Sorry about how overdue this chapter is, but between helping my aunt move house, work, trying to find another job, and Lunar New Year, I was really pressed for trying to find time to write even though I'm still on break. I apologise if this chapter is a little choppy, it was basically written bit by bit in whatever time I could find every day.

Chapter 2

Gilbert adjusts the camera before he sits down, signs of exhaustion evident in the circles around his eyes and the cup of coffee in his hands. "Okay, okay. I know it's late and some of you are going to leave comments saying that I shouldn't be drinking coffee, but it's been a crazy night." Gilbert quickly gives a rundown on his interview with Lili and Kiku, then takes a large gulp from the cup before continuing. "So the university called a town hall – which is as intense as it sounds, especially seeing their idea of an announcement system is World War Two era air raid sirens – but nothing actually got done regarding the missing students. Actually before I get to what happened at the town hall, let me tell you about the run in I had with Erzsébet Héderváry." He rubs at his eyes and takes another gulp of coffee. "So picture this: air raid sirens are going off and then the most well known student of the university comes barging into your room with an angry expression on her face. Yeah I was pretty scared. I mean, word gets out you've argued with the 'campus heroine' and your reputation is ruined, also she's the leader of the Summer Society, which is like an exclusive society for athletic Amazonian girls… Apparently they used to have a brother society – the Zeta Omega Mu – but they got disbanded a while back after setting fire to a building during an alcohol fuelled party." Yawning, Gilbert struggles to press on. "Off topic," he mumbles, then clears his throat. "Anyway, Erzsébet starts accusing me of trying to steal her glory or something just because I happen to care about why students are going missing. Just because she's been investigating the disappearances of one of her Summer Sisters but couldn't find any results." He shakes his head, finishing his coffee. "She even threatened to expose me to the Dean at the town hall because 'clearly, I'm just doing this for attention'. It was about this point that Roderich – yes, the useless floor don Roderich – decided she was being a little extreme and goes 'Umm, honey. Maybe you shouldn't do that, it might be useful to trade information with him'." Gilbert grimaced at his own bad impersonation. "And Erzsébet stares at him like he's grown a second head – to be honest, I think I was doing the same thing – and then she saw he had a point and decided she'd keep quiet about me posting videos during the town hall, but not before she gives me the whole 'I'll be watching you' spiel." Gilbert yawns again, looking blearily into the camera. "So we make it to the town hall just before doors close, and the Dean – this middle aged man in a suit that probably cost more than my entire tuition and an imposing unimpressed grandfather expression – begins his speech with:

'It has come to the university's attention that a certain individual or individuals have been circulating rumours about students disappearing. If theses disturbances do not cease, the perpetrators will be dealt with.'

"At this point Erzsébet stands up and I'm sure she's going to go back on the deal and get me expelled or something, but instead she's like:

'They're not rumours when one of my Sisters has gone missing!' We should reinstate Night Marches to prevent more disappearances!'

"That led to the Alchemy Club complaining about flaming torches being bad for some fungal experiment they're doing, and then former members of the Zetas started making noise about how they should be allowed to reassemble and do campus patrols. At this point everyone is just shouting at each other and the Dean decides to end the town hall without anything having been done."

Gilbert throws his hands into the air then lets them down tiredly. "I guess the only good things that happened tonight was that Erzsébet said she could think of a way to post these videos undetected and Arthur vanished off into the night to do god knows what – so I could film this without being patronised the entire way through. Sorry for not having more information about what is happening, but I'll update you once I've gotten more leads. Right now I'm just going to go and pass out." Gilbert reaches over and switches the camera off.

Struggling to keep his eyes open, Gilbert clicked a few buttons to let the video upload. Without bothering to change into pyjamas, he crawled into his bed, not even waiting to make sure the video uploaded properly. Despite the caffeine he'd just consumed, he fell asleep immediately.

When Gilbert awoke the next morning, Arthur was glaring at him from the opposite bed.

'What?' Gilbert asked before deciding he didn't want an answer, laying back down and pulling the blankets over his head.

