Come to think of it, the last bits of takeaway had been destroyed by the Englishman's lovely cooking skills (aka. microwaving), so the decision to go out and grab more food with Arthur was really quite spontaneous. However, as most spontaneous plans are for the relatively organized Hong, it would end in silence and pokerfaces and a relative amount of messiness between said guest and him.
Crab meat porridge? Check.
Curry fishballs? Check.
Egg tarts? Check.
Sesame paste? Check.
Mango sago? Ridiculous question, check.
Awkward silence between ex-colony and caretaker? Checkity check check check.
The tiniest of glances towards each other probed and poked one of them to break the imposing atmosphere. 'The wind is mild tonight,' perhaps, or maybe, 'Have you given up on cooking yet?' Something, anything, would be good. Something light and appropriate for the situation. Both stared at the food, hungry, but neither of them dared to reach out for it first. 'Come on, come on, come on.' the Asian silently begged, almost losing his blank expression.
Arthur drew in a long breath from the cool night and finally spoke, "...So, I heard you have the fifth most influential city in the world now."
What.
Seriously, what.
He opened his mouth and faltered and tried again.
"Uh, Singapore's doing well as well?"
"So is New York."
Failed conversations- as failed as the ones that he had first tried to hold with the Englishman when he was just taken by China. Strange noises of the guai lo, his people called them- from the rickshaw drivers to the street stall holders, the calligraphist to the brothel dwellers. Strange noises, bad attempts at communication.
Hong hoped that it had gone away, feared that it was still there, and that he would never learn to talk to Arthur, even if he learned his language. After all, it was still laced with his own tongue, the lilting accents Asians have.
They were of two different continents after all.
Continents, and not just with distances of language or distances of time, but with distances of culture, spirit and ideals. Would he..?
He stuttered even as he thought about it.
"Have you heard of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai?"
"Heard, but I've forgotten the story."
"It's like Romeo and Juliet."
His brown eyes lifted up to meet a green pair. Why such a vivid green, he wondered. It was far too easy to remember, to think of, like a bedtime story or a tragic legend like The Butterfly Lovers.
"...I'd like to hear it."
"It's like Romeo and Juliet, only that some grave is dug up and they turn into butterflies."
"Tell me about it."
Arthur finally reached out, grabbed the the plastic bag, and began to chew a fishball with a thoughtful air. One would never know how he chewed a fishball thoughtfully, because they were street food, and street foods were meant to be consumed messily in a back alley, and not dissected lovingly by incisors and molars. But Arthur Kirkland was the British Empire, and he is known for doing impossible, improbable things.
Horace falters a little, watching the guai lowatching him. For a personification with such a tumultous, dramatic history, his features were extremely delicate- almost pretty, in fact, but somehow majestic and fierce at the same time. Somehow.
(Perhaps it was the eyebrows. Perhaps Horace stared too much.)
And then he turns away. He doesn't want the man to see the uncertainty in his eyes as he narrates The Butterfly Lovers to him and he presses his voice out to be steady, as steady as it could get.
"There was once this girl who's father wanted her to go to school, and, you know, tradition said that girls weren't meant for education. Her name's Zhu Yingtai, and as you've already guessed, the guy's name is Liang Shanbo." He looks back to where Arthur is. The green eyes were still staring; Horace couldn't believe that the man was actually interested. (After all the westerners find our culture strange, China had said.)
"So...she's disguised as a guy. They meet, Zhu Yingtai starts to get feelings for Liang Shanbo, but she can't confess because-"
"Because he still believes she's a guy. Like in..."
"As You Like It."
"But then he finds out she's a girl and then they're in love. Typical stuff. She gets arranged into another marriage, he dies of heartbreak. It so happens that the route to her marriage site is just along his grave, and somehow she can't get beyond that point, so she asks people to dig it up and she jumps into it, and..."
"Butterflies."
"Yeah."
Secretly, secretly, he thinks it's a very beautiful story, and wants to think that the spirit of lovers could turn into butterflies and fly away. Secretly he is jealous of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai, but that is corny. That is idealistic.
That is not for him.
"Can I ask you something?"
"Of course. Sometimes I wonder how on earth your boss survives with you being so quiet at times."
"Out of all of your former charges, you still care for America the most right?"
Silence.
There was no denial of it, was there? After all, he was the one that England fussed over the most. The child that never grew up, ironic in the way that he did not understand that children were not meant to be heard, but meant to be seen, and America being America the beautiful, was heard and was seen. Some mocking, cruel voice in the back of his head sneered about being able to smell vinegar [1], and that he was a well-off enough country, and that he should be proud. But the teenage body he was trapped in denied him the confidence he should have had as someone who England would fight over with dai kor.
"Rubbish. Don't be obtuse." Arthur spat, looking rather offended.
"I am not an angle."
"So you're trying to pick up on his example now, are you?"
"Neither am I a photocopier." A smirk itched at the side of his mouth.
Hong decided that his well-hidden wit was just as entertaining to irritate England with as his firecrackers.
And no matter how many times he was told not to believe the things he told himself late at night, maybe he does not have to mope over the Butterfly Lovers after all, and as water condenses onto the plastic cover of the dessert, he traces the same numbers over and over again.
Arthur does not have to know yet.
520, 520, 520, 1314.
[1] When one says that they can 'smell vinegar', it means that someone is jealous. XD I shall not spoil what the numbers mean, but if you can figure out, you're either awesome or awesome. ovo I might continue this from England's point of view, but I think I should stop writing cheesy one-shots soon.
Review m'dears!