Four: "Chasing Kiku"

Matt,

So remember how there's that guy who lives with us but I never actually met? Well, I'm gonna do it, bro. I am gonna meet him whether he wants to meet me or not! Mark my words...

cue Hetalia music and title card

"Mail's here!" Gilbert called as he entered the large plantation style home.

He was carrying a giant brown cardboard box that had "Amazon" written across it as well as a bunch of letters balanced carefully on the top.

"Mail!" Feliciano's voice came from upstairs.

The young Italian quickly came skipping down the stairs and stopped in front of Gilbert and plucked out an envelope from out of the mail pile.

"Thank you!"

"Finally!" said Yao coming in from the kitchen. "I have been waiting for this."

Gilbert set the giant box down. Curious as ever Alfred came in from the living room.

"What's this?" asked the American.

"It's just the mail. Were you expecting anything?" asked Gilbert.

Alfred shook his head.

"No, but wow! That's a huge box, dude. Whose junk is that?"

"It's not junk!" said Yao stepping in bending down to clutch the box.

"So I guess that means it's yours?" Alfred asked.

"Yes, it is."

"What could you possibly have gotten that is that big?" Alfred wondered aloud.

"It's not your business," explained Yao.

He picked up the giant box, which was nearly as big as the Chinese man, and turned to begin his struggle up the stairs.

"Do you need help, Yao?" Feliciano offered.

"No, I'm fine I'm- OW!"

Yao tripped up the stairs with the box and Feliciano ran up to help him. Gilbert shook his head and chuckled before turning to the envelopes now in his hands.

"What else is there?" Alfred asked turning again to the groundskeeper.

"By the looks of it mostly bills," said Gilbert. "But there's some personal mail in there too. One for Francis and Kiku's got something too!"

"Let me see that!" Alfred snatched the item from Gilbert and observed the envelope.

It was a puffy bubble mailer. Whatever was inside needed to be protected but it wasn't very big. It was shipped from abroad. Alfred squeezed it and could tell it was a hard box of some sort but it gave a bit in the middle.

"Kiku, huh?" Alfred asked.

It had already been a few weeks since his arrival at the plantation and he had yet to meet their Japanese boarder. It felt weird when he thought about it. There was a lurker in their midst, someone he didn't even know creeping about and sharing their bathroom. The only sign of Kiku's presence was the long baths he took.

Gilbert plucked the parcel from Alfred's hands.

"Welp, I better go deliver this to his room."

Startled Alfred turned to follow Gilbert.

"You don't have to do that. I can just deliver it. I mean, I'm going back upstairs anyway."

"Really?" Gilbert asked.

Alfred nodded and Gilbert handed over the mail with little protest.

"Knock yourself out, kid," said the German and he disappeared into the living room.

'Sweet,' Alfred thought as he looked at the squishy package in his hands. 'This is my chance to meet that guy!'

He ran up the stairs and to the bedrooms. All of the room doors were closed except for the door leading to Yao's room. He tried to remember which room was Kiku's but he actually only knew a few people's rooms.

To the left of the staircase was Alfred's own room sandwiched between the room Arthur and Francis were staying in. Directly across from Alfred was Yao and Ivan was beside him. That left Ludwig, Gilbert, Feliciano and Kiku on the right side of the stairs.

Alfred turned away from the direction of Yao's room and went in the opposite direction excited finally to meet the new guy.

'Well, technically I'm the new guy to him,' thought Alfred.

He finally got to the end of the hall and as he walked for some reason he was getting more nervous with each step. He could practically hear his heart pounding in his ears.

Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump.

The door was right there almost in reach. Alfred reached out a shaky hand, curled into a fist for knocking. Then suddenly there was a hand on his shoulder.

"ARGH!" Alfred jumped, causing the package to fly into the air.

He spun around coming face to face with a smiling Russian.

"I,Ivan! You scared the shit out of me!"

Ivan's smile wavered just a bit as a worried expression came across his face.

"I am not smelling anything," said the tall youth.

"It's an expression," growled Alfred, not pleased.

Ivan was not one of Alfred's favorite tenet. Actually, there was a huge chance he was his least favorite tenant despite the fact he didn't even actually meet Kiku yet. Alfred was pretty sure he'd like Kiku more than Ivan at least. Ivan after all was just a bit unnerving and he had a face and smile that made the American want to punch it.

