Chapter 10: Silly

"Hmm…Where does Tina usually sit?" Antonio asked aloud to our table halfway through the lunch period. He had heard that Tina apparently just got a boyfriend and was curious. I hope he doesn't start to get annoying about it. I mean, he knows a hell of a lot of people, but he gets stubbornly protective over some of them…like he does with me sometimes…

"Oh~ Interested in your 'little sister' again after all this time?" Francis said, implying several things that Antonio was never going to understand. Then again, Antonio never understood a lot of things, even when they were painstakingly obvious.

"Hey, didn't Jones tell you to stay away from her or something?" Gilbert added, sticking his fork into a baked potato and stuffing a chunk into his mouth.

"But that was years ago! Besides, Alfred and I are cool now, so I'm pretty sure he wouldn't mind." Antonio replied. I don't ever remember him and Alfred Jones being 'cool.' Maybe 'less hostile' and 'civil' would make more sense since the two just ignore each other now after everything that happened. Without standing up, Antonio began looking around the cafeteria, trying to see if he could find Tina at any of the nearby tables.

"Ah, did anyone hear what happened yesterday?" Francis tried to continue the conversation despite Antonio trying to crane his head over everyone else. It was difficult sometimes to keep up a coherent conversation with only the four of us at the table, so vague topics were good to start with even though these three fools always end up talking about 'old times' anyway.

"Oh, you mean when Tina fell down the stairs? I was there when it happened!" Gilbert said, as if his presence was of any merit to this useless conversation. "Jones just went in and saved the day just like he always does—"

"Non, Gil," Francis interrupted. "That was Mathieu who saved her." He corrected.

"Who?" Antonio, Gilbert, and I said in unison. Even though I was there (and kinda caused it all…but it's not like that even matters; I didn't even do anything wrong), I had no idea who that guy who jumped in was.

"Matthew Williams," Francis said again, trying to lighten his accent and adding a last name that was still unfamiliar to the rest of us. "Remember? He was the boy I used to take care of when he was younger."

"Uh….wasn't that Jones…?" Gilbert slowed his eating, perplexed.

"Non," Francis sighed. "Arthur took care of Alfred. I looked after Mathieu." He looked like he was about to start rambling about the woes of being an older brother, but he was interrupted by the sound of someone slamming their hand on a table and shouting. Well, it wasn't really all that loud, but it was audible from where we sat across the cafeteria.

"You already know we kissed!" Tina said, probably louder than she intended, to Grieta. The whole room seemed to pause to eavesdrop for a bit, but Tina immediately sat back down and began talking quieter afterwards.

"I'm so proud of my little Mathieu." Francis commented, breaking the silence at our table.

"Huh? What does he have to do with anything?" I said without thinking. I usually don't bother to talk to either Francis or Gilbert during lunch-time, since a slice of pizza is obviously more interesting than anything they can come up with to say.

"Because he's the one who's Tina's boyfriend now." He answered, nonchalantly.

"What?" Antonio snapped, looking away from Tina's table, where he had been staring since her outburst.

"Are you supposed to be his parent or something?" Gilbert said, ignoring Antonio and poking fun at the Frenchman's sentiments.

"Wait. So it isn't Alfred?" Antonio asked incredulously.

"Well, you say that but aren't you like that with your younger brother too?" Francis retorted, also ignoring Antonio's shocked expression. These two are definitely 'bad friends' to Antonio…

"Except Gilbert is more irresponsible. Not that Francis is any sort of role model for anyone." Antonio said with a straight face. With this, he got both their attention, although now they had nothing to say back. "Well, now that I know where they are, I'm gonna go talk to them for a bit." He said, standing up from his seat.

"H-hey, bastard! Don't go bothering people while they're eating!" I tried to tell him. Even though I don't really know Tina that well, it was obvious from the few times I've met her that she used to like Antonio. I'm pretty sure the last thing she needs is for him to pop up and meet her first boyfriend.

