Once he'd arrived at his first class, which happened to be mathematics, he almost immediately sat down in his seat in the back corner. Lovino wore an expression that could almost be considered a scowl, that most of the people in that class were used to at that point. There was a spot beside him that was currently empty, and as a few more people filled the room nobody bothered to fill it.

Why? Because that seat was reserved for one of the members of the Bad Friends Trio. Besides, nobody particularly wanted to deal with Lovino anyway, so nobody else would sit there or ask him to move to a different seat before the seat was filled.

He was looking on his phone, grateful for the cold air from the air conditioning that made wearing a sweater more bearable. The scowl still remained, but it seemed to lose any harshness when another person sat down beside him. The Italian looked up, giving the other a nod that acknowledged his presence and putting his phone away into his pocket.

"Guten morgen, Gilbert," he said, watching as the pale skinned teen dumped his bag on the floor beside him.

"Morning," came the reply, along with a relaxed smile. "You're pronunciation has improved, Vino."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," he said in reply, taking his math book and opening it to the next blank page. Lovino had taken German as the language he was learning, but because of his accent his pronunciation was usually a little off. He knew the words, so he could understand people talking and knew what to say, but the main thing was getting the pronunciation right.

"How are you?"

Lovino looked up at Gilbert from his book when he heard the 'Prussian' speak, pausing for a moment to think of his answer. "Capital B," he said with a sigh, "first Feliciano was bugging me this morning, apparently he feels the need to express how exciting it is that he gets to fly with your brother to school. Then of course, that tomato bastard won't leave me alone, but when he does it's to go hang with the snail eating frog. You?"

"Someone sounds a little jealous," Gilbert teased, before sighing and running a hand through his hair. "Probably lower case a, Ludwig had already left by the time I was out of the shower. He's been doing it a lot more lately."

"Fuck no! There's no way that I'd ever like him, that retard never leaves me alone," he groaned, a slight, barely noticeable tint of pink going to his cheeks as he thought about the hug he'd gotten that morning. Gilbert didn't notice it, and if he did he didn't point it out. "But about the other thing, you know who it would be good to talk to about? Matthew," he replied, Lovino's other best friend was usually in a similar situation with his younger brother Alfred.

"Yeah, I know, I just never get a chance to talk to him. Whenever we hang out, it's always with other people."

"Why, because you can't talk to him alone because you like him? I've told you a million times to ask him out."

"Vino, you know that's not true! The awesome me could definitely talk to him alone."

Lovino rolled his eyes in a 'sure you could' expression, not saying anything about the nickname. Even if it did mean 'wine' in Italian, Gilbert had no idea about that when he'd come up with it. The other male had simply wanted to come up with a nickname that the Italian didn't hate (like Lovi, he openly despised that nickname), and Vino was meant to be a shortening of Lovino. It actually meant a lot to him, since the only other people that called him that were Matthew, and now his cousin Sebastian, so it was like a symbol of friendship between them. Though if it was just those people, he'd go so far as to call it a symbol of family.

He was about to speak once again when the teacher walked into the room, beginning to write up stuff on the board. After spending twenty minutes explaining the new topic, he wrote up what section of their textbook that they had to work through and left them to it. Mr Park was pretty chill and let them talk or listen to music if they were on task, and any homework was just work that they didn't complete.

Gilbert glanced over at Lovino, doing some of his work while he started talking. They talked about minor things, really, there was a little bit more teasing on Lovino's part about the albino's crush on Matthew but not much else that was notable.

The work wasn't much of a problem for them, Gilbert could actually be quite smart when he put in effort and didn't slack off, and Lovino was average with his grades. Anything he needed help with, he grudgingly asked the male beside him to explain, since that was at least better than going up to the front desk to ask the teacher (which meant that the whole class would know that he needed help).

Unfortunately, that didn't last forever, and soon he was back in the hallway on his way to English. He didn't share this subject with Gilbert, but of course it was instead spent at a group of desks with both of the other members of the BFT, and a Belgium girl named Laura. Matthew was in that class as well, but he was seated in a group with Arthur and Ivan, and Lovino wasn't willing to move to that desk since he was slightly intimidated by the Russian.

By the time he'd gotten there, the warning bell had just rung (the bell five minutes before he would be late to class), and the other members of his table group were all sitting down already. Antonio had a bright smile on his face and waved to him as he entered, causing that minor blush from when he was speaking with Gilbert to return.

"Lovi! How was your first period? You had maths with Gilbert, right?"

Lovino sighed, sitting down himself in his seat beside Antonio and taking out his books for that lesson. "Firstly, don't call me that, bastard. Secondly, why the fuck would I tell you. If you really want to know you can just ask Gilbert later."

"Oh? So harsh, Lovino, Toni was just trying to be nice," Francis said teasingly from across the table.

"Don't worry, Franny, it's just Lovi's way of expressing his emotions. He's probably just extra annoyed at the moment," said Antonio, ignoring the fact that he was just told not to use the name 'Lovi'. The Spaniard smiled at Lovino, and the combination of the words and the smile caused the Italian to blush.

