The Morning After

"Hmm...ngggh..." he mumbled as he scrambled clumsily about to bring up his arm (left or right, he couldn't care any less) to shield his eyes from the sudden brightness that entered the room and jolted him right out of his deep slumber. Crossing his arm, however, (again, left or right, he wasn't sure, all he acknowledged was that it came from beside him, tangled underneath the sheets and pillows) over his eyes didn't work to reduce the brightness that was now threatening to let loose a throbbing, gradually massive headache in the far reaches of his head. So he resorted to turning around on the bed to the other side, much cooler and darker and to his liking. All he wanted to do was to be rid of the headache that was suddenly throbbing hard from within, against the thick skull of his head, and to go back to another restful slumber.

Unfortunately, he being him, and what with the rest of the world knowing it too, restful slumber is never part of his human life.

"LLUUUUUUDDDDWWWWWIIIIIGGGGG!" the ghastly, ear-piercing screech reverberated in his left ear, and just as quickly into the whole of the insides of his mind. He bolted awake, almost jumped off the bed, and sprang into a sudden sitting position.

If he had been able to contain himself for a little bit and control his reflexive reaction, he would have noticed that this movement was not a very good idea: leaning down towards him from the side of the bed was another man, the same one who not-too-kindly took to pulling the curtains way too soon and thrusting the windows open way too wide outward, so that the whole room became illuminated with the rising sun, fast approaching noon. When Ludwig bolted upward from his sleeping position straight away into sitting, the other man didn't see this coming, and his initial wide, feral smirk literally dropped like breaking windowpane glass the moment their foreheads come banging together.

DUUSSSSHHHH!

"OOOOOWWWW!" both yelped in pain, surprise and anger (for not having seen that coming), and while Ludwig was forced to bounce back towards his initial sleeping position on the bed, rubbing his banged forehead maniacally, the other man was literally forced backwards from the impact of the crushing foreheads, and was now lying sprawled on the ground, also rubbing his forehead with the same ferocity as Ludwig's in a feeble attempt to lessen the pain. From where he was lying on, Ludwig peered open a bleary but angry eye towards whoever the hell it was that dared to get on the bad-ass side of him this morning, his hand still rubbing his forehead tentatively.

Schisser, it was just his Bruder. Again. Should've known...

"Verdammt, Bruder, vat ze hell do you zink you're doing?" Ludwig managed to blurt out scathingly in spite of his groggy, bleary self. He was always groggy and bleary in mornings, but since he's very tactful and "loving" towards his jobs as Germany, Ludwig managed to reasonably bear with having to wake up early in mornings – hot-and-cold showers and a good steaming cup of coffee laced with a dash of his favourite beer on top always perks him up for mornings. But he clearly remembered that today was Sunday, and he always sleeps in and wakes up quite late on the weekends. Everyone knew that, especially his Bruder, but never before had he bothered Ludwig to wake up early on Sundays (rather, he daren't do so; Ludwig in mornings was a monstrous all-consuming non-caring inhumane creature with a cutting tongue and an impressive array of dentistry, and his Bruder already learnt first-hand to never challenge him for anything when he was in this state, during the early days when the two brothers were reunited by the German Unification in the 90's).

Now vat ze hell is he playing at? Ludwig thought angrily.

By now, Ludwig's Bruder, a pesky non-nation man by the name of Gilbert, had already picked himself up off the floor, and was standing up and looking at his younger brother quite haughtily. "You tell me, West~! Here I was trying to get you to get up early so that we could start our emergency rescue plan right away, and this is the thanks I get? Much appreciation you're showing towards your awesome Bruder, West!"

"Tchah!" Ludwig clicked his tongue irritably. Mein Gott, his Bruder is extremely difficult to deal with sometimes. No, scratch that, MOST of the time. It's amazing that he managed to last and stuck out with Gilbert for almost more than 30 years. "'Emergency Rescue' Plan for vat, zis time?"

Gilbert stared at him in awe, his jaw literally dropped. Ludwig, in his still-exhausted and inebriated state, would have loved to laugh upon seeing his Bruder looking like that, except that his expression on face and in his eyes were all but dead serious. Ludwig gulped slightly, and his mind immediately went into full-thinking gear, remembering back hard...what happened? Was it something about last night? He admitted that he deliberately got himself drunk in Britain's latest establishment, the Humping Dog bar. He must have downed around two barrels of beer before finally giving in to total post-alcohol consumption-induced freakishly-devastating insanity. Holy Fuhrer...

Ludwig stared at Gilbert and said with a very hushed voice, "...I did some'zing INCREDIBLY stupid last night, didn't I?"

Gilbert, still in the shock position, nodded wordlessly, but this time remembering to bring his jaw back up. "'Course, West! As a matter of fact, it wasn't just one stupid something, it was SEVERAL stupid somethings you did!"

