Disclaimer: I don't own Hetalia

Antonio had never been so terrified at the prospect of opening a door in his life. Not any of the times he had to go into the principal's office (as he was often to do, being a member of the Bad Touch Trio). Not when he knew his angry brother was on the other side. Not even that time when he was very little and thought that the ratty old coat in the closet was a monster that enjoyed eating little tomato-loving boys (João didn't even need to fuel his little brother's over-active imagination that time).

This time, Antonio was going to face something much worse, an upset Lovi.

Antonio had dealt with an angry Lovi countless times. All he would have to do was just wait out Lovi's anger (normally getting only minimally injured in the process) until it just wore away, and then Antonio would hug him and make it all better. But now Lovi seemed really angry with him. Lovi rarely got more than annoyed at him (but even then he could get violent). Now, Lovi had to be furious with him, and this time it was for something bad (not like the countless times he has called Lovi a 'cute tomatito' or something similar). Antonio hated making Lovi feel bad.

The Spaniard forced himself to take a deep breath. He dragged his legs towards the Vargas' front door, steeled his nerves as best he could (which wasn't saying all that much, really), and knocked.

The second he caught not even a glimpse of Lovi, Antonio fell to his knees to start apologizing.

"Vee? Are you alright, Antonio? Did you trip?"

Antonio looked up. Oh, it was Feli. He stood up and brushed his knees off. "Eh, sí. Is Lovi home?"

Feli nodded cheerfully. "Si! He's up in his room, ve. Go right on in!"

Feli didn't know what happened? That was a good sign; Lovi only told Feli if he was really, really angry. Antonio smiled at Feli. "Gracias." And then he hurried towards the door to Lovi's room.

"Hey, Antonio!"

He stopped and looked at Lovi's Nonno. "Hola. How are you, Señor Vargas?"

"I'm well, thank you for asking. Here to see Lovino?"

Antonio nodded.

Lovi's Nonno smiled. "Very good. You know," the eldest Italian leaned in conspiratorially, "I think Lovino really enjoyed his date with João yesterday."

Antonio's chest tightened. "You do?"

Señor Vargas nodded. "I'm almost completely certain." He sighed. "It's great that il mio nipotino has finally started dating. It's about time, too. He could probably date anyone he wanted to if he tried. Maybe he'll take after me yet."

Knowing what he did about Señor Vargas, Antonio really hoped that that wouldn't be true. "I really think I should go talk to Lovi now."

Señor Vargas smiled. "Of course. This was a nice chat."

Antonio nodded and ran the rest of the short way to Lovi's door, glad to be away from that conversation. His hand rose and knocked on the door before he was ready.

"Come in, Feli!"

The Spaniard carefully opened the door, stepped inside, and closed the door behind him.

Lovi looked up from his sketchbook and his eyes narrowed. "Oh, it's you."

Antonio has never noticed before that Lovi had such pretty eyes. Of course he's always known, but the fact has never quite stood out to him before. They were a lovely golden green and they glittered and shone with his emotions and it was really a shame that he was hiding them with a glare and they were a perfect shape and—

"What the hell do you want, idiota? Or are you just going to sit there staring all fucking day?" Lovi had a blush across his cheeks and his arms were crossed.

Antonio blinked. What was here for again? Oh, right. Apologizing. "Um, Lovi… You see, I'm… sorry?"

Lovi raised an eyebrow.

"I really am sorry! About… ruining your date with… João…" The Spaniard scratched the back of his neck.

Lovi still just sat there.

Antonio got closer to him. "Because I shouldn't have done it! Please, forgive me? I'm very sorry. I'll give you a basket of tomatoes to make up for it. No, two baskets of tomatoes! And I won't do it again! I'm sorry! I'm really, really, really, really sorry, Lovi! Really!" He looked at the Italian.

Lovi's arms were uncrossing ever so slightly (and he wasn't glaring as much anymore!). "Why did you even interrupt us, bastardo?"

