Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia.

A/n1: We ended the last chapter with Raquel as the narrator. You all remember who Raquel was, right?
Well, this chapter is once again starting with Luisa as the narrator – just so you don't get too confused.

A/n2: You know what I really like about you guys? The fact that most of you instantly try to analyze the information I offer you in a chapter. You try to make connections and see certain relations with characters and subjects and what-not… and I'm just sitting here thinking 'wow, they're so EAGER! 8DDDDDDD' and then I continue ignoring all of your pleads to tell you more about some characters because I'm a total and utter bitch. Yippee!

A/n3: But seriously, you are all very kind and nice, wishing me good luck with my job and all… thank you, seriously.^^ That really is very sweet if you!
Also, look at this, this is this a fairly early chapter! Yay! 8DDDDDDD

A/n4: Time for another Dutch saying:
Hij is/zit in zijn knollentuin! (He is (sitting) in his turnip-garden!): he's really amusing himself a lot!
OH DEAR GOD, I ACTUALLY SNORTED WHEN I WROTE THIS SAYING DOWN IN ENGLISH. XDDDDDDDDD
This must be one of the most moronic sayings we have in my language. I mean, what the HELL. Clearly something's disturbingly fantastic about sitting in a turnip-garden. Don't ask me what, though. I don't have a garden filled with turnips, unless I'm playing Harvest Moon.
This is a very old saying, from 1914, and most of the time only uttered by old people or annoying textbooks that like to make innocent kids suffer and wonder about the bigger things in life, like stupid sayings. Or, you know. Turnips.
Saying this to Dutch people will always result in Dutch people bursting out in laughter, whether you say it in Dutch or English, because it's just that silly. If you say this to Dutch teachers, however, they will praise you for your knowledge of the Dutch language.

~~ And Three Makes Five ~~

Chapter 72:

If the parents don't become 'saints' and truly love their children, and if they don't struggle for it, then they make a huge mistake.
Elder Porphyrios
(Greek priest and monk)

I fucking raced back home with the speed of a thousand soaring seagulls as soon as Dope Face Robertoriono had begrudgingly put the thick, hardcover book (should expect a reprimand from Seb later for not-picking paperback and therefore spending too much money according to that cheap miser) in a bag.

I didn't even wait for the bus to arrive – like I said, I just sprinted the whole way back home.

…

Well okay, I attempted to sprint the whole way back home. But after 30 seconds, I got these nasty jabs in my side, and I was running out of breath, and having a BMI that just fitted the healthy standard didn't really help out either, nor did being pregnant (shut up, I'm sure it had some effect on my running skills).

So I admit it – I wheezed and walked the rest of the way. My legs and hands were fucking tingling, but not (only) because of my worthless condition. It was that book that caused most of this physical reaction. That book and those pictures of me and my brothers in it.

I had swiftly read the sentence underneath that one pic, with the three of us on it – it said "Spain and South Italy's children". Nothing more, nothing less. There wasn't a hint of how the kids were called. It seemed like the three children on the picture were being taken good care of, though. Alejo, Matteo and I looked healthy and happy. I wasn't smiling on that picture, but I know myself – I know when I am happy on a photograph, even when I'm not showing it.

And let me tell you – I was one fucking ecstatic sourpuss on that damn pic.

But my brains were spinning around in my head non-stop. The kids on the picture were me and the twins, no doubt about that. However, if that was true, it meant that we were the biological children of two immortal figures. The personification of Spain and the personification of South Italy. Not just Italy – no, South Italy. What the fuck. Did that mean there were more personifications like that? Was there also a North France or a Central Austria or whatever? I just didn't get it!

I hadn't read it through yet, though. I mean, I didn't even know what personification was my mom and which one was my father. But I definitely needed to know, as soon as possible, so I speed-walked home, like a pro!

As soon as I got back, I prepared a glass of cola for myself, a couple of cookies and I fetched some pillows for my reading sofa.

