He just wanted it to be the two of them again. Ivan and Julie Maria. Ivy and Julchen.
Even when he was a mere ten years old, he was already thinking of his dream girl. Someone sweet, humble and kind, soft and delicate. Julie Maria was the opposite of that in almost every way. Julie Maria, or Julchen as she liked be called, was a loud, obnoxious, tough and brash girl who was always declaring how awesome she was to the world. When he met her for the first time in the fifth grade, he immediately disliked the girl who would call him "Ivy" and tackle him at recess.
Yet, at the same time, he could not keep away from her. Truth be told, he was a rather lonely boy. Taller than everyone else in his grade, with his thick accent, homemade clothes, and, to everyone else, peculiar lunches, he had a great difficulty making friends. He tried to take his older sister's advice and keep a smile on his face, but his classmates always seemed to avoid him. At least with Julchen, he was not completely alone.
As the school year went by, he and Julchen had become friends, in a way. He learned that Julchen was like him, hiding a lonely and broken heart. He hid his heart behind a smile and a cheerful attitude and she hid her heart behind her ego and confidence, yet they both still had a lonely, broken heart and they had bonded over it. They understood each other in a way nobody else could, and by the end of the year, they were best friends.
Summer came and it was spent with two of them laughing on park bench eating ice cream, exploring the forest, pretending to be wizards and knights, playing hide-and-go seek in the sunflower field. They spent the night at each other's houses, despite what their parents said, staying up late talking about their hopes and dreams, the painful memories, the happy ones, and their thoughts on the most random subjects. Julchen was a rather popular girl with countless friends, most of them boys, yet she always made sure that there was at least an hour each day for just the two of them. It touched him in a way he could never explain. The loneliness had disappeared.
Sixth grade came and they walked to and from school side by side, ate lunch together, did projects, homework and studied together. Other people tended to join them, yet Julchen never forgot about Ivan and always included him in the conversation. Even surrounded by people, he felt like it was just the two of them against the world. The broken heart was beginning to heal.
They went into middle school with ease, thrilled to find they had all their classes together both 7th and 8th grade, riding the bus together, going to class together,eating lunch together, working together for homework,projects and studying for tests together. Julchen still had a ton of other friends, but Ivan was her best friend first and foremost, she always made time in her busy schedule for just the two of them to spend time together. Ivan was in pure bliss, a real, genuine smile on his face all the time. Everyday, no matter how hard, was better with Julchen. Julie Maria and Ivan against the world. Ivy and Julchen together forever. The heart was now beating intensely with nothing but a light, unnoticeable scar.
The summer before high school things changed. On the last day of school, when Ivan met Julchen at the bus stop, she ran towards him excitedly and tackled him like she used to do all those years ago at recess and announced that Dani was returning.
Daniel, or Dani as Julchen called him, had been Julchen's best friend since they were four years old until he had moved to Hungary the summer before 5th grade, just before Ivan moved here from Russia. He still knew that Julchen wrote to Daniel every single day without fail and was always jumping for joy to him whenever she got something back from him. Ivan couldn't help but feel a little jealous, but he was always happy for Julchen, he knew how much it meant to her that she wasn't forgotten by him.
Ivan was excited to meet Daniel from all the stories Julchen had told him during their late night summer talks. The idea of a new friend seemed so exciting and the fact that he was already good friends with Julchen seemed even better. Maybe his and Julchen's duo could become a trio with Daniel.
He had gone with Julchen to the airport to greet Daniel and welcome him back to this tiny little town in the middle of nowhere. Julchen was holding a sparkly green sign with little yellow chicks wearing little pink bows and sunflowers around the edges that had the word DANI in all caps. They had decorated it together and both had hoped Daniel would like it.
Looking at Daniel, he was exactly as Julchen described him. Brown hair tied into a low side ponytail, dark green eyes that reminded him of pine trees and the kind of grin that made you feel at ease. Ivan felt relaxed around Daniel, yet a part of him didn't trust him just yet. But Julchen was happy and that's all that matter to him.
In the beginning, he and Daniel had gotten along just fine. It was a little awkward at first, both used to having Julchen to themselves and considering themselves her best friend. As time wore on though, the animosity between them grew and grew and became tangible to everyone but Julchen, who thought that her two best friends got along great. They both promised not fight in front of her at all and pretend to be good friends, both knowing that she would be heart broken to learn that her two most important friends hated each other.
