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The restaurant was quiet, despite it being noon. It seemed like most guests had decided to enjoy the weather and go outside, and the few that remained ate quietly, spread out in the restaurant. The only sounds were those of cutlery against plates, and once in a while, the footsteps of someone coming or going without hurry.
It was a beautiful late summer day, and the view from the window showed a lively, sweaty city, bubbling with the restlessness of its inhabitants. The pale grey cathedral in the distance seemed brighter against the endless blue sky, without even a single cloud for contrast, and the sea glistened, reflecting the sunlight.
It was a day too beautiful to spend indoors.
It was lucky that their one day off in the two weeks taken up by the conference ended up being so pleasant—usually, as if by the hands of a malicious force, weather forecasts were at their most unbelievable the day before their breaks, and it was rare that the nations ever got to enjoy anything. Today, however, was nice enough; not too hot. It was the perfect weather to enjoy a walk along the beach.
Most of them had gone out to do just that. Kiku hadn't seen anyone since Ludwig and Feliciano stopped by his room before going out earlier, leading him to assume he had been the only one left behind.
He didn’t mind it, of course. The near-tangible emptiness, the melancholy lingering in the air, that sensation that comes when you know everyone is away—that never bothered Kiku. He wouldn't say it was lonely, either. He hadn't used that word in decades. As he ate at a languid pace, he simply wondered what to do with the rest of the day.
He had spent the morning reading in his room and going over the notes he had written on the previous day. To spend the remainder of the day like this would surely be a waste, and he was aware of it, but nothing else came to mind as he watched ice melt inside his drink.
Condensation slid from the glass to the coaster, forming a small puddle. Kiku thought that he might as well spend the day just watching that, zoning out, with nothing on his mind for once. He'd like that, he thought to himself, to not have a constant stream of worries and nagging feelings just for a short while, to just sit and let time pass him by.
The foolish idea amused him for a moment; Kiku then shook his head lightly to dispel it—that was when he saw Arthur walking into the restaurant.
In the few moments it took for him to notice Kiku’s presence, Kiku observed the unguarded look on his face and how hesitant his every step was, walking as though he was half asleep. From that, he was able to tell that Arthur also believed he was alone.
That expression, in particular, was only ever seen when he wasn't worried about who could be watching—it was so rare that upon seeing it, Kiku felt a jolt go through his body, as a memory forcefully crawled its way to the surface. He was so taken aback by it, he couldn’t look away.
How many years had it been since the last time he had seen those distant, lonely eyes? How many years since the last time anyone trusted him enough to let him see such vulnerability?
“I don't hate your eyes,” he remembers writing in one letter, after Arthur complained, half in jest, about how Kiku would often avoid his gaze and asked if he hated it. “I like them—save for when you stare.”
“I don't understand what you mean!” Arthur wrote in response.
The time it took for a letter to travel the distance between them caused them to spend over a full year talking about the differences between fleeting glances and purposeful stares amidst paragraphs and paragraphs of bitter politics. For some reason, Kiku felt as though he was reading it all over again as he looked at Arthur, that man who had long since become as good as a stranger to him.
Was it really with him that he had exchanged those letters?
Once Arthur lifted his gaze and his eyes met Kiku's, the soft expression was quick to give way to surprise. He stopped dead in his tracks, right in the middle of that restaurant that seemed much emptier all of a sudden.
Arthur's first thought when he finally wandered out of his room, after a morning of staring at the ceiling in bed, had been of which of the nations he could end up running into if it turned out not all of them had gone out to enjoy the weather, and which of them would be the most annoying. Given that Francis, Matthew, and Alfred were out of the picture—he already knew they had gone out—he could only find either Ivan or “the other three” in the hotel.
Bumping into Ivan would be unbearable; the other three, not so much. That had been Arthur's sole conclusion.
Seeing either Ludwig, Feliciano, or Kiku on their own had not been something he considered.
He never prepared himself for the possibility of being alone with Kiku.
Nothing more than five seconds passed as they stood still, looking at each other. The surprise felt strangely familiar, but they didn’t dwell on it—there was no time for that. Soon enough, they hurried to regain their composure, putting on their weary, polite smiles, the same ones they would wear in front of politicians.
This was a bothersome situation.
Both men would much rather go on with their days as they were, uninterrupted by turbulent emotions, but one couldn't possibly go sit alone at another table after seeing an acquaintance; that would be far too awkward and impolite—so Arthur hesitantly made his way to Kiku's table, eyes darting from one side to another, not knowing where to look.
“Hi,” he said as he sat down.
“Hello,” Kiku replied.
A sun-kissed waitress with a smile as bright as the summer itself on her face quickly came to take Arthur's order, and after a second of fumbling with the menu, he ordered the first thing that caught his eye.
He thought he saw a brief, amused smile appear on Kiku's face when he did so, but dismissed it as a trick of his mind.
After the woman left, they spent another moment staring at each other, both trying to find a topic to talk about. They hadn't been so tongue-tied in decades, but being caught so off-guard, they struggled to find their footing.
This awkwardness was nothing out of the ordinary, though.
