Title:
There's No Escaping It

Author:
LoveAnime18

Rating:
PG-13

Warnings:
Gakuen AU. Human Names.

Notes:
Continuing my contribution to the RoChu Secret Santa. My lovely recipient is still dare_de_chu_ka on the LJ. I'll come back and edit any off grammar this have fic has. This part is much longer than the last, so this should hopefully appease you guys a bit more. There's one more part after this.


It's been a few months since that faithful morning Yao and Ivan established their mutual friendship. Yao only wished he could call it stable, he has been doing nothing but hiding his friendship with his Asian siblings. Yong Soo went ballistic at the very mention at Ivan's name, so Yao couldn't very well tell them that he was friends with him once again.

Yao made sure to get up early to meet with Ivan in the morning; he would then part ways and meet up with Yong Soo for breakfast, and then meet up with Ivan again in class. Since they had almost all their classes together, Yao got ample time with Ivan during the school day. He would then run off to meet his Asian siblings, and did something productive like homework, or went out to eat. After that, Yao would retire to his room, where he would see Ivan once more before calling it a night, and repeating the cycle the next morning.

It was tiring, yes. But Yao was willing to do this day in and out for Ivan. It was a gnawing feeling inside of Yao that urged him to go day in and day out following this schedule, making sure not to make the slightest change at all.

"Yao, you mentioned having a big family before, da?" Ivan asked as he was leaning on the coffee table in front of him. Yao turned around from the coffee maker—which he used to boil water to make tea—to face Ivan. His face was covered in curiosity.

"Only Mei and Xiang are blood related to me, but I grew up with Yong Soo, and Kiku and they're children of close family friends, so I'm like a big brother to them, aru," Yao explained.

"They sound like nice people from your stories~" Ivan smiled. "They go to school here, da?"

"Everyone, but Xiang, aru. He's starting next year," Yao replied.

"Could I meet them?" Ivan asked.

"No!" Yao replied a bit too quickly. "I mean—I would prefer it if you didn't. At least for now, aru."

Allowing Ivan to meet anyone in his family would be catastrophic and who knows what will happen when Ivan and Yong Soo meet. Yao didn't even want to think about it; just hope for the best and in the remaining year and a half left at World Academy.

Yao hesitantly looked back into Ivan's gaze. He seemed more confused than anything else, which Yao figured it was probably the result from his outburst. Something Yao couldn't blame him for being confused by.

Yao was happy when he eventually saw Ivan shrugged, and completely dropped the meeting family topic. Yao poured some tea for him and Ivan and sat across from him at the coffee table and gave him his cup of tea.

"You'll just have to meet my sisters instead then," Ivan said abruptly, which caused Yao to almost spit his tea out.

From what he could remember when they played together as kids, his older sister, Katyusha was nice enough, but his younger sister, Natalia was crazy. She would always give him these death glares whenever Yao went over to their house, and would shove him away from Ivan when they "got too close." Yao subconsciously shuddered at the thought of meeting Natalia again. But that wasn't the only reason; Yao was lucky that Ivan didn't remember him, but what about his sisters. If they recognized him then it was game over, and their friendship would come to a complete halt.

Yao knew he had to prevent himself from meeting Ivan's sisters and Ivan from meeting his family. "It's only going to get tougher from here on out," Yao thought to himself.

Yao didn't really how much tougher it was going to get in the time span of ten minutes when he heard a knock on the door. He got up from his seat, and when he opened the door, there was Yong Soo standing right before him.

"Yong Soo!" Yao said in a surprised tone.

"Hey Aniki," Yong Soo greeted, ignoring Yao's shock. Quickly Yao pushed Yong Soo out of the doorway and slammed the door behind him. This wasn't good. He never thought Yong Soo would come to his room after spending the entire afternoon with him. Yao cursed under his breath unsure of what to do.

"Is there something wrong Yao?" Ivan asked.

"Not at all, aru," Yao replied.

