I'd profusely apologize for taking so long, but I feel like that's gotten repetitive. So I'll just tell you that this chapter is extra-long, which should be a sufficient recompense.

Also, as a warning, just be ready for a good smattering of LietPol, FrUK, and CanUkr, as well as a lot of hints of other pairings.

If there ever was a time in his life when Feliks really did wish he was a girl, it was now. Because—contrary to what a lot of people seemed to think—he did enjoy being a boy. Just because he liked some girly things and acted feminine a lot of the time didn't mean he wanted to be a girl…. Gender roles had always confused him, anyway.

But the reason he wished he was female at the moment was sitting far across the lunchroom from him, eating with a large Russian whom Feliks could now honestly say he hated.

After Toris had been taken away from him and forbidden from sitting with anyone but Ivan during lunch, Feliks had decided that he wasn't just going to sit alone for the rest of the year and instead started sitting with a couple of his friends from his Fashion Design class. Meanwhile, over the past couple of weeks, he'd noticed that his best friend was getting more and more interested in that Natalya girl. If it wasn't enough that he was constantly staring and smiling at her when he was near her, Toris even mentioned her relatively often at home. And Feliks really wasn't liking it.

The fact that Toris was suddenly so enamored with that girl already had him feeling so frustratingly jealous, but why Ivan's psycho-bitch sister out of all people? Feliks just couldn't understand. Nothing he'd said so far had convinced Toris that Natalya clearly didn't like him back and that she was dangerous—and people said that he was the dumb one….

"Hey Feliks, you okay?"

He felt a brief grab of his shoulder along with that voice snap him out of his own thoughts and looked over to see Elizaveta looking somewhat worriedly at him.

"What—yeah, I'm like, totally fine," he tried to assure her, though he wasn't very good at sounding convincing—not that he was all that determined to lie, anyway. And Elizaveta wasn't stupid, so she wasn't deterred.

"Are you sure?" she persisted, frowning more. "You looked like you were staring at something over there…." Gesturing to the other side of the lunchroom, she waited for an answer.

Sighing in easy defeat, Feliks pushed his lunch tray a little away from him and leaned the side of his face on his hand. "It's my friend, Toris. A couple weeks ago, that Ivan guy, like, forced him to be friends with him…. So he has to sit over there and I can't talk to him—which is totally whack and like, unfair!—but Ivan's a huge dude, y'know…."

"Huh?" Yekaterina, who also sat with them, was suddenly paying more attention. "Oh—I think Ivan told me about that…. He's my brother," she added in her heavy accent, not sure whether or not they knew. "I didn't know Toris vos your friend, though…. I'm sorry."

Feliks caught her apologetic look and just pursed his lips, upset about his friend having to sit so far away. He'd known Yekaterina and Ivan were related (through adoption, anyway), but she was a sweet girl and nothing like him. So he hadn't thought much of it.

"Do you like, actually like your brother?" he asked bluntly, though he did try to refrain from calling him "that jerk." He really couldn't see how they would get along….

Yekaterina glanced behind her shoulder for a moment, smiling. "Of course I do—vy voodn't I?" she said, genuinely unaware of what everyone else would call Ivan's creepy tendencies, but not offended at all. "He's sweet, and he's my little brother…. He vos actually really happy vhen he got friends—"

"Hold up—he's your little brother?" Feliks interjected, looking in between Yekaterina's face and Ivan's table. Elizaveta was looking rather confused as well, and she spoke before Feliks could say anything else:

"What? By how much younger?—I know you're not related, but he's… well, huge." Being the one sophomore at the table, she didn't know many people in the grade below her personally, but she knew enough about those she hung around with. And Yekaterina had quickly become her friend (she'd really needed one, after coming from Russia and not knowing anyone) at the start of the year; except she'd never mentioned how old she was….

"Heh, yes, I know…," Yekaterina laughed, having to put a hand to her chest to stop it from bouncing too much—and Bog chert poberi, that was annoying. "He's vun year younger. Back in Russia, ve all got put into the same—uh… year. Grade." She had to think for a second to remember what the American term for it was. "They veren't really tracking our ages in the orphanages…. None of us even know ven our actual birthdays are."

