The not-argument in Arthur's office stretches over a week, and neither of them try and find each other over the days. Gilbert does try and stay out of trouble though, but it constantly finds him; nothing too awful, but enough, when he's finished his week and finds Elizaveta, to merit a frying pan to the head.
She stays at Hetalia Girls' School, across the road, fenced away by iron and brick. It's hard to integrate, despite the near proximity – it's ruled with an iron fist by the Egyptian head, and only her deputy can sway her from her normally stern disposition. They're formidable, and as Lovino had said once, with a glare, they have Prinicipal Vargas, certifiably, definitely whipped.
Elizaveta looks as if she's in training already.
Out of all the girls he knows, Gilbert would say that Elizaveta has the most spirit, but then again, his knowledge is limited, extended only to a Ukrainian and a Belarusian who weren't exactly functioning pillars of society. She's certainly got character and a beauty that cannot be seen in just looks. She has a shade of hair that wavers between blonde and brown and her eyes are a deep green, like the trees in a forest he visited when he was younger, abundant with leaves, and a voice that's pleasant to the ears. Her moods, though volatile, are often provoked for a good reason, and, he thinks, lifting a hand to his aching head as she lowers the cooking implement, he just can't seem to ever satisfy her. He likes to think that the perpetual physical abuse is just a way of showing affection, but the more sceptical part of him doubts it.
"You," she proclaims, slinging the pan over her shoulder, unruffled by the sudden exercise, "Are an absolute brain-dead specimen of an idiot."
"I'm sure there's a tautology in that somewhere," he bemoans. "I know. You've only been telling me since I was five." His not-quite-friend breaks into a razor sharp smile at the comment, clapping him on the back as he staggers to his feet, head reeling. A dull ache has formed in the area, throbbing with every step he takes to their destination, and he can't help but think how strange they look, a girl with a frying pan and a boy with more than a few injuries, hobbling to the entrance of the ice cream parlour.
It's a school run business; immensely popular, that much he knows, judging by the swarm of pupils who cram into it every day after school, and one of the best meeting spots for both schools. Nobody takes much notice of them as they shuffle in, too preoccupied with their own small clusters, chattering excitedly about the events of the school week, and they pick out an empty seat – or empty, since the previous occupants had vacated it as soon as they saw the pair travel towards them.
They're by the window, and after placing their orders with a blonde who looks entirely too happy to be doing such a job, he takes the opportunity of examining his aggrieved area in the gleaming surface of the window. It's starting to create a bruise, and the discolouration stands out on his pale scalp, and even more amongst his hairs, as fine and white as they are. His blood red eyes stare at him from their position on the glass, and he sticks his tongue out in a fit of childish whim, oblivious to the disapproving stare of Elizaveta, who has taken to an entirely more dignified manner of waiting, namely, sitting with near perfect posture, pan at the ready for any misdemeanour. He's not sure how it manages to get lugged around as frequently as it does; the last time he'd asked that, he'd only been responded to with a casual wave of said utensil. However she does it, it's frankly, extremely creepy a lot of the time, although her ninja skills are fiercely contested by Kiku Honda, whose camera is almost as opportunistic as her frying pan.
In the window, his reflection frowns, and he rubs at the wrinkles on his forehead, eyeing himself with an assessing glance. Nobody knows where he'd inherited his genes – he's built for speed, rather than complete strength, and his odd hair and eyes don't bear any familial resemblance. According to his father, there'd even been doubts about his parentage when he was younger, although that was disproven when, to his surprise and delight, they found he'd inherited the same penchant for beer and football that seemed to dominate the family.
Somebody even once claimed he had crawled from one of the pits of hell himself, and his red irises were the two pieces of scorching coal which he'd slotted in before assimilating himself into human society. Rumours like that didn't bother him in the way they were meant to – or at least Elizaveta and Arthur would certainly say so. If it was even possible, he seemed to perpetuate the rumours; after all, as he would say, when asked with incredulity, it kept him in a steady supply of pocket money and had consolidated his position as a man of mystery. It was mostly the money part which appealed to him – it had helped him pay back the large debts he owed to both Francis and Alfred after making an inaccurate bet at the last House Tournament, and when he was really impecunious, despite his efforts, there was a big chance he could get a younger student to cough up money simply by smiling at them.
