Today marks the half birthday of verystrongarms on tumblr, who has been a super-big fan and cheerleader (and who drew me fanart!) and who generally has a kickass blog and is a kickass person. For you!

I have about three or four HongIce oneshots that I've kept squirreled away, and this is one of them. I wrote this when I was 18 (I'm 22 now), so...be kind, I guess?

Thinking about it on the plane, Leon wasn't exactly sure where things went wrong. It ought to be in their favor that he and Emil had actually spent a lot of time together, for once. They took a week—it was supposed to be three weeks, but one still counted—shirking their roles as Hong Kong and Iceland, and Leon had treated Emil in the best ways he knew how.

And then, after one disastrous night, the spot on the bed beside him was empty when he woke up. Left on the bedside table was a note:

I need to think about some things.
-Iceland

Not Emil. Iceland. And whoever he was, he hadn't answered any of Leon's calls. Leon was almost desperate enough to call Emil's brother just to ask if he was alright, let alone angry, but decided that taking an impromptu flight around the globe was better than enduring a single accusing tone from the overprotective Norway who would then persuade his own boyfriend to take up his axe and go find Hong Kong to have "words".

Leon found himself too anxious to read the novel he had picked up on his layover. Nobody in his row could see the emotions screaming inside him—his face remained as impassive as ever—but his fingers tapped a steady rhythm on his tray table that might have been noticeable were it not for the everlasting drone of the airplane's engines to mask it. Leon never exerted energy he didn't have to. Money, however, was another matter.

He didn't understand it. He'd given Emil the best—wasn't that enough?

"You want me to wear…this?" came the muffled voice from the changing room.

Leon, waiting outside and leaning against a rack of blazers, raised an eyebrow. "If it's uncomfortable, I can find you something else."

"No. It's not that."

"Then come out."

"Just let me change into my normal clothes."

"Come out, or I'll come in."

Emil probably knew Leon was smirking; it was most likely what inspired his sigh of frustration. Jiggling the doorknob a little, he opened the door and stepped out with one side, so half of him was covered by the door.

Leon didn't need to see the whole outfit, though with every second of staring he started to wish he could. He had chosen beige trousers and a white button-up shirt, covered with a very well-fitting black blazer—and he had chosen perfectly. Granted, Emil looked a little like an American heir on a yacht, but Leon admired the way his boyfriend's nearly translucent skin was brought out by the blazer. A fully black ensemble would have made his skin blindingly white in comparison, but as it was, Emil gently glowed.

And that was just the work of the colors. Leon's favorite parts were the blazer and the back part of the pants, which tightened in all the right places.

In all his admiration and pride, Leon offered his stoic expression—albeit with a little more mirth in his eyes—and a thumbs' up. "I don't see what the problem is," he said, tilting his head a little to see the rest of the outfit hidden behind the stall door.

"The problem"—Emil rummaged through the sleeve of his blazer and came out with a price tag—"is that it's too expensive."

"No it's not."

"Leon, this is a lot of money even in your currency. I can't buy this."

"Who said you were buying? It's a gift."

"But…" Emil looked down at himself, as if surprised that such clothing had found its way onto his body. "Where will I wear it?"

Leon shrugged. "You never know. We might have to make a sudden appearance at Parliament."

"You don't wear anything like this to Parliament."

Leon raised an eyebrow. "You would know?"

Emil opened his mouth, closed it, and huffed.

"I want you to look nice," said Leon in an unusually firm tone. "Just take it."

Emil looked downward as he thought. After a second or two, he nodded his consent and stepped back into his changing room to change into the clothes he had arrived in. Leon took out his phone to play with while he waited, but before his phone was out and Emil shut the door, he couldn't help but notice Emil's eyes stray towards a tie with pandas on it. A bit of color in the sea of formality.

It had been an amazing outfit, Leon mused. He stared at the tray table before him as if it would turn into a picture frame, holding Emil in all his best-dressed glory. Leon had offered to take his boyfriend on several more shopping trips, and Emil listened to each invitation with gradually increasing unease. Leon didn't see what the big problem was; he had money thanks to his government, and Emil looked good—better than usual, anyway. People had noticed them walking down the streets of his city and had smiled and whispered to each other.

