N/A : I changed quite a lot of things during the translation of this chapter, but I think it's for the best. At least, I hope so.

Later that day, the North American brothers entered a merciless contest on a videogame involving rainbows, karts, a plumber and his friends. When the competition ended with Alfred's unquestionable victory, Matthew snorted and pouted for the principle, and endured his brother's nagging with a constant muttering about cheating, betrayal and secret training sessions with Japan.

A few minutes after that, they got a call to warn them their pizzas had arrived. The last shred of maturity existing in the twin nations disappeared at once, and they jumped on their feet happily in a common excited shout.

"PIZZAAAAA !"

One look at each other later, they were crying in laughter on the carpet. Once they calmed down, they walked out of the room to go fetch the promised food, still laughing and joking around.

Matthew waited until they were back in the room, Kuma far away from the tomato-based threats, to start chatting. The twins were sitting on the floor, with their back resting on the sofa, just like they always did when they spent those evening together. The Canadian nation started with a rather innocent topic, just as his French father had taught him decades ago.

"They're not bad" Canada stated while attaching his second slice.

"Not as good as Lovi's, but they're okay" Alfred agreed, and his remark earned him a snort from his brother.

"Please" Matthew said and rolled his eyes, "even papa aknowledges no one can top Lovi's pizzas." It was a well-known fact that the Italian brothers had opted for a neat separation of their dishes. And while North Italy was the master of pasta and tiramisù, South Italy was undisputably the specialist of pizza and gelato. No one knew exactly how they had decided who got to specialise in which field, and no one dared to ask.

"Now that I think of it" Matthew mused while looking at the boxes, "it's been a while since we had one. We should ask him soon."

"Agreed" Alfred approved immediately. "Think we can convince papa to make his chocolate-raspberry dessert again too ? It's been forever since the last time I got to taste it."

"The multi-layered one with sponge cakes and mousses and fresh fruits he made for his and dad's anniversary six years ago ?" Matthew remembered, and when Alfred nodded, Canada had to agree as well. "Wouldn't say no to that, even he admitted it was one of his best recipes. And knowing papa's creativity in the kitchen, that's saying something" the Canadian nation chuckled.

America nodded solemnly, as if it were some of the wisest words ever spoken. After another slice, the taste of a mushroom reminded him of something else that was very good he hadn't tasted in a while. "While we're at it, we should ask Yao to bring some of his bao and dim sum."

"Oh god yes" Canada stated immediately. China's food was amazing, if sometimes a bit too spicy for his taste. Fortunately, centuries of working with other nations had made him aware of this little problem and Yao was now an expert on the subject, able to adapt the spices to anyone's palate. In a way, it was similar to how Turkey had adapted some of his dishes. Thinking of said dishes made Matthew smile dreamily. "And I'd die for Sadik's pastries too."

Both brothers fell silent, and Alfred looked at the slice of pizza he was holding, as if it contained all the answers on the universe. After a few seconds of intense thinking, he grinned widely at his twin.

"Actually, all we need to do..."

Matthew understood at once, and a knowing gleam shone in his lavender eyes when he completed the sentence. "... is to crash at the next gourmet's club's session !"

They started laughing again, like they used to do when they were only children and plotting dumb shenanigans to annoy their parents and uncles. When they were almost normal children, innocent and unaware of their status. When things were simpler.

They ate in silence for the next couple of minutes, then Alfred smiled. "Papa would be so proud to see us talking about food while we're eating."

Matthew giggled. France had a habit of discussing food-related topics at every family dinner.

"I'd rather take after him on that than dad's nightmarish cooking skills" Canada said, and cringed at a particularly awful memory. "I still don't understand how he managed to burn the inside of a tenderloin and keep the outside raw."

America made a disgusted face. Sometimes he wondered how he had survived on his English father's food for years. At least, it had given him the ability to eat about anything edible on the planet, and possibly immunity to most poisons as well. Granted, as a nation, he was assured to survive any kind of poisonning, but still.

