Arthur had officially known that his day (and, by extension, weekend) was going to be ruined the moment he had seen the letter.

Oh, sure, at first it had been safely hidden beneath the typical junk mail he recieved. All of it was typical mail, or so he had thought. People he owed money to, people who wanted his money, organizations who he usually ended up giving his money out of guilt. These were the people he often recieved mail from. However, when he saw that his former high school was the one sending him an envelope, he knew it wasn't his money they were after. No, they had to be after his dignity. Or at the very least what was left of it.

Sighing, he held the letter in his hands, preparing himself for the worst.

Dear Mr/Mrs. Kirkland ,

The faculty at Gage Jason High School would like to cordially invite you to the 10 Year Runion that is being held Saturday, November 13th. We hope that you will be able to make it. Awards will be given, such as "Best Dressed", "Most Changed", etc. The event will last from 6:00 to 10:00 pm. Snacks and beverages will be served.

Principal Sam Donovan

Principal Sam Donovan

A high school reunion was really the last thing Arthur wanted. It wasn't that high school had been a traumatic experience for him, as it had been for some people he knew. Nor was it that he was afraid of how he would measure up to his former classmates. No, the simple fact was that he was far too busy to go to a high school reunion.

Or at least this was what he thought, until he checked his PDA and discovered that Saturday, November 13th was actually one of the few and far between free days he had. He found himself feeling bitter that he was going to be spending one of his days at a meaningless social event. On the off chance that he got a day to himself, he typically spent it reading or visiting a museum. Now he would be mingling with people he had to pretend to like while they did the same.

But he was still going to go. Of course he was. He had too much pride not too, and anyway, he shuddered to think of what people might think if he didn't go. It wasn't that he had been terribly popular in school, so in all likliehood most people wouldn't notice if he went or not. It was the people who would notice, his old friends or, perhaps worse, old enemies.

All of this high school thinking left him feeling a bizarre mixture of nostalgic and disappointed, and both feelings were what prompted him to go and find his old yearbook from senior year. He knew exactly where it was. Ten years had passed, and it hadn't once moved. He had stored it in a box under his bed, and he had thought it was the only thing in there. It wasn't until he went to retrieve the (somewhat dusty) yearbook that he realized there were other things in there as well. A photobooth picture, a class ring, and a keychain snowglobe, all of which he took one look at and shoved back under the bed. 'Those are just useless knick-knacks,' he thought, though he briefly wondered who he was reassuring.

He sat down on his bed and opened the yearbook, once again feeling a wave of nostalgia just by opening to the inside cover-if only because it had been so long since he had thought about those days. Now that he thought about it, the minute everyone went their seperate ways for college, Arthur had seemed to completely repress high school.

Before he had even gotten to the actual yearbook, he looked at all the signatures on the inside of his yearbook. He had been more popular than he had remembered. It wasn't totally full of signatures, but it wasn't empty, either. Most of them were pretty stupid, really. He read them to himself.

OMG! Arthur, you are the coolest nerd in the world! I guess you aren't really a nerd, just smart. Maybe British people always sound smart? Well, anyway, don't ever change! U RULE! :) -Feliciano

Feliciano? Who, who-oh, he remembered, mentally slapping himself. The head cheerleader who was overly peppy. It was suddenly clear. Had they really been that close? Then again, people always signed each others' yearbooks, even if they were practically strangers. He kept reading.

Arthur,

Hope things work out for you. You're smart, so you'll probably be successful.

Best of wishes,

Ludwig

And that, he recalled, was the quarterback. He remembered that people joked that he and Feliciano would eventually start dating, not only because of their statuses on the field, but because of their best friendship-well, and because they often seemed closer than best friends. Or perhaps that was just the maturity of teenage boys.

Hi Arthur. Well, it's finally the end of high school. I was your best friend's twin brother and I was in three of your classes. I even sat behind you in math, but you never noticed me. Oh well. -Matthew

Matthew? Hm. The name seemed familiar. Vaguely, he recalled a painfully shy who looked exactly like Alfred, and-

Alfred. Remembering was like a slap in the face. For whatever reason, he hadn't immediately thought of him, but now memories flooded his mind. They had been best friends in school. He couldn't remember a time when they hadn't been together. He smiled as he thought of all the times they had shared together. One memory in particular, however, pulled him out of his reverie. He wasn't sure if it had really happened or not, and he really didn't care. He pushed it out of his mind and opened the yearbook.

He skimmed through the monochromatic pages, flipping past the underclasssman portraits and looking at the event pictures. "Halloween Dance" caught his interest, and he stopped at it. There were several pictures with students he did not recognize, but he saw one that had a picture of himself.

It had been one of those group pictures where everybody had to squeeze together just to get in the frame. Starting at the left, it went Ivan (an intimidating Russian student he had been friends with, who in this picture was dressed as a horrifyingly realistic werewolf) who had his arm around the shoulder of Wang, who was flashing a peace sign. Arthur laughed when he saw that he was dressed as a vampire. Wang had the kind of face that could easily be mistaken for belonging to a woman, if you didn't know him, and what was unfortunate was that he had a similar voice and wore his hair long. In the middle was Francis, who had dressed in a shockingly promiscous fireman costume, one that he was genuinely surprised Francis had even been allowed to wear at the dance, much less in the yearbook. After Francis were Alfred and himself, both with their arms around each other and cheesy grins on their faces. He had been dressed as a pirate, and Alfred had been dressed as Batman. 'Best friends forever,' he thought bitterly to himself. 'And where has that promise gotten me?'

The Halloween page was beginning to depress him, so he flipped to the next page, which was for the Winter Formal. He recalled how he hadn't actually had a date, and Alfred's had ended up going home with Francis, and how both had left early out of sheer disappointment to eat at McDonalds, drinking rum that Arthur had stolen from his parents. And yet, it had been one of the best nights of his life. He smiled softly as his former friends and classmates' black and white faces grinned at him. There was another picture of Alfred, this one with his date before she had run off. He was kissing her on the cheek, and she was laughing. For whatever reason, the picture royally pissed Arthur off, and once again he turned the page.

Then there was prom. He hated how all of the pictures for the dances were in one group, as if they were assaulting him all at once and forcing him to remember the nights they represented. This one he recalled having a date for, but he had only asked her because he had known she had a crush on him and didn't want to go alone. He felt a pang of guilt for being unable to remember her name. Once again, he wasn't pictured, and he was thankful for it, though he was even more thankful for the fact that Alfred hadn't been pictured either. 'Why am I having such issues today?' Then he laughed as he saw the prom queen and prom king pictures. Due to what was equal parts ignorance and practical joke, Feliciano had been elected prom queen. (Arthur also attributed this to the fact that he was a cheerleader and while his voice was somewhat masculine, his actions were not.) The school had made an effort to cover this up when someone pointed out this mistake, and the runner-up was shown in the pictures, but everyone had known that in all technicality, Feliciano had actually been the prom queen. Francis had been the prom king, and it was clear to anyone who knew him that he wouldn't have cared either way.

Arthur glanced at the clock, and realized with alarm that it was already getting late. It wasn't even that he had spent so much time looking at his yearbook that he had lost track of it, but that it had been evening when he had gotten the letter, and now it was almost time for dinner. Sighing, he closed the yearbook and set it on his nightstand, and for once he was genuinely concerned that tomorrow would be Friday.