A/N: I really love the Hetalia fandom. Rly. Thanks for the reviews, guys! I actually got numerous requests to continue, which made me flail about with glee and such. So! Here we go!

Hope it lives up to expectations.

TALA 2

"Ve~"

Lovino stared intently out at the classroom.

"Ve~~"

Was his eyebrow twitching? He swore he could feel it twitching.

"Ve~~~Romano~"

Lovino finally turned to face his brother.

"What." The expression on his face would have made flowers wilt. Unfortunately, Feliciano was not a flower, so he just stared back with his usual vapid smile.

Yes, Lovino decided. Feliciano was much more dense than a flower.

"Ve, Romano, would you mind watching the kids by yourself for a minute?"

"Fine, as long as it gets you away from me."

Feliciano giggled. "I love you, too, Romano! I'll be right back, I promise.

And he flounced out of the room. Fucking flounced. Seriously, he made Lovino's tomato plants look like some kind of genius science convention.

And speaking of science conventions—

Or science competitions, whatever—

"Don't you brats have a test to be working on?" Several curious faces ducked down to look back at their papers. Lovino glared at them for a moment more before he sat back in his chair with a huff. Stupid kids.

He glanced at his watch and called out, "Ten minutes until I'm out of this hellhole. Better be done by then." He got a few acknowledging nods, which he ignored in turn.

What a waste of a Saturday.

Briefly, his thoughts turn strayed back to the library, and that bright, teasing grin—

He slammed his hand down on the table, causing all the kids in the room to jump. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed one team was standing next to him, papers clutched in their hands, expressions fearful.

"Can I help you with something?" he tried making his voice sound cheerful, more like Feliciano's. For some reason, this only seemed to terrify them further.

The group shoved one of their members out of the huddle towards him. Trembling, she held the completed test out to him.

"W-we finished," she stammered. Lovino eyed the test distastefully for a minute.

"Put it on the desk," he said, "and you can leave."

There was a sudden flurry of movement. Lovino blinked, startled, and opened his eyes to a completely empty classroom. A solitary sheet of paper blew by on a breeze that seemed to have magically started up inside the room just for the occasion.

He scoffed and eyed the messy heap of tests on the table in front of him.

Like hell was he straightening that out, it wasn't as if he was getting paid. Feliciano could do it when he got back. Speaking of stupid-cheerful-younger-brothers-who-actually-like d-cleaning-for-some-godforsaken-reason, where was that idiot?

Lovino stood and left the room, intent on telling off his brother. 'Right back' his foot.

A few minutes into his search, which mostly consisted of him wandering aimlessly through the halls of the earth science building muttering curses to himself, the halls were flooded with kids coming out of other events.

Lovino scowled at one group in matching neon yellow shirts as they scampered past him, giggling.

He hated kids. 'Kids' being anyone who was younger than him. And this stupid science competition that was being held on the university campus had brought out hordes of middle and high schoolers—and he was stuck supervising groups of them.

The halls were gradually clearing around him as the competitors headed to their next events. He almost sighed in relief. He wasn't needed for this one, which meant he had a bit of free time before—

"Hey! There you are!"

His heart skipped a beat. That voice. That ridiculously loud, over-energetic voice. It could be only one person.

"Alfred!" he hissed, turning and catching sight of the blond, who had somehow appeared right behind him.

Alfred grinned (there was that goddamned smile again) and opened his mouth to say something. Lovino quickly reached up (dammit, this kid was taller than he was!) and slapped a hand over his mouth.

"Quiet, idiot; they're doing stuff in these rooms!"

Alfred blinked at him from behind his glasses. Lovino noticed his eyes were an incredibly vibrant shade of blue.

Shit. He should not be noticing things like that, dammit.

He looked away in favor of dragging the other outside. There were a few volunteer parents, mostly moms, hovering on the lawn, but none sitting on the steps. Alfred promptly sat down on the top step, looking up at Lovino and patting the spot next to him. Lovino hesitated, then sat.

"I found you!" Alfred said as soon as he was sitting.

"Obviously."

"And you remembered my name!" For some reason, this seemed to absolutely thrill him.

Lovino snorted. "How could I forget? You practically yelled it at me after you invaded the library and bled all over the books." So maybe that was a bit of an exaggeration.

Alfred just laughed, though.

"I was worried for a second when I couldn't find you there."

Lovino ignored the warmth that comment caused.

"I don't work at the library on Saturdays," he said instead. "Just Thursdays and Fridays. I could have told you that if you hadn't run off so fast yesterday. Idiot."

Alfred's head tilted to one side curiously. "Today's Saturday?"

"How could you not even know what day it is?" Lovino asked disbelievingly. "Yes it's Saturday!"

"Well, I don't actually have a calendar; usually I judge what day it is by the number and mood of the little kids running around. I guess whatever's going on here today threw me off."