Of course, they may not have been whispering about the outfit, but that didn't matter. Also, Emil was paler than even many westerners that Leon's citizens had encountered. And then there was the fact that, every once in a while, their hands had found a way to tangle up in each other. And that, to Leon, was worth any investment.

"Excuse me, sir?"

Leon blinked out of his reverie and turned to find a young stewardess with short blonde hair whispering to him from the aisle. The two people between her and Leon's window seat had fallen asleep somewhere over Siberia, leaving Leon one of the few people left awake on the plane.

"Would you like something to drink?" asked the stewardess quietly and slowly, thinking that Leon didn't speak English. Normally, Leon had a little fun with such people by rambling in the accent he had learned from Arthur, thinking aloud about his drink choices before consulting the stewardess with a cheeky smile and watching her gape. But he didn't feel so cheeky just now.

Instead, what came out of his mouth sounded oddly familiar:

"Hot chocolate, please."

"We have the finest teas in Europe and Asia, and you ask for hot chocolate?" teased Leon as Emil waited for the street vendor to prepare his drink. "It's not even the weather for it."

"It's winter. Therefore, hot chocolate," Emil replied succinctly. "I can't help if Hong Kong is unbearably hot even at this time of year."

"And believe me, I know it."

"Not in that way!"

"Oh, no," Leon sighed, slugging an arm around Emil's waist in jest yet maintaining his apathetic air. "I can't help it if you're so overwhelmed by your feelings for me that you have to express them. But I feel an urge to let you know that I'm already taken."

"Oh really." Emil matched Leon's deadpan expression. "By whom?"

"Well, he has an extremely old-fashioned and overprotective older brother."

"So you're taken by yourself. I shouldn't be surprised."

"And he's so handsome that half of the city is jealous of me."

"It's probably not that much," said Emil quietly. He nodded in thanks to the vendor as he handed the pale boy his drink. Emil blew on it and sipped tentatively, trying not to look Leon in the eye.

"Actually," said Leon, and half a grin spread across his lips, "it's probably the entire city—both men and women." Feeling in an exceptionally good mood, Leon offered the vendor some coins before Emil could go fumbling through his pockets and sort through the worth of each piece.

"I can pay for it, Leon," said Emil.

"It's fine," Leon said dismissively. He began to steer his boyfriend (hot chocolate in tow) away from the trolley and back to their normal path. "Don't worry about it."

"Alright…but I'm getting the next one."

"Fine," said Leon, though he knew—and suspected Emil did too—that he would pay for whatever other expense came up. He'd been doing it for the entire trip. And he had no intention to stop, since he meant to break Emil's nasty habit of standoffishness. Leon was under no delusions that Iceland had a prosperous economy, and besides, he had to admit that it felt nice to spoil his boyfriend a little. Or a lot.

"So where are we going?" asked Emil as he took a larger sip from his hot chocolate. "We've been walking, and I just keep seeing buildings."

Leon tried not to mention that his land, by this point, was essentially all buildings. "Funny you should ask now," he said. "Look up and to your right."

Emil did so, and Leon smirked as his head tilted back and back, trying to encompass the height of what he was seeing. "What is it?" Emil asked finally.

"This is the Hong Kong Stock Exchange Square," Leon said. "And that building is one of a few for…well, exchanging stocks."

Emil's head came back to Leon's level, and the pale boy blinked before focusing on Leon with an unreadable expression. "We're going to watch stocks?"

"We need to do something economic so I can tell my bosses that this is a business vacation. And I thought you would find my government processes boring. Besides," said Leon, and this time his hand finding Emil's was a conscious decision, "people make the funniest faces when they're trying to do something and can't be heard over the other traders."

"…It does sound funny," said Emil with a slight smile. But, as Leon led him into the building and showed the security desk his paperwork, he thought he sensed Emil taking in a deep breath, as if he were bracing himself for something—or holding something back.

The week had continued in a similar fashion, recalled Leon as he sipped some very hot, very weak cocoa. With Leon gaining access to all the best, Emil had gotten to see Leon's museums, his legislative buildings, his tourist attractions, and his bedroom.