…yes, I had a reading sofa. It wasn't a real sofa though – it was a big, once very fancy lounge chair I solely used to read in, and I always sat in it in all kinds of ways, except for the right way. That's just how I rolled.

Anyway, I put my treats and drink on the window-sill and plopped down into the reading sofa, in the blinding sunlight that came through the window. Then I won a short but intense struggle with the damn plastic bag of doom that held my book, and finally, I started reading.

o\00/

The book had 478 pages, respectively, just as much as Vanity Fair, the fantastic book about a bitch trying to get a good life in a bitchy world, written by the English writer William Thackeray. I liked reading a lot, and it really was a good novel, but it still took me a fucking month to plow through it.

Doctor Tosca's book wasn't a novel, and it wasn't exceptionally good, either, but I flipped through the papery pages as if the book was the most exciting thing I had ever read – which, in a way, was true.

It helped that I was a fast and experienced reader: I've been reading for my entire life, as long and as much as I can remember, and believe me when I say that I was able to read through doorstoppers like these in only three hours (when I wanted to and when it wasn't Vanity Fair).

Too bad it won't help you much if you put it on your résumé – but whatever, this was the only remarkable skill I had, aside from my fluent Italian.

So anyway, after a couple of hours, I had read most of the book. What had I discovered during those hours of non-stop reading, in which I didn't even took a single sip from my cola/bite from my cookies?

Well, first of all, I learned about the "general" information about personifications.

One: the immortal personifications, representing nations, empires, kingdoms and even countries that weren't real countries, had been living with humans for millennia. Nobody knows for sure how long or why they're here. Some personifications died or disappeared over the course of times, but there were still very old personifications around – like China, for example.

Two: all the nations' leaders had always been very much aware of the personification's existence and it's been heavily hinted that there even were manynormal mortals out there that knew about them. Most personifications also successfully made humans friends. Which they eventually lost, of course. A very depressing thought.

Three: all personifications had fought in the heavy wars of their country, no exceptions. World War I, World War II, civil wars, senseless wars, bloody wars, psychological wars – they've experienced it, they've seen it and they might even have killed for it. As a result, some countries got slightly screwed up – just like their personifications.

Still – and here's point four: all the personifications were originally "good", and Tosca claims that personifications can handle a lot more trauma than humans. Not only because they rely on their life experience, but also because they simply have to. They're immortal, after all, and for some reason, nobody ever gets old from the outside: all personifications appear to be young. The oldest might look like someone in his/her late twenties or early thirties, but that's about it.

Why this is? Nobody knows, but five: as soon as a country starts dying, a personification starts aging. So as long as a personification's healthy and stable, so is the country itself. That's why the government of each and every country takes good care of them.

Then there's this organization, the Personification Protection Security Services, or PPSS for short, who have always kept a close eye on the personifications. I read that their motives to help, protect and watch over the personifications had always been noble and selfless, but after many years, things changed within the organization – the writer suggests that it was because of the fact they all of a sudden got paid for their services by the Leaders of the World, who asked them to work for them, several decades ago. The personifications weren't supposed to know about the PPSS – and if they did somehow find out about the organization, the PPSS made sure the personifications would forget.

However, life was good and normal for the personifications nevertheless - at least until the personification of England sort of got mad from his infertility, twenty years ago. He longed to have children, but he was unable to. All personifications were unable to, which they were aware of, but England just couldn't handle it anymore at a certain point.

That's where it all went wrong, or so Tosca said.

England had the skills, knowledge and abilities to create many unexplainable things – so why not kids? He started to experiment, but all those experiments failed because he didn't have the right equipments or enough money to make his plan work. Then, the PPSS came to know about England's desperate attempts to genetically fabricate kids for both him and his lover, and they actually liked it: they would like him to succeed into making children – not only for him and America, but also for the rest of Europe, for starters. Because that way, they could get rid of the older personifications.

