A/N: Thanks for all of the reads and the reviews! Especially from SilverTrain ! Your fic 'Atlantis is AWESOME!
The auditorium was filled to the brim with people screaming their hearts out for the band on stage. There was Arthur playing the guitar, Yong Soo was on the drums…
But this set-up was different because Alfred was singing on-stage with a young, Lithuanian man playing the violin next to him.
"Keep up the pace…" Alfred sang, the Lithuanian next to him doing just that. "This was not the case… I never loved you…"
"What?" The brunette yelped, eyes filling with tears. Alfred only mouthed the word 'sorry' before continuing,
"You're such a whiny spaz… Please get over yourself…" Alfred slowly stopped singing, letting Arthur and Yong Soo take over…
Until he saw Ivan walking through the crowd below. But he seemed like he wasn't part of the scene surrounding him as he held a vase of tulips and read off of a delivery card. Alfred shook his head once, twice, before he whispered,
"I must be dreaming." Ivan heard him and looked straight at the blonde, replying,
"So there is some intelligence in your head. Good for you."
Inside of the messy, studio-apartment Alfred called home, the blonde was currently trying to get some sleep.
Then the door burst open, Kiku slurring, "Guess who got drunk and laid?" Alfred groaned,
"I guess Kiku?"
"You guess right!" Kiku smiled, throwing his keys so they hit Alfred in the head before he collapsed into bed. Well, Alfred wasn't getting anymore sleep. So he decided to talk out his feelings with his best friend,
"So that guy from my dreams?"
"Mm. Guy…"
"I saw him at the library!"
"Just for the sake of this conversation, can we pretend we're talking about a cute, Brazilian bikini-model?"
"Then I'm at this party and, whoa, there he is!"
"Whoa, there she is…"
"I think he's…"
"I think she's…"
"The man of my dreams."
"Oh…" Kiku sighed before frowning, "Then you should break up with your fake, college freshman girlfriend."
"I'm sorry, what?"
"Br..k… … girl…d…" Kiku mumbled as he drifted off into sleep, his fingers working on something underneath the pillow. Alfred could only try to ask what he meant, but his phone suddenly went off.
The blonde opened the device and saw that he had a text that read: 'BREAK UP WITH YOUR FAKE FRESHMAN GIRLFRIEND!'.
"How the hell do you even do that?" He asked the Japanese male, just to find him sleeping. But he didn't get a second of reprieve before said phone rang.
"You are zinking of juggling two games of 'hide ze baguette'?"
"Not even!" Alfred replied, looking around himself with a wary sense in his movements, but Francis scoffed,
"Zen break up with your fake freshman girlfriend!"
"Wait a minute, wait a minute!" Alfred shook his head, "Who told you?"
"Kiku, of course!" Alfred took a second to look back at Kiku, the black-haired man still sleeping,
"He's ain't even conscious!"
"Whatever," Francis shook his head, "You of all people should know how much it sucks to get cheated on!" Alfred really wasn't in the mood for this, so in an effort to end the conversation, he asked,
"Don't you have a job to do?"
"Oh, you are right!" Francis smirked, "I should post a mass-tweet about zis before SOPA ruins the internet ( 1 ). Au revoir!" The phone clicked off, leaving Alfred to glare at Kiku for the rest of the night.
"KIKU!"
"Nani?" Kiku sputtered as he shot up from bed, looking around just to see Alfred using his laptop. The blonde looked over, sighing,
"Good, you're awake! Mapquest dot-com, what's the address for that?" The look of sheer disbelief on Kiku's face was priceless as he answered, voice rough with tiredness and agitation,
"Mapquest dot-com?"
"I have to find the flower-shop that Ivan works at and buy something really amazing!" Alfred typed in flower shops into the search engine for their neighborhood, hoping to get an instant response when there was a chiming noise from the laptop. "Hey, someone sent me a message on Facebook!"
"It's a wonder what you can do on my laptop, Alfred-san…" Kiku groaned as he tried to go find a spare can of Red Bull so he could face this day.
