After a long, gruelling year of God knows how many re-writes, losses of inspiration and motivation, here is your sequel to Ti Amo, Insegnante. Yes, this is also MewMewRadish, the girl who wrote that story. I only changed my pen-name today XD Anyway, please enjoy :)
Disclaimer: Still don't own Hetalia.
Rain thundered down outside the café, rattling the windows as it hit them. The sky was gloomy and grey, perfectly matching the atmosphere inside the building. The lights were dim, the walls and furniture a deep, oak brown, giving the entire café a miserable aura, which reflected in the emptiness of it. There were only 3 people in the café; a young barista, cleaning tea cups, and hoping for at least a little more business in this dreadful weather; a lone student who sat at the back, brightly coloured headphones covering his ears, studying, while bobbing his head to the sound of Iron Maiden, the faint buzz of which could be heard throughout the silent café. The last person was a man of Aryan descent, sitting alone at a table at the front of the café, next to the window. He occasionally glanced up at the clock on the wall, taking sips of his coffee between those glances, but otherwise, his amethyst eyes were fixated on the street outside. As the time ticked on, nearing to 2 o'clock, he appeared to become incredibly fidgety and anxious, his eyes darting from the clock to the street more frequently, his body shifting in his seat every so often, and his breathing becoming a little louder and a tad erratic. He took deep breaths to calm himself, shaking as he did so, the butterflies in his stomach going wild.
Calm down, Ludwig, acting like this isn't going to help at all, he thought. He promised he would see you again all those years ago. You have nothing to worry about.
Despite all of his positive thinking though, he couldn't find it in himself to calm down. His hand made its way to his forehead, massaging his temples as he sighed again. There was no point in denying it- he was worried. What if he didn't show up? What if he did? What if he had found another...?
No.
He couldn't afford to think like that. Feliciano wasn't one to break promises, especially not to those he held dear to his heart. Ludwig only hoped that still applied to himself.
As he looked out into the rainstorm again, his mind wandered to thinking about the boy. He wondered how much he would have changed since he last saw him. Not too much, he hoped, but there were bound to be some differences. Feliciano was 16 the last time he saw him, and people, teenagers especially, changed a lot in two years.
His eyes shifted to the clock again.
2:03
The knot in his stomach tightened.
Oh, for God's sake, calm down! So what if he didn't arrive at exactly 2 o'clock, since when does anyone?
His eyes remained stuck on the clock after that. He watched as the hand slowly drew nearer and nearer to 5 past, then 10 past, and before he knew it, the hand marked the time as half past 2. Ludwig's head now rested entirely in his hands.
I knew he wouldn't show up. He must hate me for what happened all those years ago. I would. It's probably for the better that he ignored my message.
He looked up, and stared blankly into his cup, chewing on his lip idly as he did. It was time to move on with his life, and stop worrying about the boy who was once his student. It wouldn't be easy, but he had to try. Well, try harder than he had for the last two years anyway. The two years since that day...
Feliciano hummed softly as he sat upon Ludwig's desk, swinging his legs and holding his hand. He sat and watched the blond teacher mark some test papers, quite content doing so, rather than wait outside in the freezing wind. Meanwhile, Ludwig was also content with his position. He had no objections to the boy sitting with him at lunch, so long as he didn't bother him, which happened more frequently than it should have.
"Ve~ Ludwig, have you marked my paper yet? Did I do well?"
The German looked up to the smiling face of Feliciano, and he raised an eyebrow to him. It had become somewhat of a ritual for him to mark the Italian's paper first, if only because it gave him more time whilst marking the rest to think of a way to berate him for his low mark. Today was no exception of that.
"Feliciano, since when do you ever do well in my tests?"he asked, a small smirk adorning his strong features. "No matter how much help I give you, you never really improve."
The boy ignored him and swung his legs more quickly, his voice more insistent and whiny, "Ludwig! What did I score?"
He sighed and rolled his eyes, his smirk remaining.
"48%,"he said. "Nearly half marks, and certainly the closest you've come to it, but you've still got a long way to go to catch up with everyone else."
"Hey!"he pouted, lightly slapping his arm. "I can't help it if German is a hard language! And it's so rough too... not like Italian! It's so romantic, and it rolls off the tongue so well-"
The Aryan man let out a deep, growly chuckle, removing his reading glasses and setting them down next to his abandoned pen. He squeezed Feliciano's hand and looked up at him, into his rich, gleeful eyes. He returned the gaze, beaming widely.
"On the contrary, I could say the same thing about Italian,"he began. "It's far too soft, and it's hardly good for making anyone take orders seriously. My language, on the other hand-"
Feliciano cut him off with a quick kiss, giggling profoundly.
"Okay, okay, we'll call it even, yes?"
The teacher's smirk broadened into a small smile as he tugged at his student's tie, pulling it out of his jumper and hooking it around his fingers. His eyes scanned down to the tip of the tie, and up to the owner's face, flickering quite noticeably to his lips. He pulled him in close with the tie, their foreheads and noses meeting, their breaths mingling.
"Depends on what you mean by 'call it even'."
