"Kiku, kiku!" Alfred called, sprinting from the other end of the hall. Kiku turned toward him, visually saying he had Alfred's attention. "So dude, do I have the job?", Alfred panted as he came a bit closer to Kiku, who nodded his head silently and respectfully.

"Dude, that is so awesome!" Alfred practically screamed with joy, he then slapped Kiku on the back.

"What was that for?" Kiku moaned.

"It's how I show affection." Aflred said smilingly, un-aware of how hard he could hit somebody.

"Your affection hurts." an injured Kiku complained.

"Yeah, I get that a lot!" Alfred replied joyously, "Like when I asked Natalia Arlofskaya out, she was all like, 'Affection give me pain.'"

"I think that's just her." Kiku assured him, then his eyes automatically went from emotionless to surprised in a millisecond, "Wait, you asked her out?"

Alfred's wore a confused expression at Kiku's remark, "Yeah, why not?"

"She's crazy,"

"What makes her so crazy? I think she's cute!"

"Cute? No, no. She harasses poor Braginsky-san, and goes after him like a yandere."

"What's a...yandere?"

"It is a type of girl that goes from very sweet to very insane, and is willing to do anything to get the love she wants. Even kill." Kiku darkly explained, with his head looking at the ground.

"Nah man, that sound like bullcrap!" Alfred insisted.

Kiku rolled his eyes, there's no point in explaining to Alfred who's a psychopath and who isn't.

"So, is there any chick that your into?" Alfred nudged Kiku with a wink. Kiku, flustered, insisted he doesn't have any love for anybody here.

line

For some odd reason, Ms. Carrignton did not come to school today, so they had a substitute teacher who called herself, "Mrs. Morganson". She was light-skinned with a rosy complexion and had a very kind face. Her shoulder length brown hair went hand in hand with her hazel eyes. She wore a paticularly long skirt, with an intersting pastel pattern, that almost hid her feet. Alfred admitted, he liked Mrs. Morganson a lot more than Ms. Carringnton.

Math class went by in a flash, and thanks to the fact that there was a substitute, no homework! The great start in math class, left the rest of the day to go by pleasantly for Alfred. Hardly any class felt boring at all to him, even history and geography.

As the day spun around to an end, Alfred silently awaited for the bell to ring 3:00. Finally, just as language arts was ending, the loud shriek of the school bell alerted Alfred that school was over. He quickly dashed out of the classroom, through the hallway, and straight to the front steps, where Kiku and him planned to meet.

When Kiku arrived at the stone steps, he gave Alfred a confirmed nod which meant it was time to leave. Just as Alfred got up from the cement staircase Mr. Connor, a teacher who monitored detention, called out Kiku's name, Kiku turned around to see who was calling him, and his eyes widened a bit nervously at the sight.

"Honda, why did you skip detention?" Mr. Connor inquired seriously.

"I forgot." Kiku lied, trying to sound as emotionless as he possible could.

"Since your grades are outstandingly high, I'll let you off with a warning, Honda, but next time don't forget." Mr. Connor said a bit tiredly. Kiku merely nodded his head. Mr. Connor then left the two boys in a huff.

Alfred looked over at Kiku, "You forgot about detention?" he said in a puzzled sort of way. He didn't look angry or shocked, just confused.

"No," Kiku admitted, "I only said that."

"Then you just skipped." Alfred assumed.

Kiku shook his head, "No, no I had a reason."

"What is it?" Alfred asked oblivious of the fact that he was being very nosy.

"It is because of my father. I can not neglect the store, if I do it will be far worse than just skipping detention."

"Can't your father just run the store while your gone?" Alfred asked.

"No." Kiku bluntly stated.

"Why not?"

"Let's just go," Kiku insisted, trying to change the subject.

Alfred shrugged his shoulders and merely said, "Okay!" like he was getting bored with the subject anyway.

The walk home seemed shorter to Kiku, he wasn't completely in isolation and Alfred was a great source of entertainment. Alfred seem to blabber on and on about pointless snippets and anecdotes from his life, which were more interesting than Kiku expected them to be.

"So like this one time, I was so flipping angry at Matthew and so he had his toast in the toaster, right? So, I switched the timey-thing to like four minutes, and when the burnt toast popped Matthew was all like 'Hey, what happened to my toast?'" Alfred then proceeded to laughing so hard his sides began to hurt. "Oh, that was a good one! Do you sometimes hate your sibling so much that you want to burn their breakfast?"

Kiku eyes wandered a bit guilt-fully to the right. "Sometimes..."

"Did you?" Alfred wondered.

"No, but it was very tempting to do." Kiku admitted mumbling.

Alfred laughed loudly again, after he quieted down he asked Kiku, "Hey, man, are you into comic books?"

"What kind?" Kiku asked.

