"Big brother~ big brooother~" The taunting voice of Ivan's sister flew throughout the house.
The sudden appearance of the voice, startled the nation, causing him to tense, and ready himself to hide from her.

"Do not be worrying over it, Ivan~ I'm here with her." Came the calm, slightly annoyed voice of his older sister.
Ivan was hit with a rush of relief, knowing he wasn't going to be left alone with his younger sister.

"I hope we didn't wake you~" Katyusha called to him from the kitchen.
Ivan groggily rose from the arm chair that he'd fallen asleep in, looking back and forth to make sure Natalia was not blocking his pathway.

"Nyet… it's fine." He called back to her, half cheerful, half still tired.

He heard Katyusha mutter something to their younger sister, and then she entered the living room where Ivan was.

She frown a bit when she finally registered how dark it was in Ivan's house.
She shook her head, opening the curtains, going around the house fixing the dark house.

"You shouldn't be keeping it so dark in here, Ivan. It's not very good for your eyes." She said, slightly sounding as if she was scolding.

Ivan admired his older sister, she still acted as a mother so many years after he and Natalia's childhood days were over.

She tilted her head innocently, and started to brush Ivan's overgrown bangs out of his eyes.
He grunted in reply slightly startled, and grabbed her hand gently, slowly pushing it back down to her side where it belonged.

"I'm fine, don't worry about me." He shrugged, smiling slightly just to reassure the worried girl before him, that was his sister.

Ivan sighed a bit, wishing Katyusha wouldn't worry about him so much. What was the point of worrying about someone like him? He pushed aside his negative thoughts, remembering that he was supposed to meet Yao that day.

He and the older Chinese nation had discussed setting a date to talk over tea of their plans to get better defense for his land.

At the moment, he was wide open.
The younger nation had pressed him to set a closer date to talk about defense, but Yao had insisted that Japan wouldn't attack anytime soon.

Ivan had been unsure of the idea of waiting, but respected China's wishes.
Though, he wished he had more excuses to visit the smaller man.
He was interesting, and didn't cower away from him, as other nations and people did.

What intrigued him Russia further was the fact that Yao was beautiful, and fragile looking, like a porcelain doll, but he somehow knew that there was more to him than that.
Though, the smaller man tended to seem emotionally fragile in his situation, that was to be expected.

But Ivan had flashes of the strong beautiful older nation who had cared for him as a child.
Back in those days, Yao would smile softly at Ivan… but ever since their new alliance had been formed, a smaller from the older nation seemed like a rare thing, indeed.

It worried Ivan, made him feel like Yao had maybe… changed… he wanted to prevent him from changing further.
And above all, he would be sure to make sure the older nation smiled at him again.

He counted on that.

…

"He's been what?" Ivan demanded, surprised, as he looked into the eyes of a younger nation that resembled Yao slightly.

The nation known as Vietnam, who had introduced herself as "Lien Chung" shook her head.

"I am sorry we didn't get word to you sooner, Yao cannot have a meeting with you today, he is…very sick.." She informed the taller nation.

Ivan went silent for a moment.
Yao was sick? How? Why?

"You are Ivan, right?" Lien Chung broke the silence after a moment, and caught Ivan's attention.
The tall nation nodded.
"Da." He answered, still in a bit of a daze, trying to figure out what was wrong with his friend.

"Ah, I have heard of you. Not just from my brother." She told him.

"Uh.. Yao." She answered quickly, her cheeks flushing slightly red from embarrassment when she realized she hadn't informed Ivan that Yao was her older brother, before referring to him as so.

"Yao is my brother, he raised me when I was younger." She explained fully.

"Oh? It's nice to meet you, I suppose." Ivan smiled slightly, nodding at the shorter Asian nation.
The quiet, seemingly collected younger nation went off in a daze once more.

"I'm sorry…" Ivan broke her away from the silence once more.

"I was just wondering… I will be able to get in contact with Yao soon, da?"
Lien Chun blinked.
"Well, when Aniki recovers you can see him," She informed.

Ivan narrowed his eyes, suspicious.

"Why didn't he get in contact with me to tell he was sick?" Ivan asked.

Lien Chun's eyes went downward, as she stared at her shoes, debating whether or not it would be right to tell Ivan the situation.

"Well…" She said, softly.
"Since you're Aniki's ally, I suppose I have to tell you the truth..."

A/N: I feel so bad, guise... I took so long to update... I blame my play... hormones, and a lot of other things. My life was sort of like, crazy for awhile, there, guise, so I want to say sorry for not updating. I promise, I'm not quitting this story, if you had lost all hope in me or something.
I just have things going on in my real life, thats all. But it's over now, so I'll give regular updates again. As well as to my other story. "All Those Broken Memories" if you're a follower of that. So please accept this short update. More soon, guise. Until then...