Author's note: Moral of the story- I'm a horrible human being who was hit hard by writer's block. Stuff happened, I'm going to American University (ofc I'm gonna there, I'm such a patriotic piece af) in like a week, and already stressing about loans. But that's beyond the point.
Warning 12: Apparently I still make these tags. Ah well. Anyone this chapter is going to weird, but this is me powering through, therefore one scene and much shorter than the other chapters. Everything will be explained... eventually.
Disclaimer: Nope. Don't own. Probably won't ever be rich enough to own. If I did, Hetalia would be about America's harem.
CHAPTER V: AMERICA
I stare at the book.
Valid, I'm supposed to be reading the book, but right now I couldn't focus on the words in front of me. After they took Matt… I don't know what to think.
Plus, there is no point in reading these books, they're all about history, which is a shitty read anyway. What happened in the past already happened, there is no point in remembering it. I prefer books about superheroes, thank you very much.
But that's beyond the point. I suppose I'll try evaluating this- whatever this is- like another case back in the precinct.
The situation is too complicated for it to just be a simple kidnapping- there is no clear objective, no correlation between the victims, nor is there any opening for escape. The closest guess I have is that the scientists want to perform crazy experiments on us, but there doesn't seem to be any cases of anyone having chicken wings or going bat-shit insane yet.
I try racking my head for more ideas, what would Maria, my partner -no previous partner-, have done in this situation. She would… she would talk with the others.
I look up to see Arthur and Kiku busy rifling through the books they grabbed from the library shelf.
After the cafeteria fiasco, and being told off politely to fuck off by the scientists, Arthur thought it best to drag me to the library with him and Kiku.
So sure, I should just talk to them.
One of them probably hates my guts while the other prefers not to talk at all. At least I'm guessing from the evidence found in my limited one day observation of this place.
Thinking of place, if you think about it… everyone seems to be from a different place. People from all across the world from what it seems. It's interesting that the only language everyone speaks is English.
Valid, heavily accented English. I know that English is popular language but it's still kinda weird that everyone only spoke English.
I feel like I am missing a clue… I just can't guess what.
I shake my head. I need to focus here. I look at Arthur and Kiku again, both still immersed in their own literature. Might as well ask.
I open my mouth to ask but Arthur beats me to it. "Spit it out Jones."
"How-"
He looks up and interrupts me coolly. "You haven't turned a page for the past half-hour. And you're gaping at us like a daft idiot. So just ask whatever's been bugging you."
Kiku looks up from his book too, curious of our exchange. I purse my lips and ask, "Ok so … um how's your experience here so far?"
Arthur and Kiku both give me judgemental look. Yeesh, I asked a simple question.
"What kind of question is that even?" Arthur retorts, "Our experience- is this some sort of blasted survey or something? Would you like my guest satisfaction rating to go along with it? Because it will be a 1 star review-" Kiku pats Arthur's arm before he could continue.
Kiku turns to look at me. "Alfred… what did you mean by your question?"
I rub the back of my head. "I was trying remember what Maria- my partner- would do. She was usually the one asking the questions when it came to investigations."
Arthur's thick eyebrows furrow. "Investigation? What do you mean-"
I scramble to explain, "I'm a police officer- I mean I guess I was a police officer. Maria- she was my partner on the force. Well now she's on maternity leave- not the point." I shrug helplessly. "Since we have no leads, I figured I follow our method for solving cases."
Kiku speaks up. "That is… that is an interesting route to take. Very well. How do you usually proceed?"
"First, we look at the evidence for patterns or clues of a some sort of major theme or suspect. We don't really- uh- have evidence of anything really, unless you count our experiences. Nor do we have access to any sort of information that could give us any clues other than these boring history textbooks," and those locked rooms "so comes in the second step, question the people involved, whether they're the victims, witnesses or potential suspects."
"Not that organized of a system is it," Arthur remarks.
"It works well enough." I respond coolly. He rolls his eyes.
Kiku clears his throat. "I will start," he says, giving a side-eye glance to Arthur. "My experience so far… well it has been odd. I certainly did not believe that I would kidnapped… not that I think anyone thought they would be. This is a strange place, and I cannot say that I am totally uncomfortable-"
"Well I am for sure," Arthur interrupts, "This activity is pointless. Bottomline, we were kidnapped. No explanation for why we are here, no ransom making, hell I don't think anyone is even looking for us. We are trapped in situation that does not a way out, and we cannot do anything but twiddle our thumbs and sit on our arses all day long."
"So what!" I throw up my hands."You want to give up because it's an impossible situation?"
"No! I- just- it's just-" Arthur splutters. Kiku holds up a hand, quieting Arthur.
"I believe… that we should cover all of our bases. There is no harm in trying Alfred's technique we have exhausted," he gives a pointed look at Arthur, "all of our other opportunities."
Somehow I'm guessing that one of the people who might trying defying our captors was Arthur. Won't be surprising if it's true though.
"How about we start by listing what we know?" Kiku proposed, closing his book. "Unfortunately we do not have any pen and paper to list it down for now, but I'm sure we can manage to get it later. We will take turns pointing general things until we remember something useful."
I nod. "That sounds like solid idea to me."
We both look at Arthur.
Arthur sighs and rubs his face. "Fine. Fact: we were kidnapped."
I roll my eyes. "Fact: there is no clear motive nor any ransom on us."