At this point, Elizaveta and Feliks were just staring at her, feeling sorry but awkward and unsure of what to say. It was even stranger that Yekaterina seemed not to think of it as something sad or even all that negative, as she still looked rather cheerful and casual about it as she went on eating her lunch. Sharing a look with the girl sitting next to him, Feliks decided to abandon the subject of Ivan.

"So, I guess you two just like, forgot that we were talking about me, here," he said dully, huffing slightly.

"What?—Oh, no, we didn't!" Elizaveta assured him hurriedly, feeling a little bad. "Tell us about your friend." She smiled, ready to be a motherly source of comfort for her friend. The other girl looked up as well.

"Well…," started Feliks, not so sure what he wanted to say now that they were actually paying attention to him. He'd always liked having attention, but he was also never very good at it. "Toris like, obviously doesn't like Ivan, but he keeps staring at Natalya and he's already got such a huge freaking crush on her and he won't shut his stupid mouth about her…. And hell, she's like, the scary one—not Ivan…."

His frown deepened further until he was pushed down into the depths of depression and just started staring at Ivan's table again. From what he could see, Toris was smiling, probably trying to flirt with Natalya, and she was holding tightly onto her brother's arm. Hmph.

"Aw… wait, are you jealous?" Elizaveta asked, both rather sorry for him and also curious. The way he was talking and acting made it sound like he was more than just annoyed.

Feliks twisted his face into a sort of pout and didn't say anything for a couple seconds. "…Yeah, duh," he admitted, stabbing his plastic fork repeatedly into some gross school macaroni that he didn't plan on eating anyway.

"Like, romantically? Do you like him that way?" she pressed, needing to make sure.

He honestly didn't see how that question could be a big deal at all, so he didn't hesitate or give her a look like some people might have. "Yeah, and I, like, have since we were little kids! I'm totally sure he likes me too, but right now he's just being… stupid…."

Yekaterina might have said something just then if she wasn't too busy looking oddly at the girl across from her—the reason for which was that Elizaveta's face was slowly turning manic as she balled up her hands in front of her face in excitement and bent backward slowly and almost dangerous-looking—like a pebble in a slingshot.

Only when she bounced back up did Feliks notice her excitement and put on a somewhat questioning face.

"Ooh—yes, I've always wanted to do this!" Elizaveta practically squealed to herself before looking to Feliks, slamming her hand down on the table once and saying excitedly, "Okay, I'm going to help get you guys together."

"Huh?" Feliks straightened up and faced her at once. "Really? But I haven't like, even—"

"Trust me, I can do it! Well—I've never done it before, but this is my chance to finally be a matchmaker!" Clasping her hands together in eagerness, she looked around to Ivan and Toris's table. "Which one is he?"

"The one with long brown hair."

"Right. I'm sure he likes you back, hun—he's obviously going through a crisis with his sexuality right now or something. Our real problem is Natalya being an unintentional cockblock and the target of Toris's affections that he only has because he's confused about being gay." Because everyone is gay, no exceptions, she thought but somehow had the tact not to say it out loud.

Meanwhile, they both seemed to have forgotten that the sister of the psycho-Russians they were talking about was still there. And it wasn't that she felt the offense for her adoptive siblings, but she just had a few things to say. The problem with that was that she was generally quiet and found it a little hard to speak up at first.

"I am thinking that you von't haff to vorry…," she told him, leaning over slightly to get into their range of sight. "Natalya olvays is saying that she hates Toris…. She likes Ivan much better." Yekaterina then cringed slightly, thinking of how overbearing and obsessive her younger sister could be.

"Yeah, I don't think that like, matters to Toris," said Feliks bitterly, frowning again.

"Vell… maybe it vood be good for Natalya to like Toris back so she von't be trying to be vith Ivan all the—"

"But this is for the sake of love, Yekaterina!" Elizaveta said over her, suddenly looking manic again. Wonderful, gay love! "If Toris stays around your brother, then what is Feliks supposed to do?"

"Vell, I—"

"You're going to help us, right?"