It had become a secret competition during Freshman year over who would win Julchen. Over the summer, Ivan had developed a crush on Julchen, which puzzled him to no end. Julchen was his best friend, yes, yet she was the opposite of everything he wanted in a significant other, yet looking at Julchen's radiant smile and the way his heart raced spending time with her, he knew he couldn't deny his feelings. The problem was Daniel also harbored feelings for her.
As the Spring Formal approached, Ivan had hatched his plan to confess to Julchen and go the Spring Formal with her as more than friends. He spent countless hours folding paper sunflowers and a poem that composed of his deep feelings for her. The day he was going to give it to her though, his heart was shattered.
Right before he was about to give it to her after school, Julchen announced that Daniel had asked her the Spring Formal and they were now dating. Looking at how happy she was, radiating love and affection for Daniel, he felt his heart being crushed in a way that was all too familiar to him. Yet he smiled brightly for her and told her walk home with Daniel, as he had to meet with a teacher after school. As he saw her run off to Daniel, the boy smirked at him and mouthed I win. After they left he cried.
He'd sobbed harder and louder than ever before, curled up in a hall corridor. As he was crying, the memory he had repressed so long came back to him. The memory he had tried so hard to forget, the memory he hadn't told anyone about, not even Julchen. And that pale scar on his heart had opened up and with it, his heart was utterly destroyed.
He had been five years old at the time and it was his first day of Kindergarten. There he had met Tori, who was a sweet, gentle, cheerful and hardworking Lithuanian girl with soft brown hair and big, emerald green eyes that affectionately called him "Vanya" and was best friends with a Polish boy named Feliks. They had also became good friends and he wanted nothing more than to stay by her side and never bothered with making other friends.
Up until the third grade had they been close friends, but Feliks always seemed to get in the way of them becoming closer. When Feliks was placed in a different classroom in the fourth grade, Ivan thought this could be a chance for him and Tori to become closer like, her and Feliks. Tori was worried about how Feliks would cope being seperated from her. They had been together since they were two and, due both of them living next door to each other, had never been apart for more than two hours. They didn't even have lunch and recess together.
Two months later Feliks commitmented suicide due to depression and bullying. Tori was horrified and cried and cried for months. She later fell into depression, and no matter how hard Ivan tried, he could not cheer her up. She blamed herself for Feliks death, she thought that she should have noticed how Feliks was getting bullied, how he was growing more and more depressed. She thought she was the cause he was dead.
Before the school year was over, she had killed herself by hanging herself in Feliks old room. When Ivan learned about her death, he felt as if time had stopped and felt his heart was destroyed. Tori was dead. Dead because she couldn't live without Feliks. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't fit into that Feliks-shaped hole in heart. When she was gone a crippling loneliness took place in his heart. Nobody was going to affectionately call him Vanya with a sweet smile the way Tori did he was alone.
When his family moved to America in a small town in the middle of nowhere, he tried to forget Tori and Feliks and pretend they'd never a part of his life. He'd hid his lonely heart behind a bright smile, like his older sister had advised and promised to make a new start.
Tori and Feliks. Julie Maria and Daniel. It had never been just Tori and Vanya, but it had been just Ivan and Julie Maria, Ivy and Julchen, hadn't it? But now it was just Ivan. He knew unless Daniel broke Julchen's heart, it would never again be Ivy and also knew that Daniel, despite having a girlfriend before, would never let Julchen go again. Ivan and Julie Maria were no more. The thought shattered his heart yet again. It was now just Ivan against the world.
But time had healed his broken heart once before, maybe it could do it again?
What did I just right? This was originally going to have a really fluffy, happy ending with RoChu with Fem!China and Nyo! PruHun. Not implied one-side RusLiet and implied LietPol with Fem!Lithuania. Nyo! Hungary was not meant to be the implied villian, I swear and Russia was supposed to have lots of friends! And I'm not actually quite sure why I didn't put any actual conversation in this but it's supposed make it seem more angsty and seem like a combined memory of childhood I guess. Anyway I hoped you like it. Please don't be mad at me. At least Russia isn't evil!
