This Chapter's song is Zombie by The Cranberries, listen to the song while you read along! I really feel like I shouldn't have to do this because I'm not even claiming that I own the lyrics and telling you guys the original artist should be enough but nooo! Anyway sorry about this rant but I'm a little annoyed with these stupid rules. Onto the story!
...
Let it be said that Alice Kirkland, was not a skillful ice skater. This fall marking her eleventh one that day as she slipped while turning around the loop of the ring, falling on her but once again, and effectively embarrassing herself in front of Alfred.
"Guess you're not as graceful on your feet as you are with strings, huh?" He smiled and stifled a laugh, reaching a hand out to help her up.
"Belt up, it's just been a few years." She glared as he put her back her feet. That actually wasn't true, she went ice skating every year during winter break with her brothers, she just never became accustomed to the ice.
"Yeah, well it's pretty cute when you fall." He said and began to skate again, pulling her behind him.
"Is that supposed to be a complement?" She asked raising a brow up.
"Didn't take it that way I guess?" He sighed but still held his smile. "I'm not really good at the whole flirting thing." He said with hilarious honesty.
"Well I'm not much better." Alice laughed with him.
Alfred held onto both of her hands and helped her make the turn while skating backwards, then he let go of one of her hands to face forward again in a beautiful turn.
"How are you such a great skater?" She asked in wonder.
"Me and Mattie used to play ice hockey together when we younger, though he's way better than me." Alfred replied. Alice once again ignored the urge to correct his grammar and instead nodded her head in interest. It wasn't often that he spoke of his brother with her, and even rarer that he spoke about him with England. In fact, he hadn't even told England about the promise he made with his brother, so she had to pretend she didn't know as much as she did. It did make her wonder why that was though, surely she'd be closer to him when she was his girlfriend.
After that the dance hour came up and various pop and slow dance songs were played. Alfred insisted that they danced together and began to spin themselves in a circle. Alice struggled to stay up and kept slipping, but every time she'd almost fall over he'd catch her and pull her up. As they skated around the ring Alfred would cross his legs back and forth with each step to the beat, Alice tried to copy him but failed miserably and eventually gave up and just skated forward.
When dance hour was over the two left and returned their skates to the return and pick up booth, then went together to get some food at a nearby restaurant. Alice settled for a chicken sandwich and a cup of hot chamomile, while Alfred got himself three different burgers because, once again, he couldn't make up his mind on which one to get, along with, surprise surprise, a diet coke.
"You know it's terribly unhealthy to be consuming that much processed beef." She said without thinking. Inwardly she paled and cursed at herself. 'Shit.'
"Ha, you brits all must be there same. Always concerned about health." Alfred laughed with mirth, clearly oblivious to her screw up.
"It's not my health I'm worried about, and I wouldn't be worried about yours if you didn't consume so much processed, sugary, and fattening food." She claimed, deciding to continue since it seemed like he wasn't suspicious.
"You're eating processed chicken!" He accused like a child.
"I'm not eating three of them!" Alice defended.
They continued their argument for a couple minutes, which ended up with Alfred dismissing the whole health issue, saying that "A hero never gets sick!", Alice shook her head but decided to go along with it just to let the subject dissolve. Next they talked about her band and how he liked their performance yesterday. Their performance hadn't been anything special, mainly because her and Kiku and been slacking off that week. Ludwig was unbelievably pissed the next time she saw him at her lack of work, giving only a minimal excuse to her sickness. She promised that she'd try her best to make it to their practices the next week, especially since they were learning a new song to preform and perfecting an old one they had begun to learn two weeks ago.
"I was wondering if you would mind if I brought someone with me next week?" Alfred questioned.
Alice felt a twinge of fear that it was her. "Uh yeah, who is it?" She asked tentatively
"My cousin, he doesn't believe I have a girlfriend." He said and took an annoyingly loud sip from his coke.
"Sure, I don't mind." Alice answered with a grin. 'I wonder who his cousin is?'
After they ate they split apart to go separate ways, but not before Alfred had offered her a ride home like he always did, to which she denied him like she always did. Alfred huffed with a pout.
"How come you never let me take you home?" He questioned her.
"Uh.. it's just that my house is a little... much." She replied sloppily, not sure what to tell him.
"Do you think I'll judge you?" Alfred asked with hurt in his eyes.
