Disclaimer: Hi...Uh...I don't own Hetalia.

Ivan sniffed, breathing in the fishy air.

He did not like China. He especially did not like the markets, with loud foreign voices screaming into the silence, and dirty roads under his feet. Then there was the smell; the smell of crusty, sweater sailors and reeking fish, paired with animal feces and frying food. Not to mention there had to be hundreds of germs flying around everywhere…Ivan muttered a curse under his breath in Russian, avoiding the frightened gazes of the populace.

"Ivan, sir…" He turned to look at his partner, a small sneer forming on his lips. Raivis was a coward, always sucking up to him; that spineless fool. At the burning gaze, Raivis squeaked and lowered his eye, shaking and trembling. "The building is not too far away…Wang Yao will be meeting us there. What should I…?" It was an obvious plea for help, or orders, or something.

Ivan sighed, and looked around the market again. The sights were just as bad as the rest of it, the weather hot and heavy on his skin. He needed to get out. "Da, comrade. This stench is destroying my nose."

Raivis opened his mouth to protest, obviously about to reprimand Ivan on his rudeness, but wisely shut his mouth with a soft click, instead just nodding. He carefully began to skitter down the street, as though the earth was going to swallow him up if he stayed in place for too long. Obviously he is just as uncomfortable as I am, Ivan smirked.

His eyes looped one more time around the filthy place—

There.

A small brown cat, with the biggest blue eyes he'd ever seen, was staring out at him, obviously terrified. The other cats in the cage were ignoring him, obviously resigned to their fates, but this one was not. It was just sitting there, begging and pleading with its adorable blue eyes—

No. He did not want a cat. He did not need a cat. He was a big, scary businessman who didn't have enough time to have a fish, let alone a needy little kitty—

The cat mewled. Pitifully. Oh dear god.

Before he knew it, he was striding over to the stall, removing his wallet from his deep pockets. Ivan stared at it for a second, unsure that he was doing the right thing, before shrugging and looking back at the little brown, dirty cat. It was smarter than he'd originally thought; the cat looked so happy, as though he understood that Ivan had come for him and not the others. That was all it took for his heart to melt.

"How much for the little brown one?" Ivan asked the vendor, looking him over. He was a tall man, thin and pale, with deep black eyes and a short hair. He looked a bit too prim to be living around this area, though it was obvious he didn't scare easy. He didn't even bat an eye at Ivan's size or accent. He examined the nametag. Kaoru it read it elegant Chinese.

"They're all brown." Kaoru pointed out, nodding towards the cage. It was true; all the cats appeared to have a thick layer of brown filth on them. For all Ivan knew, the little cat who'd been begging for his help was bright orange. "It's the little one with the blue eyes, isn't it?" When he gave a curt nod, Kaoru chuckled. "I figured. He seems determined not to be put into someone's supper. I nearly took him home myself. Alright, 2,000."

Ivan glared. He wanted the cat, but not that much. "1,000."

Kaoru's thin eyebrows rose elegantly on his thin face. "1,750."

Oh, so they were playing this game. Ivan was determined not to lose. "1,000."

"Not a yuan below 1,500."

He gritted his teeth angrily. He didn't have time for this! "1,250."

Kaoru gave him a prim look, delicately folding his hands in front of him. "Not a yuan below 1,500."

Just then, the little cat let out another pitiful mewl. Ivan's heart melted a little more. Perhaps he was worth it…

Damn Chinese.

"Done." Ivan withdrew the amount from his wallet, bemoaning how much lighter it was. It was so very worth it, though; because when he opened the cage, the little brown filthy cat leapt up gave the merchant a solid hiss, before leaping delicately from the cages to Ivan's arms.

"I think we will get along very well, little friend."

When Ivan hurried into the building where he was supposed to meet Wang Yao, Raivis took one look at the cat in his arms and nearly had a heart attack.

"Sir, is that a…?"

"No, it is a filthy stuffed animal I picked up. In fact, I would like you to hold onto it until the end of this meeting. Since it is nothing but a stuffed animal, it should be no trouble. Correct?" His ominous statement lost some of its effectiveness when the small cat peered out of Ivan's thick arms with his big blue eyes, and let out another tiny, pathetic meow.

Raivis looked from the cat to Ivan, and back to the cat, incredulity finding its way onto his face. Okay, he could deal with his terrifying boss. He could deal with a maximum of six hours of sleep a night, usually less. He could deal with his boss's creepy sister, who he was forced to deal with every single time because Ivan was too much of a coward to deal with her himself. But taking care of a random cat that the boss picked up for what could be suspicious reasons?

That was not in the job description. But then again…it's eyes…

He opened up his arms wearily, flinching slightly when the dirty cat leapt onto his clean coat. That was when he noticed the dirt stains on Ivan's long grey coat; he let out a soft sigh of resignation, no doubt annoyed that he was almost certainly going to have to clean those out later. That was when Ivan noticed it, too; he frowned, rubbed at the stains slightly (which did absolutely nothing) and then gently removed the coat and his black gloves, and set them on top of the cat in Raivis's arms. Ignoring the soft meow, he ran towards the meeting room, long scarf trailing behind him.

Raivis twitched awkwardly as the tiny cat climbed up through the clothes and gave him a somewhat sympathetic look.

Well now what?

When Ivan walked out of that mind-numbingly boring meeting two hours later, he fully expected Raivis to still be standing there stiffly, holding the little dirty cat in his arms. However he was treated with the sight of the two sitting on the ground, Raivis rambling on in his soft Latvian to the cat, obviously winding some sort of tale that the cat didn't understand but was enjoying anyway. The little thing let out a soft meow whenever he paused, as though Raivis was a gentle mother telling a story to her young child.

