Chapter Nine:
If there was one thing that Ludwig struggled with, it was English class. But he supposed it was like that for a lot of the students – the place was very diverse culturally, so he wasn't the only person about who didn't speak English as a first language. Let alone American.
What exactly was a Sloppy-Joe?
Who was Joe? And why, he wondered, was this Joe so sloppy?
There were so many unanswered questions, but for the moment Ludwig was just trying to fill out the ones on the sheet in front of him.
Question: Give two examples of an oxymoron.
Ludwig was baffled. Firstly, that wasn't a question, it was an order. Seriously though, he'd done harder stuff than this, but for some reason the logical part of his brain just wasn't working right now. It could have had something to do with the fact that his brother was clearly back to his old habits, it could have been that he forgot to take the tag off his new pants and was getting a rash (he would have to go to the bathroom soon, for sure. He didn't want this to look like herpes or something – Gilbert would pick on him for hours), or, finally, it could have had something to do with the fact that the whole class was in uproar.
"WHAT!? You don't think that something happened to that Spanish guy, do you? He's so amazing on the field – why would anybody try to hurt him?" somebody gasped down the back.
An Asian kid with a strange little curl piped up, "No! They didn't try and 'hurt' him – apparently it was rape!" He then went back to drawing naked anime styled characters over his assessment.
"Somebody raped Antonio?" Roderich, the musical prodgie from Austria asked. He never gasped like the rest, it wasn't proper.
"You are all idiots... he said it wasn't. He probably just slept with somebody!" somebody else snapped.
"Oh... eh, that's nothing new" the Korean kid didn't even look up.
"...the guy is still as thick as a brick, I don't care what he slept with, I pity it".
Lovino Vargas, sitting as close to the door as he could, slunk down in his chair. A reassuring hand placed on his arm by Feliciano.
"Ve~ relax."
Lovino snorted – that was easy for Feliciano to say, the only time he had ever been 'stressed' was when he couldn't find any pasta in the house.
Back at the front of the room Ludwig sighed. Weren't there better things to discuss? He could write a list in his head just about, mind you, he didn't actually know what the topics involved per se – he just knew that people talked about them. Like Gossip Girl which was apparently a television show, as was something called True Blood (but he thought that sounded far too strange to investigate). And there was also some sort of phenomenon going on called Shuffling – all those Asian kids were into it.
"Silence!" boomed the teacher, looming somewhere before Ludwig. The class fell back into silence, heads down and pens scribbling away.
About time too, thought the German boy.
He let out another sigh – he was doing that an awful lot. He had reason to though, the class was ten minutes in and he'd only managed to do three questions on the sheet, this was troubling. Ludwig was a solid A student.
Even solid A students have problems though; the blonde frowned, maybe he should have taken the day off? It wasn't wise to leave Gilbert by himself, not in the state he was in. He could cause all sorts of trouble.
"Alright – we're going to work through the first five questions now. Anybody up for question one?" the teacher suddenly announced, making the class jump.
Ludwig tried to look invisible.
A light vibration in his pocket sending a jolt through his lower body. It went off again, this time though, the vibrating object hit the metal leg of the desk – making that horrible noise that easily identified it as a mobile phone, placed on silent, but still with vibrate turned on.
The teacher – as well as half the class – looked over.
"S-sorry!" gasped Ludwig, pulling the phone out as quickly as he could. The teacher's smouldering glare on him the whole time.
Just as Ludwig was about to turn the mobile off, he saw the name on the screen.
It was Gil.
"..." he stared at it for a moment. The teacher made a "hmph!" noise, trying to gain the blonde's attention, but Ludwig was preoccupied.
Swallowing a lump, Ludwig hit the green call button.
"Ja?" he answered, trying to block out the slamming of the teacher's ruler on one of the desks.
"Shit, man, West... fuck I'm so sorry, I'm so so sorry. I don't know what to do, man. Like, I really don't!" Gilbert was crying, his breathing ragged and his speech broken.
Ludwig stiffened up.
"Where are you? What's wrong? Gilbert, answer me!" he said in German, faintly.
"Ludwig!" the teacher called. A dozen eyes watching what was unfolding before them.
Ludwig went on.
Gilbert kept sobbing.
"I don't know what's wrong, I've never known what's wrong – I'm just sorry, okay? I can't get over it, and every time I close my eyes, all I see is his face and how disappointed he was...and...and"
"No! Gilbert, brother, calm down please. Where are you?" Ludwig panicked.
There was the distinctive sound of a train in the back.
"GILBERT! Please, dammit, where are you!? Don't do anything stupid, please. Don't do this to me!"
"LUDWIG! Phones are forbidden in class, hang up now!"
The blonde stood up.
"DAMMIT GILBERT! Don't do this to me! I need you! PLEASE!" he could barely breath now, his stomach was so tight and his throat so clogged. This was fear.
Sobs began to quieten down on the other end – "It's okay, it's okay. I'm just going to the doctor's okay, to see if they can help me or something. I want to do this for you. I want to be clean. Be, like, even more awesome" Gilbert gave a rough laugh.
Ludwig could finally breathe again.
"Be safe".
Gil hung up.
"DETENTION!"
A ruler smacked down on Ludwig's desk, the teacher attached to it looking absolutely livid.
I should note that I don't know if ALL Asian's like shuffling… I'm just making a joke about it based on a group of Filipino's I know. They're awesome people, seriously. They all shuffle at parties – it is the most amazing thing I have ever seen in my entire life. A couple guys even did a song and dance number for one of their friends.
Why am I so dance-tarded? WHY!?
*******
IN OTHER NEWS: Syous99 WON my little game by answering RoChu (ah, do you not like RoChu? I love it, I love it so...). So, she wins a oneshot! Yay! =D
Thanks for those who played, haha, I know it's dorky – I just like doing things for laughs. And hey, if you can win something funny then why not give it a shot? I'll think of another game soon!!
EDIT: Why do I keep writing Da instead of Ja!!? Maybe it's because I have no interest in those languages... to difficult for me...