10. a red holiday

Arthur Kirkland had never been happier in his entire life.

Every day he would wake up and laugh, something he used to rarely do over holiday. Well, it was more like he never used to laugh at all before September of that year. Not even at Roma's and Feliciano's antics. It was like SPQR had changed him. It was so bloody worth it, taking all those painful exams and paying for all the books and board and everything (granted, that was mostly due to Roma's generosity). But it made him happy. The days seemed a bit brighter and the guitar sounded a bit sharper and clearer and his voice smoother and more peaceful. Everything he wrote sounded blissfully happy, very unlike the bitter compositions from before. He didn't mind. He was just so blissfully happy.

He still walked around Liverpool on a regular basis, but he often did so with a faint grin on his face. Often times he would bring a stool and his guitar and finger out popular songs out in the fresh air. He liked the air. He'd spent half his childhood in the bloody air. It gave him energy to do what he did. Some days he'd play old-school classics, like the Beatles or Michael Jackson or someone right famous like that. And then some days it was modern hits, like Adele. He really liked Adele; she had this sort of soul and power and pain in her voice, and while they might've been sad they were good. Powerful.

He vaguely remembered doing that at SPQR, too. It was sort of like a party trick, he supposed, where someone would shout out a song and if he knew it, he'd play it. Mathias and Gilbert had made kind of a big deal about it, calling it "perfect pitch" or something another. He didn't really care about it too much, not when the two of them asked him what it was like and all of that. It just was.

Aside from all of that, though, he really did miss SPQR. The dorm, the quad, the music room that was so conveniently unused, the sneaking out past curfew. The common rooms on the ground floor of all the dorms that were always so beautifully decorated in the weeks before Christmas—he had pictures of all of it in his room, along with snapshots of Mathias and Gilbo and Francis and Antonio and Bella and Alfred and everyone else.

His room was amazing. Roma had transformed the former music room in his flat into his bedroom—the advantages of having such a spacious, roomy flat—but had left the white grand piano in the room so Arthur could practise. It was extremely convenient; he could just wander over to the piano and harmonise whenever he felt like it. He kind of felt like John Lennon in Imagine, playing his great white piano while the sun streamed through the rest of the room, on the turquoise-painted walls and the plain white-sheeted bed. There wasn't much else in the room—a small bedside, a desk, a small closet for his clothes and other worldly possessions. He didn't need much to live, but it was wonderful.

He spent most of the first several weeks of summer holiday in that room, playing on that piano, until one day he decided to break out of his routine a little bit.

That day Arthur woke up to a window of streaming sunlight and warm afternoon breeze. He stretched, yawning slightly and grinned. The time read 15:00 and in that second he made a decision that he would make dinner.

Feliciano and Lovino weren't in the flat at the time, and neither was Roma; he'd gone out wearing a suit and tie and had told Arthur he was off to a meeting. He wouldn't be able to make dinner like he did normally.

Arthur rolled out of bed, put on some trousers and wandered into the kitchen. The fridge was stocked with fruits and vegetables and cheese like usual, and the pantry consisted of bread and pasta and spices. He wandered between the supplies, wondering what he ought to make.

Then he saw the pot.

.

The door opened just when Arthur had gotten the soup to a nice, steady boil. Or what he hoped was a nice, steady boil.

"Arthur?" Roma shuffled into the kitchen, looking rather sleepy. His large tanned hands were at his collar, undoing the striped tie around his neck.

"Oh, hello," said Arthur brightly, stirring the soup. "What's happening?"

"Long meetings, but it was fun, yeah," Roma said throwing his tie down on the island. His gaze travelled over to the pot. "Oh, what's this? You? Cooking? How kind of you."

"I thought I'd like to try making dinner tonight," said Arthur with a nervous laugh. "You know, because I've never really tried cooking and all…"

Roma leaned over. "What's that?" he asked, pointing to an oddly-shaped white lump bobbing suspiciously in the solution.