"It's just that..." 'Hurry think of something!' She rushed herself. "I'm not allowed to date!" She said quickly on the spot. 'Good enough.'
"So your worried your parents will see me?" He asked in conformation. Alice nodded. "Well okay... stay warm then." He told her and leaned in to give her a quick peck on the lips, making her explode in a bright red blush.
"See ya, Iggy." he waved goodbye.
"Bye." She whispered back, a bit brain dead from embarrassment.
After Alfred disappeared from the parking lot, Alice walked over to a nearby market store and went into its bathroom to change her appearance. Because it would look suspicious, Alice didn't bring a bag to carry a complete change of clothes, just a purse and a reversible jacket. Taking off her wig, Alice swiftly separated her hair into two parts and pulled them into two ponytails, then taking out her contacts and slipping on her red framed glasses. Taking off her black jacket she turned it inside out so it was now red.
Exiting herself out from the bathroom, she left the store and headed over to the Beilschmidt's for practice in the cold, but melted city, as pretty much all the snow had gone, except for a few chunks that remained here and there. When she arrived, Everyone else was already there, and their mother led her to the basement to join them, even though she already knew the layout of the house. Kiku was the first to notice her arrival and was the first to greet her as well.
"Hello, Alice-chan." He said with a light smile.
"Hello Kiku, guys." She greeted back then gave a half assed greeting to the other two.
"Sup girl bro, did you guys fuck yet?" Gilbert asked with a dirty smirk. Alice promptly grabbed the closest object to her, a book of Prussian history, and threw in his direction, successfully hitting him in the arm.
"Hey, respect the awesome Prussia!" The platinum blond yelled at her as he jokingly caressed the book.
"You're fucking gross." She said back in disgust.
"It went well I take it." Ludwig asked from his seat on a high stool in front of a music stand.
"Yes, rather well." She answered him and went over to pick up her guitar from it's case, which Kiku had brought over for her.
"Good, then let's get to work." Ludwig said in a serious voice, obviously eager to get to work.
Ludwig and Gilbert had known that she was dating Alfred from pretty much the beginning, after they saw her leave with him for the second time and saw him in the crowd every week. Ludwig didn't care and didn't intervene, while Gilbert found it fun to constantly tease her about it and ask her 'questions' about the 'progress' of their relationship.
"Alice you'll be singing Zombie this bash as well as Cassie. Kiku will be leading as usual in War of Change and My Demons. And because of Gilbert's insistence, he'll be performing Der Kleine Vampir." The taller blonde German read off his list.
"Can you even perform a whole song while playing the drums?" Alice questioned the self-proclaimed Prussian.
"Am I awesome?" He retorted with a grin.
"I'll take that as a yes." She sighed in a dull tone.
"I'll be fine, no way I'd mess up in front of the trio." He said as he lightly strummed a beat of his drum set, reading notes of the stand in front of him.
"The trio? You invited Antonio and Francis?!" She said angrily at him, stomping over with her hands on her hips. Ludwig rolled his eyes and ignored them, focusing on practicing his bass. Kiku just stood back quietly and watched.
"Nope, Francis was invited by Alfred." He said with a mocking gaze. "Then I invited Antonio."
"Alfred did..." She echoed before it dawned on him. "He's cousins with the frog!?"
Gilbert nodded in amusement. Fucking hell this wasn't good, she had done everything she could do to make sure Francis never showed up at the bash because she knew that he was sharper than most when it came to memorizing faces and bodies, just like the fucking pervert he was.
She paled at the thought of him realizing who she was. He'd definitely use it as black mail against her.
This realization then led to a week of self induced stress created by her creating problems within her own mind of him finding out and revealing it to Alfred. To which Alfred would break up will her then tell her mother about the band, then she'd be disowned because of shame. She'd be homeless and live alone under a bridge with feral cats and never be able to start her own record company.
Okay so she was over thinking the situation, but that didn't change the fact that she'd most definitely be discovered by the frog.
The next week past faster that she would have preferred, with little to no work to hold her back, and Gilbert's constant reminding and teasing her at their practice only made it worse. And because she had been heading straight to practice with Kiku after school, her time with Alfred had been limited to just lunch and short minutes during class. Alfred noticed the worry on her face and her preoccupied demeanor and had asked her about it on Wednesday.
