Happy birthday Russia!
I do not own Hetalia
He wanted to live in a warm place. A warm place full of love and laughter and sunflowers. Someplace where the water was a deep, pure blue and it never snowed. Someplace with friends and family happy together.
He looked out over the frozen gray landscape with a soft smile on his face. An icy breeze played with his hair and the ends of his scarf, which he wrapped tighter around his neck. It was peaceful here outside, alone in the cold and snow. It was nice to get away from the commotion inside. His sisters really did make a big fuss about the littlest things. He would have much preferred it if they had allowed his birthday to come and go silently, blowing away without a trace as the year came to an end. It was fitting, for someone like him. The party would be just the three of them; nobody else would bother to come, so why bother inviting them? He was fine without them. He was fine just sitting out here, by himself.
Natalya and Katyusha had made his favorite borscht, something that normally would have caught his interest but as of now he wasn't all that excited. Certainly he appreciated the thought, but...
He had much preferred the simple days of his childhood, when it was just the three of them in a vast white wonderland. The world had seemed so big back then. Snow had been his favorite thing. The days before he grew dissatisfied with his life were days he longed to go back to. Nonetheless, this did have a certain degree of bittersweet familiarity to it. Borscht was a traditional soup they had eaten many times in those cold and lonely days. It had been a while since he had tasted Katyusha's recipe. He wasn't going to pretend that he wasn't eager to do so again. For now though, he was content here, lost in his daydreams.
Blue sky. Blue waters. Green grass. And the sunflowers, always the sunflowers.
"Big brother!" called out his sister's flat tone. "Come inside!"
He wasn't quite ready to yet, but nevertheless Ivan stood to return to the house. It was a short but brisk walk, and when he arrived he noticed something waiting for him on the stoop. It was a crystalline glass vase, fat and round at the base and swooped in at the neck, only to flare out at the neck. Filling the vase were half a dozen enormous sunflowers, freshly cut with not a single wilting leaf. The petals were glossy and deep golden yellow. The centers were each a dark earthy brown. He picked one up and breathed in the scent with a happy sigh. A warm smile spread across his chapped lips. He caressed it with a gentle hand and held it close to his heart. There was no card, nor anything to hint at who could have delivered the flowers.
He looked around but saw no one, only the frozen landscape with flurries of snow billowing about in the breeze.
"Thank you," he murmured.
