A Poverty of Self (5/7)
anonymous
July 13 2010, 06:03:04 UTC
“No, Japan, you don’t. This isn’t about what happened this month, this week, today! I love you, I do. You’re so beautiful, fascinating, captivating! How could I not?” He pulls him closer and presses a kiss to the top of his head; Kiku makes a small noise like a mouse being trod on. He laughs.
Then, he sobers. “But Japan, I’m not a man who can stay in one place. I have to go, because I…I live for the colonies and the navigation and that discovery. Without that, I am not half the man you think I am. This,” he tightens his arm around Japan’s body, “is what it is because we are so different and this is all new. I…I don’t really know you, Japan. You don’t really know me. And as much as I’d love to stay and learn everything about you, we don’t have that time.”
“You will leave me alone?”
Portugal lowers his head. He knows he’s not the greatest of men, and he wishes he could make Japan understand what he’s afraid of, what he lives for. The thrum of adventure and the call of the sea is strong in his veins; Japan seems afraid to look beyond his own horizon. “I’ll visit. I’ll bring more goods to trade, more gifts. Others from Europe desire to meet you. I promise.”
They stay like that for long hours as the fireworks explode in the sky. Finally, Japan nods and looks at Portugal’s illuminated face. “I would like that,” he says evenly, smiling to cover what Portugal thinks is disappointment.
-
6. Taiwann
The first time Taiwan sees Japan after the war begins, he comes in, hugs her and chuckles low as she grins. She hasn’t seen much of him for long years, not since she’d been a gangly child. “Oh Taiwan,” he cajoles. “You’ve grown!” They’re family, she’s happy to see him, and they spend the day making dumplings in her kitchen.
The second is not long after. Taiwan gives a cry- Japan has a bandage around his sword arm but he brushes off her concern. He’s in a different uniform and his eyes are serious and sharp like blade-edges. “It is good to see you,” he says fondly. “It is good to see beauty after so much ocean.” And Taiwan blushes prettily and hugs him, telling him to be careful.
“Taiwan, Taiwan,” he breathes the third time, as the world comes crumbling down around them. He strokes her hair and nimble fingers remove her ribbons. It falls in curtains of black silk. “My princess. Let down your hair.” His leg is broken and sitting in seiza pains him. Taiwan feels sorrow as she watches him leave, the weight of the world on his shoulders.
Forth. He comes bearing gifts, one eye blind and bandaged. “Oh, Taiwan, I love you more than words can express, more than life itself, each morning is made brighter by your smile. If I could stay here for eternity by your side I would die a happy man.” She doesn’t want Japan to die, but her heart beats fast as he leans in and just barely brushes her lips with his own. Fifth and he gasps low words into her neck and holds her close and they go, because Japan has started to tremble in her arms and she thinks he might break if she doesn’t.
Japan’s wrists are bloodied the sixth time, and Taiwan has stopped pretending the world is still standing.
“It never used to be this hard,” he says, voice breaking. “It never used to be hurt like this before-“ He stops and lowers his head into her lap, muffling the words on his tongue. Japan is proud on the inside, despite his modest shell of a skin, and Taiwan is aware that this admission is no easy thing. “We are the same, you and I.”
Gazing down at his bandaged wrists, Taiwan swallows, steeling herself. “What do you mean?”
“That’s why I love you,” he muses, sick. “It must be. We’re the same. Yao abandoned us both.”
“Yao did not abandon me,” she retorts with no fire. She still hears his cries across the ocean and she holds hands against her ears.
Japan tilts his head to watch with empty eyes. “But you did not love him. And so he left you.”
A Poverty of Self (6/7)
anonymous
July 13 2010, 06:06:26 UTC
She opens her mouth to retort, no wilting flower, but a bomb blast shatters their peace. Taiwan feels the impact hit low and deep as the window frames of their house rattle like thunder. Japan doesn’t flinch anymore.
“I love you,” he tells her presently.
“I believe you,” she whispers back, cradling him.
