Chapter 4

"Acquaintances"

Raindrops tarnished the tarmac, dirty water prying its way into whatever cracks were available. Once again, Arthur Kirkland was late. He was supposed to have arrived at the dorm ten minutes ago. If it weren't for that encounter he would have reached room 103 ages ago, but now, for the third time that day, he had to deal with the sheer embarrassment of tardiness. The third time in his life, and most likely not his last, either.

He had little information about who he was to be sharing the place with, one of his mother's mysterious 'friends of a friend' apparently had a son around his age who quite fancied the idea of a roommate. It was too big of a coincidence in Arthur's opinion, but he was in no position to question it. Most of the other people he had been through to secure himself a room found his personality…disagreeable. He glanced at the metal plate attached to the building he was now outside. It looked fairly familiar, so he assumed this was the place his mother had insisted on sending him a photograph of, since his poor sense of direction was more than notorious. He entered, heaving the glass-panelled door just enough for him to slip through. Everything was simple, a mixture of white and grey. The only source of illumination was a flickering bulb overhead, repeatedly smacked into by moths.

Arthur peered to his left to scan a large, metallic plate until he finally reached what he was searching for: the line reading Rooms 92-105 – third floor in block capitals. Now all that stood between him and a well-deserved rest were an out-of-order lift and a mountainous set of stairs that took him slightly over five minutes to scale. He knew that it probably wouldn't be the best of first impressions to arrive at the door doubled over and panting from a simple flight of steps, but before he knew it, he had already knocked at the cheap, flimsy door, and was now awaiting his judgement.

And then he knocked again.

Silence.

Just as he was about to begin calling out every curse under the sun, a familiar timid voice spoke up behind him.

"Ah… Arthur-san…"

"Oh, Kiku…" He turned to face the smaller man. "Say, do you live in this block also?"

"Hai. I take it your roommate is running late?"

"Oh, no. I find standing in the middle of corridors sodden wet therapeutic." He attempted a grim smile. The other endeavoured to mimic it, though with a considerable amount of awkwardness about it.

"Well… You might be at it for a while. I have overheard that the owner is still preparing the place, but you are more than welcome to wait in mine and Alfred-san's living room…" Each sentence was spoken in an uneasy tone, as though he felt his words to be offensive in some shape or form.

"May I? Sorry to cause an inconvenience."

"Is it not English tradition to be hospitable to your neighbour? I am sure that I read that in a textbook the other day." He guided Arthur to the door directly across the hall from his own (or what would be once his roommate finally decided to show up), and opened it to reveal a familiar American sprawled across the sofa and guzzling ice cream in a similar fashion to a man whose life depended on it. It seems only one glance informed him of what was going on.

"Dude, is this like, the crappiest day for you or what?" He paused the TV, previously showing Buffy the Vampire Slayer, simply for the sake of laughing at him.

"As charming as listening to you snorting for a good ten minutes must be for yourself, I for one fail to see the joy in it." Arthur unceremoniously flopped down into the most neglected-looking chair in sight.

"My pad, my rules, man; sucks for you, don't it? Hey, Keeks, why'd you let him in anyway?"

The Japanese man murmured something incoherent about respect and family honour before excusing himself to the other room as soon as possible. He could probably sense the oncoming storm.

"So, whilst we're on the subject of 'your pad', how exactly did you get a place here to begin with? I had always assumed that to attend University one must be in possession of a brain. The last time we spoke in sixth form you couldn't tell the difference between multiplication and division."

"So what, man? Numbers are boring as hell, like, what do they even do?" The bubbly American quirked his brow before returning to his show, signifying they take a breather from the conversation. Or, in this case, they take an hour and a half out in which Arthur paid witness to a plethora of frankly irritating accents and, in his eyes, a legendary amount of inaccuracies. The only way he was drawn out of his age-long speech regarding the true capabilities of demons was when Kiku came in to mention that he heard somebody unlock the door across the corridor.

The clock now read 7:30 pm, and if he didn't get his cup of tea soon he would most likely go insane (unfortunately, they only had coffee here, which Arthur had declined on the unspoken grounds that he considered the stuff to be poison).

