Dust and Memories

Nostalgia

"Nostalgia. N-O-S-T-A-L-G-I-A. The pain of remembrance."

"Very good, Sebastian," praised the severe looking teacher as the fifth grade boy went to settle back beside his best friend.

"That was a little scary," He murmured into the brunette's ear, and Roderich gave him a bright smile, grabbing his hand.

"You're doing great!" The brunette encouraged, grinning. "You'll win for sure."

Basch gave him a small, nervous smile as he went up to recite his next word, taking a deep breath and closing his eyes.

"Remorse. R-E-M-O-R-S-E. Regret and guilt towards a wrong committed."

The room applauded, and he felt a little numb when the teacher pinned a little blue ribbon onto the pocket of his shirt. Had he just won the Spelling Bee?

The smile on his best friend's face as he tackled him into a hug was all the answer he needed.

Roderich didn't drink often. It wasn't that he couldn't hold his alcohol, or didn't have any friends to drink with. He simply preferred to indulge in other things, such as fine chocolates or good coffee.

But every once in a blue moon, the aristocrat found himself in dire need of a beer. Usually, this need struck when he had been hanging around that damned albino, or after a particularly dry lecture in calculus.

Apparently, finding a letter from his long-lost best friend also called for some alcohol.

The brunette found himself sitting at the kitchen table with a bottle of beer in his hand as he read the letter over and over, full of shock, disbelief, and a sort of bittersweet sadness. What ever happened to that blond hurricane with the eyes like emeralds and a mouth to put anyone in their place?

He had lost touch with him. After fifth grade, they had had a falling out over Roderich's first relationship when he was in sixth grade, with a spanish boy called Antonio. Basch had seemed uncharacteristically upset when he had told him about it, and they had gotten into a vicious fight. Roderich winced at the mere thought of it, feeling a sharp pang in his chest.

Three long years went by, and he broke up with Antonio the summer before freshman year of highschool, and started to see a pretty Hungarian girl by the name of Elizabeta. She was the one who had first noticed that Basch was at school rather sporadically - four times a week became three, which became once a week, until finally, he stopped coming at all, and nobody seemed to notice.

Once or twice, he had asked people what had happened to the Swiss man, and there response was always the same.

"Who's Basch Zwingli?"