Romano's POV:

When was that everything got so dark? And this scent… Is it-… mould? I could hear the sound of some liquid dripping, and whatever I was inside of felt… wet. I could see a little hole of light afar from me.

I tried to chase the end, but my body was assaulted by a sudden ache. After that, I started to ponder the possibility that I would have fallen.
I could barely stand on my feet, due to the slippery, uneven floor, and that intermittent pain which slowly started to fade away…

Once I reached the end, the whole scene in front of my eyes changed: I was upon a cliff, precisely, in a daisies field upon a cliff. The killer sunlight almost blinded me in an abrupt change of clarity, my lungs recovered after breathing fresh and pure air, and the pain finished dissolving away.
I turned around to contemplate a cavern made of silver stones; the sing of birds replaced the sporadic dripping. It was definitely a heavenly place…

"Haha"

A sudden laugh captured my attention immediately: I knew that voice, that sweet, childish and encouraging voice… It was HIS voice, that unique and ravishing laugh that could make my day no matter what.

I started to follow the sound, looking for my brother, I wanted to find him, and I wanted to be with him…

A hand grabbed my arm by surprise, leading me to the centre of the cliff. He then grabbed my other arm, and started making me dance with him; we were hopping in circles around the field, which flowers seemed to never die.
He looked unnaturally beautiful. There was something in his caramel eyes, something that made them shine and overflow happiness unusually. His figure completely dressed in glistening white made him resemble a dancing angel… but no, he was even more beautiful than that.
Suddenly, we stopped.

"I love you, brother" He said, planting a kiss on my cheek, my face instantly heated up in a mix of crimson red and pink

His laugh filled my ears with joy one more time, as he led me to the edge of the cliff. Pondering over and over again, if I should tell him the truth too.

"I-I love you too, Italy" I said, stuttering, still shocked by that sudden action of him

Italy then hugged me and he closed his eyes. I knew what was about to come, so I closed my eyes too, and our lips met into an intoxicating kiss filled with desire and hope and passion. I felt as our bodies became one, and slowly we started to fall down into the…

Nothing.

I opened up my eyes and then noticed that there was actually nothing beneath us, only nothingness, and what seemed a never-ending purplish mist of space. My eyes widened and pushed my lips away from my brother's.

"Don't-! Romano, I love you!" Italy shouted

I couldn't do anything; I was completely stoic at this situation: we were just falling, and falling, and falling… We weren't even going to die by crashing into the cracks of the floor, it was maddening… Was it… Was it the price we had to pay for this sinful love?

"Romano! Romano!"

My brother shouted, begging for my kiss. Our lips melted together once again. If I was going to fall forever, then, I will fall along with him, I will fall in love with him forever…

With my eyes already closed, I let the mist to cover us, and then everything turned dark, again…

"Romano!" Italy's voice suddenly changed, it was more… feminine? "Romano!" I felt something stinging my head

"Romano! Romano! Wake up! The teacher is going to kill you!" I opened up my eyes again, only to find myself in the jungle that is the Europe's Class: geography's teacher taking an oral exam to my brother, ignoring the fact that everyone was shouting obscenities and making cheats to pass.

It was only a dream… A beautiful, heavenly dream that then turned into a nightmare, a nightmare from which Belgium woke me up by sting my head with a pencil.

"C'mon Romano, you're the next" She pointed to the teacher's desk with her pencil. Still confused, I just nodded with my head. Her expression suddenly changed, it was… naughty, like she knew everything that happened in my dream "What were you dreaming of? You know… No one else but me heard you say "I love you too", and then babble some incomprehensible name… You can tell me, I won't tell it to anyone" She smiled

"What?! No! It was nothing! I wasn't dreaming about nothing! You heard wrong…" But of course, I wasn't going to tell anything to her. It's supposed to be a secret, a secret that only I know

My attention got captured in something more important than that dream:

"Ve~ I got an A!" Italy shouted in joy, hopping all over the narrow space between the desks. If I have to choose which quality of my brother I love most, I would choose his undying happiness: his love for life, even when everything seems to fall apart

I smiled. Seeing Italy happy makes me happy, the simple fact of contemplate his angelical smile produces me goosebumps, and butterflies start to born in my stomach…