"I wasn't trying to! I fell down when I was trying to leave."

"What were you leaving from?"

"Spying on yo—no! I was spying on João! He can't be trusted. He's such a dick and he doesn't deserve you and I was making sure that the bastard wasn't going to hurt you! Why did you even accept his offer anyway, Lovi? He's such an asshole! You could do a lot better! Please tell me you're not in love with João, Lovi! He's such a horrible person and—" Oh no, the glare was back full force.

Antonio threw himself at Lovi's feet. "¡Por favor, perdóname! Lo siento tanto. Eres mi amigo mejor y no quiero perderte y no sé que haga sin ti y no intentaba de insultarte. Por favor, por favor, por favor perdóname." Antonio looked up at Lovino sadly and sniffled. "Please let me make it up to you?"

Lovi raised an eyebrow. "Make it up to me how?"

Antonio jumped up to his feet. "You'll see!" He grabbed Lovi by his hand and pulled him up and out of the house.

^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^

Lovino looked across the table to the tomato bastard. He had apparently decided to placate the Italian with food first (a wise move). They were at a small Italian restaurant that he knew the Spaniard knew he liked. Sadly, the server acted as though they were a couple on a fucking date—idiota. Didn't he know the difference between a date and one friend making it up to another friend for being such a dumbass? Anton—the tomato bastard would never want to date him. Lovino heard it come out of his damn mouth himself.

Antonio looked at Lovino. "So how is it?"

Lovino rolled his eyes. "Idiota, you know I know that this place has kickass pizza."

The tomato bastard smiled nervously. "Right. Lo siento."

Lovino narrowed his eyes. "Stop apologizing."

The idiota immediately perked up. "So you forgive me, Lovi?"

Lovino rolled his eyes. "Apologizing annoys the hell out of me."

Antonio visibly sunk and his brow furrowed at the unclear answer. "You still didn't say whether you forgave me or not."

Lovino shrugged and finished his last bite of pizza. "That's not my problem."

Once Antonio had paid the check and they were getting ready to go, the Spaniard offered, "So, maybe we could go see a movie, Lovi?"

Lovino raised an eyebrow. "A movie?"

Antonio beamed. "¡Sí! I want to finish making it up to you and wasn't there that one new suspense movie that you wanted to see?" He cocked his head to the side. "Or have you already seen it?"

Lovino snorted.

"What?"

The Italian rolled his eyes. "Going out to eat and then seeing a movie? Isn't that a very couple thing to do?"

"But aren't we a couple already, Lovi?" Antonio asked.

Lovino's heart wasn't sure whether to beat right out of his chest or to just stop entirely. "C-che?" Was that why Antonio interrupted his date with João? Did he think that they were already together? He was pretty stupid… But wait, the tomato bastard did say that he would never want to date him. Lovino couldn't forget that. But maybe Antonio had meant it in that he never wanted to deal with the dating phase of their relationship? Or—

"We're a couple of people, ¿sí? So, I don't see a problem with going to the movies with you. Unless you don't want to…"

Lovino sighed. "No, I don't mind, idiota." He really needed to stop building his hopes up. Antonio was just his idiotic best friend. Lovino reminded his flaring cheeks of that when Antonio took him by his hand towards the movie theatre. He reminded his fluttering heart and his knotting stomach and his not quite teary eyes that he would never be with Antonio, that he should get over it, and that he should ignore any signs of the otherwise.

^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^

Antonio walked back to the theatre where Lovi was, popcorn in hand (Lovi had said that they didn't need it because they had just eaten lunch, but Antonio knew that Lovi loved popcorn, so he bought a small bag anyways). He entered the darkened room and checked the screen. The previews were still going. He scanned the seats for Lovi and hurried over to him. "Hey."

Lovi barely glanced his way. "Hey." And then he returned his attention to the screen (Lovi was so cute about always watching even the previews~).

Antonio sat down next to him and grabbed a handful of popcorn.