Hn. It looked like she didn't really have a choice. Not that Yekaterina was really all that against it…. She just cared about her brother and worried for his safety. But she did care about her friends too, however recently she'd gotten them, and she didn't want Feliks to have to be sad because of his best friend.

"I… da, I'll help," she agreed, smiling at them and starting to lean forward before she remembered that her too-large chest wouldn't allow her to.

"Great!" Her eyes shining over-dramatically, Elizaveta turned back to Feliks and gave him a hearty, reassuring shoulder-grab. "We are so going to get you your man back, no matter what it takes!"

The look on her face was crazily determined, and Feliks liked it. Bouncing in his seat slightly and giving her a quick hug, he said, "Ah, I totally love you guys!"

Elizaveta was already forming a plan in her head and giggling inwardly, thinking, Oh, I am so definitely going to post on Tumblr about this.

"Alright, this shouldn't be too hard…. It's just heating up sauce; I don't think I could mess this up."

"Mon dieu, don't say zat—you'll jinx it!"

Francis, genuinely anxious, looked between Arthur and the pot on the stove, which had only just begun to heat. Mr. (or, as Arthur kept calling him because of Harry Potter, Professor) Wang had finally had them start their first cooking project, and this week's was spaghetti (which Feliciano was rather excited about). Basically seeing how well they could follow simple directions, as he'd said, so it wasn't exactly a gourmet meal. Not that much more complicated than following directions off a box to make macaroni and cheese.

But that didn't mean it was impossible for Arthur to screw up, because when it came to cooking, there was nothing he couldn't screw up. Francis was almost afraid to be his partner in this, but he'd have been even more afraid if anyone else had partnered with him—both for the person unlucky enough to have to deal with him, and for Arthur, whom he didn't trust to be controlled by anyone else.

It was a relatively small town they lived in, which made it a small school, and so the class wasn't too big. Only ten people. That meant five groups, and two people to a group—and surprisingly, Mr. Wang hadn't been too strict to not let them pick their own partners. Of course Feliciano and Ludwig had immediately picked each other, and no one was surprised about Francis and Arthur; no one else would have gone with the grumpy British kid, anyway. Natalya hadn't given Ivan a choice, and then Kiku had gone with Minahil and Li Xiao with Roderich simply because they were the only ones left.

At the moment, it was about twenty minutes into class and Francis had already put the tomatoes and peppers and whatnot together in the blender to make the sauce, as they had agreed that he would do that and Arthur would just start off easy, by just heating it up and adding what little still needed to be added.

At Francis's (very serious) comment, Arthur scowled. "Oh, who's believing in curses now? Don't be so paranoid, Frog, it's not like I could blow up the whole classroom…."

"Ah, don't make it worse…," he moaned through his teeth, really wishing that he would quit it.

Arthur harrumphed and turned back to face the stove and look inside the pot before stirring it with the wooden spoon in his hand. "Don't get your knickers in a twist; I've got it. Now you just start boiling the water for the noodles or whatever and let me do it."

Clucking his tongue, Francis pursed his lips and smirked slightly, finding his friend's determination childlike and therefore kind of funny. "Hn, fine," he said, grabbing the pot sitting on the counter and taking the few steps toward the sink. "But you did say yourself zat you took zis class to learn to cook, so if you need 'elp—"

"—I highly doubt I'll need help just stirring—!"

"—zen I'm going to give it to you whezzer you want it or not, because I know you won't ask for it and I don't feel like dying today."

Arthur just scowled again at the smug tone in that voice and muttered profanities to himself as Francis came back over with the pot half-full of water and set it on the stove.

The next couple minutes or so were silent, but it was pretty much impossible for those two to be in such close range and remain quiet or even peaceful for too long, so the time was punctuated with random conversation that quickly escalated to more insults and bickering. Francis noticed that Arthur's apron was loose, so he tightened it, and the other retaliated by hitting him. And later, Arthur got angry at Francis for not giving him enough space in front of the stove, and so the rest of the class peeked over their own counters to watch them bump hips and try to push each other out of the way until Mr. Wang finally had to tell them to stop or they would be risking spilling stuff.

