In Venice, a man stares out of his window, opens his eyes, and thinks.
Normally, Feliciano is not a somber man. Normally, he is full of joy and spring and energy and silliness, a silly puppy among his more serious and determined peers. Even when he is sad, it is full of life, full of tears and cries. It's a childlike sadness, a please no-no-no don't-part-from-me I-need-you sadness, helpless and wanting to be hugged. But the cold night air, and the strange melancholy quiet carried by the wind that has almost gone into the marrow of his bones, it makes him quiet and calm. It makes him think about things he is usually too excited to think about. Maybe about things he doesn't want to think about.
Like war. He has never understood war.
He remembers, vaguely, as though a thick and wavy glass is pressed between himself and his memories, when his grandfather was not yet old and worn and tired, and used to tell them stories. Stories about his heroics in battle, stories about gods and heroes other than himself that fought monsters and each other. Some of his siblings showed interests in them, or at least had a sort of half-interest. But he had always found the stories scary and awful, and Lovino always said they were boring, though now he wonders...
Ah well, he thinks as he looks at the way the moonlight hit the water. Maybe I'll ask him later.
When his grandfather began to show his age, and Feliciano had barely gotten to know his brothers, he was taken away to a secluded spot, and the old man asked him to make promises to him.
"Tell me, Italy, that you won't get into as many fights and wars as I did. Tell me you won't try to make yourself an empire like me. I don't want to see you get hurt."
Why would he want to fight when life was so beautiful? Why, as long as the world had flowers and sunlight and birdsong? Why, as long as it had good food and music and art? Why, as long as the world had joy and love and people who loved him? Why would anyone want to do something so awful and scary and sad, when there were so many more wonderful things to do instead? It was so simple to him, it seemed like a silly promise to make. Why not make him promise to keep breathing, or something equally difficult?
He has had enemies who understood war. He has had allies who understood war. Why, he wondered, had Ludwig fought so much, even when he clearly disliked it? "I am a soldier; it's what I have to do," he would say, rigid and military and stern as always, "don't you know how to be one?" No, he didn't know how to be a soldier, and he still doesn't. Ludwig didn't know how to not be a soldier. Neither did Kiku, not back then.
He wonders why everyone else seems to be fighting so much. If they're not fighting each other, they're still being all aggressive and mean and teetering on the edge, or having some kind of internal struggle, like they have to be fighting someone, even themselves and then he realizes he can't smell his pasta anymore. Closing his eyes and turning his head to the table, he puts his hand on the table and puts his hand on, over, almost in the bowl. Yep, cold. He sighs, this time less deeply and more childish-sad, sad that his food is too cold to eat now. He is still hungry too! But on the bright side, he thinks with a smile that is beginning to grow, this gives me an excuse to make something else! Bright and cheerful once more, he runs off to the kitchen to see if he has any more tomato sauce and flour and garlic left. And he has mostly forgotten what he was thinking about, which is good, because he doesn't like thinking about unhappy things anyways. Why think about unhappy things, when life is so beautiful?