That was about when the pair noticed Ivan; Raivis froze in the middle of a sentence, and stared at him with two big, horrified eyes. The cat—it really needs a name—let out a confused meow, and then looked to where Raivis was staring. When he caught sight of Ivan he let out a happy yelp, and trotted across the floor to greet the Leviathan.

"What is this filthy animal doing in my building?"

Oops. He'd forgotten about Yao.

"Very sorry, Mr. Wang." Ivan bent down and lifted the cat with one hand. "We'll be leaving. Come along, Raivis. Make haste, we must leave before Mr. Wang gets much angrier."

The poor little guy didn't need to be told twice.

"You, little friend, are the most unusual white color. I thought you were brown."

Indeed, the cat had brown around the scruff, but he was mostly a clean, bright white. It had taken nearly ten minutes to rub all the filth out of his coat, and even then Ivan could clearly see some dark patches where dirt clung stubbornly to its—his fur. The little cat appeared to be young, one or two years old, with the brightest blue eyes he'd ever seen on a cat. And, much to Ivan's dismay, it was obviously a house cat; it was well fed and obviously trusted people.

He sighed. He'd need to find this cat's owner, pronto. Well…if his owner neglected him so, then maybe—

His thoughts were interrupted by a rapid-fire knocking at the door.

Ivan let out a soft growl of annoyance and gently patted the cat, trusting Raivis to take care of it. He heard the low murmur of voices—the person who'd kept switching languages, obviously not understanding the Latvian—or Lithuanian—when they finally settled on Russian. He ignored what they were saying; instead squeezing the cats tiny paws between his fingers, smiling slightly when the he let out an annoyed mewl. There was a long silence, before there was a soft knock on the door. "Mister Ivan…" Raivis whispered, sounding slightly crestfallen. "There is a man claiming to be the cat's owner out here. What should I do?"

"I will talk with him." Ivan growled back, patting the cat's head. "He cannot be a proper cat owner if he leaves his pet to the Chinese."

Even though Raivis's face remained impassive and scared, Ivan could almost feel the cruel laugh his young helper was exuding.

He was a tall, broad-shouldered man with bright blond hair, and—get this—equally bright blue eyes that almost seemed to sparkle with mischievous glee. He wore an oversized bomber jacket, and baggy jeans. When he saw the little cat in Ivan's arms, he let out a delighted cry—"Alfie!"—and pounced. The cat let out a meow of happiness as he was hugged close to his master's chest…and quite on accident, Alfred accidently wrapped his arms around Ivan as well.

"I thought I'd never see you again!" Even though he was almost 6' tall, and was obviously in his late twenties, he acted more like a four year old. "Did you get scared? Oh, I'll bet you were scared. Don't worry, daddy's here, I'll make it aaaall better—"

"Excuse me." Ivan growled, slightly alarmed by the man's attitude. "Could you please—"

The blond backed away, looking embarrassed. "Omigod, I'm so sorry. It's just—me'n Alfie junior here travel together…he's been everywhere and all. Greece, Italy—geez those Italian'—India…You name it, we've been there. So…China, right? Man, these Chinese guys are wacky—" Ivan couldn't help but agree, "—so we're standing on the Great Wall and all. And I mean, the Great Wall is cool and stuff, but what's the point? It's a wall, not going to stop a bunch of angry Mongols from hopping over the border…" The blond noticed Ivan's expression—a mixture between amusement and annoyance—and changed directions. "So yeah, I'm standing there and Alfie's on my shoulder, and this wacky Chinese dude with black hair is all like, 'You're breasts are mine', and I'm like, WTF? And then he grabs Alfie and runs off with him!" He nodded indignantly, folding his arms in front of his chest. "So…yeah." He finished awkwardly.

Ivan stared at him for several seconds longer, slightly shocked at how much the American could talk. Finally, he blinked slowly and adjusted his neck, and asked, "…who are you?"

"Oh, sorry. That's a little rude of me. Alfred. Alfred F. Jones. F. is for Foster. I think. I don't actually know…I used to tell people it stood for 'fucking', but after I got a job that raised a couple of eyebrows. And a really big busy eyebrow yelled at me, so…" Alfred F. Jones trailed off, looking thoughtful.

He did not want to know. Not in the slightest.

"How did you find him here?"

"Oh, since we were traveling together, I decided to put a tracker on him. I get a location every five minutes. The only reason I couldn't find him before was because…" Alfred looked vaguely embarrassed. "It was the dust bunnies. It's always the dust bunnies. They were taunting me, I swear to god."

Ivan ran his hand along his face, letting out a sigh that seemed to reverberate around the room. "Okay, fine. Take the cat. I don't…I don't…want…" I don't want the cat. Why couldn't he just say that?

"Alfie. His name is Alfie. He seems to like you, actually. That's unusual; he only likes Mattie and Arthur…" He suddenly perked up. "You travel for your job, don't you?"

Wary of this abrupt personality change, he nodded warily. "I stay here till Thursday, and then I go back to Moscow."

"Hey, that's cool. I'm going to Moscow on Thursday, too!"

No. Please, no. Don't do this!

"We should totes travel together!"

Nooooooo!

Geez, I'm so sorry.

I haven't updated in the longest time. *Groans* I'm seriously sorry.

So I decided to add a little 2000 word oneshot. It's sorry thing.

But now I have a goal! I'm going to complete 100 oneshots. Then the story will end. More than a third of the way through, so that's nice. But remember, keep requesting! I'll update more now. I just had the worst writers block I've ever had...whenever I tried to write, it was like ramming my head into a brick wall. I doesn't do anything but hurt a lot.

But next I'll be doing Angel-chan desu's request, and then probably a follow up on SMUG K. So look forward to that!

IceEckos12, over and out!