A/N: My second attempt at a Hetalia fanfic. Previously, I wrote about Germany x Malaysia. This time, I'm writing...basically about Germany and his Indonesia-German nephew through the eyes of an apple (snorts). There are also hints of past-Prussia x fem!Indonesia in here, though only quite slight, I'm afraid.
Anyways, hope you'll enjoy it!
The Poor, Poor Thing
I blinked my eyes, mystified, at the sudden burst of light that streamed and washed over all in the room. After a few moments, I was able to readjust my sight, and was greeted with the life and colour of anything and everything that was in that room – a kitchen. I shifted myself a bit to the left, and sure enough, I saw more of my brothers and sisters being squashed and pummelled by other of my apple-brethren beneath me.
'Ouch! Hey, watch where you're turning to!' squeaked one right below me.
'Oops – sorry bro!' I apologized.
'Yeah, no offense taken,' the apple-brother mumbled. 'Say, what's with all this light coming in? It's dead of the night and we were sleeping peacefully down here till the lights come on.' Behind him, the other apples all nodded and agreed.
'No idea – just woke up myself,' I explained. 'Shall I go check what's up?'
'Yeah, you better,' chirruped a high-pitched, reedy voice from deep beneath the basket. 'Could be a thief barraging into our master's house, so like one to come in and plunder things when everyone's asleep.'
'Okay,' I said, and turned my gaze back towards my previous position, which enabled me to view the whole kitchen in a single scan – being an apple, visual field around me in practically 360°. Hey, I'm an apple!
It took me awhile to look around carefully and notice anything unsightly or out-of-place in the kitchen when I saw the source who turned on the lights – a small, cowering boy, hiding underneath the kitchen table, his body curled into a fetal position and his whole small frame shaking and heaving. Over the buzzing sound of the refrigerator, I strained but managed to hear the deep, suppressed sobs, filled with emotion and woe. I immediately felt sorry for the boy and curious; why was he crying? Why was he all alone this night? Why was he hiding down there?
I was about to abandon all pretence of Laws of Convention of Being An Apple and call out to the boy when I suddenly heard the loud sounds of boots stepping from somewhere in front – the living room and the corridor, presumably. And upon listening to the bootsteps' sound, the boy immediately lifted his head, and I could see his eyes: a bright, adoring blue much resembling the open, cloudless blue skies I saw whilst growing up among my brethren in an apple tree in an old man's orchard oceans away, but now the boy's eyes were red. Deep red. He had been crying, and crying terribly. I felt so much like reaching out to this boy, but all that thought vanished when another person entered the kitchen – and my view – this time of a tall, burly man in a grand, bottle-green uniform. It wasn't just the uniform that's impressive – the man was what you would call an every girl's dream: big, burlesque, muscular, tall, with good looks to boot. His eyes, too, were an impressive blue, and I saw the resemblance between him and the boy's. His family, perhaps?
"H-Hi, sir," the boy squeaked, suppressing a small hiccup, and slowly emerging out from underneath the kitchen table. "D-Didn't expect you to come home so early."
"Und good evening to you, too, ja," the man greeted him politely with an incline of his head towards the boy. I found it odd; being an apple, I've travelled from the Australian outback to the Brisbane cargo, crossing the seas to Malaysia, sat on Jusco's display counters until an Indonesian maid bought me and some of my orchard brethren, wrapped us up delicately and beautifully and sent us by mail courier to this house here, which was in Hildescheim, Germany. I don't know much about the part of how and why had she sent us to a place so far away in Europe, but you could say I've been to a lot of places, across the globe. So I know a bit about people, having observed them day to day. And I could tell the difference: while the boy's speech showed that he's a humble, English gentle-boy, the other man here had a heavy German accent. So he's the one who's of this land, whereas the boy was not. How'd they come to be under this same one roof? Interesting, interesting indeed.
"Why are you crying, mit liebe?" the man asked gently. His voice was deep and impressive, and his heavy German accent added more to his exotic appearance. I can imagine that he must be quite the score of attention among the ladies all around. What got me the most is, for a man in uniform, which I took him to be a soldier, he was being quite kind and gentle to this boy, which warmed me (which is saying something, since I'm just an apple!).