But Taiwan wonders what the word means to Japan, to him, the tortured war-groom to her tortured war-bride. Why he keeps changing and trying and fighting in the Pacific against Alfred, why he whispers Yao’s name as he sleeps and dreams nightmares, why sex with him is always silent and angry, why he always wants her hair down.
“What’s going to happen, Japan?” Taiwan finally says, gazing out onto sugar-cane fields with her face lined with worried tragedy.
Kiku rises to his knees and grips her shoulders, blood and mud and a desperate mad expression on his face. “I’m going to love you,” he announces like his life depends on it.
Taiwan closes her eyes as the sadness and helplessness fills the back of her mouth. Her surrogate brother is dooming himself. Not through war, but through this foolish need to prove himself, this crazy need to love as if his identity depended on others.
“You’ll never be able to love another if you don’t learn to love yourself,” she whispers as the bombs fall.
-
1. Chuugoku
China finds Japan in a bamboo forest.
“Aiyaa, you are so small!” Yao remarks with a smile on his face. “Aren’t you lonely by yourself?”
He just blinks, and in a small, unfrightened voice, asks, “Lonely?”
China kneels before him and reaches out to trace the round lines of his face with gentle fingers. “Are you hungry? I live nearby, aru.”
Japan doesn’t answer that. He’s suddenly shy, a pair of eyes behind silk sleeves. So, well-meaning and caring, Yao picks him up in warm arms and tells him he must be lonely, he must be hungry, and takes him home. He sits on the front steps of his house with Korea; Yung Soo talks, Japan listens and nods, excited, quiet, as China scuttles in his kitchen and makes a batch of dumplings. They eat together and Japan graces the world with a smile like the rising sun.
“Korea,” Yao says, introducing them at the dinner table with a happy grin. “This is Japan.”
“Japan?” When Kiku doesn’t understand something he has a disarming habit of parroting in a particular thoughtful voice.
China nods. “That’s where you come from.”
Something changes in Japan’s gaze, then. As if he didn’t realise where he was and where he’d come from, Japan looks frantically around him, taking in the foreign house.
Then, he bursts loudly into tears.
“Don’t cry, Japan- what’s wrong?” China, confused, immediately starts to fret. Japan just shakes his head in stubborn anguish. “Here, Korea will go play with you outside, aru!
“I don’t want to! Take me home! Take me home! I want to go home-“
Panicking, Yao lifts him up and strokes his fine hair, cooing and soothing. “Hush, little one! It’s alright, we’re here, we’re a family, we love each other, it’s alright-“
“No!” he cries shrilly, wiping his wet little face against China’s robes frantically. “I want to go home! I don’t like this place!I want to go home, I want to go home- and finally China has to relent and walk back to the bamboo forest from whence he came. He sets the boy down, wipes his sniffing face. His heart feels like it might burst, looking at Japan like this.
“I’m sorry, Japan- I care about you, I do! Don’t cry now, please.” He does care about him- that’s why he’s taken him in, that’s why he’ll let him go. “I don’t want you to be lonely, aru.”
Again, that look flashes across his face through the tears. “Lonely?” he wavers.
“How you feel when you’re by yourself. How you feel when nobody’s there to love you.”
A Poverty of Self (7/7)
anonymous
July 13 2010, 06:09:03 UTC
Face wet and scrunched and shuddering with sobs and something like lost innocence, perhaps, this strange child shakes his head and gazes up at China, wanting, not understanding.
And he asks, “Is loneliness a bad thing?”
“Yes.” China frowns. “Why would you even ask such a thing?”
-
7. Nihon
Ask Japan about love and he, invariably, will flinch.
He’ll blush too, after that.
It could be because he never really understood the concept until others came and showed him, indeed, what love is meant to be.
Japan’s idea of love is of princesses waiting to be rescued from tall towers; of romantic gestures that lead to angry, bitter, lonely sex; of video games and predictable, cause-and-effect 2D lovers; of foreign affairs and war brides that live happily-ever-after, or would if their princes didn’t die tragically; of Valentines Day and White Day and money; of idyllic first loves and childhood sweethearts in dysfunction, maid-robots and don’t-leave-me-don’t-abandon-me-don’t-KILL-me.
