Solving of the Countries (Book 2)

Chapter 102

Everything was strange. Russia walked with Belarus to the house. As he stared at the ground, trying to figure out what was going on, she suddenly stopped.

He barely noticed and managed to stop himself, looking at the house.
She entered, he hesitated at the front for a few seconds. He stepped in.

Belarus turned to him. For some reason, he had to suppress the urge to flinch. This wasn't his sister.

She smiled. "I'll be in my room if you need me." Humming, she walked away. Russia watched her go, and froze at the sight of Ukraine walking out of the kitchen.

"There you are!" She exclaimed, once she saw him. She was smiling. Ukraine was smiling.

The thought must've taken him ten seconds to process. For a fleeting moment, he forgot where he was.

He didn't speak. Once he laid eyes on her, his insides felt tight, and he felt apprehensive. Russia wanted to leave, right now. That wasn't his sister.

"Hey, Earth to Russia!" Ukraine snapped her fingers at him. "What, spacing out lately? No pun intended."

"Ukraine... what about the war?" He ignored her jest, thinking that his insides had just frozen over.

For a moment, he thought he saw her waver.

"What war?"
.

.
.
.

.

He suspected as much. Still, he couldn't help being taken by surprise.
He couldn't help feeling a sense of urgency.

"The war, my country invaded yours," Russia saw her expression change to one of nervous questioning.

"Russia, what do you mean?" She laughed, shakily. "There's no war between us. Right?"

"There is."

"Why are you determined to ruin this perfect world?"

He turned around, and saw Belarus standing there, smiling.

"Isn't this the world you wanted?"

Belarus asked, tilting her head. Now that he looked at her, for real this time, he thought her eyes looked... dead.

"No... I-"

"But it is."

This time, it was Ukraine. She spoke with a strange tone of voice.

"Didn't you want a world where there was no war between me and you? Where I didn't have to suffer?" Ukraine looked up at his eyes with ones that resembled Belarus'. Now he knew why he felt something was wrong. Her tone wasn't accusatory. It'd been too long since she'd spoken to him normally, without anger.

"Not like this, this world is fake," he wanted this world to shatter. Everything. Everyone here was fake.

"But here it's all peaceful," Belarus insisted. "Even if it is fake. Isn't it worth it?"

...

"Russia, do you really hate this world so much?"

Kazakhstan's voice broke into his thoughts. He was standing just slightly behind Ukraine.

If this was the real world, he wouldn't have hated it. But he did. Because this was the world they... no, the world he let go of. It was the world they would never have, because he couldn't find a way to fix anything.