A.N. Written for prucan4evar in the Romerica Exchange 2.

Ugh, this is probably the first "happy" story I've written in my LIFE, and I worked really hard to kick away the angst, which kept trying to sneak into the plot line. Feel free to point out any grammar or spelling issues in this thing.

It was the fifth time this week. The fifth time Lovino had received one of those prank emails that he had been moving to his spam folder for the past two months.

The first time was no big deal. He had been a bit cautious since the sender wasn't an email address he recognized, but he ended up reading the message out of curiosity.

Hello, dis iz ur secret admirer ;)

What the hell was this? A shitty impersonation of a twelve-year-old's love confession?

Lovino had rolled his eyes and marked the message for deletion.

Then he had started getting texts, and papers were showing up near his belongings, and after he subdued his panic over having a stalker, Lovino managed to rationalize that no one in their right mind would ever fall for him.

The whole thing was clearly just an immature, obsessive prank. With all the bad grammar, cheesy pickup lines, and attempts at subtlety it clearly couldn't possibly be serious.

But seriously, what college student actually had time for this shit, genuine or not?

Lovino's first guess was Gilbert, one of his roommate's dumb friends. He seemed just the type to come up with such an elaborate scheme for no other reason than to cover up the fact he had no life. And he probably asked his nearly as obnoxious friend, Francis, to help with the stupid, perverted lines.

Such as the bit about how his eyes 'shone like molten gold in the sunlight', or how his 'bronzed skin resembled a field of wheat' and—and all that dumb shit! Lovino was better than that! As a literature major, he was hardly impressed by a couple cliché lines that clearly came from a young adult romance novel.

If the culprit was Gilbert, Lovino decided he wouldn't respond to the annoying influx of letters. Attention was exactly what that loser wanted, and showing any reaction—especially anger—would only encourage him. The only option was to continue each day like nothing had happened. That would show the jobless bastard.

So each morning Lovino moved the new letter he discovered to a temporary trash folder (he planned to store the huge group so he could delete them all at once…eventually), and then got prepared for the day.

Morning classes were hardly thrilling to begin with, and even worse when followed by an afternoon job. Still, at least Lovino had a few hours between class and work for a brief nap. His poor roommate, Antonio, always crawled out of bed far earlier than him, and then worked without break until much later.

Lovino might have felt sorry for him, but it was Antonio's fault for being such a fucking doormat. Come on, who else would willingly accept such a shitty time schedule? If he expected Lovino to feel sorry for him, he definitely didn't!

Lovino, on the other hand, prided himself in his lazy work ethic and sloppy performance. He knew how to stand up for himself. If anyone asked him to do something he didn't want to, he would respond with a definite 'NO' and maybe shoot them the middle finger for emphasis. Nothing could keep him at work longer than he needed to be.

Just then, his phone beeped. The irritated glare disappeared from his face once he saw it was a text from his friend and coworker, Belle.

Lovino, I'm so sorry! Something came up today and I need someone to cover my shift. I know you hate staying late, so if you don't want to it's fine. But I'd appreciate it so so much! :)

Lovino sighed as he began punching in his reply. No one could push him into doing anything he didn't want to, unless it was a pretty girl in need of his help.

And that was how he ended up slouched over the pizza counter in the university's dining hall at 7 p.m., one of its busiest hours. The thing Lovino hated most about evening hours was that most of the students were done with classes, and came to eat with their friends. This made the area crowded and noisy, clustered with groups of laughing students, and subsequently made his blood pressure rise.

Stupid kids, stupid food, stupid work.

Damn it, at least Belle had promised to cover one of his earlier shifts sometime. He was definitely taking a day off the next chance he got.

The only present solution he found was to glare at every student that walked by in hopes of dissuading them from his counter. There was plenty of other disgusting carb-ridden food found elsewhere in the dining hall, and those that were especially daring they could choose to venture to the salad bar.

Unfortunately, one particular diner seemed impervious to Lovino's death glare, not at all taking the hint when Lovino scoffed with distaste at his terrible fashion sense.

"Ooh, pizza!" he exclaimed, and trotted straight over.

The student lay both hands on the glass, pressing his face closer for a better view. All Lovino could think of was the extra wiping down he would do after to remove the sweaty palm stains.

Lovino cleared his throat. "Did you want something?"

His words seemed to snap the student's trancelike fixation towards the food. His eyes shot up to meet his, and Lovino quickly looked away. He didn't like eye contact to begin with, and maybe it was the intense blue of his eyes, but the gaze seemed to have lasted a little longer than necessary.

After a moment of scrutiny, the boy's face split into a smile. "Hey...hey, I know you!"

