A/N: Merry Christmas~
DISCLAIMER: Don't own Hetalia.
Shoes
I didn't like Christmas shopping at all as a child.
It was terribly boring for me at a young age, when I wanted nothing more than to leave the hot stores and thick crowds behind for a good book and a cup of tea, but it was a necessity in my family; my parents took my siblings and myself out every year before Christmas in pairs, and we were each required to pick out a gift for each of the others with a certain amount of money they gave us each to spend. Scott and Casper got paired up as the oldest, then the twins Maggie and Angus... and then me and Peter. Adding in my discomfort for large crowds to a whining two-year old, and I was most definitely not the happiest elf in Santa's factory.
I often sulked as I walked throughout the shops, thinking about how I could have been in my bed reading, or how I was positive that Scott spent his money for my gift on something cheap and stupid- perhaps a pair of socks, or a coat hanger. I was never so careless, of course; I split my money as evenly as I could into five, so all of my brothers (and sister) got the same value in their presents. Unfortunately, the thought and care I put into my gifts wasn't reciprocated at all- as the second-youngest, I wasn't the baby of the family like Peter, who was spoiled, or the oldest, who was the boss, or the aspiring-oldest, who was the henchman, or the evil twin, who you didn't mess with, or the other one would get you back. I was just the misfit brother who spent his summer writing and drawing and playing with stuffed animals instead of rough-housing and kicking around a football.
I was boring, so I got the boring gifts. Bookmarks, pencil cases, erasers, ugly mittens, even a pair of tweezers- I had collected many knickknacks over the years from my siblings. The best presents I got were from my parents, who gave me books and new sweaters... and once, Mum bought me a beautiful glass unicorn model that she gave that night so my siblings wouldn't see. I still own it, today, in 2012.
All in all, I got nothing less than what was expected from annoying older siblings, and practical presents from my parents. Really, I was quite lucky to receive what I did each Christmas, especially living in a family of eight, but I when I was younger and watched movies about kids getting games and movies and great big sparkling toys that people simply bought to say they had one... I wanted more.
My mum always reminded me that Christmas is all about giving and thanking, about celebrating family and being joyful. Not about the gifts. But children are selfish, and I wanted Santa to come to my house with a giant cage to lock my sister and my brothers in and make them watch as I got all the shiny new gifts.
It's really not that uncommon for a small, awkward child to feel that way... so I sometimes wonder why my eyes were opened the way they were that night, or how they've stayed open for thirteen years after.
It was Christmas 1999, and I was ten years old.
Usually, my mother took Peter and myself out to buy gifts several weeks before Christmas actually arrived, but that year, we were running quite far behind- it was Christmas Eve, and I'd just about had it with the pitiful whining Peter was emitting from his stroller. I was ready to go home to my Christmas tree, to a mug of tea, to carols and songs and a movie, to wake up in a few hours and look under the tree for my presents from Santa.
Not here, not standing in the middle of a tiny shop with other late gift-bearers.
I rocked back and forth on my heels as Mum attempted to console Peter, urging him to pick out a gift for Scott that wasn't the plush cat that he wanted to buy for himself. I had already gotten my presents for everyone- I even had spare money I decided to keep for myself- and I really tried to be patient, because Mum always said that I was the patient one of her children, but I was fidgety and restless at the moment. The music on the stereos overhead was tinny and metallic, the sound merely an annoying buzzing to my ears, the lights on the ceiling too bright and fluorescent... all of them just more reasons to leave.
Mum finally straightened up, Peter sulking in his seat and holding instead a cheap handheld game of Connect Four meant for car trips. I knew Scott would probably eventually throw it away, and I reminded myself to offer to take out the trash for the next couple of days so I could have it.
"Might we please leave?" I looked up at Mum, hoping I didn't sound whiney.
"Yes darling," She smiled tiredly at me and combed her fingers through my messy hair. "Thank you for being so patient."
I felt a swell of pride- I was the only one she ever called 'patient'.