Arthur prodded the lump so that it disappeared back underneath the bubbling broth. "Nothing!" he said a little quickly. "Nothing, it's nothing."

Roma raised an eyebrow at the Brit. "Oh, really?" he asked.

"Y-yes!" Arthur stammered. "It's edible, I swear!"

"Nonno, Nonno!" chimed in a new voice and Feliciano flounced into the kitchen, Lovino trailing him with his usual grumpy expression. "Nonno, how did your meeting go?"

"Ah, Feliciano, ciao ciao," said Roma affectionately. "The meeting went very well; what about you?"

But the young Italian seemed more interested in what was in Arthur's pot. "Ah!" he cried happily over his shoulder. "What are you making?"

Arthur quickly covered the pot. "Uh, soup."

Feliciano's face fell slightly. "No pasta?"

"Er—I can't make pasta," said Arthur lamely.

Lovino mumbled something darkly under his breath. He was somehow very angry in the several weeks since Arthur had moved in, angrier than Arthur had seen before. In fact, when Roma left the flat, the Italian was often heard in his room, screaming various profanities in Italian (of which Arthur had learned a little bit) and stomping around angrily. It certainly didn't do much for the people that lived below them.

He retained that anger at dinner, where Arthur poured the contents of the pot into four bowls, one for each of them. They sort of sat in there, steaming, while Roma, Feliciano, and Lovino stared at it with the oddest expressions on their faces.

Arthur sat down with his own bowl. "Well?" he demanded. "Aren't you going to eat?"

Roma flushed red (much to Arthur's surprise) and fumbled awkwardly for his spoon. "Yes—yes, of course," he said hurriedly, and swallowed a mouthful of soup. Feliciano and Lovino, after exchanging awkward glances, were slightly less hasty to dig in, but they both raised their spoons to their mouths.

As soon as he could talk, Feliciano started crying. "This is horrible!" he burst out, his voice catching slightly. "I don't want to eat any more!"

Lovino stood up abruptly and immediately ran for the bathroom.

"I'm sorry, they've always been picky eaters," Roma apologized, but Arthur didn't hear them because he'd just taken a sip of the stuff he'd made and while his taste buds were relatively… open to different tastes, even he had to admit that, well, this was nasty, nasty stuff.

"Arthur, are you all right?" Roma said, and Arthur, his eyes watering from the absolutely horrible taste, shook his head. "Well, then we should just toss this into the rubbish bin and then go out to eat, all right?" The Italian stroked Arthur on the back until the Brit's eyes stopped watering.

"Thanks," Arthur muttered softly and Roma smiled.

"Well, then, let's get going, yeah?" Roma patted Arthur on the back. "Feliciano, Lovino, we're going out for Japanese! Sushi! Brush your teeth and let's go!"

Arthur's mouth dropped open. "But I've never tried—"

Roma winked. "Now's your chance. Come on."

.

The restaurant was small, but elegantly decorated, with hints of traditional Japanese rice paper screens and vases and flowers set up everywhere. Arthur, Roma, Feliciano and Lovino were seated at a rather secluded round table in the back. In front of them, there were assembled plates of raw fish wrapped up in dried seaweed paper, along with rice smeared with soy sauce and green wasabi paste, little orange balls in little piles on top of the fish—those were fish eggs, Roma told them.

Arthur looked slightly dubiously at the plates. "I don't know if I want to try any of this…"

Lovino, who was holding up a piece of white tuna to his mouth, suddenly slammed his chopsticks down angrily. "What's the point of going out for sushi if you don't fucking eat any?"

Roma shot a warning look at Lovino. "Language, Lovi," he scolded. "And you can't force him to eat anything he doesn't want to."

"Oh, really?" snarled Lovino. "What's the fairness in that?"

"Sorry?" Roma frowned, while Feliciano, on the far edge, trembled, his eyes shiny with water. (The little wanker could cry so bloody easily.)

