Disclaimer: I don't own Hetalia, Himaruya does! I just play with the characters.
I think this is my first official Spamano. Gah, I love them (thanks to Illusive Shadows, mah broski~). They're adorable. Possibly my new OTP, forreals. This idea blindsided me in the shower, actually. I had to write it down, and I love how it turned out, even though I'm not usually a fan of school AUs. :3 And football = soccer. Not American football.
As always, reviews = love. They keep me writing.
Enjoy!~

Mi Poco

One Hell of a Day.

Lovino knew that today was going to be a terrible one as he stirred flat on his back, directly beside his bed cocooned in a sheet. "Dammit," he grumbled under his breath as he untangled himself from the sheet, balling it up and tossing it onto his bed before rising to his feet and stumbling straight for the innocent clamshell cellular idling absently on his dresser.

The first step in his morning routine was to always check his cell before doing anything else. He snatched the hunk of metal and plastic as his thumb flicked it open to reveal an animated manila mail envelope ornamenting tiny screen. It took only a few keystrokes to access his text inbox and open the new message; even though he knew beyond any doubt who had sent it even before he had opened his inbox, the contents of the meager message blindsided him.

I'm breaking up with you.

Those five simple words rooted Lovino to the spot, butterscotch eyes flickering across the screen innumerable times until it blinked off into sleep for the sake of its battery. W-What? She's leaving me? His senses came flooding back to him then as his free hand flew up to grip the phone, thumbs drumming across raised keys.

Why.

Without setting the phone down Lovino rushed into his closet and found a clean school uniform, stripping immediately out of his flannel pyjama pants and pulling on a khaki sweater, indigo plaid pants, and spinning around to nab a sporty-looking jacket of the same hue before walking into a pair of beat up canvas sneakers. He could almost discern the distinct sound of the manmade textile ripping away from rubbery soles whenever he had to wear his only pair of shoes: being a lower-middle-class kid sent to an obviously upper-class preparatory school meant that he was dead broke most of the time. What little money he could scrounge up came from loose change discovered underneath the sofa's two cushions, or underneath the piece of furniture itself, unless his parents sent him some… but even then he felt guilty accepting it. He knew how hard they struggled just to send him to this school and afford yearly tuition.

His phone chirped vibrantly as he slipped one strap of his duct-taped backpack over his shoulder. He merely had to open the phone and press a button corresponding to 'open the damn message already' this time.

I don't want a relationship anymore.

"Fucking girls… what a wonderful way to start Friday off with," he muttered to himself as he typed in a reply, slipping a threadbare keychain off of its nail hammered into the front door's frame and pocketing it before exiting the tiny apartment dorm that the school had assigned him upon enrollment.

Then why the hell did you say yes to me when I asked you out. Fuck you.

In the instant just before he pressed the Send key did he know for certain that he wasn't going to be able to pay any attention to his classes that day.

Lovino was genuinely surprised that he had survived three of the five classes lined up for him on that Friday.

He kept his phone tucked into the pocket of his sports jacket toggled on vibrate as he shuffled along the corridor lined with groups of his peers gaggled together, chattering cheerily about the impending weekend. At first it had bothered him that no matter who he passed, they would always turn their backs to him or avert their gaze away, as if he were a pariah instead of an average student. Money meant everything to everyone at this school, that much was apparent. He had only managed to make one friend during the three years that he had attended the Academy, a Spanish kid that wouldn't leave him alone—at first this endearing trait severely irked the short-tempered Italian, but the kid had grown on him, so much so that it felt out of place to walk alone anywhere now, without the blissful Antonio at his side.

He stifled a sigh as he passed three blondes huddled together, ogling some sort of Photoshopped picture or the like (at least, that's what it looked like from the corner of his eye); he would've kept going if one of them, a moderately-heighted guy with almost shoulder-length, wavy hair and the shade of a beard adorning his chin, hadn't reached out and seized the long, single strand of hair that stuck out from his part in a curl. His reaction was immediate: the blood boiled within his cheeks, tingeing his usual olive complexion tomato red as his voice leapt to a screech in his throat. "C-CHIGI…! Let go, you damn oaf!"

Amber eyes narrowed to slits, glaring up at the cockily grinning countenance of Francis as a hand darted up and clawed at the other's hand, though to no avail. "But pourquoi, little Lovino? It's so cute to hear you cry out, and everyone knows it!"