"And now I'm reading it!" Alfred beamed as he opened the message link, Kiku rolling his eyes,
"I'm so happy for you…" While the Japanese male rummaged through the kitchen, Alfred skimmed through the letter, occasionally reading aloud,
"Dear Mr. Jones,
It has come to my attention that we shall be fighting soon. My name is Gilbert Beilschmidt and blah, blah, blah… Fair warning… Mano y mano… Seven evil blah…" He narrowed his eyes, whispering, "This is…"
'A duel'
"This is…"
'To the'
"This is…"
'Death'
"This is—"
"Oh my honorable ancestors, WHAT?" Kiku gritted out, tossing the now empty Red Bull can into the sink. Alfred immediately groaned,
"This is boring… I'm going to go play some Plants vs. Zombies…" ( 2 )
Kiku had a paper due in his Physics class that week, so he had to try and remember the notes he had taken in his laptop since Alfred was still searching for the flower-shop that he needed. However, after a few hours and a few paragraphs, he had to say, "Alfred-san, there have to be hundreds of flower-shops in New York, how are you going to find—"
"Found it!" Alfred shouted, grabbing his wallet and rushing towards the door… Just for Kiku to press a button on the TV remote, causing the door to slam shut and the blonde to smack into it. "Not… cool… Kiku…" Alfred muffled out since his lips were still plastered to the door.
"Not that I should have to explain this, but I will because karma would have it out for me if I didn't…" Kiku sighed, "From the sound of his name, this Braginski man is Russian."
"Um, yeah." Alfred shook his head, trying to get his balance back, "That's why he's so hot, remember?"
"Also…" Kiku sighed, "Since most Russians are of the Orthodox Christian faith, the chances of that flower shop being open are pretty much the same as you getting accepted into the NASA program anytime soon."
Alfred stood there, looking like a confused puppy as his brain tried to calculate what his roommate had just said. Kiku went back to his paper, silently counting down, "3…2…1…"
"AW FUCK!" Alfred groaned, falling to the floor as depression formed a black cloud over his body. "Why does life have to be so unfair?"
"Maybe it has something to do with the fact that you're trying to juggle two relationships?" Kiku replied, not even looking up from his work. The doorbell rang, Alfred slowly getting up to answer it, mumbling,
"Did we order take-out for breakfast?"
"Yao doesn't do morning take-out service…" Kiku stated. No sooner had he said that, the door was opened and in jumped…
"Glomp-attack!"
"Whoa!" Alfred blinked as Marjane jumped into his arms, looking around in bewilderment, "Glomp-attack…"
"One of my classmates taught that to me," Marjane explained with a smile. Alfred could only ask,
"Uh, what are you… doing here?" The Iranian girl laughed,
"Remember? You were supposed to meet me at the bus-stop two hours ago…"
"Oh yeah…" Alfred chuckled, throwing a nervous glance towards Kiku, whose hand trembled as he reached for the sword he kept over the bed.
"Ugh, the newspaper club is so boring!" Marjane was talking as she looked through the CDs in the music store, ignoring how Matthew shook his head at the two, "The music that they put on while we work is abysmal!"
"That sucks…" Alfred replied, his attention everywhere else but the conversation.
"So my friend Jessie broke up with Sally," Marjane spoke on as she looked through the clothes in the thrift store. Alfred yawned,
"Uh-huh…"
"And now he's into my other friend Beth."
"That's nice…"
They walked down the street, burgers in hand (a nice change of pace from take-out), as Marjane added, "But now Sally is claiming that she has the right to date Jessie since they were together first!"
"I'm telling ya…" Alfred whistled, looking at the time on his phone.
Alfred groaned as his character died on screen for the fifth time in a row, Marjane giggling beside him as she spawned him back to life. They were playing a new game: one that had Alfred playing as a soldier and Marjane playing as a sword-wielding belly-dancer.
After a while, the game announced "Solo-round!"
"Uh-oh." Marjane whispered as the game shifted to Alfred's character. Out of the shadows, a pitch-black copy of the soldier appeared, the game stating "New Foe: The Black Soldier!"
