Chapter Text
19 year old Gilbert stood on the front step of the Beilschmidt home. His heavy backpack was slung over his shoulders lazily and was slipping. He had been standing there for almost 5 minutes, staring at the door. Half of him was waiting for his mom to come back and wipe his tears—that he didn't know were there— laugh and tell him it was a joke. He at least hoped Ludwig would come out, tell him bye, maybe give him a hug. In his backpack he carried everything he needed for about a week until he could get a job. He didn’t even know where he could stay.
Suddenly realizing the tears rolling down his cheeks, he wiped at his face, put on his best smile and swallowed every thought and question he had. Gilbert pulled his phone out of the pocket of his jeans. He scrolled through his contacts, searching for someone to stay with.
Roderich, his cousin. His cousin would let him stay for a night or two, right?
He answered on the 2nd ring, and he sounded unenthusiastic. “Hello? What do you need, Gilbert?”
The white haired boy swallowed the lump in his throat. “Can I stay at your place? For just like, a day or two. You would let your awesome cousin stay, right?”
Roderich sighed. “I don’t have space. Sorry.”
“That’s o-“ His phone beeped. Roderich had hung up.
Something similar happened for just about every call he made. He called plenty of his friends and just random people he had gone to school with, practically begging for a place to stay. All of them declined. He asked Matthew, Lovino, Basch, and even Antonio. Hell, he even asked Ivan. None of them had accepted.
Until he pressed on Yào Wáng’s contact. They had been friends since they were kids, but seemed to grow apart when they reached middle school. Gilbert was surprised he even still had Yao’s contact. Hesitantly, he pressed call.
[~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~]
Yào wakes up to his ringtone blaring in his ear. He grumbles and picks up his phone, answering without paying much attention to the caller.
“你好? Why are you calling so late?” his voice was gravely, a morning voice if Gilbert had ever heard one. It was sort of funny, he had to hold back a chuckle.
“Yào, this is awkward but can I stay with you for a night or two? I just-“
“I don’t see why not. Thank you for calling, Gilbert.”
A call that was supposed to last just 5 minutes ended up lasting almost an hour. They caught each other up on everything, going from close friends to strangers back to close friends. Yào had always missed being friends with Gilbert. He could never admit it, for Gilbert’s ego would eat it up immediately. Often he found himself lying in bed wondering when, or if, the white-haired boy would ever speak to him again.
The albino boy closed his purple eyes and sighed. Just like how Yào didn’t expect to ever speak to Gilbert all these years, he was also startled to communicate with flamboyant asian once again. He didn’t think he’d hear that sweet, blabbering voice again. Oh god did he miss that boy. Once Gilbert opened his eyes and unlocked his phone once again and entered his chat with Yào, the last message sent was himself saying
-“Ich liebe dich. Bye.”
The arrogant teen’s cheeks flushed red—why’d he even send that? Yào just left him on delivered after that. He could understand why. It was, in a way, corny.
Gilbert began to type,
-“Hey, scheißekopf. when should I come over?”
Surprisingly, the response Gilbert got was quick.
-“I say you can come over now, 王子. I only have little to clean up. Do you know where my house is?”
Gilbert hesitated before texting once again, clearly he didn’t actually know where Yào was, especially after how he used to move a lot.
-“Ha. Nein. Wanna drop your address?"
Another quick response from Yào, it was a high chance he’s just been doomscrolling ever since the call ended. With one final text from Yào handing his new address to Gilbert, he responded with a thumbs up emoji and turned his phone off to head to the car.
Once the self-absorbed male got into the car and turned it on he sat in his own thoughts before even doing anything. “Does he really want to see me after all these years? Nien, im
sure he’s just trying to be nice. But why did he sound so eager? he responded to me so quickly I couldn't even finish my sentence!..diese scheiße…he hasn’t changed one bit.” Gilbert sighed and cleared his thoughts and put his usual metal music on—though he had a GPS telling him what routes to go that was louder than the actual music so he truly didn't even get to listen to it like he wanted.
As Gilbert was on his way, Yào was still only waking up. His long hair was down and a mess and he was still relaxing in his bed with his typical red qiao nightgown on. The soft male saw the thumbs up that Gilbert had sent and had assumed he’d be on his way pretty soon—or right now. “他肯定不介意我穿着礼服吗？很舒服. (sure he won't mind if I stay in the gown? It’s quite comfy.)” Yào sat up and checked his phone one more time for any message from someone—mainly Gilbert. Not many people really wanted to talk to the poor guy unless they really had to, or if he was bothering them.
The door to Yào’s then got shoved open with a strong force and there stood the irritated Leon and a shouting Yong with a spatula and a pot that the kid banged against each other. “하하, 일어나 일어나!” (HAHA, WAKEY WAKEY!) The free-spirited male announced with the loud banging of the kitchen utensils, Leon covered his ears, “該死的白痴, stop banging that’s hurting my ears..” Leon managed to speak barely above the metal noise.Yào grumbled and put his phone down, “Yong Soo, quit. I up you glunglegnorgis. You two better get dressed, we are gonna have a friend stay with us for a bit. Behave your best, 好的?” Yào smiled at the two and sent them down the stairs to make breakfast.