Lovino sure as hell didn't recognize him, so he merely sighed in exasperation. "Yeah, sure, hi. Cheese or pepperoni?"

"No, really! Lovino, right? Don't you remember me? I'm Alfred, the kid you would always yell at in middle school!"

Lovino rolled his eyes and shook his head.

"Aw, come on!" He persisted, insistently tapping his fingers against the glass. "You know—the kid in that class you TAed for! Damn, what was the teachers name. Um… I can't remember! It was English though. You graded our essays."

It didn't ring a bell at first, but then, as Lovino's eyes drifted up from the boy's plate of junk food topped with more junk food, he noticed the catchphrase shirt, the crooked glasses, and the electric blue eyes with eyebrows raised too high in excitement.

Alfred?

The spatula dropped from his fingers.

Oh shit!

Alfred was the clueless, scrawny loser he used to pick on in middle school. He was an idiot at English and Lovino got a kick out of writing obnoxiously rude and insulting notes on his essays. Only now he was tall. And big. And crap, were those muscles?

Alfred's grin spread wider. "Remember now? You also gave me an F on that paper I worked really hard on, but you were nice enough to change it to a D when I started crying!"

Lovino took a hasty step back. "I—I didn't mean it—I always thought you were a great—"

"But seriously," he was cut off, "it was so long ago, and now I'm a freshman! And you must be a junior! I've seen you around campus loads of times, but I never managed to catch you—you're pretty good at slipping away! It's great I finally found a chance to say hi!"

Oh god, was that a threat? That definitely sounded like a threat! Alfred's tone was jovial and sincere, but he doubted he would just drop everything from the past. For fuck's sake, five years ago Lovino had tried stuffing his head in a toilet! Granted, he ended up slipping on some toilet paper as he tried shoving Alfred into the stall, which ended up making the twerp laugh rather than cry—but his action was definitely full of ill intent and people didn't really let things like that go.

Alfred leaned his elbows on the counter, his fists clenched. "Man, those were some good times. Maybe we can catch up some time, alright?"

Lovino bobbed his head in a swift nod, stammering an agreement—anything to make him go away. He wouldn't start a fight in a cafeteria, right?

Lovino screeched as Alfred lunged forward…

…and reached for the fallen spatula? Before Lovino could sputter his protest, Alfred served himself a slice of cheese pizza, and then a slice of pepperoni, and then two pieces of garlic bread.

"You've got such a cool job though!" Alfred said. "I have no idea how you dining hall workers don't just end up eating all this stuff yourself!"

He raised one steaming slice of pizza to catch a dangling string of cheese in his mouth. He slurped it up with an obnoxious smack of the lips, and then wiped the grease off with the sleeve of his shirt.

Lovino was too shocked to respond with much more than a choked sound.

"Well, catch you later, dude."

Alfred shot him a crooked grin, and then spun around with his tray of precariously stacked food and shuffled towards the seating area.

It took a moment for Lovino to recompose himself, but when he did, he came to the realization that the Alfred he used to know hadn't changed at all.

He was still a huge fucking loser.

"Alfred."

Alfred's head jerked up. Though he rarely heard him speak, he instantly recognized the English TA's voice. "Hey, Lovino! What's up?"

Lovino's nose wrinkled with displeasure at being spoken to with such familiarity. He slapped a stack of papers down on his desk, spreading them out to reveal a series of red-scribbled notes. "You failed, again."

Alfred offered him an apologetic grin, but Lovino didn't seem amused.

"What the hell?" he snapped, smacking Alfred across the head when the teacher turned to the side. "Are you stupid? You had three chances to make up this paper!"

"…Sorry."

"No…shut up! You realize that each time you rewrite this I have to read it again, and deal with all your shitty mistakes a second time?"

Alfred nodded. "I really tried this time."

"Then you clearly need help," Lovino snorted, shoving the papers forward before stalking off.

As soon as he returned to his seat, Alfred shifted through the pages of his essay. Angry red marks decorated every corner. Words were crossed out, and several informal comments were splattered throughout the free space:

'This is such a dumb argument.'

'What the hell does this even mean?'

'You didn't even read the book, did you?'

Lovino was right. He hadn't read the book. Each time Alfred mentally prepared himself to finish the book ahead of time in order to finally impress Lovino, but a few pages in his brain would cry in protest and he would find himself playing video games with Kiku.

He took a deep breath, turning the paper around to stick it in his folder. Then he noticed the little drawing stuck on the back, where the teacher wouldn't see it. It was a sketch of a hand flipping him off, and then a spectacled figure—presumably himself—ducking away from another cartoon character.

