Chapter five – Acquaintances

Lovino and Antonio's date was going surprisingly well. Antonio had managed to keep the date exciting and interesting, despite the fact they'd probably gone to one of the most boring, depressing towns in the UK. The two of them had tried their luck with fishing, visited a little market on the outskirts of the town, where Lovino had his fortune told by a very beautiful gypsy woman, and even dragged their feet up a very, very steep hill.

By the time they'd begun their miniature hiking session, the sun was already partly behind the horizon. Lovino was very thankful that Antonio didn't say something stupidly cliché involving the quite beautiful sunset (Lovino never admitted that something was beautiful.) Instead, the Spaniard was uncharacteristically quiet from behind Lovino as they climbed their way up the large hill. Antonio was so quiet that he was actually starting to worry Lovino a little.

"Hey, are you okay?" Lovino asked quietly, turning around and almost tripping over a rock due to his lack of concentration.

Antonio chuckled, steadying Lovino with his hands, "I'm fine, mi amor, I'm with you after all!"

Lovino rolled his eyes, "Yeah, yeah, whatever. You're just being a bit quiet."

"Oh? What's this? Is Lovino worried about me?" Antonio giggled, both happy and genuinely taken aback.

"Shut the fuck up, idiot. You're my boyfriend; I'm allowed to worry about you."

Antonio looked about ready to explode with happiness at Lovino's very simple fourteen words, "Lovi! That's so nice!" Antonio flung his arms around Lovino, causing both of them to crash on to the grassy floor, both giggling and a little out of breath. Of course, if Lovino ever retold the story – which he probably wouldn't – he would leave out the part of him giggling. He had some dignity, after all.

Their giggling soon stopped, the two of them staying silent. Like most silences between lovers, the silence wasn't awkward, just peaceful. They lay there, almost hugging, staring into each other's eyes. Lovino hated himself for letting Antonio act so cliché. He hated clichés. Well, actually if he was completely honest with himself, he wanted to hate clichés, but whenever he found himself in a romantic situation like that, he couldn't help but secretly love it. Hell, his heart felt like it was about to take off out of his chest!

"Lovino, this is the surprise I wanted you to see," Antonio smiled, stroking Lovino's cheek a little. By now, the sun had settled behind the horizon, and the dusk of the evening had begun to settle around them, the air becoming a little cooler, and a few stars becoming visible. It was an incredibly clear night.

"I love the starts…" Lovino muttered under his breath, not actually meaning to say anything, "They're just like beacons of hope. Like even if we destroy this planet, then hopefully on some other big star or planet, they'll have a better shot at their lives. If aliens exist or whatever."

Antonio smiled, it was refreshing for Lovino to be so honest. He didn't say anything, though, as he knew that Lovino was probably just thinking that, and was so relaxed, he'd accidentally say it. Antonio knew that if he made it obvious that he'd heard Lovino's mutters, then Lovino would become very guarded, and it'd be even harder for Antonio to find out what was going on with Lovino's beautiful, refreshing thoughts.

"Jesus, what was that!?" Lovino gasped, pointing up at the sky. Antonio looked up, smiling, knowing exactly what Lovino had just seen, even though the sky was now empty from anything that could've startled Lovino.

"What was it Lovi? I wasn't looking…" Antonio smiled.

Lovino frowned, "Nothing. What date is it today?"

"27th September, Lovi~" Antonio smiled, knowing full well what Lovino was doing.

"Shit! That was good timing, Toni! There's meant to be a pretty impressive meteor shower tonight!" Lovino's eyes widened, a grin spreading across his face, "So… I did just see a shooting star! Fuck, I thought I was hallucinating…" as if to reassure Lovino that he wasn't going insane, another few lights streaked across the sky scarily fast.

"I know it was good timing," Antonio smiled, tiling his head to his side and propping his head up on his hand.

Lovino stared at Antonio, "You planned this?"

"Course I did!" Antonio was pleased with himself, "I know how much you love the stars, Lovi, and you've wanted to see a meteor shower for ages! I figured I'd talk to Professor Wang about it, and he told me that this was probably one of the best places to view them, especially if it was a clear night."

Lovino didn't care about dignity any more. He flung himself on to Antonio, missing an impressive little group of comets up in the sky as he kissed the sense out of Antonio. Fuck hating clichés – they were fucking romantic.

"I knew you'd be happy, but I didn't think you'd be this happy! I must try harder to make this happen more often… you've been awfully loving today… I've quite enjoyed this side of you…" Antonio chuckled, "But look, you're missing the meteors. I know you'll kick yourself later if you miss this chance. Just think, we can kiss all you want later. Right now just fall into the night sky."

Lovino knew that with Antonio's promise of endless kissing later on, he would never be able to concentrate probably. Right now all he wanted was to love Antonio for all he was worth. Though Antonio was right. There were meteors to watch.

