6

Do You Wax Your Eyebrows, Signor?

There are two boys sleeping in a bed.

The bed is very large, with silken sheets and feathery pillows all dotted with baby blue sheen. It is the middle of the night, and to these little half-brothers, the entire world is asleep. They can hear not a single human sound. They were tucked in two hours ago, at seven o'clock sharp, and the hour is now nine. Though the exact time eludes these little boys. The younger brother likes to wake up to the sunlight, so the curtains are always drawn and light from the stars and moon pours in through the darkness. The older brother, though the light makes it difficult for him to sleep, dares not object to the wishes of his younger brother. There is a soft lullaby playing from a music box in the corner. It is just loud enough that, drifting off drowsily into sleep, the two brothers dream of it. It is a Spanish lullaby. One that they do not know the name of because nobody seems willing to tell them.

The younger brother is asleep. He has been asleep for a while now. His little limbs are outstretched on the bed and his little breaths collide with the gentle melody of the music box. But the older brother, the darker brother, is awake. He cannot sleep—not while the tears flow from his raw eyes and the skin of his face aches. He lifts his delicate fingers to the tender flesh of his cheek and feels a sting as soon as they make contact. He grits his teeth and curls up under the covers, letting the tears squeeze. He is in immense pain. He is always in immense pain. Since the day his father began cornering him, he has been in immense pain. But he hides it during the day. He does not want to make his younger brother cry, not for any reason at all. His hands hurt, as well, from where the piano teacher smacked him with the ruler. He messed up again, even though he practices. (Not as much as his brother, but he practices.) Sometimes his muscles move on their own and he cannot help but make mistakes—just like with his dancing and art lessons—and take the smacks on his palms. Though he's gotten very good at holding in his wails. He doesn't want his brother to hear.

His brother does not get slapped. Not by the piano teacher, not by the maids. Not by their father. So he sleeps comfortably. And his muscles don't move in the strange way that his older brother's do, in ways he cannot control.

The older brother tries not to shake the bed with his sobs. When he closes his eyes he sees red, so he keeps them open, and the tears continue to stream. He holds the blanket tightly to his chest and listens to the music of the music box. The lullaby. He recalls this lullaby from somewhere—recalls hearing it in a place of warmth and happiness. He remembers a woman with dark, dark hair, dark skin like his, singing it for him. The memory makes him smile. But even the smile hurts, and it becomes a pained grimace.

He stops smiling when his brother is not around.

Hot and uncomfortable and in pain beneath the covers, the older brother silently slips out. The ground is cold beneath his feet. He doesn't want to put on his slippers. He looks at his younger brother for a few moments, and then leaves the room, because he can cry safely when he is alone. The house, intense and overwhelming in its grandiosity, is dark and frightening for him. He hugs himself as he walks and the sound of the music and his brother's breathing begins to fade. He moves down the hallway, trying to find a good spot, when he hears voices. He freezes. Two men are speaking to each other. Both voices he recognizes. One makes him flinch involuntarily. His arms begin to move on their own for a few moments, of their own will. He cannot control it. Then they are still again and he moves toward the voices. Down the stairs and toward the reading room.

The older brother peers around the corner. He sees two men sitting near the fireplace, drinking tea and eating cookies. They are his father and his father's father—his grandfather, a man who is so Italian that he alone might have contained the souls of every Italian that had ever lived. That is the joke between the two brothers. His father is not like his grandfather. Nonno has softer eyes and he is smiling much more often. Just like his younger brother.

"Take him to a doctor," Nonno says. He knows immediately that they are talking about him. They would not talk about his brother like this.

"No, no, there is no need. He just needs to toughen up."

"You are wrong. This is a medical condition."

"A medical condition, eh? He cannot do anything—not a thing! It is not a medical condition. Just look at Feliciano. What the boy needs is discipline, and..."

"Let me care for him."

"No, you are too soft. And you will fill his head with nonsense."

"Your ways are not right. You will ruin him."

"He is my son. I will do with him what I please."

The older brother crouches and hugs his knees to his chest and buries his face so that his sobs are muffled. He does not want to hear the rest of the conversation, but he finds that he cannot move.

...why can't you be more like your brother...?

