Title: Rewind
Length: Oneshot
Characters/Relationship: America (Alfred F. Jones, 'I'), England (Arthur Kirkland, 'you'), OC (Al, 'the boy')/USUK (established)
Rating: K+
Warning: Character Death (background/established)
A/N: This is a translated piece, so there'll be super dumb mistakes here and there. Please forgive me because English is definitely not my thing and I can't find a translator.
And there are some poetic verses in the story, don't read it, don't care about it, I've never translated a poem before and it stinks.
This is gonna be a pretty long rambling, but I think without it the story would be kinda confusing for some people. But you can just skip it and read the story if you want to, or come back to it later.
So, I've seen somewhere on Tumblr a prompt (I can find neither the owner nor the post again) that goes along something like this, "After England's death, America started seeing a boy who looks extremely like the deceased nation following him everywhere". This drabble is kinda inspired by it (not totally based on it, this story is set in an AU and the relationship between America and the boy is changed a little bit, but the main idea is basically the same), but the reason why I took this prompt was just because I was very nostalgic at the moment and wanted to put my feelings somewhere.
This story is about growing up, and that's a topic that always saddens me whenever I think of it. Growing up is hard. None of us wants to grow up, but we have to anyway. Some can stay young while maturing - that's the greatest gift one can ask for. Some try to stay young, and then collapse, and they have to grow up so hastily it hurts. I think of America (if he ever grows up) as someone like that, so when I read the prompt, I thought it fitted my headcanon pretty well and I started writing. I wrote Alfred as a thirty-ish man who struggles to stay young, and Arthur as the adult, and Arthur's death has forced Alfred to grow up. But Alfred hasn't got a chance to grow up fully, because he didn't have time to when tragedies struck. He has matured - he's thirty-ish anyway - but he's a half grown-up. He hasn't forgot his old carefree self yet. The young duplica of Arthur is a remind for Alfred of his role now, and also a manifestation of his nostalgia, that's why he acts like Alfred and they share a name.
I just think this is a decent guide to understand whatever is happening in here, but there you go. Maybe I'm making excuses to write drabbles. Maybe I'm just paranoid. But yeah, that's all.
Rewind
Recently I've been seeing the boy following me around.
My road home passes by a toy store. I love videogames, too, but every time I take a look in the store, I'll frown at the aisles of Huggy hugging bear and battery-powered race car. To be honest, videogames are the only things from these ages that I still keep around. I've forgotten fast food, I've forgotten suit and tie, I've forgotten tablets and smartphones. I've forgotten them all, as if I clicked 'select all' and pressed 'delete', I'd accidentally erase my consciousness off this world.
That toy store is flashy and noisy, with sirens and music and children's laughter, but parents' concern and the owner's smile at the kids stay the same. Kids change everyday, people say. Kids grow up everyday.
"I just wanna take a look," I speak to no one in particular when I pass by the cashier counter. Neither guards nor security cams exist in this shop. No one have the heart to steal anything from a toy store.
The owner stares at me. Maybe I don't look old enough to be a father figure. I'm only thirty-one years old.
The boy follows me to the firework aisle.
Fireworks are loud and special, fireworks are for Independence Day. But similar to Independence Day, people don't care to create new types of fireworks. That's loud enough, Americans conclude. It suffices to annoy the hell out of our neighbours.
I cackle like an idiot at my own way of thinking. I'm no less American than anyone in this town. Part of me still remember the Fourth of July nights spent walking around the city alone, without any light source whatsoever (except for fireworks and the all too cheerful shops), hands holding firmly on the old camera which threatened to fall apart every time I accidentally shake it, picking up a thread of the light or a perspective or a sudden laugh here and there on the road. Sometimes I need no sun to see the world so clearly.
I remember the silly pickup line I borrowed from some random website, back to the days when I was still happy with wandering aimlessly and computer was still an irreplaceable tool, Hey, are you a night lamp? because your light lull me into sweet, sweet dreams. Already taken some deserved hits for using my mouth for wrong purposes, but the more I think about it, the less I have to regret.
I need a bruise, a shout, an immature giggle right after that. I need to be an idiot, to hear the reaction and not to forget.
That's a system file.
The boy comes stand next to me. He doesn't wear glasses. Kids never need to wear glasses. Only when people have grown up should they feel the necessity of visual supports. "They're selling FF4," the boy pointed to the game aisles.
I grinned, "You still want to play horror games?"
"Just because I've already finished the three prequels."
I bow down slightly to ruff his head, "It's time to stop playing videogames, you know."
The boy puffs his cheeks.
I still have the memories of a time when I loved toy stores. I looked to you, you looked back, your mouth's corner pulled up mockingly, You are only four years younger than I, and yet whenever I go out with you I feel like I'm your father. I remember punching you lightly on the shoulder, Blame your own body for aging too fast. Then you smiled, and I smiled, everything stayed like that. And I'd keep fueling my gaming hobby, and you'd still come with me anywhere.
I look down at the kid whose head just reaches my waist, ask myself if this was the feeling of the man I used to tag along with. Or was it even stranger, because me - the one usually playing the kid's role - was even higher than that man.
"You can't play it anywhere even if you buy it," I say to the boy after a quiet moment. He brushes his bangs - which have that same, too familiar color - aside, scratching his thick brows a little.
"You have a computer but you don't use it, that counts as wasting." He beamed, showing his teeth. His smile is an all-too-well-know, so familiar smile, but at the same time it looks strange. I don't feel comfortable seeing that smile on he child's face.