"Whatever," he murmured in response, looking down. He wasn't used to people sticking up for him like that, even if it was just Francis who was only joking and didn't actually mean it.

Laura, who was sitting across from Antonio and beside Francis smiled and blushed a little as she saw the interaction. Her wings, a mix of green, brown and blondish coloured feathers shifted a little, though it was barely noticeable. "That's really sweet, Toni! I'm glad that you two are becoming such good friends," she said with a happy look, smiling mostly at the man in front of her.

"We aren't friends, the tomato bastard here just won't leave me alone," Lovino explained bluntly, the blush on his face fading. Francis had noticed it but said nothing, by now he knew not to push the Italian's buttons too much.

"We aren't?" Antonio asked, a slightly hurt look flashing across his face briefly. Lovino didn't miss it, but the other two people on the table did. The Italian sighed, running a hand through his hair while avoiding the curl, staying quiet for a moment.

"Not yet."

Antonio said nothing in return, knowing that it would probably only annoy the other if he continued on that topic, though the smile on his face made it clear that he was happy. It wasn't a yes, but it wasn't a no like all the other times he'd asked. He wasn't sure why, but he felt like he wanted to be friends with the other, no matter how he acted.

For the rest of the class, Lovino basically ignored them, only speaking when it was necessary. English was his... he didn't know if it was his second or third language since he learnt another at the same time as English... well, since he had learnt other languages first (he knew three and was learning German as a fourth), he was good with speaking but still sometimes had trouble with the writing. English wasn't his favourite subject because of that, and the fact that he just didn't like the content, so he tried to avoid talking during it.

The rest of the table chatted when they could, particularly Laura and Antonio. Lovino couldn't help but notice this, causing him to scowl and look down, which both Francis and Matthew (who was sitting where he could see Lovino) saw.

When Antonio saw the scowl though, he assumed that it was because of the work that they were doing, which it partially was. They were meant to be annotating poetry, specifically 'The Waste Land' by T.S Eliot. Lovino had highlighted part of a line, and the Spaniard thought that the other had forgotten the name of it.

Pointing to the highlighted part with the back of his pen, 'Lilacs out of the dead land', Antonio spoke up. "Oh, that's juxtaposition. You know, where two things are put beside each other for the purpose of creating contrast." He gave the other a warm smile, before returning back to his own work.

Lovino didn't say anything to him, looking down at the green highlighted line as he tried not to blush because of the smile he'd just been given. Nobody ever really gave him genuine smiles like that, only the people that actually cared like Gilbert, Matthew and Sebastian.

As for juxtaposition, he had known what it was, of course, but didn't know the name of the word. It was particularly hard to remember all the terms, especially half of them all sounded the same, like allusion, alliteration, analogy, and anecdote.

He had no clue why he was still scowling though, there was no need to scowl. If he wanted Antonio to talk to him, he would actually take part in the conversation instead of ignoring him, right? There was no reason for him to get annoyed, the male next to him could talk to whomever he pleased, Lovino couldn't stop him. He refused to believe that part of the reason he was scowling was because Antonio was talking to Laura, just like he had scowled when Antonio had been talking to Francis earlier that morning.

That didn't stop the fact that he couldn't push away the urge to scowl, the slight pang of jealousy that came from seeing Antonio stop talking to him to talk to other people. It was stupid, really, there was no need to be jealous over something so small.

That would explain why Lovino left the class the second the teacher allowed them to, heading immediately to his next class, history, that nobody that he cared about was in. After that class, he went to his locker to collect his lunch, an annoyed look on his face.

He ignored anyone and everyone that called out to him (consisting of Antonio, Matthew, and surprisingly Laura), not wanting to socialise at that current moment. English had left him rather confused, and talking about it would make what he was feeling sound even more stupid than it did in his head.

—

After exchanging his bag for his lunch container, he headed immediately to a quieter part of the school, under a tree near the back gate. Not many people went to this area, most thought that it was too far to walk there and back and actually spend decent time there, since there was a rule that no flying was allowed on school grounds, though there were a few exceptions.

Of course, Lovino thought otherwise about the walking. Since he brought his own lunch, he didn't have to wait in line for cafeteria food, and could spend a good half an hour sitting there in peace and quiet.

The scowl on his face was pretty much gone by now, replaced by a frown. He slowly ate his lettuce, ham and tomato sandwich, his mind wandering back to the English class. There was no reason to be so worked up about it, to be annoyed about something so petty.

He was so caught up in thinking that he almost didn't notice Gilbert sitting down beside him, opening up his own lunch container.

"Lower case a, sort of capital B," he said softly, looking over to the albino with a sigh, the frown still in its place.

Gilbert said nothing, not wanting to question the other right at that moment. He would do that later, they would probably hang out together later that day anyway. One of his white, almost silvery wings wrapped around the other, his way of silently expressing that he was there for Lovino.

It was the least he could do, after everything the Italian had helped him with in the past, and continued to help him with even now.

XXXXXXXXXX

(A/N)

If anyone can guess what Capital B and lower case a mean, I'll write them a one shot.

Hint: It's a system that Lovino uses with Gilbert to talk about how they're feeling without having to explain exactly what's going on.