Despite the oddly threatening gun in the other character's arms, the knot within Alfred's stomach melted away. He glanced back up, but Lovino was now glaring at a passage in his own advanced literature book and didn't notice.

Somehow, Alfred couldn't help but smile.

Lovino soon forgot about his encounter with Alfred. It appeared the morning shift was free of the pesky freshman, and after a few days he forgot the incident ever took place. Schoolwork and grades took greater priority over his life, and he was already struggling with that because of the intrusive emails that kept spamming his inbox.

It wasn't that the messages themselves were bad. It was the fact that despite his resolution to simply ignore the prankster, his curiosity would not subside, and his mind was constantly bubbling with thoughts on why someone spent so much of an effort trying to fool him.

Because the letters couldn't be sincere, right?

When Lovino woke up one morning, his dorm window pried open and a sheet of paper taped to his forehead, he decided he had reached his last straw.

Antonio's sleeping body was bundled up under the covers, enjoying his day off from work. But that wouldn't last long. Lovino would have body slammed Antonio's stomach if he wasn't worried about being held liable for broken ribs; instead, he seized his pillow, marched over, and whammed it into Antonio's face.

"Huh—wh-wha—?" Antonio jolted up, eyes groggy and unfocused. He threw his hands up as he was attacked again. "Lovino? What's wrong?"

"You know exactly what's wrong, bastard!"

"O-Ow! Hey, that isn't nice! If you're mad about the carpet, it was your turn to vacuum!"

"It's not the carpet—it's your stupid friends. Tell them to leave me alone!"

"Hnn? Were they bothering you again? You know they're just teasing." Antonio pulled himself up to a sitting position and rubbed his eyes. "What time is it? 8 AM? Dios."

"No, they're harassing me!" Lovino brandished the sheet of paper that had been taped to his forehead, and Antonio squinted to see it. "Look at this! I told you your friends can't intrude in here while I'm sleeping!"

"But Gil and Francis weren't even here last night, so it can't be them! Besides, what's so bad about a letter?"

"It's not just the letter!" he snarled. "It's the emails, the texts, the…the everything! All the fake love letters are getting old! Just tell them to stop!"

"Love letters? Lovino, I really don't think it's them! Francis prefers we go to his apartment, and Gilbert hasn't been around here for weeks! I hardly see him anymore because he's drowning in assignments. Engineer majors have it hard."

"Yeah right. I bet that's just Gilbert's excuse to cover up his lack of brains!"

Antonio sent him an admonishing frown. "Hey, that's not nice!"

Lovino probably should have apologized, at the very least for wrongly accusing Antonio's friends. However, he was presently more occupied with the fact that his two main suspects had been crossed out. Considering the fact he glared at nearly everyone who brushed past him, it shouldn't have been that surprising he had enemies he wasn't aware of.

It was a miracle Antonio didn't hate him, but maybe his brain was too dense to comprehend the emotion of anger. Even now, he was leaning forward with interest, completely neglecting the fact he had been forced out of bed at such an hour and then been wrongly accused.

Antonio pointed at the paper in his hand. "So what does the note say, anyway?"

Come to think of it, Lovino had never bothered to check. He had been so prepared to take his anger out on Antonio he forgot to read the actual message.

He pulled the paper away before Antonio could reach for it. The letters were all chunked together like a kindergartener learning how to write, and the notebook paper was creased.

"Hey, can I see too?" Antonio asked.

"Shut up! I'm concentrating!" Lovino snapped, frowning as he struggled to decipher the writing.

I love how you always put a smile on my face without trying. :)

PS: You look so adorable when you're asleep. But if that sounds creepy, don't worry because I wasn't watching you for that long.

Lovino's face flamed red. What the hell? This asshole had been watching him sleep? Not to mention the postscript was twice as long as the actual message, and doubly embarrassing. As if this was something he wanted to hear from a secret admirer—genuine or not!

"Aww, that's so cute!" Antonio gushed, having crept up behind his shoulder while he was engrossed in reading.

Lovino let out an indignant yelp and crammed the paper into his pocket. "What the hell? Did I say you could look at it?"

"I'm sorry! I was really curious since it's not very often you get a friendly night visitor that drops off mail!"

"What do you mean night visit—?" Lovino's eyebrows shot up. "Wait…are you saying…you saw this guy?"

"Yup!" Antonio nodded. "He knocked on the window so I let him in!"

"Wha-Why? Why would you do that? Dammit—are you stupid?!"

"I don't get why you're so upset! He climbed all the way up the wall just to bring a letter to you. And it was such a sweet note too!"

