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He is ten-years-old, and he is the furthest that he’s ever been from home.
London is cold, and it’s wet. It hasn’t stopped raining since he stepped off the plane, and he’s already gotten mud all over his best trousers, the ones that Mr Kirkland had told him to wear specially for this day. He tracks mud into the car that’s arrived to pick them up, and he sees the driver glare at him through the rearview mirror. Mr Kirkland apologises on his behalf - and says that he’s just a boy who doesn’t know any better.
Two of his governors are seated on either side of him, Singapore himself sitting right at the end of that long, wooden meeting table. Some part of him is aware of how awkwardly he sticks out in this room, in this city - with his small stature, his dark hair, his accented English. They talk of trade routes, of port building, of all the sorts of things that should concern him, but he’s ten and all he wants to do is to run out into the rain and play in the garden outside. But instead, he’s stuck inside, with no choice but to sit still and keep quiet at the adult’s table.
Hong Kong sits across from him, fidgeting with the 2B pencil placed in front of him. He rolls it back, and then forth, tries to make it stand, picks at its lead - and with the harsh clap of his governor’s hand against the wooden table, the pencil is confiscated from him. But Hong Kong just blows his hair out of his eyes, and swings his legs under the table. He has all the restlessness of a young schoolboy. And he looks the part, freshly cut dark hair framing his youthful round face, with the most brilliant golden-brown eyes that Singapore’s ever seen.
Mr Kirkland lets them out to go and play at some point. Like a defeated babysitter, he holds the door open for them, and Hong Kong and Singapore rush out, taking the stairs two at a time. Hong Kong seems to know the building better than he does. Singapore’s feet pad against the brilliant marble flooring, following after Hong Kong’s back through the maze of hallways and out through the building’s back door, until the first drops of cold evening rain break onto his face, his clothes, his hands.
Outside, he doesn’t feel like one of Mr Kirkland’s colonies of the Far East. Outside, he just feels like a ten-year-old. Mud cakes his shoes as he runs through the rosemary bushes with Hong Kong, their hair sopping wet with rain, getting mud and dirt all over their nice collared shirts. Singapore barely knows the boy, but they play like they’ve known each other for decades. Rain falls all around them from overcast skies, and the wind blows mercilessly through their soaked shirts. Hong Kong calls him his pang jau. The London chill doesn’t feel so unbearable anymore.
It hadn’t taken long for the war to rip through their corner of the continent.
Hong Kong had fallen first. Malaya is still standing, but although Shafiq had always looked to Singapore like he could hold up the sky with nothing but his sheer force of will, Singapore has no idea how much longer he can possibly hold out for.
And there’s nothing Singapore can do about it - of course there isn’t. He’s Mr Kirkland’s colony, a dependent. He doesn’t even have a thousand kilo-meter square worth’s of land to his name. Physically, he’s barely even a teenager himself, with skinny arms and a wiry frame.
So he writes. He keeps his radio on, perched on the edge of his writing desk, right by his bed. He listens for news about Malaya, about Hong Kong, about England, pen hovering over paper, trying to find some way to get the worry that wrings at every muscle in his body out of his system. The envelopes on his desk start to pile up. Some he brings to the post office, and some he leaves stashed behind the far confines of his desk drawers.
Sometimes, he gets responses. Mr Kirkland’s letters are always brief, vague, as if he’d barely gotten the energy out to pen down a well meaning response as his own house is being burnt to the ground. Chin up, lad, he tells him, that they both need to soldier on through this period, like a father handing out tough love to his son. Shafiq’s letters are more sporadic - some are just a page long, others are as many pages long as his envelopes would allow him to stuff in it. He’s angry, he’s tired of the war, and he misses Singapore and Indonesia more than anyone else in the world.
Leon writes back to him once. It’s a simple request - when all this is over, he just wants to go out for some steamed pork buns.
It comes to him in the middle of the night, a white hot pain tearing through every inch of his insides so harsh and unforgiving that he aches for whatever higher power there is out there to let him pass out and die and die. Japan hauls him to his feet and drags him out into the city. Every step he takes is hot knives punctured into his lungs, into his feet.
The war is long, and the war is painful.
The year is 1962, and the world is unrecognisable from the one of Singapore’s childhood.
He’s not just a small trading port anymore. He works on his economies, and on his developments - he has his own government officials now, his own public housing, his own national anthem. Speculations of independence burn through whispers between Arthur and Shafiq’s bosses. He knows it would be a daring move, even while suspended in mere talk.
He’ll never survive on his own, so he starts entertaining fantasies about living with Shafiq again. He thinks about how nice the view would look from Shafiq’s Kuala Lumpur home, about how nice it would be to share his independence with the one person who’s had his back from the start. He knows Shafiq wants this too. Privately, Shafiq approaches the prospect of their merger with a giddy, unprofessional glee, cat-like eyes shining with excitement as they tapau dinners together after their meetings.
Singapore finds himself on flights between Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur a lot. His boss likes to visit Hong Kong - they have too much in common to not learn from one another, he’d told Singapore. Young, upstart cities with a penchant for economic growth and a current period of rapid industrialisation.
