Two Old Men

Yao did not know what possessed him to go to try and talk to him. What was the point of it? Probably his own curiosity. The others had been gone for a long time and Yao had not gotten answers from Muhammad were not satisfactory. They looked older? That was a given! Time had passed, they had not been here, and Yao had not seen either of them in maybe a year. Of course they looked older.

Marcus reminded him of a housewife, the way he just started in at cleaning an organizing his grandson's place. Correction: his grandson's fiancé's place. Not that Yao thought Antonio would mind much, but really now? That was just ridiculous.

"你好."

Marcus stopped where he was and turned, bright smile on his face. "你好! It's been a while, Yao, how are you? Did you know Lovino was getting married? You probably did... I always thought it would be Feliciano – he and Ludwig have been together for ever such a long time! But Lovino! It really is best for him, I think he'll be much better off as a married man as opposed to the dating sort. He's always had much more of a stable head on his shoulders as opposed to his brother, or his father!"

"Or you, aru?" Yao asked with faint amusement, wondering how it was that Lovino could be considered stable. Then again, that was compared to two people of whom Yao knew acted absolutely insane, so yes... maybe compared to the rest of his family Lovino was very much sane.

It was true though. Marcus looked older. Seeing him like this frightened Yao. He was not that much older, but it really was only a matter of time. Time away from here.

Yao did not like thinking about death. It was inevitable only when you did not know how to thwart it. And when you did... why would anyone ever give that up? It was a question that Yao considered a lot with his philosophies. It was not as if he spent all of his time in Hearth–

"Or me! We're going to start working on the town hall next, isn't it lucky no one ever really uses that place for anything? All of our preparations! It can be so elaborate, though I don't have as much time as I might have had if I had managed to come earlier–"

Yao wanted to change the subject, but not abruptly. Slowly he tried to pry Marcus away from the subject of Lovino and weddings and the like. "Where were the two of you before you got the news, aru?"

"Road trip from India to Egypt. It had been a while."

Yao could not find a way to answer that immediately, almost too glad that Muhammad was not here. Then he switched the subject quickly, though not the direction he had really meant to take it. "Have you seen him yet?"

Marcus blinked a few times. "Earlier this morning. From afar. Like usual."

Bad subject.

"But you should see what they have planned! Yao, this is going to be an absolutely fantastic wedding! Neither you or I will have seen it's like, I'll have made sure of that!"

Yao was suddenly struck by the fact that was the most frightening thing he had heard of for a while and that Marcus was going to make this entire thing even more of a a mess than Feliks and Feliciano had been making of it earlier. "Are you... sure about thi–"

"Of course I am! Have a little faith! Did you know that–"

Marcus rambled on and on and Yao was slightly sickened by the entire thing. He did not envy anyone at all that really had to do anything with this wedding. Yao really felt like locking himself up in his house until it was all over. There were too many eccentric people trying to plan everything. Feliks, Elizaveta, Feliciano, Antonio (though usually he was too lazy to make much of a mess), and now Marcus? It was true actually, that Lovino was the only relatively sane one doing anything with it now. Sure he was rude, emotional, and had the most self-esteem issues Yao had seen ever, but he was nothing like the rest of them.

"Good luck with that."

Yao decided this talk had been rather a stupid idea. He should have gone to see Ludovicus instead.

"Aru."


Notes:

This chapter is not meant to make too much sense. Sorry about that. It will by the third story though, I promise. This is just me teasing you some more, I guess.

The entire conversation in italics was in Mandarin Chinese. I decided that after the initial greeting it would be stupid to translate it all if that was all they spoke in. Plus the fact I do not know Mandarin and I would just mess it all up. 你好is a greeting, so I kept that in there. Anyway, yes. I know it is surprising, but Marcus does know Mandarin. Very well, I may add.