I Will Be Your Knight

Chapter 2

"Oof!" is all you manage to get out as you walk right into Ludwig.

"(y/n)! Are you alright?"

"Uh, yeah, sorry about that Ludwig," you answer in embarrassment.

"Well, that's good, but it's Germany remember. Ger-ma-ny," he says enunciating each syllable.

"Er, right. Sorry boss. I'll get back to work now."

No matter how many times he reminds you, you would never remember. It's hard when you hang out with his brother so much. Gil calls him Ludwig all the time. Sometimes he even calls him Luddy, or West, but you'd never call the German that to his face. Getting fired over something that dumb is not high on your list of things to do.

Without a backwards glance, you walk back over to the registers and reopen register 4. It's gotten fairly slow in the store since it's so late. The clock on the register reads 8:04, exactly 20 minutes after when your break was supposed to end. Germany didn't seem to know you had been gone too long, but he would eventually. You sigh thinking about the talking to you'd get later. You wouldn't get fired, but Ludwig would make sure you never do something like that again.

Keeping track of when people punch in or out, and scheduling, probably takes up the most of his time and effort. It's also probably why he's so stiff all the time. If you had to spend most of your time trying to come up with a schedule that has enough people at the store to function at all the right times, you'd probably be on edge all the time too. Ludwig has his hands full because a lot of the employees here are college students, so their availability varies depending on when their classes are. He's actually pretty good about making sure you're not scheduled during a lecture. Sometimes you have to come in almost immediately after one, but you never have to miss one. Ludwig's not a bad guy really, if you think about it. He just acts like he's got a stick up his butt sometimes.

"Hey, (y/n), where have you been? Didn't your break end a long time ago?"

Speaking of having a stick up your butt.

You turn around and face the person who just addressed you. "Sorry Iggy," you say using his second nickname just to annoy him. "I was helping a customer, if you must know. And I didn't even get to eat dinner, so gimme a break."

One of Arthur's large eyebrows twitches, and then he sighs. "Alright, I guess I'll let you off this time, but now my break's later than it would've been. You owe me (y/n)," he calls over his shoulder as he walks to the break room.

You smirk gently as you watch his retreating figure. Good old England. You wouldn't classify your relationship as being frenemies, but he wasn't a good of a friend as his younger brother Alfred. Mostly you and Arthur bicker and tease each other, but in the end you two always laugh it off. You attributed that to Arthur's tsundere-ness. He cares, it's just not as apparent. It must be a trait he picked up from being a middle child. You shake your head thinking about his older brother Francis. Growing up must have had its regular traumas.

The rest of your shift goes by fine, and you make it home around 10:00. You change into pajamas, brush your teeth, and plop into bed. You have a few classes tomorrow, so you have to actually get some sleep tonight instead of staying up on the internet, or reading your book, like you have a bad habit of usually doing.

The next morning you walk out of one of the lecture halls with your best friend Gilbert. You had just been assigned an essay in your biochemistry class, and you aren't happy about it.

"Gah, Gilbert! This sucks! A ten page essay on the properties of carbon and why it's necessary for life. Why couldn't the professor just given us a test on this?"