, but I know damn well it was directed at me!"

Alfred felt his eyes tear up. Antonio was that cry he had heard in the assembly. He should have known it even then just from the picture that had gone up, but he had been in too much shock to really focus on it. And to make it worse, the letter was directed at Antonio? That musta really hurt… 'It's the same…Mattie's letter had me in it, too…'

"We react to situations the way we are taught to. And now we learned, too late, that there are some situations that we need to find, and are allowed to find, some other way to react, to stop someone before the unthinkable happens. I laugh at situations that are stressful for me, it's how I relax, I didn't think that he would ever even get the idea that I was making fun of him. What the heck am I supposed to do now? If I continue doing the same thing I've always done, then how am I supposed to stop it from happening again? If we keep doing the same thing over and over nothing is going to change!" Antonio was waving wildly with his hands at this point.

Alfred could see Antonio was close to breaking down and silently hoped that the principal would stop him from continuing on any further. He looked at the principal, well aware that the tears from his own eyes were threatening to spill over. 'If we don't get outta here soon, I'm totally gonna cry and that is just not cool.'

Mr. Smith reached behind him and took a sheet of paper off the wall, and held it silent in front of him, showing the side with tallies to the others in the room, "I have had six students and one teacher down here today."

Alfred silently counted the small lines on the paper with a blank expression, "There's more tallies on that paper than there are number of people who were here."

"First line was Roderich Edelstein. He threw water balloons, as you two well know, in his first class, and quoted Gilbert Beilschmidt's letter in saying that there were teachers who needed to learn how to live a little." Mr. Smith said quietly, "The second line was Alfred, who duct-taped his entire classroom in an attempt, and a rather successful one, to disrupt class and prevent another powerpoint from being shown."

Alfred perked up a bit. 'Totally successful.'

"The third line, was also Alfred. For stating that his main reason for acting out was to cheer up his brother's best friend."

Alfred rubbed the back of his head, a bit embarrassed. It was a good thing Cruz wasn't down here now. He'd be getting a weird stare for sure.

"The fourth line was Antonio. Who threw beach balls around and prevented the teacher from maintaining control on her classroom." Mr. Smith looked at the student he was talking about, "The fifth line, is also Antonio."

Antonio blinked, "Hm?"

"You not only made an attempt to break the monotony of class, you also spoke out against it and provided a number of valid arguments against the speaker who was here, as well as your teachers and their teaching styles." Mr. Smith continued to hold the paper, his voice not wavering at all.

'Did he…already know the outcome of this argument when we came in the room?' Alfred blinked.

"The sixth line belonged to a teacher, Mrs. Rose, who spoke in defense of her student's actions, because he was defending his friend when hitting another." Mr. Smith tapped the paper on his desk, "The seventh line belonged to Cruz Rodriguez."

"Oh he was down here, too." Alfred could've laughed in any other situation they were in.

"He punched his ex-girlfriend because she was insulting him as well as his best friend, who is no longer here." Mr. Smith said quietly.

Alfred didn't say anything in response to this, knowing full well who the principal was referring to.

"So now…" Mr. Smith turned the paper around so he was looking at it, "This brings us to the end of another attempt of yours to try and turn things around at this school." He looked over at the school board, "And as I've said before, the students here may act out from time to time, but they always…" He looked back at Alfred and Antonio, "Always. Have a reason for their actions."

'Are you kidding me? This is sounding like we're getting out of this with no problems whatsoever.' Alfred stared at the principal in bewilderment. 'We're getting…a detention at least…right? It could not have been that easy.'

"These two, despite your attempts to make them feel guilty, have countered every single argument you could come up with. The plan was well-thought out, despite the tire incident, but that is indeed what spare tires are for. And despite knowing the consequences of their actions, they came down anyway." Mr. Smith looked over at the school board again, "Here we have two students willing to take full responsibility for their actions, and all they did was have a little harmless fun."

Alfred looked over at Antonio, who seemed to be staring at the principal in shock. It sounded as if he was defending their actions more than reprimanding them. Alfred looked back at Mr. Smith.

"I have no intentions of punishing either of these students." Mr. Smith said, quite calmly.

'We totally got off!' Alfred looked over at the school board, who all seemed to be gaping at Mr. Smith in disbelief. '…maybe?'

Mr. Smith reached behind him and took a second paper off of the wall, "I didn't think the time would come when I would take the paper off of the wall this soon. But I do believe the time has come."

"Hm?" Alfred blinked. Antonio made a similar noise beside him.

"You two can go back to your study hall. At least you decided to do something of this magnitude in a class where you wouldn't miss anything…but don't. Do that again." Mr. Smith glared at both of them.

"Yes, sir." Alfred grinned sheepishly, before slightly edging himself towards the door. He looked over at the school board, expecting them to say something, but they said nothing, so Alfred happily left the office, Antonio following right behind.

"Is this seriously okay…?" Antonio whispered once the door had shut behind them, "And what was that second paper?"

"I don't care if this is okay or not, I don't care what that paper was, being heroes rocks!" Alfred waved at the secretary cheerfully as they left the main office and stepped out into the hallway, "See? That wasn't even that bad."

"I can't believe we didn't even get a detention." Antonio gaped at Alfred, "How was that…" He looked back at the closed door, "It feels like I'm asleep and this was just a dream."

"A totally awesome dream." Alfred gave him a thumbs-up, "Let's go back to study hall~"

"Yeah. Let's go back to the people who were clapping." Antonio rolled his eyes but followed Alfred down the hallway, "I still can't believe this."

"Oh hey…" Alfred looked behind them before dropping his voice to a whisper, "Maybe we should help Cruz while we're not in class…"

"Oh yeah…that would probably be best." Antonio chuckled a bit.

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Arthur swung his legs back and forth over the side of his bed. He glanced down at Matthew, who was curled up in a ball on his mattress, looking like he was fast asleep. Arthur looked over at Lovino, who was glaring at Roma. Apparently his grandfather had decided to follow them back to their room. Arthur rolled his eyes.

"Excuse me…" The nurse peered into the room, "I have an announcement to make for you three."

"Hm?" Arthur looked over at her. Below him he could hear Matthew stirring slightly in response to the voice.

"Your principal called, you four can go back to class tomorrow." The nurse smiled cheerfully.

Arthur's eyes widened, "That was fast! We were only here a couple days!"

"We can go home!" Lovino held up both hands in the air, "Oh thank you!"

"Eh...that'll be nice…" Matthew was now sitting straight up, "It…it's really okay that we go home now?"

"Yup!" The nurse smiled, "Gilbert will be attending with you three tomorrow, you four have one last assembly to give to the school."

"Oh no." Arthur moaned and instantly laid back down on the bed, "I knew it was too good to be true."

Matthew started laughing below him at Arthur's response.

"What's this assembly about?" Lovino asked.

"You have to tell your classmates you're alive. Otherwise they'll think they're seeing ghosts." The nurse responded, "So the principal will be holding an assembly tomorrow that all four of you will be speaking at."

"Eh?" Matthew let out what sounded like a small squeak, "Do I have to?"

"Gaaaaah…" Lovino moaned.

"You guys can do it! I have faith in you~" Roma cheered.

"DON'T." Arthur and Lovino both yelled in unison.

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And thus the ending is drawing closer. :3 Sorry about the repetitive talking for those of you reading both Lovino Style and British Style. =w=; I tried to change words around here and there so it wasn't as repetitive. Anyway, leave me a review~ Next chapter is gonna be slightly… ._.; *doesn't know how to describe it* slightly…eh. I'll try and make it as cheerful as I can. Let's go with that. XD