Pairing - Spamano

Chapter Three: Belvedere Museum, Vienna, Austria

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Vienna was dead. Is that what it felt like?

Coming from the hustle and bustle of Rome, Lovino thought he may have walked on the graveyard of a city that was, and not is. He looked up at the gray and white Baroque buildings decorated in the scattered, sparkling mist, and they looked completely different than the gray and white Baroque buildings in Rome. Because whereas these were dead, cold, and perfect, the ones in Rome were alive, and warm, and completely imperfect.

But Lovino didn't feel alive. And in fact, he felt much more comfortable walking in the veil of a city and country he didn't belong to. At least he was hidden. At least he was a mystery. At least he was free. And freedom exists only in anonymity. Isn't that right?

It was Spring, but not in the Roman way. The Vienna streets were quiet, vacant, almost ghostly. Lovino breezed through them easily on his trek to the Belvedere. There was no reason for him to be in Vienna aside from the lack of reason itself, but he liked museums and the safety of them. It was social without the interaction, and productive without the doing.

And besides, his brother had been raving about Gustav Klimt since his trip last year.

Lovino liked art. He liked making art. Appreciating it was something foreign to him, but he did try to understand. It was hard though. Lovino felt so small, walking through the gates and gardens of the Belvedere. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and ignored the clumsy crackle of the gravel beneath his shoes. He put on an annoyed and bored expression and stalked up to the person selling tickets.

Lovino liked museums. But he also despised them.

Lovino wanted to be anonymous and alone. But he also didn't.

If Lovino made any sense at all, he wouldn't have run away that weekend.

"And now we arrive at his most famous work, painted at the highpoint of his 'Golden Period,' The Kiss."

Lovino shuffled to the side and made room for the daunting group of foreign tourists. They tilted their heads and rubbed their chins and conversed pretentiously about the woman and man of the painting. Lovino looked with them, but he didn't see what they did. He couldn't let himself fall into the world of the painting. All Lovino could do was let his eyes rage across the canvas, picking up where Gustav's brush went and analyzing the method of work. And inside, he hurt.

He didn't want attention, he really didn't. But the ugly realization that flocks of people would never ogle over his drawings kept picking and picking at his heart. Not that he was an artist.

But he did…like to make art.

To his right, the group of tourists had exchanged for a band of art students. They all eagerly leaned forward and scribbled on their sketchbooks. Lovino rolled his eyes and moved away from the The Kiss. He began glaring at a new piece of work. Each one seemed better than the last. Lovino curled his fingers in the fabric of his pockets.

"It seems like your group is leaving without you," a man said in accented English.

Lovino ignored the voice and kept glaring. The stranger was obviously talking to someone else.

"Hello," the man called again, this time very musically. He tapped Lovino on the shoulder.

Lovino's heart picked up at the prospect of talking to someone (a-n-y-o-n-e), but he kept a straight face and turned around.

The man, a young, handsome man, greeted him with a smile and solid, green eyes. They sparkled when he spoke again. "Isn't that your group that just left?"

Lovino flashed his eyes in the direction of the door and back again. "No."

The man raised his brows, waiting for more, but Lovino never gave it to him. So with that same musical and soothing voice, he asked, "are you here on your own then?"

"Yes," Lovino replied. He could feel a curious stare on his cheek, but Lovino focused on the painting.

"How alone are you exactly?"

Lovino scrunched his brows together and gave the man a scowl. "What kind of question is that?"

The man laughed, and it was so happy. "Sorry. I'm not very good with words. I never seem to be able to say what I'm thinking," his voice trailed off and his lips curled like it was all so amusing. "What I meant was that you seem kind of young to be by yourself. And you don't really sound, or look, like you're from around here."

Why was Lovino so combustible? It's as though his blood were gasoline, and any wrong word lit him on fire. But he could restrain himself. He had practice.

"I'm not young," he answered slowly. "I'm twenty-one. And I'm traveling." Lovino stomped to another painting, hoping to gain some distance from the stranger.

But green-eyes just trailed behind, chuckling softly to himself. "Oh, is that so? You look a lot younger than you are, I must admit. But still, why are you traveling by yourself…um, did you tell me your name?"

"I'm not telling you my name," Lovino quipped simply. "And I just wanted to get away from home for a while."

"And where is your home?"

"I'm not telling you that." Lovino glanced over his shoulder and caught the man admiring the painting rather tenderly. "Why are you talking to me?"

The man met Lovino's gaze, and it was so terrifying. (Lovino didn't feel small at all.) "Because you're interesting," he said.

Lovino turned his head away. "Well, I'm not."

"Because you're lonely."

"I'm not."

"Because you're pretty."