Ivan narrowed his eyes, and gazed right back into Yao's golden eyes. Yao could tell with that way that Ivan was staring at him that he didn't believe his lie and knew something was up.

"Tell me the truth Yao," Ivan said sternly.

"It's nothing you need to concern yourself with, really, aru" Yao said.

"Jao," Ivan said gravely, which made Yao jump at his foreign sounding name. He only called him that when he was getting irritated. "I don't like being lied to."

"I-" Yao was interrupted by banging on his door.

"Aniki. Why did you slam the door on me?" Yao heard Yong Soo yell from the other side of the door as he continued to pound the door like no tomorrow.

"Ivan, I don't have time to explain, aru," Yao said, rushing over to Ivan. "I just need to get you out of here. Now."

"I don't understand Yao," Ivan said in a confused tone, anger subsided.

"Just trust me, please, aru," Yao said.

Ivan stared at Yao once again, eventually he gave a nod in agreement, "Ok, but you promise to explain later, da?"

"Of course," Yao replied. He wasn't sure how exactly he was, but Yao was sure he could think of something that wouldn't be an outright lie, but not exactly the full truth later on.

Just as Ivan was getting up, Yao heard a loud thump behind him. He hoped to god that wasn't what he thought it was. Slowly, Yao turned around to see Yong Soo at the standing where his door used to be; he slowly looked down to see his door in the floor. At the quick glance he took at it, he could tell right away he was going to need new hinges for his door.

"Aniki are you alright?!" Yong Soo exclaimed.

"What the heck Yong Soo?! You broke my door, aru!" Yao yelled. Obviously, Yong Soo was spending too much time with that America, Alfred since Alfred was notorious for breaking down doors in their school.

"But you slammed the door on me, so I thought something was wrong," Yong Soo replied. Ok maybe slamming the door on Yong Soo's face wasn't the best idea. He had an overactive imagination, and knowing him, Yong So probably thought he was being attacked by rouge ninjas or something.

"Yao is this one of your siblings?" Ivan asked, standing up to get a better look at the new guest inside his friend's dorm room. Yao quickly turned around to Ivan, he forgot about him for that split second while talking to Yong Soo.

"No one you need to concern yourself with, aru," Yao said.

"What are you talking about Aniki? Your b-" Yong Soo stopped mid-sentence when he had a look at Ivan's face. Yong Soo's fist clenched, and gave the nastiest glare to Ivan.

"What's your name?" Yong Soo asked in a dangerously low tone.

Ivan stared at him for a minute, and smiled ignoring the obvious threatening-look Yong Soo was trying to impose on the Russian, "Ivan Braginski."

At that moment, Yong Soo charged Ivan and tackled him to the ground.

"Yong Soo! What on earth do you think you're doing, aru?!" Yao exclaimed, trying to tug the Korean off his Russian companion. Yao was hoping that Yong Soo wouldn't recognize Ivan; of all people he wanted Yong Soo to not realize this was his childhood friend. Over the years, Yong Soo always said the first thing he would do the next time he would meet Ivan would be punching him square in the face.

"Aniki! Don't you realize who this is?!" Yong Soo exclaimed.

"Yong Soo, you're acting childish, get off of Ivan immediately, aru!" Yao demanded.

"No Aniki! He's the one who broke your heart! How can you give him this opportunity again?!" Yong Soo yelled.

"What exactly are you two talking about?" Ivan asked, obviously unaffected that he was pinned to the ground. It was apparent that Ivan was not using any of his strength at all. If he really wanted to, he could push Yong Soo off him, and cause some real damage, but he knew this was a special person to Yao, so he didn't want to hurt him.

"Don't act stupid!" Yong Soo replied angrily. "You were the reason Aniki was depressed for so long!"

"Yong Soo, that's enough, aru," Yao said.

"No it's not Aniki. How can you stand by and let him hurt you again?" Yong Soo asked.

"I'm not sure what you're talking about. I only met Yao when I came here to World Academy," Ivan said.

"Cut the crap! I know you're lying!" Yong Soo yelled.

