Antonio's fingers slid gracefully across the nylon strings, notes dancing out in daring crimsons and deep, mysterious violets. They mixed in the air, then vanished into the tense silences, like an audience holding its breath.
Then the colours exploded back into the air, hints of gold joining the delicate performance. Three meager minutes was all it took for the symphony of colours to complete itself. And for those three perfect minutes Antonio could breathe.
When it was over and the last speckles of colour had vanished, Antonio put Corazón, his guitar, away as delicately as if it were a butterfly. He kissed the very top of it with adoration and respect, it was his life line, it deserved to be handled carefully.
"Antonio!" he heard his mother's sharp voice call, shredding the beautiful silence like the wings of a butterfly in the hands of a cruel child, "Get down here now! We have guests!"
He ran downstairs as if death itself was at his heels, which it may have been. He always seemed to become mysteriously ill when he disobeyed his mother.
Their guests were the new neighbors, an Italian family of three. They seemed very kind and happy, except for the shortest, who was not cloaked in the excited lemon yellow of the other teen, or the calm, but happy gold of the older man. No, the shortest was cloaked in a mysterious purple and ebony. He was introduced as Lovino.
Antonio was especially kind to Lovino during their visit. Though the other never spoke, Antonio liked to imagine that his voice was deep and rich, but not exactly sweet. Like dark chocolate. He wished he knew for sure, he wished that Lovino had uttered a word, just one.
Antonio had no idea that Lovino couldn't.