The latter had been the most difficult feat of all, and ironically it was the one place to which Leon had the most access. It was all a matter of persuading Emil to go along with the plan. Leon had no guest room in his apartment, and his couch had been "stolen" (by a well-bribed Taiwan, who had winked and promised to take care of it until further notice), leaving Emil with the choice to sleep with Leon or sleep on the floor. Emil valiantly tried to take the latter option, and Leon would wake up to find one of his blankets gone and Emil curled up on the floor at his bedside. A few times hefting the boy back into bed and latching onto him with his own body, though, had solved that problem easily. What could Leon say? Emil was warm enough for the winter weather and cool enough for the layers of blankets—that was the beauty of his boyfriend embodying Iceland.

Living up to his country's name, Emil became icier as their vacation went by. Leon chalked it up to jet lag, culture shock, and general fatigue, so by the end of the week, they were having dinner at Leon's house instead of going out, to give Emil some time to decompress and adjust.

"You made this?"

"I'm still making it," said Leon as he stirred the wok. "It's almost done, though. How's Niu?"

Leon referred to his panda, who had been staying home for the past week as her master went out. Emil enjoyed running his fingers through her fur—she reminded him of a certain puffin, except without the snark—so Leon let his boyfriend sit and watch T.V. and pet Niu while he fixed dinner. Despite Emil's constant attempts to help.

"Niu is fine. She started licking my fingers, so I gave her some bamboo, and now she couldn't be bothered to notice anything else. What is this?" Emil asked, gesturing to the sizzling pile of noodles and vegetables in the wok.

"Just some yakisoba from Japan's place. It's a little less spicy than what I normally serve—wouldn't want you to get sick."

"Somehow, after a week here without salmonella or spice poisoning, I don't think I'll be sick."

Leon took a second from stirring to look up at Emil with a smirk. "Then I suppose you were made to be here."

Emil flushed a little at that comment and turned to grab bowls. Leon figured he had won their impromptu flirting game.

He pulled some chopsticks from a cup near the stove. If his life had been an anime, a single large sweat drop would have developed over Emil's forehead. "You don't have any forks?" Emil asked.

"What? Scared of a little challenge?"

"I've been 'challenged' for almost every meal here."

"Don't be ridiculous. Eating toast with chopsticks would be impractical."

"Not impossible?"

"Of course not. Jell-O, though…"

A corner of Emil's lips lifted, and Leon found himself smiling back.

"Don't worry; you'll get the hang of it," said Leon as he handed Emil a bowl and led the way to the living room. "And the sooner you pick it up, the easier it will be to eat when you visit again."

Emil settled himself on the floor in front of the T.V. (playing an old martial arts film), near Leon but not too close. After the words settled, Emil turned to look at the boy who was already slurping noodles into his mouth with his chopsticks for support. "I think I'll forget between now and then."

Leon swallowed his yakisoba. "It's not like we'll wait for years. You could come for summer. We have kites."

"Actually, I was thinking that you could come to Iceland over the summer," said Emil. He frowned and tried to twirl the noodles around his two chopsticks as he did with a fork in Italy's house. Each noodle caught onto the next, and after a few spins the strand would break and splatter broth on Emil's lap.

"You need to pick up the noodles, not twirl them," said Leon. "And won't Iceland be too…cold?" To say the least of it. When Leon imagined Iceland—not the boyfriend, but the land itself—he imagined kilometers of deserted land with the occasional geyser or hot spring. Geysers and hot springs were fine, but even for Emil's sake, he wasn't sure how comfortable he would be in the middle of so much…not city. Especially when there was plenty more to do in urban areas. And when urban areas were safer. And more comfortable. Frankly, if Emil just kept visiting him, Leon would be fine.

"It's pretty mild in the summer," said Emil. His frown deepened; he kept lifting the short ends of the noodles, which would then slip off the chopsticks. "It can even get as warm as here, at times, if you go near sea level where the humidity is. And we have plenty of space to fly kites. We could even—"

"Look, I just…I don't know, Yao normally likes having me around in the summer. And my boss thinks I'm in school, so he gives me more work during the summer holidays, so I'll have a lot of work to do." Leon grimaced as yet another perfectly good noodle snapped and fell into Emil's yakisoba. "Sorry, but I just can't avoid it."

Emil stabbed his chopsticks into the noodles so that they stood upright; Leon was about to comment on how rude the gesture was (pointing up chopsticks in food was only done when leaving an offering at a grave), but upon seeing the steel in his boyfriend's eyes, he closed his mouth.

