Title: 往情深

Genre: A bit of fluff, a tad of romance; too many recollections and such. I guess it is a bit poetic and thoughtful at times.

Pairing: ChuNi/NiChu —China/Japan—

Summary: It had seemed an eternity to both China and Yao that their hatred, their loathing, had survived and stuck with Japan since the World Wars. Before China felt the sting of betrayal in his homeland, such a forged cut, as long as the scar on his back, seemed utterly impossible with, not only Japan, but with Kiku, too. He had been proven wrong, but a 4,000 year old being can always turn the tables to rectify any thought or statement. That was what he was here for in the first place, was it not?

Sidenote: At the start, there is some material on emotional rivalry between China and Japan. I do not intend to offend, just to portray some (not all) of the attitudes that a few people (might!) have against the Japanese acts in WW II …. Thank you~

Current word count: 2,493

For a long time China hated Japan.

Not Yao, no, he did not think that the ability to hate another being such as Kiku was even an option; he had loved him too much for too long to ever truly despise the others existence forever, but it mattered not how he looked at his position or how much he tried to deny it: He did hate Japan. Very much so, actually.

There was always a violent, undeniable feeling of utter enmity that coursed and pumped through China's veins each time the very thought of Japan surfaced in his mind. Or whenever one of his women or men spoke out against the Japanese government; whenever yet another child of his country was taught to pass on the rotted feelings of hate and disgust and fear when hearing even the single word: Japan. Japanese. Black hair and eyes as dark as their decaying souls, their pale faces that looked like those of ghosts, narrow, sharp faces and chins...

And China could not and would not complain about the pure loathing centered around both his former brother's people and entire civilization; surely after the Japanese's horrid acts during the capture and invasion of China, of Nanking, too, they would naturally be no less than heartless monsters. There was certainly no individuality to any of them...they must all be horrid animals.

It was not a narrow-minded assumption of prejudice, China, or more accurately, some of China's people, tried to convince themselves, but it was a fact: Cold, hard, and true.

But then again...why? Why were his brother's citizens all so cruel and lacking in individuality? Surely it couldn't be true or right...to lodge every single member of a majority into one clustered clump. It must be wrong to assume such awful things of millions of people who were, most likely, mostly innocent in such crimes as those that took place inside China's battered red heart, Nanking. Such horrid things took place so long ago...

Both Yao and China were truly ancient bodies: they were two sides of a coin. At first glance they appeared in the form of two entirely different creations.

One was kind, passionate, and caring. He was selfless and yet not a saint; he was selfish as well, but not of sin or of the "Devil," as some might have put it. Self-righteousness was not in Yao's ways, but there would always be a sort of moral air to him. Whether or not it was viewed as the product of good or bad depended entirely on an observer.

The other was proud, independent, and seen as heartless; cruel, to everybody but his own people. China was fueled by this utter bull-headed determination to prove himself to his faith and the enemy: The rest of the world. He was stubborn and would seldom gain respect for outsiders of any given breed. There was a seed of mercy planted in China's heart, just the same as any human, mortal or not, but it had lain dormant and locked up for centuries. China had seen too much, and he knew too much of the true world to open himself up.

But really, whether they liked it or not, they were the same person. It mattered not how completely different they were from each other in personality; they were still, and would always be, another Oriental form of life that would never cease to exist in both spirit and mind.

There was both a light and a dark side to China, but those facets depended entirely on the Chinese people. Not Yao, and not the country China itself.

So when one day Kiku had come waltzing up to China (well, no, waltzing might not have been the best word for it; Kiku's gait was more like a clumsy stumble, which was odd for him, as he was normally such a composed person) and gave him what could be obviously seen as a full apology, Yao had been shocked. It had been so seemingly random, and he had lived for so long with the thought, the knowledge of The World Wars. And, of course, of the Japanese participation in it.

For more than 77 years both Japan and Kiku had denied that the invasion of China and the horrid massacres that had taken place inside of it had actually happened. Japan had not seemed to take any notice of the breakage that had occurred in China those long days and years and months, and neither had Kiku.