He tags along most of the time. Leon is ever the gracious host, pulling him by the hand through the winding streets of Kowloon, the city that seems to sparkle even brighter after nightfall. Those nights are filled with the bright neon signs of Nathan Road, of the savoury-sweet snacks of street vendors that Leon pushes into his hands, of that inimitable rush of teenage wonderment. Each night seems to end in the same way - walking along the length of Kowloon Bay, with plastic bags of char siu bao dangling from their wrists.
Four Asian Tigers. They’d both heard that term being thrown in their direction a lot. They are two out of the four budding economies of the early 1960s, so full of potential and promise that they can’t help but rattle on and on about their naive ambitions to each other. They’ve both become oddly comfortable around one other. Leon says that he’s going to become the biggest financial hub in the whole of Asia. Singapore tells him about his plans for independence. Leon is the first person to call Singapore by the name he’d chosen for himself.
“Harry,” Leon says, as if weighing it on his tongue, trying to see how it sounds.
Harry, he calls him, the name that Singapore had nicked from one of his founding fathers. That name - he’d gone back and forth with himself over it for months, but it sounds so natural now that it’s hanging so easily off of Leon’s tongue. They’re walking along the length of Kowloon Bay, the cool coastal breeze of the harbour blowing through their hair. Leon’s golden-brown eyes look like honey under the gentle glow of moonlight, never really losing its brightness. Harry doesn’t know what it feels like to be in love.
He has his first kiss that night. Leon’s hand is warm against his cheek, his lips soft against Harry’s own. The plastic bag of char siu bao in his hand has dropped to the ground, forgotten. Harry wants nothing more than to hold onto Leon for as long as he can.
But the rules of love are different for nations. They don’t see each other again until 1964.
Singapore’s merger with Malaysia does not come without difficulty.
In the worst of times, it’s hard to separate Shafiq from Malaysia, and Harry knows that it must be the same for himself as well. They hold it together in public, tight smiles and put together pleasantries, never straying too far from each other’s sides. They’re one country now, after all. And as much as the height of their arguments has Shafiq accusing Harry of using their personal relationship just to gain his independence, Harry knows that Shafiq’s not entirely in the wrong.
Harry can never accuse Shafiq of being uncaring, though. And Harry knows that he can never truly learn to hate him. Their only wrongdoing was allowing that much unhappiness to continue festering in that big house.
Sometimes, Singapore wonders how such a big house can manage to hold so many unhappy feelings in it.
Japan hosts a dinner party at his own house in Tokyo, the week before he’s due to host the Summer Olympics. It’s just a social event among everyone as nation-folk, apparently - almost extrovertedly out of character for the host himself. Singapore spends most of his time hanging back by Malaysia’s side, just as Malaysia does with him. Nations they haven’t spoken to in years clasp their hands in congratulations, and Singapore barely realises how his face starts to hurt from all the smiling that he’s doing.
Malaysia’s a little bit better at keeping his public face together. He laughs easily at Philippines’s jokes, and glances at Singapore with no trace of unhappiness whenever someone asks them a question. Japan casually comments about how this would be the first year that Harry and Shafiq will be competing together. They’re a unit now, whether they like it or not.
There’s a certain kind of curse to being the only sober people left at a party. England is an awfully emotional drunk, and the egging on from the likes of France and America is no help at all. Japan seems to sit quietly by himself, uncomfortable, his outgoing host persona starting to wear thin in what Singapore realises might not have actually been a self-initiated proposal after all. Malaysia does not drink, and there’s no way that an increasingly drunk Philippines can continue to keep him socially distracted like this. Shafiq’s plastered on smile is starting to slip. Harry excuses himself to the bathroom.
He runs into Hong Kong on his way out of the bathroom. Leon’s eyes do not soften when his gaze meets Harry's anymore. Harry’s gotten used to his fights with Shafiq. One with Leon would just be another fight he’d have to deal with.
“You married Shafiq,” Leon says, in that same deadpan voice he uses whenever he has his guard up around someone. It sounds almost like an accusation. Leon’s never used this tone of voice towards him before.
“It’s a political merger,” Harry replies flatly. What does he care, anyway? “And it’s not your business.”
“You said you wanted to be independent,” Leon shrugs. “Just didn’t expect it to be like this.”
Leon’s never been the verbally affectionate type. It’s never bothered him before, and Harry doesn’t know why it’s bothering him now. “Okay.” Why doesn’t he care?
Leon walks past him and wrenches the sliding door to the living room open. None of the other nations are looking at them, far too preoccupied in their own drunken stupor to pay attention. It’s going to be easy to get drowned out in the boisterous chatter that fills Japan’s living room, but Harry yells loud enough for Leon to hear him.
“Oi, if you want to establish diplomatic relations so bad, maybe try talking to my boss first!”
