Flower [Hetalia]

❥ chapter II

"Grab the damn paper bag, Toni!" you screeched, but Antonio had already freed himself from the seat belt and was now scrambling out of the car although it was still moving, albeit slowly. He fell to his knees and emptied the contents of his stomach on the pavement, dangerously close to the tulip bed of your neighbour, the Dutch Tim de Vries.

You stopped your car right then and there, halfway on the street and halfway on the pavement, and jumped out. Running over to Antonio, you knelt down next to him. The putrid smell of vomit made you gag, and you swallowed hard to ease the burning in your throat. Studiously ignoring the nauseating mess on the pavement, you placed a hand on Antonio's shoulder and helped him sit up. "How are you?" you asked softly.

He leaned against you and rested his head on your shoulder. "Feeling a lot better," he answered in a rather weak voice, still slurring his speech, and wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his beige shirt. "Although there's this bad aftertaste in my mouth now."

"No more details, please. Why didn't you use the paper bag?"

All of a sudden, Antonio's eyes glazed over with tears. "I was in panic," he blubbered, drooping and staring down at his hands as if he had just killed someone. "I didn't want to end up like Gil getting your car all dirty. Lo siento muchísimo. It's all my fault, pichoncita."

"Hey, hey, it's alright, Toni," you reassured him, stroking his back. "There's no need to cry. Don't you worry. I'll get rid of that in next to no time."

He looked up at you with tearful eyes. "You're not mad at me, chica?"

"Of course not."

"You still like me?"

"Yes."

He broke into one of the broadest smiles you had ever seen, and his sadness was gone in the wink of an eye. It was like he hadn't been nearly crying just a second ago. He flung his arms around you and almost broke your spine in the process. "I'm so glad to hear this, pichoncita!"

'I swear, drunk people have the craziest mood swings,' you thought to yourself. You couldn't help but smile at Antonio's behaviour, although your ribcage was currently being a little—just a little—crushed by his bear hug. "Toni, your hugs are the best, but you're kinda suffocating me," you breathed, patting his back.

Immediately, he let go of you. "Perdón," he sniffled as tears welled up in his green eyes once again.

"No, no, no, please don't cry again." You really had no use for a drunken, crying man cowering on the pavement next to a vile-smelling puddle of vomit, not at the moment, and especially not in the dead of night. "Everything's alright, Toni," you cooed and hugged him close. "Don't worry."

After he had calmed down again within a couple of seconds, you stood up and pulled him to his feet. But then a flash of light caught your eye. The lights had been switched on in one of the rooms on the second floor of your neighbour's house. A dark silhouette was moving around in that room, indicating that your neighbour Tim had woken up, likely from the ruckus in front of his house.

Having followed your gaze to Tim's house, Antonia now straightened his wrinkled clothes (in vain) and ran a hand through his curly, chocolate-coloured hair as if he wanted to face your neighbour, but you shook your head at him. He tilted his head and looked at you in a puzzled manner, posing a silent question.

"I'll settle this myself." You gave him your bunch of keys. "You go into my house, and I'll catch up to you in a couple minutes, alright, Toni? I've got some leftover tomato salad in the fridge, if you want to eat something."

His eyes lit up at the word "tomato." Whatever you wanted him to do, coaxing him with tomatoes was the best way because it always worked, without a fault. He gave you a quick hug before staggering towards your house as fast as possible in his drunken state.

You, on the other hand, turned back to your neighbour's house as soon as Antonio was out of sight. Carefully sidestepping the many flower beds to get on the paved path leading to the front door, you approached the house.

You knew that Tim treasured his flowers because you saw him working in his garden every single day. The two of you talked a bit from time to time, but it merely was the neighbourly and polite type of conversations. If someone dared to step on his sacred flowers or harm them in any other way, a glare from him was enough to make the culprit apologize profusely. He seemed like a rather intimidating fellow most of the time, but there always was a small smile on his lips when he was tending to his beloved flowers.

Of course, you didn't know that he was smiling every time he was doing some work in his garden because you sometimes watched him from behind slightly drawn curtains so that he couldn't see you, of course not! You merely happened to see that faint smile curling his lips from thirty feet away, nothing more. You had pretty good eyes. That was all.

Okay, well, maybe you had a tiny little crush on him. He seemed pretty nice despite his aloof demeanour at times. and he definitely was good-looking. But unfortunately, he hadn't shown any interest in more than just polite neighbour-talk.

You had tried to get from the petty "Good weather today"-level to a more personal one a few times, only resulting in him saying, "I don't think that kind of information has anything to do with the situation at hand," or something along those lines at first. But when you had finally got him to answer your question because of your persistence, he had done so only rather reluctantly and hadn't asked you any question of his own, so you had given up on it. You didn't want to force anything, of course.

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lo siento muchísimo = I'm awfully sorry

pichoncita = dove

chica = girl

perdón = sorry