Strife

Chapter Seven

"Arthur," the Frenchman grumbled.

Suddenly Francis was alone with his thoughts and the letter that had been forced upon him.

Less than an hour ago:

Arthur Kirkland came back to his house only to find a door was opened. A door which lead to too many expensive things; he hoped a burglar hadn't come in.

"Who goes there?" Arthur asked tentatively to the seemingly empty front room. "I-I have a gun," that wasn't a lie.

Then a faint sobbing noise could be heard. Millions of thoughts raced through Arthur's head; had someone hurt Francis? Hand Francis hurt someone else? Had Francis found...

Suddenly Arthur bust into the room, only to find Francis staring blankly at the wall, while letting some more tears fall from his usually cheery eyes.

"Francis?" he wasn't responding. The Englishman came up to the other man and shook him. Francis hadn't woken up from his trance after hearing his name; since his memories all always had that same voice saying the same thing, 'Francis,' he only came to his senses when he realized there wasn't a mask covering the owner's voice. Not this time.

"Arthur?"

"It's a masquerade ball," Francis huffed; Arthur was being stubborn again.

"I don't want to wear a bloody mask!" the younger of the two screamed, throwing his mask on the ground.

"You're such a child Artie! You're like three hundred!" This was just another one of their meaningless fights; back in the good old days.

"Well I'm sorry! I don't like masks! They..." the boy ran out of the room, remembering when he had to wear a sack over his head. Before he was burnt.

For a moment Francis wasn't going to chase after his little friend, but then he heard crying. If Arthur was sad, he felt sad.

"Arthur?"

"No, no," Arthur panicked. He grabbed the mask and decided he had no choice but to knock Francis out. He took a sword from the wall and wanted to use the hilt of it to knock the Frenchman out. Only, he couldn't do that anymore.

Arthur tried to hit Francis but Francis had gotten his hands on the sword in crusted with blue diamonds with golden fleur de lises that was mounted on the wall.

Ironic no?

Then they began to fight.

"We don't have to do this," the younger boy said as he took another hit at Francis.

"We do."

"Francis I'm sorry, but please," he took a surprisingly strong blow from his oldest friend.

"You lied to me! I was made a fool! How could you? You know how much I...I hate things like this," Francis explained as he struck again.

"Francis please calm down, I was going to explain!"

"After a whole year?! You chose to tell me now? Tell me Arthur," the Frenchman inhaled, "were you ever really going to tell me?"

"I...no," how could he lie again? After all the lies he built up to protect himself.

"He...the boy I kept seeing...he was—"

"Me."

"Then why—"

"Because you hate me."

"Arthur, I don't understand. In almost every memory we have well they were happy. Why..?"