Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia

Chapter 2

Roderick's store was not too far from the hospital, but the man's house where he kept the spare key was. Due to this, it was already well into the afternoon when Arthur finally reached the small store in the busy shopping district. He rolled his eyes slightly at the store's interior as he began to look around. It was a music store, carefully filled with beautiful instruments and with a grand piano proudly placed in the center. From seeing the well-loved merchandize along with their outlandish prices, Arthur could only assume that this was one of those stores which the owner used as more of a display place for his collection. It also made him wonder if this was the store where people complained about being critiqued and yelled at if they so much as touched the instruments.

A beautiful violin caught his attention, causing him to momentarily reach up to it and feel the polished wood body with his index finger, only to quickly pull his hand away when he heard a noise from in back. Arthur assumed that Roderick was not the kind of person who would trust the instruments with any employees, so then who was in the back of the store?

Quietly and carefully, Arthur crept to the door leading in back and looked into the room. It was a relatively small room, filled with instruments, spare parts and tools for care. Lounging in the middle of the room, floating as if that was the only way to relax, was a figure playing with a flute. The figure was a younger man, with pale skin, white hair, and deep red eyes. He paid no notice to Arthur as he carelessly dropped the flute in favor of an electric guitar.

"Gilbert, what the bloody hell are you doing here?" Arthur called out before Gilbert could find an amp for the guitar.

Gilbert looked at the other for a moment, only to then smirk and say, "Hey, guess who came back."

Arthur scowled and looked at the man. The man was actually a ghost, one who Arthur had met on countless occasions and tried often to send in back to whatever afterlife he deserved. The issue was that Gilbert seemed to always find his way out and back to the land of the living; and always back to the same city and the same neighborhood where Arthur spent most of his time. Gilbert would say that it was because the afterlife was too unawesome for him and the beer was awful. So instead he would come here and play poltergeist until he was sent back again.

"So I see, but what are you doing here?" Arthur asked as he picked the flute up.

"Never got to come in here before, that prissy owner would always give me a headache; and I don't even have a head anymore to hurt," Gilbert answered before saying, "Guy had what was coming to him too. Didn't need him trying to get rid of me."

"Wait, you know what happened? When did you hear about it?" Arthur asked while quickly looking through the file only to suddenly stop and say, "You saw what happened, didn't you."

"The awesome me sees all, especially since I have nothing better to do," Gilbert answered.

"You mind telling me what happened," Arthur asked slightly annoyed at the ring-a-round.

Gilbert thought a little bit for a moment before smiling and explaining, "Well I was hanging around when I noticed that guy was leaving his shop but was being followed. It would kind of weird since I don't know who would want to follow the unawesome prick and it made me curious. Nothing weird or awesome happened for a while, however, so I was going to leave when I heard him call out."

At this point Gilbert continued in as girly a voice as he could, "Help! Help! The girly and unawesome me it being attacked! Help! Uh…," the ghost than went back to talking normal, "at that point the attacker bit into him and the guy fainted. Shortly after that the attacker left and left the other there when something howled."

"Was anyone else around?" Arthur asked.

"Nope, just the awesome me. It was pretty late when the attack happened and the other stores were closed," Gilbert explained.

"Why didn't you help?" Arthur asked.

In response, Gilbert revealed that he had nothing in his pockets and said, "Don't have a phone and lifting people is a lot harder than a guitar. Besides, I don't like the guy."

Arthur rolled his eyes at the ghost before asking, "Did you see who hurt him?"

"Ya, some real weirdo. Was walking around naked and had ears and a tail. Then when he ran off he sort of vanished and the only thing in the street was a big, yellow dog," Gilbert answered.

"A dog?" Arthur asked for clarification.

"Ya, a really big one. If it wasn't for the color I'd have thought it was a wolf," Gilbert said, stretching his arms in a way to show how big it was.

Arthur thought for another moment, paling slightly at what he was thinking before asking, "By any chance, was the weird guy a blond?"

Gilbert nodded in response, causing Arthur to nod solemnly. Arthur than looked up to see that it was getting late, and if it was like he thought then he would want to ask some of his associates for help. With this in mind, Arthur thanked Gilbert and started to head on his way.

First he headed back to his house, the sun setting as he went to unlock the door only to find it open. At first he was surprised, but then the smiled slightly and called out, "Peter, you here?"

Walking deeper into his house, Arthur saw a boy standing in the hallway. The boy's name was Peter, and he was a street kid that Arthur tended to look after. He was a good boy when he wanted to be, but like most young boys he liked to not behave.

"The key," Arthur asked the boy as he walked passed, knowing that the boy had most likely taken a spare key from before to get in. Arthur looked around the boy as he was reluctantly given the key, noticing that something seemed off with his study. Following this notion, he walked into the small study and to his desk, Peter following him.

"So where were you earlier?" Peter asked as Arthur inspected around the desk, smirking to himself when he noticed that someone had tampered with the lock on the door for his wizard-appliances.

"I was out on a case. Mind showing me your pockets," Arthur answered.

"Why?" Peter asked, only to have his pocket's objects forcibly taken out by the adult. In his pocket was a small bottle of ink with little, silver flecks inside. In his defense, Peter said, "I don't know how that got in there, it must have just magic-ed itself there."

"Sure, I see, now how about you put it back in the drawer," Arthur said, placing it carefully by the rest of the contents; watching Peter's upset face.

"What are you going to do now?" Peter asked.

"I need to go out and talk to my associates for the case," Arthur answered warily, only to then continue, "You should stay out of trouble in the mean time. And if you see any dogs tonight stay away from them."

"Why?" Peter asked confused. Like a lot of other boys, if he saw a stray dog he would need to investigate. And he had investigated many dogs in the past so why stop now.

"Just, because. There is a bad dog on the loose," Arthur answered. Peter seemed to think about this for a moment before agreeing, deciding to instead play with a new friend of his."

With this decided, Arthur and Peter left the house, Arthur locked the door as they left. They then parted ways with Peter running off to who knew where and Arthur heading to a special bar where he knew he could find advice.

As always, please review~