Chapter 3

The next morning, Alfred woke up messy-haired and groggy as always.

It had been a long night, with another meeting (which had run late) and a long search in the dark for a place to eat in the city of London. It wasn't true that all English food was bad. It was just a matter of finding a place that met your tastes, which required Alfred to find a place that served fried stuff. In an unfamiliar city. In the dark. And all while trying to avoid less friendly nations also roaming about in search of food.

After he'd finally found a place, had dinner, and returned to the hotel, he was beat, his caffeine high from the coffee he'd had earlier having worn off long ago. He'd flopped down on the bed and lain there for several minutes before managing to get up again and drag himself to the shower.

Once he'd showered, he'd simply pulled on a fresh pair of American flag print boxers and flopped back onto the bed, falling asleep almost immediately.

Now it was morning, and he realized he was already well on the road to being late for another meeting. He'd been so tired the night before, he'd completely forgotten to set the alarm.

He jumped out of bed and rushed to pull on a pair of slacks and a light blue button-up shirt, then he quickly combed through his bed head, fumbled to put on his socks and shoes, struggled to tie his tie, and was about to run out the door when he realized it might be a good idea to take his briefcase to the meeting, and had to run back in and grab it before he finally left the hotel in a hurry.

By the time he'd gotten to the conference center, he was already ten minutes late, and by the time he'd finally found the room where the meeting was being held, he was twenty minutes late. This was the G8 meeting, undoubtedly one of the most important he'd attend the entire conference week, and the other nations stared at him as he hurried in. A few glared.

"How nice of you to join us, America," said England, his voice absolutely dripping with sarcasm. He was one of the glaring nations, of course. Alfred had just dared to be late to his—the host's—meeting. Of course he wasn't happy.

"Sorry I'm late, pops," Alfred retorted, disliking the sarcasm he was getting. Geez, surely England—Arthur, as it was—had been late to an early morning meeting at least once before. He was probably just cranky because he had to host this whole world conference thing and keep tabs on everything going on. It was a big job.

The American made his way over to the empty seat marked United States of America and sat down. "I just had to attend to some…things this morning and it put me behind schedule," he lied. Sleeping probably wasn't too important a thing to be tending too when he could be out solving world problems.

The Englishman snorted. "Oh, I'm sure," he said skeptically. Arthur wasn't stupid. He knew Alfred well enough to know he wouldn't have any real business to take care of this early in the morning, but he seemed to put the whole issue behind him fairly quickly. Arthur probably thought they were just wasting time by discussing it. "Now, if you'll look at that first sheet in that stack of papers in front of you, Alfred…"

Alfred left the meeting a little after noon, just as tired as ever. He was definitely not a morning person. He'd have preferred if the meeting could have taken place in the afternoon, but at least it was over with now. There were no other meetings scheduled for him to attend until tomorrow, with the G8 meeting being one of the most important he would attend this week.

That left him the whole afternoon to himself. First thing was first though—before he could decide what to do with all that free time, he had to face what he considered a major problem. He hadn't had lunch, and he was hungry. Once again he was faced with locating a decent restaurant nearby.

He wandered down to the parking garage and set to the somewhat hopeless task of finding his car. He'd been in such a hurry this morning he hadn't taken the time to take note of where he'd parked the darn thing… And it was a rental too, so he actually wasn't entirely sure what it looked like either. It was silver—he knew that much—but there were way more than a few silver cars parked in this parking garage. His best bet was going to be simply taking the set of keys and clicking the button until he found a car that responded to it… But that was going to take forever.

Pulling out his keys, he was just about to set to the hopeless task when he heard a familiar voice calling out to him. "Hey, Alfred!"

He looked around for the source of the voice, his eyes landing on the smiling face of none other than South Korea—Yong Soo. Alfred's eye, however, was drawn instantly to the Korean's cheek, which was slightly swollen and sported a purple bruise about the size of a quarter where a blow had supposedly glanced off his cheekbone. The Korean would have instantly noticed Alfred's expression change from delighted to concerned, but Alfred didn't say anything about the bruise just yet.

"Hey, Yong Soo!" he called as the Korean walked towards him. "What's up?"

"I'm about to go to lunch," Yong Soo replied, stopping in front of him, pulling his car keys from his pocket, and jingling them around. "You need a ride?"

Alfred looked down sheepishly. "Ah, ahaha, yeah, I do. I…can't find my car." He grinned wryly.