"Alice, are you feeling okay?" He asked her from his seat on her couch, where his butt had begun to leave a crease from continuously sitting in the same spot. She had told him to sit somewhere else so he wouldn't ruin her furniture, but he ignored her and now her couch was suffering.
"Yeah, I'm okay, I just... have a lot on my mind." She replied with a tired voice, rubbing her eyes under her glasses.
Alfred looked at her with a pout and sat up. "Come on, you can tell me." He urged her.
Alice spared him a glance and had to desperately resist his adorable puppy dog face. She couldn't afford to say anything on the matter as to not revel she was England.
"It's nothing." She waved him off, turning her gaze back to her work. But that wasn't enough to get him to let it go.
Alfred continued to question her throughout the rest of the week due to her becoming more nervous as Friday came closer, becoming more persistent with each attempt. Alice still refused to talk about it and she could tell she was frustrating him by her silence.
"Common, why won't you tell me what's wrong?" He questioned her as he flowed her out of chemistry, Kiku walking behind them.
"Like I've said, it's not important." She responded, trying to keep a straight face.
Alfred grumbled and crossed his arms over his chest, bringing his shoulders up to his chin in a childish grumpy pout.
"I thought you liked me." He muttered with a tiny blush on his face.
Alice nearly tripped over her own feet from his words and spun around quickly to face him, a blush bright red on her face as well.
"You're bringing that up now?" She questioned with slight horror. Alfred only seemed to blush harder, staring down at the ground before looking back at her.
"If you did you wouldn't keep secrets from me!" He accused her pointedly. A handful of students stood on the sidelines watching them. Alice rubbed her eyes in exasperation, this was not the time or the place for them to be doing this.
"For goodness sakes Alfred, it's none of your business!" She said loudly at him, almost shouting. Swiftly turning away, Alice grabbed Kiku by the wrist and walked away down the hallway to her next class, wanting to get away from that awkward situation as fast as she could, pulling Kiku along with her.
After their talk last week about her whole 'liking him' thing, you'd think Alfred would have left it behind and not use it as weapon material in a silly little argument. She knew he could childish, but that was uncalled for and a low blow to use.
Ugh, to many thoughts were going around through her head.
...
At last, later that same day, she was in the make shift dressing room, an old janitor's closet, full dressed in a short black dress with a moon print on the chest, with ripped tights and combat boots. Her wig was done in Dutch braid and was decorated with a purple flower headband.
Taking a deep breath in and a deep breath she calmed herself down mentally, preparing herself for their act, which would start in less than ten minutes. Giving herself a look in the broken mirror she turned to leave the small room. Right now the Nordic 5 was playing their second to last song up on the stage. Her bandmates were currently organizing their instruments to take them up on stage for their turn. Bands didn't usually like to share instruments so each one used their own. It took about five minutes for one band to remove their instruments and around the same amount of time for that next to load their instruments based on how many they have and how many helping hands they have.
Alice was busying herself by tuning her guitar, which had already been tuned, then going over to prepare her speaker. All together they had one microphone, three speakers, two guitars, a drum set, and a keyboard. So it didn't take as long to load and unload, except for the drum set which needed several hands to move it quickly. Alice didn't usually help with that, carrying her own weight, using the excuse that she has a curfew, which Gilbert and Ludwing don't have, and Kiku having a later curfew than her.
"Hey Iggy!" A joyful voice called behind her. Her eye twitched in slight annoyance, still upset from his earlier screw up, but had to play it off as nothing was wrong.
"Hey, Alfred." She greeted back and moved to face him, however she couldn't stop her eye from twitching when she saw Francis right beside him.
"Iggy, this is my cousin, Francis." He introduced the bearded frenchie.
Francis bowed to her and reached to grab her hand. "Bonjour, mon cherie." He said in a smooth voice, his lips curled into a smile. Alice yanked her hand out of his grasp and took a pointed step back.
"Hello." She tried to say normally, but found it hard not to grimace at him. Francis seemed to get a scandalous glint in his eyes as he took a step forward and leaned forward towards her.
"I have to say, cousin, she's even more beautiful than you described." He said as he reached for her arm, rubbing circles into the palm of her hand slowly. "Sexy~" He whispered quietly by her face.
