CHAPTER TWO

Two Lonely Hearts

It was funny how someone who wasn't afraid of dying from a plane crash can be so terrified of someone answering his call.

Still, Arthur couldn't help feeling that way. He was going to talk to a stranger that according to an old woman's instincts would miss him, after all. If he wanted to be missed at all, he would have to make a good impression.

He sighed. He really shouldn't get his hopes up, but the seed had been planted and there was no erasing that deceptively warm feeling in his chest.

The ringing stopped and it was the signal that somebody had picked up. He swallowed and tried to speak, but his throat felt strangely dry and he couldn't get a sound out. He stared, wide-eyed and just a little bit terrified, at the old woman beside him, who only gave him a crooked grin.

"If you're not going to speak, I'm going to hang up," a male voice said in a language that he couldn't understand but was somehow sure was a Latin language. Arthur cleared his throat to get across that he'd respond.

"I'm sorry, but I don't speak, uhh, Spanish," he said sheepishly. His gaze once again strayed to the old woman, who had paused in her knitting and was laughing silently.

"It's Italian, bastardo, not Spanish," the voice replied with slightly accented English. "And why the fuck are you calling me if you can't speak it?"

"To be honest I just dialed a random number and reached you." Arthur's voice wavered at the end, his embarrassment showing. He was half-tempted to hang up, the warm feeling of hope in his chest almost dissipating. The man on the other end of the line didn't seem to find it amusing to be called by a complete stranger.

"I'm hanging up." Those were Arthur's fears vocalized and he suddenly felt desperate.

"No, wait! Please don't..." he said before he could think and he turned red in embarrassment. He was expecting to actually be hung up on, but the warmth in his chest rose again when a few seconds passed and he still didn't hear the dial tone.

"What is it then?" the voice sounded irritated, but at least he was still there.

"I just... I needed someone to talk to," Arthur admitted.

"Don't you have friends?"

"No."

There was silence on the other line.

"That's..." A huff. "How the fuck am I supposed to respond to that?"

Arthur didn't know either.

~.;*;.~

Having someone admit so bluntly that they didn't have any friends to talk to made Lovino extremely uncomfortable. He wasn't the epitome of good social skills - that was Feliciano - but he had a close friend or two. What the fuck kind of person was this guy that he didn't have any?

He didn't sound so bad though. Lovino thought that he actually sounded lonely, despite the fact that he had nonchalantly denied having friends. Heck, he remembered how desperate the voice had been when he announced that he was hanging up, and now he just couldn't bring himself to even think of doing it.

"Alright fine," he said, shaking his head to clear his thoughts. "I'm staying. Now what exactly did you want to talk about?"

"Umm..." Oh, goddammit, he didn't even have a topic at hand? "I'm not actually sure. I just..."

Lovino wasn't dealing with this. Desperate and without friends or not, he wasn't dealing with any kind of bullshit-

"I need a person to talk to before I die? It's a bit stupid, I know."

What. The. Actual. Fuck.

"What the hell does that even mean?" Lovino demanded.

"Well..." There was a bit of silence, as the guy was thinking. "I'm on a plane. And it's kind of crashing, I guess."

"Kind of crashing?!" All of this must be bullshit, a part of him thought, this stranger just saying so nonchalantly as if it wasn't a tragedy, as if he wasn't actually going to die. But if anything, Lovino could hear resignation, like the stranger had just accepted his fate and this phone call was the small respite that he had against the thought of dying.

Maybe that's because he didn't have friends.

Fuck, that thought hurt more than Lovino thought it would.

He imagined it, dying without anyone missing you, and he shuddered. He shuddered at just how sad being in that situation would be, and he shuddered at how easy it was to imagine. It shouldn't have been easy to imagine; he was surrounded by people who loved him. There was Feliciano, his Nonna, Toni...

Okay, not a lot, but at least? But he could see how someone like this stranger would be desperate enough to just randomly mash his keys and cross his fingers that someone would pick up and talk to him in his last moments.

"Hehe, yeah," the stranger laughed. Lovino bit his lip at how empty that sounded. "You don't have to stay for more than ten minutes so-"

"No, shut up," he blurted out, maybe a little bit angrier than he intended. "You're dying and no one will miss you." He swallowed a lump in his throat at that. "It's not stupid, okay? We've never met and I don't know your name but you know what's stupid? It's that you're even thinking that I'm going to hang up on you upon hearing about that. I'm not a heartless bastard, geez."

"I... I didn't actually expect you to believe me."

"I didn't expect to believe you either. And trust me, I'd normally have hung up after hearing that kind of thing, because you know it sounds like total bullshit. But..."

He could hear the stranger hold his breath on the other end of the line.

"You have an expressive voice, you know." Lovino's voice had gone soft, a complete turnaround from his earlier angry tone. "And sincerity is not something you can fake. You're trying to sound nonchalant but it only sounds resigned. That's why I decided you were telling the truth."

For a few moments the line was silent except for the soft breaths of the stranger. As if he couldn't believe his ears and needed some time to process what Lovino had said.

After a while, he spoke again. "I'm Arthur, by the way."

The Italian smiled despite himself. "Hey. I'm Lovino."

/**

* They "meet". Yay.! And of course Lovino is as crass as usual, even when talking to a dying man.

* Next update's on Wednesday. Please review.! :)

*/