"Vargas, Lovino" The teacher called me with coarse voice

I stood up almost in a theatrical way, with sweating hands and trying to hide a nervous expression. I paced slowly to the teacher's desk, for then take the wooden chair in front of me and wait, looking at my tormentor (a wrinkled, insufferable, boring, old curmudgeon who devoted all of his time into make our lives even worse than they already were) doing some paperwork before continue with me. Since the chair was positioned next to his desk, I could just turn my head and contemplate the whole panorama that was being held in the classroom: Prussia was making a catapult with pencils, trying to hit Austria with them; Austria was arguing with Switzerland while Hungary and Liechtenstein tried to stop them; Spain flirting with Belgium, Russia being annoyed by Belarus; the Nordics all piled up in a corner of the classroom; England arguing with France, now, they both were standing up for start a fight…

"Okay" The teacher resumed to me "Tell me, which are the highest mountains in Europe?"

"Ahm… the... Scandinavian Mountains… Carpathian Mountains… the... Alps, and… Pyrenees" I said, still doubting about my answers. The teacher wrote something in his folder

"How is the composition of the Carpathian Mountains?" He continued without hesitation

"Well, ehm…" I turned my sight to the classroom again: this time, Scotland and Monaco were trying to stop the fight between France and England, while some of my classmates were shouting for the fight to continue

"So? Vargas?" The teacher woke me up

"Ah, yeah… Excuse me, sir, I was just thinking… Well… Carpathians can be found in Central Europe. They have copper and plumb mines, oilfields…"

"They are borders between what countries?" He asked me again

"Between, Poland and…" Suddenly, I caught from the corner of my eye a crying Italy, and an irritated Germany next to him: It seems that my brother said something to him that made Germany yell at him. If that bastard hurt my little brother again, I'll make sure to make his life gloomy from now on…

"And?"

"And…" Damn, I forgot everything

"Vargas, do you know it or not?"

"I'm sorry, sir, I forgot"

"So you don't know. Okay, that's enough" He affirmed, bluntly

"Enough? What are you talking about?" I questioned, I wasn't going to let him reprobate me

"You got a C, because I don't want to see you in summer classes"

"What!? You don't understand! I-spent-my-whole-weekend-studying-for-this-exam" I begged, separating each word to make them the most clear possibly

"It seems that your own words are betraying you, " He newly answered me, how cynical he is!

"With all my respect, sir, FUCK YOU"

I insulted him. I wasn't worried about if he then punished me or not, he couldn't actually do anything. After all, I'm something bigger than him.
I furiously marched my way back to my desk, with unbearable wishes to hit someone or something. It's just… so unfair.
The bell rang a second before I reached the seat.

"Next week we're going to start with rivers" The teacher thundered "Start studying the ones with Mediterranean regime. See you next week. And STUDY: Don't fall asleep in Venice's moon" He concluded, looking at me sideways. He then left the classroom, haughty and victorious

"Bastard" I muttered

I hate him. Not only him, but everyone in this goddamned academy.
We always have to prove who we are, always having to make us respect (no matter if it's about classmates or teachers). Every day in this fucking lyceum is like a pitched battle: You have to be the best in everything, or well, sink in the shadows of oblivion. You must presume every single quality and achievement you've reached to be someone, and care about no one else snatches it away from you. You can't even have friends! Alas! You have to be aware to don't let them stab you from aback! And it's like… a sort of competition to see who has more… money, and culture, and beauty, and territories and battles won…
The only one I can trust in is my brother. He's so innocent, so pure, so sweet and full of peace, hope and happiness… It's like he doesn't even know what war is about… And since I learned that I love him (which was so, so long ago…), I promised myself to protect him.

I'm not sure if I'm doing that work very well… But, at least, I'm happy for him: He passed this exam. I, however, couldn't.

So, now I have to study the entire European hydrographical system to raise my grades.

And because of that (and so many things more), I reaffirm that life is just bullshit…


... It looked longer in the Word document... Whatever, again, sorry if I had any misspellings. Also, forgive me if I got wrong some answers (my geography book says that). And I didn't know how the calification system A-to-F worked, so I googled it and I learned that the highest grade is an A, and a C is when you approved but almost by luck... So sorry if I got any data wrong ^-^"

Disclaimer: Hetalia belongs to Hidekaz Himaruya