'I don't appreciate being hauled in front of the Dean only to have you posting videos again not even a day later,'

'I didn't know the videos would get everyone hauled in front of Dean,' Gilbert protest sleepily, then his still sleep ridden brain processed the rest of Arthur's sentence. 'How do you even know I posted another video?' He asked as he sat up. 'It's not like you watch them.'

'I don't need to watch them to know what you're doing if you leave your laptop on all night,' Arthur reply dryly, still looking irritated.

Gilbert's eyes shot to his desk, where he saw he had, in fact, left his laptop on the "video uploaded" screen all night. Something else, below the thumbnail of his video caught his eye, and Gilbert kicked off his blankets, rolled out of bed and scrambled towards the desk.

'Oh, there's no need to hide it,' Arthur said mock-helpfully. 'After all I've already seen it,'

'Oh, how about you shut up?' Gilbert mimicked Arthur's tone. 'That's not what I'm doing.'

Looking closer at the screen, Gilbert felt an upwelling of excitement.

'Over two thousand views in under nine hours… Three thousand now,' he muttered to himself. 'Maybe someone out there can help.'

'I highly doubt it,' Arthur with as much snark as usual, though he did appear slightly less self assured.

'I don't care what you…' Gilbert trailed off as he noticed the time displayed on the bottom left hand corner of his laptop screen. 'Holy shit, I'm late to class!' He pretended not to hear Arthur sniggering as he dashed out of the room with his books and a muesli bar, teeth and hair not brushed and wearing the day old clothes he'd slept in.

Returning to his room once his classes were over, Gilbert found Arthur reading a book on Mattie's bed and Erzsébet at the desk, not even bothering to hide the fact she was attempting to hack Gilbert's laptop.

'You took too long getting back,' she said by way of explanation when he entered the room. 'Now show me your notes.'

'You just let her in here?' Gilbert asked Arthur accusingly.

'You're the one who wanted to run this foolish investigation, so I figured you wouldn't mind,' Arthur smirked, but didn't look away from the book.

Erzsébet ignored both of them.

'What do you know?' she pressed again.

'If you've watched my videos then you know everything I do,'

'That's all?' Erzsébet's face contorted into a mixture of disbelief and annoyance.

'Well what do you know?' Gilbert demanded, tired of the patronisation he seemed to be receiving from everyone.

Erzsébet glared at him, and Gilbert stared right back at her – if this was going to be a battle of wills, he was not prepared to lose. The starting contest was interrupted as Roderich poked his head around the door.

'Is everything alright in here?' he asked, frowning.

'Believe me, we're just fine,' Arthur was still pretending to read his book, but Gilbert could tell he was just watching the entire situation with hidden amusement.

'Erzsébet and I were just about to compare notes,' he told Roderich. 'Right?'

'Right,' Erzsébet hissed, giving Gilbert another glare before swivelling the chair around to face Roderich with a smile. 'Thanks for dropping by to check on us, dear.'

'In that case, I'll be back in a while.' Roderich adjusted his glasses mid sentence. 'There's actually a situation a few dorms down that I'm supposed to be handling.'

'Good luck with that,' Erzsébet wished cheerily as Roderich closed the door behind him. As soon as he was gone she whirled back at Gilbert. 'Your information is useless,' she said dispassionately. 'So why should I share what I know?'

'Well you evidently haven't figured out anything with what you know either,' Gilbert argued. 'And aren't two heads better than one? We're both looking for missing people here, so it makes sense for us to work together. You know, for a leader of a club that bases itself on teamwork, you seem awfully against it.'

'How do you know the Summer Society mottos?' Erzsébet looked taken aback.

'I read the University Handbook,'

Arthur snorted from behind them, muttering an almost inaudible "nerd". Gilbert and Erzsébet ignored him.

'Fine,' Erzsébet sighed and slouched down in her seat before straightening back up. 'You know where everyone went missing from right?'

Gilbert collected his thoughts then nodded.