And yet there Kiku had been, the personification of the very people who made up his essence, those same people who had roots to the soldiers of olden, kneeling with his head bent to touch the floor and the nape of his neck very exposed, and crying the hardest that China had ever seen anyone, most of all him, cry, and trying profusely to atone for his army's actions and injustices.

He had asked Yao to do away with him if need be, to punish him, and him alone, if that meant withdrawing both their people's hostilities. He did not want to have to live with the awful guilt, the shame that his history brought upon him every second of every day. He wanted to be atoned, cleansed.

But most of all Kiku wanted Yao and China to forgive him.

At first, China had not said anything. He had said nothing and did not react to Japan's apology in any way. At this point Kiku was trembling.

Then, suddenly, unexpectedly, China had bent down to Japan's face and touched the others' shoulder, and once Kiku had looked upwards, Yao grabbed Kiku by his slim shoulders and bear-hugged him. China could feel the Japanese man shake madly in his grip; he could feel the shoulder of his shirt grow wet from Kiku's tears.

Yao had heard Japan cry out and lose his normally composed air entirely. Before either of them knew what exactly was happening, they were both clutching at each other and sobbing hysterically.

It was completely undignified and all too revealing, but neither could find it in themselves to truly care. There had to be mercy and forgiveness in even the darkest times, and if not, then there was no righteous goal to accomplish other than to gain humanity.

Their being reunited had brought no glorious change to their people's attitudes and opinions of each other. Nothing had changed between China and Japan.

But, nevertheless, despite the Chinese and Japanese's unwavering...opinions of each other, Yao and Kiku became brothers once more. They had even been happy for a while.

Of course it didn't last; Yao, like such a long time ago, found himself wishing that he could cut all emotional ties of him and Kiku being brothers. Only this time his ever-changing thoughts of the tiny island country did not evolve from hatred, but from something new-some odd, shifting, coiling emotion buried deep inside of him that had not seen the light of day for so long.

Ever since being reunited, Yao never once stopped loving Kiku, but his love for a brother changed form to turn into something just as pure and bright: Yao began to love Kiku as somebody who, if he was accepted, he could spend and share his life with, but not as a mere sibling.

And it took a while for Yao to realize and accept this - his feelings were not incestual, as he and Kiku were not related by blood, but, at first, his thoughts of Kiku felt wrong: The things that Yao started to notice about his former sibling were sinful, surely, but he simply could not help it.

How Kiku's narrow, almost delicate-looking face seemed to be perfectly symmetrical and stunningly beautiful. Or how everything he seemed to wear fit his slender body flawlessly; even the wrinkles and loose-fitting parts of his shirts and uniforms, something that would normally look awkward and strange on any normal person, seemed to bend to Kiku's very will and showed off the curves and edges of his chest and waist, making him seem effortlessly graceful.

And his eyes; Yao always thought about Kiku's eyes. They were unlike anything China had ever seen. A smoky-looking ebony, sometimes darkest black, other times a slightly light chocolate. But it was not really the color that really entranced Yao to the point of obsession, but ... the look that Japan always held in his large, almond-shaped eyes. Like he wasn't really there at all, but was in his own little world; like an eternal being could truly be at peace.

Yao had held desperately onto those minute details, how seemingly unimportant they really were, though he tried to convince himself otherwise.

It had taken him a while, but after some time of having to go day by day sitting and talking with Kiku (their bosses still hated each other with the passion of a thousand fiery suns, but even they wanted the two to resolve their quarrel of over 50 years), after Yao's heart (and his queasy stomach) felt like it would just plop out of him, he had confessed.

Of course, Japan had been purely and utterly shocked, and he was as red as anyone would ever see him for quite some time. Kiku had just stood there, playing with his nimble hands and carefully avoiding China's hopeful eyes. It was in those few drawn out moments that Yao really started to worry about rejection; the very thought made him wilt.

He had come too far along this winding, eternal road of immortality to be simply rebuffed.

