A/N: Here is chapter 5, please enjoy. The sass is strong with these boys.

Roderich had ventured outside of the Academy building, if only in the hopes that all the fresh air would cool the burning sensation on his cheeks. Honestly, the German was intent on making him out to be a pervert! And it annoyed - or rather humiliated - Roderich to no end.

Yes, as his parents kept reminding him, he was young, and in his prime to be married, but he had no such plans yet. Maybe not ever. Being the self-centred man he was, Roderich disliked the idea of being married, of having to share whatever wealth he inherited, and of having to establish and maintain an intimate relationship with someone.

His thoughts, his time, his heart had always been dedicated to music. He held many of the great composers in a type of reverence that some would describe to be tender. During his schooling years, many of Roderich's fellow classmates had teased him about being in love with his musical role models, despite them being not only male but long deceased.

Naturally back then, he had denied every such accusation. Nowadays, particularly after his string of unsuccessful auditions as a pianist, the Austrian had re-evaluated his feelings.

He had concluded that he had never exhibited a forbidden love towards famous classical composers like Mozart; no, simply a strong sense of admiration. Because Roderich had very few friends whilst growing up, despite his wealthy background. But he had always been able to rely on the compositions of music, on the products of infamous figureheads whenever he felt alone.

Looking back now, Roderich mused, I do suppose my childhood was quite caged. A lonely experience which thankfully had ended before it had properly begun.

Careful not to trample on the impeccably groomed gardens, he seated himself on a nearby bench. Through his spectacles, he spied a small collection of flowers next to his spot. Primroses.

A very delicate breed of flower, he understood, one which needed careful cultivation if it was to reach its full glory. These primroses varied in colours, from white to yellow to purple. Every bloom had petals which resembled watercolour paints dripped on top of each other, to create blends of differing shades.

But the more Roderich studied them, the more one particular flower stood out. This one was a faded red colour; yellow spread from its centre outward via little capillaries. Its leaves had wilted and seemed to wrap around the petals as a shawl would an elderly lady's shoulders.

It appears this flower did not receive the appropriate amount of sunlight. It would have been a valid reason for its shabby appearance; it was the only flower shaded by an outcrop of the Academy at this angle. It's a wonder it has lived this long.

Without precedence, Roderich's own words from earlier leapt into his mind: different is not imperfect, Gilbert. The red petals certainly reminded him of the albino's eyes.

In fact, the total scruffiness of this flower presented an ideal representation of the man. This plant seemed to be comforting itself, just as he had found Gilbert doing in the canteen.

His thoughts thrumming with promise, Roderich opened his accompanying sketchbook, took into his hand a sharp pencil, and got to work.

It took him what felt like hours to capture the flower's shape, its details, its finest intricacies. Even during the lengthy, infrequent breaks he had taken, the Austrian always knew there was another part of the blossom to be scrutinised, imitated by pencil. Roderich lamented that he had not brought any coloured pencils with him; instead, he settled for a darker shade to represent the red, and a darker shading yet to show the shadows. In fact, it was the shadows which bothered him the most, what with the moving sunlight almost constantly adjusting their location, but he managed to recreate the object before him before sundown. Other students had been passing him all day; music students, fellow art students, architecture students, some of whom had given him intrigued glances as they passed, some even trying to see what he had been so painstakingly drawing.

However, as soon as he noticed spots of navy seeping into the sky, he hurriedly shut his book, gathered his things and headed inside. Dinner was at 6pm every day, and lasted an hour and a half. Heading up a grandeur staircase to his dormitory room, Roderich glanced at a clock on the wall above: five past seven. How had time elapsed so quickly?

Damn. They served no meals after 7:30pm. He doubted they even kept leftovers. Fishing his key from his pocket, Roderich unlocked his door and, after setting down the sketchbook containing his precious drawing, flopped ungracefully onto the bed. The sheets were plain, cream. Only two pillows. At his manor home, Roderich had slept atop four pillows. And his sheets were silk. He knew he was not the only one from a wealthy background - most Vienna Academy students were of aristocracy - but he doubted that he could accustom to this less extravagant existence as others had. He was even missing the maids, not that there would be enough room for them to fit into and therefore clean this cubby-hole in which he currently resided. Even the wallpaper was blank; one would presume that at an academy of fine arts, every corner would be spruced up. The lack of colours in this room rendered it wearisome.

He despised having to be surrounded by such blandness and such colour simultaneously: everything material around him, his dorm, his clothes, were dull; yet the artworks, the art supplies, even this entire establishment itself, was full of beauty and decadence.

Ah, well, he consoled himself as his stomach began to growl, I still have my glasses.

The spectacles he wore so proudly always filled him with a sense of sophistication - at least, Roderich would rather pretend that he wore spectacles out of fashion rather than face the harsh truth that without them he was conclusively blind.

He remembered his mother placing the wireframes onto him when he was five years old, the cold metal stinging his nose and pinching behind his ears for the first time. But she had said with a smile: "How sophisticated! You look like true nobility."

Ever since, Roderich had used the presence of his glasses as a reminder to always be reserved, to act as befitted an Austrian gentleman, and to remind him to only ever look down upon those of lesser status.

However, he had not always followed those unspoken rules, and he was not proud of that revelation. Roderich could not even bring himself to completely reject Gilbert, despite him undoubtedly being a commoner plucked from the suffering working class by his own gloved hand. Gilbert was a thief, a rude, cocky little thief with albinism and an inferiority complex. He had not deserved the Austrian nobleman's help.