"Well look, now you've gotten us in trouble," Francis practically spat, giving Arthur a somewhat angry, sidelong glance.

"Hn, does a day go by when we don't get in trouble?"

Neither of them could help but smirk and laugh for a good ten seconds. Then it was back to watching their pots and stirring when it was needed. Until, eventually—

"Um, Arthur—" Francis nudged the other boy's arm and leaned over slightly, as a worry had just come to mind. "I tsink the sauce 'as probably been boiling too long—look, it's bubbling."

His eyebrows knitting together, Arthur leaned over the pot to look down into it. It was indeed bubbling, but he was fairly sure it was supposed to get to more intense bubbles before he—

And as though on cue, one of the bubbles popped, sending scalding-hot sauce straight up to land on his cheek, which his hand immediately flew to as he stepped back and hissed "Ah!" in pain.

Francis almost had to resist the urge to laugh because of the irony, but he quickly decided that it wasn't the best for him to laugh right now. "Dieu—you okay, mon ami?"

He quickly stepped back as well and made to try to help him, but Arthur slapped his hands away just as quickly and righted himself within a second or so; he wasn't going to let his pain show, God-bloody-dammit. "I'm fine," he growled, removing his hand from his face and wiping the sauce off in the process. "And don't call me that."

But there was still a small splattering of sauce left on his cheek, which Francis noticed and at once stepped closer again to end down and lick off. Arthur was momentarily stunned and trying to ignore the very sudden and very hard pounding in his chest. That was really no use, though, since he had already turned a mild shade of red in shock and anger and other things. Again, he brought his hand to his face.

"What the bloody hell—did you just lick my face?" he demanded, glaring at him and not noticing his voice get slightly more high-pitched. The groups on either side of them were watching them almost excitedly. These fights were always fun to watch. "Pervert!"

First moving to turn the stovetop that the sauce was on to a lower temperature so that the same thing wouldn't happen again, Francis smirked at him and laughed slightly. "Onhonhon, but zair was still sauce on it—"

"Yeah, well, you could have just bloody told me…," grumbled Arthur, now wiping saliva off his cheek. But that's not something you would do, is it?

"Hey, no public displays of affection, guys," said a voice from behind them, which they quickly recognized to be Li Xiao, leaning over the edge of the counter that separated their small kitchens. Arthur glared at him and Francis gave him a look (and even Roderich looked like he was doing a mental face-palm) as he sniggered and leaned back again.

Soccer really was the sport of the school. A good number of people besides just friends and family of the players had come to see the first match of the season (it was a home game, though, so it wasn't like they had to go far), and they were all rather enthusiastic about it, too.

Coach Vargas was having Vash Zwingli, a sophomore, handle the admission booth—two dollars a ticket, as he was on the Student Council as the treasurer. And that was pretty much the only worthwhile thing the treasurer ever got to do. Yeah, it… really sucked to be on Student Council.

Meanwhile, all the members of the team were waiting at the base of the bleachers to the left of the entrance while people bought their tickets and found a seat, and when the other school's team arrived (which should have been any minute now), they were to sit on the other side. A few of them were just sitting and waiting boredly, but most of them were at least a bit nervous, drinking more water than they needed to and trying to mentally prepare themselves.

Ivan's sisters were both already there, and Natalya had given him a huge kiss along with her hopes for him to play well before going off to a random seat on the bleachers—anywhere that Yekaterina wasn't. And he was almost more embarrassed that the other members of the team had had to see that than anything else.

As time passed, more people came at an exponentially increasing rate. When Matthew arrived (without their mother, since she had to work), he gave Alfred a non-committal wave before finding a seat. Not that anyone really noticed he was there, anyway. Meanwhile, with Mathias being Mathias, he wanted all his friends (who, besides Tino, had come only because he'd forced them) to hang around him until the match started, so they were all sitting behind the team.

When Feliks got there, it was no surprise (however depressing and frustrating to him) that Ivan put a possessive arm around Toris before he could even attempt to go give him a hug or anything. Whatevs, we only started the plan like, yesterday…, he thought to reassure himself as he gave a slight huff and stepped up the bleachers.

