Of Hide-and-Seeks [Hetalia / Spamano Story]

2

Plagued by a lack of recuperative sleep, Romano leaned back in his seat and felt the air conditioner's steady, cold breaths rolling over his exhausted body. Under the clear blue sky, countless vehicles scurried around Madrid's airport like eager ants, carrying out their work by chauffeuring people to their desired destinations. The day, albeit still young, would clearly grow into a superb May day showing off with at least 26 °C and a breeze so gentle one could not help but fall for the city known as Villa y Corte.

Romano suppressed a persistent yawn while relaxing his tensed shoulders. His tired glare alternated between the pop music-playing radio and the merry taxi driver, who hummed to the feel-good songs whenever he wasn't trying to make conversation with his passenger.

Even though said passenger was definitely not in the mood for small talk, Romano couldn't blame the man for treating him more like an inhabitant than a tourist. From the driving instructions Romano had given when getting into the car, the driver had instantly deduced that Romano knew the area like the back of his hand. Tourists and business travelers normally lacked such specific knowledge of the city, and Romano's intention had indeed been to be brought directly to Spain's address without tempting the driver to add a little sightseeing tour to the route. Not only would the latter be reflected in the price, but it would also extend the driving time and thus exacerbate the nerve-racking mixture of impatience and nervousness already threatening to tear Romano apart.

Since last Wednesday, the unbearable tension had been building up in him like an imminent volcanic eruption, and it was only getting worse the closer he got to Spain's house. The fact that it was 10:30 am, and thus extremely unlikely that Spain was home, had no alleviating effect whatsoever on the feeling of guilt sitting in Romano's stomach like a burning hot lava lake. It shouldn't have taken him so long to scrape enough courage together to book a stupid flight to Madrid!

The shameful thought clogged the Italian's throat and pressed the air out of his lungs. Swallowing hard, he reached for his cellphone. Up until now, the electronic device had rested in Romano's right jacket pocket like a body in a crypt, staying deadly silent about the fact that it had resurrected Romano's bad conscious time and again during the past few days.

On Friday, after Romano had spent the second sleepless night in a row conducting online research on eating disorders, his cellphone had spoiled his morning with another casual greeting from Spain. On Saturday, it had melodically called for Romano to answer Spain's call, and on Monday, when Romano had still been at a complete loss on how to talk to the Spaniard, another Whatsapp message had ambushed him:

You too busy to have a little chit-chat with boss?

💔

Romano was sat at his desk, digesting a complaint he had just received for sending an email with a confidential attachment to the wrong recipient. The strict admonition had only been the peak of his iceberg of problems, which had been growing uncontrollably since he had accidentally eavesdropped on the two women at the bus stop last week. Good God, he had never meant to avoid Antonio for so long! Somehow it had just...happened.

With eyes stinging equally from too little sleep and too much concern, Romano had almost burned his cellphone to ashes. The only thought that had been running through his head while he had been staring at Spain's message with the stupid broken heart emoji had been:

'Yes, you and your goddamn lies are keeping me busy 24/7, asshole!'

At some point, the display light had switched off and Romano had to admit to himself once more that he still lacked the perfect strategy for successfully tackling the issue. Not because he hadn't thought about it, but because his mind had turned into a stage on which his fantasy had performed every possible scenario of confrontation--and not a single one of them had ended happily ever after. Needless to say, the more dramas Romano's head had produced, the more frightened Romano had become until he had been so incredibly frightened that he had neither been able to sleep nor focus on his work anymore. Instead, his throat tightened and his heart ached whenever Spain's name appeared on the display.