Luckily for Lovino, the meteors were beautiful enough to distract anyone from anything. Maybe this was the key to World peace – just let everyone see the universe for how beautiful it was, and then everyone would understand just how precious their World was.

Would it be too cliché to say that Antonio is my world? Lovino thought to himself.

Fuck it. He was already sitting on a hill, holding hands with his boyfriend on a hill looking up at the stars. You couldn't get much more cliché than that, so why not go the whole hog?

"Antonio," Lovino muttered, "Thank you for this…" he paused before saying what he wanted too, taking a deep breath, "Some people let their lives revolve around themselves, or their work, or helping other people… I think they're wasting their lives doing that – what do they gain at the end of it all? They'll just die, no matter what happens. Life's kinda pointless when you think of it like that," fuck – he was getting too deep! "B-But I'm not like that. My life revolves around something very, very special. Something I couldn't live without. Something that makes me smile, even when I'm so pissed off I want to kill someone."

Antonio smiled at Lovino's honesty, "And what's that, Lovi?"

Lovino looked quickly down at the floor, feeling his face flush crimson as he locked gazes with Antonio, "Y-You."

Antonio nearly rolled over squealing at Lovino's utter adorable-ness. Instead, he composed himself, and confidently leaned over, pressing a chaste kiss to Lovino's lips, smiling slightly at the little girly 'yeep' of surprise Lovino whispred at the sudden kiss.

"Lovino, you know I tell you every morning that I love you?"

"Yes?"

"Well, think about every time I've said that to you. Combine them all together, add all the stars we can see right now, and times it all by twenty," Antonio said.

"What're you getting at?" Lovino pouted, not sure if he was glad about his honesty.

"Well that's not even close to how much I love you right now." Antonio declared.

"Soppy bastard…" Lovino muttered, but let Antonio kiss him, both of them forgetting about the beautiful shower around them. If anyone had walked over to see Lovino and Antonio, they'd probably melt at how perfect the scene looked. They really were made for each other.

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Arthur's German class on Monday was a lot different to last Monday's.

First of all to make it unique, Mr. Belischmidt wasn't teaching. Instead of their Headmaster, there was a tall man with very messy blonde hair standing at the front of their class. His hair actually reminded Arthur of his own, as the colour was very similar and the thickness almost identical, though this man had chosen to make it look like an electric current had been passed through his body. His hair was everywhere! Staying with the subject of electricity, his eyes sparkled a dangerous, electric blue, and gave him the look of a curious seven year old, which'd just discovered they could terrorise their siblings by pulling their hair, or tickling them. Then there was his determined grin. Well, that grin almost needed a paragraph of its own; it was just so confident. Arthur wasn't entirely quite sure why some random guy standing at the front of their class had so much confidence – what was he even doing there?

"Right, right, sit down class!" the man called, his expression staying as wild as ever, "Is everyone here? God there's not many of you! I have some news –it might be exciting or not, depending on your views. But, as I'm sure Mr. Belischmidt will tell you in your next assembly, he's decided to do something about your kinda sucky teaching methods. Remember before you had a load of teachers doubling up on lessons? Well, he's fixed that! So now, I am your new German teacher!"

There were mutters from the boys, each giving a few words of their approval or disapproval. Arthur found himself sitting next to Kiku for this lesson (why wasn't he sitting with Ludwig and Feliciano?) and, as Kiku was so uptight about not talking about people behind their backs, let alone right in front of them, Arthur didn't get to express his opinion of this new teacher. His opinion was, in his own words 'mildly curious, a little intimidated, and generally wishing Mr. Belischmidt was back.'

"Yeah, yeah, that's enough talking about me! Don't judge people, kids, it's not a nice thing to do," the man glared playfully, "I am Mathias Køhler, newly shipped in from the great Denmark itself! Now, I know what you might be thinking," he cleared his throat, and then spoke in a very high pitched, childish voice – obviously doing a scarily accurate impression of any member of the class, "'But if your from Denmark, why are you teaching German?'" he waved his arms about a bit, and then returned to his usual voice, "Well, kids, I studied. And I'm here to pass on that studying to you. I can speak German as well as the next German you see. I'm fluent, 'cause I had an awesome teacher in school, so now I'm going to be an awesome teacher for you!"

At the use of the word 'awesome', everyone looked around at Gilbert. They all knew that Gilbert would either get along very well with Mr. Køhler, or by the end of the lesson, the German would be ready to rip out the man's throat. By the looks of things right now, it seemed he might have to be restrained, as the second option looked scarily close to coming true.