"Do I need to remind you?" Lovino growled. "You were the one who made us he made his fucking nasty soup, which, if ou can't remember, made me vomit for ten bloody minutes!"

His voice rose above the din inside the dimly restaurant that everyone in the room turned to look and stare. Arthur could feel his face burning, while Roma still had a look of mild disappointment or mild confusion, Arthur couldn't tell.

"Lovino—" Roma said sharply, but his grandson barrelled on.

"No!" he shouted, slamming his palms on the table and standing up. "No! He always gets everything! He gets to have everyone eat his fucking nasty soup; he gets the huge room with a piano in it; he gets everything that he asks for and what do your real blood relatives get? Nothing! Jack shit!"

Roma had nothing to say, evidently, but he was as clearly shocked and dumbfounded by Lovino's outburst.

"And you!" Lovino whirled on Arthur, who froze. "You, you're just here because my sodding bastard of a grandfather"—here Roma opened his mouth to say something, maybe to protest but was cut across again by his grandson—"took pity on you and your fucking sorry excuse of a family! Why? Because you can play shit on guitar and half-carry a tune! Mediocrity and call it talent! Guess what? Talent isn't everything. So you know what, just don't even try! Don't even try you fucking bastard!"

He stood there for another split second, glaring angrily at Arthur and then turned on his heel, marching off towards the back of the restaurant.

Arthur felt his legs move as the tears tickled the back of his eyes; they carried him outside, pushing past other customers and into the warm late-July air. He stumbled on the pavement and somehow slumped into a sitting position on the curb, trying hard not to cry in public, not to cry in front of the people walking past him. It stung though, Lovino's words, and it was requiring all of his effort to hold it together. Fuck it, why was he so easily damaged? It was like at any single word of discouragement, he'd shatter as easily as a toppled china vase or as a smashed egg. And Lovino's words somehow cut especially deep because he was true; he could feel it in his gut. What else would they be, really?

"Arthur? Arthur!" Roma's large hand settled on his shoulder. "Arthur, please look at me."

Roma's fingers pushed the Brit's chin up, and Arthur was forced to look up into Roma's amber eyes, round with concern.

"Arthur," he said quietly amidst the buzz of traffic and people. "Lovino—what he said isn't true. I didn't take you in because I took pity on you and your family. I took you because I loved you and didn't want you to spend any more time in that bloody awful household. You have talent. You have talent, more than you or maybe some people around you realize. You are a brilliant, wonderful young man destined for great things, and I want to do everything I can to help you get there. All right?"

Arthur wrapped his arms around Roma. "All right," he told his mentor through the fleece jacket on Roma's stomach. "All right."

Roma squeezed back briefly. "Now, let's go back there and have ourselves some sushi, all right?"

.

A couple weeks after the dinner at the sushi restaurant, after everything had settled down at the Vargases' flat, Mathias rang him. Arthur was, again, home alone and so, tired and just-awake from his nap, so when his mobile began singing "Machu Picchu" by the Strokes he reached groggily for it, slamming his bedside several times before actually grabbing it

"Hello?" he mumbled sleepily.

"Arthur!" came the emphatic reply, and Arthur cringed—God, was Mathias loud. "Hey, Artie? How's your holiday been?"

"It's been shit, you just woke me up from a nap," grumbled the guitarist, and Mathias laughed.

"Come on, I haven't called you all summer because ah, we went to Sweden for about two weeks," said Mathias, his voice drifting away in the way that people's voices did when recounting things. "I forgot about that. You know. I realized that my aunts have really funny accents but—"

"Just get to the point. What do you want?" Arthur said exasperatedly, and rolled over on his bed, shutting his eyes.

"Right, well anyway. There's a Man United/Liverpool match coming up soon and Berwald's being a total arse and doesn't want to go even though the League opens with Man United and Liverpool at Anfield," Mathias practically yelled into his ear. "D'you want to come? It's this Saturday."

Arthur sighed deeply and looked out the window. "So when is it exactly? Like, times."