'Mattie, Kiku and Lili were all at parties, but they were all held at different places and hosted by different clubs,'

'Well Natalya disappeared from the Summer Society's Festival of Diana,' Erzsébet pinched the bridge of her nose. 'She was one of our fiercest Sisters – and she vanished from right under my nose.'

Gilbert suddenly felt more sympathetic for Erzsébet; no wonder so was so desperate to control the investigation – she must be feeling as guilty as he felt about not having done enough to help. Without voicing his thoughts, Gilbert nodded for her to go on.

'You're right about all of the parties being hosted by different people in different locations,' Erzsébet continued. 'But there's one thing they all had in common.'

'What?' Gilbert asked, figuring this must be the thing she knew that he didn't.

'I had my suspicions, because there was one thing at the Festival that I didn't handle. They were confirmed when I did some asking around after I realised there were other missing students – all the drinks were provided by the Alchemy Club.'

'Oh please,' Arthur's dismissive tone cut through Gilbert's speculation of whether Erzsébet was talking about his videos. 'Have you even seen the Alchemy Club? They all spend so much time in the labs that all of them put together can barely carry a bowl of punch, let alone an actual person.'

'Well don't they use trolleys to wheel in the alcohol?' Gilbert retorted. 'Surely they could wheel someone out the same way. I'd say we should go ask them some questions. Even if they're not using the Mattie and Natalya as involuntary lab rats, they might know something else.'

'I'll go interrogate them now,' Erzsébet declared, picking herself up from the chair and striding towards the door. 'Tell Roderich were I've gone if he comes back.'

'What is up with her,' Gilbert complained as she left. Arthur kept reading and didn't reply, just as Gilbert expected. Deciding there was no use in feeling frustrated, Gilbert came to the conclusion he needed to do some more investigating by himself and left the room to look for Roderich.

He found Roderich in his office, looking drained from whatever disturbance he'd just sorted out, but then again; Roderich always wore that pinched expression when he had to go out of his way to deal with something.

'Oh it's you,' Roderich stated bluntly as Gilbert knocked on the frame of the wide open door. 'Are you done already, I was going to check in on both of you in a bit.'

'Erzsébet said she was going to, um, question the Alchemy Club,' Gilbert supplied pointedly. When it became evident Roderich saw nothing wrong with that, he continued rapidly. 'Anyway, I was hoping I'd be able to speak to Lili and Kiku again – as soon as I possibly can; I have more questions I need to ask them.

Roderich gave a long suffering sigh, taking off his glasses and beginning to polish them so slowly that Gilbert considered lying about the venture being Erzsébet's idea. Finally Roderich placed his glasses back on his face.

'Kiku is currently in class, but I'll try and arrange for him to talk to you later. I'll go find Lili now and send her to your room like last time.'

Aware he was being dismissed, Gilbert thanked Roderich for his help and returned to his room to wait.

Lili's demeanour when she arrived was completely different to the way she acted previously. The plain blouse and flowing skirt she'd worn previously had been replaced by a glittering sequined top and frayed shorts.

'Hiya!' she called from the door as if greeting an old friend. 'Am I allowed to come in or what?

'Uh sure,' Gilbert replied with an automatic response, trying to figure out if this was the same girl he'd talked to the previous week. Arthur, to his credit, didn't say anything, merely flipping the page of his book and taking a bite out of a muesli bar that Gilbert distinctly remembered having bought for himself.

'So do you have any drinks?' Lili asked as she flounced into the room.

'Umm yeah, I have some ginger beers and various cans of other soft drinks –,'

'Oh no, no, no,' Lili interrupted with a giggle. 'I meant like alcohol – I know we're not supposed to have it here in the dorms, but everyone definitely hides some.' She giggled again.

'I actually don't have any,' Gilbert said with a frown. 'Are you alright?'

'I've never been better,' Lili said blithely, seeming to groove to some unheard music. 'There's a party tomorrow night that I wouldn't miss for the world.'

'Are you sure?' Gilbert asked with rising alarm. 'Because you were pretty freaked out the last time I talked to you.'

