Chapter one – Guilt

"I can't find my books! How long have I got left?"

"Hurry up! We're five minutes late, you idiot!"

"Oh shit. Go on – hurry up and go without me! I don't want you in a detention you don't have to be in!"

"Well I don't want to be sitting here all on my own waiting for you to come home, so I may as well be with you in the detention."

"I seriously cannot find these books!"

Arthur and Alfred were late for their first day back. Of course, it was inevitable – the American was hardly ever early for anything, even with the constant planning, organising and help from Arthur. Of course it was Alfred who couldn't find his books – Arthur had kept his on top of his bookshelf for the entire summer holiday.

"I've got them!" Alfred cried, triumphantly grasping a pile of books he'd conjured from the scary mess under his and Arthur's bed, "Come on – run, run, run! Mr. Belischmidt is coming around all of the form rooms giving a talk, and I doubt he'll be too happy about us being late!"

"And whose fault is that, idiot? I asked you last night if you had everything ready and you just waved me off, telling me it'd 'all be alright!' and just carried on playing that Final Fantasy game Kiku gave you!" luckily for Alfred, Arthur was only half-serious in his lectures.

"I can't help it – Final Fantasy is such a good game! You seriously need to play it! I never knew Kiku was so awesome! I've always kinda hated him after he sorta dated you, but he's actually a really nice guy…" Alfred mused thoughtfully.

Arthur rolled his eyes, chuckling, "I suppose I can't blame you really. I'm glad you're getting on with Kiku – I've missed being his friend, and he's been so lonely recently. Apparently there's a rumour that Heracles is coming to teach here… maybe they'll get back together…"

"But I heard that Kiku was dating that other guy…? What was his name…? The kid from the Netherlands…." Alfred muttered.

"Oh – yeah, I heard about that… He sounds kind of shady… I hope Kiku'll be okay with him…" Arthur smiled, "Kind of hard to believe that all that stuff between me and him happened two years ago…"

"It'll be two year anniversary this Easter!" Alfred whooped, tackling Arthur with a huge hug, "I'm so glad my parents sent me here."

"I'm glad too… Oh Jesus… We're going to be fifteen this year… And Alastair and the twins are going to be sixteen… Oh God. We're going to be adults before we even realise!" Arthur fretted, running a hand through his hair, "I don't want to be an adult. I want to stay in school, right here, right now. I don't want anything to change."

Alfred smiled at his boyfriend, "Hey, Artie, don't worry about it! Everything's going to be fine! Everyone has to grow up, right? But you'll have me every step of the way! It's all going to be okay."

"Sorry for worrying so much… I need to relax a bit! You'd think you'd have rubbed off on me…"

"Well, if you really want to try something like that…" Alfred grinned mischievously, winking.

"Oh shut it, you dirty bastard! You know what I meant!" Arthur laughed, lightly hitting Alfred.

Finally they'd reached their form room, a grand total of seven minutes late. The boys sheepishly entered through the familiar door, nodding apologetically to Miss Héderváry, who was standing at the front of the class. She rolled her eyes fondly, telling the two of them to shut up and sit down.

"Now! I'm glad we finally have everyone here!" the Hungarian eyed Arthur and Alfred, "Welcome back! I hope you all had good summers. Luckily for you all, Mr. Belischmidt decided that he didn't have enough time to visit all the form rooms, so instead he'll hold a group assembly at the end of the week, welcoming you all back. Now, I have some news for you all, if you haven't guessed it already…" Miss Héderváry grinned at her class, and stood up from her seat. The entire class gaped at their teacher, seeing the enormous, bulging stomach, "I'm pregnant!"

The class stared at her for a moment, none of them entirely sure what to say, as they were all teenage boys. Owain stood up, clapping his hands excitedly, "Congratulations!"

The rest of the class followed the Welsh boy's lead, all wishing their teacher congratulations in turn. She smiled happily, clapping her hands together, "Thank you very much, boys! I'm four months along, and in November, I'll be off on leave until April next year."

"What!?"

"No, we can't have a supply!"

