Sorry this took so long, guys! Here's the next chapter, hope you enjoy~

Needless to say, the following models wore just as darkly tempting as Antonio himself had been. Superb gowns, luxurious capes, and simply elegant hats took the spotlight for a while, further drawing in the audience to Lovino's spell. He planned to entice them in, make them fall deeper and deeper every step of the way, just as he had.

The next outfit – and with it, the next theme – would be starkly different from the currently intense mood. Still, that was what Lovino wanted. His time with Antonio had been filled with ups, downs, and random surprises; he fell in love with every great, odd portion just as much as each simple and unpretentious moment. His crowd would do the same.

Antonio took his time with this change. He slipped on his new clothes as if he were getting dressed any other morning. He was calm, cool, relaxed- already the perfect frame of mind for this next set. Once again, he waited with Lovino until it was time for him to make another appearance.

He wore a green turtleneck that had sleeves stopping just past his shoulders, and a chocolate-colored vest over it. With this, he had on coffee toned cargo pants and slick green sneakers. When he brought up his hand to run it through his hair, one could see that he wore a white and green checkered wristband.

It was a purposely casual design, but what no one but the designer knew was that the story behind it was far from it. The haughty look on Antonio's face as he made his way down the runway was a reminder of that intense afternoon.

Antonio had shown up at the studio one day dressed… oddly. No, it wasn't odd, just… different, very different.

Lovino stared for a moment or two as his mind tried to process the sight before him. "Uh, you do know it's warm outside, right?"

"Yep~" Antonio chirped, playing with the sleeves of his shirt, which reached his wrist. If that alone wasn't a mindfuck (Lovino had never seen the Spaniard in anything but short-sleeves), another particular detail about his outfit was.

"Then why the hell are you wearing a turtleneck?"

Antonio grinned widely; he was obviously happy with his choice of top. He said, "I'm running out of clean clothes, but that's okay because I love turtlenecks~!"

Lovino couldn't help but ask why.

"Because it makes me feel cozy and like a turtle, which is one of my favorite animals," Antonio explained, wiggling around as if to emphasize how comfy he felt. Lovino shook his head.

"Out of all the animals," he sighed, "you like turtles? Why couldn't you pick something badass like a lion or a bear or some shit?"

"Well, if you want to go by fierceness, I do like bulls," Antonio mused. "Still, turtles are just so cute! I kept one as a pet in high school."

"Really?" Lovino asked, his interest suddenly piqued. The idea of what Antonio was like in high school abruptly shifted to central focus in his mind.

"Mhm! I would come home right after school every single day to make sure mi pequeñotortuga was properly fed."

Lovino snorted. "So does that mean you were some dork who never left the house then?" he teased.

"Oh, not at all!" Antonio exclaimed, looking almost offended by the suggestion. "As soon as little Pepe was fed, I'd head out to the skate park or the pizza parlor or something with my best friends."

"Skate park? Wait, you were a skater?" Lovino couldn't help but laugh. To his surprise, Antonio smirked and said,

"Claro que s í! I wasn't too bad at it either. Gil and I had skateboards, and Francis had roller blades. We gained a little reputation in our town amongst the other teenagers, too."

Lovino raised an eyebrow quizzically and asked, "Oh really?"

"Mhm~ They called us the Bad Touch Trio because of all the pranks we'd play. They said everything we touched ended all torn up or ruined." Antonio laughed heartily at the memory. "We really weren't that bad actually. It was mainly Gilbert that got us that name. Well, that and Francis's flirting… he said his touch wasn't bad at all, but it only helped add to the name, you know?"

At that, Lovino shuddered. Temporarily putting aside his disgust in lieu of curiosity, he asked, "Well, come on, bastard, you must have contributed somehow! What was your bad touch?"

The Spaniard thought about it for a few moments. "I guess I'd say it was because I was a bit of a heartbreaker back then."

"Like that perverted bastard?"

Antonio shook his head; his face had become unusually solemn for once. "No, with Francis things were solely physical. I broke hearts. I'm naturally an affectionate person, and I was friendly to everyone, but sometimes I'd be a bit too sweet, get a bit too close… And after leading them on for a while, I'd break things off rather than enter a serious relationship."