Ludwig gulped harder still. Very much against his wishes and the admonishing sounds spoken to in his head that says, 'You're seriously gonna regret it if you know exactly about the things that you've done last night after getting drunk!', he dared himself to open his mouth and asked, "...Vat did I do?"

"Holy scheisser, you DON'T know? You banged the bar counter so hard that it's got your fists' impact all over it! You smashed about seven of the glasses of beer that the bartender tried to give you when you keep demanding for them! You wrecked the pool table! You snapped half around half of all the pool sticks in Britain's pub. I tried to get you back, but by then you've gone towards the strip-dancing room and watched the dancers and then you went up the stage with them and stripped yourself and danced with them! It was hilarious – everyone from France to Spain to Britain himself saw you in there and had to endure it all for freaking THREE hours! After I finally got you down and force you to wear clothes and we headed out the pub and walked, we bumped into her, West."

By now, Ludwig's face was ash-white, very pale and devoid of all colour. He croaked, "By her, you mean –"

"Ja, Bruder, it was Siti. She saw you, man." And by this point, Gilbert pointedly had to look out the window – his Bruder's face was too much. Heartbroken and deeply embarrassed were not enough words to describe it. As for Ludwig, he felt all his senses had gone numb, and felt the deep-seated instinct to shoot himself in the head with the Walther in the drawer of his bedside table, never to live and feel again. Mein Gott mein Gott mein Gott...Ludwig felt sick deep in stomach, and his face, which had originally been shocking white and cold just now, was now extremely warm with the blood rushing up to his face too much, giving his head the overall resemblance of one of Spain's most juiciest tomatoes.

"But you know, for all that stuff going on, she shrugged it all off and helped me carry you all the way back here," Gilbert ventured to mention, hoping that it would lessen the cocktail of heavy, intense emotions that his Bruder was feeling. As if – Gilbert marvelled that a person already a deep, deep shade of red like his Bruder's face can actually go any deeper in colour. Ludwig, meanwhile, felt even more dreadful from the new revelation, although Siti didn't find him off-putting or disgusting, to have to trouble her and make her carry his big, burly self all the way back to his home here made him already more ashamed than he felt seconds ago.

"...err, that's not all," Gilbert cautiously added. Ludwig lifted his gaze and stared at his Bruder, already reeling and thinking, Mein Gott, vat else did I do last night?

"Halfway towards here, we decided it's hard to bring you all the way back home by walking; you were slumped and toddling so much, that we flagged a cab and rode in it for the rest of the way. And in the middle of that ten-minute journey, you keep trying to court Siti and hug her and kiss her, all the time telling her the truth about what and how you feel towards her exactly." Pause. "Actually, you really did kiss her –" Ludwig made an unintelligible noise that was caught in his throat, " – but don't worry, they only hit her on the cheek," Gilbert quickly added, seeing the already distressed look on his Bruder. He knew better – that truth did little to appease him now.

"When we got back home finally, she had to help me get you through the door, because by then you keep insisting on wanting to go back to Britain's pub to pray to the Porcelain King and ask for his divination to bless you, Siti, and grant you two an eternal union – "

"Ze Porcelain King?"

"Ja, no idea who the hell that is. You're the one who came up with that name."

Ludwig shook his head vigorously and face-palmed. "Mein Gott...so I got in safely after that?"

"After a broken door handle and much huddling on the floor, ja."

"Urgh...I can't believe zis. I simply can't fucking believe zis!" He then sensed that Gilbert seemed restless and fidgety, as if on tenterhooks. "...'zere is some'zing else after that, isn't it?"

"The...urm...biggest of all of last night's events, ja. We carried you up to the room, and then you vomited in the bathroom tub – pretty amazing because you rushed away from us to get to there by yourself in time. We then helped you back to your bed...err...uh...you see, by that time you look very sleepy and worn-out already, so we assumed that that's it, nothing else to worry about already. I went to clean up your mess in the bathroom while Siti got prepared to leave...and then I had to rush back out because Siti yelped loudly...you grabbed her on the waist by surprise and pulled her towards you, kissing her lips at last."

All semblance of life had left the room. Ludwig's particularly. He tentatively brought his fingers to his lips, and finally recalled something from his drunken memories of last night: those soft, soft tender lips full of love and life and grace and beauty that had haunted him for the past few nights in the last few years, his first female crush, Malaya.

Mein Gott 'zose lips of hers...

Ludwig almost made to bask and dwell in that brief, sweet memory of that loving contact when he remembered something, and it brought the world crashing down around his ears again, quelling and extinguishing the warmth that had already been inside him for a few moments just now:

Malaysia is no longer within my reach. She belongs to her family now.