Kiku shakes his head as he says, "Let us take a different approach. We will go nowhere with focusing on the fact that we were kidnapped, so let us think more about who were kidnapped. So… fact: we are all from different countries."
Arthur shrugs and goes next. "Fact: we are all speaking English."
Kiku furrows his eyebrows and shakes his head. "English? I think you are mistaken. We are all speaking in Japanese."
Arthur and I give each other a look before looking back at Kiku. "Nah dude, I'm pretty sure we're speaking English," I speak up.
"But- but you said that in Japanese!" Kiku stutters, "I hear you speak Japanese!"
Arthur and I raise our eyebrows, this time Arthur speaking up, "And Alfred and I hear you speak English."
Kiku opens and closes his mouth. We sit there in silence for a bit, trying to process the information. I, for one, only know a few words of Japanese, that I learned from Akio and Mrs. Fujimoto, but nothing on the level of fluently speaking it.
I break the silence. "Sooo, at least we figured one thing out. We hear each other speaking our native language."
I look at Arthur. "In our case, it's English."
I look at Kiku. "In your case, it's Japanese. That should be a clue for something, right?"
"Clue for what though?" Arthur groans. "It's odd alright, but gives us no indication of anything!"
"I don't know! But it's a clue, and you know we need someplace to start. But we should check up with the others too, to see if it's true," I move to stand. "Most of them are gonna be in the cafeteria now, right?"
Kiku holds up his hand, stilling my movements. "Wait Alfred. Before we go to speak to anyone else, we should think this through. Have either of you been able to speak Japanese before? Because I have basic knowledge of English, but I am nowhere near fluent."
Arthur shakes his head. "Never spoke a word of Japanese in my life."
I sit back down and say, "Well I learned a couple words from my neighbor, but nothing of being able to speak it fluently."
"So this phenomenon has to have happened after we were kidnapped." Kiku states.
I tilt my head, thinking, before I ask, "Do you think it has to do with the scientists drugging us in the beginning? I remember waking up in the middle of their procedures. That was after I got kidnapped and before I woke up in our room."
Our room. Shit... when did I start thinking like that?
Arthur and Kiku look at me weirdly. "You woke up in the middle of one of their procedures?" Arthur asks, shocked.
I look at them. Is it really that weird? I suppose it kinda is, since they wanted me drugged enough to be knocked out.
"You must have a high drug tolerance," Kiku remarks.
I shrug. "Does that really matter now? Point is that this whole automatic translation thing must've been done by the scientists. I mean, how else could this have happened?"
Kiku nods. "That would make the most sense, but we cannot say it for sure. We do not have any concrete evidence."
"So we're back at square one." Arthur remarks.
I raise an eyebrow."I thought you weren't expecting anything out of this activity?" He rolls his eyes. "Plus the fact that we suddenly have the ability to understand all languages is a pretty big clue. We just don't know why yet."
"I would not say that we understand all languages, but otherwise I agree with Alfred." Kiku adds.
Arthur leans back in his chair. "So? What do you suggest now Holmes?"
I lean back too. "Hell if I know. Might as well continue, we have nothing better to do."
Kiku nods again. "I will start again," he says, with a pointed glance at the both of us. "Fact.. fact: we do not have any clear patterns connecting us."
"That's not a fact," Arthur says, raising an eyebrow, "That's more of an assumption."
Kiku shrugs. "I ran out of facts. But it is true, there is no clear pattern. Both genders are present, people from all around the world- so most ethnicities, no clear age range- albeit there are no elderly, and no one seems to know each other from before."
From before, no I've never seen them these past 5 years… but they feel familiar to me… so maybe we do know each other from before.
"But…" I speak, not meeting their eyes, "We might know each other from before. I spoke to Matt about this… but do either you remember anything before 5 years ago."
Arthur and Kiku exchange glances, shocked.
Arthur leans forward. "How do you know about that?!"
My throat closes up. "So I was right. Matt and I- we- we were talking about how we felt familiar to each other." I frown. "Which sounds kind of creepy putting in those words." I wave my hand. "But that's beyond the point. Point is that he- hell all of you feel familiar, and I've only met y'all yesterday. I- I don't know how to explain it-"
Kiku interrupts my rambling. "I understand… I have that feeling too. Of familiarity. I just do not remember why… I woke up in a hospital in Tokyo 5 years ago with no memory, possessions nor family."
I nod frantically, "That's what happened to me too! Except I woke up in DC. Same thing with Matt, except he was probably somewhere in Canada."
Arthur nods hesitantly. "Same thing happened to me in London."
"Four people…" I mutter, "That cannot be a coincidence. I bet if we ask everyone else, they'll say the same thing."
Kiku furrows his eyebrows, thinking, before speaking up. "Could that be the clue we have been looking for then? If it turns out to be true… could it be that we were kidnapped due to losing our memory 5 years ago?"
Arthur speaks up, his face grim. "Worse… it could be that they are why we lost our memory 5 years ago."
Author's note: Can't write for shit but how about I write anywayyy.
So yeah, back to Alfie's POV, whom I much more comfortable writing.
Anywho, I may or may not be going back and edit the past chapters. I have already edited it on my doc, because I went through and ready this shitty story and realized that wow I really can't write. Ah well.
But I swear, I'll continue/finish this story.
Thank you all you beautiful souls that Read/Favorited/Followed/Reviewed
And please Fav/Follow/Rev ^.^
-acrazyfangirl4