And yet, Roderich could not hate him.

Sighing, Roderich levered himself off the bed, stretched, righted his artist's robes and strode down to the large dining hall, which was now full of resonating dinnertime pandemonium created by the students and professors alike. All along the long benches, students sat in their respective groups, consuming their desserts with the graceful table manners likely forced onto them from birth. After all, as Roderich's father had told him, even when a nobleman is starving, he must not disgrace himself by eating as would befit a pig.

Roderich hadn't quite reached the point of starvation yet.

Glancing around to the art groups, he spotted a familiar head of white hair. Gilbert, he saw, had managed to make friends. He was chatting idly away with Elizaveta, the auburn-haired girl, and a few other women from art classes. The male students, apparently, wanted nothing to do with him.

As he looked on at the harem spectacle before him, Roderich felt a twinge tighten his insides. Why should he care to whom Gilbert spoke? What did it matter if they were all women? All young, attractive, intelligent women crowding around him like moths to a flame…

Roderich had never suited the colour green, and he would most certainly not start wearing it now, inside or out.

He decided to skip dessert.

What he failed to notice as he left the hall, however, was the pair of ruby eyes that flicked towards his back, noting his presence with confusion.

.

.

.

Knock knock knock.

"...It is open," Roderich answered distractedly as he sat at his desk, preening over the flower sketch.

"...Hello. I brought you some pudding." The clipped voice caused Roderich to lift his head in greeting. Gilbert stood in the open doorway, something wrapped in a napkin held before himself.

Standing up, the Austrian found himself speechless.

"I saw you come to dinner late," Gilbert explained. "But you didn't come sit with us, so I borrowed a pudding for you."

"Borrowed?"

"Or liberated, whichever term avoids the implication of theft," Holding out the little wrapped package, Roderich took it, and looked inside. Viennese shortbread. "Uh...thank you."

Stepping inside the room, Gilbert gave it a once-over. He nodded. "Yes, your room is just as pathetic as mine."

Roderich silently agreed that blandness did somehow equate to being pathetic, but his mind simultaneously presented him a contradiction: Gilbert is, by common definition, bland. He has little colour. So why is he so interesting?

Dampening this internal query, the Austrian turned to face his visitor. "I imagine that all dormitory rooms have the same décor." His voice seemed more frustrated than he had intended it to be.

Gilbert frowned, folding his arms over a straightened chest. "Have I done something to upset you? Or was your dinner too sour?"

Roderich waved a hand dismissively, not wishing to enter another verbal jousting session with the Berliner*. "It is merely...artist's frustration. I have been focused on but one drawing all day and such an endeavour can take its toll on one unaccustomed to pencil work." He gestured to the flower sketch which lay spread over his desk.

Stepping forward, the white-haired German nodded slightly. "Not a bad effort, Specs. Colour would benefit it, though."

"I disagree. If it had needed colour, I would have added colour," Roderich defended, adjusting his glasses. He would not concede that the primary reason his drawing was devoid of pigment was that he had lacked motivation to acquire his paintset. "Colour is not always necessary for an interpretive piece."

"In that case, how is it interpretive?"

"It is a dying flower, with a dearth of colour. The inference is that many things tend to lose their colour as they near the gates of Heaven. Flora and fauna. Fabrics. Humans-"

"By that logic," Gilbert sneered, "I should be long dead."

Roderich raised an eyebrow. "Must the entire world revolve around you?" Though he was well aware that his own criticism now was ironic, as the drawing itself was based upon his new acquaintance.

"Yes. I am a worthy Sun." That earned a derisive smile from the younger man as he began to tidy away his art supplies. It was getting late and his creative stamina had been practically drained.

"You forget, also, Herr Beilschmidt," He continued as he tidied, "that I specified many organisms lose their colour as they die, I did not say that they lose colour. Ergo, you may have albinism, but it is your natural pigment, correct?"

Silence.

Roderich looked at Gilbert, wondering if he had asked an offending question. But the man simply looked back with a thoughtful expression.

"...Correct," He finally answered.

"Then you retain your natural colour and it indicates that you are alive and well. The concern will arrive when your irises begin to fade." As he spoke, the Austrian found himself being scrutinised by those very same ruby orbs, both of which held a minor realisation within.

Allowing an elegant upturn of lips, Gilbert, already standing within Roderich's sphere of personal space, leaned further in until their hair touched, white and brown.

Roderich immediately registered increased physiological arousal: his heart thundered in his ears, his palms began to sweat, his torso heated up, and his extremities became colder. Their lips were inches apart, neither backing down from the other.

Though the aristocrat did not appreciate the sudden invasion, he was determined not to retreat.

A few seconds passed.

Gilbert Beilschmidt chuckled softly, his breath tickling Roderich's lower lip.

"You could have been quite the philosopher, were you not so prejudiced."

With that, the taller male exited the dormitory room. Something deep inside Roderich would that the man return, wanted to keep his presence and his appearance and his uniqueness close, if only to have someone to hold on to as his mind entered strange and uncharted lands in which all manner of unexpected revelations awaited him.

He wanted to know more about Gilbert Beilschmidt.

He wanted Gilbert to colour his world.

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* Berliner is the German term for an inhabitant of... Berlin, surprisingly enough. But it also means doughnut. So, in 1963, when President John F. Kennedy visited Berlin and gave his famous speech, he technically also announced that "Ich bin ein Berliner "- I am a doughnut.