Hong Kong keeps walking, but Singapore knows that he’d heard him. He finds Iceland, and starts talking, laughing with him - a little too loud, a little too animatedly, in a way that Singapore knows that he’s meant to see. Hong Kong’s smile isn’t quite reaching his eyes. Singapore marches over to where Malaysia sits, and pulls him up by the arm. Time to go.
He should not have acted the way he did. He is a nation. Singapore is professional. Singapore is proper. But by God, Harry is not. And unlike those other bastards in attendance, Harry does not need alcohol to make bad decisions.
This is not a diplomatic trip.
That’s what he tells everyone, because despite what it looks like, it really isn’t one. The idea of a Four Asian Tigers is a concept of economy, of nation matters, but it’s also somehow a weird group of friends that Singapore seems to have fallen in with. Sometimes it’s weekends off to Taipei for shopping trips, sometimes it’s spending Chinese New Year together at Hong Kong’s place. It’s a lot easier with Taiwan and Korea around.
It’s the day before the New Year’s of 1970. Korea invites them over for dinner and drinks, four soju bottles and a hot pot of rice cakes and noodles sitting in the centre of their small table. Singapore finds himself gazing out of Korea’s living room window, hand pressed against the cold chill of the windowpane. Snow hangs off barren tree branches, coating the apartment blocks outside in a blanket of white. Neither Singapore nor Hong Kong has snow back home.
And because they are young, dinner just doesn’t feel like a satisfying enough end to the night. Korea brings them down to a karaoke bar, with tambourines and microphones and even more soju for drinking.
Yong-soo is charming, enigmatic, and he makes Harry feel oddly self-conscious without meaning to. He sings well and he sings with unbridled energy, arms thrown comfortably around Mei and Leon’s shoulders beside him. Leon’s good at singing, too. Leon and Yong-soo sing several duets together - taking the musical roles of partners, of lovers, and Harry opts to wash his ugly feeling of jealousy down with even more soju. He does not move from his spot, squashed at the other end of the sofa beside Mei, because who Leon sings and holds and laughs with is none of Harry’s business.
They end up having to help Yong-soo and Mei back to the apartment. The long trudge home is lit only by the dim light of passing street lamps, Mei fast asleep on Harry’s back while Yong-soo snores loudly on Leon’s. Leon and Harry are left alone for the first time in years, in an unfamiliar, wintery backdrop.
“How are you and Shafiq doing?” Leon asks.
Shafiq’s business had stopped being Harry’s business in 1965. “Better.”
Behind him, Yong-soo sneezes into Leon’s hoodie. The weight that has been pressing on Harry’s heart since 1964 has never felt heavier. “You know I still have feelings for you, right?”
Leon turns to meet his gaze. His eyes look like honey under the yellow glow of the streetlamp behind him. “I know.”
He doesn’t say anything else - Leon has never been much for words, but he interlaces Harry’s hand in his own and squeezes it, in an odd sense of unspoken reassurance hanging between the two. Leon’s hand against his is warm, so warm.
Snow falls gently around them. Harry’s starting to learn to like the cold.
He is twenty-years-old, and he’s home. He’s not in Singapore, miles away from his cosy HDB flat that sits atop his Bukit Timah apartment block. But he’s in Kowloon, in Hong Kong, pressed against Leon’s warm frame, as he feels the steady rise and fall of the other boy’s chest. Rain patters steadily against Leon’s bedroom window, a plastic bag of his favourite char siu bao sitting atop his bedside table.
The rules of love are different for nations. Harry had found that out the hard way - starting from when Leon had taken his 1964 outburst literally and phoned his boss to ask for permission to see him romantically (the outcome of that horrific phone call being - no, he cannot merge Hong Kong with Singapore, but he can see Harry romantically if he wishes).
Harry nuzzles his nose lazily into Leon’s shoulder, and he feels Leon’s arms pull instinctively closer around him. The word boyfriend still feels like a strange term to use. Not many nations know of the true nature of their relationship - Malaysia and Indonesia in Singapore’s circle, and Taiwan and China in Hong Kong’s.
When they have to be Hong Kong and Singapore, they maintain that professional distance in front of everyone else. There’s still the quick peck on the cheek here and hand hold under the table there, making it feel like they’re co-workers in an inconspicuous office romance.
But when it’s just their close friends around, it’s nice to be able to lean into Leon, to get to hold his hand without hiding it. Shafiq jokes that they’re painfully obvious - that everyone else is just pretending to not know out of painful politeness. And Harry lets him get away with saying that, because Shafiq is still his best friend.
“Oi.”
Leon mumbles something incoherent in response. Harry nudges him in the ribs.
“Oi, my plane is leaving already.”
“But I want you to stay,” Leon whines.
They don’t say ‘I love you’ very often. They’re a couple of very few words, affection-wise. But between their monthly date nights walking along Kowloon Bay, and everything else considered - it’s enough.
Harry nudges him again. “I have to go back to work.”
“Okay,” Leon yawns. “Five more minutes.”
There’s no way he can argue against that. Harry presses a kiss on the tip of Leon’s nose, and settles back into his boyfriend’s warm embrace. And for five more minutes, their world is a blissful, loving place.