"So," Antonio joined Lovino, who was waiting outside the just-closed coffee shop. "What's up?"

Lovino looked confused. "The… sky?" he answered hesitantly, his eyes flicking upwards.

"What?"

"You- you asked… what's up…?" Lovino pointed at the sky warily.

Antonio laughed. "No, I meant, like- what's happening."

Lovino looked even more confused. "Israeli-Palestinian conflict?"

"No, no, I don't think you understand. What's going on?"

"Well… Russia just invaded Ukraine." Lovino gestured limply.

"Um, that's not.." Antonio held a hand to his forehead, thinking. "Haven't you learned that phrase yet?"

"I know 'how are you' and 'good day' and 'I'm fine' and I can answer basic questions about the state of affairs. Is that what you mean?"

"Do you… you have English books, right? Don't they have a 'social' chapter or something?"

"Yeah, but I skimmed that bit because I figured I wouldn't do much socializing anyway," Lovino answered.

Antonio laughed weakly. "That's a little sad." He wasn't sure what to say to this.

"Is it?" Lovino seemed a bit distant.

"But- But we're friends, right?" Antonio was a little worried that Lovino didn't regard him as such, after his recent disclosure about his lack of interest in being friends with anyone, let alone Antonio.

"Are we? I was under the impression that we were acquaintances who met barely a week ago, and yet you've made me come to your dorm, sleep in your bed, eat your bad American pizza, and just this morning you tried- unsuccessfully, might I add- to kiss me. So yeah, we might have been friends, but we're acquaintances now."

"W-Wait, I wasn't trying to- that was a mistake-" he stammered desperately, holding his hands out, almost pleadingly. Lovino narrowed his eyes and stepped closer to Antonio, backing him against the door of the coffee shop.

"Don't even try to fucking lie," he spat. "I can see right through you." He drew himself to his full height, getting closer, and even though he was considerably shorter than Antonio, he was menacing, full of wrath and venom and something else in his eyes that Antonio couldn't exactly place.

Lovino stared him down for what felt like an eternity, as Antonio felt sweat trickle down the side of his face and down his back, until finally he seemed satisfied.

"So," Lovino said nonchalantly, as if nothing had just happened. He took a step back. "Shall we go for a walk?"

"Huh?" Antonio blinked, confused. "I thought we're not friends anymore."

"We're not. We're acquaintances, until you can prove to me that you will be a trustworthy friend who won't try to make out with me."

"Ah.. okay," Antonio laughed faintly, scratching the back of his head.

"And once I have deemed you worthy, you may sign my friend contract, which says that you will be my friend and nothing else."

"I don't think friendships work like that, Lovi."

"Mr. Vargas, if you please. We are acquaintances at the moment, and you'll have to upgrade to double friend status if you're going to call me Lovi."

"I…" Antonio really didn't know what to say.

"Don't you want to be my friend?"

"I- I do, I just… aren't I already your friend?"

"No, you're my acquaintance," Lovino explained impatiently, as if teaching a hard concept to a slow-learning child. "Now," he straightened himself, adjusting his too-big sweatshirt as if it were a thousand-dollar Armani suit. "Shall we walk? On the way you can redeem yourself."

"Alright," Antonio agreed unsteadily. "Have you eaten dinner yet? We can go to my dorm and I can make you some ramen."

"That- that sounds good," Lovino said quickly, trying to disguise the hunger in his voice. They set off to Antonio's dorm building.

On the way, Antonio paused, looking at a poster advertising the university's art department.

"Pretty funny how they put up ads in their own campus," he laughed, pointing. Lovino ignored him but Antonio stayed, looking closer at the poster. "Wow," he enthused. "That's really good. Who did that?"

Lovino walked back to join him, looking at the painting shown in the poster. His face grew red and his mouth contorted in anger.

"I fucking told him not to publish that one!" he yelled, reaching up and tearing down the poster, ripping it into shreds. Antonio watched him, confused.

"You know the artist?"

"Yeah, he's my idiot brother."

"He's really good- can I see some of his other stuff? Does he have an exhibit or something?" Antonio asked eagerly.

"Uh… yeah, he does," Lovino said, looking slightly befallen. "I can take you to it, it's free."

"Great! Thank you so much! Can you take me there now?"

"If you want…" Lovino seemed almost reluctant, but Antonio was too excited to notice or even care. "It's this way."

In minutes Lovino had lead Antonio to the university student art centre, where they displayed art done by good pupils. Feliciano, Lovino's brother, had his own room full of sculptures, busts, and paintings. Wide eyed, Antonio entered the room, not sure which masterpiece to look at first. Lovino trailed behind him, taking his time, walking slowly, as if dreading something, watching the ground.

"Your brother's really amazing," Antonio gushed, staring up at a painting depicting Jesus and various other Christian imageries. "Are you guys religious?"

