OK, so I had this idea about Japan and I couldn't help but upload it. I'm probably gonna be lazy about writing it judging by how long it took me to get off my lazy $$ and make this chapter. I am so sorry about that. It's gonna be a dark fic if you didn't guess, but this chapter won't really be dark at all. I censored references to controversial topics so I wouldn't offend anyone, but the fact that I'm writing this kinda makes it a moot point :/ Anyway, I hope you enjoy so read along.
Do I really need to say "I don't own Hetalia"? I mean, come on, this is a fanfiction on a site whose very purpose is for people to upload fanfictions. Was it not obvious?
When you choose your friends, don't be short-changed by choosing personality over character.
W. Somerset Maugham
Ah, the day was so lovely. The cherry blossoms, or sakura, as my people and I call them, were finally in bloom, signalling the beginning of Spring (which is fantastic, since Winter is incredibly cold) and a light breeze was blowing.
I was walking in a park at this time. Many of my people and some visitors had come as well, and they were also enjoying the day. Some were quiet in respect, others were talking amongst themselves.
In all honesty, I quite enjoyed it. Of course, I would be interrupted.
"Hey, it's Kiku! HEY KIKUUUUUU!"
"Shut up, you idiot! Do you want to wake the whole neighborhood?"
"It's almost noon, no one's asleep. And besides, I don't think he saw me."
"You never know," Arthur-san muttered, looking at the fourth wall.
I should have expected so much. I turned to see the two and others on a blanket. Naturally, I decided to act as if I was not disturbed.
"Oh, good morning Alfred-kun, Arthur-san. I see the two of you and a...large amount of company have visited this park as werr.*"
"Sorry about that." Arthur-san started, "Alfred tagged along and invited Matthew (I think he's next to me),Catherine, and a certain pervert who just happened to invite some more people, namely Antonio, Gilbert, Feliciano, and Lovino. Did I mention Gilbert also invited Ludwig? They brought their own blankets. Also Ruth and Amanda asked to come, too."
Cathy, as she apparently likes to be called, muttered something about a nickname, while a pair of suntanned young girls made a similar complaint about foreign names.
They were seated on the blanket as well. One (Ruth?) wore a plain white dress with short sleeves and a matching hat, and had a pin of a star with six points attached to the dress. The other (Amanda?) had a longer gray one with a black bonnet.
I was more concerned about the 'invitations', though. "I see these invitations grew out of your controrr," I remarked.
"Yes. Yes they did." Arthur glared at Alfred.
"Heh heh. Yeah, if I'd known we'd end up with every country in Western Europe in one park, I probably would have called first. Or at least not have told Francis," Alfred stated, smiling anyway (albeit sweatdropping).
I looked at Cathy-san. She wore a white blouse with another sleeveless tan one over it, both of which appeared to be made of cotton. Her skirt was brown and had cloth flowers sewn onto it. She looked like Alfred, only she had no glasses and the loose slick in her hair pointed down, and she was somewhat shorter. We'd see each other at the League of Nations sometimes, but not often. I had recently resigned from it, so these occasional meetings would likely decline.
"Sit down, Kiku," she said. I did. The various Western nations talked amongst themselves. I was wondering why I felt there was a foot under me...
"Uh, Kiku. You're sitting on my foot," someone muttered, barely audible. I looked around me for a while until I saw a translucent nation. I assumed it was Matthew-san (not that I knew who he was) and moved.
"Oh, gomen nasai. You are Matthew-san, correct?"
"Yes. (He recognized me!)"
"It is nice to meet you. (Is he really that unknown?)"
"I was thinking the same thing. (He's not a good conversationalist, is he? Well, this talk is going end quickly. Maple.)"
(That was true. I usually only said what was necessary, but he was rather quiet for a nation of his status.)
I took note of his name, expecting that I would need to remember it for later. I looked at him and noticed the white bear he was holding. He apparently realized this, having responded, "Oh, uh, this is Kima...Kura..."