"You mean," Lovino hissed, trembling in rage, "you let some stranger who climbed up the wallinto our room because he seemed nice?!"

"I guess so? Aw, don't look at me that way! He was really friendly; he even offered to try some of my churros—Ack! Please stop hitting me!"

Alfred did his best to look like he was following along with the textbook before him, but his eyes kept drifting to Lovino, who had been assigned a fresh stack of essays to grade. A few other students had followed his example, and were now muttering between themselves in distaste.

"Ugh, I don't want to see my paper once Lovino's done with it."

"Yeah, last time he took off five points just because I used the wrong 'there' in my sentence."

Alfred smiled in tune with their remarks, but in reality he saw something different. He watched Lovino's face scrunch up in concentration, his lips moving in tune with the words he muttered aloud. His hand rose up and boldly scratched through a line, and then his forehead creased as he began scribbling angrily.

The classmate by Alfred's side patted his shoulder reassuringly. "Dude, I think that's your paper he's working on."

Lovino was harsh to everyone, but his face took on an exceptionally furious expression when he was dealing with Alfred. A few students nearby murmured in sympathy.

Alfred simply shrugged. His father had threatened to throw his laptop out the window if he didn't pass his English class, but all he felt at that moment was a vague sense of amusement.

Lovino was so funny when he was pissed.

Antonio was lucky he got away with only a few smacks, Lovino thought smugly to himself as he tied an apron around his waist. Not only had Antonio invited an intruder into their flat without his permission, he had also served him food and showed him all of Lovino's embarrassing pictures stored on his phone. Damn Antonio, he was supposed to have deleted those.

At least now he was at work, which gave him an opportunity to cool off and clear his mind through physical labor. Today he was assigned to kitchen duties, which allowed him to work away from the chattering of college students.

For the time being, Lovino had left the door open. The dining area wasn't that noisy, and the kitchen could get stuffy without any ventilation. There weren't any supervisors nearby to reprimand him, and he let himself fall into a rhythm of scraping grime off the dishes, rinsing them off, and loading them in the dishwasher.

"Lovino!"

Lovino paused, and then shot a glance over his shoulder. There was no one he could see in the room with him, and after a moment, he turned back to the sink, slightly unsettled.

"Psst…behind the door!"

Lovino spun around, and this time he caught a trace of familiar blonde in the crack behind the door. Having caught his attention, Belle flashed him a thumbs up and waved. Lovino rolled his eyes but couldn't help but smile in exasperation.

Belle was like Antonio, cheerful and bubbling with energy, but Lovino had a soft spot for her, and generally tried to watch his tongue when she was around. Not that it really mattered. Belle was no delicate damsel in need of protection, and was prone to placing herself in risky situations.

She did a quick take in both directions, and, finding the way clear, dashed into the kitchen and shut the door behind her. She shot him a victorious smile, panting slightly.

Lovino shook his head, turning his attention back to the dishes. "What are you doing? You know you're not supposed to be here right now."

Belle strode up to his side, and rested an arm on his shoulder, peering down at his work. "Don't worry, no one saw me. You have to come with me right now."

"Right now?" Lovino raised his eyebrows. "Belle, I'm at work."

"Why don't you try faking an injury? Squeeze some ketchup on your finger and say you cut it. I've tried that one before!"

Lovino rolled his eyes. The knives they handled weren't even that sharp. It was more likely that Belle had simply asked.

He nudged her away so he could finish loading the dishwasher, and then punched in the time. "What's so important, anyway?"

"Well, a mysterious someone showed up yesterday looking for you. He must have thought you had the evening shift."

"Please tell me this isn't what I think it is."

Belle stepped back to lean against the countertop, smiling secretively. "He left a gift, and I offered to hold on to it for you."

Lovino felt his stomach drop. "Fuck, it's a letter, isn't it?"

Belle didn't answer, but her wicked grin was response enough. Before he could protest, she snatched one of his arms and yanked him away from the counter.

"Dammit, Belle, stop! Where the hell are we going?" Lovino dragged his feet in protest, but Belle was much stronger than she let on.

"Back to my place. I would have brought the letter here, but it wasn't possible. I just can't wait to see your face when you read it!"

"It's not even real! It's just a prank!" Lovino snapped, but clamped his mouth shut as they stumbled past the main door. He didn't want to attract any attention as they snuck out. Running out on a job wasn't necessarily illegal, but he didn't want to take any chances and get fired.

"How do you know that, hmm?" Belle whispered. "I saw the guy who brought your letter and I can say he looked pretty darn serious."

