*About this update: These next two chapters were originally one chapter. At first I thought about splitting this into two when it hit 3000 words, then I got stubborn and wanted to get back to chapter one events ASAP, then as it passed 4000, I decided, "This is ridiculous; no way I'm making them do 4000 at one time."
Raise your hand if you normally ignore the A/Ns at the tops of new chapteeers! *Raises hand* III dooo, but I write them anywaaay! I'm a hypocriiite!*
"…I mean, why the hell would you even invite her to stay over here! You know that something like that would stress me majorly! Now I'm going to have to go and get a hotel room, and…"
Prussia had gone on a three minute-long rant on why Germany was the worst little brother in the history of forever for even thinking about offering Hungary a place to stay, and there didn't seem to be any end in sight. After another 30 seconds of him steaming about how "unawesome" this whole thing was, once Germany was thoroughly annoyed, he finally interrupted him.
"Or, maybe I thought, I don't know, you could be a mature adult about the situation instead of turning our home into a 'No Girls Allowed' fortress."
"Germanyyy, even you know that this is different! This is Hungary! It's not like I'm afraid of cooties or something like that!"
"I think your fear of 'cooties' is what's been causing your problems with her. Either way, I don't see how this is any different than any other time you've been around her. She is here for diplomatic reasons, so she'll be in meetings with me most of the day."
"But I've never slept over with her in the same house before! Not since we were kids, and I thought she was a boy then! Plus I didn't have a choice. We were stranded in the woods, and ended up fighting all night." Mentioning Hungary in the same sentence as a sleepover brought images of a tired Hungary, yawning and curling up in her bed, so tired that she didn't mind having some company to snuggle with as they drifted off to-
NO. Just… just no.
"So, like you said, you could get a hotel room, or stay at a friend's, or act like a man instead of a boy, and stop running away from your problems!" Prussia groaned in response. Germany knew running away like a little bitch was not Prussia's style, and he knew Prussia knew that he knew that. As emotionally stifled as he was, Germany could bend Prussia around his little finger with hardly any effort at all. Only when it came to his big brother was he such a genius at psychological torture.
"I also think that it's time you finished that letter."
"Huh? Ohhh, you mean that one that I SUCK AT WRITING!"
"Yes." He ignored his brothers angry retort. "You've been getting along relatively well with her recently, haven't you?"
That was true. They were probably having the most peaceful, dare he say friendly, period they'd had a in a long time. "Yes…?"
"If you write the letter, don't blow up at her in these next few days; perhaps be nice to her for once, and give it to her when she leaves, maybe she'll accept it. At the very worst, she won't kill you. The better her mood, the better it is for you."
"When did you suddenly get with the romance-savvy, Germany?" Prussia asked, dubiously. Such advice was extremely out of character of his brother, who hadn't seemed to have a romantic bone in his body since he was a child.
"I may not be France, but I have common sense."
"Mm …" Prussia thought about what Germany was saying. It did make sense. Maybe he'd give the whole thing one more go. He'd suffered enough blows to his ego, especially since he wasn't much of a country anymore, to where his superiority complex had died down. Although he still put up the façade of acting like he was the world's greatest gift, it wasn't as serious as it used to be. Maybe he could finally get this stupid letter thing done.
Prussia did go back to his room and put pen to paper once more. A couple of days later, Hungary arrived. And of course, he wasn't done. His writing was closer to what he was looking for, but still nowhere near what he wanted it to be. He greeted her and helped her carry her bags in, then immediately retreated back to his room to continue working. Italy was also visiting for a few days, so Prussia knew that he didn't have to save the two from his brother's awkwardness in one-on-one conversation.
Another day passed, and Prussia had been working tirelessly. Once again, his trashcan was filled to the top. He'd gone back to the letters he'd written so long ago, now yellowed and delicate from so many years. He'd thrown many of those out along with his new failures. They weren't helping.
"Break time," he moaned, on the afternoon of Hungary's second day of visiting. "He simply stood up, turned around stiffly, and walked out of the room. 'And on this day,' he thought to himself, 'Not a single awesome fuck was given.' It may have been a cliché thought, but hey, it applied. He decided to take a quick run to a nearby restaurant, and grab some quick takeout. Come back, wash it down with some beer, and numb his mind with a little television.
Now, Prussia had been able to have so much privacy while Hungary was around, mainly because Germany had told her that he was busy with something in his room and wouldn't be available to talk much. Therefore as of yet, she hadn't bothered him. What Prussia didn't know before he left the house was that today, the other three were still home.
It all started a few months ago in Italy. Veneziano and Romano had received some tomato sauce from England as a birthday present. Of course, they were afraid to even open the thing, let alone allow it to potentially disgrace their pasta. Fast forward to when Italy left to come over to Germany's a few days ago, and Romano, mad that Italy was going to spend time with Germany, had switched out the good tomato sauce Italy had packed with the stuff England made. Upon eating it, the poor Italian's stomach had gotten incredibly offended. Seriously. Offended. There was nothing actually wrong with the tomato sauce; it was just a bit bland. But Italy's stomach had launched a mutiny over it, and Hungary and Germany were staying home to take care of him; Germany was keeping him from freaking out over his nightmares of Britain's army of evil box of tomatoes fairies trying to kill him, and Hungary had made him some food to undo the damage and calm his stomach.
To keep herself busy since she'd finished cooking, she'd taken to idly tidying up around the house. Germany was extremely neat, and told Hungary that she didn't have to, but Hungary still felt that the place could use "a woman's touch" in tidying up. She'd seen Prussia from the front window, walking away from the house, and figured she could use that opportunity to check to see if his room needed cleaning.