The three of us headed for the check-out, trailing behind a few other customers with shopping carts that clinked and clanked as they rolled towards the cash registers. The man at the register was wearing a Santa hat and looking very bored, running the items under the scanner with very little care at all, and simply dropping the purchases into the plastic bags no matter how delicate it might have been. I scoffed at him- how rude. And on Christmas eve! I was glad he wasn't checking out MY gifts... although maybe Angus would have deserved a broken watch instead of the new one I bought for him.
I looked around, less anxious to leave the store now that I knew we were actually leaving, and examined the other shoppers. Most of them looked eager to get out and go home, paying quickly. My gaze traveled over the line next to the one I was in, and I noticed a large gap between one person's shopping cart, and the back of the other person. I wondered briefly why the man behind the cart wasn't moving forward- there was definitely enough room- and why he looked so disgruntled.
Curious, I stepped over to the wall of sweets and magazines separating my line from the other, and peered through a decent sized gap created by shoppers bumping into the rack throughout the day.
There was a boy standing in line, just in front of the man with the cart. He looked younger than myself, though he held himself tall, like a grown-up. I looked him up and down- his clothes were too big and covered in stains, and he was wearing a pair of shoes that he had cut the tops off of so his dirty sock-covered toes were poking out. He had no coat, and he had a pair of glasses with cracked lenses and duct tape across the bridge. His hair was matted down and and an odd, deep color of gold- probably from how filthy it was.
The only thing I could wonder was why he was carrying a shoe box.
The woman in front of the boy was arguing with the man at the register, and I jumped in surprise as the ratty boy suddenly turned and saw me. I stared into a pair of stunning blue eyes before the dirty face was closer.
"Hi!" The boy said cheerfully. "Merry Christmas!"
His accent was American. I blinked. "... oh... yes, Happy Christmas..."
I didn't know what else to say.
"It sure is cold outside huh?" The boy mock-shivered, and I stared at his shoeless feet. "Just like it should be at Christmas! No snow, though..."
"I don't like snow..." I muttered, feeling extraordinarily awkward, talking about Christmas to a boy such as this one.
"How can you not like snow?" The boy looked genuinely shocked. "Sure, it's cold, but it's fun to play in!"
I shrugged, and the boy saw my eyes dart to the shoebox. Immediately, a defensive and suspicious look came over his face, and I was startled to see it. "What?"
"These are mine," he said, frowning, holding the shoebox farther away from me where I wouldn't be able to reach it- though if I tried, I'm sure I could've wrestled it from the boy's scrawny arms. "You can't have them- I've saved up all of my money for these."
"I wasn't going to take them," I scoffed. "I have plenty of shoes at home."
The boy clutched the box to his chest firmly. "They're not for me. They're for Mama."
"You're buying your Mum shoes for Christmas?" I was baffled. What child would give their mother shoes for Christmas? I myself had knitted a scarf for my own mother, and though it was a bit lumpy, I was proud of it. "Why?"
"They're just her size," The boy replied, glancing at the woman currently at the register who was still putting up a fight about whether or not her item was on clearance. "And they're pretty, like her."
I supposed if this boy's mother had the same sort of shoes he did, she needed them. "Why doesn't she buy her own shoes?"
"She's sick," the boy's voice quivered for a moment before he put on a brave face once more. "She can't go outside, or leave home."
I felt badly for him, and his mother. That probably meant that the boy wasn't going to get any presents of his own this year, and being ten years old, no presents on Christmas was unheard of. "I'm sorry."
"It's okay!" The boy brightened. "She's going to look beautiful with these shoes on, I just know it."
The woman in front of him finally gave up, huffing and puffing as she left with her purchase, and the boy immediately hurried forward to pay for his shoes. I watched him leave my line of sight, and glanced towards my mother, who was putting our items on the conveyer belt. My curiosity was insatiable, so I snuck around the register and pretended to be looking at the Christmas tree at the front of the store while I actually peered through the plastic branches and watched the boy.
