HetaliaxReader - Dating Game (Number 3)

I sighed, knowing that since I was in this predicament I would just have to make the best of it. After a moment of thought, I sighed again and recited my chosen number.

“Three. . .”

My stomach turned slightly when I heard a very recognizable laugh emanating from the group. To put it bluntly, it sounded like glorified dry-heaving. I whirled around to see, now right in front of me, long blond hair and cerulean eyes that begged to see through mine.

“Oh, no,” I muttered.

Francis chuckled, this time a bit more attractive. “What’s the matter, ma chère?” he cooed. “You did not expect me to win?”

I raised an eyebrow, and decided to play his game. “No. It’s just that I was hoping to pick someone a bit. . .better.” The way “better” rolled off my tongue sounded a bit more insulting than I had wanted, but the look on everyone’s face was priceless. There were several “Oohs” coming from the group, and Francis blinked.

Then he smiled sadly. “I apologize, ma chère, that I am not good enough for you. I suppose I will just go home then.”

I felt a pang of guilt resonate in my chest. “N-No, it’s okay! I can go on a date with yo––”

“Alright, then!” He immediately took my hand and pulled me toward the front door. “Off to our date!”

I blinked, then furrowed my brows in a mixture of confusion and frustration. Did he just guilt-trip me?!

Oh, yeah. He was going to get it now.

“So,” I said when we were outside, trying to subdue the edge that was threatening to show in my voice. “Where to?”

Oh, if you could have seen the smirk on his face. It wasn’t just his usual mischievous smirk anymore; it was downright sadistic. “My house,” he said, his voice like velvet.

Velvet that was trying to get me in the sack.

I crossed my arms. “Oh, really. And what might we be doing at your ‘humble abode’?”

Francis blinked, then laughed. “Oh, ma chère!” He smiled at me. “Don’t worry. I will not try to do anything that you don’t want to do. I am a grown man. I can control myself.”

Yeah, you just choose not to, I thought. “Okay,” I sighed, holding my arm out. “Lead on.”

He smiled wider and took my hand gently, leading me down the sidewalk.

==========

“Here we are.”

I stepped inside Francis’s apartment––yes, apartment––and looked around. It was much plainer than I had thought; that is, I had expect everything in the place to be just as flashy as its owner was. But no. It was just a simple, plain apartment, albeit pretty big.

And it looked like he had just recently cleaned up.

“You like?” he asked, closing and locking the door behind him. (Don’t worry. He left the key in the lock.)

I nodded. “Yeah, actually.”

He raised an eyebrow, a smirk on his lips. “What? You thought my home would be as fabulous as me?”

“Well, ‘fabulous’ isn’t really the word I’d use.”

He chuckled, then wrapped his hand around mine. I attempted to pull away, but he tightened his grip, then relaxed it again when I stopped resisting. He smiled. “It’s alright, ma chère. I’m just leading you to the kitchen.”

I followed him, still cautious, to a small kitchen. There was the kitchen part with everything needed for making food, and then there was a bar counter with two stools. A small table with four seats sat in the corner, and it looked like only one chair had been used for a while.

“So what’s for dinner?” I asked.

“Whatever you want,” he replied, his voice romantically smooth but also gentlemanly. “What would you like, ma chère?”

I thought for a moment, sitting down on one of the bar stools, then shrugged. “I dunno. Something simple.”

Chortling, he opened a cabinet and took out a large pot. “Alright. How about pasta?”

I laughed. “Isn’t that Feli’s thing?”

He laughed, too. “Oui. But it has been a while since I’ve had it.” He stepped into the adjacent pantry and came back out with a box of raw spaghetti noodles. “And I just bought some.”

I smiled, then leaned toward him when he opened the box. He held it out for me, and I reached out and grabbed a few, popping one into my mouth and chewing it up.

“You like them raw, ma chère?” said Francis, a bit taken aback.

“Yeah,” I answered, finishing off the first one and starting on the second. “They’re pretty good like this. And these are pretty crunchy.”

He tilted his head, and I held out the last noodle for him, which he took. After examining it a moment, he slipped the end of it into his mouth, biting it off and chewing it thoroughly. He quickly finished it and said, “Not bad,” and started cooking the rest. “Is that all you wanted before I cook them?”

I giggled. “Yeah. I’m good now.”

==========

Okay, you’ll never believe this, but dinner with Francis wasn’t actually that bad. I really expected him to make passes at me the whole time, but the thing was, he didn’t hit on me once, not since we left the other guys. In fact, he was quite the gentleman. More gentlemanly than Arthur (don’t you dare tell him I said that). And. . .he was kind. Very kind. Like, really kind. I felt bad, having assumed by the way he acted around friends that he was just a sadistic pervert. In reality, he wasn’t like that at all. He was a man who felt, who thought deeper than most people. I even found out that he had fallen in love once, but she died before he could propose to her. He was pretty depressed after talking about her, but I somehow managed to cheer him back up.

I’ll be honest. I liked him. And. . .I liked our date. (Again, don’t tell him I said that.)