...what an unsightly boy...!

...if only you had such talent...

...un bambino spregevole...a worthless child...

The older brother has cried himself dry. After who-knows-how-long passes, he hears footsteps, but he cannot move.

"Ah. You were here the whole time, were you?"

He is ready to be slapped again. He braces himself.

But he instead feels a pair of strong, warm arms scoop him up gently. He feels as if he is being rocked, warmth spreading through his body. He opens his eyes to see his grandfather smiling down at him.

"Come, piccolo. Look at you. Your eyes are puffy and red—and you have a terrible bruise." Nonno carries him back to his rocking chair and holds him more tightly in his arms. His father, it seems, has left. "Nothing a good story can't fix, eh?"

The young child cannot say anything, but he likes being held. He curls against Nonno's chest. Surprisingly sturdy for his age.

"What story do you want to hear? About princes like you? Princesses? Far off lands?"

The boy wants to hear about his mother, and he tells Nonno this.

Nonno tells him stories about his mother, and somehow the bruises on his body and the pain in his soul become easier to bear.

Ti amo molto, piccolo.

Ti amo molto, Nonno.

Romano wished that he had a motorcycle to ride. Even a car would do, but his Italian blood desired so desperately a motorcycle. He would climb on, without a helmet so he could feel the wind whipping mercilessly against his face, and ride until it was out of fuel and he found himself in a completely unfamiliar land. He could get lost with his motorcycle, so lost that he couldn't contact anyone and nobody could contact him and he would be all alone in the middle of the desert. Then he wouldn't have to write this prompt for his smiling professor. He wouldn't have to sit and bear seeing the smile on Feliciano's face. (Seeing his smile was strange. It made Romano want to cry, made the envious, hateful creature within him come to life. And yet he wanted nothing more than to see it. So now that he was faced with it so often, he wasn't entirely sure what to feel.) He wouldn't have to deal with being surrounded by so many people—smarter, stronger, more beautiful—in this dark and dismal British land. He felt, somehow, that being completely and utterly alone would help him feel less completely and utterly alone.

And still he wrote.

It would have been just as easy for him to stop writing. To throw his notebook over the ledge of this lush alcove, watch as it fell to the road and was inevitably squashed by a passing car (or motorcycle). To shove his pen down his throat and taste the ink, never again to touch paper and bring his thoughts to an indescribable physical reality. And still he wrote.

Keep writing.

No, stop. It's useless.

Keep writing.

I said stop!

Romano put his notebook down on the grass beneath the tree for a few moments and brought his hands to his head. He rubbed his temples harshly, as if he were trying to rub the dangerous and evil thoughts from his mind. His fingers were too warm. He couldn't feel anything. He gritted his teeth and squeezed his eyes so tightly that he saw colors flashing behind his eyelids. He grabbed his hair, as if to rip it from his scalp, and then banged the heels of his palms against his temples. The voices were loud and irritating today. Worse than most days. He banged until he was dizzy and seeing red, and then he brought his hands back to his lap and breathed. He was glad that there weren't many people who came to this spot, especially on Sundays.

When the physical pain subsided and his heartbeat steadied, he continued to write. He ignored the voice in his head that kept screaming, shrieking, wailing at him not to—there's no point, it's useless, you're useless, worthless, stop it, stop it, stop it—and wrote everything that he could write. This time his writing was different than before. It was spurred on, made more beautiful, by the knowledge that there was somebody waiting eagerly to read it. He put, perhaps subconsciously, more effort into making his handwriting nice and legible. He couldn't stop imagining Toni, sitting in his chair, his emerald eyes reading his writing. His thick, dark lips smiling at his writing. His pink tongue clicking praise for his writing.

Romano had been thinking about Toni a lot more lately.

He had never met anybody who irritated him so much.

(Except perhaps that German that Feli was always hanging around with. Even Kiku's American friend was preferable.)

And yet, when it was dark and quiet and Romano was feeling the crippling loneliness that plagued his entire body, his entire soul, his entire mind, his thoughts wandered to Toni. To his fingers when they clasped his notebook. To his chest when he breathed in, breathed out. To the way he had been reading at his windowsill, bare feet and rolled up pants and disheveled hair left to bathe in the sun.

