I am so sorry for the wait, as my laptop broke and I had to send it in for repairs. After many fights with Best Buy and customer complaints, I had to order a new laptop because they weren't going to repair mine.

Anyways enjoy!

Chapter 20

Months passed without notice. Graduation was quickly coming for the young men on the horizon, peeking over the edge as spring emerged from fall. There were simply a couple of months left in school, but none of the young men seemed concerned with any of that. In fact, only Kiku and Matthew seemed to have some remembrance to their grades, making sure that they were at least completing all projects and homework assignments, if not the least doing the bare minimum to at least graduate.

The hazy months from when fall turned to winter and winter turned to spring were anything but memorable. It was filled with time spent at their secret park, doing homework, and celebrating the holidays. The men spent most of their Thanksgiving and Christmas break spent in the park, talking, learning the history of the park and town, as well of their centaurs. Soon the young men could recite the memories of their centaurs almost as well as their own, perfect detail included.

Small gifts had even been exchanged over Christmas, despite how some of them didn't even celebrate Christmas itself. Each gift was given to the centaurs from the young men with careful thought and care. It had to be something small enough that they could have it with them, but important enough to where it showed the thought they put into the gifts.

Kiku, after seeing Herakles light up after the small cat phone charm he had, gave his centaur the most unusual gift, a small two month old kitten. It was the first time that anyone saw Herakles with as much excitement as he had then. Kiku spent a couple hours with Herakles, talking about how to care for the small animal, and names. Herakles didn't seem to care for the name, and more for how the cat simply snuggled and liked to lay on his head.

"You have to think of a name for him, Herakles," Kiku mentioned, his tone strained and tired. Herakles thought for a moment, his brows knitting together in concentration.

"Captain Cat…" he eventually said, smiling slightly at Kiku. Kiku raised one simple black eyebrow at the Greek man.

"You just made that up didn't you?"

"….No."

They didn't talk to each other for a while after that. Not because they were irritated with each other, but because nothing else needed to be said.

Antonio got a pillow, Gilbert got a stuffed chick, Yao got a sunflower from Ivan, and Ludwig got a necklace. All gifts were given with thought and care, and the only regrets came from the centaurs, who couldn't give any gifts themselves. Though the most thought out gift was from Alfred to Arthur. It was well known that Christmas didn't really treat Alfred that well, not that he didn't enjoy it, but Alfred just gives horrible gifts.

This time though, more than a month in advance for Christmas, Alfred thought of how to impress Arthur with his gift. He asked everyone, went to all sorts of stores and asked the clerks there what they recommended for Arthur, after a brief description of him, but nothing seemed right.

Alfred finally came to the perfect gift when he encountered a hole in the wall store on his way home walking from practice. Almost passing the door because it blended into the wall so much, curiosity pushed Alfred towards the door and walked inside the small shop. A bell rang that almost drowned out the rasping voice that arouse from the back of the small shop.

"Hello, how can I help you?" asked an old man, his smile strained in his last years of life. He seemed as though in his youth he would have jumped for joy that there was a customer in his shop. Now though, while his eyes still lit up, he looked as though he wouldn't be able to get up without help.

"I didn't know this was here," Alfred started out. The old man's face fell and Alfred quickly tried to rectify his words, "I'm looking for Christmas gifts for my friend."

"What does he like?" The old man asked with a cough.

"He's British?" Alfred answered like it was a question. The old man stared at Alfred, but then chuckled a bit.

"How about some classic English literature? Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the Bronte sisters, Jane Austen, and Charles Dickens?"

Alfred looked around for the first time. He was standing in the middle of a book store, the shelves coated in dust. In some places the dust was so thick, one couldn't even see through it to the title of the book. The more he thought though, the more he thought books would be perfect for Arthur.

"Those sound great, where are they?"

The old man rose with some difficulty, but quickly gathered all the works that he mentioned. Alfred saw some titles that he saw in classes or the library, but the main one he recognized was the complete tales of Sherlock Holmes.

The entire order only came out to forty seven dollars and fifty five cents. Alfred handed the old man sixty dollars and let him keep the change, figuring that the old man needed it more than he did. Alfred was right, for the old man looked about ready to cry.

The feeling he got from giving someone money was only trumped when he saw the look of curiosity, wonderment, and joy on Arthur's face when he unwrapped his gift. The other man looked completely happy, and most certainly would have started reading if Alfred wasn't there.

"Thank you Alfred," Arthur all but whispered to the young man eagerly standing in front of him.

"You like them?" Alfred asked eagerly. It was pretty obvious, but he still wanted to hear from Arthur that he was indeed happy.

"Yes, it was very thoughtful of you."

Alfred beamed for the rest of the day, while the rest of his friends were wondering why they were stuck with horrible and unthoughtful gifts. The rest of the day though was spent with joyful laughter and celebration.

Eventually though, the conversation couldn't stay so light forever. Time wore down their light conversations, each day the conversations seemed to grow tenser. Until finally they were together, and questions that had gone unanswered bubbled to the surface.

"Why can't you guys move around?" Feliciano asked suddenly, almost out of the blue. He was sitting on Ludwig's back, wrapping his arms around the German's shoulders. He felt Ludwig tense underneath him, and lightly rested his chin on his shoulder, where he could relax the centaur without leaning too much on him.

"We just can't right now," Ludwig replied back.

"'Right now'? So you might be able to if… I don't know, someone does something about it?" Ivan asked. He himself was leaning against Yao, arms crossed.

"What would we be able to do about it?" Matthew responded back.

"We could find out about some records of this place, maybe we can even find some ancient old spell books to help us out," Alfred offered.

"Spell books? Really, what are we five?" Lovino muttered. Antonio pushed Lovino lightly, letting him know that he should be nicer.

"Does it really look as though we're dealing with anything normal here?" Alfred shot back at the fiery Italian. Lovino scowled, but otherwise didn't say anything.

"I know an old bookstore, and we can all start searching the libraries at school and in town," Alfred spoke up once again.

It was unspoken up decided. Tomorrow, they would be searching for answers to their questions.