The boy took his time to reply. He hiccupped again, rubbed his eyes dry, then said, in a soft, squeaky voice, "It's nothing, sir...it's just...I missed home. I missed my Ibu so much. Mother's Day is around the corner, and I always celebrate it with her, although it's just with a small meal I cook for her and a song and a simple hand-drawn, clumsy card...but that's how I always celebrate Mother's Day with her, and she looks so happy and we really enjoyed ourselves that day. But now –"
"Now that you're forced to part from her und have to stay with your Vater, you can no longer do so," the man said sympathetically, and sighed. "I see. Have you...talked about this with your Vater?"
The boy hesitated, then slowly shook his head ever so slightly, his head bent low and sad.
The man in the uniform frowned, sighed again, this time of irritableness instead of sympathy, and placed his hands on his hips, looking concerned and stern at the same time. "'Zat idiot Bruder of mine...I told him that if he can never be with you at least for two to five hours in a day, don't take you away from your mother. But did he listen? Nein! Instead, that dummlkopf Scheisser just have to go and force a suit of custody on your mother, force you two to part after ten years of total neglect, steal you to come to here, and then what? What? He didn't even care if you've eaten or not, he didn't care whether you're well-fed by that idiotic new wife of his from goodness-knows-where in Siberia, he –"
"Sir," the boy cut in timidly. The man turned to him, realized that he's off with his mouth and rages, and looked abashedly at the boy. "Oh...I'm so sorry, ja," he said to the boy, his cheeks an endearing shade that reminded me of – who else! – me and my fiery coat of skin. "It's just – I have been against this from the start, und yet he keeps pestering me and telling me that he'll take good care of you, his son, und still..." The man exhaled heavily through his nose, showing his disgust with his brother, the boy's father. Oh, so that's who he was – the boy's uncle.
After a period of silence, the man cleared his throat and asked, "Well...forget about all this, ja? I'll talk to him about it –"
"No, sir, please don't!" the boy suddenly cried. The man looked puzzled. Heck, so was I.
"...What?"
The boy looked hesitant. Very hesitant, I might add – within those bright blue eyes, I saw the flicker of fear in them, and I wondered why. Then the boy looked resigned, but determined, and slowly reached out to the man. At first, I wondered if he's asking for a hug, but then my gaze fell onto the boy's fair-skinned forearm, and under the bright kitchen lights, I saw them.
'Oh my God,' I breathed.
'What? What?' the others squeaked behind me.
Scars. Reddish, angry scars, long and hideous, three on each of the boy's forearms. Some seemed to have welts out of them. Some sprouted the little greenish goo that I recognized as pus. Some are still fresh, looking as if they had just recently stopped bleeding hours ago. I was mortified.
But my shock was nothing compared to the boy's uncle's – he went deep red, redder than my shade of skin, which was saying something, and was greatly enraged.
"MEIN GOTT, WHO ZE HELL DID ZIS TO YOU?" he bellowed. His sudden fit of anger scared the boy, and he looked very regretful for having shown him the scars and attempted to hide them quickly, but the uncle had gotten to him and forcefully pulled out his arms again, examining them closely, shaking his head and this time, beyond looking angry, he looked sad.
"Mein gott, I can't – I can't believe zis...he did zis to you? Your own Vater did zis to you? Mein gott, I can't believe zis, he must be really sick in ze head – "
"N-No, it's not like that!" the boy, already burst into tears again, managed to said between sobs and gulps. "It wasn't him – he never touched me or harmed me at all! It was...It's..."
It took me awhile to realize what the boy was implying, but the man got to him first, and cursed underneath his breath before saying, "...It's her, isn't it? Your stepmother." I gasped upon seeing the boy nodding very slowly as his definitive reply, and then he broke into fresh sobs as the man brought him close and hugged him, all the while saying, "It's okay...it's alright," as he patted and stroke his head.