"So guys, you know me, so I want to know you. But not really about you – I'm your teacher, not your roommate. I want to know how good at German you are, so I've prepared a short test for you. Don't worry if you don't know some of the answers; there's some really, really easy stuff, and some really, really hard stuff. I just want to know how good at the language you are, so don't worry too much about it," the man grinned, holding up a thick wad of stapled-together paper, "You," he pointed at Colin, "Can you hand these out for me, please?"

With a great sigh, Colin stumbled to his feet, and took the great mass of paper, and began throwing them at his classmates, landing neatly on their desks in front of them. This was a perfect opportunity for Arthur to find out about Kiku's odd isolation from his friends.

"Hey, Kiku, are you all right?" Arthur asked in a whisper, lightly pressing a hand to Kiku's shoulder in a comforting way.

The Japanese boy smiled a little, "Yes, yes, I'm fine, thank you, Arthur-san. There is no need to worry about me, really."

"Well I know something's up – what happened between you and Ludwig?"

"How on earth did you know that?" Kiku's eyes widened, and looked like he thought Arthur had connections with the devil.

Arthur shrugged, laughing, "Well, you're not sitting with Feliciano and Ludwig, but there're spare seats by both of them. It's not possible to argue with Feliciano unless your name is Lovino, so you must've had an argument with Ludwig. What happened?"

Kiku looked about ready to christen Arthur the next Sherlock Holmes (Arthur knew his simple deduction was nothing to match up to Holmes' standards – Kiku was just easily impressed) "Ehh… well it's not an argument as such, I just had a little disagreement with Ludwig, and I'm not too sure where we stand right now."

"You can start wit your tests!" Mr. Køhler called from the front of the class, now sitting on his chair, legs propped up against his desk.

Arthur dropped his voice so as not to be accused of cheating, "What was it about?"

"Your skills can't deduce that, Arthur?" Arthur couldn't decide if Kiku was being serious or not, but he went on to explain the problem either way, "Well I told Ludwig that if he wasn't careful, he was going to start drifting from Feliciano, and Ludwig told me that Lars was dangerous." Kiku pouted childishly, "He's not dangerous… He's just a little intimidating!"

Arthur was shocked to see Kiku acting so out of character, "Don't worry Kiku, I'm sure Lars is a perfectly acceptable boyfriend. But ehh…" one little part of Kiku's explanation had got Arthur's curiosity grinding again, "What did you mean by Ludwig and Feliciano might 'drift apart'" he drew little quotation marks in the air with his fingers around the words.

Kiku frowned, a little confused, "Well, I meant that if Ludwig isn't careful, he might start taking Feliciano for granted, and that is probably one of the worst things you can do in a relationship."

"Go on…" Arthur muttered, starting on his test while listening.

"Well, let's say Ludwig did take Feliciano for granted. Of course, that would mean that Ludwig just accepts that he'll always have Feliciano, and it's not that he does it deliberately, it just happens. He might stop putting Feliciano first, and out other things before him. I believe that the key to a healthy relationship is to prioritise your lover before anything or anyone else. It seems right now, Ludwig is putting his work first, and that will cause them to fall apart. It's a bit like what happened with me and Heracles, but slower and more painful."

Arthur felt a chill run down his spine. He knew exactly what Kiku was talking about, and with a sickening feel of realisation, Arthur was beginning to wonder, was that happening to him and Alfred?

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Meanwhile in Alfred's French class, the American was witnessing something very, very odd. Well actually, it was more than just one odd phenomenon.

First of all, Arthur's class hadn't been the only ones to get a new teacher. It seemed Alfred's class had acquired two new teachers, as, standing at the front of the class were two blonde men standing adorably close to one another. The first had a kind smile on his face and looked relatively normal – or as normal as this school could get, anyway. He looked quite girly not only in the way he'd styled his hair neatly, but also the way he held himself. He linked his fingers together in front of him in that adorable way little girls do when they want something. On the whole, he looked like quite a nice guy, and a reasonably good teacher.

The other guy had to be the complete opposite of the first guy.

This man, as stated before, also had blonde hair, but this was short and cropped as opposed to the first man's medium-length silky locks. But the second man was the reason the entire class was silent, each student now suddenly understanding what it'd be like to sit in Death Row. This man's entire face challenged Coach Braginski's bad moods, and Coach Braginski's bad moods were murderous. His eyes seemed to pierce right through you and skewer your darkest secrets. He hadn't even opened his mouth yet, but some students were already imagining just how dangerous he sounded. What the hell was Mr. Belischmidt doing by employing a mass murderer for a teacher!?

Of course, no one had any proof this man was the evil psychopath that everyone had decided he was in there heads, but who needs proof when someone has a face as scary as that!?

