I asked for someone to give me five prompts. I have to use all five of them in a single chapter. The words are: Elicit. Hoop. Manga. Marmoset. Amsterdam.

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The four and a half hour bus ride from Frankfurt to Amsterdam was, in a word, taxing. Most of the students regretted ever signing up for the summer trip through Europe. Being forced to wear the too-warm school uniforms on the air-conditioning-less bus throughout the continent for three months should not have sounded as interesting as it first had, back in March when the hundred or so students whose parents were willing to pay several thousand Euros to get rid of their kids for a summer had signed up. The graduating class seemed to be taking it better than the rest. Many of them had been on the trips in the past few years, and were used to the uncomfortable weather, dress code, and traveling conditions.

However, Ludwig was not so lucky. He had not been on any of these trips yet, being as he had just entered the school earlier that year. He had enjoyed the time spent in his own country, Germany, but one of the teachers who had been in charge of his group was French, and Ludwig assumed that he would have enjoyed the trip more had M. Bonnefoy not been ranting about World War II the entire time.

The same M. Bonnefoy was beginning to read off the new list of groups. Ludwig tuned him out once finding out he was in Group 3, deciding to stare out the window instead. Behind him, he heard K. Karpusi sleepily recounting to Kiku some part of Greek Mythology; he said something about arrows and hoops, becoming mildly interested before a loud, high-pitched laugh snapped his concentration – or rather, lack thereof. Ludwig dismissed it, thinking it was probably Feliks – with all this noise, he couldn't even tell. The same laugh sounded again, and suddenly Feliciano was sitting next to him.

"Ludwiiiiig, save me!" Feliciano laughed again as his twin brother came over, red in the face, and took him by the shoulders, shaking him. Lovino let go to yell loudly in Italian and wave his arms wildly, and Ludwig found the younger twin clinging to his arm, shaking with laughter. Ludwig felt his face burn, and turned his head quickly before anyone saw him turn nearly as read as Lovino.

Feliciano detached himself once Lovino had been pulled away by another teacher – presumably Sr. Carriedo, if the loud Italian swears were enough to infer by. The Italian stayed seated next to Ludwig, though, and fell asleep when the time neared three in the afternoon. Ludwig barely noticed, continuing to stare out the window of the hot bus, pulling at the collar of his shirt. He could feel a knot forming in his neck, but ignored it. He wasn't going to look at the Italian, no matter what. He focused on the sounds of his classmates yelling and running around like marmosets, not the sound of Feliciano's light snoring; he watched the trees fly by, and not Feliciano's reflection in the window; and he was most definitely turning red from the heat, not in any way from Feliciano sitting next to him.

Well, of course he was denying everything… but to deny something also means to acknowledge it to oneself, right? So Ludwig was still truthful to himself, even if he lied to everyone else. The only person whom Ludwig had ever told about his feelings for Feliciano was his older brother, Gilbert, and it was not so much a "told" as a "Gilbert figured it out on a visit to the school and didn't believe Ludwig's denial of it." Ludwig assumed it didn't help matters that Feliciano gave the same over-the-top amounts of affection to nearly everyone he was friends with, and since he considered Ludwig to be his best friend… well, there was a problem there.

He supposed it could have been worse. He could have been like Kiku or Lovino or any of the other students who were trying – and failing miserably at that – to hide their love affairs with their teachers. At least Feliciano was his own age. Ludwig turned to look at the row behind him, where K. Karpusi had fallen asleep sitting up, while Kiku slept with his head resting in the teacher's lap, a manga clutched in his hands. In fact, most of the students were getting tired and attempting to find the softest bus seat possible to curl up on.

As if the comparable silence had been too loud for him, Feliciano woke up just as Ludwig turned back to the window. He put his hand on top of the German's to get his attention. Ludwig, not expecting the action, turned his head around so quickly it just seemed like a blur to the sleepy Italian. A bright red blur. Feliciano laughed sleepily.

"You look like my brother when Sr. Carriedo makes fun of him." Ludwig tried not to notice how Feliciano's [adorable] accent was much stronger when he was only half-awake. He looked straight ahead, seeing over the heads of most of the other students with his height, to where most of the teachers (and Lovino) were sitting a couple rows ahead of him at the front of the bus. It wasn't much of a distraction, but it helped.