Oh my God, you poor, poor thing, I thought to myself softly. So young in such a foreign land, so far away from the person you love most in the world, and already subjected to such horrible abuse from one not even of blood. I gazed sadly at the two, and slowly turned to my left, whispering the whole story to my apple brethren beneath me as concisely and yet as precisely as I could. By the time I've finished and word by word got passed around, all my brethren behind me nodded fiercely that the boy's Siberian stepmother was a bitch. Heck, we all also made a pact, that if she ever comes into the kitchen and eats any one of us, we will deliberately turn ourselves old and rotten. Hey, it's possible – we're apples!
"Uncle, what's that shaking over there?" the boy tentatively asked, after having fully cried his sorrows away. I tentatively turned, and saw that – uh oh, the two of them were now staring at us, this part of the countertop. Not good not good not good...I suspected that with all of us shaking ourselves into the pact's agreement as one, the basket that we're filling in must have moved a little and called to his attention.
'They're coming guys, everyone quiet down!' I hissed, and all was silent, save for the refrigerator's constant humming. The boy and the uncle slowly got up, and the uncle, gently holding the boy by his small hand, led him nearer and nearer to us. When they were very close to our basket, I marvelled at how tall and huge the uncle was, and how small the boy was compared to him in everything. I idly wondered if the boy will grow to be as big and as refined a man as his uncle. I certainly hope so – based on the conversation I've heard, the boy's real father was useless in all essences.
"...Ah, I meant to tell you zis supposedly ze moment you got back from school zis afternoon," the uncle began, and this time, I noted the hint of joy in his voice for the first time this night. "But you were engaged with extra-curricular activities after school, I was informed, so I decided I'll save it for later, what with tomorrow's Saturday. As it turned out, I didn't get to meet you in time during dinner just now, because of some stupid paperwork at ze office, which vos why I've just come home at zis late hour...mein gott, it's midnight..." The uncle looked hesitant at first. "Uh, are you...feeling tired at ze moment? I can postpone zis to tomorrow – "
"No, it's okay, I'm fine," the boy said, and there was a strong tone of curiosity in his voice, which had successfully driven away the sadness from him, making me glad. "You've postponed it quite a lot of times today because of stuff, I'm scared you won't have time tomorrow –"
"Oh, I have time, don't worry," the uncle said firmly, with a self-satisfied smirk. "I made sure I finished all ze paperwork today, so I'm very free zis weekend. I don't give a damn if they call me in for extra work tomorrow or Sunday; I'm not going to bother." He then took the boy's hands, covering all of the boy's with his magnificent, gloved paws, and said, "I would like to spend some time with you zis weekend, if you don't mind. I take it you have not seen much yet of Germany?" The boy nodded eagerly, looking very surprised but overjoyed with this sudden good news...I had reasons to believe that this might have been perhaps the only bit of good news ever since he was brought against his will to this foreign land. Poor, poor boy.
"By the way, as I was saying..." The uncle then made a grab to the first, topmost apple from the basket – me! I could only guess what was coming next, and as I was lifted gently but firmly off the basket, I turned a little to look at my apple brethren behind me, and saw the looks of shock and sadness with some anguish – I understood why. After months of being together, the time has finally come for it, for us to separate for good, as was foretold by our great-great-gazillion grandmother, the apple tree: when the time is ripe, humans will finally come to us for our fresh, juicy flesh and skin, devouring us to satiate their need and hunger. From inside them, we will be expunged and undergo many changes that altered our shape altogether, and finally be expelled from inside their body (dunno how), to return to the waters and earthen floor of the seas whence all life and beings first originate from. That is our cycle of life. And now my time as a fully-fledged apple was nearing its close.
'Bye, y'all,' I whispered to them, managing a fake cheery smile, though deep inside, I'm trembling like mad.
'Bye, brother,' they all whispered as one. 'We'll never forget you!'