The bleachers were close to getting relatively full once Francis, Antonio, and Gilbert showed up together, only to immediately add to the noise of chatter.

"Hey, Lud!" Gilbert called out as he did a slow-jog over to his younger brother, who was sitting and talking with Feliciano. Until he approached, that is. "My little bruder's all grown up now, eh?"

Ludwig raised an eyebrow at being addressed by that loathsome shortening of his name and at Gilbert's comment, looking away, for the moment, from Feliciano. "…It's just soccer."

Undeterred, Gilbert latched a firm hand onto his brother's shoulder. "Ja, but highschool is like var, mein bruder, und zis is ze battlefield!" He used his other arm to extravagantly gesture to the whole soccer field, and then felt a hand on his own shoulder.

"Gilbert, amigo, I think you're getting in your overly-dramatic mood again," said Antonio, laughing a little. "Come on, let's just go sit down."

While the albino reluctantly agreed and told Ludwig that their grandfather was supposed to be there soon, Francis walked over to Arthur, who was standing—and whom he was pretty much here for besides the fact that his other two friends had wanted to come.

"'Ey, Arthur, bonne chance," he told him, lightly hitting him on the arm and making him turn around. Still in a bit of a bad mood from the sauce incident from earlier, he merely narrows his eyes for a few seconds while Francis grinned at him.

"Er…." Because of French class, he actually knew what it meant, but he hadn't expected it and had never been good with dealing handling compliments (or anything positive, really, especially from him), and so he couldn't help but hesitate. "Thanks…?"

"Because you'll definitely need it, onhon—"

"Oh, shut up, git!" it made a lot more sense with that comment from Francis, and Arthur punched him lightly in the chest as he walked away to follow his friends, ignoring the sniggers of others around him.

Within a couple minutes, the van carrying the boys from the other school's team showed up, and they all glared at the home team as they walked in. Noticing them, pretty much everyone but Feliciano and Toris glared back, warily watching them cross the field.

"Oh, I can't vait to pound their faces into dust," Ivan said to himself, smiling and unaware of suddenly the rest of the team inching away from him and staring.

Coming into the field from his office soon afterward, Roma looked between the two teams. "Alright, you guys all need to be ready in no more than five minutes, 'cause that's when it starts. And—don't get nervous, okay? You are all great, and this is only the first game. Just make sure you win!"

At the end of his rather short pep-talk and his grin, Mathias and Alfred let out a simultaneous whoop and fist-pumped once, but the rest of them remained mostly silent.

"Uh… aren't you supposed to tell us to do our best?" asked Toris, raising his hand slightly out of habit.

Roma just shrugged it off and waved a dismissive hand. "Yeah, that too. Now remember, even though you get a break, it's probably better to pee now while you can."

He then moved away to go take care of something, leaving most of them thinking, Is that… really all the advice he's going to give us? and then Alfred and Heracles to actually get up to hurry over to the bathrooms.

When there was less than a minute left and it was clear that the other team's coach was giving them a hurried, last-minute pep talk, everyone was standing up and waiting for Coach Vargas to tell them to go out there. As well as a few others, Feliciano was anxiously bouncing where he stood—but he was also whispering to himself, "Oh God oh God oh God oh God oh God oh God…."

He clearly wasn't doing it quietly enough, though, because Ludwig noticed.

"Feliciano, calm down," he told him at once, frowning slightly in spite of his own slight tentativeness. "It von't—"

"But Ludwig, I'm nervous…. I don't think I want to do this anymore."

"Nonsense—ve've been practicing und practicing, und you're not going to back down now. You don't vant to, anyvays." Just by looking him sternly straight in the eyes, Ludwig was able to get him to stay still and stare back. "Vhat are you even nervous about?"

Feliciano gulped, momentarily frozen by those eyes fixed on him. "Well, that I'll mess everything up for everybody, or that I'll get hurt, or that I'll humiliate myself, or—"

"Vell, stop it," Ludwig broke in, his expression not so much stern now as it was a very fixed and deep gaze. "You von't end up doing zose tsings, und you'll be fine. Besides, it vould be veird if you veren't nervous for your first game, ja?"

