Dust and Memories

Nonno Rome's

"What do you want to be when you grow up?" Basch and his class had been asked this so many times before, yet it never grew old. "A soldier!" Elizabeta said bravely. "A musician," stated Roderich, with no doubt in his tone. "Awesome!" Gilbert cut in, and the class laughed at the young albino's antics.

"What about you, Basch?" The teacher asked pointedly, and the blond looked up from the book he wen't supposed to be reading, blinking. 

"Oh, me? ...a linguist," he said shyly, and murmurs broke out like wildfires. 

"What's a lin-goo-ist?" Alfred asked, blue eyes wide. 

"Oh, um...it means I want to learn lots of languages and translate them," he explained, wishing the attention would be drawn away from him. 

"That's cool!" Elizabeta piped up, and although he didn't smile, the look in his viridescent eyes was beyond grateful. 

"So you know," Basch stated, returning to the present. "I...I wanted to be in Italy or something, not just working my ass off in an Italian bakery from dawn till dusk."

Lovino rolled his eyes across from him. "Welcome to my world. Why are you here, anyway?" He asked skeptically, looking Basch up and down. "You're still in high school."

"I dropped out," he stated plainly. "My mother needed me to work because..." He paused, hesitating. Perhaps it was better not to blurt his situation out at an interview. "...she needed help paying the bills."

There. It was not the whole truth, but it was not a lie, either. 

Lovino nodded slowly and shrugged. "You sound credible to me, I couldn't care less whether you want to work here or not. You're hired."

Basch released a breath he didn't even know he was holding and nodded. "Thanks. I'll see you tomorrow."

That was how he ended up working at Nonno Rome's, an Italian bakery on the corner of fifth street and main. It was run by a cheerful man affectionately referred to as Nonno Rome, because "he's as old as Rome itself!"

The man certainly didn't look like it, that was for sure. He was tall and muscular, with dark, curly hair, and unmistakable Italian features. He always seemed to be with at least three women, but Basch had seen him talking to a stoic man with straight blond hair over coffee after the bakery closed. 

He ran the bakery with his two grandsons, the happy-go-lucky eldest, Feliciano, and his irritable younger brother, Lovino. Feliciano had gone back to Italy for college, so Nonno Rome had told Lovino to find someone to take over his work. Basch was pretty sure the lazy man had just gone with the first person to walk through the door. It wasn't like he was complaining, of course. The job payed well enough, even with the long hours, and he got to take home some of the rejects, so that they would always have some bread of sorts to eat.

 He found that he got along surprisingly well with Lovino, even if the Italian man was much more vocal about his detest for the world and everyone in it than Basch was. They talked about work, their futures, and their pasts, but never the present. The present was too hard.

 Basch learned Lovino wanted to be an artist and study Greek and Roman classics, but the dark-haired man was convinced his older brother was better. 

Lovino also had odd ways of showing that he considered Basch a friend, frequently calling him "cheese bastard," or "chocolate jerk," or on days when he was feeling particularly kind, just "bastard."For some reason, Basch found the nicknames amusing, even if he wouldn't let it on. 

They meant he finally had a friend again.