"Oh, I'll be back in a bit, Lovi." Antonio said, patting my head, which was annoying. I watched him walk across the cafeteria, and practically burst into whatever conversation was being had at Tina's table. She and whoever was sitting next to her were visibly surprised, even from where I was sitting, and she looked like she was hurriedly explaining something to Antonio. Really…Antonio is so dense…and why is he hugging everyone now! Instinctively, I grabbed my left shoe and threw it, with surprising accuracy, straight at his head.

"Dammit! Stop bothering other people, bastard!" I yelled from across the room. I waited until I saw him waving goodbye to them before I sat down. But when Antonio returned, I realized I was still missing my shoe. "Augh, you didn't bring back my shoe!" I practically yell at him.

"Oh c'mon, Lovi…you threw it at my head…I don't know where it went…" Antonio tried to explain, but I had already gotten up to retrieve it.

"Wait! We'll come with you." Francis said, getting up from his own seat.

"What? Why?" I was confused. I could tell the pervert bastard and the loud bastard had no intentions of helping me find my shoe.

"I'll come with you guys—" Antonio began getting off from his chair again, but Francis stopped him.

"Non, you'll stay here." He said, motioning for Antonio to sit back down. "You just came back~" Once Antonio had settled himself, a confused look on his face, and the three of us were almost at Tina's table, Gilbert explained himself.

"Since Tina's boyfriend isn't Jones, I wanna meet this…uh…"

"Matthew Williams." Francis reminded him.

"Yeah—this Williams guy." Gilbert finished, just as we reached our destination.

"Fratellone! What are you doing here?" Feliciano practically jumped out of his seat, clinging onto me. I'm surprised he didn't spill any of his pasta (where did he even get that from anyways?).

"Augh! Feli! Get off me!" I yell. He pouted and let go, sitting back down and resuming his lunch. Now everyone at their table was looking at us, understandably confused. "I'm just here to get my shoes back, dammit!"

"And what about you, brüder?" the potato bastard asked. Gilbert placed his arm around Ludwig's shoulder and answered very straightforward.

"Oh, I just wanted to meet this...uh…" he began, but forgot the name again.

"Matthew Williams." Francis reminded once more, standing right behind the blond guy sitting next to Tina and pointing to him.

"Matthew Williams guy!" Gilbert said louder, as if he was trying to cover up the fact that he forgot the name so soon. "Where is he?" Ludwig made a face as if to say 'Francis just pointed to him; didn't you see?' before motioning his older brother towards the young man sitting next to Tina. "Huh? Where?"

"Ah, I'm Matthew." The guy said, standing up to introduce himself, like he knew he wouldn't be seen otherwise. I don't think he noticed, but Matthew had now revealed that he had been holding Tina's hand under the table. Grieta grinned widely after seeing this, although Alfred and the kid sitting next to him frowned momentarily.

"Oh!" Gilbert realized after squinting at Matthew for a few seconds. "You're the one who gave me maple syrup before!" He continued, walking over to Matthew and hitting him on the back like they were old chums. "Thanks, man. That was delicious!"

"I'm surprised you two have already met." Francis commented.

"I'm more surprised he didn't know his name nor could see him just now." Ludwig added. "Especially since he ate pancakes for every meal until the maple syrup ran out…"

"Oh yeah! Can I have some more of that?" Gilbert asked, obviously forgetting his original intentions for coming.

"U-uh, sure—" Matthew said, earning him another violent pat on the back. Just then the bell rang, and other people began getting up from their lunch tables. I suddenly remembered my shoes and started looking for it frantically. Shit, I'm gonna be late for class because that stupid tomato bastard didn't bother to bring my shoe back!

"Lovino," I heard someone say, so I momentarily look up towards the voice. "Here's your shoe. It was under our table." It was Tina, holding out my shoe to give to me.

"Uh, thanks!" I said, even though I could've found it myself. But then I remembered what had happened yesterday and decided to apologize. "And, uh…sorry about the thing yesterday, with the stairs…"

"Oh, it's fine, Lovino." She smiled. I noticed then that her boyfriend had been standing next to her the whole time.