"But Miss, you're the most awesome teacher out there! No one can compare to you!"

"Quiet a second!" Miss Héderváry said, "Look, I don't want to take leave either – you all know I adore my job here, and for that reason I'm taking the minimum amount of leave possible; my doctor hates me for it, and Mr. Edelstein isn't that pleased either! But this brings me on to my next bit of personal news. Mr. Edelstein and I have decided to have our wedding a week before I'm due to come back into work, and all of you are invited. Happy now?"

There was yet another silence as the class mulled over the news, and all seemed to decide that it was a fair deal.

"So what're you going to call the baby?"

"Is it a girl or a boy?"

"In answer to all your questions, boys, I really don't know," Miss Héderváry smiled, "But now we must press on with school news, sadly, yes I know it's boring. Welcome to Year Ten, or for most of the foreigners in the room, freshman year. This year is a very important year! You will be starting to study your GCSEs; a very important exam. At the end of last year, you chose three subjects to study along with the core subjects, Maths, Science and English. Those subjects you have chosen will effect you for the rest of your education. At the end of this year and the next – that is Year Eleven or sophomore year – you will be taking around ten exams, at least one exam for every subject you've taken – sometimes subjects have more than one exam, though. Now, after those two years of studying, you'll be going off to collage, probably. But collages will only let you in if you have the right grades in the right GCSEs, so this part of your life it serious – the rest of your career – the rest of your happiness and welfare rests on these two years. Daunting I know. Now, if you're still confused, then try thinking about OWLs in Harry Potter – they're exactly the same as GCSEs. If you haven't read or watched Harry Potter, then you can go and drown yourself. Any questions?"

The class stayed silent, grinning at Miss Héderváry's nostalgic teaching methods.

"Good! Now you can catch up amongst yourselves while you wait for the bell to go," Miss Héderváry finished with a smile, and started chatting to one of the boys at the front of the class.

Meanwhile, there was a little racket going on at Kiku's desk. Arthur and Alfred exchanged a curious glance, and with a nod, the two decided to take a look at what was happening.

"But we all know you love Heracles! You can't date this other guy, Kiku!" Feliciano was wailing, "Heracles! Heracles!"

"Feliciano, keep quiet and let him speak!" Ludwig said stiffly, though smiled at the Italian's chants.

"W-Well… Yes, I must admit I do miss Heracles, and Sadik to some extent, but both of them are turning eighteen this year! It's highly inappropriate… And then there's that rumour about Heracles coming to teach here and I could get him removed from his job if we were found dating… There are simply too many obstacles. So… when Lars asked me out… I said yes."

"What's goin' on, guys?" Alfred interrupted thoughtlessly, grinning stupidly. Arthur resisted the urge to whack him across the head and lecture him on his manners.

Feliciano lit up at the sight of Alfred, "Alfred! Me and Ludwig were just catching up with Kiku, 'cause we went to go and stay with uncle Roma for summer! Have you heard about this 'Lars' guy?"

"Ah, yes, we did hear rumours… So it's true?" Arthur smiled at Kiku, who avoided the Brit's gaze with a blush – Kiku had always been a bit reserved towards both the Brit and the American since their failed dating plans two years back.

"Y-Yes… It's true," Kiku practically whispered.

"But I heard some pretty nasty things about that guy, Kiku… I'd be careful. According to Gilbert he smokes some pretty shady stuff…" Alfred said, at least trying to sound sympathetic.

Kiku avoided Alfred's eyes, "He has had some problems with drugs – illegal drugs – in the past, yes. But he says he's over that now. He's quitting." Kiku didn't sound too sure though, "But he is a nice guy…"

"I don't think it's that simple, Kiku…" Ludwig sighed, "You remember all those talks about drugs we had, don't you? People sometimes want to quit, but they physically can't – it hurts too much."

"But…" Kiku struggled, "M-Maybe he'll be different. And you never know… all those rumours about him smoking things… they might just be rumours! I've never seen him taking drugs."