'Oh the vanishing thing?' Lili's tone remained flippant and carefree. 'Yeah that was really freaky and all, but I'm glad that it's over and honestly, I'm having the time of my life.'

The next half an hour passed with Gilbert attempting to ask more questions but getting no straightforward answers from Lili. Eventually he decided he'd just wait to talk to Kiku and sent Lili off with an excuse of having an assignment due.

'Well looks like someone learnt to have fun,' Arthur commented as she left. 'Maybe you should give that a try as well.' As usual, his comments held some bite, but Gilbert ignored him, unable to shake his feeling of unease. After a while, Arthur must have gotten tired of waiting for a retort, as he left the room without a word.

A loud knock on the door startled Gilbert as he alternated between reorganising all the information he had on the disappearances and checking the views and comments on his videos.

'Who is it?' he called, drawing a blank in trying to figure out who was behind the door. Roderich never did anything apart from playing classical music in his office loudly, neither Arthur nor Erzsébet would have bothered with knocking and Lili had no reason to come back. That was the extent of the people who would possibly come looking for Gilbert and he began to worry the dean had figured out he was the one posting the videos.

'It's Kiku,' the door was pushed open and Kiku walked in. 'Roderich said you wanted to talk to me again.'

'Err yes,' Gilbert confirmed, distracted by Kiku's unexpected change in appearance, which did nothing dissipate his unease.

Like Lili, Kiku was dressed completely differently from what he was wearing the first time Gilbert interviewed him. Instead of looking like a model student in a button up shirt and dress pants, Kiku wore a muscle shirt emblazoned with what had been the Zeta logo and baggy jeans, the front fringe he'd had slicked to one side.

'This isn't going to take long, right?' Kiku questioned, completely unobservant of the odd look Gilbert was giving him. 'Because I'm planning to bus out to the nearest town tonight for drink with friends – we're celebrating me getting sixty percent on a maths quiz.'

'Umm…' Gilbert's feelings of unease morphed into a feeling that something was very, very wrong.

Before he could say anything else though, Kiku noticed his laptop screen.

'You've been making videos?' he asked, eyes widening. 'That's so cool. Is this going to be on TV?'

'Not exactly –,' Gilbert began.

'That's so cool,' Kiku repeated. 'Oh by the way, did you hear about the party tomorrow night?' He asked, suddenly shifting topic.

'Yes? Lili did mention that…' Gilbert said warily.

'Oh she told me about it too,' Kiku nodded enthusiastically. 'We've been great buds since you know,' he lowered his voice. 'That whole disappearing thing.' He shuddered dramatically then returned his voice to normal. 'Anyway, you should come to the party as well, it's got free alcohol.'

'I'm pretty busy actually, I don't think I can make it,' Gilbert quickly made an excuse. He was beginning to see patterns in the strange changes in behaviour but couldn't quite put a finger on how it all exactly fitted together.

'That's a shame,' Kiku looked disappointed. 'I guess you could go to the one next week, it's out in the woods with a huge campfire. A great place to pick up girls.' He added with a grin.

'Yeah, sure I guess,' Gilbert figured by this point he wouldn't be able to get anything useful from Kiku. 'Didn't you say you were going somewhere with friends?'

'Oh yes!' Kiku started towards the door before pausing, remembering why he'd come in the first place. 'Didn't you want to ask me some questions?'

Gilbert picked up his notebook of potential clues and waved it dismissively at Kiku.

'I figured you needed to go,' he explained. 'I can talk to you again another time.'

'Oh cool!' Kiku looked pleased at the prospect of getting to leave. 'I'll see you at a party sometime, yeah?'

'Yeah,' Gilbert replied without emotion, dropping to notebook back onto his desk and burying his face in it as soon as the door shut. 'It's like they'd been pod-peopled.' He groaned to himself. Kiku was celebrating a sixty percent on a maths quiz, and he thought Mattie had been bad—

Mattie. Gilbert sat bolt upright, a horrifying thought occurring to him.

'No, no, no, no, no, no!' he tried to force the idea out of his head, but found all the evidence was pointing at it. What if whatever was happening to Kiku and Lili had already happened to Mattie before he even disappeared? It all matched up, and Gilbert knew he had to look further into all this.