Gilbert, noticing the whirlwind of change in his Bruder in that relatively short space of time, knew well what Ludwig was thinking, what was his current predicament, and what were the things that were going on his mind for the past few days. He knew well that during the short stint of the disastrous WWII, out of Japan's desperate request to shield the then Malaya from being further subjected to torture by his boss, Germany gladly took her in and offered her safety at his house, in return that she helped him in all the domestic chores. That was when his Bruder, essentially a mechanical man who does everything by the book and was very ignorant in interpersonal relations, eventually learned to love someone, developing a love interest in Malaya. But his love was stuck deep in the mire; other than the WWII that threatened and loomed between them, Malaya was still yearning and holding on to her first love with the late Malaccan Sultanate, and could not bear to do anything that would offend her children back in her home: Perak, Penang, Kelantan, Terengganu, Pahang, Perlis, Negeri Sembilan, Selangor, Melaka, and Johor, along with their children, her grandsons and -daughters (Taiping, Langkawi, Ipoh, Seberang Prai and Kuala Lumpur). They would certainly object to a reunion between their founding mother and a European nation from so very far away, not after having been forced to unite under Portugal, Netherlands and Britain, and especially with the height of Germany's Nazi rule brought to the fore. But towards the end, she finally found it – almost surprisingly – that deep inside, she also felt the same towards Germany, and even though after WWII was over and she was returned to her home, lingering memories of their bond of love stayed with each other.

Germany's current predicament had actually started when, after the forced separation of him and Gilbert due to Russia's take over of East Germany, he found himself adrift, and badly in need of some goal to drive him, he obsessed himself with the pursuit to free Malaya from Britain's grasp. Not long after, though, he found his efforts hardly necessary: Malaya joined her boss and his group to submit a memorandum for them to declare Malaya as finally an Independent Southeast Asian nation, to which Britain's bosses agreed. And later on, Malaya merged with two of the three nations of the Borneo Isle, Sabah and Sarawak, to form a union of nations that is today known as Malaysia. Gilbert recalled how Ludwig wrote lovingly about having seen Malaya, now called Malaysia, transformed. But Gilbert knew, too, that in spite of all that, Ludwig harboured feelings still towards Siti, and whenever there was a World Meeting between countries that chanced Ludwig to meet her again, he jumped on and spent his days with her, courting and loving. Those days, however, were now forced to be brought to a split stop: their relationship must now only be maintained at a cordial level of that between two advancing nations, and nothing more. Ludwig was devastated by this sudden turn of verdict. Siti, on the other hand, was able to keep her feelings to herself mostly, having been grown up in harsh times after all these years, and Ludwig never knew: does she still love him?

"Ludwig..." Gilbert quietly began, reaching out towards his Bruder, wanting to soothe at least a little of that pain. He knew what it feels like; he, too, had gone through the same phase when Elizaveta was married to Roderick during the Austrian-Hungary Military Alliance years ago. He went through the phases of nearly destroying himself back then, and when he heard news that their marriage was annulled and they were forced to separate, he felt as if he had been granted a new chance in life and tried all he can to get her back, to love her again, to get her to love him again...only to be let down with numerous circumstances that had gotten in the way. Now, after for so long, he knew now that Hungary still loves him, even though he was no longer Koningen Prussia, and even though he can never be with her, the love of his life, to him, it was more than enough that he could hold on to those memories he had with her. That was enough in itself.

It was harder for him, still, to see that Ludwig had to suffer the same fate as he had, too.

"Nein." Ludwig's voice was hard, but Gilbert heard the muffled sadness in his tone. "'Vat's done is done. I cannot change or undo it. But life has to go on, and as the other nations will keep on watching our every move, I know vell I couldn't put her into an uncomfortable position any more than what it is now. Last night is bad enough." He turned, and his face returned to his usual stoic, stern expression. "She is a fellow nation I vill vork vith in ze future in ze global automotive industry, und no'zing more."

"...Are you sure?"

"Ja, Bruder."

Gilbert sighed.

"Und vat else? From last night?" Ludwig demanded heatedly. The dose of reality he felt seemed to have staved off some of his early feelings of being uncomfortable with too much bombarding emotions.

"...She kissed you back, admitting that she misses you too."

Ludwig's creeping mask of all things business evaporated quickly, and to Gilbert's horror, he eventually broke down into tears, his face that of a man who had lost something so great in life.

And the tranquil morning silence of the picturesque residency was immediately broken by the screams of a despaired man, anguished over everything that the unremembered things that he could and could not have done last night, in his total drunk state.

A/N: My first Hetalia fanfic, and it's very much OC. It unravels bit by bit the relationship between Germany x Malaysia (told ya, it's an OC, but hopefully we'll see the changing surge in tides soon - Himaruya-san drew Malaysia once in his official blog and it's pretty good~!). You might find some parts confusing, of which I offer you my apologies...I've been carrying in me this want, need, to write a story about Malaysia within the Hetalia-dom. I've written parts of it out, actually, but so far, it's been just like that, work in progress. I managed to write this one off based on one of Writer's Digest's Writing Prompts.

Anyhow, hope you enjoyed it~!

p.s., Siti was the human name for Malaysia. Thought it goes well with her XD.