Letters from home (Feliciano)

It was a boring day. Michelle spent it so far trying to think of other reasons in her persuasive essay for school. She was hitting a dead end writing wise and had nothing to do. She looked at her calander and confirmed that said essay was due tomorrow. She sighed. She blinked a couple of times and looked at the calendar again. 

"Wait..." she thought for a second.  "If that's the date...". Michelle's face lit up. That meant that it was time for her monthly letter from home. Michelle put on her sandals quickly and ran down the stairs. She didn't trust elevators and always felt trapped inside. She scurried to the letter boxes but didn't see someone checking their mail. Michelle, bursting with excitement, ran right into that someone.

She knocked them to the ground with a dramatic flailing of her arms to try to stop herself. Thank god she had something to break her fall. Sadly that thing was the person she just toppled to the ground. She laid there for a couple seconds and then got up to help the man she knocked over. He had a small curl to the side of his head.
"Are you okay?" she asked him, hoping she didn't just flatten a neighbor of hers.

"Owwwww-!" Feliciano gave a loud, keening whine after coming to the conclusion that he was on the floor and that he hurt. He wasn't exactly sure why he was on the floor, or how he got there, but he was. He hadn't meant to be. He'd meant to check his mail box and see if anything had come for himself or his brother. But somehow he was on the floor, hurting and confused. This was happening way too often lately. First the elevator and now this!

But upon looking at the girl who had landed atop him, Feliciano noticed two major differences, aside from the fact that this time the collision had not been his fault.

One - She was a pretty young girl, probably no more then seventeen, rather than a rage-filled Englishman with newly-turned neon green hair that was ready to scare and scream him to death, and...
Two - he was not being yelled at, nor had he turned the colour of her hair (so okay, it was more like three things, and sure there were a lot of other differences as well, but Feli wasn't really going to get into those, as they didn't matter nearly as much).

The key one being that she was a cute young girl! So he couldn't really get that upset with her for knocking him down - not that he was likely to get upset anyway, just cry a little. But she wasn't that heavy and while it hurt he could just cry to his brother about it later.

Rather, he struggled to sit up and rubbed his head gingerly, offering her a smile made wobbly by his slight pain.

"Si, si! I'm fine! It's okay, better you fall on me then I fall on you, si?" He responded, offering her his free hand. "Ciao, bella! I'm Feliciano, and you have a pretty unusual way of introducing yourself! What's your name?"

She blinked a couple of times. Michelle expected to get an earful about how she was a reckless twit or something stereotypical of the English people by now. But this person just introduced himself to her. She smiled and shook his hand.
"I'm Michelle." she introduced herself. "Are you sure I can't help you up?" Feliciano was smiling but he looked very much in pain from her ungraceful landing. Michelle is used to the traction on sand and therefore makes a huge fool of herself on waxed hardwood or linoleum floors.

Michelle could tell that this person had a very sunny personality much like her own. In fact it was very infectious. Michelle absent mindedly tried to make small talk. "What do you think of the storm?"

"Michelle, that's a very nice name~" Feliciano declared, rolling it over his tongue as if to taste it's flavour. Yes. A very nice name indeed. Pretty, and cute, and short and fresh just like her! At the offer he shook his head, pushing himself the rest of the way up.

"I'm okay, my head just hurts a little. I'll make fratello - er my brother, Lovino, sorry, sometimes I forget people don't speak Italian like me - kiss it better later if it keeps hurting, and I'll ice it, it's not anything that would keep me from standing!" Or, indeed, from moving to take up her hand and kiss the back of it - more in a silly fashion then a romantic one, as there was next to nothing formal about Feliciano, and he had a demeanour that tended to send such romantic gestures into the arena of light comedy.

...the storm? Oh. Oh. "Do you mean... do you mean the storm? The one that...." hmm. Was he allowed to talk about that? People might think he was crazy if he just started talking about it... "the one from a little bit ago? The. Uhm. The strange one? Is that the one you mean?" Because 'the one that gave me crazy powers - did it give you them too?' sounded just a tad bit awkward.

"Feliciano's a nice name too! Can I call you Feli?" She asks him. His name was obviously foreign. Michelle started to wonder if any of the residents were actually from England. All the people she's seen in her short stay were obviously foreign in almost every way.

"I-It's okay." She blushed. 'Are all Italians like this?' she thought. "I make the same mistake with my French." Michelle remembers when she first came to London she spoke French a lot. She has since gotten better and had less mid-sentence language changes.

"Yes, that one!" she says. 'The one that caused me to hear voices' was almost added to the end of that sentence but was thrown out due to the fact she didn't want to sound crazy.

"I didn't even notice it until half way through, to be honest~" he responded with a little laugh at his own expense. Feliciano was, to say the least, an air head. But better to admit to your faults then deny them, right? Right! And if he had to admit it, he might as well do it in an enjoyable way, and have a bit of a laugh while he went. Everything went down better with a bit of well-intentioned laughter.

"And si, Feli is fine~ But with the storm..." he frowned, looking to his fingers for a second. "I was really focused on something else, and I didn't even really notice until there was this big big boom and a really bright flash of light! If it didn't hit right then and right right there I think I might have worked through the whole thing!"