"Well, kick-off is at 12:45 so maybe come over at, I dunno, 11:00?" There was rustling on the other side of the phone. "We'll have lunch at the game, they'll have food. Tell your parents not to worry."

"Guardian," Arthur corrected a little stingily. "And it's Roma."

"Oh." Mathias paused. "Well, that's great. Congrats."

"You make it sound like we're dating or something," griped Arthur drily, and Mathias burst out laughing—and he couldn't stop for at least five minutes, drawing Arthur in to his laughter too.

"Ohhh man," Mathias said, his voice cracking slightly from laughing so much, "that was brilliant, Arthur. Really got a way with words there."

"Oh, piss off," Arthur said, but he was grinning. It'd been a while since he'd had a good laugh with his mates. And this felt good.

"So, yeah, tomorrow at eleven then?" Mathias said. "I live in Everton."

Arthur sighed. "Yeah sure, why not." But he was looking forward to it. Kind of.

And that was why, the next day, at eleven o'clock precisely Arthur found himself standing at a rather large house on the east side of Liverpool with only his mobile and wallet and a growing sense of unease. He rang the doorbell tentatively and was answered by heavy steps.

The door of the house opened, a stern-looking tall boy with blond hair and turquoise eyes framed by rectangular glasses appeared.

"Who're you?" he mumbled—Arthur wasn't just sure if this was just him, but the way the boy said it was downright intimidating.

"A-A-Arthur Kirkland," the Brit stammered. "I'm here for Mathias."

"Oh." The boy turned back into the house, closing the door slightly. Arthur stood awkwardly a little longer outside the house until loud, thumping steps announced Mathias's arrival.

"Artie! Oh, man, it's been so long!" said Mathias, nearly knocking Arthur over with the force of his hug (force times acceleration, Arthur thought vaguely).

"Yeah, hey," Arthur choked out, and patted the Dane's back. "Let me up?"

"Oh, right," said Mathias. "Well, come in, yeah? Come on."

And Arthur was dragged inside their house, which was huge and fancily decorated—the living room was mostly empty space and light and fancy decorated walls. Mathias walked straight past that, though, and into the kitchen, where the cabinets and tables had little embellishments—all of it was making Arthur dead uneasy, because, well, Roma's flat might've been rather posh compared to where he grew up, but this… well this was just screaming rich. He started to wonder vaguely what Mathias's parents did for a living, exactly, until he ran into a wall. Then he figured eh ought to pay more attention to where he was going.

They ended up in Mathias's room, which was huge and very red. Everything, from the bedspread to the drawers to the desk to the telly to the walls and blinds—they were all shades of red, muted red (Arthur supposed to not hurt the eyes) with accents of bright, supersaturated red.

Arthur sat down on a stray plush chair. "Doesn't this… décor get a little rough on the eyes sometimes?"

"No," replied Mathias's voice, which seemed to be coming from the closet-bathroom complex. "And don't come in here yet!"

Arthur shrugged, then remembered Mathias couldn't see him. "All right. Er, who was the boy who answered the door?"

"Oh, Berwald." Mathias poked his head out of the bathroom, which had streaks of red all over it—on his face and ears and hair. "Yeah, he can be kind of a tosser sometimes. He's my stepbrother."

"Stepbrother?"

"Yeah. Me dad married his mum. They're very happy. Waldy, not so much."

"Waldy?"

"Yeah. Dunno how it came about but we used to fight a lot when we were younger. You know—" Mathias poked his head out again, pointing to a dark line on his shoulder, "—this was from him. Nasty fight, that was."

"Looks nasty," said Arthur, cringing slightly.

"Was." Mathias popped back into his bathroom. "He was pretty unforgiving back then. I prolly was, too, you know."

"Oh."

"Math's." Berwald glowered (or was that just Arthur) from the doorway. "Yer dad's leav'ng now."

"Shit!" the Dane yelled form inside. "Can you ask him to wait five more minutes? Please please please?"