"Che, idiot. Why would all these kids be on the university campus if it was a normal school day?"

"I dunno." Alfred shrugged unconcernedly.

"Idiot," he repeated. He eyed Alfred's face warily. "Does that hurt?"

"What, this?" Alfred poked at his bruised jaw. "Nah. I'm made of tougher stuff than that." He punched a fist into the air and announced loudly, "It'll take more than some freaky Russian to silence me! Haha!"

Lovino elbowed him in the side.

"Ow!"

"Quiet, idiot."

Alfred pouted. "Fine."

"Did you ever find your tooth?" Lovino asked after a moment.

"Oh yeah! Turns out I didn't lose it after all! It was just kinda hard to tell with all the blood in my mouth."

He laughed at the stricken expression on Lovino's face. Lovino tried to elbow him again, but Alfred foiled his attempt by shifting closer until their sides were touching and slinging an arm over his shoulders.

"Your face is red, Lovi."

"Sh-shut up!" The nickname didn't help with the red spreading across his cheeks.

Lovino decided some silent fuming was in order to show his displeasure. Of course, he thought as he glanced sideways at the cheerful blond, the other probably wouldn't even notice. Alfred turned and caught his gaze. He grinned, bringing Lovino's blush back full force and causing him to look away with a huff.

"So Lovi! What grade are you in?" Alfred asked. Dear God he was attempting small talk.

He grumbled a bit before answering. "I'm a sophomore."

"Cool! I guess I'd be a senior right now if I was still in high school. Have you declared a major yet?"

"No."

"Any ideas?" Alfred pushed.

"No," Lovino repeated a little more forcefully. Hopefully he would catch the hint—

"Well is there anything you're good at that you might wanna—"

"No!" he exploded. Alfred was silent until he got his breathing back under control. Normally he would have gone off on the kid, who apparently couldn't read the atmosphere to save his life. But the warm weight of the arm over his shoulders—

Shit. Do not think about that! He'd only met Alfred yesterday!

Alfred must have felt his breathing hitch again, because he cautiously broke the silence, "Lovi…?"

Lovino took a deep breath, then sighed. "No. I'm not good at anything," he muttered. Alfred seemed to mull over this for a moment.

'Well, even if you totally such at everything, there's got to be something you're not quite as sucky at! What about classes?" Lovino stared. Why did he suddenly become so damn cheerful?

"Spanish, I guess," he answered reluctantly.

"And I'm sure you're better at it than a bunch of other people," Alfred said with a nod. "Take me, for example. I can't speak any foreign languages except for British."

"British isn't another language, moron."

"Sure it is!" Alfred exclaimed, gesturing excitedly at nothing with his other hand. "They have all kinds of strange words like, uh…bloody! Or wanker! Oh, or bloody wanker!"

Lovino frowned very deliberately to prevent a smile from showing. "You sound like the dean," he said, referring to the British dean of the college.

"What, that stuffy old man? No way, I'm too amazing to be like him!"

This time Lovino let himself smile; Alfred smiled back.

"Juggling," he blurted.

"Huh?"

"Something I'm good at," Lovino clarified. "I can juggle."

"No way!" Alfred exclaimed, eyes wide.

Lovino felt embarrassed at the admiration in his gaze. Really, the juggling thing had just slipped out; the only other person who knew about his hobby was Feliciano. Speaking of whom…

"That is so awesome, you have to show me that sometime—hey, are you looking for someone?"

"Yeah, my brother. He was supposed to be back a while ago." He didn't really feel like getting up (not because having this idiot practically draped over him was comfortable, dammit!), so he peered around from where he was sitting.

"What does he look like? Maybe I can spot him."

"Like me," Lovino responded distractedly. "But with lighter hair. He's my twin, actually."

"Do you like having a twin? I have a brother, too, but he's older than me. People still mistake us for twins a lot, though."

Lovino tensed. There he was, across the lawn.

With the potato bastard.

"Whoa. You have this expression on your face like you're about to kill someone, Lovi." Alfred looked in the direction Lovino was. "Oh, is that your brother? Who's that with him?"

"His boyfriend," Lovino ground out. "I really hate that guy."

Alfred squinted. "That's…Ludwig, right? The German teacher's little brother?"

"Yeah. How did you know that?" he asked, surprised.

Alfred smiled sheepishly. "I hang around here a lot, actually. You're not the only one who's ever mistaken me for a college student."

Lovino's eyes narrowed at him for a moment before he looked back at his brother. "I see," was all he said.

"What's your brother's name?"

The question caused a small jolt of pain in his chest. Everyone was always so much more interested in his brother.

"Feliciano. Mostly everyone calls him Feli 'cause he's just so cute and bubbly and—ugh."

"So does everyone call you Lovi?" Alfred asked, either oblivious to or ignoring Lovino's disgruntlement.

"No. They call me Romano."

