Wow…I just realized that I have a lot of fun watching all you girls (and guys, if you're reading) squirming and screaming for the choices they wanted. Apparently, a lot of people wanted the sub-story reach the conclusion and stressed on the actual choices. So just because I am nice (and love to develop the sub-story), I'll play biased and go with the sub-story plot, even though the vote is clearly half-and-half.

Enjoy~~~!

/= [DAY 21] =/

She stretched her legs out as Charice opened the window to her room. Today she was going to be working on the scenery and props of Les Miserables (apparently the duty assigned to the Asia class) before getting into her History class presentation. Charice didn't seem to mind all of this, though…for her iPod is fully charged and she was going to be listening to it the entire day. She grabbed it and chose the one song that she was going to listen the entire day. Hey, she can do it.

/= "I Did It for You" by Charice Pempengco =/

As she walked into the room, she was surprised to see Húdié Meí and Kiku mixing up the paints for the assignment. Yong Soo and Aditaya were having fun playing sword-fight with their paint brushes, much to Sun Tam's displeasure. She had to bonk them over the head to make them cooperate.

"Will you two please focus? We have a job to do!" She stated.

"Fine, fine…" Yong Soo sighed. "Kill joy."

Before she knew it, he jumped into the air and grabbed Charice's boobs. Rizal again came out of nowhere and started strangling him, forcing Charice to grab him and pull him away. After a few minutes, she knew that she had calmed Rizal down, so she went to the wall they were going to paint and began to slather it green. Hey, it looked like grass.

"Yong Soo won't be bothering you anymore, Charice."

"That's great to hear." She looked up to her smiling brother. "Help me paint this."

Rizal didn't have to bother arguing about it before he was down and painting with her. Almost instantly, she remembered Antonio and Alfred. Whenever she would mention Rizal, they would say something good but at the same time, she couldn't help but think that they were scared of him. It was weird, since he was only half of a nation that wasn't part of the G8. What would they be scared of…?

"Hey, kuya?"

"Yeah, ate?"

"…do you know that Antonio and Alfred are scared of you?"

"Oh, are they? What, like how they're scared of Ivan?"

He's not bothered by this? "I don't know…they never elaborated on it."

"Well…that's interesting to hear." He said, not even bothered by what she had just said. "That means that I'm doing a good job protecting you."

"It's the 21st Century, Rizal. Everyone's basically protecting each other. You don't have to worry about me all the time."

"…true…but even then, you don't know what you're doing."

"HEY! What's that supposed to mean!"

Rizal could only laugh as he continued to paint the grass and make sure that Yong Soo doesn't grope her anymore. Meanwhile, Charice was listening to her iPod and continued to imagine how Francis and Kiku could get Arthur into a female's outfit and sing like a girl. He was an uke, if she thought about it. Then again…she was having fun pairing him up with Alfred. He was a colony of England, wasn't he?

She was going to harass him about it later…

/=+=/

"Are you going to meet up with Arthur?"

She turned her head to see Li Xiao walking toward her with a stack filled with books in his arms. It was then that she realized something strange: Li Xiao had thick eyebrows too…but they were beautifully trimmed. Maybe it's because he was Asian?

"Yeah, actually. Just to hang out with him. You?"

"I was told to bring this to him. Rizal told me that you were looking with him, so I figured that you might've found him."

"Hey, I may be Asian, but that doesn't mean that I know where everyone is."

"Are you looking for Arthur?"

They turned their head to see Matthew and Kiku walking toward them. Kiku was holding a strange script in his hand, while Matthew was holding what looked like to be a prop weapon (a spear or something?). Charice tilted her head in confusion.

"Everyone must really want to talk to Arthur, huh?" Charice laughed. "What's going on, is he suddenly becoming extremely important to the show's production?"

"He is Eponine." Kiku stated.

"…I mean despite that." She tilted her head and laughed.

"No, it's not that. It's just that since he's playing a woman, we have to do a lot of costume shaping." Matthew answered. "I need to fit a trenchcoat and a skirt for him."

"…French maid."

"No, we can't do that."

"I know, I know Li Xiao…but I can't help but think about it…"

"Hey, you four! You seen Iggy around?"

"No, Alfred…we haven't." Li Xiao sighed. "Why're you looking for him?"

"He has a book that he said he wanted me to read…I dunno what the title was, but he said to meet up with me."

"Fine. I guess we should look for him together." Charice grinned. "Hold up a minute, I need listening music."

She plugged her iPod into her ears, listening to the song of her namesake. They stared at her for a few minutes as she decided that she wanted another song to listen to…and then realized that she couldn't change it. Her eyes widened as they went to Li Xiao, whose eyes widened as well.

"What's wrong?" Kiku asked.

"I can't change my song." She paused. "…it turned off…"

The four of them stared at each other (much to Alfred's confusion) and suddenly dashed as fast as they could around the building. The poor American was wondering what was going on with the fears on their faces as Charice dashed around the hallways.

"I was listening to this song the entire time…I didn't know that it was the signal…"

"It's fine…it's not your fault…" Kiku stated.

"Hey, hold up!" Alfred screamed. "What's going on? Tell me!"

"We'll tell you once we confirm it, brother…I'm sorry." Matthew said as he ran next to him. "But we're in a hurry…"

"He's outside…the signal's stronger outside!"

Charice spun around as she dashed toward the woods, leaving the others to follow after her. The music got louder and louder as she finally found herself face-to-face with the school's private river. That's when she saw it: a small rope attached to a rock. Her signal was strongest here.

"Over here, over here!" She pointed at the rope. "We have to pull it up!"

Li Xiao and Matthew quickly grabbed the small rope and pulled it up, grunting at the sheer weight of it. Alfred finally caught up to them as the four of them finally pulled up what was weighed down: a white sheet acting as a bag. Kiku shivered as he pulled the sheet away from the person's face. Charice screamed bloody murder and flew out of the way, allowing Alfred to see the body.

It was Arthur Kirkland.

"Arthur…?" He stepped forward. "ARTHUR!"

He flew toward the man and started to pound on his chest, desperate to breathe life back into the Englishman, only to see that he had been too late. The American backed up and sank to his behind, his face filled with shock and fear, and he had been shaking the entire time.

"I just saw him this morning…we got into an argument like always…" He panicked. "If…if only I knew…"

"No, it's my fault…if only I caught the sign sooner…"

"…please tell me what is going on…please."

Kiku nodded as he confirmed that he was going to be the one to explain to him everything that was going on. While that was going on, Matthew and Charice forced themselves to touch Arthur's body to see if that was going to help. Instead, Matthew was able to create a portal a few feet away.

"It's the same murderer…" Charice gasped.

"It means we can save him…"

Matthew looked up to see that Alfred had just finished his debriefing with Kiku and had just seen the portal that he had been talking about. The American stood up and stared at the portal before running head-first into the other side without even thinking.

"Hey-!" Charice sighed. "All right. We better go after him."

/=+=/

Aditaya is the Republic of Thailand, his name meaning "the sun, and god of light".

Sun Tam is Vietnam. Tam means "heart", and I'm just used to using 'Sun' for Asian names.

As for how Arthur died, it's a homage to the Witch Trials in both America and England. One popular way to test for witches is to tie them up and throw them into a body of water. If they drowned, the woman was declared innocent. But if they floated, they were treated as witches and were burned at the stake. A lot of women died unneeded deaths because of these "trials".

And…yeah. If you chose Lovino and Antonio, you just chose to drop the subplot :D

I just gave you this cause a lot of you wanted the subplot up.