The look on Berwald's face hardened. "Yer like a g'rl," he mumbled darkly. "Spoil'd and ann'ying. Alw'ys get'chr way."

And with that he disappeared, leaving Arthur very confused. Then Mathias popped out of the bathroom wearing straight red from head to toe (face paint, socks, and shoes included). He then promptly shoved a Liverpool FC shirt in Arthur's hands. "Put it on!" he insisted. And Arthur did, sensing Mathias's inner crazy-football-fan coming out, did so. It wasn't as if Arthur had grown up around crazy football fanatics, but he'd seen one very disturbing display during some of the international exhibition games on the telly at the Vargases' household. And, well, it was something along the lines of memorable.

"Heyy!" Mathias cried out in surprise. "You look very very fit!" *

Arthur raised a thick eyebrow. "I'll pretend that's not weird at all."

"Oh, shut up," Mathias said easily. "Aren't you queer? I mean, it's perfectly all right."

"Just because I kissed a boy doesn't mean I like it," said Arthur defensively.

Mathias shrugged and they piled into the car to drive to the stadium.

.

Anfield was packed with people when the car pulled up. They didn't even park at Anfield; they parked a little ways over, at Stanley Park, and had to walk a good distance to the actual gates.

"So many people!" Arthur muttered to Mathias in a slightly horrified voice. He snuck a glance at a group of raucously hooting young men, evidently drunk already, even though it was only just past noon. "I don't really like the looks of this."

"You never been to a football match, Arthur?" asked Mathias's dad (who really just looked like an older version of him, minus the crazy hair).

"No. I've only seen them on the telly."

"Oh, man, this'll be fantastic, then," Mathias said, grinning wickedly. He looked a bit like Gilbert and Arthur's stomach didn't seem to settle at all.

"Why?" he asked, slightly dreading the answer. "How?"

"Because," said Mathias, "Man United and Liverpool at Anfield? Oh man, Arthur, you've got to be the luckiest bastard in the entire city!"

"Still don't get it."

"You will soon," the Dane assured him. "You will."

The seats were such a violent red that Arthur felt uneasy sitting in them, but they had a reasonably good spot (smack-dab in the middle, across from the centre circle, with clear views of both goals) so he wasn't about to complain. He did, though, wonder how much money it cost for these seats.

It was rather boring to sit there while there were announcements and random people wandering all over the soccer pitch so he took out his mobile and texted all sorts of stupid messages to Gilbert and Bella (with whom he'd exchanged numbers at the end of term in June). He wasn't quite comfortable with Antonio and Francis, despite getting to know them reasonably well through Gilbert, but he didn't like either of them enough to ask for the numbers. He was a little worried about what they would text back. Knowing the frog he'd probably send pictures of his cock or something disgusting like that.

(Although that probably wouldn't be true at all, a small voice at the back of Arthur's head said. He's not a complete arse.

Shut up, Arthur told it.)

"Hey, Arthur," asked Mathias suddenly. "Have you heard from Gilbert lately? I've tried to ring him but he never picks up."

Arthur hid a grin. "Really?"

"Yeah. And he keeps tweeting about doing stuff with his cousin Will, but Will lives in Germany…" Mathias frowned, deep in thought. "He couldn't be in Germany, could he? Gone and not've told me?"

Arthur shrugged. He hadn't expected the Dane to be quite this dim, but he figured Mathias would learn the truth soon enough. "I s'pose. It's, you know, entirely plausible."

Mathias gave a small grunt of agreement. "Yeah… oh, the game's finally starting!"

Arthur sat up slightly, watching as the players ran out onto the pitch. He'd seen this sort of thing on the telly, thanks to the Vargases (Roma, surprisingly enough, was a Chelsea fan), but the excitement here in Anfield, was electric and cold and alive and when they kicked off Arthur felt himself yelling and grinning with all the other fans around him. It was fantastic, just like Mathias said. When the opposing team scored a goal, he yelled angrily, as loud as Mathias next to him, as loud as the Liverpudlians around them. The Reds stomped and screamed for their team, but by half-time Man United still led them 1-0.

