Lovino doesn't remember ever being this cold. He never really remembered the feeling of a chill seeping into his bones, freezing his skin, and making the sheer action of breathing hurt. And it did hurt, immensely so.
The cold was something Lovino Vargas was never used to before.
He was born and raised in Italy, where it's usually really warm. In fact he still is in Italy. The thing that's changed is the season. It's January, and the streets are frozen at some spots, and there's snow fluttering through the air, dancing to no music. Perhaps it's music is the sound of car honks, people passing around, those bells from shops as the door opened.
Maybe the snowflakes danced for a shivering boy.
Lovino's caramel glazed eyes ran over the brightly lit shops, watching people swarm over them, each picking over an object, turning it around. A toy, a chocolate, a picture frame. Each had a different object, a different something special.
They all looked so warm.
"Fuck this." He whispered softly, and wrapped his arms tighter around his frame. His feet felt heavy, and his toes were numb. The puffs of air coming from his lips were nothing more than misty clouds, dancing over his cold, cold lips. Lovino was cold.
His shoulders were shivering, and he couldn't make another stop. Not another step. So he dropped on a bench in front of a coffee shop, his head hanging low. Cold.
His fingers curled, clutching the thin fabric of his shirt. They were slowly turning blue, and Lovino felt icy pain lace into them as they were growing cold. His cheeks were flushed red from the cold, his eyes half lid.
People didn't care. They passed beside the boy who was freezing, shivering, even rocking a little bit to get warm. Anything to get warm. When he tried to get in a shop, people pushed him out, saying they didn't want any 'nasty rats' in their shops.
The tears in his eyes could turn into ice if Lovino didn't stop blinking. Cold. Lonely.
Loneliness is like cold. At first it hurts, it hurts like nails on the chalkboard, sending shivers down your spine, then it starts to stab, those phantom jabs of pain. Then it starts to make you numb and distant. Nothing interests you anymore. You stop caring at that point, and your cold becomes your shell.
You're freezing from the inside but no one cares.
He was ready to give up then. To give in. He was thrown out on the street, without even a jacket or a decent pair of shoes, by his own Grandfather. Because Lovino didn't want to go to Art School. He outright refused to. He knew he had no special talent in art, his art always came out like a piece of shit. It was his brother that was Art School material. not Lovino.
Lovino was raw, words on a paper, pouring his heart out by words, showing the blackness and the brightness of his soul. He was Words.
But that wasn't the art that was approved by the Vargas family. Music yes, but not words. And to come his senses, his own Grandfather pushed him out, making the young Italian wander through the streets to freeze unless he decides to back down and go to that art school. And be miserable. Oh so miserable.
"Oh dear, you're completely blue!" A voice came to his frozen ears, a voice filled with warmth, sunshine. A voice that, if it were a person, would be running through the fields, and leaping over hills. It would be a voice of savior, of an Angel.
But the next thing came as a shock. A warm, almost heavy jacket crashed over his shoulders and someone got on their knees before him.
Lovino's eyes widened a little to land upon the eyes which were as bright as the afternoon soon, sparkling like the warm sunny day when the cold was the last thing on his mind. His eyes were green, warm green, and Lovino believed they alone brought heat into the cold tissue that he was made of.
The other wrapped his fingers over Lovino's fingers, who were still desperately clutching onto his hands. The warmth came as an electrical shock, it went straight through his skin, through his tissue, through his bones. It was surging warmth, warming him up, making him relax a little, as the warmth started to slowly settle into his body as the man fixed the jacket around him, making sure it covered the younger boy.
"Why are you out on this cold? Oh dear, come on, come on, let's get something warm in you! Can you stand?" The man's voice was borderline frantic, as he tried to warm the biting cold boy up.
"I.." His voice was broken with the ice that seemed to clutter his lungs, it's frost stretching in the inner of his organs.
"You? Oh, if it hurts, you don't have to talk. C'mon, kiddo.." He gently helped him, letting him lean on him, as he carefully helped him into the nearby coffee shop.
Lovino leaned against the other, his unfocused eyes on the other's face, watching the smooth features which seemed to be ridden with fear and worry. Worry over a stranger. Who knew actual goodness, actual kindness existed in the world which was colder than the Arctic, where everything revolved of the stillness and bitterness of the winter?
And with the help of the young man, Lovino stepped from the numbing cold to the glowing warmth.