Warning: Contains depression, eating disorder, self-harm, thoughts of suicide, mentions of childhood abuse, some possible OOC, and RusAme.
This is also a humanAU and collegeAU story.
Lastly, why in the world would someone like me own Hetalia?
Shame; sometimes Ivan felt as if it was the only emotion he could feel, aside from the despondency and bouts of fear he would sometimes feel as well. Yet, it still seemed to be quite powerful compared to the other two sentiments, and sometimes, he didn't even notice any other negative, yet more merciful emotions aside from the embarrassment he had for his own existence.
Happiness; what a rare emotion, or at least, to Ivan it was. He wasn't even sure if he could bring himself to appreciate such a feeling. Sure, he often desired it, and wished that it was the only thing that he could feel, but as far as he was concerned, the emotion was nothing more than a tease. When he did experience it, the sweet moments were always short-lived. When he remembered how it felt to be happy, he always ended up feeling worse. Moments full of nothing but pure glee only seemed to become more scarce for him the longer he lived. Happiness was an emotion that seemed to require too much effort to obtain, and sometimes, he didn't even think that it was worth the strain. At least when he forgot how such euphoria felt, the emotional agony became much more bearable. Almost as if it was completely normal to function in such low spirits.
Ivan certainly wasn't looking forward to college, nor was he thrilled about the fact that he would be sharing a dorm with someone he didn't even know. He was never too great around strangers. He always seemed to mess up on first impressions, due to how intimidating he always appeared to be. It wasn't his intention to be so terrifying to everyone, though. He was taller than most, and always, without even realizing it, had a tendency to act over friendly. It was to the point where he'd been labeled socially awkward, and people didn't seem to really trust him. He would always try to hide it, but it hurt to see everyone around him try their very best to avoid him; especially when he didn't even know the reason why. Perhaps some people his age wouldn't care if others didn't want to be around them. His whole life, he'd witnessed many individuals even frown upon others who showed any sign of actually needing another human's companionship just to feel happy. He understood that his desire was probably just something that some people simply didn't understand, but the disapproval did make him feel a bit ashamed. He knew he shouldn't have cared, but at least it wasn't the most of his worries.
At last, after carrying his luggage through the late summer's sun, and taking some time out of his day to search for his dorm, Ivan had finally found the room he was staying in. As soon as he entered his destination, he couldn't help but be filled with irritation when he was immediately greeted with an overly perky voice, "Hey, you must be my roommate!"
Ivan was not at all fond of the loud voice. He'd managed to obtain a headache from the heat when he was outside, and the noise had only managed to intensify it. As he turned his gaze towards the American (he could tell he was one just by the way he spoke), the first thing he noticed was that his room mate was already walking towards him. His room mate was also looking at him with the most welcoming pair of blue eye he'd ever seen; and if he had just been some toddler who knew nothing about the world, let alone know that a friendly looking and charming human could end up backstabbing him in the long run, he was sure that he would believe that the American wasn't capable of having a single negative thought towards another person. His blonde hair was a bit messy at the moment (Ivan could still tolerate the sight of it, though), with a large cowlick sticking up at his forehead. He was sure that his new room mate would be quite easy to find in a crowd, as he hadn't seen anyone with such a lively aura, or a cowlick so distinguishable.
As soon as he was in front of Ivan, the American stated, "My name's Alfred. What's yours?"
Ivan was sure that if he wasn't feeling so queasy due to the heat, and exhausted because he hardly ate anything during breakfast and lunch, he wouldn't have found Alfred's greeting to be so cringe-worthy. He wasn't sure if he would be happy to have anyone talk to him at that moment, but of course, he didn't want to seem rude. Therefore, he decided to reply. Before he did so though, he had to stop himself from saying 'Vanya', as he was sure that an English speaker would either find that name strange or hard to remember, "Ivan."
Ivan had hoped that that response would make Alfred leave him alone. Instead, his overly friendly room mate seemed to have taken his response as encouragement to continue speaking, "What are you majoring in?"
For a moment, Ivan was tempted to yell at his room mate. However, he was sure that if he tried to open his mouth and raise his voice, he was going to throw up. He instead decided to examine Alfred's face for a moment, and couldn't help but suddenly feel sympathy for his room mate. Despite his friendly attitude, he was beginning to look a bit nervous, or perhaps that was how Alfred had looked and felt all along, but he was too busy being angry with him to really notice. He couldn't blame his room mate for feeling this way, though. He hadn't even bothered trying to get to know his room mate before he moved into the dorm, and he was sure that his apathetic demeanor towards the conversation was making the American feel as if what he was saying was both stupid and awkward. If he'd at least not thought that what he was saying was stupid before, that is. He decided to try and ease the tension he'd unintentionally formed, all in an attempt to make the American feel better in his presence, but at the same time, didn't want to reveal the fact that he was feeling sick, as due to quite a few rather traumatizing experiences, he did not want to appear weak, "I'm sorry. I don't mean to be rude or anything, but I don't feel like talking right now. Why don't we have this conversation some other time?"
To Ivan, it looked as if Alfred wasn't sure whether he should feel relieved by this, or ashamed. Either way, he was still able to maintain the friendly tone, "Alright then."