Lovino blinked a few times for the rapid shift in the conversation threw him for a loop. He struggled to calm the way his heart thudding painfully and erratically in his chest. That's pretty damn harsh…" he mumbled. "And coming from me, that says a lot."

He didn't like that bit of information. For some reason he had just assumed that Antonio had always been kind, sensitive, and cheerful. The idea that Antonio was once cruel enough to mess with people's feelings, to think that he could ever have been so careless in matters of the heart… it honestly made his chest ache.

"I wasn't exactly a nice person back then," Antonio explained, looking at the Italian with a somber, penitent expression. "At least, I wasn't when it came to stuff like that. I lost count of how many people I hurt. Shallow teens and shy girls, indifferent guys and emotionally attached boys- one after another, I broke them all down. Eventually, the guilt got to me… I mean, only someone totally heartless can see that many people crying without being affected, and I certainly wasn't heartless; I was just… insensitive. It tore me up inside… It took a little while, but I finally changed into what you see now." He shrugged, as if his current state wasn't all that great either.

"Did you feel anything for the people you hurt?" Lovino asked hesitantly. He wasn't sure if he even really wanted to know the answer. "Romantically, I mean."

Antonio looked pensive for a few minutes, during which Lovino silently studied this new expression on the Spaniard's face. He knew he should have just dropped the subject once things got a little too deep, but he couldn't help himself; for some reason, he was anxious to know more. He jumped when Antonio spoke up again.

"I suppose in a way I did," he said slowly, as though testing out the truth of the statement on his tongue. "But it was nothing compared to what I knew they felt for me. I liked them and romance was just something that came easy to me, so a lot of the time I confused 'like' and 'love.' There was a point when I thought I loved them all. Now I know better. It took a while, but… I think I'm finally beginning to understand what it really means to love someone, Lovino."

Lovino swallowed a lump in his throat. "Really?" he croaked. He refused to think. He refused to let his thoughts travel. More than anything, he refused to acknowledge the meaningful way Antonio stared at him- the same way he refused to acknowledge the sudden fire in his chest and cheeks.

Antonio nodded. "Do you know that there are technically two ways to say "to love" in Spanish? There's querer y amar. I never realized before that I had only ever been queriendo those people. Querer, to want, to love… but not as much as amar. That word is saved for one special person."

Lovino's ears rang with the words. He began to hate the conversation with every second that ticked by and made him more frazzled, yet he couldn't stop himself from asking, "Who is your special person?" A part of him wondered if it was a certain British man, but from within that pain arose the hope that it was not in fact Arthur, and was perhaps… someone else.

Here Antonio finally smiled, but it was a tender, almost bittersweet smile. For some reason, it made Lovino's heart stutter and race wildly. "Don't worry about it, Lovi," he said with false reassurance. "I'll tell you someday, but not yet. If you really want to know, you'll just have to be patient."

Lovino took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down. What had he been expecting to hear? Or rather, what was it that he wanted to hear? "We both know I'm the most patient man ever!" There, sarcasm- that was familiar ground; he could get back on his own feet from there.

To his immense relief, Antonio chuckled. "Right," he agreed.

Lovino took a glance at his watch. It was still too early for Antonio to go home, but he didn't care. He needed space. "Time for you to get out of here," he told Antonio.

The Spaniard looked confused. "But it's not-"

Lovino cut him off, saying, "Just go dammit! I'm giving you the rest of the day off, so you better fucking enjoy it since I don't do that shit often. Leave and come back tomorrow at the usual time."

For a second Antonio looked as if he'd argue, but he didn't. Perhaps he knew that their conversation had been too intimate to recover from right away. Either way, he nodded and turned to leave. "Adios, Lovi," he called over his shoulder. He shot him once last smile before finally going. The Italian man sighed and slumped in his chair. He really needed a break, but he had work to do. Besides, it would help keep him from thinking too much about what he had just learned about his model.

He didn't know how long he sat as his desk, trying to work on designs and finish odd bits of paperwork, but sometime during all that, he had fallen asleep with one word on his lips, "…amore…"

As Lovino remained sleeping at his desk, he dreamt of turtles on skateboards and flying baskets of vivid tomatoes. And green, green everywhere. When he awoke, rubbing his sore cheek and muttering to himself, he glanced down and noticed that his empty page now had another fully worked out design for Antonio. He shut it closed without another glance.

As always, let me know what you think in a review! Please and thank you~