A/N: Cover image found on Zerochan. ID is 1062831. Hetalia © Hidekaz Himaruya (meaning, I own nothing).

Letter 1

To: My Brother

Yao Wang did not expect this.

Normally he would get plain white envelopes with names of fancy bill or marketing companies stamped across the front, his name in printed in jet black ink. They usually contained ruses to get him to buy their seemingly "useful" products that were obviously docked to a point where they were too extravagant. It was either that, or a long letter containing all the various sorts of bills he had to pay.

But this letter was different.

He could already tell that this was no ordinary letter. After all, he hadn't received a proper friendly letter in forever. Nowadays, everyone he knew wrote to him through either email or text. The envelope was with watercolor cherry blossoms in full bloom, accompanied with a flowing river with some mountains in the background. Several cat stamps were to the right corner. The return address to the left had a name unknown to the Chinese man. Someone obviously wanted to contact him the old-fashioned way.

Setting his junk mail down on the kitchen counter, Yao sat himself down at his desk, turning the letter over to pick at the golden seal. It fell apart with ease, the top lifted to uncover cream sheets of paper folded so that the edges were facing up. If held up to the light, you probably would have been able to see some of the words imprinted on the other side of the paper.

Yao brushed his bangs out of his eyes. He took the letter—which turned out be several sheets of paper—out and unfolded it. Still wary of the situation altogether, he began to read.

Dear Yao,

Hello. I do hope that you remember me. Or, at least, have been informed of my recent passing. If not, let me fill you in.

Yao blinked. Passing? Was this some sort of joke?

My name is Kiku Honda. I was born in Tokyo, Japan on February 11 but was abandoned in Beijing, China at the age of four. Luckily, I was found by a young teenager and taken in by his loving family that soon expanded to having five different children, four boys and one girl, of different Asian cultures. But as I grew older, I was eventually found by my original family and decided to go back to them in Japan. Remember me now, Yao?

Of course Yao remembered. Kiku was the small child he had found when he was on a stroll with his parents. He was like the little brother he had never had before.

I'm going to assume that you remember me now for the rest of this letter, so if any confusion arises, I suggest you take a moment to recall your life the past, oh, twenty some years. It's that, or you should just accept that fact that you are indeed getting old.

Onto the story, you may be wondering why you received this letter. The answer is simple: I'm dead.

Those words stung more than being called old. Yao bit his lip but continued to read.

I know. "How the hell did Kiku end up dying at such a young age?" Is what you might say. Or maybe it's "Why didn't he talk to me before he died?", or "What!? When did this happen?" Was I at least on the right lines? Maybe? Well, I'm going to answer all of those listed questions in a moment here.

I'll start where our tale ends.

I believe you remember the last time you ever saw me in China. You were making some zongzi when I came into the house. You told me that mom and dad, I'm sorry, YOUR mom and dad were out with the other siblings for the night.

I then…well, you should remember the rest. I made sure that moment would be permanently imprinted into your mind. You still have that scar, right? If so, good. That scar is now all you have left of my former self.

Now for the question: what is Kiku's former self like? That's a simple answer: shy, quiet, modest, and maybe a bit rude. You should remember the rude part. You experienced it first hand when you first found me. When you asked me my name, I said, "I'm from Japan, where the sun rises," causing you to call me a "very rude child." But even so, you still took me in your arms and demanded that your parents take me in. There was no way I was going to be able to return to my parents anytime soon, you said. Not when they lived in an entirely different country.

So how is Kiku's former self different from his present self? The answer is quite simple: I've matured, unlike you. Looking back, I'm glad that I didn't turn out to be a childish hermit.

Yao almost tore the letter in two there. How dare he call him a childish hermit! He himself was an anime obsessed otaku after all.

Oh? I'm an anime obsessed otaku, huh? Well, fine. Be that way. May I get back to the story now?

Sometimes, Yao forgot how well he and Kiku fought with one another. It was like they always knew what the other was going to say. Well, most of the time.

