Chapter Text
Fuck, fuck, fuck, he's cute, Jean almost wailed aloud. This was the only thought he could process as he stared into the most gorgeous set of bewildered brown eyes he'd ever seen.
It had all started a few months ago, back in the States. He'd been hanging with Connie at his friend's apartment, basically being deadbeats together as the semester wound down and they had nothing to do.
“I just feel like... I've gotta get away from here,” Jean murmured as he stared up at the ceiling from his place sprawled out on the floor. “At least for a few months, or something; I need to get out of this town.”
Connie chuckled, though the sound was muffled by the pillow he currently had his face stuffed into. He followed up with a short statement, but Jean couldn't understand it.
“Sorry, dude, what did you just say?”
“I said,” Connie began proudly after removing his face from the pillow, “I just had an awesome idea!”
Jean looked at him skeptically. For Connie, “awesome” usually meant “crazy.”
“No, really man!” Connie scooted toward Jean. “You should go to Italy this summer.”
“Um... What?”
Connie sighed. “I mean, you should come with me and Sasha and all the other students studying abroad there this summer. You know our university has a really established program there, yeah? So you'd already know some people, but it would also be a good break from being here. Am I right?”
Jean's expression had slowly morphed from doubt to consideration. (Well, doubtful consideration, but it was something, regardless.) His family did have the money and the lack-of-involvement-in-his-life to make it possible.
“Come on, man.” Connie sat up fully and stared his friend down. “I know you probably think it's a crazy idea, but my gut says you could use a little crazy.”
And lo and behold, here he was, walking away from his hostel on the cobblestone streets of Cortona. The hilltop town was almost frustratingly picturesque. Jean kind of wanted to punch each rustic, stony facade; yell at each graceful swallow darting about in the dusky sky; and he'd dropkick the absolutely ridiculous, breathtaking view of the Tuscan countryside, because it was all just too beautiful.
It didn't help when he reached the town's main street, Via Nazionale. Everywhere Jean looked, there were older citizens chatting amiably outside cozy cafes, small children laughing and playing football, even a few tourists picking out gifts of fine leather and jewelry with their families. Observing all the camaraderie, Jean's own mood soured. This fucking village is only interested in talking to itself.
Sighing, he turned down a side street and lamented the fact that Connie and the rest of the university students wouldn't be arriving until tomorrow. Even though Jean had literally left the country to strike out on his own and try to find... himself (damn that sounds cheesy), he still wanted someone to share it wi—
“Oof!”
Fuck. Jean stumbled back, having walked right into some unsuspecting victim while he was lost in his mind. He almost started to panic, as he saw bright red spill onto the street in his peripheral vision, but upon closer inspection the red turned out to be...
...tomatoes?
Jean crouched down to double check, and his eyes landed on an upturned crate next to the scattered produce.
“Ah!” Tan hands righted the crate, and then began placing the tomatoes inside it. Jean finally connected the dots and gathered that he was the cause of the spillage.
“I-I'm sorry!” he said unhappily, forgetting that whomever he had run into might not speak English. “I didn't see where I was going. Here, let me help...”
Jean plucked up a tomato near his feet, then approached the other figure—a young man, Jean guessed, though he was turned away and Jean couldn't properly see his face.
“Here.” Body turned away in embarrassment, Jean held the tomato out.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the other boy pivot to face him. “G-grazie...” spoke a soft, gentle voice. Jean's brows furrowed at the foreign word, and he faced toward the stranger just as the other's fingers brushed his while accepting the tomato.
Everything froze. “Ah,” they both said at once. Each stared, bewildered, into the other's eyes, surroundings seemingly forgotten.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, he's cute.
The other boy glanced away, and Jean felt the need to see his warm, brown eyes again much more sharply than his urge to wail at already making an ass of himself.
Despite his matching flustered blush, the boy appeared to have gathered his thoughts and sought Jean's gaze again. “You are... American?” he queried.
Jean's eyes widened as a new wave of thoughts hit him all at once, most of them involving surprise at this boy's use of English, at his earnest expression, and at how absolutely fucking adorable his slight accent was. Jean took a good minute to push the thoughts away, working his mouth futilely until he at last stammered out, “Yeah, yes, uh. Si.”
The boy smiled at Jean's obvious nerves, and Jean swore his face heated up like the sun. The smile slipped away, though, and the boy continued in a nervous rush, “I-I'm very sorry, you do not need to help with picking up the tomatoes.”
“What?” Jean frowned. “No, god, hey, it was all my fault anyway! H-here, let's—let's finish getting the rest of these.” With that, Jean spun around and headed towards the farther edges of the spilled tomatoes. He couldn't look at those kind, warm eyes for a second longer; for some reason he was completely unhinged by those eyes and those freckled cheeks and the soft, straight brown hair and that gentle voice and that smile—
What's going on? Jean thought in a panic, still gathering food into his arms. I'm usually an idiot around hot people, but not this much of one! What Jean meant was that, even though he definitely didn't keep his cool around people he found attractive, he usually retained some of his confidence and was able to pull off a smooth line or two.
But with this kid, he was completely losing his head; he found himself worrying about how this kid saw him, whether or not his clothes were still clean or if his hair was messed up, and Jean didn't for the life of him know why. More than anything, he'd always thought that insecurities were about as useful as trying to put the pin back in the grenade, so why were they popping up now?
“Please, if you could put them in here.” The other boy sighed and set the crate down near Jean, which was about halfway full at this point with what he'd already gathered.
“Oh, sure, yeah,” Jean mumbled, letting the contents of his arms tumble into the box.
Glancing up again, Jean looked just short of stricken as he took in the other boy's happy yet bashful expression.
“Th-thank you for helping, uh...” He looked expectantly at Jean.
“Oh! Jean. Jean Kirschtein.”
The other boy's eyes glazed, and he seemed to roll something around on his tongue. “...Jean.” It came out as a murmur. Suddenly, his gaze focused again. “Ah! I'm sorry, my name is Marco. Si, uh, thank you very much. I should be getting to where I was carrying the tomatoes.”
Jean let out a weak laugh. “Right, yeah...”
Marco hefted the crate up in his arms, taking a few steps forward, then glancing back. “B-but, ah, I hope to see you again.” He smiled once more even as he returned to facing forward, calling out, “Benvenuto a Cortona, Jean!”