~Author's Note~

Oh, gosh...Hi, everyone~! I'm back...again! 8D *shot* This is actually a fic I started on aaaaages ago, but I gave up on it because I thought it was stupid...but then I found it yesterday and decided on trying to finish it, and voilá! The result is right here! (/O7O)/ I really hope you guys will enjoy it - it's my first SpainxRomano fic ever, so I'm a little nervous! ^w^'' (But on the other hand...I'm always nervous when I post new stories/chapters here...ehehe...ó/ /u/ /ò) Anyways, please enjoy it~! *pumps fist*

Chapter 1:

"Please don't tell me…" Romano started, standing straight with his arms crossed and with an irritated scowl on his face. "That THIS was the reason to why you wanted me to come over to your house? To watch some stupid turtles crawl around in your bathtub?" His eyes shifted from the six small animals that were slowly moving around in the white-coloured bathroom furniture to the grinning man on the floor, who was sitting on his knees with his hands resting on the edge of the tub.

"Sí~! Aren't they adorable? I found them on the sidewalk the other day, so I brought them with me home so they wouldn't accidentally get hurt by passing cars!" Spain explained excitedly and started to pat one of the small animals on its head while whispering soothing words in Spanish to it.

"They look like ugly rocks to me." Romano retorted with a snort and glared at the turtle that was being patted. Fucking reptile. "What're you going to do with them anyway? Eat them?" A surprised grimace appeared on the Spaniard's tanned face, although it was quickly replaced by a huge smile.

"Eat them? Do you really think I would be able to eat my cute babies?" he asked and laughed loudly. It was a very familiar laugh, a laugh that Romano had heard ever since he was a child. That annoying, idiotic yet contagious laugh that made him want to laugh too…He would rather shoot himself in the head than allow himself to fall for that temptation anytime soon though. "No, I'm not going to eat them; they're just here temporarily! I'm going to take them to the sea and release them there as soon as I've showed them to everyone! Can you even imagine how amazed France and Prussia will be when they see these?" Spain continued, adding another one of his loud laughs at the end of the sentence, before he turned back his head towards the turtles. Romano opened his mouth, ready to insult the animals again, but suddenly stopped. The grin on Spain's face was completely gone and instead replaced by a somewhat gloomy expression.

"But you know, it's going to be so sad when they leave…I've grown really attached to them…" said the tanned man before he sighed deeply. This surprised Romano; sure, he had known ever since the "baby-turtles-invading-the-restaurant-they-were-at"-incident that Spain had a soft spot for turtles, but to see him so…heartbroken about having to part with the animals wasn't exactly something that happened everyday.

"M-maybe I shouldn't be so harsh on him…just this once…" he thought to himself and reached out his hand to give the other man's shoulder a comforting pat. However, he quickly jerked it back when Spain suddenly turned towards him again, his face now decorated with the same grin from before.

"I've even named them all! I've got to introduce them to you!" he said cheerfully and beckoned to the Italian to come and sit down beside him. Romano grunted slightly, embarrassed by the fact that he almost had let down his guard like that. Worrying about the moron was obviously a complete waste of time after all.

"I don't care." he muttered stubbornly and turned around in order to walk out of the room, but before he could take even a single step he was dragged down onto the ground, right beside the energetic man.

"Let's start with this one!" Spain continued happily, ignoring the intense cursing coming out of the Italian man's mouth, and pointed at the turtle that he had patted earlier. It was eating peacefully on a piece of lettuce in the left end of the tub with its eyes closed. "This is Italy-turtle! He's kind of weak, so the other turtles like to bully him a lot…but he's actually surprisingly fast if he's in danger, so he always manages to escape eventually! Fortunately he has Germany-turtle here to defend him, so he can feel a little more at ease!" In front of the Italy-turtle stood a much bigger turtle, definitely the most muscular one out of them all. It kept its small eyes on the other turtles, although it occasionally threw some glances at the Italy-turtle, as to check if he was still okay.

"So even as a turtle Veneziano has an idiotic macho that protects him…" Romano thought to himself and felt how he started to get even more irritated than before. Simply thinking about the potato bastard hanging out with his little brother was enough to make his blood boil in anger.

"And here we have Prussia-turtle and France-turtle!" Spain explained, not noticing the angry scowl that had appeared on Romano's face, and pointed at the two turtles that the Germany-turtle was staring at. While one of them had the same colour as the rest of the turtles the other one was a lot paler, and its eyes beamed with confidence. "Prussia-turtle here is a real troublemaker since he likes to pick fights with the others all the time, so Germany-turtle always have to stop him when he gets too eager. And France-turtle…well…he's who he is!" As Spain spoke the France-turtle tried to sneak up behind the Prussia-turtle, but it only resulted in him getting kicked in the face by the pale turtle.