"Fuck, I can never beat this guy…" Alfred frowned as he tried to get a hand on the controller. Immediately the Black Soldier took out a hunting knife and carved out all of his character's vital organs.
"Game over!" Marjane looked over and saw how much of a slump Alfred was in. She could only place a gentle hand on his shoulder and smile,
"Don't beat yourself up over it. Here," She grabbed her purse, rummaging for anymore change, "Do you want to keep going?"
"Uh…" The blonde gulped. For his mind, that question had taken on an entirely different meaning. Did he want to keep leading this girl on? It was obvious that he didn't have any feelings for her, but he didn't want to have to be the one who said 'let's break up'. "I think…"
"10… 9… 8…" The game counted down.
"I think we should… Um…"
"3…2…1…"
Later that evening, inside Arthur's condo, Alfred was humming along to some lyrics that his dad had written out; trying to memorize them. Yong Soo sat on the windowsill, watching the snow pile up outside as he absentmindedly tapped a drumstick on his shoe.
It was a slow, lazy night… At least until Arthur walked in through the door, snow covering his coat, and announced, "Alright lads, time to get your game-faces on!" Alfred and Yong Soo only blinked at the Englishman's statement before he clarified, "I got us a gig!"
"Oh my God!" Marjane gasped, rushing over and knocking Miguel out of the way before asking, stars in her eyes, "When? WHERE?" Arthur looked at the girl's wide-eyed state for a while before he stated,
"Wednesday… At the Blitzkrieg Alehouse. But better than that is the fact that it's the entry night for the NYIBB." Miguel whistled at that, Marjane gasping,
"The New York International Battle of the Bands?"
"That's right little lady," Arthur smiled, ruffling the Iranian's hair, "I was at work at the university and a colleague of mine asked 'hey, do you know anyone in a band?' and I said 'but of course: I'm in a band!' and he said 'you're in a band?' and I said 'I am totally in a band!'"
"Great story bro," Yong Soo commented, "Needs more ponies."
"What's the prize?" Miguel asked as he finally got to sit down, Arthur smirking,
"Only the best thing to ever happen to this band." Alfred could only laugh,
"You getting laid?" His face was instantly acquainted with a copy of Oliver Twist, Arthur gritting out,
"Who I share intimacies with is none of your business!" He quickly shook off his anger before he began again, "The prize is a record-deal with M-Candy."
"Who's that again?" Alfred asked, thinking that he had heard that name somewhere before… But Marjane could only look at him like he was crazy,
"You don't know?"
"They're only the hottest Indie-music producer in the world Alfred!" Arthur explained, "If we win this, it won't just be Marjane wearing Merlin's Aphrodisiac merchandise…" He was referring to the potion-bottle earrings that the girl was wearing, "It'll be the popular kids too." As soon as Arthur left, Marjane jumped into Alfred's lap and spoke up,
"I promise that I'll put a hold on my cramming so I can be there!"
"Don't sweat it," Alfred smiled, patting the girl's back, "If you can't make, it's perfectly fine. I mean, we totally kind of suck something fierce. We're not worth it."
"Damn it Yankee!" Han Soo stormed over, "She's our biggest fan!" After the Korean's outburst, the sound of tears could be heard. Everyone turned to see Miguel's eyes tearing up before he rushed out of the room, "No, wait!" Yong Soo shook off his darker half before rushing after the Mexican, "Other than you Miguel! Other than you!" Marjane turned towards Arthur, asking, "Who are you battling against?"
"Naomi and the Boys." The gentleman stated, strumming on his guitar. Alfred groaned,
"What? You mean that one band with Naomi? And those boys? I hate them!" The blonde youth grumbled in his seat, Marjane still sitting on his lap, until he stated, "I have to take a piss.", and gently pushed the girl away before walking to the bathroom.
A/N:
( 1 ) Everyone knows about SOPA right? Okay, moving on…
( 2 ) This game is so addicting, I swear…