"I- I guess you could say that."

"Can I ask you something?" Antonio said, completely ignoring Lovino's answer, even cutting him off in the middle of it. "Why do all the men have such big…" he didn't finish the sentence, not wanting to say the word in a museum, surrounded by genius works of art.

"Such big dicks?" Antonio cringed a bit as Lovino said it. "Yeah, he's kinda…" this time Lovino trailed off awkwardly.

"Gay?" Antonio suggested mildly.

Lovino bit his lip, nodding.

"Is that you?" Antonio asked, gaping at a painting. It showed a young man, shirtless, his olive skin illuminated by the setting sun peeking behind rolling hills of crops, purple grapes and golden wheat behind him. He was crouching, wearing too-big baggy jeans that sagged around his waist and bunched around his ankles, only his bare, dirt-stained toes peeking out. He was staring blankly, almost sadly, into the distance, his expression… Antonio couldn't quite place it. His eyes, captured in flecks of paint, seemed to dance and move and show emotion, and it was unlike anything Antonio had seen before. He looked back at Lovino, trying to match him with the man in the painting. Lovino drew back, surprised, his face growing slightly pink as he watched Antonio's eyes moving, flicking across his whole body and face.

Antonio looked back at the painting, then at Lovino again.

"It is you!" he cried, excited. Lovino smiled weakly, holding his arms out limply as if to say, 'here I am.'

"Is that Italy behind you?" Antonio asked. Lovino nodded. Antonio looked back at the painting as he prepared his next query. "Did you guys own a farm or something?"

"No, we just worked at one. We picked grapes."

"For wine?" Lovino nodded. "Hey," Antonio started, getting an idea, "draw something for me."

"Huh?"

"Your brother's a good artist, I bet you are too!"

"No, no, not at all," Lovino began to say, but Antonio thrust a scrap of paper from his pocket and a pencil at Lovino. Reluctantly, Lovino took them, and started to scribble, using the wall as support. Antonio watched him as he worked, his brow furrowed, his tongue stuck out as he focused on his drawing. Finally he ceased to draw and stepped back, holding out the paper for Antonio. Antonio took it eagerly and looked down at it, grinning in expectation.

His grin faltered. It looked no better than a third-grader's scribbles, the lines jerky and disconnected, the shape boxy.

"It's… nice.." Antonio tried to smile at Lovino, but it came out as a grimace.

"I told you I was no good," Lovino mumbled, looking at his feet.

"No, no," Antonio insisted. "It's… nice." He couldn't think of a better thing to say and so he repeated his former words. He stuffed the paper in his pocket, not wanting to throw it away in front of Lovino. He didn't know what to do, so he just walked on to the next painting. It depicted a young man passed out over a table, an empty bottle of cheap wine in one hand. A glass that had once been full of wine had tipped over in the man's other hand, spreading wine across the table and dripping onto the floor.

Antonio laughed. "Is that you, too?" he pointed towards the sleeping man in the picture.

"Maybe," Lovino evaded the question.

"Hey, no judging here. It's ok if it is," Antonio said, laughing slightly, but Lovino just shrugged. Antonio looked back up at the painting, noticing for the first time that the man in the picture's face was wet, not with wine but with tears, his eyes red and puffy. He opened his mouth to ask Lovino something, but saw that Lovino had moved on to the next painting nonchalantly. Hastily he eased over to Lovino, deciding to ask him later.

"Your brother paints you a lot," Antonio commented.

"Suppose so."

"He must really look up to you," Antonio commented.

Lovino breathed a single, forced laugh. "I doubt it."

"No, really," Antonio pressed. "He sounds interesting. I'd like to meet him."

Lovino groaned. "You're hinting at something, aren't you?"

Antonio grinned, unashamed. "You got me."

Sighing, Lovino hunched over and thrust his hands in his pockets. "C'mon," he mumbled. "He should still be up at this time."


They arrived at a small dorm building, the one specifically set aside for the foreign exchange students. Lovino found the intercom and buzzed his brother's room number, and in a second, they could hear a high-pitched, wavering voice.

"Ludwig!" the voice cried. "Don't- not there- ah!"

"Feli!" Lovino screamed into the intercom, his face red with anger, fists trembling. "What the fuck- is that fucking German- hold on- are you-" after a couple of messy swears he gave up on English and started yelling at full volume into the intercom speaker in Italian. When he got no reply, he ran over to the doors, rattling them furiously, trying to get them opened. A student passing by heard the noise and opened the door for the two of them, and Lovino rushed in, almost knocking over the bewildered student.

"Sorry," Antonio apologized quickly, as he hurried after Lovino. Lovino plowed up the stairs, taking them two at a time, finally bursting into a long hallway and sprinting down it, stopping at a door. He pounded on the wood, the door shaking in it's hinges.

