PruCan

Table Turn

Time passed, and before Gilbert knew it, it was time for another meeting. This one just had to go better than the ones before. The only reason he wasn't sure he would be able to accomplish that is because he had yet to think up something sweet to put on the note he was planning. Oh, it was the day before the meeting, he still had time!

He did not have time. That damned note kept him up that night. What was he going to write today? Last time he had decided on it so suddenly that Matthew probably thought it was creepy! So this time it had to be perfect. Midnight that night, he was scrabbling on a notepad like a madman, surrounded by crumpled up drafts that suffocated him like lost dreams. Oh, he was doomed...

He ended up passing out in his chair.

Matthew was as excited as Gilbert was anxious. He just couldn't wait to read another note that was actually directed at him! He'd been getting a lot of attention lately, from Gilbert to his new secret admirer. He hoped it wasn't a prank of some sort. He sighed and laid down on his bed, checking the clock. 8:45. Well, he should probably be getting to sleep. He rested his eyes and turned on his side, Kumajiro nuzzling his back as he liked to do every night for warmth. He eventually fell asleep.

The next morning in the Beilschmidt household was, in a word, frantic. When were they not, though? It seemed like every day that there was a meeting, something went wrong. Today, the problem of the day was Feliciano missing a sock in a pair that he was looking forward to wearing today, so Ludwig and Gilbert were forced to go searching around for it. This was so dumb. Why couldn't he just wear different socks? Ludwig found it first— under the laundry basket— and they were on their way.

Ludwig was grumbling under his breath about being late, but Gilbert and Feliciano both knew they were only late to being early. That was late to Ludwig. The German didn't mind much after Feliciano started fawning over how great he was for finding his sock. The little guy really had Ludwig wrapped around his finger. It had been that way for a while, so Gilbert supposed he should probably be used to it at this point.

They made it to the meeting, and Gilbert put on his game face. He could do this. He was just going to write something about how he thought he was really cute and he just wanted to hug him and tell him that he deserved all the love in the world and that he was so sweet it hurt and— He couldn't do that. He had to start slow, even if he just wanted to hug the hell out of the poor Canadian. He took a deep breath and found Matthew's assigned notes. He wrote at the bottom in black pen,

"I hope you don't think this is creepy. I just think you're really cute and I'm too nervous to tell you face to face. Keep smiling, it's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen!"

His face was burning red by the time he was done with it. Oh, jeez... He shouldn't have done this... That was so cheesy! He sighed shakily and put it back for Matthew to read when he got it, then crossed his arms on the table and buried his face in them. This was a complete disaster, really. He probably just ruined his chances with him if he ever found out that he was the one who wrote the letter.

Matthew made it to the meeting a little earlier than usual that day, and the very first thing he did was grab the notes with his name on them. He brightened and smiled when he saw the black ink writing at the bottom of the page, reading it. His cheeks reddened. Oh, this was so precious! He wanted to meet this girl face to face. She seemed sweet and kind and mellow.

He sat down with his notes and smiled, looking over at Gilbert, who was staring right at him and looked a little nervous when their eyes met.

"Gilbert, can you keep a secret?" He asked, his smile brightening with an eagerness to share whatever news he had in store. Gilbert nodded silently, and he thought he saw Gilbert swallow hard, but he might just be seeing things from all the excitement.

"Okay, great. So... I think I have a secret admirer." He said, smiling excitedly. "All that I know about her is that she has really nice handwriting, she is super sweet and kind, and she likes me." He said softly, his cheeks still flushed excitedly.

And just like that, Gilbert's heart sank. He thought he was a girl. He liked women. He probably only liked women. God, he felt like he could cry. Why couldn't he have been born a woman? Then he'd have no problem getting Matthew to fall in love! He smiled back at him.

"That's awesome, Mattie! What kind of girls do you like?" He asked, and the question only made him want to cry more. Yes, he was strong, but that didn't mean he had no feelings.

"Hm... I guess I like women that are really loving and verbal about their feelings." He said, smiling softly. "I don't really have a preference when it comes to appearance." He added. Gilbert had asked him what kind of women he liked, and he had told him. He didn't ask what kind of person he liked, so Matthew didn't mention men.

Gilbert's heart sank even more at his words. So it was true. He really did only like women. He knew something like this would happen to him! He was so unlucky. He smiled and nodded. "I hope you get to meet her soon." He said, though his voice was a little more soft than it usually was.

People flooded into the room after a while, and Gilbert stared down at his lap until the meeting began. Alfred kicked off the meeting with his plans to put a stop to crime worldwide.

"Alright guys, listen up! So my plan here is to kinda just get huge robots all over the world. And I mean huge. Like, gigantic! And we get a criminal database installed in 'em and it just picks up the criminals it sees and eats them! Woah, woah, chill guys! I don't mean they die or anything! There's a chamber in its stomach, they just keep them there until they go back to the jails. Pretty sweet plan, right?" Alfred asked, a bright grin on his face. Kiku nodded along silently, while everyone else either yelled at him or called him an idiot or simply shook their heads.

Gilbert listened idly, doodling on his paper. After hearing all the yelling, he just wrote, "Alfred is an IDIOT." on his paper, right at the top. Matthew looked over at the words and chuckled, shaking his head. And then it clicked. Wait. He took out his notes again and looked at the words his secret admirer had written at the very bottom of the paper, and then his eyes slowly drifted back up to the writing on Gilbert's paper.

It was an exact match.