So, he sprung to his feet, made an incredibly curt farewell (he would have to apologise for that later), and rapped upon the door.

Once.

Twice.

Thrice.

His impatience was getting the better of him. Every ten seconds felt a hundred times longer, and he was just about fit to collapse. After what seemed like an age, he finally heard a faint, resigned voice advancing toward the other side of the door.

"You know, there is this quality called patience, and nobody seems to possess it here on this wet little island…" The lock clicked open. For a second, Arthur thought the voice sounded somewhat…French. No. He'd had a long day, and was simply imagining things. Yes.

Including the appearance of that damned pervert from before.

And the fact that he seemed to be just as surprised as Arthur was.

By now he had reached two conclusions. The first was that every aspect of reality decided to do him up the arse there and then for a laugh; the second was that he had died from hypothermia outside in the rain and what he was going through were his last few moments of brain activity manifested into his worst nightmare. The latter seemed most pleasant.

Unsurprisingly, Francis was the first one to break the stunned silence. "So you have decided to change your mind? That is very sweet of you, but how exactly did you get my address…?" Lord, the frog probably thought he was one of those stalker types, didn't he? He had to redeem this situation. And quickly.

"You wish," He scoffed, "Unfortunately for both parties, I'm here for the vacancy." He dug inside his breast pocket, producing a note with the address. "Now, you have ten seconds to either tell me this is a joke, or that I have entirely the wrong room and have crossed over into hell itself."

"Non… Not at all. I am just as confused as you are…" Had Francis heard that correctly? He was to be spending the foreseeable future living beside the one he had taken it upon himself to woo? Just like that? His lip quirked upward ever so slightly.

"As if. You probably orchestrated this, didn't you? I'm not so gullible as to believe it was a coincidence."

"You do not trust me? Cher, my heart bleeds!" He swept the back of his hand across his forehead in a dramatic flourish.

"Are you even trying to take this seriously? Next thing I know your band of idiots will leap out from under the stairs and officially proclaim this to be the biggest cock-up of the century!"

"You do not have to be so uptight about it… It is just for the time being, oui?" Well, they'd probably be stuck with this predicament until either one of them graduated, but there was nothing wrong with stretching the truth a bit to sever the argument's progression. "Anyway, are you going to come in? I cannot imagine the floor outside would be very comfortable, no matter how determined you are to avoid the gorgeousness that is moi."

"Come off it. I'll come in, but don't even begin to think this means anything." Arthur grumbled, practically shoving Francis aside to get in and begin his search for the kettle.

"In France we say merci when somebody has done them a kindness, do you not have that here?" Despite the situation, he smiled, shutting the door behind the brit.

"Yes, we do, but we don't tend to use it for insufferable bastards, in case you haven't already assumed." He opened every wooden drawer he came across in the small corner acting as a kitchen, finding nothing but spices he hadn't even heard of before and pretentiously named ingredients for a plethora of French dishes. The closest thing that frog had to caffeine was an espresso machine.

"So much for the etiquette of the English." He chuckled. "Back in France, even the gang members were more gentlemanly than the best of you."

"Well, I'm terribly sorry if you were expecting everyone to prance around in full suits and bowler hats, but reality isn't so kind."

"What about you? Who wears a dress suit to university, cher?" Francis sauntered over and sat upon the counter so that he was positioned beside the brit. "Anyone else would think that you are a secret agent sent to complain about everything."

"On top of that being the worst Bond film idea on the planet, one would also have to be an idiot to reach that conclusion in the first place. Perhaps you could make friends with the American across the hall, since you both seem to be unequivocal halfwits."

"If words could slay, you would be a serial killer, you know that?" Much to Arthur's chagrin, Francis leant over to ruffle his hair, though near the end it seemed more like he was trying to style it. The Briton ducked before he could finish whatever it was he was doing.

"Yes, this so happens to be one of those days that I regret they can't." He pinched the bridge of his nose.

How on earth was this going to work?

Plot twist! The fluff only gets stronger from here. It will consume your life as it has done with mine.