Ivan seemed painfully oblivious to this. He gestured to the parcel in Alfred's arms.

"Is it mail call now?"

"Yeah, and this is Kiku's," Alfred said.

Ivan looked surprised, "Kiku received mail?"

"Yep."

"Was there anything for me?" Ivan asked, expression hopeful.

Alfred shook his head and Ivan's shoulders deflated as he walked off. Now that the Russian was gone Alfred finally turned to knock on the door.

"Kiku?" he called.

There was no answer so he knocked again. After a moment there was a voice.

"Yes?" came the muffled voice perhaps raspy from disuse.

"Hey Dude, I got your mail."

The door opened a crack and a pale hand appeared through the crack. Alfred placed the envelope in the outstretched palm.

"So I'm Alfred the new wrangler. Nice to—"

Before Alfred could say more the hand disappeared into the room and the door was shut again firmly.

"Meet you..."

America's voice: "Hetalia"

"You bought a giant stuffed panda?"

Alfred sat in Yao's room cross legged and sulky. The Chinese man sat across from the American. A giant stuffed animal Panda was poking out of the giant Amazon box between them.

"It was cute and on sale!"

"Whatever floats your boat, Dude," the American said. "But I feel like it's watching me."

"Nonsense," Yao replied. "It's just a toy."

"I love it!" Feliciano beamed from beside Alfred.

Yao reached into the box pulling out the plush and hugging it as the other two looked on.

"So cute!" he cooed.

Alfred laughed, "And you say you're not a girl."

Yao glowered, "Liking cute things is not girly! Anyway, why are you even in here?"

"Oh yeah," Alfred said, suddenly having remembered something.

After failing to introduce himself to Kiku he decided to seek Yao's advice on how to get to know their mysterious tenant.

"So, what's the deal with Kiku?"

"What do you mean, 'What's the deal?' He's shy," came Yao's response.

"No, that can't be it, I mean I've been here for a while now and I've never seen him once."

"I've seen him," beamed Feliciano.

"You have?"

Feliciano nodded happily, "He used to come out of his room all of the time during school. But now that we're on summer vacation I never see him anymore."

His shoulders slumped.

"You mean, he doesn't have a part time job or anything?" inquired Alfred.

"He does. He works at The Panda Buffet like I do."

"Ve, but isn't that a Chinese restaurant?" asked Feliciano.

"Yeah, but anyone can work there. Even you. It's an equal opportunity employer," explained the Chinese man.

"You should tell us the next time he works there!" exclaimed Alfred. "That way I can talk to him."

Yao shook his head, "He's too shy to handle the customers so our manager always keeps him in the back doing dishes."

"Then what should I do if I want to meet him?" frowned Alfred.

"I don't know ask Ludwig. He's friends with him?"

"Really?" Alfred's eyes lit up. "Ok! Feli, let's go!"

"OK!" cheered the Italian.

The two young tenants ran out of Yao's room leaving the eldest resident alone.

"Finally, I'm all alone with my cute panda," Yao said turning towards the panda and giving it a squeeze.

The head popped off revealing Ivan inside.

"Hi, Yao," he beamed.

"AHHH!" Yao screamed and fainted from the shock.

Russia's voice: "Hetalia"

Ludwig was coming into the house after a long day at his summer program. School was over but he was enrolled in a youth engineering summer program at the local university. He was hungry and without even taking off his backpack he went straight for the kitchen. There he found Feliciano and Alfred seating at the counter making peanut butter and honey sandwiches.

"Ludwig!" cheered Feliciano. "Are you hungry!? Me and Alfred are making an American delicacy."

Ludwig eyed the bread, peanut butter jar and bear shaped container of honey. The ingredients all looked simple enough and delicious. He decided to trust Alfred on this one.

"Sure, I'll have one," he said.

He set his bag down on the stool and went to wash his hands at the sink before eating. He came back to the island that they were preparing the snacks on. Alfred put a half of a sandwich on a plate, along with some carrot sticks and slices of celery and handed it to the German teen.

"Thank you," he said.

"No problem, dude," beamed Alfred. "So listen, since you're here we can start arranging out plan."

"Plan?" Ludwig asked as he picked up the sandwich.

"Yeah, Alfred is sad because he hasn't met Kiku yet. We have to figure out a way to get Kiku to come out so that they can become friends!"

"You can't force people to be your friend," said Ludwig.

"You're friends with Kiku, though. Can't you give me some advice on how to befriend him?" asked the American.