I remember feeling a shocked, disgusted spark in my stomach when I read that part of the book. Those bastards thought that they could replace the older and therefore less durable personifications with new, young ones – ones that were made of their own flesh and blood. Two personifications, or one personification and a human, could have their DNA mixed together and get a kid. That immortal kid would grow up, until it was about the same age as most personifications were, and then the parents would either die or, presumably, get killed by the PPSS.

It was a sick, wrong and downright unethical plan, but the PPSS and the mentally-exhausted England made an agreement, and thanks to the organization's help, England was able to create the kids. They were put in the care of their parents – the personifications.

Then, they discovered the kids actually were mortal, like most personal doctors of the nations had already expected, and the plan was abruptly aborted. The poor personifications were lured to the Palace of Europe and there, they were told that the kids would get brutally taken from them. Originally, the President of the PPSS had wanted to off the kids after all that, simply because they'd only be a bother to the personifications and the PPSS – but the personal doctor of Spain managed to convince the bastard to put the kids up for adoption instead.

The personal doctor of Spain, huh.

…

A-anyway, after all these dramatic happenings, the memories of both the personifications and kids were erased. The personifications continued their lives like nothing had happened and the kids were placed in new families all over Europe. End of story, so it seemed.

But not really.

'We doctors, who never supported the PPSS' plan, made precautionary measures when we were ordered to erase the kids' memories of their time with their biological parents. We made sure that the children of the personifications will, eventually, become aware of the empty spots in their minds – the holes in their memories.'

My heart skipped a beat.

'They will want to have answers. They will want to know why they feel different. They will want to meet up with their real parents – and that's the most important reason why I wrote this book. I want the lost children of the personifications of Europe (and the USA and Canada) to go look for their biological parents. That's why this book is filled with pictures of children. I want to ask all the 23 and 24 year-olds (and one 31 year-old) who have doubts about who they are to go talk to their caretakers, to ask for my personal telephone number, and then, we'll see how this will go further.'

But… but wouldn't she get in trouble with the PPSS? I mean, publishing this book alone would probably have had HUGE consequences for Dr. Tosca!

'In case you're already partly aware of how things are, and in case you're worried you might put me in danger – fear not. You are free to seek contact with me. The PPSS won't hurt me, because the organization started falling apart shortly after the Child Catastrophe twenty years ago.

Members of the organization, personal doctors and even very well-trained spies were beginning to have doubts. Most of them were people with good hearts, that honestly believed they had done the right thing – but after seeing the personifications' broken spirit, lost hopes and fallen faces, they realized they weren't doing the right thing at all. It resulted in a short, but heavy revolt, in which Mr. Pita was kicked out of the organization, together with a lot of other elite-members that were and thought too extreme. Most of them committed suicide later, because they had been trained to live as a spy and simply didn't know how to live a normal life.

All in all, the PPSS fired more than half of their staff over the years and, since erasing so many andsuch important people's memories is troublesome and time-consuming, they promised the Leaders of the World and the personal doctors that they would never go that far, ever again.

I've tried to make sure they won't, by writing this book, hoping that this will be the last push that's needed for them to simply do away with their entire organization. I want the PPSS to be abolished and I want them to leave the personifications be, so that they, too, can attempt to live a normal life, without people watching them.'

Well, that was… that was a relief, I guess…

I didn't really know all that much about my real parents at that point, but after the first part ('General Information About Personifications') and second part ('The PPSS and the Child Catastrophe') of the book, I still needed to read the last and, in my eyes, most important part of the book: 'The Personifications of Europe and North America'.

So I did.

RSS

I picked up my backpack again and brought it to the kitchen.

Then, I went to the shed outside, to grab my father's toolbox.

Then, I went back to the kitchen and shoved the dirty plates off the table, so there was more room for me to do what I had to do. The plates broke into pieces with a loud, cracking noise – but I couldn't care less.

Then, I emptied my backpack on the table and grabbed a huge hammer out of my dad's toolbox.

And then, I started to pound away at of the instruments I had taken out of Spain and South Italy's House, with hard, dry hits of the hammer that sometimes got the table as well – but, again, I couldn't care less, really.

