Recoloured photographs are an incredible look at life.

0o0o0o

It was a hot afternoon and Ludwig was staring up at the clouds, mind drifting, when Feliciano first brought up the future.

'Where are you going for school?'

'Downtown.' Ludwig was hesitant to look away from the clouds. 'Gilbert goes to the same school. Near the concert hall.'

'I have to choose a school, too.' Feliciano sounded distracted. Ludwig finally looked away.

'What's wrong?'

'I don't like thinking of the future.' He was peeling the bark off his sword stick, piling it against the flowerbed. 'It was just scary when we first started to move from Venice. I never thought of he future then, and now I've forgotten how, if that makes sense.' His worried gold eyes flicked up from the sword. 'Do you ever worry about the future? That things might never get better?'

'Feliciano!' Ludwig had never heard him like this. 'Things can't get worse. We've already had a war. The government won't let us have another.'

'Are you sure?' Feliciano's eyes shimmered slightly in the heat. When Ludwig was lost for words, he shook his head and turned back to his stick. 'Sorry. I told you, I'm scared of war. Ignore me.'

'War isn't coming here.' Ludwig reached out and grabbed his hand on impulse, and Feliciano turned to him, the tension fading from his body. 'I promise. That's why we both came here. America is safe.'

A second later, he realized he'd said both, but Feliciano didn't contradict him, just waited, breathing softly. Ludwig felt too hot underneath his coat suddenly, the thin T-shirt sticking to him.

'Feliciano, tell me again. Why did you come here?' he asked quietly. Feliciano laughed, but didn't pull away.

'Nonna wanted to come here. He said he needed to get away from the Italy of war he once knew.'

'Your grandfather was in the war?'

'He doesn't like to talk about it, but he was. He said he was in the army.'

'Vati was in the war, too.' Ludwig didn't want to let go of his hand. It seemed to push back the coldness of war. 'He told Gilbert once, and Gilbert told me. He fought the Red Army.'

'I wonder if they ever…' Feliciano fell silent.

'What?'

'I was going to ask if they met, but that would mean they fought,' Feliciano finished, and they sat together in silence.

'Not always.'

'I think that's worse,' Feliciano said. 'The idea of having to fight someone you once knew. I don't think I could do it.'

'We'll never have to,' Ludwig promised. Feliciano did that to him-made him promise things he didn't know if it was possible to, and that was okay.

'Good. I'm glad, I'm really glad. I don't want to be enlisted to fight. Sometimes I don't even want to learn about the war, but I know it's important.' He managed a curve to his mouth, not quite a smile. 'I-I'll ask Nonno about his army.'

'I'll ask Vati,' Ludwig echoed, even knowing that his was a different scenario than Feliciano's.

'Are you sure?'

'Gilbert and I should both know,' Ludwig said firmly. 'We should learn so we don't repeat any mistakes.' Feliciano nodded, searching his face, and smiled for real.

'It's strange that we can prevent wars and things like that by remembering. I didn't think I could, but you have a funny way of changing people to be stronger, Ludwig, did you know? I don't think you do.' He fell back into the grass and laughed. His eyes were every shade of bronze in the light. 'I want to tell you everything I know about you, but I don't think I have the words to express it.'

For once, Ludwig understood what he was saying, and wanted to tell Feliciano he felt the same, and that he had drawings itching at his fingertips, begging to be expressed.

'I know,' he said, and Feliciano slowed, eyes serious and bright. He nodded once, and Ludwig lay down and went back to staring at the sky.

'We'll stay friends, right?' Feliciano asked after a long while. Ludwig squeezed his hand, still in his.

'Of course,' he said, and knew he could keep this promise.

0o0o0o

Feliciano went out to find Nonno and ask, but he was gone. He found Lovino instead, who threw him half a look over the top of his book and immediately strode over to wipe the grass stains off his face.

'Can I borrow your penknife?' Feliciano asked.

'Why?' Lovino was still preoccupied with rubbing out the grass stains, and Feliciano's cheek stung, but he gritted his teeth.

'I want to carve something.'

'If you cut yourself, Nonno will kill me and I will never let you use my knife again,' Lovino threatened, but gave it over. He wasn't even supposed to have it, but he'd shown Feliciano back in Venice when they were closer, just a year or so ago, before the announcement that they were moving.

'Where's Nonno?'

'Out. He's always out now. You are, too.' He fixed Feliciano's paint smock strap and clicked his tongue.

'Always?'

'You are too, didn't you hear me? That's why you don't notice. He's always at our neighbors. I think he's talking to Aldrich.'

Feliciano looked out the window and saw a flash of his grandfather's coppery hair against blond braids through the shades.

'Why?'

'Don't ask me.'

'I think it's because of his army days,' Feliciano said. Lovino pressed his lips together. 'Why doesn't he talk about them?' Feliciano pressed.

'Would you?' Lovino gathered his books with sharp movements and set off towards his room. 'Feliciano, it's nothing. Nonno was in the army, and Aldrich was probably conscripted as well. They just want to talk about it. Leave them alone.'

But as Feliciano turned and caught another flash of narrowed blue eyes hard with frustration and the pained, sorrowful scowl of his grandfather through the half-closed slats, he wasn't so sure.

