"Italy-san would you like to come over to my home this summer? I wanted to repay you for your kindness when you invited me over last summer. Thank you Italy-san. I will see you in a week Italy-san. Good bye." Kiku set the phone down and let out a little sigh. Though he rarely showed his emotions on the outside, anyone would probably be able to tell he was either stressed or nervous. In all honesty though, he was feeling a bit of both. Normally he had his emotions under control, but when he was around Italy…. Well, it was a different story.
Kiku hoped to tell Feliciano how he felt while Feliciano was staying at his home, but things weren't looking very good and Feliciano hadn't even arrived at his home. How could Kiku tell Feliciano? Kiku was already bad enough at showing his emotions or telling people how he felt and now he was going to try and confess and ask Feliciano out? This really wasn't going to end well.
A knock on the door alerted Kiku to the fact that Feliciano had finally arrived. Half of Kiku was extremely excited and the other half wanted to scream in fear… not out loud though. Taking a calming breath, Kiku cleared his face of emotion and opened the door calmly.
"Hello Italy-san. Please come inside," Kiku said with a small smile as he stepped out of the way for Feliciano. When the bubbly Italian walked through the door Kiku closed it quietly behind.
Feliciano walked inside a little bit before turning around and saying, "Ve~ Kiku I told you to call me Feliciano! We're friends so you don't need to call me Italy. We're not here on business either so let's just have some fun and eat some pasta like humans. We can talk about girls we like or share recipes or go and look around. I'm sure you know all the best spots to watch the pretty girls go by!"
Kiku nodded just a slight bit and felt his heart sink a bit. So all Feliciano was interested in was cooking and girls while he was over. Well, that was okay with Kiku. As long as Kiku got to spend time with Feliciano he was happy even if the other wasn't interested in him. After all, not everyone got to spend time with someone like Feliciano.
"I don't know about the girls It- Feliciano-san, but I would be happy to show you some of the recipes I know. I have a few for making ramen that I think you would enjoy since it involves pasta," Kiku said with a tiny smile. Cooking would be relaxing and quite fun for the two of them. That, and it would keep Kiku from having to see Feliciano eyeing girls.
One enthusiastic nod from Feliciano later and Kiku was in the kitchen getting out the ingredients for making the ramen. Perhaps Kiku would be able to impress the other a little by cooking something that involved pasta.
Once the ramen was finished being cooked, Kiku set up the table for them to eat together while Feliciano dished out proportions for the both of them onto two separate plates. With those two tasks done, the two finally sat down at the table together in relative silence. It was calm and kind of nice.
It took a minute for Kiku to gather up the courage, but eventually he opened his mouth to ask Feliciano what he thought of him. Unfortunately for Kiku, Feliciano also chose that moment to start running his mouth about something else entirely.
"You have to give me the recipe to the ramen so I can make it for Ludwig sometime! Oh and then you can come over and help and we'll have a big party by the beach and go swimming just like that one time and then I can show you how to make sand castles and then Ludwig will yell at us to train more and it'll be just like the old times together. And maybe afterwards we can walk around and talk to pretty girls," Feliciano said quickly.
After that it was a pretty steady stream of talking from the excitable Italian which was both maddening and relieving for Kiku. On one hand it was good because now there would be no awkward silences, but on the other hand it was a little sad that Kiku hadn't been able to ask Feliciano especially after he had gotten the courage to say something. But, no one ever said life was fair. Maybe he and Feliciano weren't meant to be.
It had been a week since Feliciano had come over and Kiku still had yet to say anything or make a move. Was it really that hard to ask someone you've known for years on a date? Well, yes it was very hard especially for someone who had randomly decided that isolation themselves for years was a good idea a few years back. But, Kiku had to remain strong and get through it. Otherwise he'd never be able to tell Feliciano. Though, Kiku was running into the issue of how to ask the Italian.
So, Kiku did the only logical thing; he called Ludwig for help.
Feliciano was in the bed room sleeping while Kiku was out in the kitchen trying to form some sort of plan. That was when Kiku decided to call Ludwig for help. After all Ludwig and Feliciano had been allies for a long time and had been friends for a long time as well. Who would know the Italian better than his best friend?
Calling up Ludwig, Kiku tried to swallow down his nervousness and embarrassment. It was going to be bad enough to open his emotions up to one person, but now he was going to have to share his feelings with another person to get advice on how to tell the first person how he felt.
"Ah, konnichiwa Germany-san. I have a question I wanted to ask you about Italy-san, but I wasn't sure if you would be okay to answer it. But I would really like your help so I guess I'll just as-" Kiku said, quickly being cut off by the German on the other end.
"Japan you are aware of the fact that it is four in the morning in Germany correct?"
"I apologize Germany-san. The difference of our time zones had escaped my mind, but since Italy-san had finished eating and gone to sleep I figured now would be the best time to call. I apologize for waking you up Germany-san. I will let you sleep now," Kiku said, feeling his embarrassment rise. Had he really been so careless as to not think of the time before calling Ludwig?