I needed to do stuff before I was going to end it. I had to pulverize all of the equipment my mother had installed into their House, for example. I had been eavesdropping on the couple next door long enough now, and gaining any new information from them wasn't going to get me back into the PPSS, because they simply didn't want me. I was my mother's child, after all. The daughter of the person who failed to retrieve a stupid little necklace, and therefore had let down the entire sections of the PPSS that was about Spain and South Italy.

My mother hadn't been able to handle getting fired, or so I found out when I came home from school one day. The organization had meant everything to her, especially after dad had found out my mom had been lying to him all along about her real identity and therefore divorced her. My mother then started to train me, teach me all of her tricks, isolate me from all that wasn't just as important, in order to use me to make a good impression on the PPSS and get back into the organization – but it was no use. They would never let her live it down, and they haughtily told us that we were very naïve for thinking they'd allow a person that would probably be just as treacherous and dumb as my mother to be part of the PPSS. My mom never got over it.

I frowned as I smacked the hammer down on a small screen I had also thrown on the table earlier this day – the monitors were going to get smashed well, of course. I didn't need them anymore. Maybe I wasn't going to kill myself today, now that Spain had forced me to wait for the stupid florist for him, but that didn't matter – it was going to happen, and it was going to happen soon.

…

But I guess, for now, it wouldn't hurt to help Spain out for a little while. It's not like committing suicide was that urgent. I could postpone it a day or two. It wouldn't make things different, anyway.

I heard a car getting started outside – meaning that Spain and South Italy were going to Barcelona right now. They were going to visit the church, they were going to be happy and excited and they were going to live for many more years, never realizing that the girl next door knew all about them.

But how pointless that was. How pointless. So very pointless.

I realized a few months ago. I was busy feverishly gathering information about the personifications next door, as always, writing reports and sticking photo's in specially labeled folders, when a radio commercial suddenly asked me how I would describe myself – you know, so they could try and convince me to buy some lame drink.

But it was then that I realized I didn't know how to describe myself. I could describe the neighbors perfectly, with details and everything, but myself?

I didn't know who I was. I had no idea.

It suddenly clicked. I apparently thought the neighbors were more interesting than I was, or than I would ever be, and that was such a morbid realization that I became depressed. Well, I think I became depressed. I didn't feel really sad for myself or anything, I just didn't care about anything anymore. Continue trying to get back into the PPSS – it was a waste of time, because the organization had probably seen how worthless and empty I was. Eating good food, trying to make friends, cleaning the house… what did it even matter if I didn't know who I was, what I liked, what I wanted from life?

I had nothing to live for. Nothing. So why bother carry on living?

After months of thinking things over, I finally decided to kill myself. I mean, nobody would miss me. I only left this house to get some food, or to sneak around in the neighbors' House, and that's it. I had no friends, no caring relatives and no future. I only had knowledge about Spain and South Italy that nobody cared about, not even I myself, so really… what was I waiting for?

I sighed and bit my lower lip, staring down at the bits and pieces of a microphone. Everything was broken. There was no way back. I couldn't even spy anymore, now. My way to say goodbye to this world and to atone for what I did to Spain and South Italy – even though they, like I said, would probably never know.

…

…

…maybe I should just do it now anyway. So what if Spain called the police if he found out I didn't assist him with the florist – at least my body wouldn't need to hang here all by itself for such a long time, then. I had been alone long enough already after all.

Yeah.

I slowly got up from the chair and looked into the direction of that other chair.

Y-yeah. I should just—

Knock-knock-knock

'Um… pardon me… is anyone home? Miss Sanchez?'

…

…

Of course the florist had to show up now, dammit.

Oh, well…

'Yes,' I sighed and turned away from the chair, 'I'm here – wait a minute, I'll open up the door for you…'

'Ah, thank you very much!' the voice on the other side of the door said, and then he started rattling about appointments and siesta's and how busy he was, and how happy he was that I was home, and he said all of that in the fifteen seconds I needed to unlock my door.

