The dark side of your heart

Silence... silence... silence... the only thing Lovino Vargas ever wanted in his life, was silence. The phrase "words can hurt" always had a literal meaning for the Italian, because Lovino Vargas was cursed... all his life he had been able to hear other people's hearts. He didn't know when it all began, but as long as he could remember, he was forced to deal with it. His only memory from the time when he had been a baby, was the constant noise made out of words that was tormenting him, an endless echo, never leaving him in peace. "Shut up!" screeched a six-year-old Lovino, curling up into a ball in a corner of the kindergarten's hall and crying at the top of his lungs. A bunch of voices were pounding against his head, all at the same time and in different tones, pronouncing a variety of words and creating a buzzing impossible to bear. "Shut up!" he screamed again and pressed his hands to his ears, crying inconsolably. Next to him, his twin brother Feliciano tried to figure out what the matter was, but Lovino didn't stop wailing and shouting. "Lovi, what is it? Aren't you feeling well? Do you have a headache?" One of the friendly kindergarten teachers tried to calm him down, however, Lovino continued crying and pressing his hands tightly to his ears. 《What's the matter with this brat? Why won't he shut up at last? Nobody's making noise here.》 The child could clearly hear these words and proceeded to cry and scream even louder than before. Everyone was making noise! Everyone was speaking endlessly, and his head was about to explode! "Ve~ Brother... Mommy's on her way, everything will be alright," Feliciano tried to calm him down. No... no, it wouldn't, because the noise would still be there... silence... oh please, he just wanted everyone to be silent... wanted them to shut up once and for all. 《Freak. He's crazy. What a weird kid. Strange. Crybaby. He's insane. Abnormal.》 He could hear it... could hear everything, and when he lifted his head, he saw the other children staring at him and saying all these things without opening their mouths. All at once, repeating them without ever stopping, piercing him with their eyes and insulting him with their thoughts.  "I'm not crazy, I'm not a freak... shut up," he said, gritting his teeth with force, but the more he did it, the more the others seemed to insist on repeating their words. Until he finally lost his patience. "Enough!" he screamed and stood up, wanting to attack this group of children, whom the voices belonged to. But before he could do something to them, he was picked up by the teacher and lifted into the air. "Lovi, calm down!" she begged. "Shut up, shut up, shut up! Just shut up, all of you!" he cried and squirmed in her arms, while she instructed one of her coworkers to call the twins' mom immediately. They tried to soothe Lovino, but he didn't let them, and was punching and kicking, wanting to bite everyone intending to stop him. Until Feliciano finally told them what to do, so that at least his brother's crying would cease. They allowed him to get into one of the office's closets and hide there in the darkness, far away from the noisy classroom. The boy closed the closet's door behind him and covered his ears again, trying to alleviate his headache. The darkness was helping, the partial quietness too, and he closed his eyes, shutting himself off from the outside world that was hurting him. Only hearing the whisper of his brother's heart, who wondered if he would be alright. Lovino had the habit to hide during critical times, to rush to the narrowest and darkest place he could find and to stay there, if possible, until he was sound asleep. He wanted nothing but the peace the silence could give him. But then his mother arrived, and he heard all the chaos in her mind. 《He became aggressive again? Why does this keep happening to him? Oh no, surely they don't want him at this kindergarten either... it's the third one in just a year. Should I take him to the doctor?... But we don't have enough money. And what to do with Feliciano? I can't have him change kindergartens as well, but he wouldn't want to be without Lovino... What should I do? So many problems.》 This was what she was thinking about, while one apology after another left her mouth. And like that, the only six-year-old Lovino came to the conclusion that his sole existence posed a problem for the others. "Brother... Mommy's here now, we can go home," Feliciano whispered from the other side of the door. Lovino didn't want to leave, but didn't have any choice, as his mother lifted him out of the closet, stroked his head lovingly and carried him out in her arms, together with Feliciano, saying that everything was going to be alright. Lies. She was thinking anything but that. Soon, Lovino learned that people were always lying. That was the time when his ordeal began: due to his parent's growing worry because of the little guy's strange fits, they took him to different doctors. First, to his pediatrician to find out where Lovino's constant headaches were coming from. Nothing was found. Next, to another doctor. Nothing. Then to another and another, so many they could have filled a whole address book with their names. 