"Doesn't it ever bother you?" he'd been asked once, aeons ago, and he remembered shrugging off the comment, despite the pangs of guilt that he occasionally felt. A year of boarding school in Russia had quickly dispelled any morality he had attached to that and he pitied anyone who thought he might have altered during his leave. Russia had hardened him, brought out some of the ugliest aspects of life he hadn't known about before, and it had stuck with him, a cool hard sharp thing that had embedded itself like shrapnel, cushioned in the flesh of his skin.
"I was saying," Elizaveta speaks, bringing him back to the present with a jolt, her green eyes wide and inquiring, "Were you listening?"
"No!"
"Ugh," she rolls her eyes, but it's in a fondness that would be difficult to discern simply from a brief acquaintance. It's layered, with years of knowledge and subtlety that somehow manage to work their way into the whole word. "I was telling you about the radio station which they could be dropping. Nobody's interested in it anymore, at least, not the students, and that was what it was meant to be."
"I'm not surprised," Gilbert sniggers, earning a few reprimanding glares from the less loud patrons of the enterprise. "They keep playing the same kind of shit music which repeats itself after an hour. There's no variety. I mean, who listens to that crap anyway?"
"You're surprisingly vocal on something which you don't claim to be interested in," Elizaveta is appraising him in a way that reminds him of a dissection in science; and he's on the end of the scalpel. "I take it you think you could do a better job?"
"It's meant to be for students and there's a certain amount of stuff on there that isn't aimed at them at all. Of course I could do a better job!"
"In fact, they're thinking of closing it down at the end of the next council meeting. The one at the end of the year."
"You don't need to do plot exposition for me Liz, I already know this stuff."
"Oh good," and it's at that moment that he realises that he's probably given an answer to a question that she hasn't asked. She's good at things like that – getting people to agree on things that they normally don't, and it's probably the reason why she's so influential at her school. Sometimes he wonders why she even bothers to try and be his therapist, when she's already got a hundred other students in arm distance. He often entertains the idea that it's because he intentionally makes things difficult – for one thing, makes it more awesome, and promptly waves it away, focusing instead on the ice cream which has appeared in front of him. Unlike his companion, who appears to have gone for the healthy, fruit salad option, his own order sits in front of him, a mountain of maple syrup, whipped cream, pecan nuts and vanilla ice cream. A cone wafer is perched at the top, stuck in like the flag of some explorer who has just conquered a high altitude, and he chooses that to crunch into first, the sound satisfactorily noisy enough to merit yet another batch of scathing stares. She watches him with a small, unreadable smile. "You do that on purpose, don't you?"
"I've got get kicks from somewhere," he shrugs, demolishing the final crumb with vim, "I'm sure as – well, pretty sure I'm not turning to drugs for that. I'm not that desperate."
"Instead you sit in a café getting a high out of crunching noisy food. What an adventurous life you lead."
"Hey, sarcasm is unawesome. Stop it."
"I'm sure," she mimics him with an astonishing likeness, arms folded, deepening her voice with worrying ease, "You used a non-existent word." The sun is bright, and pools on the plastic of their table, and she places a hand on top of it, letting out a sound of satisfaction. The heat warms her skin, welcoming and just the right side of too hot. There's something about her expression that sets him on edge, and perhaps it's the way the smile stretches, like a languorous cat, across her cheeks as she almost seems to make herself at home in the light. It shines through her hair, turning the brown to a rich beech, and she regards him with a fond, predatory glint in her eyes.
"You're planning something?" he asks, and she jerks up, broken momentarily from her gaze.