'There,' I finally said, as I opened the door and leaned against the doorpost with defensively crossed arms. 'How can I help y…'

My own voice died when I noticed a very familiar grin, face and radiance standing right in front of my door, wearing dark-blue work clothes. He even waved at me, like some child.

I groaned after one quick look and rubbed my temples. 'Mr. Fernandez… seriously, what are you doing here? Weren't you supposed to go visit the Sagrada Família with your lover? Are you back already?'

'Um…' he started, chuckling as if he felt a bit uncomfortable, 'I'm… not sure who you were expecting, Miss Sanchez, but I'm not Mr. Fernandez.'

'What?' I instantly looked up with a jolt of my head – and I was stunned to see that indeed, he wasn't Spain, he was just some guy that looked just like him.

I…

His glasses, and the eyes behind the glasses, were the ONLY things that seemed to be different from Spain's. Maybe his hair was a bit less chaotic, too, but other than that? The spitting image of Spain. He… I'm not kidding, if I hadn't been spying on Spain and South Italy for years now, I would've thought that the smiling, curious-looking guy was my happy-go-lucky neighbor. Or at least his identical twin.

'You're not Mr. Fernandez,' I very intelligently remarked, after having recovered a bit from the shock.

'No, I'm not – your neighbor is, though!' He smiled broadly and offered me his hand. 'The name's Hernández, and I'm a florist and an aspiring floriculturist. According to this note I found on your neighbor's front door, you're going to help them out with the flower arrangement, right?'

He showed me a neatly-written note, the handwriting clearly being Spain's. I could tell because he wrote very beautifully, but almost all the words were spelled incorrectly.

'Ah.' I frowned at the note before looking up at him. 'Well, yeah, I guess I had promised Mr. Fernandez to help him out with the flowers and the like… so…'

I'm not sure why, but again, the words died in my mouth. There was something about this guy that reminded me of someone…

…but how was that even possible, I knew nobody.

'Where did you say you were from?' I nevertheless asked.

'I didn't!' he responded way too happily, as if I had asked him a very nice and amusing question. 'But I'll tell you now! I'm from Flora & Cacta – you know, the soon-to-be world-famous flower shop in Barcelona!'

'Flora & Cacta?' I automatically asked. 'You're selling… um, flowers and cacti?'

'Oh, my shop sells all kinds of plants!' the guy excitedly said, obviously smelling an opportunity to get an extra client. 'But my fiancée and I – we used our love for certain plants to name our shop, when we just started out. She loved everything with colors and pretty petals, and I… well, I'm simply crazy about cactuses!~'

'You remind me of somebody I used to know,' I heard myself blurt out, before I could even think about the sentence myself.

He blinked. 'I do?'

'You do.'

'I'm sorry, but… I'm pretty sure I've never seen you before,' the florist said, smiling apologetically.

'Oh.' I suddenly felt shame washing over me. Of course he didn't know me – I probably didn't even know him! What in the world was I thinking, babbling to a stranger like this? Maybe I subconsciously was trying to seduce him or something – oh, how horrible! He was probably thinking about what a weird woman I was! I-I should try to get my act together already!

'Forgive me – I… I just had a hard day,' I quickly said, clumsily pushing some hair behind my ear (but the strands instantly slipped back). 'I'm thinking things that aren't there. I… I hope you don't think I'm weird or anything.'

'I don't think you're weird at all.' He beamed a reassuring smile at me. 'I do think you're very beautiful, though.'

…

…

…uh.

'Uh,' I literally said, too confused to comprehend.

'Something wrong?' he innocently asked.

'I'm not beautiful.' I gave him an awkward frown. 'Don't make mean jokes like that.'

'I'm not joking,' he said.

'Then don't go complimenting complete strangers like that!' My voice got all high and shrill and I tried to push back my hair once more, failing yet again. 'It's not… normal!'