A sigh could be heard from over the phone. "It doesn't matter anymore Japan. I'm up anyway. Now, what about Italy?"
Calming down a bit, Kiku answered before he could lose the courage to do so, but in his slightly flustered state he failed to notice that a certain Italian had woken up and was now listening to Kiku's half of the conversation.
"Well, you see Germany-san, I am not very good at expressing my feelings so I needed your advice on how to ask Italy-san on a…" Kiku trailed of a bit, still too nervous to say it out loud.
"Date?"
Kiku took in a sharp breath, not expecting Ludwig to say exactly what he had been thinking. "Hai. I want to ask Italy-san on a date, but I do not know how to do so. And you two are very close so I was hoping you could give me advice. Or tell me if Italy-san is even-"
"Gay? Japan he is Italian and was raised by his grandfather Rome. I'm fairly certain that he swings both ways. As for asking him on a date just ask him. The idiot is so oblivious that any other method will only confuse him. Do it somewhere romantic and try to show your feelings when you tell him. If you do that it should go over well."
"Alright. Thank you Germany-san. I will try and ask him tomorrow night. I will let you go to sleep again. Sorry for calling so late," Kiku said before hanging up the phone. If he followed Ludwig's advice he would be able to do it. Running through a plan in his head a few times, Kiku failed to notice Feliciano sneaking back to the bedroom.
It had been four days since Kiku had spoken with Ludwig and Feliciano was growing restless about it. So one day he decided that he was going to give Kiku a little bit of help. First though he had to get rid of Kiku for a while.
"Kiku we're out of flour and I want to make pasta!" Feliciano yelled from the kitchen.
Kiku walked into the room and looked around a few cabinets for a bit before finding some flour. "Feliciano-san we have flour right here."
Feliciano huffed a bit and pointed at Kiku with the whisk he was using to cook. "But that's not the right kind of flour! Isn't there a store around here that has the right kind of flour to make the pasta I'm making?"
Kiku gave a slight nod before getting out a piece of paper and a pen. He handed them to Feliciano and calmly said, "Write down the exact kind of flour you want and I'll go get it. I needed to get a few things from the store."
Nodding back at the other, Feliciano wrote down some sort of nonsense flour brand and handed the paper to Kiku before all but shoving the Japanese man out of the door. And with Kiku gone, Feliciano quickly set his plan in motion.
Once Kiku returned home, Feliciano was nowhere to be found and he wasn't answering his cell phone either. Just as Kiku began to panic or listen to the quiet voices telling him the Feliciano had just left, Kik found a note on the counter addressed to him from Feliciano. The note had detailed directions to a park that was pretty close to where Kiku lived. And the note told Kiku that Feliciano would be waiting there for him.
It was very odd, but Kiku didn't see the harm in playing Feliciano's game if it would please the Italian. Putting his coat back on, Kiku quickly went out the door and headed to the park.
Getting to the park was the easy part; following the directions to get to Feliciano was a different story. Looking all around, Kiku couldn't find any sight of the bubbly Italian. Feeling slightly discouraged by not being able to find Feliciano, Kiku was about ready to just give up and go home, but as he rounded a corner he bumped into someone, knocking both himself and the other person over.
"Oh I am very sorry I should have watch where I was go- Feliciano-san?" Kiku said, noticing that he was partly lying on top of the person he had been looking for.
"Ve~ Hi Kiku! It took you a long time to find me so I think the pasta's all cold now, but I think it will taste good anyway! But you have to get off of me first," Feliciano said with a happy grin that reached his eyes all the way through.
Kiku blushed a bit and quickly got off of Feliciano. "I am sorry for bumping into you Feliciano-san, but I don't understand why I had to come all the way out here to eat pasta with you."
Laughing a bit, Feliciano grabbed Kiku's hands gently before kissing the shorter man on the cheek. "Because it's a date! I hear you talking to Ludwig on the phone and decided that it was taking you too long to ask me so I'd ask you."
Kiku's eyes went wide for a second as his face turned a light pink and he tried to think of something to say. "I- I didn't know you actually liked me Feliciano-san…."
Feliciano laughed a little bit once again before quietly saying, "To be honest Kiku I've liked you for a long time now, so will you please go out with me?"
"Hai!"
And with that Feliciano pulled Kiku into a gentle kiss as a start to a budding relationship.
Author's Notes: Hi! Sorry to everyone waiting for me to update my other stories, but a friend of my really wanted a fluffy ItaPan fic because all the ones she found involved Italy being insane so I wrote her this! I apologize if they're out of character. This is the first time I've written Japan or Italy... and I don't really write fluff very often so I hope it turned out okay! By the way while I was writing about 3/4s of this fic I listened to Tiptoe Through the Tulips by Tiny Tim about 58 times on repeat non-stop. Anyway, please review if you can!
Kiku = Japan
Feliciano = Italy
Ludwig = Germany