"I—well, I guess…." Feliciano was honestly feeling his anxiety starting to dwindle, and his face returned to a slight smile. "You're not nervous?"

"Of course I am," he said at once, and he would have gone on if it wasn't apparent immediately afterwards that they were supposed to start walking out to the field to their positions. So hurriedly, and without thinking, he grasped both of Feliciano's hands in reassurance. "You'll be fine; ve're going to vin."

With a slight shake of their hands and a nod, they both finally followed Coach Vargas's whistle and went out to the field.

Also in those last few seconds, Mathias leaned down to the second row of seats, where his friends were, and grinned. "Yo Lukas, how about a good luck kiss before I go out there?"

Lukas returned his grin with narrowed eyes and a bored look. "I could give you a kiss with my fist—" But Mathias quickly leaned forward and planted a huge kiss on his lips anyway, then ran off with the others, laughing to himself, before Lukas could hit him.

No more than a minute later, when the referee finished saying the rules he was required to say, a whistle was blown again and the ball was thrown up in the air.

While finding a seat, Matthew had quickly caught sight of a very familiar head of short, mousy blonde hair, accompanied by large breasts about a foot downward. He stopped in his tracks only to realize that he didn't even know whether he should stop in his tracks or turn around or just keep walking in the same direction because anything might result in something bad.

In spite of his previous decision to just not make an effort in ever asking her out or anything, Matthew was battling with himself on whether or not he should sit down and try to talk to her. Because he really wanted to. And she was right there. And she was sitting alone. Maybe she liked being alone? No, she was too happy of a person to like being alone—

Maybe he was over-thinking it, though. Besides, she probably wouldn't even notice that he was there. Yeah, that was it—if she noticed him, that was great, and if she didn't, then he had nothing to worry about!

Still, he felt incredibly awkward and kind of scared, and it took a lot of effort just to force himself to keep walking forward and then take a seat about three feet to her right. There was a small noise when he sat down, and it wasn't as though Yekaterina was blind, so Matthew was sure she must have been aware, and in that split second that he had sat down there—Oh God, she knows you're there, so now you have to say something—just say something, anything, come on, just do it, dammit…. Oh God why didn't you think of anything before you sat down?—

"…You're the last person I'd expect to see here," he ended up saying, smiling to cover up the automatic wish that he had stuck to saying nothing when she looked over at him. Oh God panicking panicking panicking….

But her slightly curious expression only lasted for a moment before she smiled friendily back at him and said, "My brother is on the team. You're in my Vorld Geography class, I am right? I'm sorry—I forget your name…."

Almost too awed over the fact that she was actually talking to him and the beginning of the conversation was going smoothly (and that her awkwardly-spoken English was extremely cute), Matthew hesitated to speak at first. "I—yeah, and my name's Matthew," he managed to say without sounding too nervous. Or at least he hoped he didn't sound too nervous. "You're Yekaterina, right?"

Just after he said that, he started panicking on the inside again, hoping to God that that hadn't made it sound like he was paying more attention to her than he should have or that he was obsessed with her or something—especially since Yekaterina was clearly more difficult to remember than Matthew….

Once again, though, she didn't seem to react to it negatively at all, but instead nodded in confirmation. "Mhm. I'm surprised you can actually pronounce it…."

"So I did pronounce it right?" Matthew was getting more confident by the second—especially as both of them laughed. "Um… is there a shorter version or nickname you prefer? Like… Irina? Or Katie?"

"Hm… I haven't actually thought about it before." Her adoptive siblings and two new friends—Elizaveta and Feliks—all called her Yekaterina, but she did suppose her name was kind of a mouthful. "But I am liking 'Katie.' That vorks." She gave him another smile and small nod, finding that they came even more easily than usual. Matthew was nothing like her friends or family, and he wasn't anything like any of the other boys who had approached her lately. He wasn't asking her to go on a date with him or hitting on her or staring at her chest.

"Okay." Matthew briefly got stuck staring at her smile before mentally shaking his head and frantically trying to think of something to say to carry on the conversation. "So… which one is your brother?" he said, looking over to where the team was.

