Hiya! Hikou no Kokoro here again, with another Theory chapter. This little thing took a while for me to get done because of its drier content, so I apologise. The next chapter will, hopefully, come around soon. I got a bit of a block in the beginning of the chapter, but I know what I'm doing for the last half of it. After all, we have reached the first developmental checkpoint! Hooray! Things will be coming down from here on out.

Special thanks for my reviewers: firelight3, The Hero15, Crazy Green Earphones, Rufescent, and ForestFireSong. Thank you. You are all the reason why I continue writing this.

Anyway, enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Axis Powers: Hetalia. It rightfully belongs to Hidekaz Himaruya. I simply own the AU plot.

To Create Perfection

"The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins."
—Oliver Wendell

"Theory 4: Moving"

Arthur had a tough time after visiting SS-24 with Francis and Alistair. I would suppose that everybody else would have if he or she were in his shoes, but Arthur did, after all, have a terrible habit of making things worse than they already were.

Arthur had gotten off work at midnight. Of course, the restaurant had closed at around eleven, but since his colleagues had all scampered off once costumers began to file away, he was the last one, along with the owner, to close the restaurant, clean off the dishes and tables, and lock the doors. I know that Yao had planned it that way. That week, Arthur and Yong-Soo were the ones assigned the duty to clean up the shop with Yao, who would always stay after hours, but with Yong-Soo gone doing whatever on his day off, Arthur was alone for the hour. And that gave Yao enough time and space to talk to him.

If my memory had served me well through these years, Yao only told Arthur to quit BCWD. There was no big confession; that would be during another time in the future. He didn't even mention Kiku. In fact, Arthur, being the sharp man who could recall any anomaly, had asked about Kiku, mentioning how he had met the Asian man in BCWD and noticed when Kiku had suddenly turned cold when he had confessed that he worked in a Chinese restaurant. But Yao fell silent for a moment, and then spoke about Francis. All the Chinese man could say was how Francis was a terrible man, like he was some sort of siren to stay away from. He was a sadist, a murderer, and most of all, a corrupter. His sweet words and comforting actions were only skin-deep, barely disguising a demon meant to drag innocent ideals into the depths of an icy cold Hell.

It made me sick.

But I didn't matter. I wouldn't say the same for Arthur. I never knew what he thought about Yao's propaganda. His expression was more or less flat, and he paid more attention to the dirt on the tables than on Yao's offered advice. However, I could safely assume that he was irritated—not necessarily angered, but just irritated. After all, he had been working with Francis for a number of days already, and he had already developed his own impressions on the BCWD staff member especially after the trip to SS-24 where he learnt a chunk of who Francis was when Yao was supposed to have known him. Who was Yao to assume that Arthur couldn't get his own information and make his own opinions? It was almost offensive. After all, even I knew that Yao was only saying these sorts of things to get him to quit BCWD for reasons Yao didn't disclose.

In the end, Arthur dismissed right when the lights began to turn off. Yao didn't stop him, and Arthur was glad for that. He probably wouldn't be able to take any more vague persuasions Yao attempted, and the last thing he needed was to be fired because he lost his temper; he needed the job to sustain him and his brother and the rest of his studies. So he changed out of his uniform, which was a light blue Yukata handed down from a former employee, and walked back home, hoping to just collapse into bed and fall asleep without any problems coming up.

But luck would not have that. Alistair had arrived back home earlier than Arthur—possibly an hour or so, but I wasn't keeping tack. But instead of going straight off to bed, as he normally would, Alistair was wide awake and was glaring at the door from a seat in the small dining room of the flat. His foot was flat on the floor and his crutches were leaning neatly against the table behind him. And in his lap were his hands holding papers and an envelope. Two things were wrong with this: One, Alistair never sat properly for he had a nasty habit of slumping and propping his foot upon a table with his crutches thrown aside; and two, the Kirkland brothers, since arriving to the World Domain, rarely received paper mail unless the message was something important, such as a contract or a form, and should and could not be changed. So when Arthur walked into the flat, he knew something was terribly wrong. He didn't even greet his brother. Instead, he immediately asked, "What happened?"

"We're bankrupt."

"What? What? What?" Arthur stomped over and snatched the papers from his brother. He was being awfully rude about everything, folding and unfolding random papers and scanning everything, but I wouldn't blame him. "What did you do?"

"What did I do? I should be asking you that! What the bloody hell did you do?"

Arthur didn't react to that, instead tearing open a thin envelope from BCWD. A card fell out and he picked it up and flipped the plastic around. It was his ID card, and though I won't go into too much detail, but I will say that the words 'Paid Internship' ran along the bottom of his profile. He was a bit relieved that he had been accepted into the program, and then he carefully tucked the card into his pocket.

I don't quite remember all the words on the paper that well and some of the terms and information had gone right over my head that time so long ago. But the message was obvious. An order had been made to retract the scholarship bank account, which Arthur saved and used since he had finished the prerequisites early, in exchange for being a part of the Paid Internship program. Immediately Arthur's face had drained of all colour. He had used the remnant of the scholarship to his advantage, applying it for not only his education, but also for housing and food. At that point, he had already drained all of the money in the original scholarship, but that didn't mean that there was nothing left; in fact, he had used the scholarship account as his own personal bank account, stashing away his salary since he didn't want to be bothered by creating a separate spot for himself. But with that letter, everything was gone. There was no more money for housing, food, utilities, and other necessities. The two brothers didn't even have a back-up, for Alistair had long exploited his veteran benefits on alcohol and medical reasons.

