Chapter Three:
Alfred stumbled back from the blow; surprisingly the albino carried quite a punch.
"Not cool dude! What's that for?" Alfred said angrily, he clenched his right fist and with his left hand he rubbed his jaw- almost certain it would leave a bruise.
Gilbert's face twisted into a snarl, "It's for unawesomely leaving behind everyone and making us believe you were dead for so long!"
"The heck is you talking about man? I never left!" Gilbert seemed just about ready to deliver another punch, but then Mattie grabbed onto the corner of his shirt and whispered something Alfred couldn't quite hear.
Gilbert took in a deep breath and relaxed his shoulders, the snarl on his face slowly disappeared and he sized Alfred up again.
"Mattie just told me he has no clue why you're here since you jumped last year. He thinks you're an apparition or something." Gilbert crossed his arms, and stared at Alfred.
Minutes passed and Alfred suddenly realized he was waiting for an explanation.
"Oh! You want an explanation!"
Gilbert snorted and then waited for Al to continue.
"Well… I dunno really man. Just a few hours ago I was in the car with Mattie and mom and we were going to practice and then bam! I wake up here in boomfuck nowhere!" Alfred said- his temper slowly rising as he realized how truly insane all of this was.
Gilbert raised an eyebrow, "First off, what's a car? And this isn't 'boomfuck nowhere', this is Roboju."
Alfred's eyes widened and he started asking Matthew and Gilbert a thousand questions, Matthew and Gil tuned him out though and then discussed what to do as Al flipped out.
"We need to get Alfred to someone, it's hopeless if I try and fix him...I think we should take him to Ludwig, he usually knows what to do when it comes to situations that require brain power," Gilbert suddenly realized what he said and corrected himself, "Not that I, the awesome Gilbert, don't have brain power! I just don't want to have to use my awesome brain to figure this out…" Gilbert pinched the bridge of his nose and made a mental note: shut up when I don't know what to say.
Matthew thought this over for a moment or two and then suggested, "Maybe we should take him to Yao- he probably has some home remedy to get Alfred's brain back in check."
Gilbert shrugged, "Either way we need to get him to someone- wait! But if we take him to Yao…" Gilbert trailed off as Matthew caught on to his train of thought.
Yao was the village's doctor and herbalist. He owned a little house close to the main road and he lived with two of his younger cousins- Kiku and Mei. Now if Gilbert and Matthew were to drag poor Al off to Doctor Wang's home to seek a diagnosis, the likelihood of running into young Kiku would be very high. And the two remembered quite clearly about Kiku and Alfred's past... connection and how upset Kiku was after finding out Alfred had passed on. Who knows what would happen if Kiku saw Alfred alive and well! Not to mention Yao would probably be upset with Alfred for leaving Kiku without a heads-up and possibly not provide any treatment… But from the looks of things, Alfred truly didn't recall anything about his death for he was still raging about 'Roboju isn't a place!' and 'You guys are freaking nuts!' and so on and so forth. It got Mattie thinking that maybe Yao and Kiku would think he was innocent if they saw Alfred all confused and angry, maybe they'd think he didn't deserve to be judged on something he couldn't remember. However, the odds of them forgiving him were quite slim.
After a few more minutes, Alfred finally tired himself down and collapsed onto the ground, with his head in his hands.
Mattie turned to Gilbert and whispered, "Yea, definitely Ludwig's then."
Gilbert nodded and then hauled Alfred back onto his feet.
"Yo!" Alfred snapped back to full alertness, but –thankfully- didn't continue to rant.
"You talk so weird…" Gilbert shook his head, "We have decided that we're going to town and so you shall be accompanying the awesome me and Birdie!" Gilbert declared, a smile returning to his face.
"'K dude." Alfred said and then he waited for Gilbert to take the lead and start walking towards town.
"What? Don't you want to be the line leader?" Gilbert asked, he began heading off into the town's general direction- he knew Alfred didn't remember or know the way to their town.
"I always wanna be the line leader! But I dunno where we're going so it wouldn't do any good for me to lead…" Alfred scratched the back of his neck and stared embarrassed at the ground.
Gilbert looked up at the winding trees above them and let out a slow sigh. Gilbert had been hoping he'd be able to spark one of Alfred's old memories by bringing up the whole line leader business. When the three were little kids, Gilbert and his trio of friends would sometimes play tag with Alfred and Matthew- after they were done with chores of course- at a giant field a little ways away from the fearsome Pit. To get to the giant field, the boys would have to pass through a narrow strip of land where only one small child could pass through at a time without being restricted by the vine covered walls that bordered it. They always seemed to fight about who'd be the first to go into the Tunnel (that was it's nickname) and Alfred usually got his way and went first in and out of the Tunnel. Sadly, Alfred didn't seem to be remembering those days.
"So off to Roboju we go!" Gilbert plastered on another cocky grin and put a little more pep in his step as he crossed the golden wheat fields.
Throughout the walk Alfred kept rambling on and on about how this was some BS. Both Gilbert and Mattie tuned him out for the most part. However, halfway through the walk, Alfred said something that made everyone stop in their tracks.
"I'm from America, not Roboju."
_
"I look pretty bad, eh?"
"Just a little." Nate said timidly. What could he say to ease the tension?
Matthew raised the corners of his mouth to form a crooked smile and Nate could feel a bit of his heart break as Matthew's face contorted into a look of pain and unhappiness.
"Hey, you okay?" Nate asked worriedly. He took a step closer to Matthew and then sat by his son. He put a hand on his undamaged arm and looked closely at his scratched face. He noticed he had a little Hello Kitty band-aid on his forehead.
A minute passed and Matthew whispered hoarsely, "Sorry, I'm fine."
Nate took his hand off of his son's back and continued to sit there tensely. He ran a hand through his mousy brown hair and then looked back over at Matthew.
"I'm sorry about your mom Mattie."
Matthew grimaced and then averted his eyes, "Me too."
Nate sighed; nothing was working out good for him today.
Five or so minutes later, Nurse Smithton came back in and told him visiting hours were going to end so and so that he should either ask the front desk if he could stay over night with Mattie or go to a nearby hotel.
Nathan took a glance at Matthew- his poor son- and then took another whiff of the pungent hospital smell.
"I'll just head off to a hotel…" Nathan said good night to Matthew and then exited the hospital.
"Siri, where's the nearest hotel?"
A/N: I'm sorry this is so late! I've been super busy with school! I'll try and update more often! Sorry if you want Kiku to hurry up and make an appearance, he'll probably be in the next chapter or the fifth chapter… I'm still trying to figure out what exactly I want to do with the story! A big thanks to zoewinter1 and blueorgray1236 for reviewing! This is a fic I'm planning on seeing through, even though updates might not come as often as I'd like.
Oh and in the next chapter the out-of-Alfred's-mind Arthur and Francis will be visiting Mattie at the hospital ^_^ A little actual character in Hetalia interaction sounds like a good idea for Matthew, no?
Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia, Hello Kitty, or Siri. Roboju isn't an actual country.
Please follow, favorite, and/or review for me! It gives me inspiration to see people actually interested in my story.
-MW