But he's such a bastard.

He thinks he can just waltz into my life?

Thinks he can win me over by telling me I write well?

Eh?

Damn him. Damn him straight to hell.

Romano wondered if that voice were talking about Toni or about himself.

You know what happens if you get attached, don't you?

They leave you.

They ALL LEAVE YOU.

(Feliciano will leave you, too. You'll see.)

You think that Spanish bastard actually cares about you?

You think he gives a single fuck about you?

Nobody gives a single fuck about you.

NOBODY CARES.

Romano's hand began to shake as he tried to put the words down on the paper. The words on the paper for Toni to read. The ink became smeared with tears.

But he likes your writing.

He thinks it's dark.

He likes your writing, Lovino.

He loves it.

He asks you to write for him.

Romano continued to write, biting his lower lip and now thinking overwhelmingly of Toni and the fact that he enjoyed to read his writing.

He knocked on Toni's door the next day and didn't wait for an answer before he entered.

"Hola, mi hijo. What treats do you have for me today?" Toni greeted, taking his glasses off. He had been reading from a pile of papers on his desk. Essays to grade, Romano assumed. He hadn't submitted his yet.

"Don't ask me, just read it yourself," he heard himself say harshly. He took his seat on the chair and took his notebook out of his bag and handed it to Toni. While he tried to ignore the beaming, overbearingly bright smile he was flashing him. His teeth were still crooked. Romano's weren't perfect, either, but they certainly weren't as crooked as this old man's.

"Vale. Let's see."

He put his glasses back on and began to read. And as the minute dragged on, he began to do that strange thing again. Playing with the hair of his eyebrows, pulling and pushing them while he read. Perhaps as a strange habit, a strange ritual to induce creative thought in his tired, siesta-drawn brain.

I wonder, does he get his eyebrows threaded?

Maybe waxed.

They look very nice.

I'll have to ask him at that dinner party.

Do you wax your eyebrows?

¿Depila las cejas, Señor Toni?

He had to hold in his laughter while his gaze remained, unflinchingly, on Toni's eyebrows. All while his fingers threaded through them. They were thick and dark, and while they were shapely, the hair seemed to move in all different directions. Romano would not have been surprised if he used gel to make them behave. He wanted to reach out and touch them. But he wouldn't dare.

The prompt had been "friendship" this time. So, of course, Romano had written about his brother—the only true friend he had ever had. Toni read through it, the entire thing, silently. Then, he took off his glasses and closed the notebook.

"Who is this about, if you don't mind me asking?"

"My brother."

"Feliciano, yes?"

Romano blinked, completely taken aback.

"H...How in hell did you know that? I didn't write his name anywhere."

"Ah, apologies. I only recently heard that he attended school here," Toni said, clearly flustered. He smiled an awkward smile that made Romano only more uncomfortable. "His name...is Feliciano, right?"

"Yeah."

"And this is about him?"

"...Yeah."

Romano suddenly regretted writing about Feliciano. He had written under the pretense that Toni wouldn't know the subject of his emotional and intense piece of prose, and now an odd embarrassment rooted itself beneath his clammy skin.

"You must love him a lot. Es claro."

Romano gritted his teeth and looked away. He didn't want to be having this conversation. He didn't want to talk about Feliciano.

"Well, he is lucky to have a brother like you, sí?"

That comment, yet again, took Romano off-guard. He looked up, startled, and met Toni's gaze. Always too earnest, too honest, too...completely oblivious. He wanted to leave. The voices were starting up and his chest felt tight. His brain was buzzing and his skin felt hot and he needed to scream. Needed to run away.

"You still look tired, querido. Por favor, get some sleep." Toni, still as tactless as ever, gave Romano his notebook and looked at him very seriously.

"Yeah, okay, whatever. I'm leaving now."

He whisked the book from Toni's hand and flew out of the room before Toni could even mutter a hasty, Spanish farewell.