"Ludwig," the same voice yelled again, "I-It's gonna-"

Snarling, Lovino kicked down the door. A thick, burly blond man pulled a wooden block out of a pile of quivering blocks and the tower fell down.

"Aww, you beat me," Feliciano whined. "You're so good at Jenga!" He looked up. "Oh, Lovino! When did you get here?"

Lovino fell to his knees, breathing heavily. "You- fucking-" he wheezed. Laughing slightly, Antonio squatted down to Lovino, patting his back reassuringly.

"Well," the blond man said after a moment. He had a thick German accent, and for some reason it amused Antonio greatly. "I'm going to take a shower. Feliciano, do you want to join me?"

"Yes!" Feliciano started to say, but Lovino cut him off.

"No he fucking won't, you fucking potato bastard!" Lovino got up once more, standing in front of Feliciano protectively. The German stared at him, shocked.

"I thought you weren't allowed into this building anymore," he said.

Lovino flushed. "M-Minor details," he said hastily, and Antonio looked from him to the German to the small, lighter-haired man whom he took to be Feliciano, confused.

"Anyway," Lovino said quickly, turning to Feliciano and squatting down so he was at eye level with his brother once more. "Are you okay? Did he-" he glanced over his shoulder at the befuddled German, then back to his brother, "Did he touch your… your no-no carrot?"

Feliciano brightened. "Yeah, lots!" he said happily. Lovino let a sort of strangled cry and in an instant he was on the German, kicking and punching and biting, but it had no effect. The man seemed to be made of iron.

With difficulty, Antonio pulled him off the German, looking over at Feliciano.

"Nice to meet you," he gasped, as Lovino elbowed him in the chin, "I'm Antonio. Real big fan."

"Fucking bastard!" Lovino screamed, rabid.

"I'm gonna use the shower…" the German pointed to the hallway beyond the broken down door, a towel over his shoulder.

"Don't use all the hot water," Feliciano called over Lovino's shouts. "Sorry about my brother," he apologized, now talking to Antonio again.

"It's alright." Antonio winced as Lovino's heel collided with his shins.

"Grab his curl," Feliciano advised. Antonio looked at him doubtfully.

"I don't know… I shouldn't…" he hesitated, but Lovino's fist sank into his stomach and he made up his mind. Quickly he moved his hand away from where he had been holding Lovino around the stomach where he had been trying to subdue him, and grabbed onto Lovino's curl. Lovino's shriek faded into a low moan and he started to tumble, his legs weak. Antonio quickly grabbed him round the middle with one hand, his other hand still on Lovino's curl as he fell against Antonio limply.

"B-Bastard," Lovino spat, but it developed into a yelp as he started to slip and Antonio gripped both him and his curl tighter in his efforts to keep Lovino upright.

"I'm sorry," he apologized frantically, remembering how he had seen Lovino this mad only once before, and on that particular occasion he had cut a man's penis off.

Feliciano surveyed them disinterestedly. "I'm going to make some hot chocolate," he announced, and left, stepping over the broken-down door. Lovino snarled and elbowed Antonio in the stomach, producing a quiet 'oof' and left with no choice, Antonio started rubbing the curl lightly to further incapacitate Lovino.

"Let- me- go," Lovino hissed.

"Will you calm down?" Antonio whispered, his lips brushing against Lovino's ear lightly. Lovino started to nod, resulting in more friction on his curl. He cried out, losing his balance and starting to topple forward, bringing Antonio down on top of him. Quickly Antonio rolled off, releasing Lovino's curl.

"I'm sorry," he said. "It was the only way to stop you." He felt a weight on his stomach and looked up, only to see Lovino sitting on his belly.

"Wha-" he started to say, but was cut off as Lovino punched him in the face.

"You fucking bastard!" he screamed.

"I said I'm sorry!" Antonio wailed, holding his arms over his head to protect himself. "There's no reason to beat up innocent people!"

"Yes there is! He fucked my brother!"

"It's a perfectly natural thing to do, Lovino. Your brother's old enough to make his own decisions," Antonio tried to say, closing his eyes, wincing as Lovino beat into his arms.

"It's not natural!" Lovino yelled, his voice hoarse. Antonio felt a drop of something wet and warm on his face and opened his eyes, only to see that Lovino was crying, fat dollops of salty water spilling down his cheeks and onto Antonio.

"They're- they're-" Lovino choked, his lip trembling. "They're f-f-" He stuttered, unable to say it.

Antonio's expression hardened. "A faggot? You're going to call your own brother a faggot?"

He heard a sigh from behind him and averted his eyes for a second, to see Feliciano leaning against the wall, sipping a steaming mug of hot chocolate.

"He's been like this ever since Roma kicked him out," he said. Antonio felt Lovino's body shudder on top of him.

