(I've been sitting on this. It's not writer's block. I know where I'm taking this story. It has its own original ending from the dramas and manga. It's just I've not been feeling like writing the past couple weeks. So I thought I'd get out the part's that's ready.)
Boys Over Toys
Prologue
It was hard to believe that ten minutes ago Eduard Von Bock had not been running for his life. That his day had been normal. That he had been still unaware of the dreaded red card waiting in his locker, ready to be discovered upon opening.
Now a mob of his peers pursued him down the dark wood-paneled hallways of Hetalia High School. His dark blue blazer — once a symbol of pride for him with the school logo stitched in gold thread on the left breast — was caked in flour and drying egg yolk, as was his darkly-colored hair. The left lens of his square-framed glasses had cracked when he had slipped and hit against a locker in his scramble to get away. If they caught him, blood would also decorate his uniform.
In his left hand he held a mop — his only weapon — acquired from his run through a classroom. It would not stop them all, but it was all he had.
As he rounded a corner, his heart sank to see a group of students at the end of the hall. He saw the realization in their eyes and the growing smile on their lips. Rather than be surrounded, he threw his momentum sharply right and up the stairs, taking advantage of his long-striding frame to ascend several steps at a time.
They howled in protest, but they were too late.
He flew around the steel door leading to the roof, slammed it shut, and rammed the mop through its handle and the hook on the wall — one likely used to padlock the door shut.
He backed away, panting for air. His fear-riddled brain could only react. A small gasp escaped his lips when the students threw themselves at the door, beating at it, snarling for him to open it.
"Leave me alone!" he shouted, sliding his loafers backwards across the asphalt of the roof. He clutched at his stomach, wanting to throw up, feeling sick with horror. "Go away!"
A few chuckled as they continued to hit the door. The mop handle started to crack. He spun around, searching for escape and saw the enormous cooling tower on the opposite corner. There could be a fire escape!
He ran in what felt like the slow motion of a nightmare. Eduard heard the mop snap in two, the door fly open and dozen of feet spill out after him.
Above flew a black crow in the blue sky, peacefully unaware of the violence about to take place below. Of the monster coming for him.
Please! Please! He begged, only to find nothing behind the tower but a corner of the roof and the courtyard below.
Students stared up, tiny figures, waiting eagerly for the show. Before he could attempt to climb onto the grey clay tiling, hands seized him and dragged him back. He struggled and shrieked as they carried him by his arms and legs.
They took him to the center of the roof and forced him to his knees, pinning his wrists behind him. His face was forced upward when someone grabbed the hair on the back of his head, almost tearing it out by the roots. Hot blood pounded in his temples.
"Please, please, please don't do this!" He pleaded. They only laughed. He recognized a couple class mates who once upon a time had smiled and greeted him.
No one in this school had a heart.
The crowd split apart for the true monster: Ivan Braginski.
A mountain of a senior whose large, blocky head was capped by ash-blond hair like snow on a tall mountain. He moved as if in no hurry, patting one end of his faucet pipe — an item no teacher dared confiscate — against one palm while his violet-hued eyes regarded Eduard.
The small smile on his pale lips was cruel; the smile of a predator delighting in the cruel torment it would soon unleash on his prey. He giggled, sending a chill through Eduard's insides.
"Pl-please…" Eduard sobbed, snot running down his upper lip, tasting salty in his mouth as it mixed with his tears. "F-forgive me. It was an accident."
Ivan's smile widened, but revealed none of those pearl-white teeth. His eyes held nothing. They were dead and empty of life as the sockets of a skull. This was a man who had everything, the son of "General Winter", one of the most ruthless business woman on the planet. She was the cold-hearted owner of multi-billion dollar company, Winter Corporations.
That was why Hetalia High's one rule was never piss off Ivan. Only he and his underlings, the Bad Touch Trio, could defy the rules, only they never wore uniforms. Ivan always wore, as now, his long brown coat and pale brown scarf.
"You are forgiven," Ivan said coldly. A mad glee overtook his eyes, one that consumed the features of his face. A face girls swooned over.
For a moment Eduard felt a hopeful flutter, crushed when Ivan lifted his pipe. "No! Don't!"
And Ivan swung downward, connecting with a brutal crack.
A Couple Months Later
Alfred caught glimpses of his new school, Hetalia High, between the autumn-tinged foliage of the trees. It stood proud atop this really steep hill that his dirt bike — Tony as he called it — crawled up. He pumped the pedals up and down, standing over the bike's fork.
His thigh muscles worked; sweat dripped from the ends of his straw-colored bangs, one particular gravity-defying curl drooped a little more than usual. He ground his teeth, grunting as he refused to walk the bike.