"Isn't it Chinese New Year?" Emil asked.

Hmm. It was February. "It will be starting soon," said Leon. "Why?"

"And what do you celebrate in the summer?"

"Nothing as important as the New Year. According to Yao, anyway."

"'According to Yao.' Of course."

"Is this going somewhere, Emil?" Leon sat up from his previous position, having been lying on his belly.

"I was just wondering. Why can you afford to take off three weeks around one of the most important festivals in the year, but you can't take off the same amount of time in the summer, when 'nothing as important as the New Year' is happening?"

"I can't take off so much time in one year. It's suspicious."

"It could be a day, and I bet you wouldn't do it."

"I would!"

"But only if I came here, not if you went to my house. I know, Leon—you love your home. It's beautiful. But I think Iceland is nice too, and if you just came over instead of making up excuses, maybe you'd think so—"

"Is this culture shock?" demanded Leon, feeling suddenly defensive. "Because this is where East meets West, and if you can't handle this, I wonder how—"

"It's not just culture shock," insisted Emil. He set down his bowl of noodles and—for what seemed like the first time all week—looked Leon in the eye. "It's all of this. Buying me all these things. Showing me all your wealth. I don't even know what I would do with the formalwear you bought me! I think you think I'm some poor peasant country, and you can make me cultured by buying me new clothes and taking me to so many museums. Or maybe you're trying to prove how prosperous you can be—to me or to yourself, I don't know. I may not be a metropolis, Leon, and I may not prosper like you do, but at least I'm a country at all!"

The room froze. The T.V., blaring mute in the background, seemed to extinguish itself, and even Niu in the corner looked up from her bamboo. Leon stared at Emil with the same blank expression he normally wore, and inside he felt the same as his face: blank. Emil had always treated him as an autonomous country; he'd treated him as a normal person in general, which had always endeared him to Leon. But now he had touched the forbidden subject, from which stemmed an entire variety of dark thoughts and self-doubts that Leon tried to avoid.

Emil seemed to realize this. "I…I'm sorry, Leon. I—I must be tired. Or maybe I'm sick after all."

"Maybe," agreed Leon weakly. They both knew neither was true.

For the rest of the silent meal, Leon wondered what was supposed to happen now. Suddenly he and Emil were strangers, unsure if the next glance or question would be appropriate. They had never fought before. They had no patterns to fall back on, like so many of their fellow nations had—but Hong Kong wasn't a nation, which Emil had been so kind to remind him of. But was Leon's hurt pride worth the way that Emil avoided eye contact for the rest of the night?

Leon thought that he felt the farthest away from his boyfriend when they were sharing the bed that night, back to back and curled up on opposite ends of the mattress. But that was before he woke up to find an empty spot, a note, and a folded black blazer still with its tag attached.

One twenty-seven-hour string of flights later, Leon disembarked his plane for the last time that trip. He'd specifically bought a one-way ticket to Iceland for two reasons: he didn't know how long it would take to find and talk with Emil; and he wanted to have no place to go and no time to leave so that Emil would have to take him in.

The cold of Iceland didn't surprise him as much as he had expected. It was, frankly, like his boyfriend's—ex's—friend's—Emil's skin: a chill in which one could seek shelter and find warmth. The snow, however, threw Leon off a little. He hadn't packed for this—hardly packed at all, actually, seeing as he had left Hong Kong only two days after waiting in vain for Emil to return—and found himself directing his taxi driver to a sporting goods store to search for a warmer jacket.

Leon had arrived an hour before sunset, so he got to watch the scattered Icelandic families wander the streets of Reykjavik before dinner. They weren't nearly as loud as Chinese citizens, unless they were drunk; what struck Leon most was the space even in what was probably considered a "crowded" street. Granted, his population was the densest in the world, but he hadn't realized by just how much his home out-populated Emil's. At least both depended heavily on imports, as he saw when he bought a new (American-designed) coat (made in Pakistan, with wool from New Zealand); the absurd prices almost reminded him of home.

Home. This was Emil's home, and perhaps Leon had been too quick in judging it. For the land where East met West, he certainly had a difficult time understanding such a foreign culture, let alone realizing that this sleepy capital city could be what Emil preferred to a crowded semi-tropical city in Asia.

