Disclaimer: I don't own Hetalia.

Iremano: Keeping Secrets

Lovino glanced at the phone as it chimed. Without looking at it, he already knew who it was. Almost every day at this time, he would get a notification like this.

Sorry, working late tonight. Love you.

It had been going on for the last five weeks. Lovino had seen this type of behaviour before, with his ex. He didn't want to accept that Patrick might be cheating on him, but it was getting harder and harder to ignore.

He also didn't want to confront Patrick until he had proper proof. He'd confronted his ex, which had resulted in accusations and gaslighting and other unpleasant things that had Lovino questioning himself. It was only when he caught them red-handed that the truth came out.

Lovino was going to do things properly this time.

Patrick was supposedly at the office, so it wouldn't be too odd for Lovino to go to the office under the pretence of bringing him a coffee. If Patrick was actually working, then he would appreciate the gesture. If not…

Lovino shook his head and grabbed his keys.

A few minutes later, he pulled up in front of Patrick's office, two cups of takeaway coffee next to him. Just as he turned the engine off, he could see Patrick leaving the office. Lovino checked the time on his dash. It was the time that Patrick usually got off work.

Gritting his teeth, he restarted the car as Patrick got into his own car. Lovino followed Patrick's car, making sure that there was enough space between them so that Patrick didn't see Lovino in his rearview mirror. He needed to see where Patrick was actually going.

It took a while, but Patrick eventually stopped in front of a building. Lovino parked a distance away from Patrick while frowning. Why would Patrick be at a community centre?

Lovino followed Patrick, and eventually saw Patrick going through one of the doors. Lovino approached and saw a sign on the door that said 'cooking class'.

"Hello," someone at the door greeted. "Are you here to sign up for this class?"

"Um, maybe," Lovino said. "Could you tell me more about it?"

"Well, it's just a normal cooking class. We teach recipes and techniques. And in one case, we had to fix bad habits. One of our students caused a fire on his first day. But yesterday, he managed to bake his own pizza from scratch. We're very proud of him."

Lovino recalled that Patrick returned the previous night with a box of half-eaten pizza that strangely didn't have a brand name or anything on it. Lovino found it odd that the pizza box was so generic.

"And, that student…" Lovino said, "how long did it take him to reach that point?"

"I think it was around five weeks," the other person said. "It's really sweet. He's trying to learn Italian recipes for his partner's birthday. I should really ask him when it is."

Lovino's eyes widened. His birthday was in two weeks. And then he smiled softly.

"Don't tell Patrick that I was here," Lovino said, before he turned around and left.

A part of him wanted to see the other person's face. He should have asked how often they had the class, but he decided that he'd heard enough. He knew that Patrick wasn't a good cook – he'd somehow managed to ruin macaroni and cheese. Lovino didn't think it was possible to undercook something that had also been burnt to a crisp. And it was too salty.

But if Patrick had been working on this in order to surprise Lovino… then Lovino would keep his knowledge of this a secret.