"Ugh! This place is a pigsty!" She eyed the balls of paper littering the floor, flooding from the overfilled trashcan by his desk. A stack of old-looking papers was strewn across his unmade bed. "I guess it's like I always imagined. I figured he'd be more of the neat-and-clean type because of his brother, but those two are as different as night and day as it is." In reality, the room had only started getting messy in the past few days before and since her arrival. Although his room was cluttered, it usually wasn't messy. Prussia was almost as neat as Germany, if a bit of a packrat.
She started by grabbing the trashcan. It only contained paper, so she brought it back to Germany's room to ask where she should take it.
"Germany? Where is your recycling?"
"Hm? Oh, outside, behind the house."
He noticed the bin she was carrying, and he knew at that moment that he had been granted the potential to change the course of the future, and the outcome of Prussia's age-old struggle.
He could tell Hungary that Prussia didn't want anyone else moving his things around while he was working, resulting in her putting the bin back and leaving things how they were, he could say nothing, let her keep cleaning, and increase the likelihood that she'd figure out the contents of the things she was moving, or he could encourage her to take a look at those crumpled balls of paper.
Knowing that the first option could result in another 500 years of the same damn thing, and the third might result in Prussia beating him to a pulp, he opted for the second.
"Thanks!" She continued on her merry way.
"I wonder what all of those balls of paper were," Italy said.
"You may find out soon enough," Germany replied. "By the way, if Prussia asks, neither of us saw that the trash bin was full of paper. Got it?"
Italy was confused, but he agreed. "Um, okay…"
The recycling bins were right behind the house, like Germany had said. Looking down at the mix of papers, she frowned when she looked more closely at the yellower ones. They seemed ancient. 'Why would he still have papers this old?' she thought. 'Are these even recyclable?' She picked one up, feeling the old, coarse linen fibers. 'I'm not sure that they are; I guess I'll throw the older ones away.'
Some of the text on the inside of the ball she was holding had become visible when she was trying to determine what the paper was made from, and it jumped out at her immediately. Only four little letters, but they were the last four of her name, in German: "-garn".
'Was he writing about me?' She opened it up enough to see the beginning of the word. Surely enough, it said "Ungarn": German for Hungary.
"What?" she said loudly. If these papers were as old as they looked, they couldn't have contained anything good. They used to be the most bitter of rivals. "Who was he writing to about me!" She annoyedly tore open (as gently as she could tear open a fragile piece of centuries-old paper) the ball of paper.
"Sehr geehrte Ungarn!
It is me, the great and awesome Prussia. And I have something to tell you. Something has been bothering me for a while now, and I think that because it is your fault, you should know about it. I think I may have somehow accidentally, fallen in love with you. Stupid, right? But I can't stop thinking about it, and it's really annoying. So you should take responsibility for this. I'm far too awesome to be subjected to"
That was where the letter ended before he'd decided to discard it.
She wasn't sure whether to laugh, drop her jaw, or follow any of the other sudden impulses that hit her. They all ended up crowding in her mind, fighting to be her first reaction, and none of them passed through. Her mind was a complete blank.
Finally, a reaction did come to her. And it was to grab another ball of paper and open it. This one was more recent, and was written in imperfect, but legible Hungarian.
'Kedves Magyarország!
Something has been bothering me for a while. A long while. Three hundred years long. Whenever I see you, I freeze up because I don't know what to say. Being around you makes my heart race nervously. I can hide it, from the outside world, but not myself. I have fallen for you. You are adorable when you are angry, and that is my downfall. I just can't keep myself from provoking you, like a schoolboy pulling the pigtails of the girl he likes. I know that made you hate me even more. I've been pretty unawesome to you, especially since I, since we, rather, found out that you are a woman. And I'm sorry for that. If I could do anything, even more than have you, it would be to take away the pain I've caused you from being so stupid. I know one "I'm sorry" won't make it up to you, so please, let me try my hardest every day to make it up to you.'
'Kedves Magyarország,
You'd be surprised to know just how many letters I wrote before this one, how unawesome they all were, and how long I spent trying to get it right. Here goes:
I've loved you since 1526. Yes, nearly 500 years. And I haven't had the balls to tell you until now.
I was afraid that'd I'd hurt you too much in our past, especially since that year. I didn't think you'd ever accept it, and I'd be the source of your laughter for the next thousand years.
It's everything about you that you love. How fierce you are in battle, how fiesty you are in our arguments. Personally, I think you are cutest when you are mad at me. Which might be why the past half-millenium didn't go so well.
All of the letters I've written so far came out too sappy or too insensitive. I'm sure this one sucks too. And I know you're probably laughing your ass off at me right now, or thinking that this is some sort of practical joke. It's not. Please, allow me to prove it to you by attending America and Canada's birthday party with me this weekend. Give me at least a chance to show that I'm not as bad as I seem.'
America and Canada's birthday party… This third letter could have been from any of the past few years, but Hungary had a feeling that this one was recent. Past few days recent. They'd received an invite e-mail on the day she arrived. It could be a coincidence, or she may be about to find herself in a situation she most certainly hadn't planned on.
*Interesting side note: The proper way to write a German greeting for a letter used to be with an exclamation point in place of a comma, until modern times.
Sorry for the meh ending, but don't forget that this and the next chapter is really supposed to be one long chapter. I just picked something that was in the middle of the story, and I was planning on putting a line break there anyway, so it made a suitable chapter break point.
How did this story get to be so long? How did these chapters get to be so long! I was originally planning on this whole story being less than 5000 words and like, three chapters. Looks more like 15000, with at least six chapters, three alternate endings, and a possible sidestory oneshot. Oops.*