"So he's just like the perverted beard-bastard himself then?" Romano asked, cocking an eyebrow.

"Exactly!" Spain nodded before he turned his finger towards the other end of the tub, where the two remaining turtles were.

"And over there we have Spain-turtle!" he said proudly when he pointed at the one of the right, and when the turtle noticed this it nodded happily. "This little fellow just can't get enough of tomatoes, and he loves to cuddle all the time! Isn't he cute?" The turtle turned his head towards Romano, and when it nodded at him as well Romano couldn't help but feel a bit amused; even though he didn't want to say it out loud he had to admit that Spain had managed to give the turtles really fitting names.

"As cute as a rock can be." he said sarcastically and rolled his eyes. Then, suddenly, the Spain-turtle slowly turn around and started to walk towards the turtle standing just a few steps away from it, the only one that Romano didn't know the name of yet. It was a quite small turtle who wore a disgruntled look on its face, and it glared angrily at the Spain-turtle as he was getting closer. "Who's that one then?" Romano asked curiously before he froze on the spot; that was when he realised how excited he actually sounded about getting to know more about the animals, and he shook his head in denial; he most certainly didn't give a damn about them, not at all! Luckily it seemed like Spain didn't notice his excitement though; instead he looked at the turtle while scratching the back of his head, looking a bit troubled.

"Oh, that one…well, he's a bit different from the other ones." he said.

"Different?" Romano asked, but his question was almost immediately answered by the animal himself; when the Spain-turtle had almost reached him the turtle opened his mouth and buried its beak into the poor Spain-turtle's right leg. Fortunately it seemed like he didn't manage to get a good grip though; when the Spain-turtle pulled away his leg he instantly let go of it. "…IT BIT IT!" Romano shouted, his eyes wide in shock, and turned towards Spain. "IT BIT IT! WHAT THE HELL? !"

"Ah, yes; he does that now and then. A grumpy one, isn't he?" Spain replied merrily, running a hand through his messy hair while chuckling to himself. Romano could hardly believe what he was hearing.

"Then how can you allow it to be with the other turtles? ! It might hurt someone!" The tanned man just looked at him in silence for a few seconds with an absolutely clueless expression on his face. Then he slowly started to raise his eyebrows, and his eye beamed with joy, like a child who had just realised the correct answer to a hard question.

"…Oh! I haven't even thought about that!" he said with a huge smile on his lips, and Romano, at loss for words, just groaned loudly and rubbed his temples. The thought of kicking the optimistic man in the face for being to thick-headed crossed his mind more than once. "But you know….he's not always like that…" the Spaniard continued, and turned his head towards the ill-tempered turtle again. "When he and Spain-turtle and are by themselves, with no one else watching them, he's like a little angel; I've even seen him trying to snuggle once while I was spying on them, and he was so adorable~!" he squealed, and Romano grimaced when he heard this.

"You have to spy on your own turtles?"

"As I said, he never does that if someone's close by. It's like he's afraid of showing any kind of affection towards others in public." Spain shrugged. "But he sure is one interesting animal though, don't you think? He does his best to scare off everyone for some unknown reason, but he actually has a heart of gold." He took his eyes off the turtle and turned them towards the Italian next to him instead, and Romano couldn't help but hold his breath for a moment; the Spaniard's green eyes were filled with so much warmth that it made Romano's heart skip a beat. "Just like someone else I know…" Even though he did his best to hold it back Romano felt how his face heated up, and his heart started to beat so hard in his chest that it was almost like it was trying to find its way out of there. Perhaps…perhaps he meant…? "Just like my cute little Italy~!" Romano froze on the spot.

Just like…Italy…?

It was almost like his heart literally dropped in his chest, and he clenched his fist so hard that his nails dug into the skin of his palms. Of course. Of course Spain had been talking about his little brother; everyone loved his carefree and cheerful fratello after all. After all, who in their right mind would say such heartfelt thing about HIM when there was a counterpart that was so much better? He rose up to his feet without a word, not bothering to even glance at Spain. He simply couldn't stand looking at him at the moment.

"…Romano?"

"I'm going home!" he screamed, much louder than he had intended to, before he started to walk towards the door with quick steps. When he was half-way there he felt how someone grabbed him by his arm, so in order to free himself he swung his other arm at the person. "Don't touch me, you bastard! I hate you! I fucking hate you!" Spain quickly dodged it by backing away, although he didn't let go of Romano's arm.

"Hey, hey, take it easy now! What's up with you all of a sudden?"

"It's nothing!" sputtered Romano before launching another attack towards Spain with his free arm. This time Spain was ready for it though; he instantly grabbed it and, by force, turned around the struggling Italian so that they were standing face to face. "W-what are you doing? I told you not to touch me, you fucking-!"

