Hello everyone. This little piece here is something I wrote for a fanfiction contest on Quizila. The theme was "Looking back on the past" & one prompt struck this plotbunny into my head. I really like how it came out, despite it not being my usual style, which I like better, to be honest. This is only my second reader insert as well as my first romance EVER, so I hope you won't be too harsh if there are any critiques.
WARNING: This is sad. If you don't like sad, then I actually don't advise you read this. I have made more than one person cry & myself almost tear up
Hetalia does not belong to me, no matter how many shooting stars or airplanes I wish on (virtual cookies by Austria for anyone who gets the song reference)
& now without an further ado:
I've held your hand through all of these years
You walk through the automatic doors into a large building. You would do anything to run away, but you know you can't. All you want to do is turn back the clock to that day those few years ago.
You scurry past a tall man behind the desk, bidding him a quick, half hearted "good morning." He peers up you from his paperwork and shoots you a quick smile and "good morning." He knows your face too well by now. He's been wishing you the same "good morning" since the day you first came.
You head over to an elevator at the end of the lobby, as you do everyday. Inside, you sadly press the button for the fourth floor. You wish with a full heart that you could stop doing this. You fidget with the bag hanging from your arm and the bouquet of flowers in your hand.
You shake your head furiously, fighting with the tears that want to escape. If only you could go back in time to prevent the horrid day from occuring. If only you hadn't been so stupid that day. Though you will admit that you've changed.
The elevator doors open, allowing you to make the descision to continue with your daily routine, or close the doors to go back down and leave. You slowly step out of the elevator. You've done this so many times, you could do it with your eyes closed.
You're sick of it, but you just can't stop at this point.
Your legs automatically take down that dreaded hall you've walked down every single day for nearly three years.
You mechanically say "good morning" and "hello" to everyone who passes. They give you sympathetic looks, as though you are that same girl who ran as though her life depended on it through these very halls that fateful day.
Without even looking at the numbers on the doors, you automatically stop in front of that one. You take a deep breath, reminding youself that you are a completely changed person since you first started coming. You still hate the winter, but you're different.
I'm not that weak, you think with a level of confidence that you never thought you would ever acheive in your life as you open the door.
Inside the bright room is one bed where a lone figure lays, hooked up to different machines.
Despite seeing him in this state so many times, tears still spring to your eyes.
"Hey," you greet the still male, your voice cracking. "I brought you new flowers like I promised, since I saw yesterday that the old ones are already wilting. They're bergfrue, your favorites."
You swap the old bouquet you'd bought a week earlier with the ones you purchased today. The bergfrue bring a new brightness to the dull, white room. You seat yourself on the chair beside the bed, ready to share new stories about your college life.
"Can you believe that next year I'll be gradutating college with my Masters in [Occupation]?" you say. You would be too, if you weren't condemmed to this room. "And Emil will also be graduating high school this spring, but," you giggle, "you probably know that, since Emil has been non-stop talking about it." You sigh, grasping his pale lightly like you do every day. "Everything is so boring without you. There's no one to help Tino break up the fights between Mathias and Berwald. Emil's tried, but he probably never told you that he stopped after Mathias broke his nose. He's so embarrassed that Ida had to bail him out by landing a well placed uppercut to Mathias's jaw. I guess she took your role in breaking up the fights."
You turn your attention to the bag still dangling of you left wrist.
"I spoke to Tino last night," you explain. "He said that he won't be able to come today. Neither can Mathias and Berwald, since their classes are runing super late today and Berwald has work right after. Mathias will probably try sneak off campus to come, but I doubt he'll make it. The twins won't either since they have a ton of homework to catch up on. You can imagine how Ida nearly cried when Andersen told her how much they fell behind. Oh, so about Tino. He said that he, Mathias, and Berwald feel really bad about not being able to make it, so they chipped in together and bought you a gift. This will also be my first time seeing it, since Tino made me swear I wouldn't look at it till it came here."
From the bag you pull out a large pink plush bunny. Around its neck is a thick ribbon with the red, white, and blue design of the Norwegian flag. You chuckle lightly at the gift, knowing that when you've passed the shop with the cute plush animals, he usually had his eye on the bunnies, but never went in to buy one. You realize it must have cost quite a bit extra to have a custom design made on the ribbon. Dedicated friends.
You tenderly place the bunny next to him on the bed, pulling the thin blanket over it, to make it look like it'd always been there with him.
"I remember when you first moved next door to me," you reminice. "You barely spoke a word of English and I thought you were so weird because of your accent. Then I heard Emil's and burst out laughing, deciding that you had the cooler accent." You sigh. "We've grown so close since then."
You push a few stands of ashen blonde hair away from his smooth, pale skin. What you would do to see those dark indigo eyes again. "It's almost winter time." A thoughtful look crosses your face. "You know, I really hate the winter. It's so cold and the streets become so icy and slippery."
