Arthur was having an overall very nice morning. He was able to sleep until nine, a privilege usually denied to him by noisy teenagers in confined spaces spending hours on end complaining. Save for one. One was sweet and kind and almost never talked out of turn.

Alfred Fitzgerald Jones had grown to be the highlight of Arthur's life in the last nine months. He'd never had a better friend in all his short life than Alfred. They'd just clicked naturally, bonding over trivial things, like a love for history, British comedy, anime, and a whole range of music, save for country and rap, both of which Arthur detests. Or, at least, that's what he says, but he does find more than a few country singers to be tolerable, as well as a few Eminem songs. Very few.

Honestly though, he isn't very surprised this particular morning to find the aforementioned student, or rather, ex-student, outside of his house. He is surprised, however, that he seems to have a bundle of letters, apparently for him, and that he immediately sprints as soon as he turns and sees the Englishman.

Arthur, thoroughly confused by this behavior from the usually well-mannered young man, quickly pulls on his slippers and heads out to the mailbox to grab what Alfred had left for him. He waves hello to his older neighbor, whom is sitting on the porch observing the exchanges of the people that happen everyday, as he passes her.

He heads back inside, holding the bundle of papers to his chest. Picking up the teacup, wanting to finish his still-warm tea, he heads to the couch to relax and dig through the stack.

On the very top, directly underneath the rubber bands that held the envelopes together, was a sticky-note that said, in Alfred's penmanship:

Please read these in order, the order they're already in. I put numbers in the corners in case you mix them up or drop them or something.

Arthur frowns a little, wondering about the odd instructions. He'd never had a problem keeping things orderly before, but... Alfred obviously wanted then to be read in the right order no matter what, so of course Arthur would follow through.

He sets his half-empty teacup on the coffee table to forget as he gingerly removes the rubber band and the sticky-note from the letters. He takes the one on top from the pile before setting the others down, letting them domino and settle, as there are too many letters for him to keep stacked. Arthur, if asked, might even venture to say that he let it happen because everything of Alfred's is naturally in disarray, and he would not be the one to change it.

Gingerly, he opens the envelope, doing his best not to rip and tear the paper as he always does. It opens easily enough.

Inside of the simple envelope is a plain piece of paper covered in messily neat handwriting. A few unimportant words catch his eye before he starts reading; football, Matthew, Doctor Who.

Hello Arthur!

Is it weird to write a letter to a teacher? I don't really know, but here I am, rhetorical questions and all. I don't even know if I'm gonna send this, 'cause I'm really lame, and I'm kind of just venting.

But yeah, hi there. I just wanted to say thank you for helping me out today. I know that most kids would probably get angry at a teacher for helping them avoid a fight like that. Since I'm probably not sending this, I guess I should tell you that they were only angry at me because I didn't want to join the football team. Some friends they would have been, right?

Not that everybody on the team is bad, of course. I mean, Ivan's pretty cool and we hang out sometimes. I think he's more interested in my brother though, and I don't mean in a friendly way. A lot of people are like that, actually, but I don't really mind as long as he's happy. Matthew, that is. Not Ivan. Ew.

I've gotten way off track here, whoops.

Back to the point, I think you're pretty cool. I like that you like Harry Potter and Doctor Who, because, even though they're kind of stereotypical, I like them too.

I guess I've pretty much decided that I'm not gonna send you this letter yet, so I guess I can tell you that

The letter cut off there with some sort of unidentifiable stain, leaving Arthur to feel a bit confused and conflicted. What kind of letter had that even been? Had he just been venting like he'd said? If so, it was nice to finally get thanked for helping out at least.

Reading the letter had only answered one thing; Matthew's apparent flirtatious towards certain male students during some of Arthur's lectures.

Not that it mattered or anything, but Arthur was happy that some sensibility was to be had from Alfred's word vomit.

Now intrigued, albeit a bit confused, Arthur puts the letter down and sets upon the next one.

Wow, sorry this took so long to upload, I got really distracted with school, and I didn't have nearly as much time to upload this as I would have liked. I had to type it up on my phone, so I hope that there aren't too many spelling mistakes due to autoderp. I shall no longer promise release dates, and I hope that you don't get too upset if I don't update too soon. If you have any feedback, or if you just want to remind me that I'm being silly about how dang late my updates are, feel more that free to comment or send me a message; I'm very open to criticism and shoves in the on-time direction.