"Dad can't cook to save his life" Alfred snorted, but there was a hint of fondness in his voice. "He's lucky papa loves him so much and adores cooking and baking for him."

"True" Matthew nodded, then put back the last slice in the box and sighed. "You know, sometimes it still feels strange to see them happy together. I mean, it's obvious they're it for each other, always has been. But... when I think of all those years they spent fighting and arguing because they were convinced it was unrequited..."

"Yeah, I see what you mean" Alfred smiled sadly. "It was horrible to see them tearing each other apart and suffering, just because they were afraid and desperate. You know" Alfred added with a pained chuckle, "at some point I really thought they were trying to convince themselves that they hated the other, even when it was obvious they were in love."

Canada nodded, and looked at the window. "Looks like they're not the only ones."

"What do you mean ?" Alfred retorted immediately, and Matthew kept his face neutral, while inwardly counting it as a victory. His brother's voice was a tad too clipped, his answer a bit too stressed. Now that his brother's defenses were up, he could simply show him he had no reason to keep them in his trustworthy, innocent presence.

"Look at Lovi" the Canadian nation pointed out, and noticed how his brother relaxed immediately. "It took him more than a century to admit he was head over heels for Antonio, and that Spain's love was sincere. Same goes for Sadiq and Herakles. Or Lukas and Mathias. Or-"

"Or basically every couple outside of you and Gilbert, got it" Alfred smirked, and poked at his brother teasingly. Matthew batted his hand away, but smiled fondly. His relationship with Prussia was different than most, and one of the very few that wasn't built on centuries of wars or alliances. They were both struggling with the haunting fear of disappearing completely to the world, and slowly learning to conquer that fear with an endless amount of support and love from the only other one able to understand them.

"Every rule needs an exception" Matthew said softly. He was more than fine with being the exception once again, if it meant keeping the love story he had. However, the Canadian nation had other plans than basking in his own happiness for the evening, and he glanced at his twin. Alfred had finished eating, and put both boxes on top on the coffee table.

"Talking about relationships" Matthew started with an amused smile, "don't think I didn't notice how you became the new world's most eligible bachelor."

Alfred grinned and winked knowingly at his twin, but shrugged it off just as quickly. "I'm not even really flirting with them. It's not like they're looking at more than my ass and my new political behaviour, anyway."

"Cut the crap, Al" Matthew deadpanned with a no-nonsense look. "You're encouraging them. You want them to flirt and try to seduce you. Honestly, it's painful to watch" he ended with a face, because it was the absolute truth. Some of the attempts today had been so obvious than Matthew had needed to bury his head in his polar bear to avoid dying from second-hand embarrassment.

"Well, it's fun" America grinned. "I mean, have you heard them ? Be honest with me, do I still look so stupid that they had to rule out subtlety from the start ?"

Matthew made a joke of hesitating before giving his answer, and they both laughed at it. Inwardly, Canada pondered about his next course of action. Eventually, he settled for a direct question that wouldn't be on the exact topic he wanted to address. He needed Alfred to start opening up a bit on his actual feelings, without making him feel threatened.

"Seriously, though, why do you play along with their wooing ? I thought you didn't want to start something new so soon."

Matthew could pinpoint the very second his twin tensed, but Alfred was already too comfortable to perfectly hide his emotions, and to someone who had known him his entire life, his thoughts weren't that complicated to decipher. His brother was reluctant to talk about it, unsure how far he could trust someone else with the truth. The Canadian nation could almost identify the instant where Alfred remembered Matthew's former friendship with Russia and the risk it could be in the future. It was a gamble, and Matthew was pretty sure his brother would cave in in the end, if only because it wasn't too close to the dangerous part of the truth.

"I don't" Alfred finally admitted. "Be it for dating or fucking, I'm not interested in any of my current suitors" he said with his best British accent and a wink, before going back to serious. "I mean, don't get me wrong, Miguel, Lucia, Gabriel and Mei are fun and they'd probably be nice to hang out with, but I'm not interested in more with them. Or the others, for that matter."