As the young Italian had dived in to kiss the blond, the two remained unaware of the presence peeking in through the windows of the door.
"Oh, this will not do,"they grinned slyly. "This will not do at all..."
If only he hadn't been so foolish, maybe they wouldn't have been caught. It had been Ludwig himself who had put restrictions on their interactions during school time as well, and it was his fault for not upholding them. He had been in full knowledge that the windows in his classroom door allowed anyone passing in the hall to see straight to his desk, yet his heart had gotten the better of him. The only just managed to tear their mouths apart as the headmaster had strode into the classroom. Truthfully, they could have made anyone believe that they were truly doing nothing, and that their tell-tale was simply telling lies, what with their immaculate clothing and hair, but with such short notice before the intrusion, neither had noticed the thin string of saliva connecting their lips. Shortly afterwards, they found themselves in the head's office, Feliciano's parents on one side of the room, a police officer on the other.
He cringed at the memory of it all. He had used his right to remain silent as Feliciano fought fiercely against everyone else, trying to convince them that he hadn't been taken advantage of, and that Ludwig loved him. The look of despair in his eyes as he had made no attempt to back him up had nearly broken his heart, but he was in too much shock, too ashamed of himself to try and fight back. All he could think about was himself, what was going to happen to him. He would certainly lose his job and Feliciano, but what else? Would he be arrested? Taken to court? Publicly humiliated as a pedophile? That wasn't even the right terminology for someone Feliciano's age...
After about 3 hours inside the office, the deal had been made. Feliciano had managed to make his parents believe that he hadn't had sex with, or been raped by Ludwig, thus avoiding them taking legal action in court. That wasn't the worst of it though. The officer had handed him a caution, and taken him to the station, forcing him to allow them records of himself, just so they could keep an eye on him. As expected, his job was gone, and he was given the instructions that he was not to see or contact Feliciano in any way, until he was 18.
The first few weeks after that had been truly dark. He managed to find himself a poorly-paid job as a mechanic for a struggling garage, and with the police records on his resume, he took what little he was offered. It only took a few months before he was forced to relocate too, into a small apartment with faulty heating, having not been able to keep up with rent or bills. He had soon settled into his new life, and before he knew it a year and a half had passed, a year and a half of him doing the same routine thing, day in and day out. It was then that his eccentric brother had decided to pay him a visit, dragging his 'awesome self' over from Germany to see him. Needless to say, it hadn't gone down very well. Gilbert had been frankly appalled at how he'd come to live so badly, and after unsuccessfully lying to him, he had been forced to explain the whole ordeal from the beginning. He had expected his brother to push him away after that, tell him that he was disgusting and no relative of his, but he'd been completely thrown off guard by his true reaction. To this day, he couldn't actually believe if the remorse he had seen in his sibling's bloody red eyes was true, or him over-reacting.
An 'awesome' pep-talk in love and the promise of money being sent to support him from Gilbert later, and Ludwig felt revitalised, and with a happier outlook on life than he had had in nearly two years. Slowly but surely, with the help of the money from Gilbert, he managed to get himself back on his feet. He moved into an apartment that was even better than what his first had been, he earned himself a huge promotion and pay-rise, and was currently helping to turn the once-failing company into something that could rake in the cash. That was when he decided, with two months left until Feliciano's 18th birthday, to contact him, despite what he'd been told, to ask to meet him at a café. He had included the place, time, and specifically the date- the day after he legally became an adult. After that, his life simply became a waiting game. Waiting for his birthday to arrive. Anxiously waiting for his birthday to arrive. He had spent a long time thinking about this day, and it was finally upon him, and that brought his story up until now.
2:45
With one last, resigned sigh, he threw down some spare change to pay his bill and stood up, his umbrella in his hand.
I guess he really has moved on then, he thought dejectedly. I suppose it's time for me to do the same, then.
The barista called a tired "Come again!" to him as he put up his umbrella and left the café, his eyes glued to the gloomy sky. The grey clouds seemed to roll on forever, save for one small break in them, where the sun shone through behind him. Blue sky was barely visible between it, and he could have done with some cheery blue sky. There was no point moping over his former student. That would certainly get him nowhere, and he was a grown man, he had a life to continue living. He would surely find someone else-
"Oi, Feliciano, it's down here!"
Ludwig froze in his tracks at the heavily accented sentence. That voice sounded awfully familiar to him...
"Dude, he's right, this is the one!"
Another heavily accented voice, that also sounded so familiar... an English and an American accent... it couldn't be... could it?
"Oh, thank goodness! I thought we'd never find it! I hope he's still here and that I'm not too late..."
Ludwig spun around, just managing to keep hold of his umbrella in his anticipation. An Italian accent. That really could only be one person.
"Feliciano..."
He spoke too softly for the boy to hear, but he cared not. Simply being able to see him again was amazing enough for Ludwig, and he hadn't it in him to suppress the relieved, joyful smile that broke out across his face.
Feliciano had grown taller for sure, his figure slightly lankier than he remembered. His face had sharper features too, a well-defined chin and less dozy eyes. His hair was a little longer, going down his neck at the back, clinging to his cheeks at the front, at that one curl still sprang out, as always.
