1:00 am (Prumano)

Chapter 1

Every day, the same hell. That's what it is. That's what highschool is about. Filling your brain with useless crap, burning your neck with the help of heat and the uniform shirt's collar, making your head ache with all the innecessary drama, tearing your self-esteem to pieces. Thankfully, you can avoid half of these with just enough studying and the ability to ignore what's around you.

Lovino had almost mastered these two.

Friends? He had his younger brother, Feliciano, and his spanish childhood friend, Antonio. More than enough.

Reputation? The teachers were never bothered by him at all, since he'd only occasionally yell or swear in class, but his homework was done. His classmates never paid much attention to him. They've always thought of him as quiet and, to him, there was nothing wrong with that.

Love interest? Well, here it gets weird. He'd never admit it, but it had been two months that he found himself a little too curious about...

Eh...

Gilbert Beilshmidt.

Yes, another guy.

That bastard seemed to have appeared just to ruin everything he had worked for in this hellhole.

Lovino couldn't figure out what the matter was with Gilbert. Maybe his looks were what made him notice him. Gilbert was albino, so his skin was extremely pale, his hair was silver, and his eyes were a weird mix of red and blue. He was also fairly tall, but skinny and without muscles. Lovino occasionally wondered how Gilbert would look if he wasn't albino. Probably like his younger brother, Ludwig, who was even taller, with blonde hair slicked back, and cold blue eyes. Ludwig was as old as Feliciano, as well as one of Feliciano's best friends, along with Kiku, a mysterious japanese guy. The Beilschmidt brothers didn't seem to have much in common, besides their last name and a love for potatoes and sausage. Shitty food, if you asked the Italian.

No, maybe it wasn't about his looks. Gilbert was way more than that. He also had a very peculiar personality.

For one, he wasn't exactly the 'bad boy', nor the 'nice and quiet kid'. He was a mix of both, sometimes getting into fights, but stopping others. He was also rebellious, and hella loud, but also funny and a huge history nerd.

But the weirdest thing about him was his attitude.

Gilbert was friendly enough, easy to talk to and not awkward like Lovino.

Moreover though, he had the strange habit to say that he is awesome. The most awesome of all, pure awesomeness. And claim to be Prussian instead of German. "What's the point? It's exactly the same thing! Prussia is now just East fucking Germany!" Lovino would think every time he heard Gilbert talk the same nonsense. But he didn't dare say it out loud, because he knew Gilbert would snap at him and smash his head with a history book.

Lovino would like to talk about his feelings to someone, maybe a friend or Feliciano, but he knew that that was not an option. That's because if that friend, or the naive brother of his, told anyone, the hellhole would become worse than hell itself.

He could remember clearly what Berwald got through when he asked Tino to be his girlfriend (?!?!?)

He didn't only get rejected by the short finnish guy, but also had the entire class laugh at him, his gayness and his gender identification problems.

Lovino would also get called nasty names, like Berwald. Gay, homo, fag... He'd never be able to get out of his room again. But he was proud of Berwald, because not only he went on with his life as usual, but he seemed numb to his classmates' attempts to ridicule him. At once, everything was back to normal again, like nothing ever happened.

It was 1:00 am and Lovino's mind was buzzing again. He hated this.

He covered himself with his white blanket and tried to sleep.

Pointless.

"Fuck this shit" he muttered, somehow waking Feliciano up. The younger italian sat up on his bed and looked at the older quizzically with his amber eyes, half asleep.

"What's the matter Lovi?" Feliciano whispered and yawned. When he recieved no answer but a sleepy glare, he went back to bed and soon he was snoring lightly.

Lovino didn't feel like standing up, so he turned and twisted in his bed, until he fell asleep. He didn't know why, but he felt strangely anxious about the next day.