Leon left the store with his backpack and coat (and boots, at the cashier's suggestion) and walked along the street in a daze. How many times in his life had he seen snow? Not many—he rejected Yao's pleas to visit Russia with him, and world meetings didn't often take place during winter. But now that he was properly warm, he found himself admiring the stuff and its graceful, silent fall. He almost felt bad leaving tracks in the white sheet before him. At least he carried mementos; looking in the reflection of a shop window, he saw that his black hair was freckled with snowflakes. He wondered if Emil would find it cute. Maybe he did; the snowflakes that landed on his exposed cheeks felt like light kisses from the boy himself.

Forget summer—maybe he should come here for winter more often.

Leon found a bar and stepped inside, where the heat practically hit him in the face. Around the dark interior were various young men and women, rowdy and smiling with drinks in their hand. Did all Icelanders do this? Maybe Emil did. The more time Leon spent here, the more the pale boy intruded his thoughts. Maybe it was a nationalism thing. Or a boyfriend thing.

"Excuse me," asked Leon to the bartender. "Could you tell me where I could find an Emil Steilson? I know that he could be anywhere in this country, but—"

"Emil?" a man asked from beside the bar with a strong accent. "My sister is his neighbor. You looking for him?"

"Yes," said Leon, half relieved and half amazed. How could he have been this lucky?

"Don't be so surprised," said the bartender. "Unlike wherever you come from, this country is small. Everybody knows everybody."

"And everybody knows Emil," went on the man with a sip of his drink. "He travels all around. Nobody knows what he does, though."

"Where is he now?" asked Leon. "His home?"

The man gave directions that Leon couldn't understand; he could manage all sorts of Cantonese tones that these people would weep to hear, but he simply couldn't repeat the odd consonant combinations of the Icelandic language that made up the street names. He had enough trouble pronouncing "Reykjavik". Finally, the man scribbled down an address—using one or two letters that Leon had never seen before—and told him to take a taxi, since it was just outside the city. That was just like Emil: at the fringes of nature and civilization. Maybe, on his tour of Hong Kong, Leon should have placed less emphasis on the latter.

Leon had spent the past twenty-seven hours staring out of windows, but now, through the windows of the taxi, there was something to see. Particularly, Iceland slowly being blanketed in layers of soft snow. Leon watched enraptured when another car would pass his taxi on the street, when for a brief moment each snowflake would be frozen in time by the headlights before it was whisked away. The buildings in the background were quaint and not nearly as tall as back in Hong Kong, but many were brightly painted to suggest an undefeatable cheeriness.

As the taxi reached the center of town, Leon saw a humongous building jutting into the sky. Normally he wouldn't even notice such height, but the way it stood out from essentially every other building, with its formidable bell shape centered with a steeple, beckoned to him. "What's that building?" he asked the cab driver.

"That is Hallgrímskirkja," said the driver, but when Leon pressed for details, the driver only shrugged, focusing on an alternate route around a traffic block. Leon turned around in his seat and watched as the strange jutting building disappeared into the distance. Just as he was about to turn his head forward again, the entire building lit up—or rather, lights flashed on to outline its form as sunset took away its glow.

Leon found himself making a list of things to ask Emil—what was the Hallgri-building, how often did it snow here, why was the sun setting when it was only five in the evening—before he realized that his highest priority should not be tourism. It should be settling things with Emil. He doubted that Emil would ban him from the country, but continuing any tension between them or (worse) losing contact entirely was even worse a punishment.

Yes, Emil had struck a low blow by pointing out Hong Kong's non-nation status. But he had also made a fair point: Leon had unreasonably expected the Icelandic man to adapt completely to his land and his ways and his preferences. Not only that, but he had done so condescendingly (or so Emil took it—Leon didn't see any problem with buying things for his too-cute boyfriend). Thinking longer about it, though, there was a certain amount of pride that Leon had failed to acknowledge in himself: he wanted to show off his culture and his boyfriend, and he wanted to prove that he was worthy of the latter even if he wasn't a nation, per se. In his mind it sounded like a perfectly valid motivation, but as he rehearsed apologies under his breath, he found no way to make it sound sympathetic and reasonable.

