To Ivan, Siberia is a hopeless place. But in the end, this is where he finds love. RoChu AU
Author's Note: Title is of course inspired by Rihannas wonderful song =)
Main pairing is RoChu, other pairings may be mentioned though.
Hetalia wasn't my idea...
If you spot any errors, please let me know, I will correct them. Please review, I like reviews!^^
Love In A Hopeless Place - Prologue
Once, when I was just hanging around in the internet, some guy asked me where I was from. I didn't answer. I went offline instead.
That night, I woke up to the buzzing of my thoughts, which desperately tried to find an answer to that question. It's not that I didn't know where I'm from, of course I know, I've never really left this place anyways and I am not exactly from an immigrant family either.
It's just that this random stranger wouldn't have understood. Сибирь – saying this word is easy, of course. But fully comprehending its meaning is hard. In every way. There's no way of learning the meaning of Сибирь but the hard one.
Luckily, I've always been a quick learner. But it was not until that night, or maybe that morning, when the first rays of dirty sunlight were beaming through my bedroom window, that I tried to put my knowledge into words.
So let me tell you something about Siberia, and let me try to make it short.
It eats you up. It annihilates whatever it is that makes people have dreams for their future. All the dreamers I ever met turned into alcoholics. Or depressive, that is. That is the punishment this landmass has in store for everybody disobeying its rules.
Also, and you may have heard about that one, Siberia is a cold place most of the time. Of course you know what "cold" means. It refers to a low temperature or to emotionless behavior. But actually those four letters are hardly sufficient to describe the cold of this territory I live in. Here, the cold has the force to turn the air gray, it makes the tears freeze on your face seconds after you cried them, it's that kind of iciness that makes you afraid of leaving your house in the morning, because you are not sure whether you will make it back in the evening with all of your toes and fingers still on.
The same goes for the people. Hating each other quietly, having lost their hopes to get out of here at a very young age, having no choice but to spend the rest of their lives in cities that were actually intended to be penal camps, they have become as eternally frozen as the ground they live on. The warmer their short summers of happiness are, the colder the inevitable winters that follow after them. That's why most Siberians have given up on love, hope or joy.
And on that morning, while getting up and ready for work I came to the conclusion that I definitely was one of those people.
Doing my best to intimidate everyone around me, gladly dealing with their hatred, perpetually frozen on the inside - I was the most perfect inhabitant Siberia had ever had. This landmass had become a part of me and I didn't bother to question that.
Such was my state of mind when I first met Yao.