I See Emeralds

Chapter Thirty-Four (Lovino's POV)

I try to avoid Antonio as much as I can today. It's kinda hard to do that considering our seating arrangements though. Just my terrible luck that he has practically every class with me!

After Tino's vague comment from this morning, everyone has been acting weird. Tino and Berwald even sat with Mathias' group! Francis and Gilbert were nowhere to be found at lunch. It was weird with just me, Antonio, Kiku, and Alfred. And since I've been ignoring Antonio, it was even more awkward. Kiku and Alfred were doing their frequent "talk only to each other" thing and Antonio was trying to get me to speak to him. He failed.

I'm giving him the cold shoulder because I'm nervous. I'm nervous about the dance and Tino. He's been acting so odd. Different. He's been hanging around Mathias more and more. I won't blame him if they go back to being best friends; Tino knew Mathias before he knew any of us, after all.

But it's concerning me. Whenever he's not at their table, he's tapping away at his phone. He does some pretty intense facial expressions without realizing it, and then when I ask what caused them he refuses to tell me. He locks his phone before Berwald can read over his shoulder.

I look over to them. One of the other guys at the table with a clip in his hair is telling them something. I guess it's pretty crazy, because Tino looks overwhelmed. I'm tempted to forcefully drag him back to us, but decide against it.

"Lovi. Looooviiiii. Loooooooviiiiiii. Are you on Earth?" Antonio drones on.

"What? Oh, yeah." I remember my secret pledge to not speak to him today and immediately shut up. He surprisingly leaves me be for the rest of lunch.

The dance, however, is going to be a different matter.

**********

"Haha, wait 'til Toni gets a look at you. He won't be able to keep his eyes off you," Feliciano says as he examines my outfit in the mirror.

"It's nothing special. Just slightly dressier than what I usually wear. Wait, dude, we're wearing the same thing." I raise an eyebrow at his identical clothes. I thought this would be special. It's my only shirt that isn't covered in various kinds of dirt and dust and hair. I forgot he has one like it too.

"Yep!" He giggles.

"It's not like we're twins or anything. You're a year younger than me," I say as I comb my hair.

"Yeah, but I thought matching would be fun. It's not like we'll be together long tonight anyways," he defends his decision.

"Whatever. At least Gramps is asleep so he won't be able to squeal about us attending," I say. Feli laughs.

"I wrote him a note just in case he wakes up before we get back. But knowing him, he'll be sleeping til noon tomorrow. He won't even have to know we were gone," he tells me.

"Thankfully..." I murmur. The last thing I want is for Gramps to coo over us for a half hour. I already know Antonio is going to do that. There's no avoiding that at this point.

"Your friends Tino and Berwald wanted to come with us since they live in the neighborhood nearby." Why did they tell Feli that and not me? Rude. "And I invited my buddies Feliks and Toris too." I groan. Great, I'll get to meet some of his freshman friends. How thrilling.

"Fine. You ready? I get the feeling it's going to be a big night," I ask. He nods.

*********

(Years later)

"And there we were, off to the event that none of us realized would completely change the world. That didn't come until later. But I guess it would be more 'suspenseful' to share someone else's experiences first, right? Um, which chapters are those...?" I flip pages until Antonio plucks the book out of my hands.

"I decided to bookmark them because this happens every time," he tells me with a smirk.

"That's probably a smart idea..." I mutter as he opens to a page with a bright blue sticky note stuck on it.

"They're even color coded! I think that's Alfred's part." He gives the book back and sits on the floor.

"You already know how this goes. We all helped write it, dummy."

"I like hearing you read it," he says and closes his eyes. I watch him affectionately for a moment before I continue.

"Okay, let's see. Alfred and Kiku had just arrived at the dance together..."

(There's only a few chapters left. They're all going to have a little future section at the end of them. Those won't make much sense until the final chapter, just a heads up.)