I Can't Make You Love Me - Bon Iver
"Are you cold all the time?"
"No… what kind of question is that?"
"Well your name has 'Ice' in it, so I figured you'd be cold all the time."
"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."
Hong Kong laughed, a snigger that would make a hyena growl, and I frowned, a frown that would make any wrinkled human with a sagging scowl worried.
Frowning made me ugly, I had heard it before, 'Lift your chin, don't look so angry.' I guess this made him laugh more, bobbing head propped up by one hand.
"I know, I just wanted to see what you would say."
I had never talked to Hong Kong before, I had no reason to, he approached me with a lecherous grin and languid movements. Did he ever touch the ground? In the whole three minutes I had made his acquaintance, not once did I feel he made a sound. What a ghost.
I signaled the end to a conversation that was over before it genuinely started, collecting my things and moving to the other end of the table, seating myself next to my brother. This surprised quite a few, but I kept my eyes on Hong Kong's, following the symmetrical way he made his way to his own seat, one foot placed exactly where the other had just tread.
I thought if I tried to walk like that, I would fall flat on my face.
Meetings over, I hovered the walls as my brother shook hands with Netherlands, dykes were important.
Notable countries conversed, I lost my footing on where I was, glued oblate to the wall with no prominent expression. Every suit was gray, and the walls were ivory, off by just enough that the world could not become white, no matter how hard I concentrated.
"If you stare so hard you'll start to cry."
What a bright red tie, how obnoxious.
"You shouldn't make a habit of sneaking up on people like that."
Hong Kong shrugged, placing his fingers on his eyelids. He peeled the skin back, forcing them open as the gelatin wiggled in fear.
"Like when you hold your eyes open for too long, you start to cry. Staring too hard does that too." He let go of his tortured skin and blinked merely once, watching me.
I just could not understand how he managed look at everything with such a dull, yet unstable air. A plain white firework perhaps?
I liked the color white. White and brown. They did not hurt too hard to look at.
His skin was a brown too, light, maybe a deep caramel when the sun pummeled from above.
We both reflected in silence, my hands clasped behind my frail back, his shoved deep into his pockets.
That was the beginning of our friendship.
"It never snows in Hong Kong, did you know that?" Hong Kong's headset was offset a bit to make room for his dinner, slurping a bulging noodle as I collected my response.
"Never?"
"Never. Last time was maybe, like 1975?"
Sunlight slapped me while the moon kissed him, video chats becoming a more frequent way of communication when time allotted.
"It snows here, not as much as people would expect though." I picked up a pen from my desk and began to create a circular creature on my hand.
"I know that, I pay attention to other countries, unlike you."
The remark caused me to slice my beautifully painted circle in half, eyes bouncing up to meet his playful ones on the other side of the world.
He did that often, hoping to entice a reaction out of me, and I never got control over myself. Each time I scowled, I laughed, God forbid I blushed, and he got his sadistic cackle out of his throat.
I sighed and set my pen down, my artwork ruined, skin sore from the harsh drag, "I'm very busy."
"I know you are," a sound baited his attention, a language I never understood, "Gotta go, I'll text you."
"Bye."
"Bye-Bye"
Our screens went to a transitory black, before the application closed, and I could see my reflection on the desktop background.
"Press the L button to switch items."
I obeyed, and my character jumped, displaying a regenerated weapon and the smile of, what, a proud mother?
"Now what?" I glanced over to the screen, Hong Kong's hair was brushed back, pinned away from his intense gaze, one single pretzel stick waving from between his lips.
"Now go down the pipe, no God not that one, the other one, the purple one. Okay, now…"
I never had fun playing these things, but he liked to teach me and watch, so I tolerated the pointless squabble.
This was the first time I had ever done something purely to make another happy.
"Yes! Good job Ice!"
My hand slipped, it was sweating, I should not disappoint him. It was just a game, but he loved it, and halfway through I became enamored with the idea of winning this pixelated nightmare.
"Does it ever end?" The sun was setting, I had not eaten, and Hong Kong's room had begun to grow light, but his eyes outshone the sunrise.
"Soon, one more boss…"
To see a person so focused, I should have gone blind. His eyes locked solely on the screen, flashed blue and green as I rolled through fields of fabricated flowers, I felt chilled to the bone. Hong Kong could kill a man with his gaze, then create a spring from his ravaged body, so full of everything an animal, a person, a country could imagine.
I lost the level, I felt the phantom of his eyes stuck on me until I choked, thwarting it all. He sighed with a balked rub of his eyes, about to set up a rematch when I tossed my headset off.
"I have to go."
Hong Kong waved goodbye and I slid my head onto the frigid wood of my desk.
My face was hot and I felt sick, disgusted, lonely.
If only I had someone to lay my head on.
I was lonely often, but never so sadly before, never so often.
The only person who had ever shown interest in me was too far to touch, I had forgotten what he looked like in the flesh. If he gazed at me so fervently in person, I just might slip apart into three million pieces.
Why did he talk to me in the first place?
I had lost my memory of what it felt like to care about nothing, and my rib cage ached as I fell asleep on my computer desk.
He was across from me, not a smile, but an austere mask covering his face. Hong Kong listened quite well at meetings, he took notes, he contributed, I watched.
I watched him, in exact terms, I watched him.
By the end of Germany's speech on conservation of energy, I had a blank page of notes and an understanding of why countries should never fall in love.
I had lost every game of Melee, every lap of Mario Kart, every mini-game to be programmed by the time Hong Kong decided it was time to relax.
My fingers were not cut out for gaming, 'Too pudgy,' he said, and I could not agree more. I had never felt more tired from sitting in the same position for uncounted hours.
"Want anything to eat?"
I shook my head as I crawled back onto an acrid hotel bed, 5-star, yet wholly unwelcoming. They could never be comfortable.
"I'm not hungry either." He reclined next to me, there was only one bed, but for some destitute reason it made me feel special.
Hong Kong's room was decorated in his things, and I peaked between my eyelashes as I observed it all. I moved my fetal position to face away from him, curled in so tightly on myself I created a rip in the universe.
Things stayed that way, he tapped on his phone and I listened to the rain outside Berlin, before I shifted to stretch my throbbing neck.
"I love you."
Did I mean it?
"...What?"
I have never hated myself so much in a single instance, every knife in the world slid into me. I watched myself bleed onto the pure white hotel sheets. It tainted my blurry world.
"I can't be that for you." His answer was so swift, he barely moved the bed when he twirled to wrap his arms around me.
I was crying, one tear for every second he pitied me, stuck in his cocoon of muggy breath and shaking limbs.
I cried and cried and cried, and he pet my hair and held me to his chest until I remember falling asleep to a European rain.
When I awoke in the morning he had all ready left.
Hello.
WoWWWW hello Hetalia fandom it's been a while. I am back in full force God I love this fandom.
I love HongIce too omg I promise I'll write requited one day. I promise.
Please review, favorite, and have a nice day.