"Please, take a seat." He asked Matthew and offered him a chair, which looked as if it has been drenched in paint several times. Maybe it would be way smaller if the paint was removed? Nevertheless Matthew sat down restlessly because of his growing strain. Next to him stood an enormous drawing table with a slanting table top. At its edge many pencils of multiple form and hardness were piled.
"Sooooo!" said Feliciano, again with a bright smile on his face. "Let's start! Describe him too me! Wait, did you ever let someone draw a composite sketch?"
Matthew shook his head lightly. At home he tried out some programs to make a portrait but the character adjustments of Sims would be more exact than those programs. Asking Feliciano to help him was therefore his plan B.
"You have to do it step by step. At first describe me the form of his head. How is his face formed? How his chin? …"
Stiffly Matthew started to describe Matt, corrected himself so often that his tongue made made it no longer possible to produce helpful sentences. Feliciano calmed him down and asked Matthew to close his eyes so that he could create a clear picture of Matt right in front of his eyes.
Second attempt. After a short time Matthew started to chat freely about Matt. He digressed from the pure description of just forms and colours and also started telling Feliciano about his time in the hut. And then Feliciano began to draw on paper with a scratching pencil.
"His face seem to be blank. Like Lovino always looking annoyed, his face seems motionless and indifferent. But if someone took a closer look he would see how full of live it is. He has tiny laugher lines in his wrinkles and his eyes are strong and honest, direct and somewhat proud. Also he has thick eyebrows but really finely swung as one shallow wave."
"How is his hair?" threw Feliciano in quickly. "His hair? It is reaching to his shoulders but he always binds it in a loose ponytail. It is coloured like straw with darker and lighter streaks and they are also as unruly as straw but a bit curly. Next to his forehead he has a split fringe which reaches, depending on how he slept the night before, to his cheekbones or to his mouth. One streak always escape this strict division and hang diagonally over his nose. As if it wants to reach the other side." Matthew underlined his description with gestures even though Feliciano might have not seen them.
"Great, great!" Feliciano clapped joyfully with his hands. "Look at it. Is it him?"
Matthew slowly opened his eyes and froze in reverence. He looked in Matts face, banned in black and white on a piece of paper. Feliciano surpassed all of Matthews expectation.
"That's exactly him, Feliciano." He breathed, totally captured by this lifelike portrait. He didn't dare to look away, fearing it could disappear, like Matthew did in the night. How did Matt feel when he couldn't find Matthew the next morning?
Feliciano jumped happily.
"Wonderful! Even when he look a little bit scary… Matthew?"
Matthew was lost in his own thoughts and painfully thinking about the lost one in the middle of the forest. 'How is Matt now? How did he react as he found himself all alone in the hut? Did he contacted Oliver nevertheless? Is he also searching for me right now? I hope he won't put himself into danger because of me.'
Feliciano stooped his joyful movements and seemed like another person the next second. Quietly, barely whispering he asked: "Do you love him?" His voice sounded so entirely different when he talked so silky like floss. That was not like the emotional abundance like he usually was.
Matthew was immediately down-to-earth again and laughed nervously as Feliciano asked. Again, his hand didn't know what to do, so they started to wave around aimlessly.
"I.. do what?" embarrassed his eyes wandered from Feliciano and to the other side of the room again and again.
"I.. him..?"
Feliciano gave Matthew his brightest and all-knowing smile. It broke right through Matthews wall of awkwardness. Of course Feliciano was right. Matthew questioned himself how he could have been soblind and stubborn until that moment. Did he really need another person to realize this simple fact? At the latest the hug he should have shown him this.
Matthew missed him. Badly. He was constantly pulled away from here and to the place where Matt is. However, this feeling couldn't tell him where it was. Matthew was only sure that he was at the wrong place in every moment.
"It seems so.", he answered Feliciano, whose face turned into a endlessly doleful expression even though he was still smiling. "And he went away?"
"No. No!" bursted Matthew out way to loud and rash. "He didn't leave me! We just… lost sight of one another. That's why I'm searching for him."
Feliciano briefly focused on something Matthew couldn't see, just to get grip of himself the next second and quickly staring on the floor. Still smiling he said bittersweetly: "Then I wish you to have more luck than I had."
Felicianos sight was heart-wrenching. 'Papa was right. Who had Feliciano lost so that he is so broken?'
"I'm sure that I'll find him, Feliciano." In fact, Matthew wasn't sure but it was so wrong seeing Feliciano being that crestfallen. Somehow it must be possible to cheer him up.
Silently Feliciano attempted to hand over the portrait to Matthew. Matthew wanted to take it, but Feliciano took it back before Matthew could touch it.
"It just crossed my mind that I have a fitting portfolio for the picture I can give you. Please, go downstairs as first. I will follow later when I found the folder. After that, I have to show you around now that you're here!"
"Thank you, Feliciano." Said Matthew and left the sunny studio.
Downstairs Felicano handed Matthew a portfolio made of grey and abrasive cardboard, closed with a little ribbon.
Matthew took is carefully and Feliciano added: "I wish you all the luck in the world for your search." Matthew thanked him with a smile.
While Feliciano was giving him a crash course of the Roman sights the rest of the day, they didn't bring up the topic again. The afternoon passed by peacefully except that Matthew's feet hurt from walking around so much as he went to bed at night.
Feliciano raced with the same suicidal speed to the airport like the first time. Matthew felt so uneasy he clung to the car's handhold like his life depends on it. It wouldn't be surprising if Matthews imprints in the leather of the handhold weren't the first ones.
Then, Matthew flew back to Canada, starting his search right after the landing. Before his trip to Rome he had spent a couple of days and nights leaning over maps of his country in order to narrow the searching area with the few information he had.
Everything was prepared, the equipment, the money he needed to travel and the contact details he collected in every settlement in the middle of Canada.
Now he could find Matt. And it didn't matter to Matthew, if he had to walk miles over miles through heavy snow until finally tripping over a snowedbound bed in the middle of nowhere.
~~~~Epilogue End~~~~