Greetings. This here is a product of a ride on the bus on a rainy morning, some soft, welcomed, insecure and bittersweet feelings.

I already plan a continuation of this, but if it doesn't happen, it is for I started another one. This here does not necessarily need a sequel. But if interested let me know.

Share your opinions please. I thank you beforehand.

Written on AO3 by MisleadingArchangel. Which is me.

Chapter 1: Chōchin

Washi.

Sometimes Kiku loved how simply and literal the names his people gave to what was new and they felt like naming. An curiosity and name-ology that he had taken into habit already.

His fingers sticked lightly, their pads tougher and covered with dried glue that already started to peel off like serpent skin.

But no papercut, or then a single fold unplanned or out of order.

Washi literally meant Japanese paper. Produced principally of fiber of bamboo or rice, sometimes wheat, the paper was a tradition he had developed deeper and stray from Wang Yao. His older brother.

It brought an halt to his craft, the paper and bamboo delicate of structure immobile and suddenly heavier on his hands.

They were different. Before, not so much beyond their personalities, but now they were. Cultural and languages away, he spread this gap with an silent but persistent effort.

He didn't hate Yao. Never did. There was nothing he wouldn't do to him. But sometimes it could bother him if inside there was a resentment of his so forceful individuality. Perhaps he hadn't been clear with his reasons, even though he had never voiced them as a first start.

He found himself eyeing his work over his folded legs with an bitter criticism. Yet he could not spot a single error at it that would justify his restart.

Besides, that was not the reason for the object, either should he let those stray thoughts bite him inside. If the case, he could visit Wang Yao anytime to check up on him.

At last, the last touches were added to the object, and with upmost care he installed the last details, the craft so light and dedicate on his open hands that he felt like it would fly away. Run away from him.

It looked like him on some sort of way. He wasn't unaware of his strength. There was an efficiency and strike he was praised for, to compete only with Germany. Yet, he was small and at arms or not, enough that unaware or not, careful hands only were meant to handle.

But it was done. The thin reddish washi felt like silk against his wrist. On the vast, silent room, he didn't stop from bringing his nose to the lantern and breathing out a sigh.

It was too delicate and soft. Like him, it was too fragile perhaps to be giving to who he was giving it to. Sakura flowers after falling did not last long.

The Chōchin lantern wouldn't survive harsh falls either. The bamboo could bypass the damage and bend easily, but the washi would easily fold wrongly or tear.

In this aspect, Nihon wasn't stronger than a paper lantern, either.
_

America woke up as a ray of sunshine. A sleepy, drooling, messy ray of sunshine. It was a amazing and rather endearing sight at any day.

Captain America t-shirt, along dark blue boxer briefs, maybe the most powerful country on the world woke up fairly earlier than Kiku had expected. The sun wasn't bright enough as to be called a proper morning sun.

There was another taiyou on his opinion, who was blind until his glasses showed up.

It managed to steal a secret smile from the Oriental country. One that was always present when America was too. One that vanished quickly as well.

"Good morning, me!" He had put on his glasses and was like a switch turning on his back, which had straightened considerably. "Morning for you too Japan! Why is there breakfast so early?"

The country of course wasn't content with just his wishes of a good morning but also scooped an arm around his shoulders, a wide grin always present as white as the stars on his flag. "M-Morning America-san... "

"Indeed morning! I'm just thinking dude, why so early?!" Simple as that he had already released him to drop on his knees on the cushion before the table and breakfast. "Like, dude, seriously, was sleeping and I am totally sure that I started to dream with food. Like, the scent went over there on your guest room and that's so weird for you usually wait for me to wake up before you cook anything! We already talked it out that you don't need to prepare things before hand like a maid bro, I can't cook your sushi but I can help!"

Indeed. He usually waited, exactly to avoid that line of thinking even thought he didn't agree with it. While he was usually good to come up with excuses, his own seemed to carry a delay for he couldn't form one.

Each second he spent was his fingers curling in fists and his toes pressing nails tight on the floorboards. Maybe it was his heartbeats, so unnaturally loud on his eyes keeping him from thinking.