"Hello class! I am your new teacher, Tino Väinämöinen, though, as my surname is so hard to pronounce, I'd rather not waste away our lessons trying to say Finnish surnames, so you can all just call me 'sir' or 'Tino' or whatever, as long as it's not offensive!" Tino smiled happily, not mentioning anything about the evil-looking man beside him. It was making Alfred wonder if he was imagining this man.

"As I'm sure you've figured out by now, Mr. Belischmidt is employing new members of staff. From what I've heard, two of my close friends have also got a job here, so that's great, no? And across the hall, there's Mr. Køhler teaching German. He's a nice enough guy, but you don't want to get on his bad side."

The evil man grunted in agreement. Everyone sat up straight suddenly, tensing up their limbs in fear.

"Now, let's do some French, shall we?" Tino smiled childishly.

"Sir," Francis stuck up his hand elegantly, "May I ask, if you are from Finland, why're you teaching French?"

Tino frowned, "I'll have you know that you don't have to be from a country to know the language! You're speaking English, aren't you? I think that's enough proof!"

Francis chuckled patronisingly, "Though wouldn't it make sense to have someone fluent teaching their own language? For instance moi?"

The evil man spoke for Tino.

"'F you have a probl'm with h's teaching, th'n get out."

Francis looked petrified, and then squeaked a very un-cool, out-of-character, "I-I'm sorry! There's no problem!"

Owain nearly keeled over laughing, but was soon shut up by a glare from the man.

"Ah! I knew I forgot something! Class, this is Berwald Oxenstierna. I'm not entirely sure why he's here today, but I think it's for moral support, isn't that nice? Don't be scared, though. He's really not as mean as he looks."

Berwald looked at Tino, knitting his eyebrows together, "What d'you mean 'n't as mean as he l'ks'?"

Tino just smiled, patting Berwald's head patronisingly as he went on to teach his lesson, "So, class, French! Who can tell me what you were studying last? Hopefully I'll be able to continue where you last were. It wouldn't be too good if we repeated a lesson, or skipped a lesson…"

Alfred smiled to himself. He was definitely fond of this new teacher. He was wondering what Arthur's class was like with the new Mr. Køhler that Tino had mentioned. They all had such strange names…

"Hey," Alastair muttered, tapping Alfred's arm, narrowing his eyes.

"What're you doing here? Why aren't you sitting with Owain?" Alfred said, squinting with confusion.

Alastair ignored Alfred, pointing subtly to the front of the class at Francis, Owain, Matthew (who'd moved seats from beside Alfred for some reason) "Something's up with those lot."

"Actually I was wondering about that…" Alfred muttered, he'd noticed before that the three of them were acting quite strange, "What's going on?"

Alastair shrugged, "Dunno. But I bet you anything it has something to do with Francis."

Alfred nodded, "You're probably right…"

"Of course I'm right, you idiot."

"So what? Francis did what?" Alfred pouted with thought.

Shrugging, Alastair chewed on the end of his pen, leaning back in his seat, "No idea. Probably something perverted and French… though not his usual perverted – he's too… on edge for that. But not on-edge because of that fucking serial killer who's teaching us. It's something else. Catch my drift?"

"Yup." Alfred nodded, biting his lip, "Maybe… he had a fling?"

"It wouldn't surprise me. Owain looks pretty pissed off…" Alastair frowned, "But with who?"

"Gilbert?"

"Hah, that's quite possible," Alastair chuckled dryly, "Though Gilbert did tell me something the other day… I wonder…"

"What?"

"Never mind." Alastair answered quickly, "See if you can find anything out. I'll talk to Owain later."

"Tell me if you hear anything!" Alfred grinned, loving the thought of gossip. Call him a girl or whatever, but at least with gossip there was something to talk about rather than rolling around, bored out of his mind.

"Will do," Alastair nodded, then his eyes widened drastically as he caught Mr. Oxenstierna's eye, and the Scottish teen quickly began scribbling down on a piece of paper the date in French.

"Fuck. We're all screwed…" he muttered, knowing full well who'd be in his nightmares, and probably everyone else's, tonight.

A/N

I'm sorry this took so long! X'D I'm not really sure what happened XD I just didn't get around to writing it XD
Thank you for your lovely, lovely reviews, people! You're all little angels! My own shooting star shower XD
I'm sorry if all that stuff about comet showers was incorrect XD I know the dates are complete crap; for some reason it was really hard to find dates that comets/meteors appear, so I just made some up XD but yay for romantic cliché! I'd do anything for a guy as sweet as Toni~
I hope I wrote Sweden, Finland and Denmark okay Q_Q I've never read/written them before XD I don't know when/if Norway and Iceland will appear XD their personalities confuse me! If anyone has any pointers with them, then feel free to tell me! Help is much appreciated!
Support makes me write quicker! Q¬Q so if possible, fave/follow/review if possible, and thank you if you have/will/want to XD
Thanks you guys!