I had thought Arthur wouldn't make it; what were they going to do? The deadline for rent was coming up, along with the bills and the credits and loans. How was he going to pay for all of that without any of the money he had earned? The retraction had all been a mistake, and the Kirkland needed to do something to fix it.

Arthur and Alistair both blew up into arguments, screaming and pointing accusingly at the other. Alistair had attacked Arthur's laziness of not making another bank account and relying so heavily on what was given to him by the scholarship program. Then Arthur attacked Alistair's person as a whole, noting how the redhead was a good-for-nothing leech who drank too much whiskey and stayed at home doing everything unproductive. Alistair had tried to defend himself and said that he had gone off as a soldier in order to help Arthur's dreams and goals, but his pride had gotten in the way and the redhead accused Arthur for being the fool who signed his name away before reading the full contract. The shouting match went on for most of the night until Arthur resolved it by saying that he was going to talk to some superiors to fix this predicament.

Unfortunately, he only had three hours of sleep until he had to get up again to walk himself back to BCWD. He became tired yet moved constantly in attempt to fight off oncoming sleep. Dark bags appeared below his eyes, and I swore that I saw him almost nod off as he waited for the street lights to tell him to cross the busy roadway. His mood didn't get better either; he snapped at the poor fellows who passed him whether or not they had bumped into him.

The first person he tried to speak with was Ludwig. Arthur went straight towards that man's office once he had stepped foot into the BCWD campus. And Arthur was angry. I wasn't surprised that Ludwig had shot him an irritable look; he clearly deserved it after storming into a superior's office without so much of a greeting.

But Ludwig was an, let's say, an understanding man, although he might not have appeared so, with his stern face and deep frown that mirrored Arthur's. The two did not beat around the bush: Ludwig asked what was wrong, and Arthur answered—at first the green-eyed man had said that sleep-deprivation sucked, but then he realised that the problem was his own and not Ludwig's, so at least he knew the decency to correct himself.

Luckily, Ludwig was rather sympathetic to Arthur's plight. He did mention that BCWD tended to use whatever Machiavellian methods in order to obtain resources, such as finances, and the tendency only had increased when the war began. But don't mistake me. In no way did he degrade what BCWD did, but who would catch that except me? Arthur certainly was too angry to notice those sorts of fine details, as he usually was, and mind did tend to use propaganda for itself. So Arthur, naturally, felt that Ludwig was on his side and politely pleaded a solution, which was more or less the restoration of the account with all or at least most of the money that was there. However, Ludwig shook his head. The suggestion was not possible. The money was probably long gone, used in the war effort or in some minor lab branches near the border of the World Domain, although BCWD could easily create a new bank account for Arthur to use. But of course, that was not satisfactory enough. I wouldn't have left it at that either.

The quickest and easiest option had been to board with somebody else. It was only logical if Ludwig couldn't pull enough strings in order to give Arthur back his money. After all, Arthur wasn't completely broke and unemployed. He could work up something to pay off the loans with the paid internship and his job at Yao's Chinese restaurant. He just needed to do something about his debt before it doubled and squeezed all of his time from his education. So he gaining back his independence wasn't entirely farfetched. In addition, if Arthur boarded with somebody else, there would be more room for anyone who got recruited into BCWD or Central in the near future. Thus, it would be more or less a win-win. BCWD would get its new funds, Arthur could spend less dedication on necessities, and a stranger could have an easier time to find a home. I didn't think this would have been too bad.

But of course, Arthur wouldn't think so. Despite having "solved" his plight, he still needed to find somebody willing to share personal space and resources to him. And not only would the person have to be generous enough to give, but whoever the "poor sap" was would have to be able to tolerate an invalid. Obviously, Arthur was never a problem, but his brother was. Who would ever want to live with a foul-tempered redhead whose only purpose seemed to be to leech on whiskey bottles?

At that moment, Arthur had considered himself unfortunate. I would have disagreed, as usual, since we never really agreed on anything anyway.

Francis had walked right in, swinging the door open with a smile and a flourish. He may have been extravagant, as both Arthur and Ludwig had shot him irritable, but at least he was happy. He was there because he was wondering where Arthur had run off. His inquiry was immediately answered, so he didn't bother to ask. Instead, Francis ended up asking, "What's wrong?"

"Kirkland needs to find someone to board with," Ludwig had answered.

Francis' blue eyes had brightened significantly and his smile widened. "He can board with me. My home is big enough for three, and I don't even need to worry about rent or mortgages. I'd love to have some company."

Arthur didn't even think before he shot the offer down. He crossed his arms over his chest and snapped how he didn't want to live with a "frog" or a "procrastinating moron who could mistake his own brain for good cuisine." Francis was, undoubtedly, displeased, and threw out his own insults towards the "rosbif" or the "ingrate [whose] immaturity couldn't even take some honest advice such as fixing his eyebrows." The argument wasn't even noteworthy; I'm even wondering why I can pull quotes of that from my own memory. But I was prone to remember the more useless things, wasn't I?

It wasn't until Ludwig slammed his hand against the table did the useless talk end. More hoping to end the problem and push it off his plate rather than trying to get the two to get along, Ludwig made the final decision and ordered that Arthur take advantage of Francis' order. It was a done deal. There was no more need for any further discussion, so the duo was free to leave.

Arthur was more than apprehensive. But if I were he, I would have finished counted my blessings by then. There were more than enough problems, and a "bad day" such as this was nothing compared to what I have seen.