Ludwig contemplated that as he bit into and chewed the sandwich. It was actually pretty good. Alfred and Feliciano also began to eat theirs as well. When Kiku first moved to the US last summer Ludwig and Gilbert were the ones who picked him up from the airport. Since then Kiku was pretty scarce but he had gotten help from Kiku with his physics homework a few times before. They studied in Ludwig's room and conversation rarely went offtopic with the two. Although, one time he did remember Kiku getting excited about video games.

"He likes video games," said Ludwig. "Sometimes he even plays with my brother."

Feliciano and Alfred looked up from their sandwiches interested.

"He comes out of his room for that?" asked Alfred.

Ludwig shook his head, "No, They plays online and use a headset. Recently my brother has been playing 'Legend Wars'. His name is always the same. Maybe Kiku's is too."

"That's genius!" Alfred said standing up and causing a few carrot and celery sticks to scatter off of his plate. "All I have to do is play Legend Wars and meet his character! Then I can meet Kiku!"

"You have to pay to play that game online," said Ludwig.

"Oh," Alfred deflated.

"Why don't we just borrow your big brother's account then, Ludwig."

"I don't know if he'd—"

Alfred perked back up again, "That's perfect! That way Kiku will already feel comfortable talking to us and we can arrange to meet him in real life. He'd think he was meeting Ludwig's bro and actually show up."

"Isn't that a bit dishonest?" asked Ludwig.

"The end justify the means!" Alfred replied. "Now show us to the game!"

Ludwig didn't know if his brother would be happy with them bothering his game. He looked between Feliciano and Alfred and felt pressured by their eager faces.

He sighed, "Fine."

Germany's voice: "Hetalia"

The trio were seated around Gilbert's laptop in Ludwig's room. They had to sneak Gilbert's laptop out without being noticed and pick a spot nobody would be able to spot them in. Gilbert was in the middle while Alfred and Feliciano were on either side of him as he pulled up the game program.

The screen lit up with fantasy anime drawings and a title screen displaying the name of the game and a login screen. Ludwig typed in "tehawes0me" and a password and was in. As soon as it loaded Gilbert had a message.

Flyingmintbunny: Slacking on the job I see. I thought that you had actual work to do today.

"Oh, already a message!" Alfred said, eyes lighting up.

Ludwig typed a reply.

TehAwesome9001: Hey Minty. I do. Just taking a break

"Is it Kiku?" asked Feliciano.

Ludwig shook his head, "No. That isn't him."

The German right clicked the name and pulled up a profile. "It says the character is female, a black mage."

"That's a dumb name," Alfred said.

"She sounds cute," cooed Feliciano.

Alfred shrugged indifferently, "Do you think she's friends with Kiku?"

flyingmintbunny: Do you want to pvp?

TehAwesome9001: maybe later

"How the heck do we pull up the friends list?" Alfred asked as Ludwig set about pulling up a bunch of menus.

Finally he got it.

The trio leaned forward to read the list of those online:

flyingmintbunny
mabodofu
MadeinKorea
redphoenix
sexygirl1111

Ludwig didn't know which one was Kiku's.

"Ve, maybe he's sexygirl1111," suggested Feliciano.

Ludwig bristled, "He's not!"

"It's worth a try," Feliciano said with an innocent smile that didn't match his intentions.

"Just ask Minty if Kiku's online," Alfred said.

"Maybe Kiku doesn't go by his real name," replied Ludwig.

"It's worth a try."

Ludwig nodded and began to type.

Tehawesome9001: I'm looking for Kiku

flyingmintbunny: We just got out of a dungeon. We're going to pvp

"If we go to pvp we'll just end up killing Brother's character," Ludwig said.

"This isn't working," sighed Alfred. "Kiku's here but we don't know which one he is... other than not being SexyGirl."

"Or MadeinKorea, obviously. So it has to be either mabo or red," reasoned Ludwig.

Suddenly a new messaged popped up.

Mabodofu: you looking for me? You should have just messaged.

"Yay! Minty! You pulled through for us!" Alfred cheered.

He elbowed Ludwig out of the way and took his seat and began to type, "hey dude!"

He almost pushed enter but Ludwig stopped him.

"You have to sound like my brother," he reminded.

Alfred backspaced and typed, "kesesese" instead.

Mabodofu: The game came in the mail today.