Glancing at the time, Gilbert resolved to eat dinner and make a video update before finding out as much as he could about Lili, Kiku and Mattie. However he'd decided to take a nap between posting the video and researching, and slept through the alarm he'd set, waking up just in time for classes the next morning.

Cursing at the time when he woke up, Gilbert ran out of his room on an empty stomach for the second day in a row, books and muesli bars in hand, painfully aware of how long he'd been wearing the clothes he was in. Throughout the day, Gilbert became increasingly distracted by the idea that had occurred to him the previous night, until finally he decided to skip his last two classes. Returning to the dorms, Gilbert took care not to awaken a sleeping Arthur and slipped into the bathroom to shower and change into fresh comfortable clothes before settling down at his desk and beginning his research by plugging names into the university website search bar. It didn't take him long to find results, and they were chilling to say the least. Kiku Honda had graduated high school with a perfect score, competed and won prizes in international mathematics competitions and was attending Silas on a full scholarship. Similarly, Lili Zwingli had been named "Most Likely to Succeed" at her high school valedictory, and was in the process of being considered for a scholarship due to her proficiency in the Biomedicine course she was taking. Which made the way they were acting during their last interviews even more baffling – kidnapping was one thing, but completely writing over someone's personality was an another thing entirely. Feeling chills down his spine, Gilbert began searching up information on Mattie. As it turned out, Matthew Williams had also graduated with a perfect score from the high school he'd the captain of.

'Something seriously wrong is happening here,' Gilbert muttered to himself as he closed the tab on the final article he'd read about Mattie, feeling sick at the fact he'd never actually known his roommate at all.

A yawn from behind him told Gilbert that Arthur had woken up.

'Morning,' he murmured sleepily, sounding far more cheerful than usual.

'It's 5 PM,' Gilbert stated pointedly without looking away from his laptop as he heard Arthur roll out of bed and make his way towards the fridge.

'Whatever,' Arthur said as he pulled the fridge door open. 'Wait, are you skipping class?'

'I wasn't feeling well, so I left early,' Gilbert lied, gritting his teeth at Arthur's smug tone. He turned around as he heard footsteps coming back towards him. 'What? You've got a problem with that?'

'Well you do look like crap,' Arthur concluded after scrutinising Gilbert. Gilbert noted that although Arthur had also slept in his day clothes, they were somehow perfectly unwrinkled, unlike Gilbert's had been. 'There is a talk on the life of Shakespeare that I don't want to miss, so try not to work yourself to death before I get back.' With that, Arthur threw something at him before turning room and leaving the room.

'Well that was about the most civilised conversation the both of us have had,' Gilbert mused before looking down at the object he'd caught just before it'd collided with his face. 'One of my muesli bars, of course.'

Despite that detail, Gilbert unwrapped and ate the bar, before making his first proper meal of the day. He was halfway through dinner when Roderich rushed through the door without knocking, looking as wild eyed and ruffled as he had the night of the town hall.

'Gilbert!' he exclaimed breathlessly. 'You have to hide!'

'How come?' Gilbert protested, mouth half full of food.

'The Dean is coming! He's here!'

Roderich backed further into the room and Gilbert dropped his bowl, standing up as the broad shoulders of a stern, forty-something year old, olive skinned man filled the doorway.

'Uh… Hello… Sir…' Gilbert stuttered, sure he'd been caught out. 'How can I help you?'

'I'm here to speak with Mr Kirkland,' the Dean's deep voice seemed to rumble into the room.

'Who?' Gilbert blurted, drawing a blank on who he was referring to.

'Your roommate, Arthur,' the Dean explained impatiently.

'You're looking for me, Sir?' Gilbert heard Arthur's voice ask from outside the dorm.

'Indeed,' the Dean replied coldly, stepping back outside and closing the door firmly behind him.

With the Dean safely behind the closed door, Gilbert regained his courage and ran over to press his ear against the wooden panels.

