Well, this is my first fanfic in forever. I'm still working on a plot, so any future chapters will just be ad-libbing until I can come up with one - think of it as an experiment to get me writing again.

Enjoy!

Lovino Vargas had never cared for love.

Of course, he had attempted to love in the past. He posessed the usual string of ex-girlfriends that any Italian man in the prime of his life had, but now any relationship was kept to flirting or, if Lovino was feeling generous, a one-nighter. Lovino had decided early on that he didn't like the type of commitment that a closed relationship brought – a girl that clung onto his every word was fine, wonderful even, but a girl who constantly wondered why he had stopped being so charming towards her soon got boring. Lovino was a successful flirt because he could easily hide his usual persona beneath the charming personality that emerged when confronted with a pretty girl - his usual persona being a grumpy, easily irritated, loud-mouthed young man who tended to keep to himself.

He mostly stuck to flirting, earning himself the nickname of a womanizer within the streets of the town he lived in. Lovino carried that name with pride, knowing that those local girls who knew his name avoided him, while the lonely tourists who had never heard of his reputation would flock to his kind and flattering words. Sometimes, when he was particularly restless, he would entice such a woman to his bed, tempting her with good food and fine wine – always a tourist, never a local. Lovino had brought a local girl home once, entranced by her beauty, and had paid for it with tears.

Lovino was a womanizer, nothing more than a one-night stand. Before the sun rose, he would always be dressed and long gone, leaving behind only a note thanking her for last night, hoping she enjoyed the rest of her visit to Italy, and could she please be dressed and gone before he returned home?

He had decided long ago that he didn't care for love. Love was something that happened to idiots, like that little brother of his that was obsessed with his long-lost childhood sweetheart. Feliciano and Ludwig. Lovino would scowl instantly whenever either of their names were brought up. He hadn't seen his little brother since Lovino had moved out of home and towards the south of the country, and although he read every letter Feliciano sent him, sometimes taking hours to decipher his brother's scrawled but beautifully curved writing, he barely replied. Lovino was happy being alone, spending his evenings working at his beloved restaurant and his days wandering through town, picking up women, sipping his favourite wine and reading romance novels - not that he would ever admit he read them. If he ever felt the urge to relax in a café and read there, he would slip a different dustjacket over his novel, and even then he would sometimes blush if he thought a person was reading over his shoulder.

Sometimes, those novels made Lovino wonder what it was like. To love someone so entirely and give yourself to them in the way the books would describe. But then he would slam the book shut, putting it to one side and instantly pushing all thoughts of love to the back of his mind.

Lovino did not want to fall in love. Nor did he believe he would ever fall in love.

And it was at this point in Lovino's contented life that a certain Spaniard waltzed in and decided to mess the whole damn thing up.