"Yong Soo, get off of Ivan now, aru," Yao said, sternly.

"Not until he admits to the horrible things he's done to you!" Yong Soo said angrily.

"I'm not sure what exactly I did wrong comrade," Ivan said calmly. "You can explain what I did wrong, da?"

"That's it!" Yong Soo yelled, as he raised his fist, and just as he was about to punch Ivan in the face, he found himself thrown back and laying on the floor with Yao on top of him.

"Aniki what are you doing?!" Yong Soo exclaimed.

"Stopping you from doing something stupid, aru," Yao explained. "Do you really think you can hurt Ivan? You'll be the one in the nurse's office if you escalate this fight any longer."

"But Aniki-" Yong Soo started.

"But nothing!" Yao interrupted. He got off from Yong Soo and eyed him until he got up from the floor. "Now go back to your room. I'll talk to you later."

"Aniki-" Yong Soo said weakly.

"GO!" Yao yelled at the top of his lungs, and at that Yong Soo ran out the room. He knew Yao had very good patience. After all, Yao did put up with him, but Yong Soo knew once Yao's patience was running thin, he should not test his luck since Yao went pretty insane whenever he got pissed off.

Once Yong Soo left, Yao sighed, and hesitantly looked back at Ivan. What could he possibly tell him? With Yong Soo's actions it was going to be hard to come up with a story to explain everything that just unfolded. Ivan would surely want some answers, especially answers to what Yong Soo was going on about.

"Ivan are you ok, aru?" Yao asked. That was one place to start.

"I'm fine," Ivan replied. "But what was your brother going on about? Did I hurt you in someway the past couple of months?"

"No, you didn't. I can assure you that, aru," Yao replied, as he grabbed Ivan's hand. Ivan gripped Yao's hand, and gazed into his eyes.

"Tell me Yao, what was your brother going on about?" Ivan asked. "And don't lie to me. I'll know if you're lying or not."

There really was no way around it now. Yao had to tell the truth, and come clean. Something he probably should have done from the start. Yao looked back into the Russian's eyes; nervousness was written all over his face. It was now or never Yao supposed.

"Ivan, I've been deceiving you this entire time, aru," Yao said. Ivan gave him a curious look, but said nothing, and waited for Yao to continue. "I led you to believe that the first time we met was here at World Academy, but the truth is when we were children we were very close friends."

"Why keep something like that from me Yao?" Ivan asked.

"I was afraid what would happen if you knew," Yao replied. "At first I completely avoided you since I didn't want to face you, but soon enough I realized you didn't recognize me, which did hurt, but I thought it would just make avoiding you easier then, aru."

"What made you change your mind?" Ivan asked.

"A few months ago when you asked if we were friends, and it made me realize that I still wanted to be friends with you, aru," Yao answered. "At that moment I didn't care anymore that you moved away and stopped sending me letters. I just wanted to be with you again."

Before Yao knew it, Ivan grabbed Yao's arm, and tugged him closer to him, so that he was in his embrace. Ivan wrapped one arm around Yao's small body and the placed his free hand on his head. Yao couldn't see it, but he could feel the Russian's happiness; he could feel Ivan's smiling face on his head.

"Yao, Yao, Yao," Every time Ivan said his name his voice got happier and happier. "Моё золотце"

At that, Yao was filled with overwhelming happiness; "Моё золотце" was the nickname Ivan used for him as kids. Ivan did remember.

"I've been looking for you for a very long time," Ivan said. "I'm sorry for not recognizing you, Моё золотце."

"You remember, and that's all that matters," Yao smiled, and that's how he honestly felt. Yao was just happy to know that he wasn't just some passing friend, someone who meant something to Ivan; that Ivan treasured their friendship as much as Yao did.


Extra Notes

[1] Had to give unnamed countries some names so here we go:

+ Taiwan - Mei

+ Hong Kong - Xiang

+ Ukraine - Katyusha

[2] Моё золотце translates literally as "My Gold" but can also translate as "My Dear" and "My Precious."