Broken Mirror
Chapter 2
England found himself walking trough the darkened streets of Berlin, a quite small cardboard box on his hands. The argument with America was still roaming through his mind. He went into the hotel he was staying for the meeting and made his way up the stairs and walking through a large corridor, stopping at one of the doors and opening it with a key that had the number 35B on it . "Why do I feel like this? I don't see why that comment has to affect me, I mean… He's told me things way worse than that."
He entered his room closing the door behind him and placing the box he was carrying on the nightstand, he walked over the red carpet to the bathroom taking off his shirt to take a bath and looked at the person that looked straight at him in the mirror."What is happening to me?", he stood there for a moment when he heard his phone ring.
The british went back to the room and picked up his phone from the bed.
"Hello?"
"Bounjor Mon Cher!", the familiar french accent on the other side of the phone sang happily.
"Hey France, what is it?", he said with a slight irritated tone while going back to the bathroom, turning on the hot water, his cellphone on his ear.
"Someone is at ze end of his tether", the blond said with a teasing voice.
"Just tell me what do you want", the english said trying to make his voice calm and relaxed, he wasn't in the mood for talking to anyone right now, specially France.
"Well, 'Mr. Leave me alone I'm better zan you' I was just calling to let you know zat we'll be having a get-together tomorrow, right after the conference, so you should really come", the french said with the same playful tone on his voice, that only made the english more annoyed.
"I'm not in the mood", he said placing his change of clothes on top of the well-made bed and sitting down staring at the floor, not looking at anything in particular.
"For some reason..I knew you were going to say zat", the frenchman said letting out a sigh as he sat up from the sofa he was leaning on."Does zis have anything to do with your 'fight' today with America?", he said more seriously.
England shot his head up, wide-eyed at the question,"Of course not! Why would that have to do with this?!", he shouted as he threw one hand and waving it above his head, a slight blush on his cheeks.
"Because mon cher", he smirked,"whenever someone talks about him to you, you blush"
"What are you saying?!", England blushed even deeper, even though the french was not looking at him, France knew he was blushing now."What are you implying?!", England couldn't find a way to stop blushing, he was about to throw the phone out the window but tried to stay calm.
"I'm not implying anything, but you should really think of why that happens to you", France said before saying goodnight and hanging up leaving the english man with his mind clouded with thoughts.
He put the phone back in the bed and stood up heading to the bathroom, slowly dragging his feet on the cool tiles of the floor and went in the tub, feeling the already-running warm water run down his slightly tanned skin, he took a long hot bath to help him relax which never seemed to happen as France's words kept running through his mind and making him more confused than before he'd received the call. He turned off the water and got a towel to dry himself, putting the towel over his head and ruffling his hair to dry it he walked out of the bathroom.
Back in his room, he glanced at the packet he was carrying before. He went to the bed and put on his pajamas then walked up to the box and lifted up to examine it carefully not to drop it as he sat down and put it in his lap. The packet had no return address, it only said it was for him, the maid, of the building the conference was held on, came to him at the time he was about to leave.
"She said she found it at the front of my office", he muttered to himself as he leant down to take out some scissors from one of the drawers of the nightstand beside his bed. He looked at the box on his lap once more before cutting the tape that held the two lids together. It seemed like whoever sent the box was in a hurry because there were scrambled papers on top, of what seemed to be another box, and on the sides.
'I guess they didn't wanted it to break?', he thought as he removed all the paper on the box before taking out the smaller box out carefully placing it on the bed. England looked back inside the box and he noticed a neatly folded paper that was on the very bottom with handwriting on it, he took it out and read silently:
'I've thought about this a lot, and honestly I don't want this to keep going on between us. The fact that you know almost everything about me doesn't mean I am the same person I was when I lived with you. There is no way I can ever turn into someone you want me to be. Since I became independent you won't stop trying to remind me of what I do wrong now and supposedly you taught me to do right. I can't keep up with this anymore. If you liked so much what happened in the past then keep it, I don't want to have anything to do with it or with you.'
England read the letter over and over with a confused and worried look on his face not able to determine who had sent the packet.
"Unless…..", the english turned his head slowly to look at the small box he had taken out before and placed on the bed, eyes widening in shock as his suspicions were affirmed about the object on the bed at his side. It was the exact same puppet box he had once given America as a gift when he was a child. He felt his whole body trembling and his heart gave a sharp painful thud, his vision blurred as his eyes started welling up with tears rapidly wiping them away with the sleeve of his pajamas, reading the letter over and over to see if hopefully there was some kind of mistake, there wasn't. Everything was all clear. America didn't want to see him ever again.