Lovi glanced at him and whispered, "We just ate lunch, idiota."

"I thought we could share."

Lovi rolled his eyes and snatched a single kernel of popcorn. "Just so you didn't waste your money on a bag of popcorn because you thought we would share."

Antonio simply smiled as Lovi popped the piece of popcorn into his mouth.

By the end of the previews, Lovi had the bag of popcorn securely in his lap and was munching contentedly. He was so cute! Antonio would bet João never got to see Lovi like this.

The Spaniard caught sight of the couple further down in the same row who had been snogging through all the previews. João would probably get to see Lovi like that… What?! No! Not like that! Definitely not!

Lovi glared at him.

"¿Qué?"

"Let go of my arm, idiota. Don't tell me you're afraid already."

Antonio laughed nervously and let go of the wrist he did not know he was clutching onto.

"Now watch the movie, tomato bastard."

"Sí, Lovi."

The movie seemed pretty good, and Lovi looked like he was enjoying it (Lovi liked suspense movies a lot. He secretly loved romantic comedies, too, but would never admit it and never went to see them in theatres. But sometimes Antonio got to watch some with Lovi at his house).

For some reason, though, Antonio identified a lot with one of the characters in particular, who Antonio thought was acting very strangely. He would do things for the main character but would be very nervous as to what she thought of him, even though they were friends. And he would do normal things as a friend, like defend her, but he also got really angry when other characters started flirting with his friend. But didn't that count as defending her? Was that a normal thing for friends to do? Antonio did that with Lovi a lot. This was getting confusing…

Once the movie let out and Antonio and Lovi were walking back home and talking about the movie. "But I thought that the main character's friend acted really weird."

Lovi raised an eyebrow. "How was it weird? He was obviously in love with her."

"Obviously in love?" Antonio echoed back.

Lovi nodded. "Yes, obviously in love."

Did that mean he was in love with Lovi? He at least thought he felt the same way about Lovi for a long time. Exactly how long had he been in love with Lovi?! If he was in love with him. Was he?

Antonio tried to think about it. Would he like going out with Lovi? Would he like to hold hands with Lovi? Kiss Lovi? Do… other things, with Lovi? Antonio blushed at the thought (and was very grateful that it was getting dark outside already). Yes… Yes, he would.

Should he think about it another way? In the future, if he got married, who can he see it with? Antonio tried to picture it.

And he saw none other than Lovi's nonno walking him down the aisle, and Lovi looked so happy. And Antonio was there, waiting at the other end.

The Spaniard's cheeks felt unbearably hot. Okay, so he was kind of hopelessly in love with Lovi. What should he do now?

"Oi, bastardo?"

"Huh?" Antonio snapped out of his thoughts and looked at Lovi.

"We're here, idiota."

"Oh, we are?" Antonio checked his surroundings and sure enough they were in front of Lovi's house. "Well, I'll see you tomorrow, Lovi." He gave Lovi his signature goodbye hug and he felt something in his chest flutter (so, that feeling every time he hugged Lovi wasn't because they were such great friends).

"Yeah, I'll see you tomorrow. Buona notte, bastardo." And with that, Lovi stepped inside, leaving a very confused Antonio to wonder what on earth he was going to do now.

A/N: Wow, that almost took me as long as the last update... I'm terribly sorry! But there was a small improvement, right? So that means that if with each update I improve my speed, then in no time I'll be updating so much you simply won't know what to do with yourselves! Awesome, right? But until then, I appreciate and am very grateful for all of your patience ^-^; Hopefully, the slightly longer chapter makes up for the slightly longer wait.

But! Toño knows he is in love! Whatever shall he do now? (Wouldn't you like to know~). If life were easy for him, it would sort itself out rather quickly... but who said life was easy?

Thank you to everyone who has favorited, followed, or reviewed! They make me as happy as little Liechtenstein when her loving big bruder wears the pink pyjamas that she made for him~ (but if you laugh at him, he'll still shoot you. Neutrally.)