Parade.

10 years.

Ludwig watched ten years being buried in the ground, wood cased cabinet in a silk lined coffin slowly lowered into the dirt. Silence that was hushing the grounds, broken only by strangled sobs and angry sniffles, despair and agony hanging like a drape over the graveyard. Over the crowd that had gathered, too many to fit under the huge tent, sobbing and sniffling, unable to tell the rain from salty tears.

He stood at the back, his hair and rented tux getting soaked and he had long lost feeling in his toes, fake leather shoes swimming and squelching on the wet grass. He wasn't crying.

The service had been long and emotional, the priest tearing up a little as he spoke of Feliciano's bright spirit and love for the world, of his paintings and his smile and the grand future he would have had in art and in cooking. How his beautiful personality brought everyone in, made everyone smile. Relatives had broken into fits of sobs, throwing themselves onto the coffin and crying out in Italian about the unfairness of the world, the cruelness of reality.

Schoolmates and acquaintances showed up for the preservice but had left by now, they had stood stony faced in the back with Ludwig, each one shedding a sympathetic tear or two, sharing their thoughts about death before herding themselves away to go write emotional poems about their personal issues. A life experience gained, and nothing more.

But Ludwig had stayed, grounding himself to the spot. Even now when relatives were huddling under black umbrellas and hunching down to waiting cars and taxi's, Ludwig stayed standing in the back. Nodding at those who nodding to him, shuffling out of the way of hysterical aunts and staggering cousins, wide and puffy-eyed with grief.

He stayed.

But he was not the only one.

What a terrible tragedy, awful really. Too bad it wasn't the other one, really.

Feli was going so far, why wasn't it him instead.

It should have been you! It shouldn't have been him, it should have been you!

He sat on the last foldable, metal chair in the first row, eyes staring as the coffin was lowered into the ground. Deep brown eyes dull, the usual passion and ire lost, or dulled, in the rainy Tuesday morning.

For the first time in over an hour, Ludwig moved his aching joints and felt his socks squelch in the ground as he walked down the makeshift aisle created by the chairs, sitting down a chair away from the other guest, following his gaze in silence. Listening to the patter of the rain.

"I thought you might come, potato bastard."

Ludwig didn't move.

"Skipping school?" He chuckled, without humor. "How unlike you."

"I have no classes today." His voice was harsh, he had hardly spoken all day. "Are you still in school?"

He snorted "I graduated last year, dipshit. Just waiting on my Yale acceptance letter." Sarcasm dripped from his tongue and if Ludwig didn't know any better, he wouldn't notice any difference at all from those years in middle school and high school, growing up together.

"College isn't for everyone."

"Yeah, someone has to make the little end pieces on shoelaces."

"Aglets." Ludwig corrected, hating himself as soon as he said it. "It's called an aglet."

He waited for a beat before bursting into a fit of too-loud giggles, finally prying his eyes away from the coffin to look at him. His lips stretched into a grin, but his eyes still dull to the core. Lovino Vargas was not okay.

"It's just fucking like you to know that isn't it... Jesus." He sat back, slouching against his chair. The funeral organizers were starting to take down the tent, giving them pointed looks they both chose to ignore.

"Everyone should know that."

"Everyone should know that you have a fucking tree stuck up your ass." Lovino glared at a man folding the chair's around them. "College boy."

"If I'm college boy, you're aglet bitch."

Lovino snorted out a laugh, "God, college has made you an absolute ass."

"I learned from the best."

"Damn right."

Ludwig stood, not wanting to be here any longer, the tension was suffocating. "Do you want to get a coffee?"

"Only if it's a beer."

Ludwig shrugged, his lips turning upwards. "At 10:30?"

"The only time you need a beer." He countered and stood. The rain was heavier now, and Ludwig could tell Lovino's shoes were soaked too. All the way down to the non matching socks and too expensive shoes.

Ludwig wondered why they suddenly got along so well, without Feliciano there to calm the turbulent waters of their 'almost friendship' but he guessed it was out of necessity. Two outcasts; One who couldn't feel anything from music and found books more interesting than clubs and half naked girls and the other who chose to hate when everyone else loved to love.

Maybe it hurt more to be alone.

"You know," Lovino said as they slipped and skidded down the grassy path to the Volkswagen Ludwig's parents had bought him for his 20th birthday. "I still really hate you."

Maybe he, really, had no idea.

"I know."

Why I did this? Who knows... May be a sequel. I was just in a mood.

Enjoy anyway...