Francis had never felt so betrayed before.
Of course, he had felt this way many times before, but never to this extent.
He had felt stabbed in the back when his only friend(who shall not be named)sided with his old school bullies to make fun of him.
He felt even worse than when his parents suggested that he go to America to finish his studies.
Suggested? Scratch that, forced him to go to America to finish his studies.
The point is, he felt really deceived when Arthur was insulting him behind his back.
The next morning, Francis tried to avoid Arthur as best as he could, and he ignored his attempts of saying sorry. The French teen was grateful that there was school today, he wouldn't need to try to stay away from him there.
Or so he thought.
Francis was arranging his books in his assigned locker, when he saw a familiar mop of blonde locks looking around like a child that lost its mother in a large crowd.
He thought his mind was playing tricks on him at first, but then he saw the guy turn around to face him and he stared back at Francis with wide green eyes. Above them were those unmistakable pare of bushy eyebrows which confirmed his suspicions of this person being Arthur.
Neither moved from their spots, 10 feet in between them and kept on staring awkwardly at each other, as the students all headed quickly towards their classes. Francis didn't want to commence a chat because for one, he was supposed to be ignoring the Brit and not talk to him. And Arthur, he just felt embarrassed on asking Francis for help on finding his class. He doubted he could assist him, anyway.
Arthur finally grabbed the courage to talk to the other blonde.
"Um, I didn't know you went to this school?" Arthur awkwardly started, rubbing the back of his neck and blushing.
"Well, I didn't know you come here either." He answered back spitefully; giving a question back for a question.
Arthur looked sadly up at Francis and heaved out deeply before talking again.
"Look, I'm really-"
Francis turned around to his locker, quickly finished up organizing his books and slammed it shut which cut off Arthur's sentence.
"What was that? I couldn't hear you over all the commotion!" Francis asked, pretending he didn't care and glaring menacingly at the shorter blonde. The mixed expression of fright, guilt and sadness on Arthur's face made Francis feel remorseful about shouting at him. The Brit looked like a hurt puppy who had been hit with a cane.
Arthur just hung his head and sped off down the hallway.
'Great, just great,' the French thought to himself gloomily, then left to get to his class.
************Time Skip!*************
"Okay Francis, you can sit down next to Antonio," the teacher told him, and pointed to where a tan male was sitting. At the mention of his name, Antonio looked up, smiled brightly and waved at him.
"Hola, I'm Antonio as you probably know already, and this is Gilbert," he stated, gesturing to the albino beside him.
"Hallo," Gilbert greeted with a smile.
"Salut!" Francis greeted back, with a huge smile of his own.
"Are you from France?" The two friends asked him.
"Oui, and I'm guessing you two are from Spain and Germany?"
"Yup!" The Spanish male agreed. Francis felt like these two could be great friends of his.
The trio continued talking until class started and then they paid attention to the lesson.
There was a knock on the door.
"Come in," the teacher instructed.
"Sorry I'm late!" A flustered Arthur exclaimed as he burst in through the door.
"And why are you late, young man?" the tutor inquired.
"I... I didn't know where the class was so I got lost..." The Brit admitted quietly.
Some other students began whispering between them and chuckling.
"Silence." The teacher commanded which shut up the pupils.
"Are you a new student?" he asked.
"Y-yeah," he said.
"Well then, I'll give you pass this time, but make sure it doesn't happen again," the educator stated.
Arthur nodded and sighed, relieved that he didn't get into any major trouble.
"You can sit over there beside Francis, he's new too so you two could get to know each other," the teacher told, directing to the blonde.
Arthur gulped out of anxiety, and made his way to the seat.
"Hi Arthur, I'm Antonio, this is Gilbert and this is Francis!" The Spaniard introduced each of them quietly in the middle of the teacher's lecture.
Arthur awkwardly smiled and tried not to seem like he noticed Francis intensely staring at him.
"Nice to meet you..." The Brit greeted back stiffly.
"Oh, are you British?" The brown haired teen queried.
"Yeah," he replied.