And they all laugh at Japan’s awkward attempts to relate to other countries, and they all feel a little sick at what goes on in his head when it comes to sex and pornography. And Japan knows that something’s not quite right, but for him (what’s happened, Japan? What happened to you?) this concept of love may just be the best he can do.
For Japan, love is something ultimately foreign. It is the presence of others. It is the absence of loneliness.
It’s hard when you’ve always been alone, to understand even this-
“Japan!” he hears England call as he gathers his notes to leave the conference. “You’re coming, right?”
A group of them are waiting by the door, chatting and laughing. Japan places a smile onto his face. “Where to, England-san?”
“The meeting’s over! Drinks, of course!” cheers America with an arm around Holland and Denmark.
Alfred still seems as young and as foolishly magnetic as ever. Kiku finds himself swallowing down the things climbing in his throat. “I am quite busy, America-san. I’m sorry.” He dips his head in polite shame.
“Geez, you have to let your hair down some time, Japan,” America teases.
It’s just a figure of speech.
But still, Japan says, “I’ll think about it Alfred,” and means no. He makes his way back through the halls of the UN building, bows to his dignitaries and the civil servants, and then he’ll close his door again.
And, drinking green tea in business hotel arm chairs, old and young and somehow still that little boy, that princess in waiting, that lover, that warrior, that island-
(You’ll never be able to love another if you don’t learn to love yourself)
author's note
anonymous
July 13 2010, 06:30:48 UTC
Oh Japan, baby. It's not your fault you're so screwed up. Only a little.
Did you know?
Japan's relationships have historically been unhealthy, at least in the long run.
IN chronological, not actual, order-
1. China/Japan, familial: Relations formally began in the Kofun period (~250AD). Japan would pay tribute to China regularyl, and their culture became sinicised (chiniseafied) to a certain point int eh following centuries. However, Japan experienced a backlash towards China during the sengoku periods and eventually in the Edo period, when he became a hikikomori afraid of everyone. D:
2. Portugal Japan, first love: Portugal was the first European nation to come into contact with Japan in 1543. It is from Portugal that Japan procured firearms. Portugal also traded between China and japan, because, by this time Japan was not talking to China and vica versa.
3. England/Japan, unrequited (on England's part): in 1673. An English ship visited Nagasaki harbour, and asked for a new trading agreement. Japan rejected it. The government blamed it on Charles II of England for marrying Catherine of Braganza, who was from Portugal. OOOh. Catty- getting protective over past boyfriends?
4. America/Japan, romantic: nothing really romantic aboutit at all. D: BAsically Perry came along with some streamboats, sat in Tokyo bay and told Japan, "HEY! COME OUT AND PLAY YOU BIG BABY!" There was fierce debate in japan about whether to listen or not. Eventually they did, they opened up and the meiji period began.
5. Germany/Japan, lustful: Yup. This alliance was basically the meeting of two powers hungry to start a war. because Germany'd been screwed over by versailles, and because Japan wanted revenge on China. (OVERSIMPLIFYINGMUCH!?) My poor, poor, tragic OTP.
6. Taiwan/Japan, doomed: Japan wrested Taiwan from Chinese control when some soldier shipwrecked on the island and were EATEN by the aboriginal taiwanese. japan WTF!ed to China, who said it wasn't their fault because Taiwan wasn't under their jurisdiction. Then Japan thought, "Aha!" and so took Taiwan for itself. loophole ftw. Taiwan became an important submarine base for Japan in the war, and even today some taiwanese have a soft spot for Japan because it basically singlehandedly built its economy.
7. Japan/Japan, true love Japan will never have healthy relations with its neighbours or international peers until it has a good, long, hard look at itslef and comes to terms with what it's done.
Re: author's note
anonymous
July 13 2010, 12:29:39 UTC
Anon, I seriously have no words for how much I just enjoyed this. I was just expecting some cute/sexy/sad anecdotes -- just simple moments in time -- but this really, really moved me. I don't even know what to say right now, but thank you for writing this. <3 I'll be back to reread this and make a longer comment later, I think, but I have to wake up the kids, etc. Argh.