"Now that's what I call progress, brother" Matthew encouraged him with a smile, his voice just balanced between playfulness and understanding. "But you're still avoiding my question. And don't give me the fun excuse again, we both know you've been doing more than just letting it happen. You're provoking it."

Alfred shot his twin an annoyed glance, to no effect. "You're too observant, bro."

"Isn't that why we make such a good pair ?" Matthew replied right back, and a flame came back in his twin's eyes. It was sort of a low blow, but reminding Alfred of their complementarity always made the American's resolve crumble. Because they were two. Because they had always been together. Because no matter what, they had each other's back.

It took a few seconds of obvious inward battle with himself, but Alfred eventually sighed loudly and ran a hand through his hair.

"Fine. But don't tell anyone, okay ?"

"Did I ever betrayed your trust, brother ?" Matthew retorted and arched an eyebrow, and tried not to wince inwardly. It's not like he would tell Ivan anything that could put his brother in danger again, and Canada had already planned to only ever use the information he would get to ensure his twin's happiness, but it was still painful to think about his delicate situation. He was walking on a very thin moral line, and not falling on one side or another was going to be extremely delicate.

Alfred's grateful look didn't help him one bit.

"The night I blew up everyone" America started calmly, even if he was not nearly as relaxed as he pretended to be, "as you know, Ivan stopped by and we talked."

"I remember" Matthew nodded, and tried to hide the fact that he already knew what had happened during said conversation. He needed his brother's version of the night to make an objective decision.

"Well, that night, he... kind of... " Alfred stopped mid-sentence, bit his lips, and exhaled loudly. "He admitted he had fallen for me."

The Canadian nation didn't have to put much of an act to look flabbergasted by the news. Even after hearing about it by Ivan, it still sounded a bit surreal. But given the two protagonists' troubles with the general concept of romantic feelings, Matthew almost felt like he shouldn't be so surprised.

"To be honest, I had been suspecting it for a while" Alfred added while looking at the carpet, a sad derisive smile on his lips. "We kept texting after he dumped me, and some of his messages didn't add up. So I used the face-to-face time to check his biological signals as well."

Canada arched an eyebrow, unsurprised by his brother's strategy. "You checked his heart rate and pupil dilation ?"

The American nation nodded. "I also gave him the possibility to kiss me. And he did."

Matthew's eyes grew wide. That was a significantly briefer summary than Ivan's. Still, the idea that Alfred had willingly let his ennemy kiss him was strange, even if it was only to check.

"So he was saying the truth" Canada stated simply.

"Theoretically" Alfred nuanced, and his eyes took a dark undertone. "But I'm not about to only trust my gut feelings anymore where he's concerned. Ivan's good enough to force himself into creating those reactions."

At that, the Canadian nation frowned, and shifted a bit to get a better look at his brother. "Why would he do that ? He'd put himself in a disadvantaged position, with nothing to gain from it and a lot to lose."

"Unless" Alfred countered, and glared at the carpet, "he's trying to seduce me again." The way his hands came closer to his body in a protective stance didn't escape Matthew's eyes. "If he manages to make me fall in love with him with his true appearance after the fake one, I'll be humiliated and irrevocably broken."

Matthew's breath caught in his lungs. "When you say irrevocably broken..." he said softly, a bit afraid at what his brother could mean by that.

Alfred brought back his knees close to his chest, showing how vulnerable he felt. "I mean it. After what he did with Anya, I'm not even sure that I... that I can trust someone else again."

The last part was barely above a whisper, and had Matthew freeze on the spot. Canada knew, deep down, how strongly Alfred had been affected by Ivan's deception. He just hadn't expected the scars to run so deep, nor the seeds of doubt and fear to have already rooted in his heart.