The teacher turned back to face them, and told them to be quiet, ending their conversation.
************Time Skip!************
The cafeteria was flooded with students, big groups of people crowding tables and chatter could be heard from every corner of the room.
Arthur didn't know where to sit. He had wanted a quiet table by himself, but that didn't seem possible.
"Arthur!" He heard a familiar voice from behind.
The blonde turned around and saw that it was Antonio who had called him. He was sitting with Gilbert, two other teens who looked nearly identical to each other, a blonde who was really intimidating, and of course... Francis.
"Come sit with us!" the Spanish teen exclaimed and patted the table they were seated at.
Arthur smiled sheepishly, and headed slowly towards the table.
Antonio moved over a bit so that Arthur could sit down.
"Thanks," Arthur said. At least he wasn't sitting beside Francis, who was on the left side of the brown haired male. Maybe this would be okay.
"So how's school going for you so far?" He asked.
"Good," he mumbled.
"There's no need to be shy! Look at Francis, he's new as well but he's not hiding in his shell, is he?" he stated.
Arthur just quietly chuckled and nodded.
"You might be wondering who these three are, right? Well, this is Feliciano and this is Lovino. Yes, they are brothers, but no, they're not twins. They've got the same birthday though, but Lovi is one year older! Funny right? The one on the other side of Feli is Ludwig, he's Feli's boyfriend and also Gil's brother. Oh, and Lovi is mine as well!" The Spaniard introduced them, and got a smack on the head and a retort from Lovino when he mentioned him being his.
"In a way, we're all related on this table!" he added with a optimistic smile.
The Brit smiled politely at the newly introduced people.
"I'll be right back, I need to go the bathroom," Antonio excused himself and left the table.
Everyone went back to talking about whatever they were talking about before Arthur arrived. And because Antonio was gone now, Francis and Arthur were beside each other, an awkward silence hanging between them.
Gilbert was first to notice, and he said something that made the awkwardness grow instead of make it disappear.
"You two look like an ex-couple that just broke up or something," Gil stated teasingly, trying to ease the tension but succeeding in making it worse.
The pair blushed bright red, and only then did Gilbert realize what he'd done.
"Oh shit, don't tell me you two are actually a broken up couple..." he whispered diffidently.
"NO! I-I mean, no." Arthur firmly replied.
"Then why are you two so awkward around each other?" he asked.
"We already knew each other already from outside of school," Francis added.
"Oh, I see. Well-" Gilbert was interrupted by the cheery Spaniard who arrived back at the table.
"I'm back! Did you's miss me?" Antonio said cheerfully and sat down. On the left side of Arthur. Which meant that Francis and Arthur were squished beside each other in between the Spaniard and the German(I would write Prussian, but is that right? It's in a modern AU so.... ?)
"Why is everyone suddenly so awkward around here? Did you's miss me that much!?" he murmured as he tried desperately to get the happy mood back.
Thankfully, the bell had rang, signaling lunch break over. Everyone rushed to their designated classes.
After the last three tedious classes, it was finally time for them to go home. Arthur rushed to his locker and got everything sorted before hastily going home.
'If the first day was this bad, I can only imagine what the rest of the year will be like..." Arthur sulkily thought as he walked home in despair, kicking innocent stones laying on the pavement on the way.
Francis had given him a key on the first day, since the Brit concluded that his set of keys were back in London.
Once he got inside he threw his stuff onto his bed and pulled on a baggy green jumper and jeans then left to buy some necessities from the store nearby.
He got the ingredients to make the apology dinner, a few boxes of Earl Grey, and also a bouquet of flowers. He decided on a bouquet of crimson. red roses. Something told him that Francis was the kind of guy who likes roses,which was why he chose the red flowers. After paying for everything, Arthur returned to his shared house.
