Second chapter, ahoy! Nothing much happens, but its not that kind of fic. Please enjoy the sweetness!
Day 2.
"Hey, your hair looks pretty good!"
"No, it doesn't! I look like a hedgehog!"
Arthur furiously pulled his hood up over his head, but it just wouldn't cover his face.
"Oh, it's not that bad." Antonio assured, knelt down to the little boys level "You look really cool."
"Gilby said I look like a nanmey character!"
Antonio chuckled. What was 'nanmey'? He grabbed Arthurs hood and pulled it back, and the little boy tried to cover his head with his arms, face bright red.
"You look so good, little man." Antonio went on "I'm thinking I'm gonna let Francis cut my hair too, so I can look cool like you."
"R-really?"
Haha, no.
The little boy finally looked up, green eyes full of hope and admiration.
"Of course!" No way "All your friends are going to be super jealous of your cool new hair, amigo!"
Arthur blushed happily, fingering his freshly cut blonde locks.
"It's really cool, huh?" he muttered.
"I guarantee it."
I'm a filthy liar.
"Alright, then!" Arthur cheered "I'm gonna go show everyone!"
"Okay!"
Antonio flashed him a thumbs up and a smile, and Arthur ran off into the play room. Boy, was Arthur lucky 4 year olds didn't care about fashion. If he were a couple of years older, he'd have been teased mercilessly because of that mess. Poor bugger.
"Hey, Romano, it's your friend from yesterday!"
"Ah, good morning, Mr. Vargas!"
Grandpa Romano waved in greeting, baby Feliciano strapped to his chest again today. The old man looked tired and happy as the children ran past him into the playroom, little Romano clutching at his trouser leg again.
"Good morning, my Spanish friend." He greeted "How is your work experience going?"
"Tiring." Antonio admitted "These kids have a lot of energy."
Grandpa Romano laughed, turning to his grandson.
"Hey, little man, your friend is here. Don't you wanna go play?"
Little Romano went red and huffed, looking away from Antonio and clutching his grandfathers trouser leg tighter. Grandpa Romano laughed again.
"He's a funny boy." He told Antonio "He was talking about you all night, but now he's gone all shy!"
"Yeah," Antonio agreed "Kids are weird."
"I'm not weird!" Romano yelled at him "You're weird!"
He finally let go of his grandfather, instead grabbing the hand of Lily, who had just walked in with her brother, and pulling her into the play room with him.
"Have a good day, Romano!"
"Try to be on time today!" the boy yelled back as he disappeared.
Romano let go of Lily when he saw Arthur and Ludwig. The two had already grabbed the sugar paper and crayons, and were setting up on the table.
"Good morning, Arthur." Lily greeted in her usual quiet manner "I like your hair."
"It looks cool, right?" he enthused, eyes bright "You gonna colour with us today?"
"I wanna play ponies." She admitted.
"Okay." Arthur agreed "We'll colour first, then we'll play ponies!"
"Okay!"
Lily grabbed the red crayon offered by Arthur and sat next to Ludwig, taking and green sugar paper. Arthur grabbed another crayon and held it out to Romano. Little Romano was somewhat shocked for a second – he wasn't used to being invited to play – but he took the crayon and sat on the floor by Arthur.
"Oh, Romano, I told my brother about you." Lily told the boys as she grabbed another colour.
"You did? What for?" the Italian asked.
"He asked me what I did yesterday, and I told him I made a new friend." She elaborated "He said he's never heard the name 'Romano' before."
"Francis said the same thing." Arthur confirmed.
Ludwig nodded, although an educated guess could estimate that his older brother had been a little less polite about his observation.
"It's not that unusual!" said Romano insisted "I know at least 8 other people with that name!"
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yes! My papa was Romano Vargas the 7th!" he announced "My grandpa is Romano Vargas 6th, his papa was Romano Vargas 5th!"
"So, you're Romano Vargas the eighth?" a lazy voice interrupted.
"That's right!"
Antonio sat down on the floor with the children, putting the plastic tray of drinks on the table.
"That's pretty cool, amigo." He admitted as he handed out the drinks "A whole bunch of people in my family are called Antonio. That's kind of boring compared to a name like 'Romano.'"