The first few slices with the penknife were uneven, and Feliciano took a while to get used to it before he whittled down a sword. He could faintly see what was happening through Ludwig's kitchen window. His grandfather seemed to be pacing while Aldrich stood stonily. Feliciano couldn't tell if they were arguing or not; every move was soaked with a deep kind of pain and fear and anger. That was what war did to people, Feliciano thought with a sick, hot jolt in his stomach. It made them angry and fearful even after the peace was declared.

The peace didn't put everything back together the way it used to be. It was good, but it left people trying to clean up what the violence had taken. He stripped off another curl of wood and imagined war reshaping so many people, cutting them down to the bare essence of humanity.

Feliciano thought of what Lovino would be like after a war and a burningly cold hand twisted his insides. He thought of Ludwig changed, his hesitant kindness hidden underneath the anger and pain. Feliciano remembered too often the way Ludwig said he wasn't supposed to ask questions, all his silent acceptance of the way his brother and grandfather fought, and the branch cracked in his hands.

The marrow of the branch was dark and stained his hands. Feliciano buried it in the flowerbed and went back inside to give Lovino his penknife back.

'What school are you going to?' he asked. Lovino shrugged, too intent on frantically scribbling things down from his book.

'It's downtown.'

'Near the concert hall?' Feliciano asked with a hint of relief. He could look forward to a future if Ludwig was in his classes and they could pass notes.

Lovino gave him a strange look. 'No, that one is like a military academy. We go to the other one.'

0o0o0o

Ludwig heard the muffled, angry words before he opened the door and braced himself, but when he opened the door, he saw Feliciano's grandfather arguing with Vati, and both stopped to stare at him with astonishment.

'Ludwig?' Vati asked. His voice was hoarser than usual, like he'd been shouting, or choked up.

'I want to talk to you,' Ludwig said. 'About the war.'

'You should leave,' Vati said to the man angrily leaning against the table. He didn't take his eyes off Ludwig. Feliciano's grandfather gave Vati a sort of look as he left, the kind of look Lovino gave Antonio when he didn't think he was watching-angry and wistful and deep.

When he was gone, Vati settled in a chair. 'What do you want to know?'

Ludwig was taken aback at how easily he had gotten to the information. 'What did you do in the war?'

'I fought against the Red Army,' he said simply.

'Why?' The word felt strange, like Feliciano was asking it.

'Because my country told me to.'

Feliciano would hate that answer. He would push for the rest of the story and find it, he would be able to be brave and bold enough to meet Vati's blue eyes and tell him he needed more.

Ludwig wasn't Feliciano. He nodded and left to think.

Gilbert was in the shade of a massive oak tree, sparring with his shadow. He'd first taught Ludwig the basics of sword fighting.

'What happened?' he asked by way of greeting, throwing his stick aside. It clattered against his unused weights.

'I tried to talk to Vati about the war.'

'Why?' Gilbert sounded unsurprised and resigned. It made Ludwig feel like he'd done wrong even though he hadn't.

'Because Feliciano thinks they might know each other from war.'

Gilbert stopped for a few seconds before he shook his head. 'It can't be,' he said. Ludwig would have asked more, but with a crack, the summer heat split and rain poured in.

'Look at that,' Gilbert said softly, tilting his face up to heaven. His skin glistened with rain. 'I would have liked to be downtown now.'

'Why?'

'The concert hall is better in the rain,' Gilbert said. No matter what, he said no more.

Feliciano was in the garden, mud splattered across his arms and knees, hair twisted into wildness by the wind. When he saw him, Ludwig relaxed and felt the cloudburst for the first time, grateful for the respite from the heat.

'The flowers will be happy,' Feliciano said cheerfully. He'd left his cap and smock inside, and the absence made him look new.

'Will you be?' Ludwig rolled up his trouser legs and knelt down. Feliciano gave him a trowel for the weeds.

'I think so. I love rain, it always cleans the world again. I still need to ask Nonno about the war. He came back a while ago, and the look on his face…' Feliciano shrugged and dug out another weed. 'I won't talk to him until he's better. Sometimes Lovino has the same look on his face when he comes back from Antonio, like he's scared of being happy.'

'I asked Vati about the war and all he said was that he fought the Red Army, but he was talking with your grandfather when I found him.' Ludwig stabbed at a weed, unsure what he was even angry about. 'I wish people would tell me things.'

'Hey, Ludwig.' Feliciano's voice was curious and soft.

Ludwig finally looked up from a stubborn weed to see Feliciano's face tilted upwards, the rain making his hair curl off the back of his neck. It made his shirt stick to his runner's body. His eyes were closed.

He opened his eyes and the rain all around made Ludwig's heart stutter.

'I can tell you things, but they probably aren't what you want to hear,' he said with a laugh, trying to push his hair back. Ludwig reached out and did it for him. In this moment, they were alone and the rain made the world softer, and Ludwig found Feliciano's hands in his.

'Say it,' he said. He wanted to hear anything Feliciano said.

'Sei bello,' Feliciano said softly. 'I want to say that every time I see you.'

'Du bist wunderschön,' Ludwig replied shakily. The world seemed to be tipping. Feliciano was close and his hands were faintly rough with paint and clay and creation.

'E ti amo,' he murmured, so softly Ludwig wasn't sure he was meant to have heard. 'I should say that, too.'

'What does it mean?'

Feliciano didn't answer for a long time. He looked up. It was like they were soaring among the raindrops.

'I'll tell you another day.'

0o0o0o

It's strange to imagine certain history as vibrant as it was.

:: The way light falls coincidentally in photographs