Re: author's note
anonymous
July 13 2010, 15:30:41 UTC
Love anon <3 You deserve much of it, especially for filling with Japan-- I always find him hard to grasp. Honestly, I wasn't sure what to expect but these were wonderful to read and you did a great job~
Re: author's note
anonymous
July 13 2010, 22:18:49 UTC
Incredibly wonderful. I clicked this out of vague curiosity to see which Japan pairings you'd choose, and I was not disappointed, especially with that last one. I think that you have a very solid understanding of both Japan's history and his character, in Hetalia and in the real world, and it shows very clearly. Well done.
Re: author's note
anonymous
April 23 2011, 07:46:52 UTC
This is how I would characterise Japan if I could write him in anything other than brief, amusing shorts at the end of my fics.
The thing that I think really make this a brilliant piece of work is the fact that it is historically correct and yet fits perfectly with both the canon and (decent) fanon characterisation of Japan.
Then, he sobers. “But Japan, I’m not a man who can stay in one place. I have to go, because I…I live for the colonies and the navigation and that discovery. Without that, I am not half the man you think I am. This,” he tightens his arm around Japan’s body, “is what it is because we are so different and this is all new. I…I don’t really know you, Japan. You don’t really know me. And as much as I’d love to stay and learn everything about you, we don’t have that time.”
“You will leave me alone?”
Portugal lowers his head. He knows he’s not the greatest of men, and he wishes he could make Japan understand what he’s afraid of, what he lives for. The thrum of adventure and the call of the sea is strong in his veins; Japan seems afraid to look beyond his own horizon. “I’ll visit. I’ll bring more goods to trade, more gifts. Others from Europe desire to meet you. I promise.”
They stay like that for long hours as the fireworks explode in the sky. Finally, Japan nods and looks at Portugal’s illuminated face. “I would like that,” he says evenly, smiling to cover what Portugal thinks is disappointment.
-
6. Taiwann
The first time Taiwan sees Japan after the war begins, he comes in, hugs her and chuckles low as she grins. She hasn’t seen much of him for long years, not since she’d been a gangly child. “Oh Taiwan,” he cajoles. “You’ve grown!” They’re family, she’s happy to see him, and they spend the day making dumplings in her kitchen.
The second is not long after. Taiwan gives a cry- Japan has a bandage around his sword arm but he brushes off her concern. He’s in a different uniform and his eyes are serious and sharp like blade-edges. “It is good to see you,” he says fondly. “It is good to see beauty after so much ocean.” And Taiwan blushes prettily and hugs him, telling him to be careful.
“Taiwan, Taiwan,” he breathes the third time, as the world comes crumbling down around them. He strokes her hair and nimble fingers remove her ribbons. It falls in curtains of black silk. “My princess. Let down your hair.” His leg is broken and sitting in seiza pains him. Taiwan feels sorrow as she watches him leave, the weight of the world on his shoulders.
Forth. He comes bearing gifts, one eye blind and bandaged. “Oh, Taiwan, I love you more than words can express, more than life itself, each morning is made brighter by your smile. If I could stay here for eternity by your side I would die a happy man.” She doesn’t want Japan to die, but her heart beats fast as he leans in and just barely brushes her lips with his own. Fifth and he gasps low words into her neck and holds her close and they go, because Japan has started to tremble in her arms and she thinks he might break if she doesn’t.
Japan’s wrists are bloodied the sixth time, and Taiwan has stopped pretending the world is still standing.
“It never used to be this hard,” he says, voice breaking. “It never used to be hurt like this before-“ He stops and lowers his head into her lap, muffling the words on his tongue. Japan is proud on the inside, despite his modest shell of a skin, and Taiwan is aware that this admission is no easy thing. “We are the same, you and I.”
Gazing down at his bandaged wrists, Taiwan swallows, steeling herself. “What do you mean?”
“That’s why I love you,” he muses, sick. “It must be. We’re the same. Yao abandoned us both.”
“Yao did not abandon me,” she retorts with no fire. She still hears his cries across the ocean and she holds hands against her ears.