《He just wants attention.》 Everyone was thinking the same after examining him, taking radiographies and doing all kinds of neurological tests. He heard this phrase like it was the final stroke to his diagnosis: just a child, longing for attention and affection from his parents, nothing unusual. After that, they passed on to medical specialists, then to the psychologist and finally to the psychiatrist. 《Crazy. Schizophrenic. Mentally ill.》 As time went by, the thoughts became only worse and more intense. Lovino saw Mommy and Daddy smiling and taking him by the hand, filling him with hope that everything would be alright, but at the same time, the boy was always hearing them cry internally, at every hour. And this crying was his fault, their sadness carried his name. Lovino began to detest these smiles, because he could clearly perceive their pain, starting to feel a repulsion no child of his ago should seeing his parents try to be strong for his sake. He heard everything, every second of their hearts breaking and falling apart. And thus, he decided to load a huge burden on his tiny body. "I don't hear anything anymore," he said one morning after getting out of bed. Mommy and Daddy looked at each other and then at him, who repeated: "I don't hear any voices and my head doesn't hurt anymore. I think, I'm alright now." He lied exactly the same way he had learned from everyone surrounding him. His parents ran towards Lovino to hug him and ask him a bunch of questions, which he answered, trying to sound natural. Little by little, his parents stopped crying and started laughing once again. They felt so relieved, but Lovino didn't. Not in the slightest. His habit to hide in strange places got even worse. He called this a game between him and Feliciano, but that was a lie. Every time he felt his head bursting, he immediately ran to the closet or under his bed and stayed there for hours, turning off the lights, covering his ears and waiting... waiting... waiting. "Ve~... I know you can still hear them," said Feliciano one night, after lying down in his brother's bed and helping him cover his ears. Even if Feliciano himself couldn't hear anything, Lovino did and was listening to his parents thinking about problems and money, coming from the room next to his and becoming more and more distant to each other. "I won't tell anyone," whispered the younger twin, looking straight into his eyes. "Feli, I've had enough of this," said Lovino quietly, trying to alleviate the pain. "Does it hurt when you hear these voices?" asked Feliciano. Lovino nodded. "And mine too?" This time, the older one shook his head. "No, you say exactly what you think," he responded. Feliciano smiled and moved closer to his brother, so that he could hear only him, despite being alone in the room and in bed. "Then I promise to always tell you what I'm thinking. I will never hurt you, ve~," he said. The other one only nodded and tried to close his eyes to sleep. After this promise, the twins continued trying to lead a normal life as they grew older, but for Lovino, every day was a torture, that was becoming worse and worse the better he understood things and the meaning of words. And slowly, like a sort of cancer spreading in his heart... he began to hate everything around him. Being already hard to realize that one person is lying, it's even harder to learn that the whole world is. Lovino noticed that the people surrounding him were living in a constant contradiction and that no one was authentic, except for his brother, who, faithful to his vow, told him even his most private secrets, without keeping anything to himself. But the others were different, and so he started avoiding them and isolating himself, trying to stay away as far as possible from that rotten part that every single person seemed to possess, out of fear to get infected with their hypocrisy. He constantly missed school under the pretext that he was suffering from migraine. Often that was really the case, but sometimes he just wanted to avoid listening to his teachers and classmates judging him for a while. Feliciano couldn't always stay with him, so every time Lovino was left alone at home, he hid under his bed and slept until everyone came back, and the noise started again. The only reason he could finish elementary school at all was his mother talking to the principal, explaining her his health problems. Like this, he started middle school, being a brusque, antisocial and solitary boy... his hate for people and their hypocrisy was growing faster and faster, uncontrollably, like the stream of thoughts reaching him every day. 《He's so annoying. A pain in the neck. He's scary. They should kick him out of school. A freak. What a horrible person.》 Somehow Lovino had already gotten used to hear this day after day, things that increased the stabbing pain in his temples, thus he always lied down on his school desk, covering his head with his hands, gritting his teeth and biting his tongue, trying to ignore the migraine. 