Ludwig and Feliciano sighed, knowing it was going to take some convincing the Japanese boy, "Nice to see you both," Ludwig waved feebly at Alfred and Arthur, who were moving on to go and say hello to the rest of the class.

Owain was next, who was sitting talking casually with Alastair.

"Hey, you two!" Owain smiled, waving at his brother and his friend, "How're you both? Mum's seriously pissed you didn't come visit her this summer, Arthur!" Owain grinned, "You should've come! It was really good fun, right Alastair?"

Alastair grunted, "It was a lot better than when Daniel was there, I'll give you that."

"So no signs of him coming back, then?" Arthur smiled with relief.

"None. But you never know - guys like that just… pop up. Then there is the small fact that the house mum's living in is actually his. I doubt he's just going to let that go…" Alastair muttered darkly.

"How's Francis?" Alfred smiled, quickly changing the subject before Alastair got too murderous.

"Being a bastard." The Scot answered glumly before Owain had chance to.

Rolling his eyes at his brother, Owain shook his head, "He's being very sweet, thank you, Alfred. Alastair's just in a mood with him because they had another fight. I suppose you heard about Francis staying with us over summer?"

"Ah yes… It did sound like a bit of a disaster waiting to happen… What happened?" Arthur said, flicking his gaze over to a pouting Alastair, who'd taken an eraser out of his bag and was picking it apart, flicking bits of it around the class.

Owain laughed awkwardly, "Try imagining one of Alastair's fights with Daniel… add in a few more swear words and racist comments and you're about right."

"Ah. Yeah, I see…" Arthur said, rolling his eyes a little, "I have to say I'm with Alastair – what do you see in the Frog?"

"Well, what do you see in Alfred?" Owain said.

"Hey!" Alfred frowned.

"I don't really know… he's just Alfred… that's why I like him; because he is who he is…" Arthur muttered, now bashful.

Owain turned up the corners of his lips, "Well, that's why I like Francis. It's all of him, not just a single thing."

"Good point." Arthur nodded fairly, "Seems you're outvoted, Alastair."

Alastair, who hadn't actually been listening to the conversation, simply frowned at Arthur, sticking up his middle finger and requesting for him to fuck off. At that precise moment, the bell rang, so fuck off Arthur and Alfred did indeed do.

This year, the classes were getting mixed up a lot. In previous years, everyone had been lumped together into four different classes. However, in year ten and eleven, because everyone took different classes, their classes would be a lot smaller, and a lot more mixed. According to Arthur and Alfred's timetable, the only lessons the pair shared were English, maths, science and history. This was quite a few lessons, as all together they shared twenty two lessons out of the thirty they had a week. But it'd still suck to be away from each other in the remaining eight lessons.

It turned out that Arthur's first lesson was German, while Alfred's was French. Arthur was in the same class as Gilbert, Ludwig, Feliciano, Kiku, Toris, Feliks and the twins among many. Of course, Mr. Belischmidt was taking the class, along with his other classes of maths and permanent stressful job of being Head. Arthur wasn't quite sure how the man could manage so many things.

"Right class. I know you've all been taking German for three or four years now; some of you are fluent," Mr. Belischmidt flashed his eyes at his sons, "But that is no excuse for us to slack off this year. For some of you, your final exams are less than ten months away. Others, it's a year and ten months, but nevertheless, we will be studying like the exam is tomorrow morning! We will not waste a second. Now, we'll begin reviewing the things we already know; refreshing our memories, if you will. Who can tell me what I would say if I wanted to catch a train to Berlin, please?"

Mindlessly the class worked through their confusing class, repeating statements, copying sentences and thinking up conversations to each other. Arthur used to enjoy his German classes, or he had whenever he'd sat next to Alfred. Somehow the American had been able to inject fun into the painfully confusing, dry language of German. Arthur hadn't wanted to pick a language at all, but sadly, it was requested to take at least one modern language; French, German or Spanish. Since there was no way Arthur would ever speak French that was out and Spanish wasn't taught at Goverek, so the only option left was German. Right now though, Arthur was regretting that decision, and would do anything to go and sit with Alfred in Mr. Vargas' classroom just across the hall.