He had to stand on his toes to push the shoebox onto the counter, and the man looked confused for a moment, not seeing anyone there at first. He finally leaned over and saw the smiling child beaming up at him, too short to peer over the counter, and stared at him in obvious surprise and dismay.
"Merry Christmas!" The boy sang when the man didn't move.
The man blinked, then looked at the shoebox. "Uh... I dunno, kid. You do realize you have to pay for this, right?"
"Of course," the boy frowned. "I didn't think it was free. It might be Christmas, and people are always nicer on Christmas, but they aren't THAT nice, to be giving out free shoes!"
The man had to take a moment to compose himself back into the dreary attitude from before. The white fabric ball on the top of his santa hat drooped down over his eyes to make the effect even more lazy. "Look, look. I dunno what my boss would say if I let some little homeless kid walk away with a purchase... don't you have any parents or something...?"
"I have money!" The boy looked impatient now, and he dug into a grungy pocket to put out a few wrinkled bills. "Please, I really need to go..."
The man sighed and rung up the shoes. He unfolded each of the bills slowly, as if purposefully aggravating the child, and even more slowly put the shoes in a , he glanced between the money on the counter and the screen showing the price of the shoes, and "Wait, kid... you don't have enough here..."
Immediately, the boy's expression turned to horror. He searched his pockets frantically. "What? No! I had enough, I know I did!"
"Sorry," The man shrugged and took the shoes out of the bag, putting them on a shelf behind him. He pushed the money back towards the boy. "Maybe next time..."
"But... but Daddy... he said there is no time!" The boy wailed, causing a few customers behind him to glare in annoyance. "There's not much time left at all! I have to get these shoes for Mama tonight!"
The boy's distress cause me to clench my hands around the branches of the fake tree. Why was this man so calmly and nonchalantly watching this? It was clear that this was extremely important to the child... why wouldn't he do something? He was only a few pence off!
"Move along, there are others behind you-"
"But Mama! I told her I would make her look beautiful!" The boy's lower lip trembled, and he slumped, looking at the ground in a defeated manner. "... I promised... I want her to look beautiful if... if Mama meets Jesus tonight..."
Everything suddenly clicked into place in my mind. Why this was so important to the little homeless boy, why he had no shoes for himself, why he absolutely HAD to buy these shoes. Something tightened in my chest at the same moment something else opened up. I stood there, frozen, even as I heard my mother call my name to leave. I wondered what I would do if it was my mum who was going to go to heaven tonight, and I felt tears well up in my eyes. My mum was indestructible, all mothers were- they didn't DIE. They just didn't. They were always there, always tucking you in at night, always giving you tea when you were sick, always hugging you when you were crying, and always kissing your knee when you scraped it...
But not this boy... this boy's mother was going to go somewhere where he couldn't go with her.
I didn't even think before I was running up to the boy and the register. I dug into my pockets and pulled out all of my leftover money from buying my siblings gifts, and slammed it onto the counter. I glared at the man there. "Is this enough?"
He stared at me.
"Is this enough?" I demanded. "I heard him tell you that he was in hurry to get home!"
The man slowly put the money in the cash register and the shoes in the bag before saying, "Thanks for shopping with us..."
The boy grabbed the shoebox and followed me out of line. His eyes were huge, a look of thankfulness and amazement in them that I never forgot. "Oh... oh, thank you so much!"
"It's okay..." I said, looking away shyly. "... that man was really mean...um, I hope that your mum really does like the shoes."
"Mama's gonna look so great!" The boy beamed, and he suddenly embraced me, squeezing me tightly around the middle. "Thank you! Thank you!"
I swallowed and patted his back hesitantly. "You're welcome..."
The boy let me go and gave me a last smile before turning to leave, his own barely-covered feet sliding across the ground. I grabbed his arm, and he turned to look at me, confused.
"Here... I have a lot of shoes at home, so you should take these." I managed to kick my shoes off, and I slid them towards him.
