Chapter Text
By the time Taiwan managed to rub the dust out of her eyes and join Hong Kong back in the living room, he’d already cracked the album open on the coffee table.
She took a seat on the floor next to him, glancing at the enormous brick. “Oh my… Are those… baby photos?”
Hong Kong groaned, throwing a hand over the dirty photographs. ”Ughhh, no they’re not.”
“You were so cute back then.” Taiwan coos as she peers down at an aged photo of child Hong Kong, posed stiffly with England. In the corner, a dead-eyed Mickey Mouse frames the photograph. “What went wrong?”
“What didn’t go wrong?” Hong Kong mutters as he quickly flips through the pages. Slowly, the photos turned from sepia to color and their quality sharpened. The first few pages had a bit of China and the other Chinese provinces, but him and them quickly disappeared. Flashes of India and Singapore and others popped up here and there, but the photos were largely of Hong Kong alone, or scenery.
“Do you still keep up with this thing?” Taiwan asks, chin planted in her palm.
“Yeah, actually. I still, like, print out new photos and put them in here.”
“That’s so inconvenient.” Taiwan wrinkles her nose. “Isn’t it easier to just transfer them all digitally?”
Hong Kong pauses, before shrugging. “I mean, yeah. But everytime I tried to do that, I always gave up or got distracted.”
He leans back on the sofa. “I guess… having a solid copy feels better? More reassuring?”
“Mm, yeah, I get that.” Taiwan nods, thinking. “Still, you don’t see me doing that with my photos, they’re all sitting on a flash drive… somewhere.”
“You laugh now, but that just means my stuff will survive the digital decay apocalypse.”
“You’re so right, Ka Lung. When the economy inevitably collapses and we’re all forced back into subsistence farming, the one thing I’ll want to have with me is your cartoon photo album.”
“It’ll be the currency of the new world order we build- one shitty cartoon album for a month’s rent.” Hong Kong grinned. “Oh, here it is.”
He moved back to reveal a photograph of his hand in a peace sign; behind it, England and China were passed out on the couch, both nations shirtless and clearly drooling. China had a tie knotted around his head while one of his eyebrows was conspicuously missing.
Taiwan snaps a photo. “The Republic of India thanks you for your contribution.”
Hong Kong bows his head. “Can you ask him to transplant me into the Indian Ocean in return?”
“I’ll start ordering my photo albums then~”