"Um..anykind I guess..." Alfred mumbled unsure of how he wanted Kiku to answer the question.

"Yes, a little, Manga books especially." Kiku answered.

"Mind explaining to me what Manga is?" Alfred had an eager look on his face.

"Oh, it is Japanese comic books, with a very distinct drawing style." Kiku explained to Alfred, it was hard for him to hide his excitement on the subject.

"Sounds cool." It seemed Alfred didn't care too much about the subject, but it was interesting enough for him. "I'm more into normal kinds of comic books, you know X-Men, Avengers, so-on, so-on. I think I may have heard of Manga, but it doesn't interest me."

"Alfred," Kiku said grabbing Alfred's attention, "Can you draw in that comic book style?"

"Hells yeah!" Alfred replied enthusiastically, "And, can you draw in Manga style?"

"I think I can." Kiku mumbled.

"Can you teach me?" Alfred quickly, but sincerely requested, "If you teach me I'll teach you!"

"Alright..." Kiku slowly and unsurely agreed. Then the two continued toward Kiku's Father's shop. It seemed nearly every store in town didn't have a cool or catchy name to them, just what they sell or what they are. "Groceries" "School Supplies" "Bakery" etc.

When they entered Alfred looked around the small building. Shelves lined the store, displaying everything you could possibly use in school. One shelf managed to devote itself to just erasers, any size, color, shape, or brand you could ever desire in an eraser, it was there. He even spotted some pencil brands he had never heard of before. Notebooks, binders, folders everything. The walls were decked in maps of all kinds, and classroom posters.

After Alfred was done gaping at the place, Kiku dragged him by the arm and showed him around. He first pulled him to the back of the shop, in the storage room. It was grey and bleak with only a bare light bulb dangling from the middle. Empty cardboard boxes littered the ground and the table that was placed in the room's center. By the door were bins filled with extra stock incase that day was busy. "Alfred, this is the storage room." Kiku stated. Alfred nodded his head in reply.

Kiku then proceeded to showing him every shelf and aisle in the store, explaining what they were and why they were here. After they had gone through every pencil in the little shop, Kiku handed Alfred an old looking broom that was sitting in the corner, "Your first job is to clean the store."

Alfred was hoping for something more exciting, but didn't want to complain to his "boss". So, he decided to make the best out of sweeping the immensely dirty floor, which closely resmebled that of the grocery store. After sweeping a worthy pile of dust into the garbage, he dashed over to Kiku eager for something to do.

Kiku sorely out of ideas, said, "Why don't you watch the store?"

"Alright!" Alfred agreed instantly, "Wait...how do you do that?"

Kiku instructed Alfred about change, receipts, friendliness, and how that darn cash register worked. Alfred seemed to get it pretty instantly, maybe this was just his thing.

A few minutes after Kiku left to go do something else, the bell that was hung on the door gave a light jingle, a customer was here.

Alfred instantly recognized the brown hair, the long dress, and the green eyes, Elizabeta. When she saw Alfred, she raised an eyebrow a bit, "Alfred you work here?"

He nodded his head excitedly, "Yup!"

Elizabeta shrugged her shoulders, and began to look around the store. She selected a few poster boards, a couple sets of thick markers, a pack of construction paper, and a whole mess of glitter glue. She lined them up on the counter, and Alfred punched in the prices into the calculator, according to the price sheet tacked to the counter. "That'll be... $13.11!" He said cheerily. Elizabeta smiled and handed him the money he asked for, in return he gave her the items in a bag, her change, and the receipt.

"So what's the stuff for?" Alfred inquired curiously.

"Oh, this?" Elizabeta said gesturing to the stuff, "It's for creating posters for the school's Halloween party!"

"Halloween party? But, Halloween's not for another three weeks or so." Alfred pointed out.

Elizabeta giggled, "Yes, but our student council president likes to have everything done a bit early so it can be of 'total excellence'."

"Sounds like fun!" cheered Alfred,"Have a great day!"

"Thank you!" Elizabeta then left out the door.

All during that day, until about 6:00 when the store closed, Alfred and Kiku got all sorts of customers, apparently Friday was the busiest day. He saw a lot of people he recognized from school, even a teacher or two came to stop buy and pick up a thing of chalk. A couple girls came in specifically for the earasers in a box, on the counter. A mother and her little toddler went shopping for a couple of her other children already attending school.

Alfred was learning new things about the people in this town from every customer he saw. Wether it was his turn at the register or not he still found a lot of personality in all of them, and he enjoyed having a chat with most everyone. The town was slowly starting to grow on him more, the people in it and the places it held. It was all so very wonderful.

Author's Comments: Can you believe I acutally got this finshed? I'm planning to give this story about 15 chapters. Hopefully, I will update every Saturday. I am also planning to write a few one-shots, you know for the heck of it! I am also open for beta reading incase anyone is wondering.