If he had thought of him as cute beforehand, he was beautiful now. A handsome young man that any man or woman would be proud to have on their arm.
The two behind him appeared to be Arthur Kirkland and Alfred Jones. Why he would be hanging around with his former bullies was beyond Ludwig, but surely that would be a story he would find out later. For now, his love was waiting.
"Are you sure this is the right place, Alfred?"Arthur asked, his face pressed up against the glass of the window. "He's not here. I don't see him anywhere."
"Yeah, dude! This is the only place around here called 'The Paper Moon'!"he replied, mimicking the British boy in his actions. "Well, shit, he really isn't here..."
Ludwig saw Feliciano's shoulders drop, and his eyebrows turn upwards in a look of despair.
"But he said to meet him here,"he began, ruffling a hand through his auburn hair. "I don't understand why he wouldn't keep a date... unless... unless I took too long, and he got tired of waiting..."
The two blonds shared pitiful glances, before rushing forward to him. Arthur put his arm around his shoulders, mumbling apologies to him, while Alfred simply rubbed his arm reassuringly.
"I'm sorry, lad... I'm sure you'll find him again though! We'll help too- right Alfred?"
"Yeah, of course! You totally loved him, you need to see him again! You've been waiting years for this!"
The young Italian smiled, nodding at the two of them. His arms moved up around both of them to rest on their shoulders and pulled them in close, in a hug of sorts.
"Grazie, grazie,"he said, his gaze shifting between the other two boys. "I'm sure I'll be able to find Ludwig soon, with you two helping me!"
The blond American in his grasp broke out into a large, toothy grin and clenched his fists determinedly.
"Come on, he can't have gotten far!"he cried. "I'm sure we'll be able to catch up with him if we split up now!"
It was at this point that Ludwig couldn't restrain himself much longer. Knowing the Feliciano had been coming for him, and was willing to search even after all this time re-ignited a blaze in his heart that he hadn't felt for years. With a deep breath to calm himself, he stepped forward and said, "You don't have to catch up. I'm right here."
The heads of the three boys shot around, wide eyed and gasping, breaking free from their embrace. Arthur smiled somewhat before grabbing Alfred and moving out of the way, leaving Ludwig and Feliciano to bide their time. The moment seemed to go on forever, the two staring, not speaking, just relishing in the luxury of seeing the one they loved again. Feliciano's head was a mess as he lost himself in those harsh cerulean eyes he loved so dearly, the eyes he thought he'd never see again. He longed to run his hands through the slicked back blond hair too, longer and a little darker than before, and feel the warmth the man had always possessed. All he could do for now was hold back and wait though. It wasn't his intention to scare the man.
"H-hello, Ludwig,"he stuttered. He felt like an idiot- two years, and that's all he can say? "It's been a while, si?"
"It has been a while, Feliciano,"Ludwig chuckled, taking slow strides towards him. "And knowing you, I was expecting a more... enthusiastic greeting that that..."
That was all he needed.
The next thing Ludwig knew, he found Feliciano racing towards him, and flinging his arms around him. His fingers dug into his coat at the back, holding him in place and cradling him as he rested his face into his chest. The Italian sighed deeply and shakily, and then breathed in, taking in everything about this man that he'd missed.
"Ti amo, Ludwig, ti amo."t
Ludwig's face lit up like he'd never known it could. He immediately dropped his umbrella, one arm slipped around the boy's lithe waist, the other buried in his hair, tilting his face up to meet his. Their eyes bore into each others as their foreheads met and their noses brushed, and slowly closed until their lips became re-acquainted in a careful yet passionate kiss.
As Ludwig pulled away, he kept their faces close. His eyes only briefly flickered to Alfred and Arthur, both standing with grins plastered on their faces and cuddling into each other, watching over Feliciano like loving parents. As his gaze shifted back his Italian, he was met with a heart-warming smile and a nudge on the nose, followed by a small giggle.
"Ti amo, insegnante."
His only hesitation before his reply was to match his smile as the rain poured down on them.
"Ich liebe dich auch, mein schüler."
I'm hoping you enjoyed that! Yes, I'll admit, it could've been better, but if you take a look at the note on the top of my profile you'll see what's going on with my writing style and my lack of time at the minute, and I do hope you can understand my situation.
I also want to clear up some things about Alfred and Arthur. I intended to include this in the story, but it would have ruined the flow at the end for Ludwig to ask why they were there. Basically, the two of them were dating in the first story, but were scared of what people would think, so kept quiet about it. When Feliciano came along, they were jealous of how he could openly show who he was and decided to pick on him for it. After Ludwig was fired, they felt bad about how they'd left him with literally no friends and befriended him themselves, and he accepted them for who they were, allowing them to talk if they ever felt down about anything. I think you can then take an educated guess what happened after all that :D
Anyway, for anyone who read Alone and in the Rain, there's a mention of it in my profile too, so please read about what's happening to it, and for anyone who read Imagine, I'm slowly working on the last part for it, so bear with me and it should be published soon uvu
Thank you for bearing with me all this time,
Imperial Revenge (formerly MewMewRadish)