"That's right!" Alfred slapped his fist into his palm. "He did get mail today. I wondered what it was."

"Ask him about it," prodded Felciano.

Tehawesome9001: what game?

Mabodofu: the PSP version of LW.

Tehawesome9001: I want to see it!

"This is perfect guys! If we get Kiku to meet your brother and show the game then really he will meet us!" Alfred said.

Mabodofu: it's only in Japanese.

Tehawesome9001: I still want to see!

Mabodofu: I work tonight but if you come downstairs in 30 minutes I can show you."

Tehawesome9001: awesome!

Alfred cackled madly, as if he were deranged as he typed it.

"I did it! I'm going to meet Kiku!"

"Congratulations," said Ludwig with none of the same enthusiasm.

"But now that you're going to meet Kiku... what are you going to say?"

"Yeah, he might not want to be your friend after discovering that you deceived him," Ludwig pointed out.

There was no reply to either the Italian or the German teen's words.

"Uhm, Alfred?" prodded Ludwig.

But there was no answer as Alfred's eyes were glued to the screen as he fought a crowd of creatures using Gilbert's character. He was a beginner at the game but he seemed to be handling himself well against the spawn.

Italy's voice: "Hetalia"

Gilbert was sitting on his butt in the living room. He wasn't playing any of his video games however. No, instead he was looking at some paperwork concerning the month's rent for the tenants. He scribbled some notes beside one of the resident's name to indicate that he had already paid his rent.

"I am sorry, Gilbert," said a smooth voice. "Am I interrupting?"

Gilbert looked up from his work at his friend Kiku who stood dressed in a red tracksuit at the doorway.

"Not at all," he said with a grin. "What's up? I see you got the package today."

Kiku nodded and shuffled inside and that was when Gilbert noticed what was in his hand. He hopped up.

"Awesome! The LW game you ordered came in!"

"Y,yeah," Kiku said. "That was what I came down to show you. Just like you asked me to 30 minutes ago."

Gilbert looked confused and it was just then that the three youngest members of the house came into the living room.

"Hello everybody," Kiku greeted politely only to be surprised when Alfred came running up to him and grabbing both of his hands, eyes glowing with feeling.

"Finally!" the American you said. "The LW PSP edition! In my hands at last!"

He snatched the box away from the still shocked Kiku and began observing the box despite not being able to read any of it.

"He became obsessed with that game in only a matter of minutes," said Ludwig in an exasperated tone as he approached.

"Gilbert, you gained one level!" sang Feliciano happily and clapping his hands together.

"W,what?" Kiku was shocked. "That was you three?"

"You were playing my game!? Again!?" Gilbert looked ready to explode but was ignored.

Alfred nodded happily at Kiku and handed him the game again.

"I really wanted to meet you! So I went on Gilbert's game to talk to you but then it ended up the game is wicked cool, Bro! I'm going to install it now."

"Oh," Kiku was taken aback but then smiled shyly. "Well, if you want any pointers on the game I suppose you can ask. I am a big fan."

"Really!? You would? Woohoo!" the American pumped his fist. "Gilbert's a warrior but I think I want to make a gunner. Then we'll have the perfect party with you as our healer and that girl Minty as our black mage!"

America slung his arm over Kiku's shoulder and led him out the room chatting incessantly in his ear. Kiku looked bewildered but listened politely nonetheless. They disappeared out the door leaving Gilbert and the others behind.

"Did he just refer to Arthur as a girl?" Gilbert asked with an arched brow.

"You mean Minty isn't a girl?" frowned Feliciano obviously disappointed. "She sounded cute."

"No, but you can choose to make your avatar a boy or a girl," Gilbert explained and then chuckled. "Well, that will be a funny thing to watch them work out."

"I'm sorry Brother for hacking into your game," Ludwig apologized.

Gilbert shrugged, "Meh, it's fine. Alfred can finally get off our backs about not meeting Kiku plus I got a level out of it. It's a win win."

"I guess so," Ludwig nodded.

Thus, an MMO addict was born.

-to be continued-

MMO screen names:

tehawesome9001 = prussia
flyingmintbunny = UK
mabodofu = japan
madeinkorea = s. korea
redphoenix = poland
sexygirl111 = spam bot, maybe. Who knows. Not a nation though that's for sure.

AN: lol actually I like this chapter. I hated chapter 3 so I'm glad I managed to write a decent one. Thanks for everything. Please review~ I really appreciate it