literature

The Beauty of Silence - Chapter 5

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"You used to be engaged??"
Alfred gaped at his Deaf friend, but Arthur didn't answer, staring at the Frenchman about to get on the air. After a moment, he quickly ducked out of sight, just before Francis looked over at Kiku questioningly. The Japanese man raised an eyebrow at Arthur, but then shrugged it off and gave Francis an 'okay' signal to start. Once Francis began to speak into the microphone, Arthur slowly peeked up again. Seeing his chance, he tugged Alfred's sleeve again. He got the picture pretty quickly, and began to lead the older blond back towards the elevator. Once they were inside, Alfred leaned on the wall with a puzzled look on his face.
"When were you engaged? I had no idea you ever were."
Arthur shrugged, a slight frown on his face. But after a moment, he put pencil to paper again to explain. He was writing until they'd gotten out the door and onto the sidewalk, choosing his words more carefully than usual it seemed. Alfred dodged passers-by as he took it to read.

"I never went to college, and instead traveled around England for photography. On my travels I met Francis. We didn't exactly have a smooth relationship at first, but we grew on each other. I made a point to visit the town he lived in often, he was studying dance. We got engaged eventually, and I was going to start settling down and just take pictures there. If I wanted to go elsewhere, he'd probably come with me. This was all 3 years ago, maybe. But suddenly, before I could move in, he got offered a huge job on Broadway. It was between me and his dream job, so guess which one he picked? I was extremely upset about it for a while. Maybe I still am, even. I stayed away these last few years, trying to find a place to settle down, but finally came here. I expected to find him choreographing his own shows by now, and I was considering going to find him. But I hadn't decided yet and I had no idea he was working for a radio station, of all things. Dancing was his one goal in life."
"Huh..." Alfred mumbled, giving the notebook back. "That's quite the story... Well, what do you think you'll do now?"
Arthur shrugged, then sighed. He lifted a hand to the right side of his head, touching with three fingers, and then made a motion away from it and forwards.
'I don't know.'
Alfred gave him a pat on the shoulder, not really knowing what else to do. "Uh, sorry dude..."
At that, the Deaf man smiled just slightly and shook his head.
'It's fine. I'll think of something. Since you've asked me so many questions, may I ask one?'
"Of course! Why don't we stop in at the coffee shop and we can talk over that?"

They made it to the coffee shop and got their usual orders. Only after Arthur had taken a sip of his tea did he write out his question.
"So your segment on the radio is 'Patriotic Bucket List', and you mentioned that it's basically your own bucket list. Most people don't make those at such a young age, what prompted your interest in it?"
Out of all questions, it had to be that one. But, he conceded with a sigh, it was bound to pop up at some point. He took a gulp of his latte and a torn-off bit of his cinnamon roll before answering. His gaze remained on the food, even though he kept his head up so Arthur could see.
"Well, it's not a very nice story, Arthur, but I guess I can tell you. Not many people know this, but I'm actually a twin. I was born maybe six minutes before my brother, Matthew. We looked almost completely alike; our parents often mistook Mattie for me. I always got more attention, because I was louder. He'd always been really quiet, you know? Mom told me he didn't even cry that often as a baby. Well, we grew up together, him being quiet and smart, me being loud and not the brightest. He rarely had any dates or anything, and even though he was smart he didn't particularly love school. The only thing he was really passionate about was hockey. Man, was he good at it! He'd just gotten accepted into a college, halfway through our last year of high school. I already knew I wasn't going to college, but we were all really proud of him..."
He paused, biting his lip slightly, and trailed his gaze up to the man across the table from him. Arthur looked stricken, probably having already guessed the ending to this story. Even so, he slowly lifted his hands to interject.
'You don't have to continue if you don't want to, Alfred.'
The American was silent a moment, but then shook his head.

"I got this far, might as well finish." But his voice was unsure, a bit shaky. He was glad, for once, that his friend wouldn't be able to detect that. "Well, it was only like a week after that that it happened. Mattie got /really/ sick out of the blue. He tried to keep going to school and playing hockey for a while, but soon he stopped going out, and he had to be in bed all the time... Turned out he had some kind of brain cancer... He died after only a few months, the doctors tried everything but it didn't help. But you know what? A few days before..." he paused and passed a hand over his face, starting to get choked up remembering. "Before he slipped into a coma for the last few days, I was visiting him in the hospital and telling him how I had no clue what to do after high school. I always tried to talk like he'd be fine, telling him he'd need to save my butt on things later in life and stuff. But he didn't talk like that, because we all knew by then. So he interrupted me while I was going on about how I didn't have much I could do besides get a dumb fast food job or something, and he actually sounded pretty firm, not like how he usually talked. He said that I couldn't do that. That I should get out into the world and /do/ stuff, you know? He said..." Another shaky breath. "He said that he wouldn't be able to see all of the coolest parts of the world, s-so I had to do it for him... A-and I said yeah, of course. So after he died I started writing down all of the places I thought he'd want to see most, and I'm going to go to all of them before I die... I'm going to live life to the fullest because he couldn't..."

He wiped at his eyes, which had started to leak tears, taking another huge breath. He looked up as he felt a warm hand on his free one, to see shock and sympathy glittering in those expressive green eyes. Arthur wrote a message on the notepad and gently slid it towards the American, who sniffled quietly and turned it around to read.
"I'm sure he'd be overjoyed with all of your plans, Alfred, and I'm so sorry for your loss. He sounds like such a wonderful person, and didn't deserve to leave so young."
The younger blond nodded, sniffling a little again, before pushing the notebook back.
"Yeah... Thanks a lot, Arthur. I'm okay."
He managed a shaky smile, which Arthur returned.
"So I gather you're saving up your money from this job to start traveling the world?"
"Uh-huh... I don't have any skills I can take on the road like your photography, so I've got to save up beforehand. I've almost got enough to go visit Toronto, that's the first place on the list. Mattie was really crazy about Canada. I guess it's because of the hockey thing?"
Arthur nodded again, understanding.
"Good luck getting through everything on the list, then."
"Y-yeah, thanks... Hey! You want to do something fun?"
The only response he got was a raised eyebrow. Alfred tried to put on a bigger smile, wanting to get back to a happy place.
"It's still early evening, so I know somewhere cool we can go. Okay?"
There was a moment of hesitation, but then Arthur nodded and finished off his tea. Alfred gulped down the rest of his coffee as well, and then took his cinnamon bun with him as he began to lead the way out onto the street again.
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DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN HETALIA. I DO NOT OWN ALFRED F JONES/AMERICA, ARTHUR KIRKLAND/ENGLAND, HONDA KIKU/JAPAN, FRACIS BONNEFOY/FRANCE, OR MATTHEW WILLIAMS/CANADA. THESE THINGS BELONG TO HIMARUYA.

*laughs evilly at the double-character angst*

I felt bad as I wrote this, because I love Canada... But this was always going to be the reason behind Alfred's ambitions, it had to be done.

What's this? Might Arthur still harbor feelings for Francis? Might Francis harbor feelings back? Who knows! Not even I know yet. ;) Maybe you should recommend in your COMMENT if I should do that or not~!
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