************Time Skip!(there's a lot of time skips in this chapter, isn't there?) ************
Francis was cleaning in the kitchen after an unsettling dinner between the two. Arthur was reading in the living room, well, he looked like he was, anyway. In all honesty, he was thinking of possible outcomes and ways Francis could react to his apology. 'What if he messed up? What if Francis didn't believe him?' These thoughts were frying his mind, and if anyone were to watch him closely, they would realise he had been stuck staring at the same page for about an hour, and a lost look was in his olive green eyes.
The Brit finally decided to go face the source of his worries. Francis.
When he got to the kitchen, he realised Francis had noticed him as soon as he stepped foot into the room, but pretended like he didn't.
"Can I talk to you?" The British teen asked.
Francis opened his mouth to reply with a no, but Arthur interrupted him before he could do so.
"And before you say anything.... I won't take no for an answer." Arthur added sternly.
Francis just stared at him plainly for a few seconds before sighing and leaning against the counter top.
"Fine. This better be short. I've got a lot of work to do," the teen replied in monotone.
A smile graced Arthur's face for a few seconds because he got a chance to finally talk to him. Then he got to his plan.
"I've been trying to tell you this for a long time now.... I'm so, so sorry. I... I didn't know what I was thinking when I said that stuff, all I was thinking about was pleasing my siblings and I almost completely forgot you were in the house. Not saying that I would have said it if you weren't there or anything, just... Um... "Arthur trailed off awkwardly. He was never great at expressing his thoughts.
Francis still had the look of boredom on his face.
Mhm mhm, yeah, okay," he plainly replied and got back to the dishes.
"Please, believe me! I'm trying to say sorry here and you're just ignoring me!?" Arthur shouted.
"Well you wouldn't be trying to apologise right now if you didn't say all those awful comments about me!" Francis snapped.
"Ugh! Arthur groaned. He was getting fed up of this. Why couldn't he just accept his apology and move on with life!?
"I was right. You're just a stupid, little Frenchie. I bet you were spoiled by your parents so much and got only the best from them. I bet you were the most popular kid in your school; everyone adored you, didn't they? I bet you've never even heard someone say something ill about you, have you!? You have to have everything perfect in your life, huh? Well, I've got a newsflash for ya! Life's not perfect. Not your life, not mine, not anyone's. So suck it up and be grateful that I'm at least trying to apologise to your stuck-up, royal self! Arthur lashed out angrily.
Francis looked appalled for a few seconds until an infuriated look crossed his face. Soon after, his fist collided with Arthur's cheek, sending him to the floor.
"My life wasn't as easy as you think it to be! I've had my share of struggles as well!" The French teen stated, looking down at the blonde, enraged by his words.
"Oh, let me guess, your $100 outfit got a tiny bit stained? Your expensive shoes got water on them? Your date stood you up?" That is just plain awful!" Arthur teased with fake remorse, cradling his sore cheek but still sassy as ever.
That was the final straw.
The French blonde jumped onto the younger and threw a few more punches at him. Arthur blocked one but the rest hit him. That didn't mean he gave up. The moment an opportunity appeared, he kicked the other male in the stomach, distracting him, then kept on attacking. The two teens continued on fighting for a good five minutes and when they finally did stop they were both out of breath and laying on the white-tiled kitchen floor.
Neither said a word to each other, just stayed on the ground trying to get their racing hearts to calm down. A while later, they both got up and silently dispersed to their respective rooms.
So much for the apology....
Merry Christmas to everyone!!! I know I'm one day too late. And if you don't celebrate Christmas, then... Um... A happy normal day!
Yay! I finally finished this! I feel like I'm using school as an excuse for me to be lazy and not write.... But it's the Christmas holidays right now and I feel as free as a feather!!! I WANTED to update, actually!
You probably weren't expecting the fight, huh? I thought Iggy seemed a bit OOC, he wouldn't just easily apologise would he? That why I made him snap. Sowwy! Well, it's FrUk. Literally translates into love/hate relationship. There has to be a few fights between them!!!
I also realise that Francis said like no French this chapter..... Well, um... I have an explanation! He was... Annoyed... And..... He also didn't want Arthur to feel uncomfortable because he had heard him complain that he doesn't like him using French! Yeah! That's my best explanation... 😓