Japan tilts his head to watch with empty eyes. “But you did not love him. And so he left you.”
Reply
“I love you,” he tells her presently.
“I believe you,” she whispers back, cradling him.
But Taiwan wonders what the word means to Japan, to him, the tortured war-groom to her tortured war-bride. Why he keeps changing and trying and fighting in the Pacific against Alfred, why he whispers Yao’s name as he sleeps and dreams nightmares, why sex with him is always silent and angry, why he always wants her hair down.
“What’s going to happen, Japan?” Taiwan finally says, gazing out onto sugar-cane fields with her face lined with worried tragedy.
Kiku rises to his knees and grips her shoulders, blood and mud and a desperate mad expression on his face. “I’m going to love you,” he announces like his life depends on it.
Taiwan closes her eyes as the sadness and helplessness fills the back of her mouth. Her surrogate brother is dooming himself. Not through war, but through this foolish need to prove himself, this crazy need to love as if his identity depended on others.
“You’ll never be able to love another if you don’t learn to love yourself,” she whispers as the bombs fall.
-
1. Chuugoku
China finds Japan in a bamboo forest.
“Aiyaa, you are so small!” Yao remarks with a smile on his face. “Aren’t you lonely by yourself?”
He just blinks, and in a small, unfrightened voice, asks, “Lonely?”
China kneels before him and reaches out to trace the round lines of his face with gentle fingers. “Are you hungry? I live nearby, aru.”
Japan doesn’t answer that. He’s suddenly shy, a pair of eyes behind silk sleeves. So, well-meaning and caring, Yao picks him up in warm arms and tells him he must be lonely, he must be hungry, and takes him home. He sits on the front steps of his house with Korea; Yung Soo talks, Japan listens and nods, excited, quiet, as China scuttles in his kitchen and makes a batch of dumplings. They eat together and Japan graces the world with a smile like the rising sun.
“Korea,” Yao says, introducing them at the dinner table with a happy grin. “This is Japan.”
“Japan?” When Kiku doesn’t understand something he has a disarming habit of parroting in a particular thoughtful voice.
China nods. “That’s where you come from.”
Something changes in Japan’s gaze, then. As if he didn’t realise where he was and where he’d come from, Japan looks frantically around him, taking in the foreign house.
Then, he bursts loudly into tears.
“Don’t cry, Japan- what’s wrong?” China, confused, immediately starts to fret. Japan just shakes his head in stubborn anguish. “Here, Korea will go play with you outside, aru!
“I don’t want to! Take me home! Take me home! I want to go home-“
Panicking, Yao lifts him up and strokes his fine hair, cooing and soothing. “Hush, little one! It’s alright, we’re here, we’re a family, we love each other, it’s alright-“
“No!” he cries shrilly, wiping his wet little face against China’s robes frantically. “I want to go home! I don’t like this place!I want to go home, I want to go home- and finally China has to relent and walk back to the bamboo forest from whence he came. He sets the boy down, wipes his sniffing face. His heart feels like it might burst, looking at Japan like this.
“I’m sorry, Japan- I care about you, I do! Don’t cry now, please.” He does care about him- that’s why he’s taken him in, that’s why he’ll let him go. “I don’t want you to be lonely, aru.”
Again, that look flashes across his face through the tears. “Lonely?” he wavers.
“How you feel when you’re by yourself. How you feel when nobody’s there to love you.”
Reply
And he asks, “Is loneliness a bad thing?”
“Yes.” China frowns. “Why would you even ask such a thing?”
-
7. Nihon
Ask Japan about love and he, invariably, will flinch.
He’ll blush too, after that.
It could be because he never really understood the concept until others came and showed him, indeed, what love is meant to be.
Japan’s idea of love is of princesses waiting to be rescued from tall towers; of romantic gestures that lead to angry, bitter, lonely sex; of video games and predictable, cause-and-effect 2D lovers; of foreign affairs and war brides that live happily-ever-after, or would if their princes didn’t die tragically; of Valentines Day and White Day and money; of idyllic first loves and childhood sweethearts in dysfunction, maid-robots and don’t-leave-me-don’t-abandon-me-don’t-KILL-me.