Not being able to handle having a frog so close to her, and becoming quickly disgusted as he touched her, and not bothering to wait for Alfred to control his cousin. Alice took the initiative and punched him in the gut.
"Get the fuck off me wanker!" She yelled at him as she did so, knocking him backwards. Francis managed to stay on his feet but clutched his gut in pain.
"Some girl huh?" Alfred laughed beside him, slapping him on the back.
"Oui." He breathed, looking up at her with an evil smirk. "Quite."
Well fuck her running he figured it out early.
After that fucked up introducing, the two left to join Antonio in the crowd, and she began to help load their equipment on the stage. First starting with setting up her speaker and hooking it up to her six string, then helping Kiku bring up his keyboard and stand, and hooking it up to a speaker as well. Ludwig and Gilbert set up the drums together and Kiku volunteered to set up Ludwig's bass for him, which left her to bring up the single microphone.
Once all set up and prepared, Alice gave a short introduction to their band before beginning. She was singing the first song while she played her guitar so she would need to focus harder to not mess up, meaning she couldn't pay to much attention to Alfred this song. The song began with her simply strumming an easy beat alone, then she was joined by a powerful movement of Gilbert's drums and a strong backing up by Ludwig. The music went on that way for forty-eight seconds until she started up with the first line.
[Zombie by The Cranberries listen while you read! (But you guys already know that)]
Another head hangs lowly
Child is slowly taken
And the violence caused such silence
Who are we mistaken
But you see it's not me
It's not my family
In your head, in your head they are fighting
With their tanks and their bombs
And their bombs and their guns
In your head, In your head they are cryin'
In your head, in your head
Zombie, zombie, zombie, ie, ie
What's in your head, in your head
Zombie, zombie, zombie, ie, ie, ie, oh
Dou, dou, dou, dou
Dou, dou, dou, dou
Dou, dou, dou, dou
Dou, dou, dou, dou
Another mother's breakin'
Heart is taking over
When the violence causes silence
We must be mistaken
It's the same old theme since nineteen-sixteen
In your head, In your head they're still fightin'
With their tanks and their bombs
And their bombs and their guns
In your head, in your head they are dyin'
In your head, in your head
Zombie, zombie, zombie, ie, ie
What's in your head, in your head
Zombie, zombie, zombie, ie, ie, ie
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
Hey, oh, ya, ya-a
Even when her voice ceased to sing the music still went on for more than a minute as a powerful melody was created between them. Now with the opportunity, Alice went to steal a glance in Alfred's direction, where she saw him cheering along with everyone else. Next to him Francis looked at her with a knowing smile, their eyes meeting and his smile growing. When the song ended she stepped back for Kiku to lead the next song. But even as she started the new song, Kiku's voice taking off in a whisper then growing into a forte, she kept staring at Francis in the crowd, who seemed to get a cat like grin from her obvious disarray.
About twenty minutes passed later and they were done with their set list and preparing to leave, taking down everything they brought and storing it away in Gilbert's truck and Kiku's car. She had said goodbye to Alfred a few minutes ago as he had to get home soon because his father had something for him to do. Alice was about to get into the back seat of Kiku's car to get dropped off at home, but froze when she heard Francis speak behind her.
"That was quite the performance up their, Alice." He congratulated her in a mocking voice. "Never would have thought I'd see you dressed this way before." Alice rolled her eyes when he have her a once over to empathize his point.
"What do you want Francis?" She sighed, leaning her back against the car.
"Just some answers." He said. "Does Alfred know?" The shoulder length blond asked.
"No, and I plan not to tell him." She answered with a frown on her face.
"Oh? And why is that?" Francis inquired.
"My reasons are my own." She quipped back. "How'd you figure me out?"
Francis let out a chuckle and smiled at her. "Mon cherie, I'd recognize that lean body of yours anywhere." He purred. Alice glared at him with a kill intent, only making him grin even more.
"Well then, since I now know your terrible secret, I have only one request." He said with a cat like smile. "That is unless you want someone to find out about this."
She fucking knew he'd use it as black mail. "What is it?" She grimaced.
"New football uniforms, I refuse to wear those drab old uniforms when we win the championships." Francis demanded with a flip of his hair.
Well that's not what she expected.
.
.
.
In case you were wondering, their not playing American football, their playing soccer.
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