"No," Lovino muttered, throwing one arm over his face to cover it, his eyes and nose hidden in the crook of his elbow, the other hand on Antonio's chest, fingers curling into Antonio's skin.

"K-Kicked him out?" Antonio repeated, incredulously. Feliciano said nothing, merely sipped his drink. Antonio looked back at the sobbing man on top of him, thinking about Lovino, his hesitations, his fear of the word he had tried to say, and then he realized.

"No," he said, disbelieving at first. Lovino let out a little strangled cry, tears wetting Antonio's face and neck, his fingers clawed.

"No!" Lovino howled.

"He is..?" Antonio looked at Feliciano for confirmation, getting the tiniest smirk in response. He swore he saw Feliciano wink at him, but he couldn't be sure.

"No," Lovino sobbed again. "I'm not- I swear I'm not. Please.. don't-" And in that moment, as Lovino protested in vain, Antonio could feel his heart break.

"C'mere," he muttered, sitting up, forcing Lovino off, and leaning against Feliciano's bed. He pulled Lovino back onto his lap, Lovino facing sideways, the side of his head against Antonio's warm chest. Antonio wrapped one arm around Lovino's shaking shoulders, the other hand stroked his hair gently.

He heard the floorboards creak and knew Feliciano was leaving again, and he appreciated that gesture.

"It's okay," he whispered, pressing his lips to Lovino's fevered head, his thumb rubbing comforting circles into Lovino's shoulder.

"No," Lovino said thickly, his face buried in Antonio's chest.

"Do you want me to let go?" Antonio asked quietly.

"N-No," Lovino sniffed, starting to cry harder.

"Okay." Antonio kissed the top of Lovino's head lightly again, not sexually or romantically; it was the sort of gesture a doting parent might give their child. He drank in the scent of Lovino- he smelled clean, fresh, a little bit like strawberries… and there was something else, a warm, earthy scent, like damp soil after a rainfall.

"It's okay to be who you are," he said after a moment, hoping it would make Lovino feel better, but he only cried harder, hiding his face in his hands.

"But I don't- I don't want to be who I am!" Lovino cried, shaking his head, his hair flopping around under Antonio's hand, tears and snot smearing across Antonio's shirt.

"Why would you say that?" Antonio asked softly. "You're a great person. I'm very lucky to have met you."

"I'm not-" Lovino gulped, trying to stop his tears, but it only made his crying more fervent, "I don't- shouldn't-" He couldn't finish the sentence, dissolving into more tears.

Antonio really didn't know what to say to this. Even with all his preparation, his tests, his A-levels and O-levels, now that he was faced with a real situation where he had to help someone solve their problems and comfort them, he was way out of his depth. He wondered, as he held the crying young man in his arms, what all his work had really amounted to, if all his studying and quiz sheets and flash cards were for naught. In the classroom, they never talked about what to do when something like this happened; the closest they had ever come to anything of this topic in class discussion was to hand the person tissues and sit there awkwardly until they had regained their composure, but obviously that wouldn't do much good in this situation.

So instead he called upon the tactics his mother had always employed when he was a little boy, and started to sing:

"Blackbird singing in the dead of night, take these broken wings and learn to fly. All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arise."

To his surprise and relief, Lovino started to calm down bit by bit, wiping his face on his sleeve and, encouraged, Antonio sang more. By the time he had finished the song, Lovino had more or less stopped crying, little gasping sobs still erupting from his cracked lips every few seconds or so.

"How you doing?" Antonio whispered. He had a strange notion that Lovino was delicate, like blown glass, and if he spoke too loud Lovino would crack into millions of tiny pieces and Antonio would never be able to put him back together again. Lovino didn't answer.

"I'm sorry." Antonio spoke again, at a loss of what to say. He felt Lovino's whole body stiffen under him and in an instant Lovino had shoved Antonio off of him, knocking him against the wooden bed and he ran out of the room.

Antonio was too stunned to move, or even follow.

The blond German walked back into the room, a towel around his shoulders and a toothbrush sticking out the side of his mouth.

"Can you tell your friend he owes us $400 for the door?" he said tiredly, the toothbrush jiggling as he spoke.

"Y-Yeah," Antonio lied, knowing he wouldn't tell Lovino. He didn't want to place that extra stress on him; he had seen Lovino eat napkins and stand in line for free food, wearing the same ratty clothes day after day, and knew there was no way he could afford even a quarter of that cost.

"I'll tell him," he said, making up his mind to scrape together the sum from his savings or budget. It was the least he could do.

"Well," he said, forcing a smile, the events of that night weighing upon him so heavily it felt almost as if it were he who had been cast away by his own family, "I'll be off then. Good night."


Lovino wasn't at the shop the next day, instead a cheerful person of indeterminate gender with short blonde hair served Antonio. Sadly he stirred his coffee around and around sullenly, even though the sugar had long since dissolved.

It just wasn't the same without Lovino.