I haven't updated in about a week and a half so… sorry! Also, I've updated the DenNor chapter with the edited version, the old version was bugging me so I made a few tiny adjustments. Hopefully Norway doesn't seen OOC anymore.
I did promise at the end of the PoLiet chapter that I would write a chapter where Russia was NOT OOC, since I know that OOC Russia bugs not only me but loads of other people. But, also, I mean, I was going to write something more fluffy and lighthearted like this anyway, especially since all of the chapters (with the exception of the last one) are pretty heavy on the angst.
Paring: RoFem!Chu.
Summary: The USSR has been abolished and Ivan is feeling lonely, but as it turns out, so is Yanmei.
Disclaimer: Not only do I not own Hetalia but I'm also not an expert in this area of history, so I'm sorry if I get any facts wrong.
It was the 2nd of January 1992. Seven days had passed since the USSR had been abolished. Seven. Long. Days.
Ivan hadn't moved from bed for approximately 2 days, give or take a few trips to the toilet, making the few servants he had left fetch him food and water.
Most of them had fled with the Baltics as soon as the news came out of the abolition.
Was he really that bad? That bad that people who he had considered to be amongst his best friends would leave him as soon as they could?
He was too afraid to go outside, to face the headlines on the newspapers or face the people around him.
A total and utter recluse.
It wasn't only the Baltics who had fled, Moldova was also long gone, and although she hadn't 'fled', so to speak, Ukraine took the first ticket home, kissing him on the cheek before ultimately leaving him alone.
He still had Belarus, and as thankful as he was for her presence there was a slight awkwardness around them.
They only spoke at mealtimes, Belarus had taken a break in regards to the marriage proposals, and they averted eye contact when they saw each other in the halls.
If they even saw each other.
She may as well have left with the rest of them, especially since her emotional unavailability and haunting beauty made her seem more like a ghost lurking the hallways than a sister.
On the 5th of January he finally picked himself up from the sofa, forcing himself into the shower and eat at the table with his sister.
The silence at the table was so deafening that it could burst an eardrum.
"So…" she said, lifting her head to meet his eye contact. "We need to talk."
"Don't tell me you're going to leave too." He murmured, swirling his whisky in his glass.
She seemed taken aback, physically flinching.
"No!" She exclaimed, "I'm not going to leave you Big Brother! I wouldn't ever!"
"Good."
"...We still need to talk though."
"Then talk," he said, harshly and blatantly.
"I just wanted to say that a lot of things have happened and-"
"Oh, wow! I hadn't noticed! Of course things aren't going to be the same." He half-shouted.
She recoiled, looking offended and shocked.
"Ivan, what's wrong with you? What have I done to upset you?"
"Don't act like everything's okay around here."
"What's your problem?"
"My problem? My problem is that you're acting like nothing has changed!"
"Are you even listening to me?"
There was silence for a few moments.
"You know what! I'm sick of this!" she threw her hands up in frustration. "I'm trying to make a valid point and you're taking out your own misery on me!"
He was silent for a second, before letting her continue.
"I'm the only one you have left in this house Ivan, and don't you dare forget it! Start treating me with respect. Just because I'm not going to leave you like everyone else doesn't mean that you can treat me however you want."
She threw her napkin on the table, turned on her heel and walked out, leaving him dumbfounded.
Natalya had never said something like that to him before.
In fact, no one had said anything like that to him in a long time.
Times really were changing.
He got off the plane around 12:00pm two days later.
Once the heat of the argument had calmed down, he and Belarus had decided that maybe he would benefit from a short holiday away from everyone else.
So here he was, standing in an airport in Khabarovsk, looking for the taxi man to drive him to an old Dacha of his that he hadn't used in years.
However, as soon as the taxi man was located and they arrived at the small house, leaving him alone, Russia felt the loneliness that he had been expecting from the arrival hitting him.
He was all alone in the house.
No servants, no cooks, no Belarus.
Just him.
He slung his bags onto the sofa, himself following suit, letting out a huge and dramatic sigh.
He didn't even have time to feel sorry for himself before falling asleep.
It was a knock on the door that awoke him; a soft and timid kind of knock.
Odd, he thought, he wasn't expecting visitors.
He got up to open the door, wiping his brow in tiredness and letting out a yawn.
He opened to door to be greeting by a petite frame that he knew very well from the past.
China.
How long had it been since he saw her last? A year? Two? He had lost count.
Yet here she was, looking exactly as she did all that time ago, a flower perched in the same spot in her hair, her eyes still as cartoonishly large - if not larger -, and two buns still tied high on her head.