《There he goes again, acting weird. Why does he do this? He's so strange. He's probably crazy.》 "Lovino, are you okay?" he was asked one day by the most pretty and attentive girl in his class, when she saw him in this position everyone found so odd. The boy lifted his head, his vision almost blurred from the intensity of the pain, and saw her standing there with her worried expression that could deceive everyone. 《Why did I have to ask him? I'm afraid of this guy, I don't want to be around him.》 "If you want, I could accompany you to the infirmary. Come on, let's go," she said with a sweet smile, stretching out her hand towards him. 《Don't touch me, I beg of you!》 "Liar...," mumbled Lovino, but the girl didn't hear him and continued to offer her hand, still thinking the latter, like an endlessly repeating tape playing. "Stop lying already!" he snapped, jumped up from his seat and pushed her so hard that she fell and let out a surprised scream. Immediately, everyone turned around to the scene and some came to help the girl, who was starting to cry from the shock and the fall. 《What's wrong with him?! Insane! Sicko! Criminal! Idiot.》 "Shut up!" yelled Lovino all of a sudden, paralyzing everyone, but the chaos in their minds stayed. A chaos made out of thoughts, critique and insults, all of this directed at him. "Shut up, shut up!", the Italian screamed, retreating from every word he heard, from each statement dedicated to him, from every thought that hurt more than punches could ever do. It seemed as if his brain would get stabbed by unbelievable pain, and he suddenly began to feel nauseous. The only thing he wanted was everyone to stop thinking, stop feeling... but they did and even people from other classes were joining them, making the noise even worse. It hurt... it hurt so much. He knew he was going to vomit if he stayed there, so he pushed everyone out of his way, who wanted to stop him and take him to the teacher, and ran away, towards the infirmary, where he, ignoring the fact that he wasn't six years old anymore and almost a teenager, crawled under the room's only bed, pressed his hands tightly to his ears and closed his eyes, allowing himself to sink into the darkness under the mattress. Everything was black and quiet, it was as if the obscurity of the place was comforting him. Being far away from everyone, he only heard light whispers, damped by the hands on his ears. He didn't want to be there, he hated school, hated all places with large crowds, hated people... oh, how he hated being forced to live like this. "Brother." Suddenly, he heard the voice of his twin in the infirmary. As assumed, finding him hadn't been a problem for Feliciano. Without caring about dirtying his uniform or looking ridiculous, the younger one joined Lovino under the bed and, like always since they were little, placed his hands on top of his brother's. "I found out what happened. Are you feeling better? Should I call Mom?" he asked his twin, who was breathing deeply. "I'll stay here for a while, but don't tell her anything," Lovino answered quietly, because every time he suffered from that pain, he feared even his own voice. He took at least three deep breaths, feeling the warmth of his brother's hands on top of his own, isolating him from every sound. Trying to relax his shoulders and neck, he waited for the pain to slowly go away. "Hey Brother, do you think the nurse will scold us if she sees us here? Ve~," said Feliciano, stirring on the floor under the bed. "To hell with her," Lovino replied, making his brother laugh, and staying in the same position. Situations like this one happened often, composed out of these fits of aggression that made Lovino hit his classmates and this pain, forcing him to run out of class in the middle of a lesson and hide in the infirmary or the laboratory, staying there for the rest of the day. He missed school for weeks without an apparent reason, avoided large crowds in the classrooms and during the breaks, and finally became a solitary boy with an eternal look of distrust in his young eyes. And with lots of written reprimands due to his behavior, catastrophic grades and without a single friend except for his brother, he somehow reached high school. But for Feliciano, school was no cakewalk either. He was a weak boy, who had grown to be so highly dependent on his brother, that it was almost impossible for him to socialize with someone else. His classmates, of course, noticed his weird need to be constantly around his twin, thus rumors and jokes soon were spread.  People had left Lovino in peace a long time ago, ignoring him now completely, to avoid the risk of being punched by him or provoking some inexplicable fit of madness. But, instead, Feliciano became everyone's prime target, due to his complete inability to defend himself. 《There he comes, the weirdo. What a sissy. Isn't incest a crime? Disgusting. These two are sick.》 "Feli, why didn't you tell me you're being bullied?" asked him Lovino, while they were having lunch, hidden in one of the old, unused classrooms. The room had its windows nailed up, so there wasn't any light coming in, making the place very gloomy and ideal for Lovino, as there weren't any people coming in. "Ve~ they don't bully me... they just say things," said Feliciano nervously and shrugged, forgetting for a moment that he could hide nothing from Lovino. "This is bullying," disagreed Lovino, seeing his brother squirming and forcing himself to smile... he hated that part of his twin. "But it doesn't bother me that much, don't worry." 《It doesn't bother me, because they don't understand, and I can't be angry with someone who's completely clueless.》 Feliciano looked Lovino straight in the eyes while he was thinking that. This was the secret way of communication they had created; when it was too embarrassing or difficult for Feliciano to say something out loud, he just thought it, knowing that Lovino would hear him. Then, he always looked him in the eye, to tell him clearly that he was allowed to hear it, so that the older one wouldn't feel guilty about infiltrating his mind. "You're an idiot," grumbled Lovino, and they continued eating. But even if it wasn't bothering Feliciano himself, the same thing couldn't be said about the other Vargas brother. The boys were leaving school to go home. Lovino didn't have anyone to say goodbye to or anyone who would want to invite him to play some video games or meet girls... for them, he just was a shadow in the scenery. They crossed the school gate quickly as always since Lovino detested spending too much time outside. His daily way to school was stressful enough for him as it was. On the sidewalk they encountered a small group of teenagers, all of them from Feliciano's class, who started laughing weirdly when they saw the brothers pass by. The two of them didn't have to think much to get the reason for their laughter, especially Lovino, who could hear loud and clear what was going on in their twisted minds. The older twin jerked to a halt, as a bunch of perverted thoughts reached his ears... things that were more than offensive and also sinful. Just how could these guys be so corrupted?   "Brother?" Feliciano called to him, seeing how Lovino turned red with rage and his hands began to tremble. Then, he looked at the teenagers and just as he was about to turn his eyes back to his brother, the latter was already assaulting one of them. Lovino took him down and started punching him as if his life depended on it. The other guys came to their friend's rescue and together managed to separate him from Lovino, who seemed like a wild beast. He should just shut up! He wanted that damn bastard to shut up at once, and maul him so bad he wouldn't have a single thought or feeling for the rest of his goddamn life! This was Lovino's intention, as he was hitting the other in the face. He didn't even flinch when he felt one of the guy's teeth break off from the impact with his fist, nor when the blood began to flow... He wanted nothing more than to silence him once and for all! Him and all the others! "Wait, don't!" begged Feliciano, trying to stop them, but got dragged into the brawl as well. Of course, the twins were outnumbered and ended up beat on the sidewalk, although their enemies didn't get away scot-free either, with a bloody nose, a broken tooth and perhaps a lot of bruises that would last for a long time. With their bodies full of cuts and hematomas, Feliciano and Lovino arrived home, where they were scolded by their mother as expected and sent off to their room with a punishment. Lovino didn't care. It was enough of a punishment for him to not have been ale to silence that guy's thoughts. He hadn't minded to even kill him to achieve that. "Ve~ Brother, don't do that again, it's dangerous," said Feliciano, while they were sitting on his bed and he held an ice pack to his swollen eye. "I don't care... they deserved this, the whole world does," answered Lovino. Feliciano looked at him with sadness. "I hate them all... all people should just disappear and the world itself fall apart into little pieces. Humans should all finally die," continued Lovino. Feliciano didn't say anything, instead just kept staring with pain in his eyes at his brother's injured and scraped knuckles. Sometimes, the younger one wished to have the same ability and be able to hear the real voice of the other's heart. Perhaps Lovino didn't hate people after all... and just felt betrayed by them. One day, his school life ended, but the problems didn't... the curse to be able to hear things he didn't want to know, to learn the other's darkest secrets, had become unbearable for Lovino. He had tried to overcome it somehow, but in the end, his patience had reached its limits. Everyone would probably think that it's incredible to get to enter people's privacy, of course, since knowledge is power and could bring a lot of benefits in this case. But what if it's about your parent's? The