Dear Vado,

How are you, my friend? Sorry I didn't respond to your last e-mail faster – things have been a bit hectic at work, I hope you understand. Do you remember my co-worker Arthur who I told you about last week? Well, this week there was an interesting incident with a water cooler, and…remind me to tell you more about it later. For now, I have a question.

This week, I will be in Italy for work; you know, international business, a lot of travel! It seems a bit strange, but I was hoping I might be able to meet you, face-to-face? Maybe we could get a cup of coffee and talk. You've become a good friend to me, and I'd be honored if you would come meet me just once. It would make me quite a happy man. (You know us French – physical contact is second to none, haha!)

Hope to hear from you soon!

-Francis :)

Ciao Francis,

It's good to hear from you. Don't worry about the late reply; I know how hard working can be! I would be more than happy to meet with you over coffee. Maybe now you can finally show me your 'literally perfect' hair, eh? Haha, I'm teasing. When were you thinking?

-Vado

Tch. In his dreams, maybe. Lovino stared at the unsent e-mail, cursing himself internally. He really couldn't, he told himself, he really couldn't meet Francis. There would be no way to get out of explaining himself, no matter how he disguised himself. It was better to not do it, it was better to just say, no, sorry, stars aren't in position, can't do it…actually, that thought sounded more plausible than actually meeting Francis. He was just about to delete the e-mail when Antonio barged into his apartment from out of nowhere.

"Loviiiiiii!" he called loudly. "I brought you food!"

Lovino screamed, slamming his hands on his laptop keyboard in shock before turning to Antonio. "What the hell, bastard?!" he shouted, standing up and storming over to him. "When did I even give you permission to come over? And actually, wasn't my door locked?! How did you get a key? Who the fuck gave you a key to my—" He stopped midsentence as he finally noticed the food in Antonio's hands, taking a deep breath and shutting his eyes before nodding. "Okay. Set it down in the kitchen."

Antonio grinned. "I knew it would work," he said, making his way to the kitchen and dropping the food on the counter. "Pizza margherita from that little place down the street – the woman working there was so sweet!" he cooed, flopping onto Lovino's couch and grinning up at him. "How're you, Lovi?"

"Peachy," Lovino spat, sitting down beside him. "Can't figure out how to respond to this e-mail to Francis. He wants to meet 'Vado', and I have to tell him no but I don't want to be a dick about it."

Antonio shrugged. "You could just come clean," he said, reaching over to pet Lovino's cat. She meowed, sniffing Antonio's hand before turning away and hopping onto Lovino's computer chair. "Wouldn't it be better than keeping this up?"

Lovino shrugged, looking away. "No. I don't want to give this up yet," he said quietly. "For…reasons."

Antonio smiled. "Reasons like, 'Francis isn't as bad of a guy as I thought'? Or maybe like, 'I was wrong and I want to be friends with Francis but I'm shy'? Or, oh, what about, 'Francis is cool and'—"

Lovino clapped his hand over Antonio's mouth, frowning deeply. "Let's not get too crazy with our imaginations," he said, smiling just a bit. "He's not cool. But…he's okay. And I think if I keep talking to him like this, maybe eventually I'll be able to actually deal with him at meetings and outings and shit. Does that make sense?"

Antonio nodded. "Si. You're giving yourself time to adjust to the idea," he said, hoping it would help justify Lovino's thought process. "So then, you should just apologize and say you're not comfortable with idea! A lot of people prefer not to meet other people through the internet," he said, smiling. "I don't think Francis would think it's rude."

"Yeah…I guess I'll do that," Lovino said, getting up and laughing when he saw his cat sitting on top of his laptop "Oh, are you hard at work Mattie?" he asked, walking over and carefully setting her down on the ground. She meowed loudly, staring up at Lovino for another few seconds before walking away, and he laughed. "She's so mischievous," he said softly, sitting down and looking at his email screen. He frowned when he saw a notification in the corner of his screen – glancing down to it, he paled suddenly. A cheerful little green box with a checkmark and the words 'Message Sent' blinked at him happily, and he slammed his laptop closed so hard Antonio shrieked.

"What's wrong?" he said, staring at Lovino in shock. "You're going to break your laptop if you do things like that!"

Lovino turned to Antonio and stared at him with wide, terrified eyes. "Mattie was sitting on my laptop and she sent a draft of the email I'd been writing. It was Vado saying yes to meeting Francis."

Antonio swallowed hard, looking away. "Why did you write that in the first place?" he asked nervously.