"Kumajirou," the bear answered.
"Thank you."
"Who are you? Oh, and you're welcome, by the way."
"I'm Matthew."
"He talks?"
"Yes. He usually asks for my name, like he did just now. He also gives good advice when I ask for it, but often it gets taken advantage of. Or someone else ruins it. Or it backfires in some other way." He sweatdropped when beginning the second sentence. "Also-"
"Well, if you'll excuse me, you weren't even *******!"
"There weren't a lot of *******, mind you, and they weren't necessarily all bad!" Cathy-san retorted at her angry brother.
"Yeah, uh, given how many ******** at Sherman's March, I'm pretty sure the people who did treat them well at the time were a minority," Alfred fought back.
Eto...
"This is why you never mention ******* in my siblings' earshot," Matthew-san whispered.
The aforementioned brother and sister began throwing insults and arguments at each other, along with the girl threatening her brother with an oversized scythe she had apparently been tempted to use as a weapon since a war and the boy doing the same with a baseball bat (that he had apparently alsobeen tempted to use as a weapon since the war).
"It's a baseball bat now. At the time of the war it was just an oversized rounders bat," Arthur-san pointed out.
"I agree with Alfred," Ruth-chan stated. Amanda-san rolled her eyes.
("I still do not agree about Mr. Arthur setting up *******." "Technically, it's not a *******. Yet." *receives a glare*)
I tried to interrupt and end the argument, but the twins did not seen to notice. The argument escalated into them stealing each others' food.
Which reminded me... "Are you all not in an economic depression?" I asked Arthur-san. "And yet you are having a...what do you call it?"
"A picnic. Still, everyone brought their own food. And speaking of food..." He turned to Alfred and Cathy. "WOULD YOU TWO WANKERS LEARN SOME DECENCY AND STOP TAKING EACH OTHERS' FOOD!"
"Wha-Sorry." Cathy sat down.
"Agh. Fine, old man."
"DON'T YOU DARE CALL ME AN OLD MAN!"
"Sure, whatever you say, Dad. Is that better?" Alfred sat down.
I will admit, I did enjoy the others' company, but I still wanted to take a stroll. I asked politely if this was alright. No one seemed to mind, as they all let me.
"Hey, can I come with?" Alfred asked, like a child.
...
"I suppose you could."
"Yay!"
He made conversation most of the walk, possibly trying to coax me into starting one myself. I could not decide on a topic, and settled on asking about the economic depression for which I had not been answered about.
"Oh, well, it's still pretty bad, but it's definitely getting better. I mean, we actually have money to work on a massive self-powering dam in the Southwest AND have Washington's, Jefferson's, Lincoln's, AND Teddy Roosevelt's faces carved in a mountain and still be fine."
"Werr, that is a good sign."
"I know." He smiled. "By the way, I know Japanese. Nihongo wo hanasu ga (A/N: Tell me if I butchered that 'cause there's a good chance I did XD), you don't really have to use all the gratuitous Engrish. Just thought you should know."
"You do?"
"M-hm. California and Hawaii get a lot of Japanese immigrants, so I picked some up to communicate with the ones that don't know English. Same with a lot of other languages, but the narrator is too lazy to do research on them. Anyway, I heard you were working on some new style of animation. Whaddya call it?"
"Animei," I answered.
"Huh. Well, that should be easy to remember. Ani as in animation, and then May, right?"
"No, but that is close."
"Okay. Is it fine if I say it like that?"
"I suppose so."
"Thanks. By the way, aren't you at war with China? Whatcha doing here?"
"I decided to return for Hanami."
"So I guess you like the cherry blossoms."
"Hai. After all, they do signal the beginning of Spring, and only last a few days."
"Huh. Well, that makes sense. I like Spring too, since I usually can't wait for Winter to be over. As in I-once-literally-slept-through-the-whole-winter can't wait."