But instead of walking away, or saying no, or even hitting him, Kiku shuffled shyly, adorably, to stand in front of Yao, and then put his head on China's chest, his thin arms hesitantly moving to wrap around China's middle in a coy hug.

It was now China's turn to be shocked; that wasn't the reaction he had been expecting, nor the reply he had planned so carefully for. But he wasn't complaining; if anything Kiku's return filled him with a sense of warmth and even triumph, not dread.

Yao very willingly moved his arms to wrap around Kiku's waist, and he pulled the smaller island country into a hug that might have been just a bit too enthusiastic, as Japan was gasping slightly and massaging his ribs after they broke apart, but he nevertheless looked happy. Kiku smiled at Yao, something the normally modest country never really did, and Yao could have sworn that his heart melted right on the spot.

And then they were dating. Well, they were sort of a couple. A very trusted few countries had been informed of the relationship almost immediately after it had started. China told other people, anyway, since Japan was a bit quiet about the whole thing.

But some of the nations discovered through pure, stupid accidents.

Russia, for one, who had walked in on a very heated snogging session in China's home. Neither Japan nor China had even heard the gargantuan Russian actually open the door, or the windows, or come through the closed off back porch; it was still a mystery to the two of them how he had even managed to get into the locked house. There they were, alone one second, and then the next Russia was just standing there with a pleasant, child-like smile on his round face and one hand on both China and Japan's shoulders. Like a ghost. A very white, solid, huge ghost.

And then there had been a very unfortunate incident with Taiwan... Japan, who was quite talented at sensing the mode and reading people's thoughts, had known for an eternity what she felt for him. He had assessed the situation as nothing more than a minor crush, one that a schoolgirl might have adopted after falling in love with the idea of love, but he was still nevertheless worried about what consequences both he and China might have to endure when the Taiwanese girl found them out, for she surely would, at one point.

And she did, one day when America (China was sure to clobber him that day) let slip a little secret between certain Asian countries. Taiwan had bided her time, something that later on Japan had been mildly surprised by, as teenage girls who caught "their man" with another person were usually the victims of impatientness and hostility and were temporarily unable to think clearly, and waited until she was sure that she would catch the two Eastern countries together, though there was still a part of her that desperately hoped that it was only America being an idiot again.

But she was wrong. Taiwan had caught Japan leaning on China's shoulder, and China's hand around the island country's waist. She had immediately burst into ever-flowing tears, and without giving either of the two stunned nations a chance to explain themselves, she had gone on pointing at Japan and crying that she thought that he loved her, and that she, Taiwan, had always thought better of Kiku. Not Japan, again, but Kiku. Taiwan ran off, stumbling and sobbing hysterically, into the night, leaving a startled pair in her wake.

It had been difficult to imagine that such a huge event could ever really fully heal the bonds between Yao and Kiku, China and Japan. Although it was true that the latter pair had not, and still was not, fixed in their relations.

But Yao could deal with that, with both his country and Kiku's. He could separate his emotions from his definitions, his, or his people's, beliefs. The ones that even he was not entirely sure were really his own.

Because on nights such as these, Yao thought to himself, sparing what was intended to be a small, quick glance toward the other black-haired country, so small in dreams, sleeping, why even bother to think? Why really bother with anything, so painful, as the past?

Yao received no answer to his question, and he was glad for it. He needed no reassurance of what he was supposed to feel, what he was supposed to think.

In this time, in this moment, the past, the present, or even the forever cryptic future, all Yao felt that he really needed was to have the privilege to stare into Kiku's eyes, his face, and have the Japanese stare back, smiling his beautiful smile, and maybe even laughing. All Yao really wanted, or what he seemed to want, was to cup Kiku's face in his hands and run his fingers through Kiku's impossibly soft, straight black hair; to kiss him and feel the warmth that would spread through his fingers and body and mouth; to know that the plushness of pink roses that danced on his mouth, eager and loving, were strong, just as his own previously pent up emotions had been.

All he really needed, was that one person, dear, to love.