"You saw him?" Lovino hissed. If Belle knew his identity, he could finally find the guy and end this moronic charade. "Who is he? What did he look like?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. He was wearing a mask."

Lovino turned to her, only capable of sputtering in disbelief. Was he the only one who found the image of a miscreant racing around a college campus in a Halloween costume strange? Why the fuck was no one else questioning it? Dammit, place of education apparently also meant place of insanity.

Belle kept a firm grip around his arm until she finally brought him to her flat. It was no strange place to him, but he generally tried to avoid visits because of her roommate—

"Lovino," Elizaveta sing-songed as she swung open the door. "We've been waiting for you!"

Lovino swallowed, jerking his hand up in a hasty greeting, and then dodged by her side to quickly retreat into the kitchen. Belle followed him in with a particularly amused smile, and—to his dismay— Elizaveta stalked in after them.

"She's listening too? Isn't this personal?" he hissed at Belle.

She shrugged, turning a playful eye to Elizaveta. "Well, she insisted she wanted to be here too. Don't worry, I think she has something interesting to tell you."

Elizaveta flashed a grin at him, and Lovino responded with a strained smile.

It wasn't that he disliked Elizaveta. It was just her demeanor that puzzled him. Lovino was normally better at dealing with women than men, because a few sweet words and some chivalry could melt most of them. Elizaveta, on the other hand, was different.

Outwardly, she was a gorgeous girl with long hair and feminine attire, and she generally spoke with politeness and elegance. But when her real voice burst out, she possessed the coarseness of one who commonly partook in tree climbing, pig wrestling, or something equally vulgar.

He had a feeling she was the type of girl who, as a child, had been forced into dresses only to jump straight into a puddle of dirt. Once, when Lovino had offered to help her carry some luggage, Elizaveta had burst into laughter and slapped his back so hard he doubled over.

Then there was also the mad glint in her eyes, as she studied him just then, and he didn't quite like that either.

"So," Belle began, clasping her hands together, oblivious to his unease, "let's begin with the story." She cleared her throat. "Yesterday night, during my shift, some charming fellow came into the dining hall looking for you. He was very disappointed when he found out you weren't there, but then I told him I knew you. So he agreed to let me hold on to this—" She signaled toward Elizaveta, who nodded and slipped out of the room "—for you."

"Tada!" Elizaveta stumbled back in, her head completely obstructed by a giant wall of cardboard. For fuck's sake, the card was bigger than her! Who even made cards that big? Where did you buy them?

"Wh-wh-what the fuck is this?" he demanded, swirling around to Belle, and then gesturing wildly at the—the thing. How many trees were killed to make that card, anyway?

"Your present, of course!"

Belle grinned, and then stepped forward to flip the front of the card open. Inside a message was written with a lack of grammatical accuracy Lovino was beginning to find all too familiar.

if u were a booger i'd pick u first

PS: no more messing around now. heros don't hide behind anonymity, so meet me outside the botanic garden at 6 p.m. tonight. 3

Lovino felt his hands itch with the desire to correct the capitalization, and fix the damn letter abbreviations. At this point, this 'admirer' of his clearly didn't know shit about him, or was purposely trying to blow his fuse.

Seriously, what the fuck? He had to use a card of that size to write three sentences?

This time there was a message added to the back of his assignment. Alfred found it slightly unbelievable his teacher didn't seem to notice any of them, but he was thankful for it. He was also thankful for Lovino's audacity to create such obscene insults.

Alfred honestly couldn't tell if a majority of those insults were even real, but he had to applaud Lovino for coming up with so many. There was a new phrase he learned with every page of comments.

And there, at the back, was a picture of Alfred's head attached to a pig's body. Lovino's art skills were undeniably impressive. He got Alfred down to the very detail in such a quick doodle. Except for his mouth, which was drawn bucktoothed like a rabbit, and his eyes spun in opposite directions.

No one else got such personal messages on their papers. It was possible Lovino really hated him, but Alfred liked to believe the opposite. The messages gave him something to look forward to after his papers were graded, because rather than malicious, they came off as quirky and silly.

He couldn't take Lovino seriously, as much as he tried. Lovino was too passionate and sincere to be genuinely hateful.

The messages almost came off like letters being exchanged between the two of them. But so far, it had been only Lovino speaking. Alfred wanted to leave a response this time. He had even scribbled down his own message with accompanying doodle the night before. He planned to drop it in Lovino's backpack before class was over.

But there was no Lovino today. He was apparently out sick.

Alfred sighed and dropped his head onto his desk. It was relievingly quiet without Lovino, but it was also remarkably boring.

To be continued...