"Romano." Spain suddenly interrupted. If it was the unexpected change of tone or the fact that Spain was actually looking serious for once – or maybe both of them – Romano couldn't tell, but he immediately stopped struggling. "I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer most of the time, but I can see that something's bothering you." The solemn look on his face softened and a small smile appeared on his lips. "Talk to me." Romano simply stood there staring, not knowing what to do. Well, he was very sure of what he WANTED to do; he wanted to get out of the room as fast as possible and escape from this embarrassing situation. But for some reason his feet refused to move; actually it seemed like pretty much his entire body refused to move at all. He looked away, unsure of what to say.

"I…I just don't like when you say such nice things…about my little brother…" he stuttered, suddenly realising how selfish it actually sounded. "I'm such an idiot…who would ever say anything nice about such an egoistic person like me in the first place?" he thought to himself and felt how tears started to form in the corners of his eyes, although he did his best to hold them back.

"About your little brother?" Spain asked, his eyebrows arched in confusion. "When did I do that?"

"You said it just a few seconds ago! You said all those nice things about that stupid turtle, and then you said that he was like Italy! D-don't play dumb with me, you idiot!" Romano snapped, noticing how his voice started to crack, and he felt how the tears inside his eyes were struggling to find their way down his cheeks. The Spaniard on the other just stared at him with a perplexed look on his face, looking like a living question mark. They remained like this for a few couple of seconds, just looking at each other without saying anything. That was, until Spain's eyes all of a sudden widened in realisation, and he opened his mouth. However, it wasn't words that came out of it; it was laughter. An ear-splitting yet merry laughter. "...W-what the hell are you laughing at? !" Romano shouted, feeling both confused and offended by the reaction.

"Aaah, lo siento~!" Spain said cheerfully while rubbing one of his eyes with his index-finger. "But say, Romano; didn't I already tell you that it was the first turtle that was named Italy-turtle?" The Italian blinked in surprise as realisation slapped him in the face. Oh yeah...he turned his head towards the bathtub again, and his eyes shifted between the turtle that was still munching on its lettuce and the turtle beside the Spain-turtle. That's right; the one who was eating on the lettuce was the one that Spain had called "Italy" at first.

"…B-but...but you said that the other turtle was just like Italy! Do you have two of them, or what? !"

"Of course I do! Because…" With a beaming smile Spain looked straight into the Italian's hazel-coloured eyes and winked. "There is more than one "Italy" after all, isn't it?" It didn't take more than three seconds until Romano's face almost literally exploded and got coloured in a dark-red shade. Suddenly his knees started to feel weak and his thoughts were running wild in his head. He felt mad, confused, upset, embarrassed-! …Yet happy? No matter how much he wanted to deny it he couldn't help but feel warm hadn't said all those nice things about his brother, no; he had said them about…him. No one else but him! He lowered his gaze, not daring to look into the Spaniard's green eyes.

"P-pasta." he mumbled quietly.

"…Huh?"

"Pasta. I want pasta for lunch, damnit."

"Oh, you're hungry? Why didn't you say so in the first place? Let's go out and have something to eat then; my treat!" And without warning Spain ran out of the bathroom at the speed of light. Romano slowly started to walk towards the door leading out of the bathroom as well, but suddenly stopped when he remembered something. Instead, he turned around completely and walked as quietly as possible towards the bathtub again. When he had almost reached it he ducked, making sure that the turtles wouldn't be able to see him, and peeked over the edge of the tub. The other turtles were still hanging out in the left end of the bathtub, but the Spain- and Romano-turtle were still in the right end of it alone. After glancing back and forth, as to make sure that no one could see him, the Romano-turtle started to get closer to the Spain-turtle, and after take a last look at the other turtles he lowered his head and rubbed gently at the place where he had bitten.

As carefully as possible Romano crawled away from the tub and rose to his feet again when he reached the door. However, at the moment he exited the room he could hear that familiar voice shouting: "Come on, Romano; I'm already at the front door!", followed by the annoying laugh, that laugh that Romano recognized so well. And this time he couldn't help but open his mouth and allow a small laugh to leave his lips as well.

~The End of "A Turtle just like You"~

Well...I guess all I can say now is...AWKWAAAAAARD~! 8D Anyways, just wanted to throw this out as well, just in case some of you didn't see it - I've actually re-written chapter 1-10 of PH (because the first chapters were soooooo terrible XDD; ), so please check them out if you want to~! \(^w^)/ I promise to try and finish the darn 11th chapter of it as soon as I can get back some inspiration again...hopefully the new season of Hetalia will help me with that though! 8D Aaaanyways; Thank you all for reading this randomness, and I hope you enjoyed it! \(óuò)/ *waves*

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