"Yeah! Besides it all turned out well for the both of you anyways!" I said, hurriedly putting my shoe on and briskly turning around to leave. Why can't things work out well for the rest of us…? Just then I caught sight of Antonio, waving to me even though he was carrying both our stuff. I headed towards him, snatched my book bag away and began going to class.

"Aw, Loviiiii!" Antonio said, following me and then trying to cling onto me like Feli did.

"What is it, bastard? Isn't your class the other way?" I asked through gritted teeth.

"Hmph…but you didn't come back the rest of the lunch period! I was lonely at our table!" he said, finally succeeding in grabbing onto me although my bag was between us. I didn't say anything and just let him follow me to class. Hell if I care if he's late to his own class!

... ... ... ... ...

"That was kinda weird." I said to Tina as we walked towards our British Literature class.

"What was?" she asked earnestly. She must always be used to random visitors during lunch time...

"Y'know, the whole thing with telling our table that we're together now, and then Antonio, Francis, Gilbert, and Lovino visiting our table right afterwards."

"Hmm…I guess that is kinda weird…" Tina agreed, although she seemed to think it was perfectly normal for so many people to inquire about us.

"I mean, it's just that I'm so used to being alone. And, uh, nobody usually notices me… Like how Gilbert couldn't even see me in the beginning." I tried to explain. At this, Tina slowed her walking and squeezed my hand that she was holding.

"I suppose you're just going to have to get used to not being alone anymore, then." She said, looking up at me and smiling. I couldn't help but smile too. Even though this relationship just started, this girl is practically pulling me into a different world!

"Unless its alone with you." I mentioned without thinking. She paused for moment, and then she began giggling. "W-what? I thought it sounded more romantic than funny…"

"Silly! If it were the two of us together, then neither of us would be alone." She answered. And it dawned on me that, because of her, I wouldn't have to be alone anymore. The second bell rang suddenly, snapping us out of our thoughts. Oh, we're going to be late again… For a second we continued to stand there just smiling, but we realized we were close enough to the classroom that, if we ran, we might still make it before the lesson actually started.

"You do know that you can probably run faster if your hands weren't like that?" Mrs. Kirkland commented as we burst into the room, out of breath. We were confused for a bit until we noticed we were still holding hands.

"Uh…o-oh." was all I could manage to say. I could feel my face heating up as I noticed the class had begun staring at the two of us, murmurs of 'See, I told you it was true' and 'Well, it was obviously gonna happen sooner or later' and 'But who is he again?' had started. I took a glance at Tina and saw she too was blushing, but neither of us let go.

"Hmm, well, since you two are only two minutes late instead of you r usual five, I won't give you guys detention this time." Mrs. Kirkland said to get the class back on track. "Besides, I think you too are an adorable couple!" she added, surprising both Tina and I who had been heading to our seats. "Should I change the seating so you two can sit next to each other~?" she teased then, giving a playful grin reminiscent of Grieta's.

"M-mrs. Kirkland, it's hardly the time for that!" Tina suddenly mustered to say, bringing the whole class to laughter. Even though she was student, it was as if she was scolding the British woman. Wow, I didn't think Tina had good relationship even with teachers.

"Haha, okay okay." Mrs. Kirkland began calming the class back down. "I'll just rearrange the class for next time~" This time, even Tina and I laughed along. Ah, everything sure is different when I'm with her.

Yays:

I have finally returned! I'm so so very sorry for anyone reading this who had to wait literally seven months for an update. And thanks so much for anyone who still bothers to read this. I promise I'll try to be more regular with my updates from now on!

Anyways, I have no idea how I ended up doing the first part of this chapter in Lovi's POV…It just kinda happened that way. And word sure does travel fast in World Academy, doesn't it? I mean, it's only the day after (yes, I know it's been seven months since I wrote it, but it's only been a day in the story!) they got together and even the teachers know about it! XD