"I-It is not! Now let the fuck go, Francis! You're not—"

It was then that his gaze, watery from angry tears, slipped over to Francis's right, to the wheat-haired and green-eyed girl garbed in a viridian, military-themed dress that fell to the tops of her knees, forever a headband (red today) holding her hair in place. "B-Bella…"

He saw her jaw tighten, the neutral expression on her face freeze over: did she think that he wasn't going to recognize her standing there? They had gone out for a few months, after all. "Fuck you too, Lovino."

Lovino shook his head, though in passing he wished he hadn't, before he relinquished his hold on his worn-out backpack, at that moment not outwardly caring that it fell to the ground, all of the contents splayed across the monotonous linoleum. Before Francis realized what his victim was doing Lovino's hand had balled into a fist as he moved close to the French exchange student, arm winding back before sinking said taut fist into the center of Francis's stomach. His eyes turned back to his former girlfriend. "You left me for him. So what you told me was true, when you agreed to go out with me. You wanted a relationship… but I wasn't the one you wanted it with."

Before anyone could properly react, before Bella could run off like he knew she would and alert a teacher of what happened, Lovino broke into a dash straight down the hallway. Backlit scarlet letters floated above a doorway closed off to the average rabble of students, its industrial door sporting a sign of "AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY."But at that moment, nothing mattered to Lovino then. Especially not mundane rules and regulations.

He would've ripped the door off its hinges had it not been reinforced with steel, or some other diamond-hard material as he slipped inside the extremely narrow stairwell, one path leading upward and the other leading downward. His decision was obvious: he thundered up the three flights of stairs that preceded a door sporting one word carved into its wood at eye level: "ROOF."

A gust of unseasonably chilly air twined around him as he admitted himself onto the roof of the four-story building, allowing the door to rest back in its frame by gravity's work. He padded straight over to the edge of the building, though he didn't bother to spare a glance downward: no use in scaring yourself if you know you're at least a little bit afraid of heights.

His hand jammed in his pocket and clutched the phone that he had saved up to purchase years ago, in the months after he had found out that he had been accepted to this godforsaken prep school. He held it up to his face and examined its surface, tracing every little nick and scratch that had unintentionally been etched into its plastic visage before gazing out over the various rooftops of the buildings in the immediate vicinity of the relatively petite campus. She left me for that sonuvabitch.

A novel, liquid-hot burst of rage cracked over Lovino's head as that single thought rung in the vacant space of his mind, beat across his eardrums and resonated in his ear canals; he abandoned rational thought and control and allowed that tempered anger to consume him, electrifying the blood pumping through his veins as his arm staggered back before thrusting out, the hand that held his cell phone opening into the crystalline air of a dying spring.

He didn't spare a glimpse down to watch his cell phone plummet to the slate pavement below as charcoal storm clouds bumped together overhead, a premature peal of thunder rattling the air around him. That was the only warning he got before the sky proverbially unfolded itself—Heaven was probably visible for a split second—as a shower of rain stormed the face of earth, blitzkrieg perfected.

He lifted his face to the onslaught of rain overhead, teary raindrops splattering against his forehead, across his cheeks, matting auburn hair streaked with the sun's gold to his face and the back of his neck. It was impossible to tell if it was only the rain that trailed across his cheeks, or if his own tears mingled with the natural wetness. He knew he needed somebody at that moment as the muscles in his legs, toned from countless football practices, completely buckled and gave out, knees colliding with the grainy cement of the roof underfoot. The rain's deafening patter masked the gentle footsteps that should have echoed out from behind Lovino if it were a clear day. But it wasn't.

He let his head fall forward as his hands flickered up, fingers pushing his hair back and carding through locks that he had forgotten to comb. He knew that he didn't have to stifle the choking sobs that resonated deeply in his chest and throat, mingling with that same screechy quality that sometimes underlay his voice: he thought he was alone, and he thought that no one would hear his feminine weakness.

But he was wrong.

A pair of sinewy arms curled around his midsection from behind—he could feel the forte cadence of another's heart thumping against his trembling back, a stranger's body heat transferred to him, ridding the figurative icicles that he could've sworn had already formed on the ends of his fingers. A hand abandoned Lovino's head to rest upon the bare, tanned forearms that barred across the expanse between stomach and chest. "Lovi, sweet Lovi… you're not meant to cry."

The moderate timbre of the other's voice that seemed to embody the energy and warmth of the very sun… Lovino could picture the teenager standing before him, complete with tousled chocolate hair and eyes that shone like faceted emeralds, complementing an easygoing pearly smile…

Antonio.

It was Antonio behind him, holding him in a way that only a lover would. It was Antonio, the blissfully oblivious Spanish kid that forced his way into Lovino's life…

It was Antonio that he needed. And it was the very same Antonio that was here for him now.