"You got it," I sigh.
The store owner, a.k.a. the cashier, stares at me while putting the CD through the barcode reader. I don't look old enough to have kids.
"Is this for your lil' brother?" He asked me. I shrugged.
"I'm thirty-ish."
"Ah, sorry, it's just… you look like a highschooler. Take care of it, they don't sell this game anymore nowadays."
I sigh. I forget suit and tie; doesn't mean people forget them too.
"Let's go buy some flowers," the boy says when we're outside, pulling on my T-shirt. I turn around to look at him, look at his shining, pleading eyes. Once I've looked at them, there's no way to refuse his demands.
I walk ahead, the boy follows suit.
I recall those random lines you wrote down to get rid of the swirling ideas clouding your sight. Forward and forward you go, the daisies hold your steps/ Grass covers your feet and fog takes your hand/ The dawn is coming while you're looking for it/ Looking for a torch to light up the garden that's fading. You were an idiot, thinking of saleable pieces of writing only as 'business'. You loved having that I-don't-care attitude. Maybe that's why we got along so well.
The boy walks in the same manner of your words laying down on your notebook. He urges his steps at times and slows down at times, his arms swinging in no particular rhythm. From times to times he tip-toes as if is traversing a spring. He walks without checking his direction. He's on his way to fulfill his heroic duties.
He always goes on a better path than me.
We stop at a flower shop. I intended to buy some lilies, but the boy points at the roses. I laugh, "That's for lovers."
He puffs his cheeks again, "Love doesn't die, y'know."
Yeah, love doesn't die, I think and pick up some blue roses. Red rose's too romantic. I hate yellow flowers. White rose seems too gloomy. Blue rose's the best choice.
Love doesn't die, but I've grown up.
I'm stared at again. I don't have the look of someone who have enough money to waste in flowers. Thirty-ish, I remind people again. The boy snickers.
You and I fitted perfectly, but people always have questions. Englishmen don't usually hang out with Americans, it must be so. Then there was your clothing style, so similar to that of a professor: shirt, thin woolen gilet, a pair of glasses, light coat, tie or bow tie. You always looked like about to yell at some naughty student. While I stayed, well, me, all the time. But humankind often forget that after having lived here for a couple of years, even if one can keep their accent, they still become American. We all crave for freedom.
Ironically, when I was free, you were tied. You tagged along with me like a guardian supervising a delinquent. You lost your colleagues, your social relationships, your time. That artist we knew used to chirp happily that freedom could only be found in love. That was one crazy dude. Love is, definitely and literally, a prison. But someone who accepts to go to jail for love is, in a way, a great person.
The boy grips my hand and pulls me forward. His unsorted hair resemble my imagination of the sun when I was a kid. The color's similar, too. And his bright green eyes are the treasure children dream of every night.
I remember days when we walked together, me putting on my earphones to force my eyes to open wide, you having your glasses on so your ears'd not miss a sound. We'd walk and walk and walk, when I held up my 'inherited' old camera toward you, and you knew but pretended to not know and hummed the melody of the ice cream truck from across the street. Then you'd say, Watch your step, and I'd immediately trip on something.
"Watch your step," I blurt out. The boy's still running. Unlike me, he never misstep. But he always smiles, the same toothy smile I had back to the mornings when we shared an Oreo. He smiles a strange smile.
I run, sweats soaking through my T-shirt. I've never felt tired running around the city.
I've grown up.
My steps halt in front of the steel gates. It's been a sunny day; the reddish rusty iron surface is warm in my hand. I walk right behind the boy, the blue blossoms in my arms are like a difference in that 'spot-the-differences' game in kid magazines. I walk as if I'm running bare foot on wet grass, the out-of-time machine dangling weightlessly from my neck - I look too young to know someone laying here in this sacred place.
But I'm thirty-ish. I remind myself, I remind people, that I'm thirty-ish. It has been a third of a lifetime. I've grown up.
The boy stops at the white stone plate. He points at the plate, waves me to urge my steps, and I obey. The bouquet in my arms sags down, water soaking through the wrapper; I fist my hand, iron dust rasps my fingers.
The weather's beautiful today, but days like this have happened too often, and my camera has since long ran out of film.
"Hurry up, then we can go eat some ice cream," the boy says.
Hurry up, then we can go eat some ice cream, I beamed. Ah, and throw your cigarette away. Don't smoke when you know you're sick.
So what, are you jealous, your mouth's corner pulled up lightly, but you dropped your cigarette on the floor anyway, then continued our journey by stepping on it.
"Yeah," I reply.
The flowers weigh down on my arms like a notion of freedom I've dropped somewhere, and my grip on the bouquet's just as tight as that on said freedom. However I still let go, and the blue petals lay on pearly white stone, dripping droplet after droplet of water on the name I've read then re-read countless times.
The boy whistles. The tune I whistled to get on your nerves. But you're never one to admit defeat. You'd try to live with it. You'd let me whistle the tune until I got tired of it, then you'd sing to get back on me.
The sunlight touches the flowers, dropping a faint blue shadow on the white stone. Heard somewhere before that blue's the color of hope.
I push the pair of glasses I just bought last month up closer to my eyes.
"We should have chocolate cones," the boy chirps.
We should have chocolate cones, I looked downward at you and grinned. I always had to bow my head to see you. You smiled too, and said easily, I'll let you have one, but just for today—
"Okay, but just for today," my mouth's corner pulls up faintly, "Al."
2014/07/17./.
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