With that said, Alfred returned to his side of the room so that he could finish unpacking. Meanwhile, Ivan set his luggage down next to his bed, pulled his shoes off, and laid down on the bed. While he plopped down on his bed, he made sure that he was laying down on his stomach, in the hopes of making his queasiness more bearable. Since he'd become even more exhausted, due the warmth of the bed, he decided to close his eyes, and eventually fell asleep.
Ivan awoke to find that orange sunlight was now filtering into room through the window. It must be evening. he thought, before glancing at the clock to find that his observation was, in fact, true. As soon as he sat up on his bed, he heard someone say, "Hey, you're awake. Do you want some pizza? We did move in kind of early, so the cafeteria isn't open yet."
Despite the fact that Ivan now had hunger pangs, he definitely wasn't going to allow himself to eat pizza. Therefore, he declined the offer, "Nyet, I'm not that hungry right now."
However, it was obvious that Alfred was far from giving up his attempt to try and convince Ivan to have some pizza, as he began to importune, "Would you want some if I let you pick out the toppings? I can pay for the pizza too. Besides, if you don't feel like eating right now, you can always have some later."
"I really don't want any pizza."
"Alright, fine. But don't be afraid to have some later if you change your mind."
Ivan gave Alfred a look of confusion after hearing this. He'd never experienced or even heard of someone that was so willing to give food to a person they hardly even knew. In fact, based on what he'd heard about college room mates, and based on his personal experience with people, they probably wouldn't even care about what someone they hardly knew wanted. Especially if it wasn't their job to serve that person. Alfred only smiled at the bemused look upon his room mate's face, and explained in a tone that was somehow even more friendly than the one he'd been using, "My parents gave me lots of money, so I don't care if you get into any of my food. As long as you don't eat or drink anything from the container."
Feeling a bit embarrassed, as he believed that he didn't deserve such an offer, he decided to say, "Oh, well thanks for the offer."
"No problem."
A silence settled into the room, and Ivan decided to stare out the window. Judging by the position of the sun, it didn't seem as if it was going to be nearly as warm outside as it was when he first arrived in his dorm room. In fact, it looked perfect outside for jogging. Despite the fact that excitement at the thought of excising and ridding himself of 'unneeded' calories, he knew that he was going to have to eat something before going outside to work out, as he hadn't eaten anything in quite a while, and his blood sugar was dropping. With this in mind, he decided to go through his luggage on order to retrieve an apple that he packed (it hadn't been in there for too long, so he wasn't worried). Then, he quickly ate the apple before putting on his shoes. He couldn't help but feel relieved by the fact that he probably wouldn't need any sunscreen, since the sun didn't seem to be strong enough at the moment to give his pale skin a sunburn. Once he was prepared, he began to head outside so that he could begin to jog for an hour.
While he was jogging, he tried to come up with a diminutive for Alfred, as he was not used to pronouncing his room mate's name. He wasn't sure if the name would ever feel right on his tongue, or if he'd even be able to pronounce it correctly or remember how to pronounce it at all. It required quite a bit of thought for him to come up with something that he thought would be fitting for Alfred, and close to his name. It did take him nearly an hour for him to come up with anything he deemed appropriate, but he was eventually able to narrow his choice down to a couple of options. He decided that he was either going to call Alfred 'Alik' or 'Fredka'.
By the time he was finished exercising and had returned to his dorm room, Ivan gathered up some clothes and a towel so that he could take a quick shower. At least, that was his initial plan. Instead, he found that he was immediately distracted by the unwanted mass that was his stomach as soon as he's pulled his shirt off. Words would never be able to describe just how much he loathed the 'useless' chunk of lard that clung to him. No matter how many times he would try to shrink it in the past, he could've sworn that it always remained the same size. In fact, sometimes it even seemed to grow larger. He always considered it to be quite a distraction while he was taking a shower, as he would always end up spending so much time trying to determine how much fat was stored in it.
By the time he had become too upset to even want to look at his own body anymore, he finished taking his shower, and changed into some new clothes. Once he was fully dressed, he exited the bathroom and walked over to his bed. He didn't even care for the fact that his hair was still wet, or that he hadn't yet organized his side of the room. He was just so exhausted at that moment, and yet, as he tried for what seemed to be hours just to fall asleep, the hunger pangs that had returned decided to start pestering him. It wasn't as if he was used to eating as little as he had that day, even if his father had forced him to quite a few times in the past. He'd actually been eating quite a bit during the past month. Ivan figured that the only reason he had these hunger pangs was because his stomach was 'spoiled'. With this new negative thought aimed towards his stomach, he decided to mentally scold the organ, Stupid, spoiled stomach. Just stop hurting, you don't even have it that bad.
When Ivan was able to ignore the hunger pangs, and putting so much time and effort into doing so, fell into a deep slumber due to having exhausted himself even more.
Alright, that was probably not the best introduction this story could have had, but I'll try to improve it if I can. Just a heads up, I am not a college student. I'm still a high schooler. I'm sorry if I get something wrong in this story. I'll try to make this as realistic as possible with my limited experience.