He gave himself a headache thinking of different ways to approach their fight. He himself wasn't faultless, but Emil didn't have to go to the lengths that he did, either. Emil was too proud for his own good, but Leon had taken that pride and insulted it with his own. The only thing that was clear to him was his goal: total forgiveness and a chance to stay here for a while. With Emil. If Leon had to take the blame for everything—flashing his wealth, not being a country, ignoring what Emil really liked and wanted—then so be it.

The taxi dropped him off in what seemed like the middle of nowhere, but as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw lights at the end of a long dirt driveway. He used his credit card to pay the driver—why bother with converting cash?—slung his backpack of spare clothes over his shoulder, tightened his coat, and trudged up the primitive driveway. As he walked, more snow flew down to welcome him.

He reached the porch and, after a deep breath, knocked on the front door.

No answer.

At first he thought no one was home. But lights shone from inside, and why would Emil leave them on if he were out? That would be a waste of electricity. So he knocked again, more insistently.

Still no answer.

Now Emil had to be ignoring him. And Leon wouldn't stand for that. He tried the doorknob, which was unlocked—a good sign for robbers, but then again, the nearest neighbor was probably a kilometer away and Emil could see any potential robbers out his windows. Leon let himself in and dropped his boots, bag, and coat next to the door. He stood still, listening for any alarms. What he heard instead was a sigh of frustration.

Stepping carefully through the small house, Leon located the kitchen. There, completely oblivious to the fact that a potential thief had just walked through his door, was Emil. He faced the stove, with his back to everything else; he scooped noodles from a pot into a bowl. And then—and this surprised Leon most of all, even beyond Emil's atypical carelessness in protecting his home—he lifted a pair of chopsticks from beside the stove and began to try to lift the noodles with them.

Leon watched Emil's back as the boy attacked the noodles at different angles. He was getting better—it was just that his fingers were placed awkwardly on the chopsticks. Leon should have noticed this before; it was simply more proof that he had been insensitive, he supposed. After witnessing a few tries, he spoke up.

"Thinking of me?"

The strangest part of that sentence was that Leon didn't mean to gloat. He really wondered if the chopsticks were to remember him by.

Emil startled, but didn't drop anything, and swiveled around to see Leon. He didn't smile, but neither did he glare. "I…"

Just as with their last conversation, neither knew what to say. Leon simply stood there, anticipating whatever Emil wanted to do. He was, after all, away from his home turf. Emil seemed to know this and looked between his noodles and his (former?) boyfriend for a few seconds.

Finally, he reached a decision. "Teach me," he said, holding out the bowl and chopsticks. Leon was impressed to find that, instead of sticking the chopsticks directly in the noodles, Emil held them parallel to the side of the bowl. It was progress.

He saw what Emil was doing: offering an apology. Offering to submit to his lessons and his ideas of their future. It sounded nice, but Leon had asked out a quiet, proud, snarky isolationist, and that was who he was going to fight for. So he stepped into the kitchen, ignoring Emil's offering, and rummaged around in the kitchen drawers until he emerged with a fork.

Emil blinked, looking at his own fork as if he had never seen it before. "But in Asia…"

"I'm Hong Kong," said Leon, trying to keep the "duh" out of his tone. "I was raised by England for a hundred years. So I use forks too."

A few heartbeats filled the silence as Emil deciphered Leon's message. Leon stared him down, daring him not to take the peace offering. Emil set down the chopsticks.

"You could have told me that sooner, you know," said Emil.

"I know. I probably should have. I'm sorry I—"

"I know," Emil interrupted as he took the fork from his hand. Then, more sincerely: "If you'll forgive me, I'll forgive you. It's okay."

And when Emil looked in his eyes, Leon saw the snow swirling around outside and the colorful houses of Reykjavik and maybe even the northern lights that he'd never seen before (yet), and he knew that things really were okay.

"So," he said with half a grin, "you should consider locking your door."

"Only you would come far enough out here to walk into my house, steal my noodles, and leave."

"Why would I leave?"

"Because it's too cold, maybe? Or the food is too bland? Or maybe there aren't enough buildings for you."

"No, no," said Leon. At Emil's skeptical glance, he amended: "Well, yes, a little. But I got a good look around your capital while I was looking for you."

"Oh?" Leon could hear Emil trying to act natural and failing. He had no reason to be worried, and Leon told him as much via a kiss on the cheek.

"You should show it to me."