"Can't remember where you parked it, huh?" Yong Soo said, smirking. "Don't worry! Preparedness originated in Korea, after all!" An arm was thrown around the American's shoulder, and Alfred soon found himself being led farther down into the parking garage. "I've got plenty of extra room in my ride!"

"Thanks, bro!" Alfred grinned, ruffling the Korean's hair playfully. "You know any good places around here to eat?"

"Yeah, I got a place in mind," Yong Soo replied, leading him to a dark blue car a level lower in the parking garage than they'd previously been on.

The Korean pressed the unlock button on his keys, and the car suddenly came alive with a blink of its headlights and a short double-beep. Yong Soo went over to the driver's side while Alfred made his way over to the passenger side. The two of them climbed in, and soon enough the keys were in the ignition and there was K-pop blasting from the speakers.

"Ohp! Sorry," Yong Soo said, turning down the volume. "Forgot I had the speakers turned up so loud."

As soon as they were all buckled up and situated, Yong Soo backed the car out of its parking place and drove down to the ground level of the garage. A moment later, they were out in the streets of London.

"So where is this place, Yong Soo?" Alfred asked. "Is it good?"

"It's just a few blocks away," Yong Soo replied, pursing his lips thoughtfully. "I'm not sure if it's good or not. I haven't been to it before, but Japan mentioned it and said it was alright."

"What's it called?"

"Some place called The Stockpot?"

"Sounds weird. Let's try it!"

It only took a few minutes to get there, even with the lunch rush clogging the streets. It was a relatively ordinary looking restaurant, set into the ground floor of a multi-story building. THE STOCKPOT was spelled out in giant letters above the doorway. There wasn't any possible way they could've mistaken it for a different restaurant. Though they'd found the restaurant with little trouble, Yong Soo had to drive them farther down the street before he could finally find a place to park, and from there the two of them simply walked to the restaurant.

The inside definitely spoke of England, with its quaint décor and relaxed lighting. They had to wait a while before they could get a table, but it wasn't too long, and soon enough they were seated and looking over the menu.

Yong Soo giggled at something on the menu. "'Toad in the Hole?' That's a silly name for food. Is it really a toad?"

Alfred glanced down to where he was reading. "No… It says here it's sausages in Yorkshire pudding batter… It's some kind of old English dish! I think maybe Arthur used to make it for me when I was little."

"So…it's like sausage pudding?" Yong Soo asked, an eyebrow raised quizzically.

"Sort of," Alfred said, shrugging. "I think I might get that. It sounds better than 'Steak and Kidney Pudding' anyway." He made a bit of a disgusted face, sticking his tongue out a little.

"In that case I think I'll get it too then," the Korean said, nodding in agreement. "And we probably get our food quicker if we have the same order anyway!"

As if on cue, a waitress arrived to take their order. She'd probably been able to tell they were foreigners by the way they'd spent so long looking over the menu and chuckling at the funny names. Smiling cheerfully, she told them she'd get their food out to them as soon as possible and disappeared to somewhere else in the restaurant. In the meantime, Alfred turned to Yong Soo.

"So, um…" he started a bit awkwardly, knowing it was sort of rude to ask questions about things people didn't necessarily want to talk about. "What happened?"

"Huh?"

"There," Alfred said, tapping his cheek with his finger, referring to the bruise on Yong Soo's slightly swollen cheek.

The Korean's smile faded. "My brother happened."

"Which brother?"

"Which one do you think?" the Korean snapped, his expression dark.

"Oh."

Yong Soo picked up the glass of Coke that had been brought for him by the waitress and took a long drink before he looked back to Alfred. "We got in a fight yesterday. Did you see? I saw you outside the conference room."

Alfred looked at him a bit sheepishly. Even if Yong Soo didn't necessarily know he'd been snooping, he knew he'd been hanging around the conference room. "No. I just saw China dragging you and North out."

"Yeah," Yong Soo grumbled, stirring his drink with his straw idly, his chin resting in his other palm. "Well, we got in a fight, and China had to drag us out."

Alfred hesitated to ask the next question, aware that he was treading on thin ice. "What started the fight?"

The swirling straw in Yong Soo's glass seemed to pick up speed, creating a mini Coke whirlpool in the cup. "The Cheonan got brought up somehow," he said.