You inhale sharply at your sudden statement. You've never told him that you hate the winter. He's always known that you loved the winter just as much as he did. In truth, you really had until then. All at once, the horrifying memories come flooding back bashing into your skull. That terrible winter. That one horrible day. It didn't start out so terrible, nor should it have been. It should have been the best day of your life since you had your braces taken off.
You hurried down the stairs at a breakneck pace, bundled up for hanging outside with your friends.
"Be careful, [Name]," you mother warned, pretty much telling you to slow down and walk like a civilized person.
"Sorry, Mom," you replied, slowing your pace. "I'm just really excited to have a snowball war with my firends. We've been planning for so long and now the snow is finally perfect for it."
You mother sighed. "Just be careful. You know how Mathias can get."
You rubbed your shoulder, remembering how Mathias had left a monster bruise there a few years ago in a past fight when you, Lukas and Berwald had tried to gang up on him.
"I'll be fine," you assured your mother. You glanced at your watch. "Dang it, I have to go get Lukas and Emil so we can meet up with the others." You give your mother a quick kiss on the cheek. "See you later, Mom. Love you."
You ran out of the house to the house next door. You knocked as though there'd been someone chasing you. A silver haired teen opened the door.
"Whoa, [Name]," he said. "You don't have to act like someone's stalking you. Lukas and I are ready." He turned his head. "Lukas! [Name] is here."
His violet gaze shifted back to you with a smirk. "Mathias and I are going to cream all of you."
You laughed. "Emil, your teammate is an idiot. Berwald has Tino, and Lukas has me. We're going to win."
The smirk widened. "Like you said, Berwald has Tino.
"Trying to belittle my partner?" asked a smooth, accented voice.
Your heart fluttered as you saw a blonde figure appear in the doorway.
"Hey, Lukas," you greeted him.
"Hej, [Name]," he responded.
The three of you headed off to the park where many snowball fights were taking place, though none would be the caliber of epicness that the one you and your friends had spent months planning once you'd heard that the winter would have a lot of snow-about two and half feet. You spotted a group of three blondes.
"Hey, guys!" you called out to them.
"[Name]! Lukas! Emil!" the second tallest, but most obnoxious, cried in joyous, taunting tone. "I thought you guys chickened out and I'd have to go in there alone."
You stuck you thumb and forefinger into out mouth and whistled loudly to get everyone's attention.
"You gotta show me how you do that," Mathias said.
Ignoring him, you reminded everyone the rules you six worked hard on establishing.
"Remember, you only have twenty minutes to build up a fort and begin making ammunition. Once those twenty minutes are over, you may continue building your forts, just your in danger of getting whacked in the face by a snowball. The goal of this war, is to utterly demolish the other teams' forts, make them run out of ammunition-which you need a steady supply of, since we're four teams-and force surrender. If a team can't get any snowballs thrown within one and half minutes of running out of ammunition, they are automatically disqualified & considered 'dead.' The last team left is the victors and have the other two teams as their slaves for a week.
"Just as a quick reminder, the teams are Mathias and Emil, Berwald and Tino, and me and Lukas. I have a loud alarm on my watch which will go off when the twenty minutes are over and the real war begins.
"One more thing! There is absolutely no sabatoging the other teams' forts. Anyone who fails to follow that rule is disqualified as a 'traitor' and 'executed' right away." You smile, setting your watch. "Let's do this guys!" you push the button begining the countdown.
The six of you split into the three aforementioned teams, headed in three different directions to start building the forts.
You had put Lukas in charge of the fort, since you work very fast with your hands and can easily make a lot of snowballs in the alotted time. A loud beeping snapped everyone out of their thoughts. Especially Mathias, who right away got slammed with two snowballs from you and Tino.
You ducked behind your sturdy fort as a snowball from Emil flew over you head. You and Lukas popped up, hurling snowballs at Berwald and the fort he made. You both knew that you had to worry about his fort, as his was probably the most sturdy. You and Lukas made a silent, temporary truce with Emil and Mathias. You and Emil bombarded Tino and Berwald while Lukas and Mathias whittled down at the hard packed snow in front of them.
After all the effort and a lot of reloading in ammunition, the four of you finally take down the thought-to-be-indestructible team of Tino and Berwald. Plus, thanks to Mathias and Berwald's mutual hate for each other, Berwald focused on the obnoxious male while Tino had made more snowballs. They had only surrendered because Tino began feeling a few bruises and received a nosebleed after one of Mathias's missed the fort and hit him in the face instead. Also thanks to the rivalry between Mathias and Berwald, Mathias and Emil's fort was weakened, giving you and Lukas an easy win.
"You guys cheated!" Mathias moaned into the table you'd claimed as the six of you went to a coffee shop to warm up.
What would have happened if we hadn't gone to that coffee shop? Could this have been avoided?
