Hi everyone! :D It's been a while... yeah, sorry about that. I hope I come bearing something you'll enjoy! This is one of the longest pieces I've written, actually. It's called Origin, and tells a story of a little boy who had a tough upbringing, but eventually becomes someone we all love dearly... Mr. Japan himself, Kiku Honda! Bear in mind that this isn't canon; rather, it's an alternative story that my significant other and I thought of. No bamboo forest in this story.

Weeeell... if I owned Hetalia, this is what would've actually happened. Happy reading!

Very few nations know exactly how they came to be. Some were born to mortals, only to be abandoned later and chosen by a divine spirit to become the living embodiment of their country; some spawned from nothing, out of nowhere, as if on cue with the beginning of their history, taking on their role immediately with little to no guidance. Many believed the latter to be true in their case, but none of them could be sure what their true origin was.

A series of recurring dreams led Kiku, the physical, human-like representation of Japan, to believe that he had a life prior to the one he lived as a nation. Prior to meeting Yao, China, his whole world and reason. Someone in the same situation as him who would soon become a teacher, brother, friend, and later, a lover.

A small child wearing dirty, ragged clothes pads barefoot through a busy neighborhood. Malnourished and dehydrated. Cropped black hair that hadn't been washed for a week, maybe more. No parents or any care in sight; the boy was alone. Lost. Scared.

Something in the distance catches his attention- blue. Water gleams before his eyes for the first time since he'd began walking, and he runs to it. He weaves his way through a crowd of tall men brandishing swords and women holding three or four baskets each. Some of them have fish in them; the boy can smell, but is in too much of a hurry to stop and try to get one. The water is getting closer. So close, he can feel it on his skin, soaking his filthy hair and clothes, leaving him on the brink of euphoria. His stomach growls. Bath first, food next, he tells himself.

Finally, the child reaches his destination: a low, hastily-built wooden dock. A ship sailed off in the distance while another one approached, most likely carrying more men with swords and women with baskets. Newcomers flooded every village daily, but the boy didn't see many of them in his. They occupied the nicer areas, bringing their properly dressed and fed children along, almost as if to mock everyone else. However, those children and their parents wasted their time on the water instead of in it, the child reasoned. It was a shame that they sat idly on a boat for long periods of time when they could have done as the young boy would soon be doing- bathing in warm, wonderful water, feeling his troubles wash away one by one.

He sits on the edge of the dock and looks out for a few seconds, the sun setting in oranges and reds over the sea. After snapping out of the quick trance, the child prepares to lift his weight off of the dock into the water below him. His toes wiggle in anticipation, a breeze blows across his face, he counts down in his head...

It's deeper than he expected. He can't swim. Joy quickly turns to panic and he yells, thrashes around, attempts to bring himself back to the surface. Breathing grows harder and harder as air is replaced with water, and his clothes weigh him down, but he's no longer conscious enough to think to remove them. Death is biting at his ankles. He's never, ever been this scared...

And suddenly, he closes his eyes and stops trying. With no one around to witness it, his small body sinks, lifeless, like a leaf falling from a tree.

Kiku decides he's held it in and mulled over it long enough. The boy in his dream looked eerily similar to him when he was a child, and his origin had gone unknown for nearly three thousand years; it was time he found something, and if anyone had answers, it would be Yao. Approaching the subject wasn't terribly difficult...

"Hmm... well, I found you sitting on a dock, soaking wet and so unhappy-looking. It was very lucky, though, I think! Before I got off of my ship, I had such a strong feeling that something special was out there on that dock for me... and it turns out it was you! I knew right away that you were a nation, so I scooped you up in my arms, got you fed and properly clothed, and you were back home with me on the next boat!"

... but the realization hits him hard.

He manages to hold in his reaction for a few minutes, to think it over more. The images swirl around in his head, flashing familiar colors of the main character in his dreams... the little boy with dirty hair and clothes, starving, alone... was him.

"Kuso."

Yao is stunned. Kiku never curses, and the word sounds poisonous leaving the younger's mouth and entering the elder's ears. His fists are clenched and his body is shaking slightly; the word escapes a few more times. Yao's first instinct is to console his boyfriend... and find out why he's upset. "What's wrong all of a sudden, Kiku?" he asks, taking the younger man in his arms. "I thought it was a nice story- a true one, too!"

Kiku leans against the other, attempting to even his breathing and cease his trembling. "Last night... and several times before, actually... I-I have had a dream about a little boy wandering around a city all by himself, dirty and hungry and... scared." His hand finds Yao's, grips onto it tightly. Yao squeezes back reassuringly. "Then, he sees something he finds truly amazing: water. Lots of it. He sits on a dock, readies himself to jump in, so excited to wash all of the filth from his body... but he can't swim. The water is too deep. He drowns." Kiku hangs his head; Yao brings his free hand up to pet his hair.

"I think... I think that boy was me, Yao. Before I became a nation. Before I met you."

Once again, the Chinese man is shocked. Kiku's origin had come to him in a dream, so easily, after two millennia of not knowing. His Kiku was one of few nations to discover who, or what, they were prior to beginning their immortal life. It must liberating... and terrifying.

"I was an orphan," Kiku says suddenly, voice quivering. "I had no home, no food, no family... my mother was probably a prostitute and left me to die right after I was born. And then, I throw myself into the ocean and drown, only to be brought back damned for eternity! Well," he raises his head and looks up to the ceiling, almost as if he's speaking to the heavens, "my mother who died long ago, whichever god decided to save me... here I am. Your mistake."

"Kiku," Yao interjects, grabbing Kiku's chin with three fingers and pulling it down to initiate eye contact. A fire ignites in his soul; he will not have the man he loves more than anything putting himself down for something he cannot control. "You are no mistake. You are a gift. The greatest gift I have ever received, in fact." The older man smiles. "I want to thank the higher being that gave you to me, lifted you out of the ocean, tied that red string around your ankle, and put us on that dock on the same day." After sliding his hand over to cup Kiku's cheek, Yao initiates a quick, soft kiss.

"Not just to me, but to everyone else... you are a gift."

kuso - "shit" in Japanese. Oooh, Kiku. You have a potty mouth.

Thanks for reading, and hopefully I'll be back soon with more!