A continues stream of limos and expensive-looking cars zipped by along the curving road, taking no care of Alfred on the shoulder. More than a couple times he had almost been clipped.
As tough as the hill was, Alfred looked forward to speeding down it after school. The wind would blow in his face and he would feel as if he was flying. It was something his father, Tino, and his twin brother, Matthew, would never approve of. But what they didn't know couldn't hurt them.
They had never been prouder than when Alfred received his letter telling him he had received a scholarship to Hetalia High — a school for the elite. It was an honor to go and he had been selected as one of their "underprivileged" enrollments. Something about a sudden opening.
He knew deep down it was his essay about changing the world through heroic deeds that got him in. Matthew had called him crazy, but he had been bold. One should never be afraid of risks.
His white T-shirt clung to his chest. His blue hoodie wrapped around his waist and the fabric of his red jogging pants swished he moved his legs.
Perspiration dripped form his round chin and stung his eyes. His glasses kept slipping down his straight-bridged nose to rest on the tip. Luckily, he had a band around his neck that prevented them from falling off. They were his only pair since his last broke. He had named them Texas because they made him feel like Superman hidden as Clark Kent.
"C'mon, Tony," he said.
Tony was a BMX bike with a big grey alien-shaped bumper sticker slapped over the GT logo of its triple triangle frame. He didn't care if Tony was older than him, had rust in places, and had seen better days. They belonged together. Tony suited Alfred's broad-shouldered frame perfectly.
At last the tree line opened into a a clear view of the fabled school crowning the hill top. It was a place befitting a king, a series of colonnaded buildings with clay-tiled roofing and grecian designs. He had to crane his neck to stare, reading the the unsaid message: You are beneath me.
Alfred grinned, eager to explore his new school that he had transferred to as a junior. In the brochure it said there was an observatory and Alfred couldn't wait to see that. Astronomy was a hobby of his.
Riding up to the high arch gate with a small white guardhouse on either side, from which a guard waved the cars through, lifting the barrier each time, Alfred braked. A bronze sign to the side, affixed to the wall, read: Hetalia School For the Gift, a place for the exceptional to achieve the exceptional.
A guard came out, chubby and grey-haired, in a blue uniform that strained in places, as if he'd been thinner when he first started wearing it. He eyed Alfred up and down, patting the night stick at his hip.
"All right, are you making a delivery?" the officer asked, Billy by what his gold name tag said.
"Nope," Alfred said, putting on his most charming grin. "I'm a new student. Just transferred in."
"New student?" the guard said skeptically, then his thick, bushy eye brows went up his wrinkled forehead. "Oh let me guess, an underprivileged transfer?"
Alfred nodded. "Yup, that's right."
"Where's your uniform?"
"Right here," Alfred said, adjusting the strap of his backpack as he reached around to pat the black duffle bag tied to the top of his bike's vender. "I didn't want it to get all sweaty. I heard there were showers in the gym so I figured I'd get here early, check in, and rinse off and change."
"You bike all the way here?" Billy said in shock. "From the city?"
"Well, it's not so bad," Alfred said defensively. "I take a bus some of the way. The driver is real nice and lets me take my bike on."
"No one can drive you?"
"My family doesn't have a car. Ours broke down last year," Alfred said, reluctant to admit they couldn't afford the repairs. Berwald, his stepfather, had been tinkering with it and trying to repair it through parts he bought online.
"I see," Billy said. "What was your name?"
"Alfred F. Jones," he said proudly. Jones was the name his fathers agreed on when they moved to the US.
"Ah, the Jones kid," he said. "Do you have your student card?"
"Um… do you know where I can find administration," Alfred said, digging out his leather wallet from his backpack and flashing his ID before he was waved through.
"It's the first building you'll see at the end of the lane," he said pointing a cobble-stone lined drive lined by neatly-manicured treats with a marble statue set between each. At the very end was a large grecian building with pillars at the front and a fountain.
"Thanks," Alfred said and started to take off when the guard said one more thing that caused him to stop.
"Word of advice, kid. Keep your head down when you're in there. They'll sniff out your status like blood hounds. Don't take it too hard. And don't make enemies."
"Who couldn't love me?" Alfred joked and waved before heading off.
And yet he couldn't shake the nervous tone in the guard's voice. He sounded afraid of something.
TBC… "A Fist To The Face Puts A Bully In His Place"
Summary — Alfred makes a friend, Toris, and finds himself taking a stand against Ivan. But that's just the beginning of the trouble as Ivan becomes enamored.
(Note — You'll find out later what happened to Eduard.)