"What makes you say that?" she queries, and her voice has suddenly reached a higher pitch, which, out of many tells, starts to confirm his suspicion.
"You've got the same expression on your face when you persuaded me to drive across to the other end of the school grounds, which are fucking huge, mind you, and yell obscenities to the closest girls' dorm."
"I thought Roderich lived there."
"Exactly," There's a frisson of tension that runs through the air at the name, and for once in the conversation, it's Gilbert who seems to have the upper hand. They don't talk much about Roderich Edelstein if they can help it, in the same way that Gilbert will almost never ever talk about either Fritz, or Russia. They're a little too close to be left in the past at the moment, and one of the no-go areas, which he has to navigate dangerously around is that particular topic. They've never agreed on the subject of the Austrian, and probably never will. "I ended up with suspension because of that."
"I didn't make you do it," she leaps to her own defence, "I just suggested it to you." There's another flash of a mischievous smile, the sort she used to give in abundance, and he wonders whether he should tell her that it's when she looks most beautiful, with hair in disarray, an animated face, and eyes as bright and as lively as the day he met her.
She'd been caked in mud then, full of scratches from thorns and her clothes smeared in dirt, short clad legs thigh deep in earth, and Gilbert had thought she was a forest spirit who'd been sent to claw out his eyes. (Instead, for a few brief months when they were older, she'd clawed out his heart, and it had never been quite the same again.) When she coughs, it's only then he realises he's been staring, and they both break eye contact, blushes rising on both their cheeks.
"We already gave it a go," she recalls with a firm, gentle voice, eyes still averted, gazing at the occupants of the café instead with avid interest. "Remember?"
"If it wasn't for Roderich…"
"It was us. I was hung up on him, and he still liked me -"
"He gave you a shit excuse for the breakup, you mean."
"- and well, there was you and, well…by the time I'd stopped being infatuated with you, you'd started and…"
You were always too late in catching up with things, is what she doesn't say, but the message is clear, and he's well aware of the fact. Instead of pursuing the line of conversation, he pays particular attention to his food, as he normally does. It tastes delicious, as it should, but there's something rather unsatisfactory about it after such a conversation.
"Remember when we broke up?" he says casually, because he has to be a jerk, at least once a day, and at the moment, he doesn't particularly care who he inflicts it on, even if it's on her. "I remember our conversation going something like this." He watches with a detached concern as her fingers tighten round the spoon. It trembles in her grip, and when she lifts her eyes up to meet him, she's quivering, as if she's a bowstring, stretched too tightly over an overly large arrow. Her eyes are wide, like a deer in headlights and she responds.
"Yes, it was, wasn't it?"
There's the feeling of guilt that gnaws inside him as they continue the meal in silence. He presses it down.
After, all, as Arthur says, adroitly, he doesn't have friends.
"I'm sorry," the cashier says when he arrives the next week, and although his smile is wide, his eyes are hard and unforgiving, "She left, like, ten minutes ago, totally." He pushes his way out of the queues, scowling, and oblivious to other peoples' complaints.
"I didn't need to see her anyway," he shoves past two chattering students as he heads for the main door. "Like I need somebody telling me what to do. West already gives me that stuff at home." He studiously avoids looking at any reflective surface on the lonely walk back to lessons, and if he happens to pass the girls' school? He turns away, and in no way scans the dark windows for any hint of a familiar, friendly face.
I haven't updated recently yet, so I thought I'd insert this. I'm sorry for the change of tenses - I had a sudden change of heart about the tenses - thought that may happen. I'll edit it later. I swear I didn't mean to put in PruHun angst, I swear. I don't normally ship them, but it sort of managed to write itself. Gilbert is a bit of a jerk, but I'm sure he'll improve. Maybe.
I hope you enjoyed the bonus Poland at the end. He works part-time at the shop because a little extra money never goes amiss (also because no-one else seems to want to do it.) There are sometimes issues in the UK due to Polish immigrants taking jobs because of reasons a little like it. At least, from what I've understood from the news.