Lucky for him, I wasn't in the mood to beat him up. "Fine, whatever…" I grumbled as I ambled past him into my bedroom.

The second I entered the room, I collapsed on my bed wearily, trying not to think too much about my messed up day and the jacked up things that had been in it. With a sigh, I lay down on my fluffy pillow and closed my eyes… The next thing I heard was Feliciano singing something high-pitched and annoying as loud as he freaking could. I groaned and looked at my clock, surprised at how hungry I was.

Ho…ly… shit. I was going to be so damn late!

I sprinted to my door, heart pounding in my anxiety, opened it, and smacked face first into my singing twin. I took in his "ready for school" appearance and felt violent anger well inside me. "Damn it, Feli!" I cried, grabbing his arm fiercely. "Why the hell didn't you wake me up?"

"Sorry, Lovi!" he sobbed. "I was going to let you sleep! You had a rough day yesterday and I thought you might want to rest a little… I'm sorry!"

"Ugh, I don't have time for this!" I hissed, throwing him down (which I felt a little bad about) and spazzing around the house to get all my school junk together.

I was in the midst of brushing my hair and teeth at the same time when I heard the garage door open and listened, livid, as my stupid brother drove away to school, forgetting (like every other day) to close the door behind himself. With a sigh, I finished my bathroom business and ran to get my backpack, planning out in my head how my day was going to work as I walked by the clock. If I hurried, I could make it there with seconds to spare, though that involved skipping breakfast, which really sucked. My stomach was already twisting in on itself from my lack of a proper dinner the night before and I was light-headed, but if I was late again… I groaned and tore through the house as fast as I could, getting in my car and backing out hectically, then pressing the button to make sure it was closed.

Ugh, being the responsible one was a load of crap.

I sped down the road, not paying as much attention to my surroundings as I probably should have. Somehow, I managed to make it to school without getting pulled over by the cops, killing anyone, or being late, which, in my book, made this day already much better than yesterday. Or at least it was, until I went running through the hallway, trying to make it to class, and pretty much plowed over a random girl.

"Hey, what the fu…" I started, pissed off, until I spotted a boy with dark brown hair and concerned green eyes picking up my roadkill. "Antonio?" I was incredibly surprised, seeing how not once had I EVER seen him in the hall before. So now, after we had become "friends", I was going to see him every day? What the hell was wrong with this world?

After making sure his friend was alright, (it turned out that "girl" had actually been a man. The voice was quite a shocker) he turned to me and gave me one of those smiles of his. "Good morning, Lovino! I see you're in a bit of hurry today!"

His blond, female-looking friend scoffed at this. "That has to be the understatement of the century, mon ami."

If it had just been me and this French guy alone, I would've flipped him off and said all kinds of things to him, but how could I do that with Antonio smiling at me like a saint? So I just decided to answer the Spaniards greeting, instead of kicking some gay ass.

"What, and you aren't? Don't you have, you know, SCHOOL to go do? I mean the bell is going to ring in like-"

I was cut off by the late bell, ringing shrilly for everyone to hear.

"God damn it, not again!" I spat and ran into the classroom that the three of us had been standing right next to.

Of course, my teacher had already marked me absent.

The rest of my day went as horrible as every school day was for me. Every single fucking hour, something bad happened to me that made me want to just hide in my room forever. I was regretting not taking my stupid brother's advice and sleeping like he had suggested. By the time lunch came around, I felt nauseated and ready to puke I was so starving. In fact, I wasn't much of the "wait in line" type of guy, so when I wanted lunch this bad, I was going to get it, and get it now.

Trying to remain unnoticed, I slipped in between two guys that, luckily, didn't even realize I had cut in front of them. Yeah, they were too busy being stupid ass high school kids and hitting on the girls behind them to see anything clearly. The two girls, however, DID see me, and promptly started giggling, making the guys think it was because of them. I watched from the corner of my eye at the ridiculous display. Suddenly, I had an inexplicable feeling and I looked away from the flirting to find three other boys laughing their butts off in front of me.

First, I noticed the effeminate man from this morning, his blue eyes mischievous, and I felt unnerving anger well inside me. Next, I saw a guy who hadn't been there earlier, with grayish-white hair and shocking red eyes, and lost all the ferocious feelings inside my body. Then, finally, I spotted Antonio, his eyes crinkled with laughter, a light blush across his lightly tanned skin, and felt a new feeling blossom, which I promptly tried to stifle. I felt warmth creep across my face and prayed to God that he didn't turn around and see me there.

But apparently, God wasn't on my side today, because the moment I uttered those words to the Lord, smiling green eyes looked down on me. "Lovi!" he said, shocked, though seemingly pleasantly surprised.

I stared, speechless, at the fact that he'd just used my nickname instead of his usual "Lovino". He stared right back, grinning happily, as his red-eyed buddy asked who I was.