"Because I can have fucking dreams, and I didn't think it would fucking send!" he shouted, burying his face in his hands and sinking lower into his chair. "Shit, what do I do, what do I do…"

Antonio sighed softly, standing up and making his way to Lovino's side, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Maybe it's time to come clean," he said, kneeling by his friend. "Francis won't be angry, you know. Surprised, I think, but I don't think he would get upset with you for speaking to him. He's a good man, he'll understand!" He smiled encouragingly, faltering when Lovino didn't move. "Oh, Lovi…" he said softly, carefully pulling the other man out of the chair and into a hug. "It's going to be okay…"

"I fucking hate this…" he mumbled into Antonio's shoulder, voice shaking as he clung to Antonio with all of his strength. "I don't even like him, why am I wasting my time doing all of this shit? He's so fucking annoying and I wish I'd never even talked to him…"

"Hey, come on…" Antonio smiled a bit, pulling back to look Lovino in the eyes. "You've been really happy these past few weeks, having someone to chat with. It hasn't been all bad, has it?" He ruffled the other man's hair gently. "C'mon, give boss a smile! Let's both cheer up so we can make that pizza I got."

Romano laughed weakly, standing up and holding out a hand to Antonio. "Fine…" As he helped Antonio up, he met Antonio's eyes. "…I'm going to tell him. When he's supposed to meet 'Vado' at that café, I'll tell him. That way, it'll just be over, and we can get back to our lives before this gets out of hand."

Antonio didn't like the sound of that. Seeing how happy Lovino had been over the past few weeks, how excited he was to have a friend to talk to besides Antonio, how animated he was whenever he related Francis and Vado's exchanges…Antonio didn't want his friend to lose that, didn't want him to throw it away. But what could he do? Tell Lovino that? Suggest that he keep lying to Francis so that they could be friends? He knew the other man would probably shove him out of his apartment if he said anything of the sort. So Antonio smiled sadly and, despite all of his instincts telling him not to, nodded. "If that's what you want, Lovi, I'll support you."

Tuesday, 12:30 PM, and there he was at the café like they had planned. He had two coffees sitting on the table, was wearing a dark blue sweater and some jeans, and had his long blonde hair loose around his shoulders. His blue eyes were scanning his surroundings, and there was a uncertain but optimistic smile on his face. He sipped his coffee, crossed his ankles, uncrossed them. Checked his phone, looked around. The seat across from him was empty; waiting for Vado.

Lovino observed all of this from the café across the street, though he knew he should have been in the seat opposite of Francis. He had watched the other man arrive, had watched him buy the drinks, had watched him…but he couldn't stand. He stared at Francis, watched his every move, his tentative smile, the way he bit his lip as he checked his watch, and wasn't sure what he wanted more; to go to the other man and explain himself, or to run away as fast as he could from all of this…

After a long moment of thought, he waved down a girl from the café who looked to be on her break, smiling a bit as she approached him. "Can I help you…?" she asked, keeping her distance from him just in case. He nodded, looking over to the other café.

"Yes, actually. I'm so sorry, I can tell you're on your break, but I need a favor. There's a man over there with whom I have a…strange relationship, and though I promised to meet him, I can't bear to see him right now," he said, voice laden with false distress. The girl's eyes widened, and she looked taken in by his short explanation. "You would be doing me a big favor if you'd just tell him that you're a friend of Vado's, and that he's sick and can't meet him today, and that he's sorry…"

He could tell from the way her mouth twitched that she wanted to laugh at his name but was grateful when she bit her tongue and nodded. "I can do that," she said. "Which one is he?"

He gestured subtly to Francis. "The one with the blonde hair and blue sweater. It's just so hard, I can't do it…"

The girl bit her lip when she saw him, nodding. "He's cute…" she said, smiling a bit at Lovino. "The cute ones are always the most dangerous, aren't they?" He couldn't help but laugh a bit. "I'll take care of it for you, don't worry."

He paused, to look over her name tag before smiling again. "Thank you so much, Cherry. I appreciate it."

She flashed him one last smile. "You're welcome." With that said, she made her way to the other café, towards Francis, and once she began to speak to him Lovino stood and walked away. He didn't want to see Francis's expression when he found that Vado had abandoned him.

(AN: And so, chapter 3. Soon to come, chapter 4. Thanks to the friends who helped me get this done. Apologies for misspellings, formatting errors, etc. I think that my final draft of this didn't get properly saved, so if there are errors please do let me know. Thank you.)