"My mother used to call me 'Lovino'." Romano admitted, despite his insistence yesterday that he had no nickname "She didn't like the name 'Romano.'"
"Is that so?" Antonio mused.
"Gilbert never calls me by my name." Ludwig confessed "I don't know why."
"Maybe he can't say it." Lily suggested "Ludig…Udwig… Luddy's name is hard to say."
Maybe he's a jerk. Antonio, since he was good friends with Gilbert, knew that the two brothers shared a bedroom, since their grandfather didn't earn that much, despite a long career as a teacher, and the budding adolescent had divided the room down the middle with a bookshelf. Ludwig wasn't old enough to understand what it was all about, especially as Gilbert spent as much time in his little brothers part of the room as his own. Somehow the boy had come up with the idea of calling his brother 'West.' Antonio had thought it was a pretty stupid name, and told Gilbert as much, but he had been assured that if he had had a brother, he would understand. But he was convinced Gilbert was just a jerk.
"You're lucky." Arthur muttered as he scribbled furiously "Francis is always calling me weird things. He keeps saying I'm a rabbit, and that mum and dad got me from the pet shop, but I'm not!"
"Francis is mean." Romano agreed, looking shocked, the pouted "I wish Feli had come from the petshop. Then I could take him back."
Francis was probably the polar opposite of Gilbert. While the gawky German pretended to distance himself while simultaneously doting on little Luddy, Francis was all over his brother at every opportunity, braiding his hair, blowing raspberries on his neck and stomach and tickling him whenever he managed to get his hands on the wriggly toddler. Antonio knew their parents weren't all that affectionate, and he figured Francis was trying to make up for that with Arthur, but he went a little overboard. It was no wonder the kid got confused about how to react to things.
"Is Feli your big brother?" Arthur asked him.
"No, he's my little brother." Romano revealed "Mama died when he was born, so he's got a funny face."
Wait, what? Antonio froze, a sudden cold sweat washing over him. Kids were kinda scary, for sure – Romano had said that so casually, like he was talking about someone elses mother, or the mother out of the fairy story.
"Vash has a funny face too." Lily prattled on "Mummy said he was born without a funny bone. I asked Santa to bring him one, but he bought him a BB gun instead. I got an extra present that year, 'cos Vash said I was such a good girl to ask for a present for someone else."
"Can I be your brother?" Arthur joked "I don't mind being your brother if I can get extra presents!"
"That's silly." Lily said bluntly "If you're my brother, who'll be my boyfriend?"
What?
"Ludwig will." Was Arthurs equally blunt answer, to which Ludwig simply nodded.
What? What, what?
"Oh dear, you mustn't let that bother you." Mrs Héderváry assured with a laugh "What these kids understand 'boyfriend' and 'girlfriend' to be is completely different from what adults think!"
"Completely, huh?"
"Of course! Most 'relationships' only last the afternoon, and they'll forget each other by the end of the week – they'll hold hands if they're little, but the older boys don't like it. It's really very funny!"
Antonio was relieved. He had been told often he was a little behind when it came to relationship stuff, but he didn't want to think a bunch of pre-schoolers were ahead of him. His image of their innocence was restored. Well, almost.
"Ah, yes, that sounds right." Mrs Héderváry said sadly as Antonio relayed the story of Romanos mother "Children process these things differently from adults. They can just accept things as fact when us adults might struggle with it. The way they mourn – they can seem absolutely fine, then suddenly their behaviour will change, just like that. I've seen it a lot, when kids lose their parents or grandparents. When Lily's parents got divorced, it didn't seem to affect her at all for the longest time, but then she started having nightmares and wetting herself at naptime." She sighed "That's when her brother started paying so much attention to her. He's a good boy." She turned to him sternly "Needless to say, that doesn't leave this room!"
"Of course." Antonio agreed.
"Antony!" Yao called from the playroom "It's snack time, come and help me hand out the fruit!"
Antonio returned to the playroom to the group of excited children, who were practically mugging the poor man, who held the box of fruit high on his chest. Embarrassingly, Antonio couldn't tell at first if Yao had been a man or a woman (did that make him racist?), but he felt a little better having another man around (a compatriot!). Turned out Bella worked every other day, and Yao worked the days she was off. That way, neither was too tired to deal with the children, and as Yao had a young family of his own, Antonio could imagine that was pretty important.