"And did you come to that conclusion?" Lukas asked, leaning on the table while Berwald, Tino, and Emil went to get the coffee.
"You just did!"
You laughed. "You're just being a sore loser, Mathias."
"Why don't you go make youself useful and live up to the deal by getting us something to eat," Lukas piped up, shooing Mathias away from the table.
Mathias complied with a huff.
"You were quick to get rid of him," you comment.
"I wanted to talk to you in private."
Huh?
Your cheeks flushed a bit. "What about?"
"We've been friends for a long time now, ja?"
You nodded.
He started to say something, but a large, loud crowd entered the coffee shop.
"Should we go outside?" you inquired.
Lukas nodded.
Strike one, you realize mournfully.
You headed out into the biting cold. Lukas caught you as you nearly slipped on the icy sidewalk.
Strike two.
"What did you want to talk about?" you asked, as the two of you began to take a little stroll after texting Mathias and Tino that you'd be out for a couple of minutes.
What a lie.
"We became very close over the years, and I realized that I have feelings for you," he admitted.
You felt your heart soar. You felt the same way with him. As you stepped into the street ahead of him, about to tell him that you felt the same, the sound of a horn and screaming pierced your ears.
Strike three.
"[Name]!" Lukas cried, running to push you forward.
You landed on your back, hard against the frozen road. You heard the thump of something hitting the ground You peered up just in time to witness the event that caused you to become a changed woman.
An out-of-control car, that would have hit you, struck the thin body of your beloved before swerving into a tree.
"Lukas!" you screeched in horror, tears streaming down your face. "No! Lukas!"
You tried to dash over to him, but someone held you back, telling you soothingly that you shouldn't move because you'd been injured from your own tumble. Sticky blood dripped from a cut on your forehead. You didn't care. You fought, kicking and screaming, that you had to be him. You had to. He'd just admitted to loving you. He couldn't leave you now. It wouldn't be fair, as you didn't have a chance to admit your own feelings. All you wanted was a chance to tell him how you really felt.
You should have been out of here. You should have recovered by now, you think, stroking Lukas's limp hand. You've held it ever since the accident. Even in the ambulance that had been called. You never wanted to let go.
You sat in a waiting room, a bandage tied around your head. Your mother, sitting next to you, rubbed your back, telling you that everything would be just fine. Lukas would be alright. In no time, both of you would be able to go back to your old lifestyles. That this whole ordeal would be left behind.
Why couldn't you be right, Mom?
In truth, Lukas had been recovering fairly well, though a little on the slow side, until he needed a surgery last year to fix a rib that the doctors didn't notice hadn't healed properly. You even held his hand on the way to the OR. You still hadn't told him, but you knew that he'd appreciate the extra support before going under the knife. Everyone still wonders what went wrong that caused the youth to fall into a deep comatose state. And you still hadn't told him how you feel.
When you and Emil heard, you'd nearly fainted and he'd been beside himself with worry. The nurses wouldn't let either of you in to visit until they got an 'okay' from the doctor, who still didn't know what caused the coma.
"What went wrong?" you ask Lukas's prone form for probably the millionth time. "Why you?" You smile sadly. "Maybe...maybe this was what meant to be. Maybe this is for the best. We all really grew since this happened. Mathias doesn't get into as many petty arguments with me or Berwald anymore, Berwald started opening up to us a bit more, Tino isn't as emotional anymore. Don't get me wrong, he's still plenty happy and crazy, but doesn't cry as much. It's the same with me. I cried for probably a month straight after it happened, but out of all people, it was Emil who snapped me back to reality." You chuckle lightly. "I'd bet that you father said something to him and your mother told him to repeat it to me. Whatever it was, it really helped. I still cry, but not as much anymore. It doesn't mean that I stopped caring, but that I have stronger self control and grief doesn't control my life anymore."
You sigh, stroking his smooth, pale skin.
"You know, people say that when you talk to someone who's in a coma, it helps them wake up fast," you continue. "I've been speaking to you for a year and am still waiting. So are the others. I doubt there's anyone who talks to you more than I do though...Okay, maybe Tino or Mathias talk more than I do."
A sad smile finds its way to your face.
"Lukas, there's one last thing I've been meaning to tell you since the day of the accident. Ever since you told me how you really feel and I feel it would be best to tell you before I have to leave." Your watch beeps like it does everyday to inform you that you have to leave. You inhale deeply before leaning in to whisper in his ear, "I feel the same. I, [Full Name] [Last Name] love you, Lukas Bondevik. Nothing will change that."
You wonder if you truly see a ghost of a smile on his face as you leave. Maybe he really did hear.
But one thing's for sure, I've held your hand through all these years.
& that is that. Apologies to anyone who may have needed a tissue or two, but this is what that prompt brought to mind. R & R and don't worry, I think I'm done with this type of sad for a while.