Oh. That would make a lot of sense, Alfred thought. The Cheonan had been a proud South Korean naval vessel, an armed corvette. Of course, it was at the bottom of the sea now, thanks to North Korea. All evidence pointed to a torpedo fired from a North Korean mini-sub, and so, North Korea took the blame for the sinking of a South Korean navy vessel, and the deaths of 46 sailors in South Korea's own waters. Though the sinking had happened earlier in the year, it generally had not been a good year for the two Koreas. Only a month before the meetings, the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong had been bombarded by North Korean artillery. North Korea had claimed it was "self defense" against South Korean naval drills going on in the area, but Alfred knew Yong Soo didn't buy that excuse. Yong Soo was convinced it had been a carefully calculated, cold-blooded attack, and it had left him shaken. It was the second attack on his people in just a few months' time, and the pain would still be fresh in Yong Soo's mind. A mention of either incident would have been an easy set-off for a fight.

"I don't even remember who brought it up or why…" Yong Soo continued with a scowl, "…But he said something like…'I hear your boats can't read a map. Please inform them where the sea border is so there aren't any more unfortunate incidents.'" He continued to stir his Coke, his dark eyes staring at the little whirlpool as he did so. "And he had that smile. I just…I wasn't going to take that. There were people on that boat! That attack killed people! And he talks about it like it's some game! So I went over the table and slugged him one in the jaw because he deserved it, then he got me on the side of my face, and then…I don't even know. We were on the floor and they had to pull us off one another."

Alfred listened in silence, eyeing Yong Soo with a look of concern. The Korean was stirring his Coke so intensely that it was beginning to spill over the sides, and Alfred had to reach over and pull his hand away from the cup to calm him. Yong Soo met Alfred's eyes, looking like tears of fury were about to spill over.

Alfred didn't really know what to tell him. What did you say to someone whose own brother had done such a thing and had shown little to no concern for it?

"Listen, Yong Soo…" Alfred said softly, trying to pull comforting words out of thin air as he went along. "You two…just need to sit down and have a long talk…and believe that things will get bette—"

"Alfred," Yong Soo interrupted tensely, his eyes flitting down to stare into his drink once more. "I don't think things are going to get better. I'm losing faith that we could just…be Korea again," he said hopelessly.

"Why not?" Alfred asked, beginning to regret bringing it up at all. "I mean…you guys are brothers! You're twins for god's sake! You miss him don't you? I mean, I'm sure he misses you too! And isn't that brotherly bond stronger than the bitterness between two governments?"

Yong Soo was silent for a long moment, staring into his now still Coke, tears still stinging at the corners of his eyes, though he stubbornly willed them not to fall.

"That's the problem though…" he sighed, defeated. "Sang Kyu is a changed man. He's not the brother I used to know. When I look him in the eye, they're not the same eyes he used to have. You said a brotherly bond is stronger than two governments? Well, I don't think he remembers…I think maybe he's not any different than his government now… Why else would he attack our people and show no remorse?"

Alfred was silent. He didn't really feel that he could relate. Sure, he and Mattie had fought before, but it hadn't stopped them from being brothers! Even after the War of 1812, things had gotten better, and now they were closer than ever before. And even Arthur! Even after the Revolution and the War of 1812 and numerous other disagreements, that hadn't stopped them from being friends. Things had always gotten better…

Then again, those things had happened years ago and the emotional wounds had numbed with time. For Yong Soo, the feelings of betrayal and rage were still fresh and raw, and every time North Korea got brought up it was like rubbing salt in the wounds.

Alfred reached across the table to lay a hand on Yong Soo's shoulder, hoping the motion would be comforting somehow. "You just have to keep trying. Nothing will ever get better if you stop trying," he said. "He'll have to see eventually."

Yong Soo looked up and gave him a forced, crooked smile. It was obvious he was just trying to get the conversation to end faster. "Yeah…yeah…" he said. "I guess…"

"Look, I'm sorry I brought it up, okay! Let's talk about something else," Alfred suggested, glancing up just in time to see their waitress coming with their food. What a lifesaver! "Hey look!" he said, nodding in her direction. "I bet that's ours. Let's see how the ol' 'Toad in the Hole' tastes, shall we?"

A moment later, the odd English dish was placed in front of them, a delicious aroma wafting up from it.

"It smells really good," Yong Soo commented, his distress from earlier fading at the sight of the food. "Well, you said England used to make this for you, right? Is it good?"

"Taste it and find out," Alfred said with a smile. "You'll like it, I'm sure."