A/N: I love all of the positive feedback this story is getting! I promise that it'll be worth the read! Thank you all so much for your support!
.
Natalia felt as if she were going mad. For the first week of school, Alfred followed her like a puppy. If it wasn't her, it was that Laurinaitis kid. Sure, he was cute and all, but why did he have to be with one of them at all times? Didn't he have any other friends? By the time Friday came around, she nearly bit Alfred's head off when he approached her.
"Don't you have any friends other than me and that one guy?" she asked, exasperated. "Like, you're always with one of us. What can I do to get you to back down a bit? Do I need to hide in the bathroom or something?"
The spectacled boy blinked in surprise. "Good morning to you too, Natalia," he said, cocking his head to the side in confusion. "Is something wrong?"
"Did you not just fucking hear me?!" she nearly shouted at him. "Do you have selective hearing or something? What part of anything I just said gave you the impression that anything was actually going right?"
"Number 7: He has his own way of thinking, and there's no way to change that, no matter how desperately you may want to," Alfred simply stated. He smiled at Natalia as she stared at him, dumbfounded.
"What did you just say to me?" she asked, blinking at him.
"It's one of the very best things about me," he cheerfully explained. "My best friend moved across the country over the summer, and we made lists of the best things about each other. I just told you number seven on that list." He blushed, looking down at the floor. "Is that weird or something?"
"You are, without a doubt, the strangest person I have ever met," Natalia groaned back, shaking her head. "I swear to God, you are the most unpredictable person on this planet."
"That's number twelve!" Alfred excitedly exclaimed.
"Oh my God!" she shouted, slamming her head into the nearest locker. "Dude, stop!"
.
Present Day
"Wait, wait, wait," Arthur quickly interjected. "You mean to tell me that Alfred actually told you about those stupid notebooks?" He flushed with embarrassment. "Jesus Christ, he's a fucking idiot. I can't believe him." He shook his head in disbelief. "I cannot believe that idiot told you about that. He's just…" His voice trailed off. "What all did he tell you about those?"
"He didn't just tell me," Natalia stated. "Alfred showed the one he made about you to me the first time I went to his house. Up until maybe a year ago, he was still adding to it, too. But by that point, it was just sad, you know? He didn't know when to quit…"
"Number eighteen," the blond sighed. "That idiot…" He looked up at the girl across the room. "Why did he care so much about those stupid books anyway? It was just something silly we decided to do when I moved away. Sure, it helped us cope better than anything else could have at the time, but why did he hold on so strongly to it?"
"Maybe it was silly to you, but to Alfred it was everything. What part of you being his best friend did you not get? He couldn't replace you or see anyone on your level, no matter how hard he tried. It made it so hard for him to make friends. Every person he met, he would compare to you, and most people didn't like that. True, some, like Toris, would try to surpass you, but no one ever came close." Natalia clenched her fists, mentally reminding herself not to say anything more than what Alfred wanted her to. "You really piss me off, Arthur. Why couldn't you see how much you meant to him?"
"Excuse me, but I have no idea what you're talking about," he interjected. Just as he was about to continue, his cell phone began to play an all-too-familiar tune. "Pardon, but I need to take this." After receiving Natalia's blessing, he quickly answered. "Hello?"
"Your mom just told me that you're on a cross-country roadtrip for the summer, and I want to know why the hell you didn't tell me anything about it!" Elizaveta Hédérváry shouted through the phone. "You didn't find it important enough to tell your fucking girlfriend about?! Remind me again why I love you, because I'm having some trouble remembering!"
"Liz, darling, I'm in the middle of something right now," he quietly said, knowing full well that Natalia had heard that entire outburst. "May I call you back this evening to explain myself once I reach my hotel?"
"You're lucky that I love you, you understand?!" she shouted. "If you don't call me tonight, you're in the fucking doghouse until further notice, got it?!" With a click she hung up.
Arthur rubbed his temples, sighing. "I'm sorry about that, Natalia," he groaned. "Elizaveta can be a bit of a headache. Where were we?" He looked up at the smirking girl across the room from him. "What?"
"You're still with her?" Natalia scoffed. "I figured you two would have broken up years ago. After all, wasn't she the key factor in the falling out between you and Al?"
He froze, staring at her, dumbfounded. "How do you know about any of that?" he slowly asked.
"Arthur, what kind of people did you think you were going to meet this summer?" she sadistically laughed. "Before you can see Al, you're going to have to meet all of his strongest confidantes. It's going to be brutal for you, especially if you're still dating that bitch. If you think of it from a gaming aspect, it's like you're going to have to fight all of the mini-bosses before getting to the main boss himself. No cheats. Just pure skill. This is what he wants."
He suddenly felt so small. How much did Natalia really know about him? The amount of information she already held was scary enough to make him want to run for the hills, but he knew he needed to see Alfred before he left. And if he needed to press on through all of his friends to reach him, he was more than willing to. After all, if he was Alfred's best friend after all of this, like Natalia had stated many times, then it was his duty to do so. He couldn't give up halfway through or at the beginning with Natalia. He was going to see this through. Arthur Kirkland was not a quitter.
"If that's so," he began, "then please proceed, Natalia. I'm listening."
.
Four Years Previous
Alfred sat in his bedroom that night, looking through his little book he had made with Arthur. The Very Best Things About Arthur. Even though they had technically finished them before the other boy moved away, Alfred kept finding more and more things to put in it. He wondered if Arthur was doing the same thing at his house.
A soft knock at his bedroom door brought his thoughts to that present moment. Amelia Jones poked her head in and smiled. "Honey, Arthur is on the phone. Would you like to speak with him?"
He jumped up from his bed and bolted down to the bottom of the staircase. His family had a small corded home phone plugged into the wall, so he would have to sit in the chair next to it or even on the floor to talk to him, but it was worth it. After all, whenever he heard Arthur over the phone, all he needed to do was shut his eyes, and it felt as if he were still there.
"Hey!" he energetically greeted, picking the phone up off of the chair, replacing it with himself. "How was your first week of high school, Arthur?"
"Everyone in my school is an idiot, Al," the other boy simply stated, causing his friend to laugh. "Our school was definitely more advanced than this one, and people think I'm a snob because I'm smarter than them."
"That's because they don't know you yet," Alfred chirped. "Once they get to know you, they'll all come around and you'll have tons of friends, I guarantee it. You're just shy and take longer to warm up to people."
"No, I'm pretty sure they're all just idiots, Alfred."
"You're just saying that because you haven't been able to make any friends. Don't worry, Arthur. Soon, everyone at your school is going to notice the very best things about you and they'll all want to hang out with you."
Arthur sighed. "I suppose you're right," he agreed. "Why is it that you always know how to calm my anxieties?"
"Because I'm your best friend."
If only those two had known that these peaceful and fun conversations would end before too long.