Theme 7: Heaven
I was overwhelmed by the amount of birthday cards people sent in. There was one with something written in rather bad Chinese, but from what I could make out it seemed to be from my other stepbrother of sorts (whose birthday was also today). America's was naturally the largest, with something written in English on the inside. I doubted he remembered that not everyone in the world spoke English.
Come to think of it, I couldn't read most of these, although Yao and Kiku had helped translate the ones that were in English. I could tell they'd left some (probably foul) words out of England's card and Yao refused to even look at what France sent me. I wasn't too eager to find out anyway.
"This one is from the Italies, although I'm fairly sure that Veneziano-kun designed it; Romano-san wouldn't do something like this."
"Russia sent you one, aru! Although…it's written in Russian…I'll ask him what he wrote at the next meeting, aru."
"Ah! This one is from Germany and Prussia! Germany says 'happy birthday, Hong Kong,' I believe. It's hard to tell, because Prussia wrote all over the entire inside of the card…"
"Kaoru? What's all this?" Mei's voice startled me.
"Birthday cards," I answered.
Not two seconds later I was tackled by someone who was now shouting something in my ear that sounded like "HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DA ZE!"
"YONG SOO!" Mei yelled.
"Yong Soo, get off of your brother, aru!"
I simply flipped him over my shoulder and flat onto his back on the floor.
"No fair, Kaoru!"
"You tackled me first. How is that not fair?"
"He's got a point, aru."
"Aniki, don't take his side!"
The quarrel only ended when Linh came out of her bedroom threatening to starve us all if we didn't stop fighting. That successfully got Yong Soo and Yao's attention.
Dinner wasn't any different, really. Yong Soo kept trying to grope Yao and Kiku; Mei and Linh sat back and laughed; and I tried to eat my bánh bột chiên as fast as possible. With all the noise and chaos, a stranger would think we hated each other, but it was just a normal occurrence in the house, and I was used to it.
A small smile crept on my face as Mei tried to pry Yong Soo off of Kiku. Yes, we were a completely dysfunctional family, but we were still a family. I wouldn't trade them for anyone else in the world.
A/N: Kaoru = Hong Kong, and Linh = Vietnam, if you don't remember from the previous stories.
I know it might not seem like it has anything to do with the prompt, but the ending was supposed to tie it in. I can see the connection, but that's probably because I wrote it.
So in my haste to write a Canada birthday fic, I forgot all about poor Hong Kong! D: I was looking for inspiration for both a birthday fic for him and for theme 7, and poof! The idea to use the theme for his birthday was born!
...yeah.
And I realize that bánh bột chiên is Vietnamese food. I imagine that, if they were to live in the same house, they'd take turns doing the cooking, meaning they'd get some of each other's dishes once in a while. Wikipedia describes it as "A Chinese influenced pastry that exists in many versions all over Asia; the Vietnamese version features a special tangy soy sauce on the side, rice flour cubes with fried eggs and some vegetables."
