Antonio barely looks up when the silver-haired young man comes into his restaurant. It's just after three in the afternoon, so it's not as though the place is overflowing with customers. Still, though, it wouldn't do to spook the ones they do get during their slowest hours by staring.
He watches the fellow lick blood from his teeth as he sits down. A gaze is spared for the purpling black eye and the way pale fingers fumble with the menu, as if they had been recently broken. He's dressed a bit too warmly for early September, but Antonio's always been there to run a restaurant, not judge the customers on their fashion choices.
No, Antonio doesn't say anything even as he sends Lovino over to the table to take his order.
"Coke," the albino says at last, after scanning the 'drinks' portion of the menu carefully. Antonio doesn't understand the need, there isn't anything on there that one wouldn't expect, apart from what is really a rather nice wine selection for a small family-owned restaurant.
"Coke, sure," Lovino repeats. "Diet or regular?"
"What?" comes the question, as if this stranger is somehow confused. His eyes widen somewhat and he looks about ready to bolt. "I didn't-"
"Never mind, merda, I'll just get you a regular."
Lovino returns seconds later and plops the plastic cup down on the table without so much as a word. No offense seems to be taken, however, or it doesn't look like the customer is upset. He doesn't look like he's feeling much of anything. Red eyes fix themselves on the window as if there's something in the cloudless blue sky that will no longer be there if he so much as blinks.
"And your order?"
"Is 'seafood rice' any good?"
Lovino frowns in confusion. "... Sure?"
"That, then."
"I'll have it for you in a few minutes," he responds, muttering damn weirdos under his breath. The odd customer takes a single sip of his soda, then pushes it away.
But Antonio is more curious than anything. If anything, 'intrigued' might be the word to use. Intrigued, interested. This is, after all, a small town, and his is the only restaurant serving South-European cuisine. He knows most people in this part of the city by reputation, if not by name, and he certainly doesn't know any albinos. Someone like this would stand out, surely.
Maybe he's new in town. Hopefully he's new in town- Antonio loves a good mystery, and loves even more the chance to make a new friend.
With a smile, he approaches the table. "Mind if I sit?"
The silver-haired stranger tears his eyes away from the window at last. His soda remains untouched. "Sure, why not?"
Antonio gestures to the glass. "Something wrong with the Coke?"
"No, I don't think so. I just heard... people are always ordering Coke. I thought it must taste... not like this."
A surprised laugh emerges from Antonio's mouth. "That might be the dirty machine- I need to get someone to clean the dry syrup off the nozzles. I'd try it somewhere else before deciding for sure."
The albino nods. "I will."
"Oh, hey, my name is Antonio by the way. I own this place, which is why I decided to make sure your drink was okay, not flat or anything."
"... Gilbert," comes the introduction, only a few seconds too late for the pause to be noticed.
"Nice to meet you, Gilbert."
"Of course it is, who wouldn't want to meet someone as awesome as me?" Gilbert replies, and Antonio lets out another startled laugh. And that's a quick recovery- where before the young man had seemed almost uncertain how to respond to anything, he now looks cheerful, grinning, as if he's found his land-legs, so to speak.
"And hey, look, I know it isn't my business," Antonio says, smiling kindly. "But if you're in trouble with someone, I have a friend of a friend who's a police officer-"
There's a flash of panic across Gilbert's face. "No, no thank you, I don't need... that," he stammers, red eyes darting this way and that.
"Whoever gave you that black eye..."
"I Fell."
Antonio feels a jolt of pain in his chest. "Look..."
Gilbert frowns, that same puzzled frown, as if the basics of interactions like these were something he hadn't learned as a child. Red eyes search Antonio's green ones. "I really did Fall," he insists. As if saying I fell is as much an explanation as he needs to give.
"Okay, sure," Antonio says, smiling again, drawing the conversation back into safe territory. "I'm just putting it out there. You should know your options. You don't have to—never mind. I have to see what's taking so long with your food. Don't go anywhere, okay? I'll be right back."
.
"He's weird," Lovino is saying to his brother in the back kitchen, and Feliciano is shaking his head. "Even for this town."
"How strange can he be?"
"He looked at me like he didn't know what a Diet Coke was!"
"So? Maybe he's hungover, fratello. Or just sleepy. I know I am."
"Don't fall asleep on the food!"
"What's going on back here?" Antonio asks, and both brothers turn to look at him, one with a glare and the other with a dazed sort of smile.
"What, I can't talk to my brother now?" Lovino demands, and Antonio holds both hands up in surrender.
"I didn't say that-"
"You implied it!"
"No, no, you misunderstand, I was just wondering where our customer's order is."
"Bet he can't even pay for it, did you see him? Comes in at three on a weekday dressed like he's wearing his only jacket."
Antonio shakes his head. "I'm sure he wouldn't come in just to order food he can't pay for."
"Whatever. I'll take it out to him once my brother finishes plating it."
As if recognizing his cue, Feliciano grins and finishes adding the final touches to the dish and Lovino scoops up the plate not a full second later, without even waiting for his brother's ta-da~
Antonio decides to leave the man alone while he eats, lest he seem like he's pestering.