~0~
Italy jogged tiredly not feeling his legs anymore but somehow kept running behind the german who encouraged him to go faster, which didn't seemed to be paying attention to what he was doing either. None of them were really attentive to what was happening around them lately. Their minds kept going back to last night, Italy was quite used to be ignored by Germany but this time it was different, like if something was missing and many things that hadn't been said. They had been invited to a get-together that same day in the evening after the conference, France had been very insistent that both of them went. The german, as always was not in the mood for going but Italy thought it could be fun since they weren't going to see most of them in a long time until the next meeting, so Germany accepted forcefully. That morning both had been running in silence for quite a long time by now and were evading each other's eyes. Italy wanted to talk but he didn't know what to say exactly or how to say it, specially because of last night's incident, he didn't want to make the other man angry again so he kept silently jogging behind like usual.
"So…", Germany said breaking the silence between the two, his voice almost a whisper wishing Italy hadn't heard him and just ignore it, but noticing that the boy behind him was looking at him with questioning eyes he continued, trying not to sound nervous, "where are you..uhh.. Going after we leave,and before we..um..start training again?"
"uhh?", Italy blinked several times as he realized that the blond was asking him a question but his mind didn't seem to want to answer it.
Germany repeated the question a little more confident as Italy listened closely trying to find words and gain courage to answer the question properly without looking like a fool, 'which I bet I already am', he thought.
"Ohh!…umm…well I was thinking about going home…to spend time with my fratello", Italy said awkwardly snapping out of his thoughts as he caught the german's eyes, removing a strand of hair off his sweaty face, he slowed down to be able to catch his breath before start to run again.
"Oh"
"What about you Germany?", the italian boy asked hoping he wouldn't get one of the german's usual short and simple answers which didn't really help to start a conversation.
The tall man though for a moment before glancing at the place he had started running sighing in relief. "Vell, I guess I'm going home too, there's a lot to do und I don't want to get behind in all the work.", Germany said stopping, finishing his daily laps and walked towards his stuff packed in a small green bag, taking out a water bottle he began chugging down on the liquid while sitting down, he usually didn't have awkward conversations with Italy, but when he had he just ignored it and tried to act normal around the Italian, but this time it didn't seem to be working,"Plus, I want to make sure my bruther hasn't got in any trouble either".
"Ohh..". Italy felt the awkwardness come back as she sat down next to Germany,'What am I supposed to say anyway? Should I ask him so I won't get confused later? But..what am I going to say? I don't want him to get mad at me again', he struggled thinking of what to say as he turned to face the german who sat peacefully looking at the rising sun, since it was early in the morning it had been a little dark outside, when they started their exercise it was around 5:10 a.m. and now it was probably 7:00 o'clock.
"Um..Germany?", Italy spoke up with a serious but low voice, looking at the ground hoping the words he wanted to say were there.
Germany turned to look at him in surprise for the serious tone on his voice.
"What is it Italy?", worry started to show on his face, but it went away as the other nation continued to speak, not calmer than before.
"C-Can I ask you a question?", Italy knew he had to do this but it was so difficult that it felt like it was going to ruin everything and make Germany hate him, however if he didn't talk he would be haunted by those feelings for the rest of his life, and that would probably feel the same thing as being rejected.
"Okay, ja ask me", Germany shifted so he was facing the italian who seemed to be thinking really hard on what he was going to say, he wasn't really sure if he wanted to answer whatever the smaller nation wanted to ask him."Vell..?", he said waiting for Italy to respond which seemed that it was never going to happen.
The northern country hesitated slightly before raising his head and lock his eyes with the german's, feeling slightly embarrassed as his cheeks flushed pink.
"Well I wanted to ask you..",
"Hey Japan!", Germany interrupted waving at the asian who approached them behind Italy, giving him a thankful smile, for he had saved him from having another awkward conversation with the child-like country sitting in front of him.
"Ohayōgozaimasu", Japan greeted and smiling at both of them receiving a quite sad look from the italian's eyes but with a welcoming smile.
"Hey Japan!", Italy said as he got up from the grass slowly and lazily, then gave Japan one of his trademark hugs, as Japan returned the hug he glanced at the blond standing beside them and looked at him questioningly before breaking the hug and sitting down near the spot Italy had been sitting before.
"I just wanted to ask if you would like to come with me to the hotel's restaurant for breakfast, I assumed that you would be done by now so I thought you'd be hungry", Japan smiled fondly at both of them.
"Ja, that's a good idea, should we go then?", Germany got up from the floor and motioned them to go inside with him.
"Your question will have to wait Italy", he whispered to the italian before walking inside the hotel lobby after the asian, leaving Italy behind.
Italy looked at the german leave sadly,"Sì... It always does..", he sighed and followed them inside the tall building.