But, being the Lovino that he was, he wasn't used to this kind of closeness. Not even Bella was this close with him, her touches were never this sincere or loving. He could feel the affection that wafted from the Spaniard in waves, something that he couldn't recall happening at any time in his previous relationship. So he reacted in the only way that he could, the only way he knew: defensively.

"G-Get away from me, bastard, you're not supposed to see me like this," he stated gruffly, though the conviction in his voice wavered halfway through the sentence.

"But I'm not looking at you, Lovi," Antonio simply reciprocated; Lovino couldn't tell if the tightening he felt around his midsection was intentional or just reflex from his friend.

"That's not the p-point! Just go away, Antonio… go be like everyone else and i-ignore me. You're not doing yourself any favors b-being… my friend… being up here with me. So go."

"But I like to be your friend, and I want to! You're the only one that's like me, in a way. I'm not letting you go, Lovi. Not that easily! …Not for the world. Turn around and face me. Please." Though his voice was calm and soothing, there was a firmness behind it that Lovino couldn't bring himself to argue with.

He complied, straightening only for a moment to pivot, coming face-to-face with the ever-happy Antonio; he wore his usual smile, though it had dimmed by a few watts. But that wasn't what stole away Lovino's words.

It was Antonio's eyes, the emotion that lingered there, trapped within peridot prisons, that really got him. He could read the sadness that gamboled within Antonio's irises as if the word was printed upon them, he could see it reflected within the flecks of infinitesimal gold that he had never noticed before. All Lovino knew, in that first moment of meeting Antonio's gaze, was that he didn't ever want to see his friend sad like he was now.

Sad over him, no less.

"Antonio… how—"

Said teenager held up a finger and pressed it to Lovino's lips. "I saw what happened in the hallway. I followed you up here. Sorry… but I couldn't let you go like that! You… Lovi, you mean too much to me. It hurts me to see you hurt. So I want to be the one to make you happy again."

From the corner of his periphery Lovino noticed his beat-up backpack perched to Antonio's right, done up as if he had never dropped it. He could discern the jut of heavy textbooks from the way the fabric conformed to them, could even see the corner of one sticking out from a piece of duct tape that had rolled back from loss of adhesive. Antonio picked up his books when he had dropped them. He had brought them up here himself.

His attention was forced back to Antonio, as the other uncurled his arms from around the narrow-framed Lovino, hands flickering up to the Italian's face and cupping it; Lovino wanted to nuzzle into Antonio's hands, warmth whispered across his frigid cheeks, but he steeled himself. He was frozen, eyes bulging as he watched Antonio lean closer to him and claim his lips.

Antonio had kissed him.

The gesture in itself was innocent enough—if Lovino were twelve, he wouldn't have thought anything of it, just an experiment or whatever word he could think of to call it. But he wasn't twelve. He was seventeen, in his third year out of four of high school, and Antonio had stolen his first kiss. A boy.

He never really thought of himself as gay before, and even now, as he caught Antonio's half-mast eyes and studied their luminescence, seeming to glow even in the pouring rain, he didn't consider himself that. Slanderous social titles meant nothing to him. He always felt that sexuality didn't define a person, and this belief he stuck by.

Because, among other reasons, this felt good.

It felt right to be kissed by Antonio, his closest friend. His only friend in the haze of preppy, upper-class teenagers carted off to the Academy. The only one that cared enough to tail him up three flights of stairs to the roof, without a second thought to the vast amount of trouble that they would be in upon returning downstairs. The only one who would pretty up the world on a platter for Lovino and flash him a smile like it was nothing.

He was the only one that really loved him.

This fact hovered smack in front of Lovino's face as he watched the sadness filter out of Antonio's eyes; the other pulled away after a moment, his entire face alight, brighter than he had ever seen the Spaniard. A whimper built in Lovino's throat, but he forced it away: he couldn't whimper at a time like this. He couldn't ask for more, because it would be too soon.

"Lovino Vargas, I love you."

And instead of retorting with something sardonic that he probably didn't mean as he usually would, he threw his arms around Antonio's midsection, buried his face into a toned chest and leant forward out of his crouch until he was half-laying on his friend.

"Antonio, I… g-god dammit, I love you too."

Antonio's arms encircled him in response, hooked underneath his knees and shoulders and held him steadfast against his body before he stood out of his stoop.

"Don't leave me alone, Antonio."

The gentle Spaniard cast his gaze down at the soaked Italian in his arms, complete adoration and infatuation embodied within the smile that piqued the corners of his mouth, exposing a well-concealed dimple that perched at the peak of his cheek.

"You'll never be alone again, mi poco."

Fin.