Like I was saying (or writing) before you started arguing with my handwriting, after I left your house, I flew back to Japan to live with my parents. My real parents, mind you, not the ones who adopted me. I lived there for two years in splendid isolation before being forced out of my shell and becoming part of an exchange program. I went to America, Greece, England, Germany and Italy as an exchange student. My, my, did I have such wonderful times. I believe I even sent you a postcard from England, no?

Kiku actually did send Yao a postcard. It wasn't anything fancy, just a photo of Kiku and the student he was staying with in front of Big Ben. The writing part of the postcard was just two small paragraphs of text, asking how Yao was doing and how Kiku himself was fine as well as telling him a little bit about Big Ben's history. When Yao first got it, he held it close and cried, for just a few days earlier, Mei had left his house in a fit of anger and went back to Taiwan. Now it was sitting at the top of his dresser. It was crinkled at the edges, but the meaning was still there.

I think I did, at least. But does it matter now? (Yet, knowing you, it most likely does.) But anyways, I made many new friends. You actually know two of them yourself. And for a time, I was happy, delighted even.

Of course, I wasn't going to have a happy ending.

When I was a younger child, you were fully aware that I had a chance of having a cancer that my ojiisan died from thanks to me telling you about my real family. So you can only guess what happened to me several years after I graduated from college.

Not long after I got my first job, my parents both wound up with the cancer, fated to die on their hospital beds. In the meanwhile, I was trying hard not to show just how much I was grieving. I knew I had a very high percentage of following the footsteps they left behind. So I did the first thing that came to mind.

I wrote letters. I wanted to make sure that all the important people in my life found out what transpired after we parted. I wanted them to be able to have a few last words from me.

Yao, your letter was actually the last letter I decided to write. It wasn't that I didn't want to write to you, it's just that…it's just that I didn't know what to say to you. It's kind of hard to talk to someone that you betrayed and left when you were younger and barely bothered to keep in touch. In fact, I haven't heard from you in near seven years.

I'm going to tell you what's happening to me as I write this. I'm sitting in a hospital bed, with several pens and many sheets of paper piled up around me. Soon, my hand will be unable to write any more. Thank goodness you are the last letter I have to write.

Yao, you're fully aware that I'm going to be long gone when you read this. But I am asking you to please come to Japan for the funeral. I've asked some family friends to arrange it and for them to send you an invitation. Expect another letter from a boy who calls himself Osaka. (Honestly, I have no idea why he insists on us calling him by that name.) He's a very nice boy, so you can trust him.

My gravest apologies, but I'll have to end this letter soon.

…

Yao, I will write this once, and only once. I know that you've always wanted me to call you this and…yeah. So here, savor this moment.

Onii-chan.

There. I got it done and over with.

Goodbye Yao. Please give the other three my regards.

Sincerely,

Kiku

Yao's heart did a little flip when he read "onii-chan." The only person that even considered him a sibling nowadays was Yong Soo, a Korean teenager that had to leave China for a boarding school in South Korea. Due to his workload and the cost of tickets, the poor teen had to stay there even during the holidays. In the five years he had been away, the teen was only able to afford one trip to China to visit Yao, which was during his winter break in his freshman year. When Yao had opened the door to let him inside, he was instantly glomped by Yong Soo who said very loudly, "I missed you aniki!"

Upon hearing that, Yao cried with happiness, confusing Yong Soo. At the time, he had no idea what had transpired between Yao and the last two of his siblings.

Now those same tears were threatening to fall onto the paper. Those same sheets of paper were now the only memory he had of Kiku now. Yao wiped his eyes before setting the letter back down on the desk. He stared at it for a long time, an inner part of his mind hoping that this was all merely a cruel, cruel joke that Kiku spent years devising, even if it meant jokingly saying that he wasn't a part of the living.

But he knew he was wrong.

Translations/Explainations:

zongzi-It's a type of traditional Chinese food that is usually made of glutinous rice wrapped with some sort of flat leaf and tied with string. Westerners may know it as rice dumplings or sticky rice dumplings. (To be honest, I've only had a bite of it. It tasted weird to me...)

ojiisan-Grandfather, I believe this is formal (Japanese)

onii-chan-older brother, cutesy version of "onii-san" (Japanese)

aniki-older brother (Japanese)

Feel free to make any corrections!