Okay, so this chapter briefly goes into WW2, the war to end Nazism and its cruel acts upon the Jewish and Gypsy nations. If you are sensitive to that bit of history, then please for your own sake, don't read it…
Hetalia's not mine, still…
"Oh, man, Leit! Check out all of these totally cool outfits! I will, like, be so fucking hot in this shirt and these jeans!"
Lithuania smiled gently and feigned interest as he watched his friend, Poland, look at himself in the mirror, holding up a sky blue dress shirt to his torso and a pair of rhinestone skinny jeans to his legs. Poland was checking himself out at every angle, excitedly posing as a model even though he didn't even try on the clothes yet.
It was Lithuania's break today, and as much as he would love to be able to just relax in Poland's study- the study Poland barely used himself- and drink his special chamomile tea while watching his soap operas, he begrudgingly complied with Poland's demand to attend the mall with him for a shopping day. It wasn't just because Lithuania and Poland had a sort of slave-master companionship going- where Lithuania played the quiet follower and Poland played the rambunctious leader- it was because Lithuania became the household's self-appointed finance keeper. He had to take the position when he finally realized that Poland needed one while he was folding and putting away the fiftieth pair of jeans Poland bought that one week.
As he towed along the shopping basket nearly overflowing with expensive jeans alongside Poland, Lithuania couldn't help but worry about Poland's problem. With Poland being the only one with a job in the household and Lithuania forced to play his housewife ( that is to say, his house servant) because Poland needed a cook and a cleaner, the household's income was very limited, and even with Poland's boss giving him some of the necessities and appliances on behalf of the government, it still took a lot of money to care for the countries that were residing in Poland's house, the money that Poland was continuously blowing away on shopping spree after shopping spree. It genuinely scared Lithuania more than anything, not only because he feared that Poland was going to lose his house and he was going to starve to death with no money to supply himself, but also because he saw that Poland was buying all of this unnecessary items- expensive, unnecessary items- to make himself feel expensive- like he's worth something…
"Oh! Lithuania! Check this dope shit out!" Poland squealed with delight as he brandished a pair of black high-top sneakers with fabric yellow stars stitched to their sides. Stars…
The stars reminded Lithuania of World War Two, of the unbelievable genocide and humiliation Germany's late-boss Adolf Hitler forced on the Jewish nation. The yellow stars on the sneakers were like the stars of David on the Jewish people's jackets and shirts, one of the horrid acts of "punishment" Hitler and his Nazis forced not only on the Jews, but the Poles as well. Poland, with his past neo-Nazi tendencies, thought that he and Germany could share in hurting and "cleansing the world of" the Jews, but was sorely disappointed when Hitler turned his army lose on the Polish nation, and when Germany himself beaten Poland to near-death for being a pompous asshole.
Thinking back on it, on seeing the look of emotional pain and sense of worthlessness behind those fatal bruises and wounds, Lithuania believed that World War II was when Poland began to love the shopping. It made sense, seeing as how after a week past since Germany nearly killed Poland, Poland took it upon himself to roam the street markets of his village, rummaging through and buying one pretty, shiny item after another to fill his closet and dresser with. Maybe he was obsessed with shiny stuff too; Lithuania also noticed that Poland didn't buy any clothes in cool, dark colors or lifeless, non-sparkly jewelry, because the happy brightness of light-colored clothes and the shine of gold, silver, and gems pushed away those dark memories.
The problem wasn't exactly serious until that battle Poland had with Russia, the one where Russia defeated Poland and took away Poland's one true friend that tolerated his wrongful ways…
When Russia was kind enough to let Lithuania visit Poland, Lithuania noticed how the piles of shopping bags grew larger and larger, all the receipts came less from grocery stores and more from clothing stores, and how every time Poland showed Lithuania his new outfit, he would always ask, "See how awesome this is? It looks way better than that stupid uniform I fought Russia in, am I right?"
It was becoming troublesome. Weekly- sometimes daily- Poland's funds would dwell upon the "red zone"- the area that indicated that Poland was in extreme danger of losing everything he had and putting his entire nation's economy in jeopardy. It was a miracle that Poland was able to be so financially stable for so long. Lithuania had to speak up, to get Poland to realize his mental disorder was destroying him; he had to show Poland that he had a shopping problem.
"U-um, Poland?" Lithuania spoke up meekly. Oh, how he wished that he sounded as brave and assertive in real life as he did in his head.
"Yeah, What?" Poland asked as he studied the rack of hot pink berets.
"U-um, uh, er…We need…we need to talk…"
"Yeah, about what?" Poland casually tossed two of the berets into the basket and led them to the ties.
"We," Lithuania gulped and forced his tone to be more serious. "We need to talk about your shopping sprees, dammit!" He mentally cursed himself for unnecessarily swearing.
"Ugh! That bull shit again?" Poland groaned. "Can't we save that convo for later? Besides, I don't have an addiction, you Lithuanian fool; I'm not injecting the clothes into my blood veins with a needle, am I? I'm not snorting hats and shoes into my nose, right? So why do you keep getting your panties into a knot?"
"Poland, you keep saying that we'll talk about this later, but later never seems to come! And people don't have to have problems with drugs in order for it to be an addiction! I keep 'getting my panties in a bunch' because it's destroying you and you can't see that-"
"Lithuania…!" Poland snarled quietly, gripping one of the ties he picked out. Lithuania took that as a warning to stop and immediately dropped the topic, sighing as he watched Poland angrily yank off the rack a tie of every bright color and throw them into the basket. He'll just have to settle for finding ways to secretly sell off some of his stuff to keep money in the house...
As you can see, I have some inaccurate information in this chapter. I'm not much of a history buff, so I tried to be as correct as possible. I hoped you liked this one.