"Oh—he is the tall vun vith hair like mine but darker," she told him, pointing him out. "His name's Ivan."

"Ah, he's in my Psychology class…. I didn't know he was your brother." And not only because they didn't look all that much alike, either. From what he'd seen and heard, Ivan was insane, along with that Natalya girl, who was apparently his adopted sister and was obsessed with him. That must have meant that Yekaterina was adopted as well, and so it was mostly surprising that someone as sweet and nice as her could be in the same family as those psychopaths. But he refrained from saying that.

"Ve're adopted," she told him, thinking that he might not know. And he was going to pretend that he hadn't, just to make things easier.

"Oh. Well… I'm here because of my brother, too—Alfred. We're twins, so he should be pretty noticeable."

Yekaterina looked down and didn't have to make any effort at all to see the boy with the huge cowlick, who was standing up and seemed to be talking rather loudly. She recognized him from her English class, and she'd known beforehand that he and Matthew must have been twins. "He vood be noticeable on his own, anyvay," she remarked, laughing a little. It seemed weird that two people so different could be twins.

Matthew laughed with her, silently agreeing with what she hadn't said.

"I cannot believe zat ve lost. Zis is unawesome to ze millionth power…."

"'Ey, but now I 'ave a lot to tease Arthur about for ze next couple days…. And your brozzer did make zat epic kick zat nearly saved zem."

Gilbert and Francis were riding home in Antonio's car, only recently having left the school parking lot—so there were a lot of other people still around. Many of whom were looking disappointed because of the first match being a loss.

"Since when do you even care about soccer enough to get this upset about it, though?" asked Antonio from the driver's seat, momentarily looking away from the road to his friend and raising an eyebrow.

Francis replied before Gilbert could, though. "Because 'e's obviously upset about sometsing else…. Didn't you see him looking over at Elizaveta ze 'ole time?" He smirked, and then even wider when he saw Gilbert's face.

"Huh? Did you two fight again?" said Antonio casually, as though it were no big deal.

And like hell it was no big deal. "V-vhat are you guys talking about?" demanded Gilbert frantically, twisting around in his seat and looking between his two friends.

"Ze fact zat you clearly like Elizaveta, duh," said Francis, and Antonio added—

"And that you're really jealous of Roderich and we're guessing you wanted to sit with her at the game."

W-what…? It was a couple more looks in-between them before Gilbert said anything. "Is… is it really zat obvious…?" He sunk back into his seat, letting his expression calm but remain in a frown.

"Yes," they both said firmly at the same time, sharing a mutual look through the rear-view mirror and then smirking at him.

"You 'aven't exactly been 'iding it well, you know."

"I don't know if she's noticed, but you're totally head-over-heels for her, bro." Antonio grinned to himself, and then remembered what he and Francis had talked about alone recently. "So, you'll want us to help you get her, right?"

Still trying to process the fact that his friends were perfectly aware of his weakness (as he called it, anyway) and that they were talking to him about it like it was nothing, Gilbert took a few seconds to respond. "You guys… vant to help?"

"Of course!" Francis leaned forward in his seat and smiled. "Mon ami, we will make it just like ze movies and devise a complicated yet flawless plan and get zat girl for you. We're all best friends here, oui?"

"Ah… zis is going to be great. You guys are awesome," said Gilbert, suddenly much happier and more hopeful, which his almost painful smile gave away.

"It's settled, then?" said Antonio, not looking away from the road. "We're doing this?"

"Ja!"

"Oui."

"Awesome. Let's just wait until I stop the car at Francis's house to do our Bad Touch Trio handshake-of-agreement, since my hands are kind of busy right now.

Translations (I decided I should probably start doing these):

Bonne chance = Good luck (French)

Bog chert poberi =God dammit (Russian) (Non-phonetic typing: Бог черт побери)

I hope not too many of you get put off by all the pairings I'm including, since I'm sure it's not likely for many people to ship the same exact things as me. Anyway, I'll try to update soon, and I would love it if you reviewed in the meantime! :D