Meanwhile in the very class Arthur longed to be in, Alfred was actually having quite a bit of fun.

His class held all the people that thought German was too hard to learn, or would just refuse to learn such a bland language. Of course, Francis was sitting at the front of the class showing off his fluent French, spurting French pick-up lines to Owain, who was blushing despite the fact he had no idea what the guy was saying to him. Alfred had been clever enough to sit next to Matthew, who not only was very close to fluent French, was also very generous about letting Alfred copy his work. Then of course, they had Mr. Vargas as a teacher, so that just made it one hundred percent funnier, one hundred percent easier and one hundred and ten percent better than the German classroom across the hall. Alfred wasn't quite sure an Italian was in charge of French class, though. According to Matthew it was because Mr. Vargas could pretty much speak every language in Europe, though no one actually had proof of this yet.

Also in their class were the likes of Lovino and Antonio. Lovino had been a bit stuck when it came to choosing between French and German – he hated German with a passion, but then again, French was the language of perverts. He'd come to his decision upon looking over at Antonio's form, and copied whatever he put. He could just flunk the class – there was no way he was learning French. The other members of the class were made up of Alastair, who everyone could only assume picked French to be with Owain, and many other students who no one really knew, like a boy called Aaron, or Ben. Just one of those blending in people.

"Aren't you missing Arthur?" Matthew asked Alfred, looking up from his reams of writing that Alfred would copy down later.

Alfred realised with a guilty jump that he wasn't, "Ehh… no, not really. Probably because I've been working so hard!"

Matthew raised his eyebrow, "Alfred, you wrote the date, and that is it."

"It took me a long time to write that!" Alfred grinned jokingly, but then his smile faded, "But do you think it's bad that I'm not missing him?"

Matthew though for a second, "No, I don't think it is. I think it's a good thing, y'know? I mean, I'm not missing Gilbert, on the contrary, I'm much enjoying the peace he's left me with. But it doesn't mean… T-That I don't l-love him…" Matthew's cheeks went bright red at the end of the sentence. He was still embarrassed by such simple things about telling Gilbert he loved him, even their rather long relationship.

"Yeah… but I think that's different… Because in your relationship, Gilbert's the annoying one, yeah? And he's meant to miss you when he's away from you, and you're meant to feel like you do now. But with me and Arthur, I'm the annoying one, and I'm meant to be missing him… What if he doesn't miss me? Oh God! What if he's enjoying time with all those German-speaking creeps? Ah, Mattie, what if our relationship doesn't work?"

"You're worrying about this now? Look Alfred, there's too many 'what ifs' and 'meant to'-s in that statement, okay? Don't assume things. And who cares if you don't miss each other? That's probably a good thing, because if this relationship is going to get into the living together stage, then you'll probably both have separate jobs, which means you'll be away from each other all day. If you both wouldn't be able to manage an hour long school lesson, then there's no way you'd be able to last long."

Alfred nodded slightly, "I guess you're right… Thanks Mattie! I really don't know what I'd do without you. Speaking of favours…"

"Yes, you can copy me. Get on with it, then! I need to go and see Francis for a second," Matthew muttered absent-mindedly, wondering to the front of the class to have a word with the French boy.

Down at the front of the class, Francis looked up at Matthew's arrival.

"Ah, Matthew, mon cher, what brings you to my godly realm?" Francis winked, not seeing the glare Owain shot at the Canadian.

"I was just wondering if you could help me with this?" Matthew smiled, handing Francis a sheet of paper, and when he was looking down to examine it, Matthew managed to shoot Owain an equally evil glare. Neither of the glaring boys realised Alastair was watching the entire thing with a droll grin on his face.

"Mon cher, mon cher, I hate to tell you, but you have written this entire thing in the future tense! The assignment was to write it in the past," Francis smiled pityingly, handing back the paper, "I'm very sorry, mon cher."

"Ah… crap. Alfred! Stop copying that! Thank you, Francis!" Matthew ran off in a panic, trying to stop Alfred from copying the incorrect work.