"That is very...interesting."
Alfred laughed. "Lemme guess, it wasn't healthy. I knew that, I was just lazy. And besides, it's not like an overdue bedtime would kill a nation. Least not a personification."
KREE!
A sharp birdcall pierced the air, and a large bald eagle found its way to Alfred's arm.
"George, I told you not to follow me out here." (A/N: I'm sorry, it was just too tempting.)
"Is that your pet?"
"Sorta. He's technically wild but for some reason he seems to like me. Might have something to do with the bald eagle being my national bird."
"Oh."
It remained silent for a little bit before Alfred started talking about things he seemed unfamiliar with. I assumed he ran out of topics to talk about. After a while, he asked, "Hey, can I please take a...ya know?"
"Hai." Alfred walked to a nearby public restroom I that had been added recently.
I spent the time thinking about the conquests I had started. I supposed then that imperialism would answer everything, so I did not feel anything wrong with it at the time. I do admit, though, I did feel somewhat guilty about doing so to my (de facto) siblings, of all people. China was sort of like an uncle to me, after all. Not quite a father, but he was influential enough to affect myself and my country's culture.
On the other hand, if I could keep them under my wing, they would benefit from my growth. That meant we would all win anyway, albeit the death toll. Though even as I tell this story, I am still not sure whether that was a rational reason for my actions or if I simply convinced myself they were. I wish it were the former, but I doubt so. Many countries have likely used the same excuse before, after all, and it does not seem right.
I pondered until I heard a loud, angry shout.
"YOU WATCHED ME PEE!"
"What? Non, I tought I would see if you decided to make a move for Kiku!" Francis tried to explain. Alfred did not seem convinced anyway.
"Dude, you watched me pee anyway. Pervert. And besides, did you really think I felt that way about Kiku to begin with? We're friends, that's it," Alfred complained to Francis, blushing slightly.
"Look, I'm sorry about ze pee thing. But asking to go walk in the park alone with someone is a common sign and I'm sure you know zat!"
"Yeah, and it could also mean you're trying to get comfortable with your boss's decision to end your country's isolationist stance by talking to another country personification, preferably one you haven't talked to in a while and wanted to make sure you're still good friends with. No, seriously, I haven't seen Kiku in a while."
"Ohohon, zat is a sign in itself, mon cher, wanting to assure dat ze two of you are still close. You will realize your feelings eventually, I assure you." The older blonde ruffled Alfred's hair.
Alfred slapped him.
"Yeah, whatever. But in case ya haven't guessed, stalking someone over something like you just did is uncalled for, don't do it again."
"If you say so," Francis replied, "but if you do realize ze two of you are more zan friends, I could always-"
"FRANCIS!"
"Fine, I will leave you two alone." Francis walked away in the direction we came. "But still-"
"IF I TELL YOU ARTIE HAS IMAGINARY FRIENDS, WILL YOU SHUT UP!"
"He does?" Francis muttered. "Oui." The blonde walked off.
Alfred walked back to me. "Sorry 'bout that, Francis is a total perv and a lot of the time the only way to get rid of him is by telling him something about Arthur that shouldn't get out otherwise. It sucks sometimes and often backfires, though, so it's unfortunate." The young nation sighed.
It was a long day after that, but that is beside the point. Nonetheless, I would have preferred more days like this over the failures that came later.
After all, many of us were hurt by them.
Well, that's it for Chapter 1. I'm not sure if the next will be as dark as I hope it will, but I'll try. Ya can probably figure out the small snippets of foreign language, but for the Japanese sentence, Al is just repeating "I can speak Japanese" in informal Japanese (the kind you use when talking to a friend).
Anyway, that's it for this chapter! Hope ya keep reading (and review), and don't give up on me! (Even though I probably will also spend time putting up a Phineas and Ferb fanfic that'll probably end up sounding suspiciously similar to some things in Hetaoni but oh well *shot*)