Feliciano did not appreciate being ignored. He pouted and pushed himself towards Ludwig, keeping their faces as close as possible.

"Why are you ignoring me? Don't you like me? I thought you were my best friend!"

"Um…" Ludwig's deep voice sounded awkward in contrast to Feliciano's high, almost feminine one. Maybe it was the heat making him so confused; normally he could converse with Feliciano much more easily. Today it seemed a chore to even so much as look at him, and to look away was just a s difficult.

Feliciano nudged his friend's cheek with his nose, trying to elicit some intelligent response from his friend. Ludwig ignored the apparent disregard for his own personal space – this was Feliciano, after all; he didn't have much of a sense of personal space. Like when Ludwig would wake up ten minutes before class started to find that Feliciano had gotten into his room, disabled the alarm clock, and gotten into bed with him, usually without any clothing –

"Come on, say something! You're boring today… Why are you so red? Are you not used to the heat? Ve~ in Italy it's usually even warmer than this in the summer… I'll go get you some water!"

The sudden distance from Feliciano left Ludwig somewhat more stunned than his previous proximity had been. He sighed deeply and rubbed his eyes, trying to clear his head before Feliciano returned.

Something tapped the top of Ludwig's head; he turned sharply around, wondering what the History teacher behind him could possibly want. But he was faced with only the same as was behind him before; K. Karpusi asleep in his seat, and Kiku using his lap as a pillow. He faced forward again, just in time for Feliciano to slide back into his seat and hand him a bottle of water.

"Here you go! Sorry it's not too cold, Professor Kirkland said all the ice in the cooler melted…"

"That's alright, I wasn't really all that thirsty anyways."

"Oh, then why were you so red before? You don't have a sunburn or anything."

"I was just… angry. I was thinking about something that made me angry." Ludwig nodded, attempting to make himself seem more believable. "And, ah, you surprised me when you woke up, so…"

Feliciano, apparently, did not need any convincing. "Oh. Okay! Well, I'm going back to sleep, alright?"

Ludwig nodded, and then turned back to the window. A minute later, Feliciano's breathing slowed down, and Ludwig assumed he was asleep. Something Ludwig had always envied about Feliciano was that he could fall asleep so quickly; he, on the other hand, had spent too many nights wide awake until well past midnight, unable to sleep, until, apparently, mere minutes before Feliciano would sneak in.

Feliciano mumbled something unintelligible in his sleep, a habit that he seemed to have no idea about. Ludwig fully believed that he had been woken up more times by Feliciano's nonsensical sleep-talking than by his own alarm clock. He found it endearing, much like everything else about Feliciano. His face heated up again.

He once again felt the tap on his head. This time he turned around to face a completely awake K. Karpusi looking at him – just looking, with no expression whatsoever. The teacher looked down at the Asian sleeping in his lap, then back up at Ludwig, and then leaned back and closed his eyes once more.

Greek Guilt. Ludwig had only ever heard of it before, and heard of his fellow students' experiences with K. Karpusi's incredible command over this genetically-acquired power. He half wished he hadn't figured out what the Greek meant by it, and half was extremely glad that he would not have to go through that again. He took a deep breath as he turned back around, then tapped Feliciano's shoulder. The Italian awoke just as easily as he had fallen asleep, and blinked sleepily at Ludwig.

"Um… If- If that's not comfortable, you could… you could sleep on me..."

Feliciano stared for a moment, then smiled brightly. "Okay!" He leaned over and curled up, resting his head against Ludwig's leg. "Grazie!"

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Notes:

-Teacher titles are in the language of that character. So K. Karpusi means Mr. Karpusi, and so on. And England would totally make them call him professor.

-Greek Guilt is a very real thing. I myself am immune to it (years of practice) and can use it very well. It is a great and terrifying power. Do not take it lightly. It's about as scary as Russia's KOLKOLKOL, and just as effective.

-This was originally going to have Greece and Japan as the main characters (I wanted to do something for Greek Independence Day, which is today, 3/25) but it didn't work out the way I wanted. I love it anyways.

-Germany is not going to be the only lovestruck idiot. Part 2 is Feliciano's side of the trip.