They were lost from view when the uncle brought me close to his body, stationing me midair between him and the boy. I could see the boy's face so closely from here. His eyes were the deepest hue of blue, and his skin as fair as radiating sunlight, but his hair was very much unlike his uncle, whose crown of glory underneath the handsome soldier's hat he wore was blonde. The boy's, I now see, was jet-black. And the pieces finally clicked together: the Indonesian maid who picked us up and repackaged us beautifully in Malaysia before sending us overseas to here? That must have been his mother, because this close to him, I finally see the soft ghost of facial resemblance between him and the Indonesian maid, that of son and mother. And I recalled that back then, the boy's mother was also precisely this close up to me whilst washing us fresh and preparing us for repackaging – her eyes, a deep brown, were full of love, life and longing. Oh, the pieces now clicked together, and dear boy, how much you look like your mother.
My apple brethren and I, we were destined to be sent here, as a goodwill gift of love by a mother to her son, separated by so many seas and continents away.
And as if to confirm it as true, the uncle said softly to him, "...Zis is a gift from your mother, mit liebe. It just came in today."
If I had a heart – a true, beating one – I believe it would've burst and break from the intense look of joy, enrapture, love and happiness that suddenly burst forth from the boy, so much like the light that burst into the room just moments ago, except that this time I'm not blinking to hide away from his jovial, innocent, pure gaze – I relished it, every inch and look of the boy's face. His happiness...somehow, it made me happier in tenfold as well.
"From Ibu?" the boy repeated with a daze, and almost greedily, he reached out towards me, the uncle relenting and gently passing me on to the boy's small hands. Whereas the uncle only needed one hand to encase me within his grasp whole, the boy needed both hands to hold me up, and hold me up he did, as if I were a trophy. I never felt so proud before – it was me who made this boy so happy, able to forget all his sorrows and troubles even if just for a bit. Me!
"She sends zis to you with her love," the uncle continued, gesturing towards my apple brethren in the apple basket. "There is also a card, but I've placed it in my room – let's home zat idiotic wife of your Vater's doesn't see it and throw it away in the rubbish bin or something, she's been known to enter my room whenever I'm not around a few times already."
"I don't mind, at least I have all these!" the boy said happily – finally, a true note of joy in his voice, as he threw me up a little higher and caught me again in his hands. Good one, boy, you should've been made an athlete of some sort...small as your hands were, they're good in catching.
"Can...Can I eat...this?" the boy asked gently, hesitantly, shyly. My breath stopped a moment there, but then I shrugged and thought, well, why not? I'm just an apple, so I might as well get it over with by being eaten anyway. Better this good, kind boy than the no-good stepmother, urgh!
"But of course!" the uncle said, his voice booming. "It's your present after all!"
I closed my eyes, and slowly revisited the scenes of my glorious, fun-filled, loving seed-hood days, as the boy slowly brought me down, gently stroked my glorious flaming body, and sunk his teeth in. In all essences, it was excruciatingly painful, but the boy bit through me so softly and gently that I could bear with it. His eating manner was graceful, which comforted me quite a bit. Pain is pain, but what is life without pain? As my sense of awareness all around began to fade, I managed to hold on a little, and caught on the last few bits of the uncle and the boy's conversation.
"Sir?"
"Please, call me, 'Uncle' or 'Ludwig', that's preferable, ja? You and I are family, after all," the uncle said kindly.
"...Urm, okay," the boy said. "Anyway...do you...do you think I can...err...go out with you and find something for my Ibu for Mother's Day this weekend?"
The uncle, through my fading-black and hazy vision, looked genuinely surprised, then smiled as he replied, "Of course, mit liebe." He then extended his hand and again gently stroke the boy's head. "Of course. We'll go and find the best present for your mother!"
"Nothing too expensive, though," the boy quickly interjected.
"Ah, nein, it's not a big deal," the uncle said. "She deserves the best, for having such a loving, good son such as you, but you know that already, of course."
"Yep," the boy nodded and grinned, and with the last vestiges of me going into his mouth, I saw the happy, satisfied smirk on the boy's uncle's face, before finally, everything goes pitch-black for me.
Goodbye, world. From you whence I came from, and to you I shall return to again.