A/N: I am so sorry at taking this long! My school has started and I aalready have homework, which is horrible.
On a much happier note, this story has over a thousand visitors now! And this is super exciting for me, because people are reading this.
Finally, CanadianBirdie guessed correctly that the American book Joan was reading was Little Women, because it was my favorite book as a kid.
I do not own Hetalia.
Gilbert returned to school with West the day before school began again, and immediately went hunting for a) Elizabeta or b) Matthew, and not really having a preference of who he found first. He saw Matthew first, walking down the hall with Kumajiro in his arms and Gilbert's heart (no matter how un-awesome it sounds) literally skipped a beat. Damn, he had forgotten how cute 'his' Teddy Bear looked. And God his butt looked good from where Gilbert was standing. Gilbert had come to terms over break with the fact that his attention was steadily drifting from Eliza to Matthew, and now fully enjoyed it.
Which reminded him of the present he had bought for the Canadian. He ran down the hall and literally tackle hugged Matthew, and they tumbled to the ground, Matthew gasping from Gilbert crushing his thin frame. "G-Gilbert?" He asked.
Gilbert laughed and said, "Zhe one and only! And I have an awesome present for you Teddy Bear!" Handing Matthew the paper package the present was wrapped in and pulling him up, smirking.
Matthew half smiled and took the gift, pulling off the paper to reveal a soft white hat with bear ears on it, and stammered out, "T-thank you Gil... It looks really cute!"
Gilbert laughed and said, "Now you can look even more like a teddy bear!" Matthew carefully put the polar bear hat on and smiled shyly at Gilbert, who felt red flooding his pale cheeks. Oh God he was adorable. Gilbert turned away to hide his blush and said quickly, "I have to go. I'm glad you like the present. See you later I guess."
He then practically ran away, and collapsed on his bed backwards, the image of Matthew in the hat still burned into his retinas. Then he groaned when he realised how un-awesome he had acted and flipped over onto his stomach and hurried his head in his pillow and screamed, Gilibird chirping in alarm, even though it was muffled. He stayed that way for a while, until his blush finally faded enough that his face wasn't burning.
He would go find Matthew. Yeah, that's what he should do. He stood up and adjusted his rumpled My Chemical Romance shirt and placed his typical smirk back onto his face. Then he opened the door and left the room to go find his crush.
He roamed the halls for a good fifteen minutes before he heard Matthew's voice. And he froze when he heard Ned's voice with Matthew's. Of course, being the awesome person he was, Gilbert took this wonderful opportunity to fine tune his spying abilities. "Did you have a good break?"
Matthew answered, "yeah, the school felt really empty but I liked it, though I did miss you a lot."
"Yeah, I missed you, too. And I decided to ask you something... And I put a lot of thought into it and I decided to go for it..."
Gilbert's stomach plummeted. What was this goddamned asshole want to ask HIS motherfucking Teddy Bear?
"Wh-what is it?" He heard Matthew say, and he could just imagine the confusion on his perfect feminine face.
After a pause, Gilbert heard Ned respond. "I have been thinking about this for some very long time, like I said, and I just wanted to ask... if you might want to go out with me? I have really liked you for months, and with the new memories, I guess for decades, and I just wanted to know if maybe you like me in the same way?"
Gilbert was going to walk out there and punch that Dutch idiot in the face, when he heard Matthew speak. "I like you too, Ned..." Gilbert's heart froze and shattered and he knew what was coming next. "But I have a crush on someone else. I am sorry and want to still be friends, but I don't like you in that way. MAybe you can ask again later, eh?"
Gilbert was confused. Another person? What was this? Was Matthew falling for Yakaterina? Or someone else? Francis had flirted with him a lot, but had Matthew fallen for him, even though Francis was with Joan? He heard Ned's voice and paused his thinking to hear him say, "Alright. I will try again in maybe a year and see if you have changed your mind, and I do still want to talk to you and be your friend. I am going to go now. Bye, see you around."
Then Gilbert heard Matthew's footsteps coming towards the corner he was hiding behind and ran back to their room, just having enough time to collapse onto his bed and pretend to be reading, when Matthew pushed open the door and walked in, laying on his bed too and sighing. Gilbert glanced over at him, and saw him cuddling Kumajiro, looking sad and guilty, the polar bear hat on his head.
Ludwig sighed as he lay on his bed, staring up at the ceiling deep in thought. He had seen Feliciano alone earlier and could see the older kids eyeing him as if he was prey. He really couldn't deal with the older kids on his own, and he could also not stick with Feli all the time, so he had no idea what the hell he was supposed to do.
He had asked Kiku, and the Japanese boy readily offered to watch after Feliciano when Ludwig was busy, but, though Kiku had protested that he could take care of himself, he did not believe that the bullies would mind hurting both of them.
This left Ludwig in somewhat of a dilemma. He needed to figure out how to help Feliciano, but he also needed to save some bits of his failing social life outside of his group of friends. He found himself increasingly only spending time with Feli and Kiku, and though they were great friends, he also wanted to stay friends with Vash and... well he had talked to some others, but now it was only Feliciano.
And... he kind of wanted to make new friends... but at this rate it seemed impossible. Ludwig stretched and stood up, smoothing the wrinkles out of his clothes. Maybe he could visit... who was there...
He walked out the door, feeling excessively lonely. Than he heard two voices coming towards him and whipped around to see Feliks and Toris walking in his direction. Feli's stopped when they came closer and said, "Hi Ludwig. We are like so freaking bored, so do you want to maybe hang out with us. You are totally handsome and buff, and you are sure to like definitely make things interesting for me and Liet."
Toris face palmed and then said, "Hello Ludwig. Feliks, you can't talk to people like that! You need to think about other people and not make comments of that sort."
"It's fine guys. And I would actually like to talk to you," Ludwig said quickly to the pair.
Feliks snapped his perfectly manicured fingers (ninety-five percent of the girls were in awe of both his fashion sense and his fingernails) and said, "Well then, Liet you are totally wrong. Let's like go outside or something," and marched off, his shoes clicking against the floor.
Once they were outside, Toris asked, "Is something wrong Ludwig? You don't look very happy."
Ludwig decided that he could trust these two, mostly because they were both nice, albeit odd, people. "I am just always worried about Feliciano. And then in worrying about him I can't talk to anyone else. The only reason I can be out here now is that he is with his brother."
"So?" Feliks said, and Toris slapped his hand over the shorter boy's mouth, and Feliks shoved away, repeating, "So? If you love the kid then it really shouldn't matter. If you don't, ditch him, and I am sure some other person will snap him up. Like, I wouldn't even mind going after him, if I wasn't so goddamned in love with Liet there. Don't even know why sometimes, but I do not mind only talking to him, like ever."
Ludwig thought for a moment and seethed at the mental image of Feliciano with somebody else. "I understand... I think I will go find him..." And the German seventh grader left, leaving the other two behind.
"God, Feliks," Toris murmured, "You are good at this stuff."
Feliks smirked, satisfied with his work in helping Ludwig. "And you like totally love me for it."
A/N: So, I am still going to try to update as much as possible, but please be patient since I need to get used to school again.
And please review, since I know that people are reading this just take an extra minute to write a review, and I will try to respond to it, since I love reviews so much.