"The awesome me wants to know who that guy is!" Is how he mysteriously put it.

"Francis, Gilbert, this is my friend, Lovino, the boy I was telling you about yesterday! Lovino, these are my best friends Francis and Gilbert!" He seemed overly thrilled that we were all meeting.

I just felt nervous as hell. New people weren't my thing, since I had always been more of a recluse. My shyness made me cranky, and I scowled at them all, just wanting to be left alone to eat. I couldn't think of anything to say, so I just glared at the trio, pissed.

"Why, Antonio, I think that he's broken!" the stupid French bastard Francis exclaimed.

I wanted to slap somebody or something when Antonio's forehead actually crinkled in worry at the statement.

"I'm not fucking broken, damn it!" I hissed, wondering why the lunch line wasn't moving in the slightest.

Then I realized it was because these idiots weren't moving. They were blocking the line, so I did what I did best. I slid in front of them and turned my back on their annoying selves. Stomach on the brink of explosion, I grabbed some food, paid, and ran away before they could even register what was happening. I found an empty table and sat down, ready to go to my happy place before Feli showed up. We always ate lunch together, even if I never wanted to. It was a good thing he was my brother, otherwise I would have hated him. I got approximately point two seconds of me time before I heard him find me.

"Lovi~!" he yelled across the cafeteria as he spotted me.

What I did to be "blessed" with such a twin, I had no clue. But said boy ran up to the table and sat down next to me, already blabbering about nonsense I didn't care about. Eating lunch with him wasn't so bad, because when I had food (it was spaghetti today) it was easy to ignore the pointless things that came out of his mouth. So I thought about how unfortunate my life had been recently, how mysterious things had kept in happening, such as Antonio now showing up every- freaking -where I was, how much I didn't like his best friends.

"…so I was wondering if I could have some money?" I tuned back into Feli in time to hear that.

Since I hadn't been listening, and considering how it was him I was talking to, I didn't even have to ask what the question was to know my answer. "No."

His amber eyes got all watery and he, as usual, started harassing me. "Please, Lovi? How am I supposed to get him a present if I don't have money?"

"Get a job, damn it." I stood up, ignoring his pleas, having finished my lunch, and went to throw out my trash.

On my way to the garbage can, I spotted the trio, lunch in front of all of them. All but one. I paused mid-trash throw to stare as Gilbert and Francis gave Antonio little pieces of their lunches, such as the garlic bread. It was confusing to me, perplexing. Couldn't they see he was starving? They were laughing and joking, eating their spaghetti like greedy little kids, while Antonio pretty much sucked his bread down, licking his fingers until there was nothing left to lick, all the while smiling and laughing with his friends.

It made me feel sick. I knew that I had to do something. So, naturally, I got back in the much shorter lunch line and got another tray, spending the little money that I myself had. Then I headed back to the table and blushing fiercely, I slammed the tray down in front of Antonio, scaring the crap out of him and gave him a simple command.

"Eat."

He stared up at me for a second, confusion written all over his face. It didn't take long for my demand to settle in his head though and he smiled, making my heart jump, causing me to realize how worth it this really had been. "Gracias, mi Salvador! But aren't you hungry? I don't want to eat your lunch…"

"I already ate. I bought this for you." I made eye contact with his two friends, who were watching me and smiling in a very not friendly manner. "You call yourselves best friends? You better fucking treat him better or I'll kick your sorry asses, you bastards!"

I hadn't wanted to sound like his boyfriend or something, but the second the words slipped out, I realized that was what it had seemed like. My face was on fire in my embarrassment and I turned away, stomping off. I was fairly certain I heard the Spanish words, "Muchas gracias, mi amor…" drift through the air, but I shook it away, putting it off as a trick of my mind. When I was finally back at the table where Feli sat, still eating his pasta, I dared to turn around and found Antonio doing exactly what I had told him to. I heaved a sigh of relief that, thankfully, my brother didn't hear and watched him eat the rest of his lunch.

The next class the two of us had together, and unfortunately I had no idea HOW I had ended up in this class at all, but here I was. Parenting class. Seriously, I hadn't chosen electives because I hadn't cared what I was in, but did it really have to be the class where you had to learn how to care for a BABY? God, did I even seem like the kind of person who wanted to have loud, smelly, whiny midgets around me? What was worse, the boys had (weirdly) outweighed the girls by one, so I ended up with a guy as my partner. One that wasn't my brother.

The only thing lucky about this class for me was that my partner was a very quiet, sensible guy who didn't blab my ears off and did his work. His name was Arthur, and though occasionally he would speak to me, he was mostly in his own world, doodling while the teacher talked about pregnancy and babies and all that junk. That was fine by me, since I was the same way, minus the doodling. I couldn't draw to save my life.