'I'm not complimenting you at all, I'm just telling you the truth.'

'Wha—'

'You should always tell people the truth, you know?' he rambled on, nonchalantly putting one foot in front of the other – and therefore forcing me to back off a bit. 'But not only when they're doing stupid things or being mean. You should also tell them when they're really nice or very beautiful!'

'I-I'm not nice.'

'I never said you were nice.' He reached out a hand to me and put some of my hair behind my ear. 'Did I?'

My hair this time stayed where it was put. Meanwhile, I felt the creepy sensation of my brain, slowly melting in my head, the longer this strange, ridiculously naïve florist touched me with his hand.

Oh god. I was seriously starting to freak out here. Just ten minutes ago, I was about to hang myself – and now there was a scarily attractive stranger flirting with me and totally unaware of it, and I just didn't get it – I didn't get it – why would anybody flirt with me, and also, how was it even possible to flirt without knowing you were flirting?

The dense florist – who had been giving me this absurdly kind smile all this time – suddenly seemed to realize what he was doing, thankfully, and hastily pulled back his hand.

'I-I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I just invaded your personal space, didn't I – oh god, sorry, I-I just do that, for some reason. D-did I scare you?'

I looked at him. I still felt my heart pounding in my chest like mad, and I still felt the warmth of his hand, even though it wasn't even close by my ear or any other part of me anymore now.

'You did scare me,' I then whispered. 'You still are.'

The guy got this shocked, horrified expression on his face, while also getting so very red that it would have amazed me –if I wasn't, you know, still trying to calm several body parts down.

'I-I apologize – I can leave, if you want,' he stammered. 'It's your call, I'll do whatever you tell me to do.'

I glared at him and wanted to angrily tell him that no matter what his excuses were, he first of all shouldn't… smile like that and go touching unknown girls out of nowhere, especially not if he had a fiancée sitting at home waiting for him – that's just irresponsible!

But before I could even do as much as open my mouth, a small, pink and green flash, or… or ball, suddenly bounced past both the florist and me, straight into the house, yelling an excited 'YAAAAAAAAAAH!'

The florist gasped. 'No! Come back here, sweetie – don't go running into strangers' houses!'

And then he ironically enough also ran into my house, and then it was just me, standing on my doorstep, feeling so very conflicted and threatened in my own safe environment that for a split second, I swore I was just dreaming all of this – yes, I was dreaming, this wasn't real, I probably had already hung myself and this was one of those hallucinations people got when they were slowly choking. Yes, this was—

But what if it wasn't?

I went back into my house as well, as quickly as I could. My stomach made a twisted spin when I entered the living room and discovered the florist, staring at the chair and the rope.

'U-um,' I started, wringing my hands, 'so, as you can see, I was just… cleaning the ceiling.'

'With a rope?' He gave me a very upset look.

'Y... yes.'

'Why would you do that?'

'Well, it's just very dusty and icky, so—'

'I'm not talking about the ceiling – and you know that!' He got all teary eyed – what the… why did he get teary eyed for? What did it matter to him?

In any case, I needed to calm him down, before he'd do all kind of unnecessary stuff, like… like attacking me, or calling the cops.

'No, you don't get it.' I made my voice as wise and as convincing as I was able to, looking the florist straight in the eye. 'This is an old technique I got from my mother. You see those thick, wooden beams attached to the ceiling – like the one that rope's bound to? They're very dirty. And my mother's the only one who gave me some decent tips on how to… clean them. So yeah, I understand that you think you know what this is, but you actually didn't know it at all. Since it's about cleaning.'

I held in my breath as I waited for the puzzled florist to respond. Maybe he wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I swear, if he was going to actually buy this crap, I'd become the neighbors' darn personal assistant until their stupid wedding anniversary party was over and done with.

The guy looked from me to the rope, back to the chair, back to me again, back to the rope, and back to the beam, to which the rope was attached.

'…ohhh.'

I blinked.

'Ohh, I see. That's a relief!'