"I'm-" Lovino's breath caught in his throat, and all of his frustration rushed to his cheeks in embarrassment. "I'm not pretty."

"Yes, you are."

"I don't like that word."

"But it suits you so well!"

"No," Lovino stated as he pressed the back of his hands to his cheeks. "It doesn't."

The man hummed, but didn't counter anymore.

Lovino bit his lip and mustered the courage to continue walking, he entered the next room. He had too many mixed feelings when the stranger's hum had followed him there.

"Well, I'm Antonio, and I'm from Spain," the man declared. "And I traveled here because I was lonely."

"How ironic," Lovino muttered.

"How so?"

"I traveled to get alone."

"And how has that been?"

"Unsuccessful."

Antonio's smile had an aura, and Lovino didn't have to look to know it was there. "I really like you," he said.

Lovino stared at him as best he could. But it was getting harder and harder to look at the green eyes, handsome smile and curly hair. He turned away and attempted to ignore his blush. "Go away."

"In due time. After all I have a plane to catch tonight. Can't miss that."

"Your trip's over?" Lovino asked curiously.

"It is," Antonio answered easily.

Lovino debated briefly, but asked anyway, "was it what you wanted?"

As smooth as a cat, Antonio said, "it is now."

Lovino crossed his arms, wishing he could curl further and further into himself. "You're creepy."

That seemed to scratch at Antonio's confident; Lovino took a secret pride in that. But in the next moment, Antonio was laughing again. "That's rather mean, wouldn't you say? I may be strange, but artists always are in one way or another," he left the words hanging for a beat before adding, "you're quite an odd little artist too, if I may say so."

"I'm not an artist," Lovino blurted instinctively.

Antonio seemed to analyze those words: he was quiet for a while. "You seem to know a lot about what you're not. Do you know what you are?"

What I am?

What am I?

Am I…(a bastard, a child, a loser, a brother, a savant, a son, a lunatic, a lost cause, a waiter, a person who draws, a fool)…what?

One of his talents: if Lovino didn't know what to say, he didn't say anything at all. Instead, he turned his head and walked into the next room.

Self-reflection is an obsession.

A picture is worth a thousand words, so how much prose would it take to communicate the complexity of a human being?

Antonio left his home for more than a vacation. It was just as he said, he was lonely. He knew the town too well, and its people; but he also knew himself, and that last realization made the survival in the town so much harder. He was alone. No one there understood his soul. No one could empathize, no one could listen. Maybe it was just a small town, maybe he needed to be somewhere bigger. So he traveled. He visited cities in Spain and in countries nearby, he met so many lovely people, and ones more complicated and sensitive.

But Antonio still felt an aching loneliness he didn't know how to cure.

Vienna seemed to be a lonely city, so Antonio was comforted in that fact. He was alone, but so was everyone else: and Antonio knew because he was always watching. He was always observing. He was always trying to understand. He loved people so much.

Antonio went to the Belvedere everyday during his stay. He walked every room and looked at every painting; the excuse for the trip was inspiration after all, he couldn't squander all his time strolling through parks and graveyards.

And it was hard for someone to escape Antonio's view. He usually caught every person at least for a moment. But the young boy with a black jacket, staring forlornly at a Klimt seemed to materialize out of thin air, just as Antonio was preparing to sigh.

But he should've known that it was a pipe dream.

When he had the chance to follow the mysterious boy again, he couldn't find the strength to do it. Because it was pointless, wasn't it? The day will be a dream by tomorrow, and the friendship or the romance, or neither of the two won't matter back home. And it's easier if it's nothing.

The boy was walking further and further away, but Antonio could still feel the heat of those amber eyes.

Perhaps he should cherish the memory and leave it at that.

Antonio backed away.

The sun was falling. It was breaking the mist.

"Antonio!" a loud, but unmistakably reluctant yell echoed down the hill of the street.

Antonio jolted and turned around fast. He couldn't see much through the glare of the sun, but someone was standing up there.

"If you have a problem with me, settle it in Rome," the voice, now clearer yelled again. It was the boy.

Antonio was stunned for a second, but then laughter bubbled from his lips.

"Is that funny to you?" the boy demanded, his voice was shakier now, on the verge of shyness.

It is. It really is. "I don't even know your name," Antonio complained with a smile.

The boy scoffed, "as if I'd tell you that." He was already jogging away.

Antonio was still laughing, he couldn't stop. When life takes a spin like a dream, it's never easy to believe. But serendipity does happen. Antonio leaned against the wall to catch his breath. He only had one option: might as well take the bull by the horns and see what happens.

Maybe he would find what he was looking for in Rome, or maybe not. If loneliness was designed to be his curse, he might as well follow any trick of escape.

Antonio sighed.

That boy was so interesting, and so lonely, and so, so pretty.