secrets of these imperturbable fortresses, the pillars supporting your family? Lovino just couldn't take this hypocrisy anymore, couldn't bear seeing that even the persons closest to him possessed that dark and deplorable part inside themselves. Of course, it hadn't been fun to learn one night that his father was cheating on his mother. He always came home, undid his tie, greeted them with a smile and took a beer out of the fridge. Then he sat down at the table, told some joke he heard in the office and asked everyone about their day, eating dinner, as if there wasn't some woman he slept with in some cheap hotel. And everybody just followed the act, except for Lovino, who thrust his fork into the meat and cut it with such force as if he wanted to stab someone. While everyone was laughing and performing that scene of a happy family, the older son became a silent observer of this pathetic pantomime. He lost all respect and affection for his father... who never understood why his son suddenly started behaving so coldly towards him and never was the same with him again. And noticing that his mother wasn't happy with her life, hadn't been fun, either. Every day was a torturous routine for her, during which her youth had been consumed like water running through her fingers, while she was raising her sons and living in a marriage that was falling apart. Every single day, Mom pretended to be alright, smiled as sweetly as always, prepared their meals and kissed their foreheads, stroking their hair, as if they were still ten-year-old kids. However, Lovino could hear with terrifying clarity how she was sinking deeper and deeper into her own sadness... and began clinging to her sons, in order to not be alone, frightened by the sole idea of ending up old and abandoned, without having achieved anything in her life. Lovino stopped seeing her as his loving and protective mother and instead, began looking at her with constant pity. She hated it, but was able to hide it very well from the others, even from Feliciano, who continued living in a bubble of well-crafted lies. Because Lovino didn't dare to destroy his fantasies. And one day came the inevitable divorce, like a bubble bursting after having been inflated too much. It had filled up with bad acting and falseness, and everything fell apart at an impressive pace, but at the same time represented a turning point in Lovino's life, who decided to finally take the reins of his life. He said it loud and clear: he would not study at university, since the school had already been a nightmare from the first until the last grade, and also wouldn't depend on anyone, breaking off any contact to others except for his brother. He didn't want to have anything to do with all these people, who insisted on lying even to themselves, he was sick and tired of them and everything their feelings and thoughts represented. "I'm going to live alone," he announced out of the blue one day, and his mother immediately began crying, almost imploring him to not move away. 《I don't want to be left alone! Don't leave me. Not you too. I don't want to be alone. Don't abandon me.》 This was the worst... people were always crying about that... they only wanted a way to save themselves from their own despair, clinging to someone else who could carry the weight of their existence. He hated it... he detested it... it nauseated him. He didn't give in, neither to his mother's pitiful supplications, nor to Feliciano's pleas, and moved far away, as far as he could, where only few people were living.  Began to live alone in a house that was isolated even in the village he moved in, and went no-contact with everyone he had even the smallest bit of a bond, so that it seemed as if he had disappeared from the face of the earth. He constantly changed workplaces, because his headaches and urges to escape from people didn't leave him any other choice. And he also didn't socialize with absolutely no one, as he was disgusted by seeing the true being of the ones who tried to initiate any kind of friendship with him. It was already a miracle if he managed to last a couple of months at a workplace, but was able to make a living, sometimes even with Feliciano's help, who was the only one, whose number he had in his address book, the only reason he answered the phone at all. And this was how he reached the age of 23 and we the beginning of our story. Would Lovino continue hiding from other people's feelings for the rest of his life? Get rid of this curse by isolating himself completely?... Or would the echo of the emotions be able to reach even him?... Whispers from the distance soon would bring him the surprise of his lifetime. Would his hate towards people grow or, on the contrary, fade a bit, as he would slowly begin to grasp the meaning of these feelings he heard in bits and pieces, mixed with those of others?... At this moment, he wasn't aware yet of the consequences that would soon be caused by meeting a certain man and the listening to that person's heart that could change something in him.