The bell went five minutes later, and Alfred felt Arthur practically run into his arms. Apparently Arthur really had missed Alfred, which only made the American feel guiltier than he already was. The two made their way to English, Alfred listening to Arthur rather unusual babbles about how terrible German was.

The rest of the day continued in the same fashion. Luckily for Alfred's conscience, the rest of the lessons they had that day were together. Alfred did enjoy his lessons with Arthur, but he couldn't shake off the feeling that his favourite lesson all day had been French.

It was a fluke, the American told himself when eating a burger later, nervously waiting for Arthur to return from the music room, where he'd been working on yet another piece for Mr. Edelstein's tough homework standards. It was only because Matthew was making you laugh, and it was hilarious hearing Francis with his pick-up lines.

"I'm home!" Arthuir called through, making Alfred jump out of his skin.

"Ah! What? Hi!" Alfred babbled, wide-eyed.

"What's got you so on-edge?" Arthur said, raising a huge eyebrow, smiling.

"N-Nothing. I was just watching a horror movie…" Alfred nearly hit himself – why did he lie? He didn't have to lie about that! He could've just told Arthur the truth!

Arthur chuckled, "I don't know why you put yourself through the pain of those things…" the Brit sighed, boiling some water ready for his tea-making rituals.

"What's the matter?" Alfred asked, a little worried.

"Nothing…" Arthur avoided Alfred's gaze, getting a teabag out of the cupboard.

"You're lying~"

Arthur sighed again, longer and more troubled this time as he sat down at the table, "I'm just… worried."

"About what though?"

"What if…" Arthur then blinked a few times, and decided to change his answer, "Everything's changing."

Alfred chewed on his lip a little awkwardly, "But why is that a bad thing?"

"Because I liked it how it was before… It was so easy before, I didn't have to worry about not being with you, or miss you, because I was always with you. Don't you miss that too?"

"Well, yeah… but…"

"But what if we drift apart? Even if we manage through these two years of high school, what if we meet new people in collage, university, or new jobs? Everything's going to change, and there's no going back, even if we want to." Arthur sounded really shaken up by it all… It was starting to worry Alfred.

Then the American had an idea. With a grin, Alfred swiped Arthur's tea away from him, and scooped the Brit up into his arms. Ignoring the cute little shouts of protest from Arthur, Alfred set the boy down on the bed, and swiftly unbuttoned his shirt and removed his tie and blazer. Arthur naturally got the complete wrong idea, and his face flushed with red, not really sure what to do. Alfred grinned, ignoring Arthur's questions of 'what the bloody hell are you doing?' and reached under a pillow to find a pair of Arthur's pyjamas, sliding the t-shirt over the boy's head, and swiftly removing his school trousers, replacing them with the soft material of the pyjama bottoms, Alfred smiled, and tucked Arthur into bed.

"You need to stop stressing!" said the American with a wink, "Go to sleep, and you'll feel better."

"You bloody…" Arthur started, but stopped himself, "I thought you were… y'know…"

Alfred blushed a little, "No… I still don't think we're ready."

"G-good… I don't think we're ready either…" though this time, it was Arthur doing the lying, "Goodnight…"

A/N

Hello! I'm back!
So, just in case you're a little confused, I'm setting this sequel two years after 'the world inside a castle' X'D I'm not sure why… It's probably because in September I'm going into year 10 too…
Do you see problems arising? I see problems arising, but that's probably because I wrote them X'D tell me what you think with the reviews, okay? Maybe they'll give me some more ideas XD
Speaking of ideas and stuff, I've realised I have no idea about how to cause relationship problems apart from jealousy and cheating o.o" so if you have any suggestions about that, then do tell me X'D I'll give you credit ^^ also, if you have any characters/pairings you want to see, tell me early on, because that'll make them easy to include!
I'm sorry this chapter was slow/uneventful XD I watched Thor the other day. And I couldn't stop watching it. Then I saw Iron man one and two. And now I am hooked. I am in love.
Thank you very much! Don't forget to follow/fave/review! :D thanks again!