His eyes grew huge, as big as dinner plates, and he eagerly kicked off his own, which were hardly more then torn pieces of fabric once they were off of his feet. Cautiously, he slipped his foot into my shoe. "It's a perfect fit!" He cried out happily before putting on the other. He quickly leaned down to tie them, fingers fumbling.
When he straightened up again, I saw that his eyes were filled with a gratefulness beyond measure, tears brimming in them. "Thank you... thank you so much... I've never had a new pair of shoes before."
He hesitated a moment more before finally turning and disappearing out of the shop's doors.
I stood there in my socks, watching him leave.
I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked up to see my mother standing there. She knelt down and took my head in her hands, running her thumbs under my eyes and wiping away a wetness I hadn't even noticed, tears running down her own cheeks.
"Mum..." I choked out before I flung myself into her arms, sobbing into her neck. "Mummy..."
...
That Christmas, Scott gave me a tiny plastic hairbrush meant for dolls and said that it was meant for my eyebrows. Casper bought me a children's coloring book. Angus got me a pair of silly looking socks. Maggie gave me a pack of chewing gum. Peter's gift to me was a stuffed animal unicorn... which I secretly loved.
I never once forgot about the boy in the shop who wanted to buy shoes for his dying mother. I went back the next year and the year after that, hoping that I'd see him again, but I never did.
I learned a valuable lesson at the age of ten. While most children stay selfish through their preteen years when it comes to Christmas, taking and not giving, I never again looked at Christmas as an opportunity to smuggle a decent present out of my siblings, and... |
...
"No... no, that's fartoo cliche!" Arthur Kirkland scowled at his computer screen and sat back with a huff, reaching for his mug of tea. He let his cold fingers wrap around the mug for a moment, letting them warm up before bringing the ceramic to his lips and taking a sip for the lovely chamomile mix. "Hmm..."
Arthur set his mug down and placed his fingers over the keyboard, hesitating, before sitting back in his chair once again. The quiet of his apartment was getting to him, and while he prefered the quiet to any noise while he was writing, the way the light of his small Christmas tree was reflecting off of the ornaments and around the room had him wanting some noise... music, to be precise. And not any music- Arthur wanted Christmas music. Something to put him back into the holiday excitement he used to experience when he was small.
Arthur spun his chair around to face the expanse of his small living room, thinking. Maybe it wasn't simply the holiday spirit he had to get into, but the state of mind he had been in when he was ten years old... at twenty-three, his mind-set hadn't really changed when it came to Christmas shopping. Everyone was too busy, too crowded, too focused on pleasing their children to consider what Christmas was really about... and if Arthur could simply find a way to put into words what he'd discovered thirteen years ago, he wouldn't be having this problem. It was Christmas eve, and the article was due in just a few short hours so the newspaper's website would have a story for tomorrow.
A light weight landed on Arthur's lap, and he looked down at his cat, Crumpet. Crumpet meowed at him, blinking bit green eyes a few times before butting his head against Arthur's hand. Arthur obligingly ran his nimble fingers over the crown of the Scottish fold's head and behind the ear as he liked it.
Suddenly, Arthur stood, and Crumpet jumped down the floor with an irritated yowl. Of course! Arthur would just have to go back to where it all happened. That dinky little shop with the rude man at the checkout and the plastic Christmas tree out front... going back to where it all happened was surely the best solution. The Brit glanced at his cat. "Sorry, love. I'll give you a proper brush when I return."
Grabbing his coat and boots, Arthur left.
~oO0Oo~
Closed.
That was what the sign said. Arthur gaped at the red and white cardboard hanging in the window to the shop in disbelief, a cloud of frozen breath escaping his mouth. No, this couldn't be right... this store had been here since he was a little boy, and now he needed it in order to really get a grasp of that same feeling of sadness, the same image of hope and joy in the homeless child's eyes, everything...! Arthur took a step back, and collided with a warm, solid, living object.