Today, we were actually getting the chance to take care of our own baby, which the teacher seemed overly excited about. She had chosen a specific doll for each group by its personality, she told us, and that she had named them all the same way. I just thought she was a nutcase that belonged in an asylum, but everyone else seemed rather pleased by that. Did they not realize baby dolls didn't have personalities since they were inanimate? My sigh was almost a growl as she announced the names of me and Arthur. We got up, both heavily annoyed by this dumb project, and received our baby. She handed it straight to the Brit, which I was very thankful for.

"Okay," the teacher announced. "Lovino and Arthur's baby is a little girl named Angel. Though she has this name, her personality is quite far from it! She's more like a little devil, always crying and throwing fits, constantly hungry and loud! This is going to be a big challenge for the two of them and hopefully it will motivate them a bit more," she said with a grin of pure evil.

"What?" Arthur gasped, taking the word right out of my mouth. "You gave us a bloody loud, whiny baby?"

She continued to grin and nodded. "That's right! Hopefully it will teach you responsibility and that slacking off isn't going to be allowed in the real world. Alright, next!"

As if today couldn't have gotten any freaking worse. Now here we were, holding this stupid thing that was already crying its eyes out and being annoying as hell. I knew by the end of the week, this dumb doll would be no more.

After that class ended, I got the baby, seeing how the "father" figure had to have it the first night for some reason. I was just glad that I was seen as the man. Of course, I didn't even think to realize how un- dignifying it would be to bring a shrieking baby doll into soccer practice, so I just waltzed right into the locker room, carrying the thing in its carrier. First, all the guys looked up from their lockers in surprise at me, then they all burst into psychotic laughter at the fact that I was carrying around a baby.

"D-Dude, you're such a pussy! Who takes that class?" One guy shouted through his gut-wrenching chuckles.

At that comment, I just lost it. I didn't even have time to think to control myself. My day had sucked royally in every way, and I had just been looking forward to a nice game of soccer to cheer me up, but this fucking bastard had ruined it, and he would pay. I dropped all of my stuff onto the ground, which caused the dumb doll to wail, and I punched the guy right in the face, hearing a satisfying crack and shriek of pain through my rage.

"Lovi!" A voice called, worried. My mind didn't recognize it. I was too lost in my own fury.

"Lovi, please stop it!" I felt myself being pulled off my victim and let it happen, sensing that I had actually hurt the boy severely. "Please, calm down, Lovi. You're okay now… Look at me, please." A strong hand lifted my jaw up and my eyes were drawn to the green in front of me. "You're okay. He didn't mean to hurt you."

His words didn't make any sense to me. I was okay? What about the guy I had just beat the shit out of? He didn't mean to hurt me? He hadn't hurt me, I had hurt him! Strong arms holding me broke through my confusion and I realized Antonio was hugging me close to him. I closed my eyes and let him keep me there, my brain slowly beginning to register everything around me. There was a lot of shouting and cursing. The coach was asking the kid I'd punched if he was okay. That gay baby that had been the cause of this whole thing lay wailing on the ground where I'd dropped it. I finally decided it was okay to open my eyes again and looked around at everyone. They were talking to the guy I had punched. His nose did not look very good at all… Definitely broken. I felt secretly pleased about that and looked back to the man who's arms I was in.

And realized I was in his arms. My face erupted into a volcano of red and I jumped up and away from his embrace. And tripped over the backpack I had dropped on the floor. "Damn!" I yelped as I hit the ground.

"Lovi!" Antonio jumped up and helped me to my feet, holding me steady when I was there. "Be careful…"

His concern was both annoying and flattering, so I pushed his arms away, unable to think of something better to do. The second he released me, I swayed and again he caught me. "What the hell is going on?" I demanded angrily.

"When you punched him, he fought back and smacked your head a couple times. He didn't break anything, but I'm worried he gave you a concussion." His hand stroked my hair and I would have protested if he hadn't looked so worried.

With a long-suffering sigh, I had Antonio put me down on a bench. "Hey, Coach, we aren't going to call an ambulance, are we?" I asked, praying we wouldn't.

He gave me a look and shook his head. "No. Gino's just going to drive to the hospital. But tomorrow the both of you are going to be in detention for a long, long time. Alright," he said to the impatient team, "Let's get to practice! Lovino, you'll be sitting out. Toni, you'll be replacing him."

They all charged out of the locker room, ready for some soccer. All of them except for me and "Toni" as Coach called him. I looked down, miserable to the core and feeling very nauseated. While my face was towards the floor, I noticed the socks he was wearing were, again, neon orange. That made me wonder…

"Hey, Antonio? What's up with your socks?"

He looked at me, taken by surprise, and then laughed, making my heart feel warm. I even risked a small smile myself, since he couldn't see my face.

"Well, I have this aunt in Spain…"

For the first time in a long time, I laughed, genuinely happy, and told him, "Say no more… I completely get it."