When he peeks out not five minutes later, he spots, on the table, the still-untouched soda, as well as a plate of seafood, only the rice apparently having been eaten.
Beneath the glass sit a pair of crumpled twenty dollar bills.
"Hmph," Lovino says, going over to the table to clear the plates. "Is he stupid? That meal and the drink only cost fifteen dollars. … Whatever."
.
It's been just over a week before Antonio sees Gilbert again. The bruises seem to be healing, and he's less clumsy with the menu this time.
He'd ordered a glass of water and a plate of spaghetti, on Lovino's recommendation and while he waits for the food to arrive, Antonio slides into the booth across from him.
"So, I never asked—are you new in town? It's just, I thought I knew everyone," Antonio begins, and Gilbert shoots him a grin as he sucks water through his straw with the fervor of a man who'd been lost in the desert.
Just outside the window, a delivery truck barrels down the street, causing Gilbert to jump, startled, but then the grin returns, easy as anything. As if smiling like that is just his natural state. Or maybe a defense mechanism.
"Yeah, I'm new in town. This place is pretty awesome, actually. Big!" he exclaims, looking excited. As if the concept of a large city was something new and exciting. Not that this city could be considered huge, it was no New York City, no Tokyo, no London, but... sure, it's far from a small town. Antonio merely nods.
Antonio can hear Feliciano in the kitchen, the clattering of dishes being handled less carefully than the food he prepared. Green eyes dart to the bruised knuckles that the albino sported this time. Antonio knows what a fall looks like, sees clumsy Feliciano trip over everything from cracks in the pavement to his own feet.
"Are you okay?" he asks at last. "I mean, your knuckles."
"Yeah. Maybe," Gilbert answers. "Maybe. Someone hit me. But it's fine, I hit back. It wouldn't do to just, I don't know, roll over and take it? What kind of person would I be if I did that? I might not know everything but I know it's not good to just take a hit."
Antonio doesn't really know what to say to that. "Well—well, good. I'll leave you to your meal," he says, for once glad that Lovino had interrupted by half-dropping a plate of food in front of the customer he decided to chat with. Spaghetti sauce splashes up onto Gilbert's jacket, but the odd young man doesn't seem to care—or for that matter notice—and so Antonio leaves him be.
.
"Ah, Antonio, who is this?" a voice calls out and Antonio looks up as a scruffy blond descends upon the booth. He smiles at the sight of his friend.
"Gilbert is his name, he's new in town. This is his third time visiting my restaurant in two weeks, I think I'm getting a new regular," Antonio replies, then turns to the aforementioned new regular. "Gilbert, this is Francis. Don't take anything he says too seriously. Lovino would call him an idiot, but I know he's just being eccentric."
"Pardon, mon ami," Francis says, sweeping into the booth. "But I can be very serious when I wish to be!"
"Oh, of course!"
"Glad to meet you," Gilbert says, smiling. He's digging into a plate of lasagna this time and beside him sits a cup of coffee, which he didn't seem to care for until he discovered the sugar shaker and then, well, Antonio can smell the sweetness from across the booth.
"And you, Gilbert," Francis replies with a wink.
(A note on Francis: when Francis was ten years old there was a man who appeared in his dreams and had told him Be not afraid and Francis remembered when his father read him a history tome on Joan of Arc, and Francis just nodded. The man was tall and broad-shouldered with long blond hair tied in braids, and he wore a green cloak, and—and Francis doesn't remember much else about him.
The man had taken his father's hand and walked away with him. Francis doesn't remember what happened after that.
Time passed. Then there was a funeral. As he grew, he dismissed the man as a dream.)
.
"So where are you from, originally?" Francis asks on Gilbert's sixth visit to the restaurant, and Antonio merely shakes his head.
"I tried asking him that too and he wouldn't answer. His accent sounds German but I can't figure out more. It's okay, amigo, you're among friends, we're both European, too."
"I—well," Gilbert begins, frowning, seemingly trying to come up with a lie.
"Oh, if you won't tell us, you won't tell us," Francis says, dismissive, though Antonio can tell Francis wants to know at least as badly as he does. "What was it like, your hometown? I don't need its name."
Gilbert goes quiet for so long that both of them stare at him. He'd become more and more chatty, as time had gone on, certainly much chattier than when he first came in, and Antonio has grown used to him chattering on with a grin on his face.
"You don't have to answer, if you don't—" Francis begins.
"It was like this, mostly," Gilbert answers after a moment. He looks out the window at the sky, heavy rainclouds moving in from somewhere-west-of-here. "Like this, but more. Brighter, warmer. Clean, I guess. Or like, fake-clean. The kind where things look spick-and-span until you knock something over."
"Why leave?" Antonio asks after a moment.
Gilbert lets out a laugh, almost bitter. "Uh, maybe I was tired of it. But, uh, I know I'm awesome and all but hey, what about where you're from, Francis? Paris, was it?"
And Francis, clever enough to know a cue to change the subject, laughs and begins discussing French architecture.