"Oh, my apologizes!" Arthur immediately turned around, flustered. "Terribly sorry, I wasn't paying attention, I-"
"No, it's my fault, I shouldn't have just come up right behind you," The person, a young man, stepped back a bit, chuckling. Arthur took a moment out of his disgruntled panic to appreciate the handsome lad in front of him, whose face he could see was very attractive even in the dark of night. "Sorry, man."
"Ah, let's just call it mutual?" Arthur suggested, bringing a gloved hand up to brush some of his hair out of his face.
"Deal," The young man grinned and faced the shop. "I'm sorry that the store closed... you look disappointed. Last minute shopping?"
"No, and it wasn't the best shop in the world to buy gifts at anyways," Arthur shrugged and glanced at the man, wondering briefly why he should be making conversation. "I needed it to... well. I'm not sure you would understand."
"If you say so," The man looked the empty windows up and down. "... but you can try me. I didn't come here to shop either. This place... it's got a lot of memories for me."
"Mm..." Arthur sighed and looked at the shop. He recalled it being lit up for the holidays, the light of the tree creating a colorful pattern on the sidewalk. It wasn't exactly that it was a happy memory, but it was nostalgic, and Arthur felt a small smile twitch at the corner of his mouth. "Me too. I hated this place... my mum would drag me and my brother in here to buy presents when all I wanted to do was go home."
The man laughed and Arthur looked over at him- he had a wonderful laugh. "I liked it... not because it was particularly nice, but sometimes people have incredible experiences in odd places."
Arthur chuckled. "Yes, I believe I know what you mean." he hesitated a moment before he reached a hand out. "Arthur Kirkland."
"Alfred Jones." the young man, 'Alfred', took his hand in a warm, firm grip, smiling. "It's nice to meet you."
Arthur opened his mouth to say something similar, but a car passed by, and its headlights passed over the sidewalk, illuminating Alfred's face. At first, he simply thought that Alfred really was very attractive, but then...
His eyes, behind rectangular glasses, were an unforgettable shade of blue.
"Something wrong?" Alfred blinked, his hand still caught in Arthur's grasp.
"I... no, I just..." Arthur let Alfred's hand go, still staring at him incredulously. Alfred stared back at him, looking confused, until Arthur finally swallowed and smiled weakly at him. "Er... I suppose... I've been wanting to know the name of the little boy... whom I gave my favorite trainers to all those years ago..."
For a moment, Alfred looked even more confused, and then his eyes cleared, and an mixture of emotions flooded them. "... I..."
Arthur suddenly wanted to run away. What did one say to a person who you gave shoes to ten years ago and used to live on the streets? Alfred didn't look like he did anymore, though... he was clean, anyway. "Oh dear... I'm terribly sorry, how forward of me, erm-"
"That was you?" Alfred finally said, his eyes huge. "... you aren't... joking, are you?"
"Wha- no, no, of course not..." Arthur shuffled his feet and look down at the ground, feeling awkward. "That was me..."
A moment passed, and then all of sudden, Arthur was being embraced. He was shocked- hugged by a complete stranger?- but he then felt the shaking of Alfred's large body and heard the muffled sound of suppressed tears. For a moment, Arthur was unsure of what he was to do, but then he heard Alfred speak.
"Thank you... thank you for what you d-did..." he choked out. "... I never forgot... and that you r-remembered...? I... I don't know... what to say..."
Arthur relaxed, and he gingerly wrapped his arms around Alfred. "... you don't have to say anything, love. It's okay."
"... she did look beautiful..." Alfred whispered, his hands pressed firmly against Arthur. "... my mom. She was really b-beautiful when she... I... thank you... thank you..."
Arthur closed his eyes and felt a tear roll down his cheek.
Christmas.
This was exactly what it was about.
A/N: Wrong, Arthur! Tis not about that! It's about cheesy endings! :D
Yes, it's loosely based off of the song "Christmas Shoes".
No, I didn't know that there was a movie based off of it.
Also, if this brought tears to your eyes, then good. :) My goal was to make my girlfriend cry from the cuteness of it all. (hai dere kathryn~)
Anyway... Merry Christmas everyone!