And they all laugh at Japan’s awkward attempts to relate to other countries, and they all feel a little sick at what goes on in his head when it comes to sex and pornography. And Japan knows that something’s not quite right, but for him (what’s happened, Japan? What happened to you?) this concept of love may just be the best he can do.
For Japan, love is something ultimately foreign. It is the presence of others. It is the absence of loneliness.
It’s hard when you’ve always been alone, to understand even this-
“Japan!” he hears England call as he gathers his notes to leave the conference. “You’re coming, right?”
A group of them are waiting by the door, chatting and laughing. Japan places a smile onto his face. “Where to, England-san?”
“The meeting’s over! Drinks, of course!” cheers America with an arm around Holland and Denmark.
Alfred still seems as young and as foolishly magnetic as ever. Kiku finds himself swallowing down the things climbing in his throat. “I am quite busy, America-san. I’m sorry.” He dips his head in polite shame.
“Geez, you have to let your hair down some time, Japan,” America teases.
It’s just a figure of speech.
But still, Japan says, “I’ll think about it Alfred,” and means no. He makes his way back through the halls of the UN building, bows to his dignitaries and the civil servants, and then he’ll close his door again.
And, drinking green tea in business hotel arm chairs, old and young and somehow still that little boy, that princess in waiting, that lover, that warrior, that island-
(You’ll never be able to love another if you don’t learn to love yourself)
Japan is still happy.
Japan is still alone.
-
Reply
Did you know?
Japan's relationships have historically been unhealthy, at least in the long run.
IN chronological, not actual, order-
1. China/Japan, familial: Relations formally began in the Kofun period (~250AD). Japan would pay tribute to China regularyl, and their culture became sinicised (chiniseafied) to a certain point int eh following centuries. However, Japan experienced a backlash towards China during the sengoku periods and eventually in the Edo period, when he became a hikikomori afraid of everyone. D:
2. Portugal Japan, first love: Portugal was the first European nation to come into contact with Japan in 1543. It is from Portugal that Japan procured firearms. Portugal also traded between China and japan, because, by this time Japan was not talking to China and vica versa.
3. England/Japan, unrequited (on England's part): in 1673. An English ship visited Nagasaki harbour, and asked for a new trading agreement. Japan rejected it. The government blamed it on Charles II of England for marrying Catherine of Braganza, who was from Portugal. OOOh. Catty- getting protective over past boyfriends?
4. America/Japan, romantic: nothing really romantic aboutit at all. D: BAsically Perry came along with some streamboats, sat in Tokyo bay and told Japan, "HEY! COME OUT AND PLAY YOU BIG BABY!" There was fierce debate in japan about whether to listen or not. Eventually they did, they opened up and the meiji period began.
5. Germany/Japan, lustful: Yup. This alliance was basically the meeting of two powers hungry to start a war. because Germany'd been screwed over by versailles, and because Japan wanted revenge on China. (OVERSIMPLIFYINGMUCH!?) My poor, poor, tragic OTP.
6. Taiwan/Japan, doomed: Japan wrested Taiwan from Chinese control when some soldier shipwrecked on the island and were EATEN by the aboriginal taiwanese. japan WTF!ed to China, who said it wasn't their fault because Taiwan wasn't under their jurisdiction. Then Japan thought, "Aha!" and so took Taiwan for itself. loophole ftw. Taiwan became an important submarine base for Japan in the war, and even today some taiwanese have a soft spot for Japan because it basically singlehandedly built its economy.
7. Japan/Japan, true love
Japan will never have healthy relations with its neighbours or international peers until it has a good, long, hard look at itslef and comes to terms with what it's done.
Reply
... <3
Reply
Reply
Insightful.
Beautiful.
...I have no more words for this.
Reply
Reply
The thing that I think really make this a brilliant piece of work is the fact that it is historically correct and yet fits perfectly with both the canon and (decent) fanon characterisation of Japan.
Really, a brilliant piece altogether.
Reply
Leave a comment