Hidden Truths

Chapter Four ~ First Encounters

Meanwhile, during Spain's battle with his dear brother and Arthur, Romano decided to walk around the house. After all, the house was huge, and he'd never been to most of the floors, surprising as it was, Lovino spent most of his time either in his room or outside.

He walked up the stairs, and passed by a sign that said Do Not Cross. Servants' Quarters, Romano was curious. Upon entering, he found a hall, there were signs in Spanish he did not yet know how to read, he entered the first room on his left though. It was about 7 o'clock, but it seemed the maids and servants were asleep, all in one cramped up room. Something that surprised Romano more was that they none of them looked any older than he did.

"Why the heck are you-a sleeping?" he asked, being his sassy self.

A blonde boy with the cutest blue eyes woke up, he looked pretty sleepy, his eyes widened when he saw it was Romano though.

"S-señor, lo siento, como–" he didn't get to finish before the other boy interrupted, he had to do that a lot, everyone just assumed the poor Italian knew Spanish!

"Italiano or English! Seriously," he rolled his eyes after shouting. By now most of the servant children were awake, and staring at him. He looked like Antonio, at least his hair and eyes, and his temper was no different.

"Lo–sorry," the boy said, his eyes gleaming with fear. He turned to his peers for help, but all he got were confused looks and tiny whispers in Spanish.
"So, er, what brings you to this, eh, lug–place?" he asked, struggling sort of, English was none of their first languages, but it was the only key to break the language barrier.

"I was bored, are you saying I'm not allowed to come here?" he asked, still angry with the bit of English he threw at them.

"No, no, no, no, but you've, eh, never been here and you're always with España," he trailed off, thinking of Antonio gave almost everyone in the room goosebumps.

"That bastard, right," he rolled his green eyes once more. At that word, everyone awake in the room to cringe. How could he call Antonio a bastard?

"B-bastard? No, no, señor Fernàndez Carriedo is our," he gulped, he had to use this word whenever he had to speak of his captor, "saviour, he gave us education and a language, for that we are thankful," he said, almost like it was a script he had to memorize.

"You have to-a chill, Tonio's okay, don't tell him I said that," he said simply, "what even are you to him? I mean he-a gave you a language?"

"Well, we're kinda, eh, his, well we're supposed to be his underlings, but we're servants," he sighed, but then hastily added, "but we're grateful for him and the fact that he let us stay under his care."

"Oh, well, I dunno about you, but he's kind of-a clingy," he explained, trying to understand the fact that they weren't people, they were countries–Spain's other underlings, but they were servants? He shouldn't care. He didn't.

"Clingy? Eh," he looked back to who Lovino recognized as the guy Antonio was screaming at earlier. Mexico said something softly in Spanish and Venezuela nodded. "Well, he likes you," he said, hesitantly though.

"I got that much, but it's annoying," he rolled his eyes, he looked around, finally everyone was awake, and Lovino could get a good look at everyone. There were 21 children in the fairly small sized room. There were 7 girls and 14 boys, they all spoke in Spanish but looked eerily different.

"Um, I know you're curious, and um, you have every right to be roaming around here, but if he comes back and notices that you're with us–" he didn't know if Lovino was aware of how they were treated, so he didn't say.

"Right, the tomato bastard will be worried and who knows what he'll do to your pay," he said with a shrug as he turned to leave. The other nations wondered: why he thought they were paid?