During half-time Mathias's father bought them both hot dogs—mustard and onions for Mathias, and ketchup for Arthur. They sat and ate, sweltering slightly in the unusually warm weather ("It's the global warming rubbish going around," said Mr. Kohler good-naturedly) and bantering about, well, whatever. Arthur couldn't help but glance up at the sky. For once it was white clouds drifted sparsely across clear blue, instead of its usual thick gray foggy drizzly cover.

As the second half opened, a song began playing on the loudspeaker. Kind of slow and soft, with piano in the background, piano arpeggios and a soft hi-hats harmonizing to the melody. Mathias seemed to have a spasm next to him.

"Arthur you lucky, bastard, you lucky bastard," he yelled, and as he spoke, a swell of voices grew from the side of the stadium they sat on, the home side. Mathias joined them, his blue eyes closed in passion (which Arthur thought was really just odd).

When you walk through a storm
Hold your head up high
And don't be afraid of the dark

At the end of the storm
There's a golden sky
And the sweet silver song of a lark

Walk on through the wind
Walk on through the rain
Though your dreams be tossed and blown

Walk on, walk on
With hope in your heart
And you'll never walk alone
You'll never walk alone…

Mathias was practically sobbing as people around them held up their red-and-white striped scarves. Arthur awkwardly patted the Dane's shoulder as Mathias wiped his face, smearing the runny red paint on his hands.

"Oh, man, Arthur," he said, his voice cracking . "It's just, oh man, this song always makes me cry—"

"All right, it's all right," said Arthur, hoping he didn't sound to hasty. "But let's just, uh, watch the game?"

He really wasn't very good at that kind of thing, the whole comforting thing, but luckily Mathias seemed to calm down enough to watch the rest of the match like a normal person (or as much normal as Arthur could hope for).

Liverpool managed to score twice ("Twice! Twice!" Mathias would later tell him) in the second half, one of the goals in the two minutes of overtime. The match ended Man United 1-2 Liverpool. Which made Mathias very happy. He was bouncing with happiness as they walked back to the car

"This is the best opening day ever!" he declared to Arthur, laughing, and the Brit only shrugged. He didn't mind football too much, but he wasn't a huge fan of it either.

They dropped him off at Roma's flat complex and Mathias stuck his head out the car window.

"I'll see you on the train to SPQR in a couple weeks, yeah?" he yelled.

Arthur grinned. "Yeah, you will," he shouted waving. "See you then!"

When the Kohler's car drove off, he turned to climb up the stairs to the flat, humming the song from the match.

He decided he rather liked it.

You'll never walk alone…

author's note

Happy Boxing Day, guys :D Sorry for the late update; some stuff sort of got in the way. In the meantime I've published two oneshots (one of them steel strings verse) and the first chapter of another series that I wanted to start. What am I doing.

(You can find the steel-strings oneshot on d-encre. tumblr. com. Minus spaces. The story's called 'a proper christmas' because I was uncreative with titles.)

Songs featured: "You'll Never Walk Alone" – Gerry and the Pacemakers
- - Salute to Liverpool FC; Reds forever! (heart) I've totally become a Liverpool fan. (Which is rather annoying since there's a kid in my English class who wears a Man United jersey every single day. Oh dear.)

Final word count: 4297. Happiness.

So. Two questions:

1) Spamano, yes/no? I'm wondering if I can properly fit it into the story; if enough people want it I might fit it in ;)

2) If someone would explain to me how the applying to colleges in the UK / GCSEs / secondary school thing works, that'd be greatly appreciated. I asked my mom, who lived in Hong Kong while it was still British, and she went off into a whole bunch of things about O-levels, which I'm fairly certain don't exist anymore, so… It'd be a really great help for upcoming chapters—so thank you! (heart)