Ex's to Lovers

Chapter 70

In Which Alfred's "gift" Is Not Appreciated, and Gilbert is up to Something

"Why are you here?" Natalya greeted Alfred suspiciously at the door. "My brother is not here." 

"I know!" Alfred beamed. "I've planned a surprise for him!" 

Alfred grinned, feeling absolutely delighted with his newest scheme. Natalya dropped her gaze to the large plastic bag Alfred was holding. 

"Is it related to that?"

Alfred grinned even wider. 

"It's balloons! Ivan just loves them, so I'm going to fill his room with them!" 

Natalya had no memory of her brother ever having any particular delight in balloons, but perhaps it was because it was Alfred who was giving them to him, she reflected. Still, she didn't open the door just yet. 

"And why is he here?" 

"He" referred to Gilbert, standing behind Alfred with a huge grin of his own. Alfred had an excuse planned out for that. 

"I wanted to wait for Ivan, but I'm not allowed to be alone with him and didnt want to bother you, so Gil came too!" 

Alfred continued to smile winningly, feeling very proud of himself for his acting skills. Natalya, on the other hand, was considering the rumours she heard that Gilbert was the reason Alfred and Ivan broke up. On the other hand, clearly neither Alfred nor Gilbert seemed to think that this arrangement was a bad idea, so maybe it really was a groundless rumour? Finally, Natalya relented, and let them in. 

"I'll be in my room." She warned, just in case they needed something, and Alfred felt relieved. This would make dyeing Ivan's milk a lot easier. First though, they headed to Ivan's room. Once there, Gilbert dug into his bags and pulled out the boyband posters with a particularly devilish cackle.

"Take this, jerk!" Gilbert muttered happily as he began to tape the posters everywhere. Alfred set to work dumping balloons everywhere. He'd taken the liberty of filling a select few with glitter, still holding a grudge against the glitter incident, and was taking particular delight in imagining Ivan's face when he popped a balloon and got covered in glitter.

"Hey, do some of these have notes in them?" Alfred stopped, noticing something strange.

Gilbert froze for a second. "Yeah. I added some things to annoy him."

If Alfred was more observant, he might have noticed a strangeness to Gilbert's tone. As it was, he didn't and beamed at Gilbert's plan.

"Gil, you're a genius." 

Gilbert smirked. "I know." 

Once done, Alfred surveyed the room in mild disappointment.

"There's not as many as I thought."

Gilbert cackled louder at that, pulling out a bag of balloons from his school bag.

"I thought this might happen, so I brought more!"

"Seriously, Gil, you're a genius."

Alfred immediately set to work blowing up more balloons, and Gilbert snuck downstairs to dye the milk. Since Alfred couldn't find any yellow food colouring in his cupboard, he'd settled for green instead, which Alfred Actually liked better, imagining the baffled look on Ivan's face when he poured himself some cereal later. By the time Gilbert returned, Alfred had exhausted himself from blowing up balloons, and Gilbert took over. After a while, Alfred joined in again. In fact, they were both so absorbed with blowing up Balloons, they didn't even notice Ivan get back until they heard his voice from the doorway.

"Alfred." A carefully controlled tone, then "What the hell are you doing?"

Alfred stopped tying his balloon to give Ivan his full attention, already grinning ear to ear at the annoyed and baffled tone.

"You were avoiding me, so I thought I'd make it up to you with some balloons."

Contrary to his words, Alfred's shit-eating grin told Ivan the truth.

"Do you like it?"

Then Ivan noticed the walls.

"Alfred."

Ivan's voice was decidedly not pleased. Alfred smirked wider. 

"Oh, I got you some posters too!" 

Ivan smiled, and it was a smile Alfred was well familiar with. A pleasant, icy beam of irritation. 

"Welp, we gotta go!" Gilbert lept to he feet and ran for it as Ivan moved closer into the room, looking murderous, and Alfred followed suit. 

"Gilbert!" 

Ivan's threat didn't bother either of them, and both if them laughed as they bolted. Once far enough away, Gilbert stopped and made a strange smirk to himself. 

"I hope he likes my notes." 

Alfred laughed.