"What? How did they get Romano from Lovino?" He sounded genuinely curious, which was enough to distract Lovino from attempting to glare his brother and the potato bastard to death.

"My grandfather used to call me and Feliciano Romano and Veneziano. Don't ask me why, but Romano stuck for me. Even my brother calls me that."

"But…" Alfred seemed lost. "Romano has the exact same number of syllables as Lovino! Why—?"

"Didn't I just say not to ask?"

"Not much of a nickname," he muttered.

"Well, my Spanish teacher calls me Roma sometimes."

"Wait, you're Antonio's infamous 'adorable tomato'? That Roma?"

Lovino gaped. "You know—? Wait, he's been talking about me?"

Alfred looked like he was struggling not to laugh. "Well, he may have mentioned something about you looking like a tomato when your face goes all red…"

Lovino wriggled around until he was able to kick out sideways and land a blow on Alfred's shin. Unfortunately, this only seemed to set him off laughing.

"I'll kill him!" Lovino fumed. "And then you—stop laughing, bastard!"

"Sorry, sorry." Alfred stopped laughing, but the corners of his mouth were still twitching with suppressed giggles.

Lovino scowled. "You'd better be."

He noticed Feliciano and Ludwig were approaching them. They must have noticed his outburst from all the way over there.

"Hm. Maybe I should go." The arm around his shoulder disappeared.

"…yeah." He did not suddenly feel bereft, thank you very much.

"Um, Lovi?"

He looked away from the approaching couple and back at Alfred, who seemed nervous for some reason.

"Do you wanna hang out tomorrow?"

For some reason, Lovino blushed.

"I-I mean," Alfred continued, rubbing at the bridge of his nose and not meeting his gaze, "I really like talking to you, and, um…" Their eyes met. "Not a lot of people who know I'm homeless treat me normally. It's always talks about how I'm dealing or what my plans for the future are or do I need any help, or stuff like that. You don't seem like the coddling or nagging type, and it's nice talking to someone so...blunt. I mean, if you don't mind talking to me…"

Lovino paused. Finally he said, "Just because you're homeless doesn't mean you're any less of an idiot."

A blinding grin broke across Alfred's face, as if he'd just received a great compliment. He stood up quickly and lifted Lovino up in a tight hug.

"Yes! We're gonna be awesome friends!"

"Gah, don't say it like that, idiot! You sound too much like that potato bastard's brother and his weird Bad Touch Trio thing."

"You won't regret this, Lovi, I promise! Wait, you don't mind if I call you Lovi, do you? I think it sounds better than Romano."

"I don't mind." He let himself smile for a moment before he realized he was standing there on the steps, seemingly wrapped in an embrace with Alfred. The volunteer moms, who he'd forgotten about until that moment, were giggling like mad.

Blushing (he seemed to be doing that a lot around Alfred—the bastard; this could not be healthy), he shoved the taller boy away.

"I have altar serving in the morning, and like hell am I giving up my siesta. I'll meet you in front of the library at 3:30, okay?"

He heard Feliciano and his boyfriend stop at the bottom of the steps, but he was focused solely on Alfred's (ridiculously) blue eyes.

"Sure!" Alfred beamed. He reached out, dragged him in for another hug, then released him and dashed off. "Bye Lovi!" he called over his shoulder. "Bye Feliciano and Ludwig!"

And then he was gone.

"Who was that, Romano~?" Lovino jumped as Feliciano spoke from behind him.

He turned and scowled at them. "None of your business."

Ludwig was frowning sternly, as usual. Honestly, what did Feliciano see in him? "Was he bothering you? I've seen him around before. I think he's a loiterer or some such sort; I'm surprised the campus police don't—"

"What do you know?" Lovino interrupted, feeling defensive. He stalked away before the potato bastard could say anything else, heading back into the building.

"Don't worry, Ludwig. I'm sure Romano knew you were only concerned~"

Fine, let his brother stay behind with the kraut. Now that they couldn't see his face, he felt a wide smile forming on his lips.

He'd made a friend. Someone who wasn't scared off when he ranted, who actually wanted to talk to him, to spend time with him. He didn't prefer Feliciano over him, and—

Alfred called him Lovi.

A/N: Whoo! It's considerably longer than the first one, huh?

Anyways. Lovi doesn't seem to realize he's hugging a homeless person. There will be an explanation of Alfred's situation later, though, because it looks like this is about to be multi-chaptered. Thanks again for the support, everyone.

I know my writing is dialogue heavy, and as a result most of my 'action' is eye movements and smiling. Is this grating, or no? Also, I took some liberties with the characters' ages, plus the Italian bros names. Is this name/nickname situation confusing? How about suggestions for nicknames for Ludwig (from both Feli and Lovi?)

All reviews are appreciated, especially with ideas or concrit, and especially especially with praise. I'm glad it's enjoyable. Romerica FTW~