"What are you doing here?" He asked, bluntly, apparently his bitterness from the USSR breakup had quite disappeared.
She looking slightly taken aback; she was expecting him to be happy to see her.
"Why so mean?" She asked him.
"I-I… I'm not mean" he said, trying to take back his harsh tone. "I'm just tired."
She nodded curtly.
"Can I come in?" She asked, shivering slightly in the snow surrounding her.
"Oh- Of course!" He said, stepping out of the doorframe to allow her to enter.
He closed the door and shivered too, suddenly aware of how cold he was.
"Oh… and Ivan?" she asked, once the door was closed.
"Mmhmm?" He replied.
"You really need to iron that shirt you're wearing."
He brought out some coffee and biscuits to the living room, where she sat.
"You never did tell me why you came." He remarked, sitting down on the sofa next to her.
"I heard that you were in Khabarovsk and I thought I'd pay you a visit, it takes much less time to visit you here than it does to fly all the way to Moscow."
He nodded, but remained silent. They remained like that for a few minutes, eating biscuits and drinking coffee.
He could see that something was bothering her, but he didn't say a word.
"Ivan, I'm worried about you." She finally blurted out.
"Why?" He said, even though he had been expecting her to say something like this.
"Because I don't want you to be lonely! 'The West' is scared of you Ivan, just like they're afraid of me, and I'm scared that you're all alone, especially now that you union has broken down"
He let out a sarcastic laugh.
"You don't need to rub it in."
She instantly went red.
"That's not what I meant!" She backtracked, "You know it's not!"
He gave her an odd sort of bitter smile, but the silence came again.
"Please Ivan, listen to me."
"I am listening."
"I know what it's like to be feared by people. I'm may be small but my country isn't, and all my life people have feared me. Ivan, I'm just as lonely as you are."
"I… I'm not lonely" He choked out, looking slightly helpless. "I have Belarus, and- and."
"I know what it's like."
He didn't quite want to cry, but something in the way she said it made an impact on him.
He stopped talking again.
She gave him a small smile before taking another biscuit and nibbling at the edges.
For the rest of the day they fell into more and more silence, but Ivan found that it didn't feel uncomfortable at all. Instead, it felt more companionable and comforting.
He was reading a book whilst she was reading a magazine when he finally realised that she was going to have to leave sometime or another.
A kind of emptiness took over, as he began staring down at the page, suddenly losing all interest he previously held in it.
He glanced over to her reading her magazine and instantly looked back at the book. He didn't want to be caught staring.
All he could think of know what that Yanmei was going to leave him soon too, and then he would be left alone in a cold house in January with only his thoughts.
Night fell quickly, and by around 4 o'clock it was entirely dark outside.
"You ok?" She asked, noticing him becoming increasingly and increasingly less talkative.
He snapped his head up, as though he was lost in a train of thought.
"Oh! Yeah! Of course!" he stammered, overenthusiastically.
She suddenly looked out of the window.
"Wow! It really does get dark quickly up here!" she exclaimed.
He looked to the ground, murmuring an inaudible "Too quickly".
She got up from the sofa, sitting up against the windowsill, admiring the snowy fields, even though they were hard to make out in the dark.
"I've never seen so much snow in my life!" she exclaimed, "You see, I've been spending a lot of time in Shanghai these past few months and you know how hot it gets over there. The cold feels a lot more welcoming than I remember."
He smiled at her, before uncomfortably twiddling his thumbs.
"So when are you going back?" he asked, his question growing increasing quiet as he struggled to say it.
"What do you mean?"
"To Shanghai… When are you going back?"
She swallowed audibly.
"Well… I was thinking… Maybe I could…"
"What is it?" He asked.
"Maybe I could stay here a little." She said, quietly, as though she was nervous. "With you."
"You want to stay with me?" he asked, as though the sheer idea was preposterous and incredulous.
"Well… Yes… It's okay if you don't want me to, it's a stupid idea anywa-"
He broke out into the biggest smile she had ever seen before coming up to her and engulfing her in a hug.
"Of course you can stay!"
She smiled into the hug too.
How long had it been since she had felt this welcome and accepted in someone's arms.
Unbeknownst to her, someone else was thinking that exact same thing.
So yeah, not my best work, but it was cute in the least. This pairing is adorable and I wanted to do a slightly more platonic-esque relationship, even though this is written as a romance oneshot.
Also, I didn't want fem!China to say -aru and the end of every sentence because, well, to be honest it's kind of a pet peeve of mine, don't ask why.
And YES, I know that the Baltics actually left the USSR before the actual abolition of the USSR, but for the sake of this story I'm just pretending that they left at the same time.