"I do that all the time so no need to worry!" she said. Michelle laughed too. She had just met Feli and she felt that they had a lot in common already. They were both cheery people with a sweet disposition. "By the way, how long have you lived in the building?" Michelle was meeting people left and right since the storm. It's as if the lightning has driven them out of their dwellings at the same time and she finally gets to meet them. Wait, the storm…

She blinked at his story. "Back home there weren't many storms as bad as this… its like a typhoon came ashore…" Michelle didn't even know she was drifting into sailor speak. "I knew the red sky wasn't lyin' that mornin'…"

"Where's home for you then? You said you speak French, si? So somewhere in France or...?" it was fairly commonplace, in Europe (especially in a city like London) to meet people from all over, but that didn't stop him from getting excited every time he had the opportunity to do so. "I'm from everywhere myself, but mostly from Italy! I was born there, but I lived in America for a while and when I cam back my nonno - oh, that means my grandfather, but that's what I call him, nonno - he travelled a lot, so while we lived in Tuscany I got to go allllllll over Italia, si? It's so cool to meet people from other places! Do you travel a lot? You seem to be really young to be living on your own-!"

He had to pause, gasping for his next breath. Wow. He really had to start trying to remember to breathe when he talked, it was growing to be a problem. "I've been living here for... uhm... a while? I think almost two years, I can't really remember, ve~" he added, once his breath was returned to him.

"Oh, I'm from Seychelles, an island nation near Madagascar." She was glad each time she met someone that the knowledge of her small island nation spread around. It made her feel accomplished. "That's interesting! And yes, I do seem a little young to be living on my own. It's a long story." If asked, Michelle would gladly tell her tale. But she didn't want to bore Feli with a long story if he didn't at least ask first.

"I moved in a month ago. I'm on the third floor." she says. Michelle didn't know why she threw that 'third floor' thing in there. Maybe Feli lived on her floor too.

"I have time! I always have time for a pretty girl~" Feliciano informed her, smiling wide. Ever the flatterer, even for girls who were much too young for him to actually be interested in them in any romantic way, he loved to listen to others... even though he himself could chatter on endlessly about just about anything. Listening to other's voices was nice as well, and he really enjoyed learning where people came from and why. That way you knew better ways to make friends with them~

"And I bet it's an interesting story! I'm on the second floor, if you want I can grab us some gelato from up there and we can sit on one of our porches while you tell me your story!" he offered. Of course, being the rather innocently person that he was, it never once crossed his mind that a fully grown young man offering to be alone with a young girl in one of their apartments might be creepy. He just wasn't the sort to think that way, and it's not as if any ill intention crossed his mind. To him he'd asked something just as innocent as offering to walk in the park on a sunny day with some.

"Oh you~" she giggled. She had sense he had no real intent behind the words but meant only to be nice. The girl grinned widely. This friendship was great and it had only been about five minutes. She was glad to find someone as happy-go-lucky as she was… he maybe more than her even. That didn't happen everyday.

"That sounds fantastic! But… what's gelato?" Michelle was smart enough to learn geography and history of some countries so she wouldn't seem uneducated when she arrived… But culture was an entirely different matter. It wasn't entirely her fault though. There was no way she could know everything about a country some 6000 KM away. She could only guess that it was a sweet of some kind based on his personality exhibited thus far.

Feliciano gasped, looking as if he had just been physically stricken by her question. How could she... not know what gelato was? What sort of childhood had this poor girl had that she had never experienced the slight, cold, creamy delight that was gelato? How had she been abused that she had been denied this treat? This ambrosia gifted to the Italian's by god himself? That poor, poor child! He'd have to fix this immediately.

"You don't know what gelato is? You've never had gelato?" he asked, jaw dropping in horror at the thought. Working to kick-start his brain he quickly grabbed her elbow. "I need to get you some right now! How can you have gone your whole life and never had gelato?"

"Well I guess it's just not common where I grew up… You still haven't told me what it is yet." And she honestly had no clue. What ever it is it must be delicious for Feli to be having such a… freak out about it. She hoped that gelato, whatever it was, came in coconut or pineapple flavor. Michelle loved tropical flavored things.

She tensed up a little when he grabbed her elbow. Not expecting this sudden action, she didn't know what was going to happen next. "I'm guessing we're going to get some now, right?" she asked hesitantly.

"Si! Right now! We'll go out and find a place that sells it!" Felicaino declared. Because this poor girl needed to try it! From the hold he worked to loop his arm through hers.

...oh. Oh. Right. He should probably explain what it was, hunh? "It's like ice cream, only a hundred times better! It's the original ice cream, so it's just as sweet and cold only it's a lot thicker and richer and creamier. It's really really really delicious! You need to have some! You've had ice cream, si? Gelatto - e sorbetto! - are how ice cream came around at all!"

"Okay. Do you know where people sell it?" she inquired. If gelato was as important as Feli declared than there should be shops everywhere. But Michelle hadn't seen any in town so far. Maybe she's just been missing them. With her arm locked with his wizard-of-Oz style, she looked out the window briefly to see if there were any stores in sight.

At least she's had ice cream before. "Oui, I have. This gelato sounds delicious." Now she couldn't wait to try some.