Romano sat on his bed, across from Feliciano. They were both sitting cross-legged, an ashtray and an empty bottle of wine between them while Tosca blasted through the speakers. The window was slightly open, and the smoke alarm (installed in every room for safety reasons) was covered up with a plastic bag and a hanger, against Feli's objections. He was staring, wide-eyed and with trembling lips, at his older brother—who was vehemently avoiding his gaze. He had a cigarette in his lips and fell into a fit of coughing, covering his mouth with the back of his sleeve. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes were drowsy and his thoughts were muddled, his vision blurry. Romano was, in fact, very drunk, and he had already gone through half a pack of cigarettes in an hour.

Romano didn't tend to smoke very much. It was a habit he had picked up in Granada, in his boarding school years, with other fifteen year-old kids who had nothing better to do. Back then, he had never enjoyed it immensely, and only did it as a social endeavor. But then, once the voices had grown louder and his fits and tempers had begun to flare up, the significance of smoking cigarettes changed for him. Now, he did not smoke at all—except for the moments in which he needed to forget everything. In which he needed to silence the voices and lose himself in desperation and guilt and longing for something he couldn't name. During these fits, he would sit and smoke an entire pack of cigarettes, unhaltingly. One after the other.

He had called Feliciano, begging him to bring him a bottle of Marsala wine (he needed the taste of Sicily on his tongue) from an Italian wine store in town, his voice choked in tears. Feliciano, without question, had arrived at Romano's door exactly two hours later with a bottle of Marsala, a box of Italian chocolates, and an old CD filled with Puccini. Romano hadn't eaten any of the chocolate, telling Feli he could eat it all. He had poured a glass of wine for Feli, and then proceeded to drink the rest straight from the bottle in between his cigarettes. The ashtray was nearly filled.

"Lovi..."

Romano let out a hiccup and brought the cigarette to his lips. He was staring outside of the window. He was trying to calculate, with made up numbers, where he would land if he jumped out of the window if there was no wind. He had never been good at math, though.

"Lovi, you are too drunk."

"Eh?" He crushed his cigarette on the ashtray and took the next one from the pack. Camel Blue. Very popular in England. "I'm not too anything."

He knew he was drunk, but he didn't mind. In fact, it was what he wanted, because it meant that the voices constantly bombarding him in his head would go away.

"You need to take better care of yourself," Feli continued. Romano offered him a cigarette, which he refused with a forlorn glint in his eyes. His expression was terribly sad. "Oh, Lovi."

"I'm...ahem...I'm fine."

Feliciano quietly stood from the table and walked over to Romano's desk. Romano watched him, his eyes following his brother's every move, while the smoke poured from his chapped lips. Feli began sorting through his books, his little decorations. A few photographs he had taken in Spain, in Sicily, of his mother's relatives who had taken him in. There were many photographs of Feliciano, but Romano found that he didn't care that Feliciano saw them. Then, head hanging low, Feliciano grabbed an orange vial from the top of the desk. It was completely filled with white tablets.

"Lovi," he murmured again. Romano looked away with a click of his tongue and aggressively sucked on his cigarette. He didn't want to see the tears streaming down his brother's cheeks, as blurry as they were. "You haven't taken a single one."

"Whatuvit, eh?" He began coughing again. "They destroy your mind, they do!"

"No they don't...You sound like a crazy old man."

"They do!"

"When did you start taking them?"

"Eh?"

"When? How old were you?"

"Who gives a fuck?" Romano put his hand to his aching head and wiped the strands of hair sticking to his sweaty skin.

"Won't you answer me, Lovi?"

"Fourteen maybe?"

"You never take them, do you?"

"They destroy your mind, they do! I...I can't...y'know...I can't write with medi—medicine in my brrraaain."

"Mio povero fratello," Feliciano said softly. He walked back to the bed and, though his skin was numb and he couldn't feel it, began to wipe the tears from Romano's cheeks. Then he kissed his forehead and wrapped his arms gently around him, even as he continued to smoke.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there for you."

Romano closed his eyes and cried and smoked and let his brother hold him.

No, no, stop it.

STOP IT, FELICIANO.

IT'S MY FAULT.

You're my little brother.

My precious little brother.

My best friend.

I'm the one that wasn't there for you.

Stop this please.

"Ti amo, Lovino."

He wasn't sure how much longer he could take this emptiness.

Translations:

Nonno (Italian)=grandpa

piccolo=little one, an endearing term

mio povero fratello=my poor brother