He took the box of fruit from the beleaguered Asian.
"Okay, everybody, line up!" Antonio called with playful authority "Good girls and boys get to eat fruit, boy boys and girls have to eat bugs!"
With squeals and tumbles, the kids formed what could haphazardly be called a line, and Antonio and Yao started handing out the fruit. As they came to the end, however, they came across a problem.
"Ahh, that damn grocer stiffed us again!" Yao hissed as he saw 3 pieces of fruit and 4 children waiting in line "I swear he can't count! We'll have to cut that pear in half."
"The kids will notice." Antonio knew, remembering how Arthur and Ludwig reacted when they were given less of something than their big brothers "What will we tell them?"
"The truth." Yao insisted "That they have less because someone didn't learn their numbers!"
That seemed a little complicated for a 5 year old to understand. Antonio was struck by an idea, running back into the office and grabbing backpack. He fished out his lunchbox and tore open the lid, pulling out one of the fresh grown tomatoes his mother had packed him. Tomatoes were a fruit!... He thought. They were, weren't they?
Little Romano seemed less than impressed when presented with it.
"It looks gross."
"It's really tasty!" Antonio insisted "My mama picked it fresh from her garden this morning, so I know it's good."
"How do you know it's not full of worms?"
I'm gonna ignore that.
"I promise, Romano, it's super tasty." He assured "And it's a fruit, so it's good for you."
He remained unconvinced. He looked to his friends, who equally stared at the bright red thing with eyes of suspicion as they munched on their apples and pears.
"You like tomato sauce." Lily reasoned "Isn't that what it's made from?"
"Hey, yeah!" Arthur agreed "Eat it, see if it tastes like tomato sauce!"
"Does it taste like tomato sauce?" Ludwig parroted.
As if his mothers delicious home grown produce would taste like that shit!
"Yeah, of course." He plain lied.
Reluctantly, Romano took the tomato. He sniffed it, turned it around in his hands and inspected it all over, holding it up to the light, and finally licking it. Kids are weird… Finally, the child took a tentative bite. Finally, he seemed convinced, taking a bigger bite and joining his friends on the mat. Antonio breathed a sigh of relief.
"Well, that's one problem solved." Yao agreed "Good work. You and Lizzy watch these kids, I'm going to go and yell at that idiot grocer for 5 minutes!"
"Have fun."
Antonio grimaced. He was thankful not to be on the receiving end of that lecture.
"Grandpa, you're early!"
Grandpa Romano stood at the entrance of the playroom, baby Feli in his carrier, surveying a scene he'd never imagined – his little Romano was playing with the other children! That boy Antonio was on his hands and knees, looking utterly miserable, with Romano and a sweet little blonde girl on his back. He had one end of a skipping rope in his mouth, the other being held by a neat looking blonde boy.
"Are you okay there, boy?" he asked him.
"I'm a horsey." He managed to relay feebly through the wood in his mouth.
"And I'm the knight!" a scruffy blonde boy dressed up in a plastic knight costume declared, raising his plastic sword into the air "We've rescued the princess from the dragon!"
"I was the dragon too. Then I was a dog. Then I was a witch. Now I'm a horsey."
"Horseys can't talk!" Romano scolded, kicking the poor boy in the side.
"Romano!"
"No, he's right." Antonio whimpered "Horseys can't talk."
Grandpa couldn't help but sympathise as he saw the boys arms and legs start to waver under the weight of the two kids on his back.
"Come on, Romano, we have to go." He urged his grandson "We have to go food shopping."
"Buy me tomatoes!" the kid ordered as he scrambled off the boy.
His arms and legs gave up, and Antonio crashed to the ground.
"So hungry..."
"Say good-bye to your friends, Romano."
Grandpa Romano was elated – he never imagined he would be able to say that for difficult Little Romano. He bid the other children good-bye, and Antonio waved weakly from the floor. To put up with this, Grandpa thought, he sure must love kids.
Enjoy an insight in Antonios inner monologue? I love the way kids can just accept things about the world, and they make friends so easily...
being an adult is too complicated.