'What?' he defended himself as Roderich eyed him with an expression filled with judgement. 'I just want to find out what kind of trouble my asshole roommate is in.'

'This is so childish,' Roderich shook his head disapprovingly. 'You're acting like you're six years old.'

'Oh shush,' Gilbert said, ignoring him. 'I can almost hear what the Dean is saying. Let's see…'He listened more closely. '"I didn't go out of my way to get to accepted here to have you behaving like this" – damn, it sounds like he's really in trouble.' Gilbert spoke gleefully as Roderich shook his head at his antics again.

'I refuse to take part in this childishness,'

'Oh come on, if he's a bad a student as he is a roommate…' Gilbert trailed off as heard the Dean speaking again. 'Ooh – "If you don't take care of this situation, I will".'

Roderich gave him a pointed annoyed look and Gilbert conceded:

'Alright, alright,' he said, raising his hands. 'But he so had it coming.'

The door began to open and Gilbert leapt away, walking backwards in the direction of his desk. Roderich straightened up to address the Dean.

'It was lovely having you visit the floor, Sir,' he said politely as Gilbert continued inching backwards slowly. The Dean nodded curtly before leaving and Arthur shoved his way past Roderich into the room. 'I think I'll be taking my leave now,' Roderich gave Gilbert one last pointed disapproving look as Arthur threw his bag heavily onto Mattie's bed. 'I'm sure there is a student crisis I'll need to be attending to elsewhere.' With that, he stepped outside and pulled the door shut behind him, leaving Gilbert with an incredible miserable looking unwanted roommate.

'Uh, did you want to talk about it?' Gilbert asked without making eye contact as Arthur threw himself angrily at the bed, suddenly feeling a wave of guilt at the not-so-nice things he'd said. 'Because a personal confrontation with the Dean of Students doesn't sound like a lot of fun.'

'But I – "so had it coming" – didn't I?' Arthur hissed bitterly. 'The door's a bit thinner than you think, you know.'

Gilbert winced.

'Look, I didn't mean it like that—,' he tried to explain.

'Oh please, do you think that the Dean was here because I threw out all of your passive aggressive sticky note requests about doing the dishes?' Arthur's eyes flashed with anger, but Gilbert could see the tears threatening to well up.

'No,' he answered cautiously. 'But why was he here?'

'I said some things he didn't like,' came the blunt, closed off answer.

'What, during a seminar?'

'This age doesn't understand obligation,' Arthur replied cryptically, voice cracking as he got up and began searching the room for something, looking anywhere except at Gilbert. 'It's like an undersea anchor – impossible to escape.'

'Err,' Gilbert was thoroughly confused with what the metaphors had to do with the conversation they were having. 'So you're worried you're not living up to expectations?' He hazarded a guess.

'What would you know?' Arthur's effort at contempt was foiled by the shakiness of his voice as he continued his search.

'I'm the only child of a highly ambitious dad,' Gilbert paused and smiled as he heard Arthur snort. 'You looking for these?' he asked, picking a box of tissues up off his desk and offering them out with some sort of intent towards a truce.

Arthur studied Gilbert carefully before reaching for the box and wiping away at his tear stained face. He look as if he was about to say something else when the door burst open and Erzsébet marched into the room. Arthur's expression immediately became distant.

'I'm not in the mood to hear the two of you arguing,' he snapped before looping a leather cuff around his wrist, grabbing his bag and storming back out of the room.

Erzsébet watched him leave with a nonchalant shrug.

'Whatever,' she said, brandishing a flash drive at Gilbert. 'Turns at the weirdos at the Alchemy Club were doing some fungi related experiment at all of the party and have been photo tracking every single one of them. So naturally I checked out all of the photos myself, and found something you might want to be worried about.'

Notes:

Not many new characters or plot elements were introduced in this chapter, but can you figure out which Hetalia character the Dean is? I'll probably reveal who he is in the end notes of the next chapter. Probably. It depends on how far plotwise I get next chapter.

At any rate, feel free to leave me a comment and I should hopefully have another update written by 1 March.