What.

WHAT.

NO.

NOOOOOOO.

'Cleaning the beams, huh? Yeah, I guess that's pretty hard to do! Good thing your mom taught you how to do it!'

'Yeah,' I shrieked.

THIS GUY. UNBELIEVABLE.

'Did she also teach you how to clean the rest of the house?' he wanted to know. I could tell from his – now dry again – eyes that he was honest and really was interested in my other obscure cleaning methods. Which was bizarre, because I hadn't cleaned the house in months. The curtains were closed, there were breadcrumbs, sand and other dirty things lying on the floor, there was dust everywhere and I couldn't even remember the last time I did the dishes, or the laundry, or cleaned the bathroom…

'I've been away for a long time,' I instinctively came up with another lie when I noticed the florist making a disgusted face after spotting a leftover piece of pizza. 'Really, I… just came back from a very long and exhausting business trip yesterday. I've been away for three months, so yeah… this is the result. Haven't cleaned that much since then.'

'So… after coming back, you thought assisting your neighbors with their wedding anniversary was more important than cleaning your house,' he slowly said.

'…u-uh…'

'Whoa! You're the best neighbor ever!~' He beamed a big and admiring smile at me.

I managed to smile back at him. 'Well, I am their personal assistant, so what'd you expect?'

His eyes widened and I was sure he wanted to ask me more about that, but then the colorful ball that had rolled into the house earlier suddenly piped up, nearly giving both me and the florist a heart attack.

'PAPA! TERE'S PIZZA HERE!'

'Gah – no, sweetie, don't touch that – it's ew! Ewwwww!' He grabbed at the ball, and when he came back to continue our talk, now with a little, four-year-old girl in his arms, he gave me an apologetic grin.

'I-I hope you don't mind my daughter's curiosity. Mia's always been like that, ahahaha…'

I found myself at a loss of words, right after his last spoken word. It was because his actions, his words, his personality and even his energetic daughter all seemed to tug on my memories – all seemed to try and make something very clear to me.

He looked just like Spain, his favorite plants were cacti, he was as dumb as a doornail, he was kind to a fault and he had a daughter named Mia. Mia.

'Tis' Mia! She's prickly, like Papa Lovi wen Papa Toni's bein' dumbs, ehehehehehe! Hug her!~'

'…Matteo?' I softly said.

The florist, who had been hugging his giggling daughter, immediately looked up at me.

His baffled, sudden bewilderment was almost funny.

o\00/

Okay.

According to the book, both Spain and South Italy were male personifications. A nice, friendly and slightly twisted guy and a grumpy, quick-tempered and unexpectedly kind guy. They were pretty different, but apparently, they've been together for years – both not-romantically and very romantically. They eventually got married, even, at the same time and place as North Italy – South Italy's brother, apparently – and Germany. Who also were both males.

So many questions – so many goddamn questions.

This all seemed so fucked up.

Having living personifications that represented nations as parents, learning about the fact that they were both male (and not even being that surprised about that), realizing that my brothers and I were, in fact, put together by a nation that was experiencing a heavy mental breakdown during all of this, reading how much both of my fathers and even the countries they represented suffered in the short time there was in-between losing us and then losing their memories of us…

It really was fucked up. Very much so.

It obviously was all a big story – a big lie, a stupid trick by a twisted doctor who wanted to make money. This was fiction, pure… pure science-fiction. No way I was going to believe this. No way. No way in fucking hell this could be true.

I should burn the book.

I should forget all of this.

It's all fake. The stories – t-they never happened.

But.

'You're a smart little lady, aren't you?~'

'I'm proud of you. You know that?'

B-but…!

'I love you. I-I love all three of you very, very much.'

'I love you twerps. And I always will… I-I always will.'

Those words – those words… those damn words…

'It's alright.'

They were said.

'You don't have to say it. We know. Okay?'

They were said.

'Papa Lovi and Papa Toni know.'

And I…

I-I…

'I really will tell you!'