He just noticed the dead, blank aura his silence brought, when he noticed Alfred frozen, eyes bright and studying him and so clearly worried that he could read them like hiragana.

"What is wrong Kiku?" Alfred stood up on a heartbeat and was on him on the other. "Don't even come up with that stuff that there is nothing wrong, I know there is so just spit it off."

Alfred was so close and his presence was always so invasive it usually stole the air from the smaller country, enough it made him dizzy. He stepped back to breath, and his eyes could look anywhere but on his.

"I... I did something yesterday night..." This was the purpose of it, wasn't it? He had to go thorough, for if he didn't, why would he stay up until late to make it? "It's for you."

He wasn't that wide to hide a proper, full-sized Chōchin, but this was a miniature anyway. The lantern tilted softly from the thread he held and was so aggressively warped around his finger that it was purple.

"A-Alfred-san asked me once what one of these is... They are called Chōchin, and are merely lanterns... There are many kinds..." He slowly unwarped the thread from his finger and let it fall on his open hand, no bigger than a basketball. "You seemed to like them. I thought that perhaps... Perhaps they would make an interesting gift..."

He hadn't stopped to take hold on Alfred's expression, and he should have done so. The younger country was bright and static like a child.

Kiku slowly let the lantern slid to Alfred's eager, larger hands, that so carefully cupped the paper lantern with the same hands that dragged cars and lifted couches like if they were nothing.

It only made Nihon's heart beat faster and hard against his throat.

"Alfred-san, as you can see its made of really thin paper... It's really fragile." So was his heart.

And yet, with only the best of care and patience, on a volume Kiku hadn't seen before on the Western country, his dear work was turned, the circular, red and so very tiny and fragile lantern turn and nearly floated on his hands.

There curiosity turned and burned and then he could read the fondness and still surprise on America's eyes, so bright and like the rising sun. "It's really beautiful you didn't need to... But why Kiku? Why are you gifting me this?"

"Because..." There was just an amount of that stare that he could handle per day and he was nearing his end. "Because yes it's... a gift for..."

There was more than that. Such thin paper was hard to produce and even harder to transport and properly handle. Dying it red was such an task that before proper technology, it was an exceptional task. Folding and crafting the lantern took time to learn, ages to master.

It was his people's tradition. His tradition. To fill entire festivals with them, or to simply make a blank red one. It was the warmth and light his people had carried on the dark. It was the rising sun when there was no sun right yet.

It was his paper heart he was gifting someone.

And perhaps it was too self-centered to handle it and hope that in a heartbeat someone would understand, even more a young, fiery western wild soul such as America. He was a creature of time, of tradition and hidden meanings, older and older than said country and he couldn't ask such understanding, no matter the story they had.

It was, maybe, beyond America's understanding of how to care and own a Chōchin as fragile as this one. Was, perhaps, beyond his heart to have the patience and the kindness to understand the hiragana written on it without paint.

One large hand that once cupped the lantern now cupped his face, a soft thumb against his cheek that so carefully swooped away a stray tear.

He lifted his face to perhaps see an look of pity or confusion, but he saw none. The dirt blond hair covered his head as Alfred softly, so perfectly gently, left a kiss on the paper lantern, before looking at him as well.

Bright, the most blue of eyes. Bright, gorgeous, kind eyes that were the warmth he needed and the refreshing change he wanted.

Alfred had kissed his paper lantern and leaned in and captured his own lips on one.

He was too old to live this kind of mess. The endless lives they lived only promised that they would come and would part and no matter what they couldn't hate each other forever, but could they love?

He was shaking, his lips were shaking, his breath was shaking as Alfred kissed him just a little more before pressing his forehead against his own.

"I love you, Kiku Honda." He said, and it didn't seem to make him cry less. He didn't belive he had a voice anymore, but he let his fingers cup Alfred's own around the small papercraft, then the other over the one cupping his cheek.

He was happy. He was crying but he was smiling and seeing the same on Alfred's feature brought only the best of feelings on his heart. As if lighting up the candle inside his Chōchin.

"Aishiteru, Alfred-san."

He had a voice again. And he could never have guessed hands as large and strong as America's could handle papercraft so well.