All the signs had been there, and Matthew had been blind to them. Of course his brother would let other nations flirt with him so obviously. If Alfred could be certain of what they wanted from him, he wouldn't delude himself in hoping they might actually like him for who he was.

Matthew looked at his brother, and for half a heartbeat, he thought he could see a cage around him. Alfred was locking his emotions up to avoid further suffering, to avoid the bloodied pieces of his heart to be reduced to even less than what they were. It reminded Matthew way too much of Arthur, and how their dad had been close to break down when he thought no one could see him, back in the time when Francis and him were constantly fighting and trying to hurt each other the most.

Canada grabbed his polar bear, and forced himself to speak. "Al, it sounds like you're saying... like you're saying you'll never be able to fall in love again."

Alfred shot his twin a sad smile, and the extinct look in his eyes broke Matthew's heart. How could he have been so blind to his brother's pain ? No wonder Alfred was acting so viciously toward Ivan. He was like a wounded, desperate animal unable to make the suffering and fear go away, and lashed out at the one he identified as responsible for his torment. But it wouldn't help him get better.

"Is that why you're so hard on Ivan ?" Matthew asked softly.

Alfred's gaze grew colder, but his posture remained closed off. "He deserves to suffer as much as I did. That is, if he's even really feeling anything for me, which I still doubt" he snorted somberly.

Matthew's jaw dropped and his eyes widened. Surely his brother wasn't that blind.

"Are you fucking kidding me ?" Canada snapped without realising it.

The American nation looked at him in surprise, but Matthew was already talking again, fists clenched on his sides. "What you're doing is killing him from the inside ! He's dying every time you look at him and he's barely restraining himself from killing the idiots who constantly flirt with you because he can't bear the thought of losing you to someone who doesn't realise who you truly are ! He loves you, for fuck's sake !" Matthew eventually shouted.

"And how would you know that ?" Alfred shot back with a glare, his jaw tight and his shoulders tensed.

"Because I know Ivan" Canada replied icily. "I see what others don't. And when I talked with him in the corridor earlier... I don't remember seeing him in so much despair since the end of the Cold War."

The comparison seemed to shake America's thoughts, and for a fraction a second, the resolve in his eyes faltered. Matthew sighed, and looked right into his twin's blue eyes.

"Alfred, I know how cruel he was to you and how you're hurt. But nothing good will come from what you're doing now. Please, if only for your sake, stop this now. You'll never forgive him what he did to you, fine. You'll never love him back, fine. But please, please, tell him so you can both move on" Matthew pleaded, desperate to get his twin to stop the cruel and destructive spiral he was locking himself into.

"I can't do that."

Alfred's voice was clipped, iron-like, and his entire body was tense, almost trembling with barely contained emotions.

"Why ?" Matthew asked, done with playing subtle games. He couldn't let his brother lose himself in pain and revenge. He wouldn't, not when there was a simpler, safer, healthier solution right in front of him. "It would only take a minute. All you have to do is talk to Ivan, tell him you hate him, you won't forgive him, and will never love him back, and you're done !"

"You don't understand" Alfred muttered darkly, like a threat, without looking at his twin.

"Well then explain to me !"

"I can't."

"Yes you can. Tell me so I can help you."

"You can't help me with that."

"Alfred. Tell. Me." Matthew commanded icily.

"No !"

"WHY !?"

America stood up, and walked to the window, his arms crossed on his chest and his entire body trembling now. Matthew stayed on the floor for a couple of seconds, inhaled deeply to calm his anger, and rose as well. Alfred was not one to run away from a confrontation. For him to do that, it means he had reached and went beyond his limits.

Matthew walked slowly, and put a hand on his brother's shoulder.

"Alfie..." he called softly, just like when they were kids. "Tell me. Please."

Blue eyes started shining with unshed tears, and in the softest voice Matthew ever remembered his brother using, Alfred started talking.

Later, when Matthew left for his own room, he still had trouble believing what he had heard.