If there was anything that never felt quite right, it was their relationship. Sure, they were, for lack of a better, more distant word, friends and had been so for years, but even as they talked about the most trivial things, there was always a hint of unease floating about, ready to burst out at the tiniest stumble.
It spread in the air now, this unnamed malaise, now made sweeter by the late summer.
“...Beautiful day, isn't it?” Arthur said, finally breaking the silence.
“Indeed…” Kiku replied. “It almost doesn't seem real.”
“Thank God we don't have to stay in that room today. I swear that place is worse than a bloody boiler.”
Kiku nodded. “And if we turn on the air-conditioning, it turns into a freezer.”
“It does! I don't understand that thing! Is there no in-between?!”
The faulty air-conditioning that seemed to plague meeting rooms all over the world proved to be the perfect topic, for their meaningless talk flowed with barely a hitch from there, as if on autopilot, and in no time, Arthur's meal was brought over by that same bubbly waitress.
He looked down at his food, paused, then looked at Kiku's plate. Arthur laughed embarrassedly as he saw that he had accidentally ordered the same thing Kiku was eating—a local fish speciality, something he wouldn't even normally order.
Kiku looked at him and his meal with slight amusement in his eyes, making Arthur realise that he hadn't imagined it; he had indeed smiled when he ordered it—a small, almost imperceptible smile Arthur had long since given up on ever seeing again.
“It was not on purpose…!” he defended himself from the unspoken teasing.
Arthur and Kiku were never talkative around each other; this was a known fact about them—they were even mocked for it, once upon a time. Now, though, they forced themselves to talk, nervously banishing the silence they used to cherish with weightless, draining comments on a football match they both happened to watch or on the beautiful view of the old port they had from their rooms.
Laughably in sync, they both wished, from the depths of their hearts, to seem like normal acquaintances—whatever it is that normal meant for beings like them. It didn’t matter that their relationship felt uncomfortable and unsteady, as if it had landed on the wrong foot after a clumsy leap. There was no escaping these situations, so they had to be acquaintances, as normal as they could, even if within this uncomfortable atmosphere hid a yearning to go back to something that was never quite there to begin with.
Normal acquaintances talk to each other. So they talked.
Eventually, the topic of the conversation turned to the inevitable: the chaos in the meeting room on the previous day. They hadn't managed to fully discuss even a single topic they were supposed to—like always, nothing got done. It was questionable why they still held these conferences in the first place.
The only benefit, they mused, was that it allowed them to see some beautiful places they wouldn't have the chance to visit otherwise, like this French seaside town.
“But I have to say, it's rare to see you alone during these conferences,” Arthur commented, after a minute spent complaining about how Francis always picks these beautiful places on purpose, to show off like a damn peacock. “I always hear about you, Germany, and Italy going sightseeing together. Where are they? Did they ditch you for once?”
“They went to the beach,” Kiku replied, a sort of sheepish look on his face. “They invited me, but I preferred to stay here.”
“Huh… Why didn’t you go with them? Were you feeling tired? I surely was, especially this morning.”
“Not particularly… I just think they should spend some time alone, that's all.”
“...That's considerate of you,” Arthur mused after a pause, his voice growing strangely wistful, even to his own ears. “So the three of you are really friends, huh? That's nice. This sort of thing is rare—”
He stopped speaking as soon as he realised what he was implying. The comment escaped from his lips as though he had forgotten, for a second, with whom he was speaking.
Arthur had meant to say that it was rare for genuine friendships to develop within the corrupt confines of an alliance, which was true, and they were proof of it—proof that these kinds of ties will seldom lead to anything good, but it wasn't something that needed to be said out loud, for goodness' sake.
He looked up from his plate with an apology stumbling its way up his throat, but once Arthur's eyes met Kiku's, not a word of it was able to leave his mouth.
Seeing the soft, just vaguely mournful expression on his face emptied his mind of all thought.
“It is rare,” Kiku agreed. “Though you and Mr Portugal seem to be good enough friends.”
Arthur half-heartedly chuckled. “You could say that.”
They finished their meals in silence, and in silence too, they left their table and went to the balcony. There they remained, side by side, watching people go by and yachts sway in the water. It was then that they understood why they dreaded the silence so much.
Enveloped by this silence, there was nothing to stop memories and unspoken feelings from a hundred years ago from floating up from the depths where they lay buried.
Kiku wanted nothing more than to go back to his room. It would be better for both of them if he did—the last thing he needed was to remember what he worked so hard to forget; to remember the time they used each other for comfort and ended tangled up in a meaningless sorrow when it all fell apart, even though they always knew how it would end.
He had mentioned Manoel with the purpose of killing the conversation, which worked far better than he expected, but this silence felt as loud as any talk about their pathetic companionship would have been.
“What about you? Why are you alone?” Kiku asked, moved by an impulse to escape from the suffocating stillness around them.
“Me?” Arthur said, a tad surprised by the mellow sound of his voice cutting through his thoughts so unexpectedly. “...Well, as far as I know, Francis took Alfred and Matthew to see God knows what. I was not invited.”
“I see…”
The restaurant became emptier and emptier as people, one by one, finished their meals and left.
It had been years since the last time they spent so much time alone.
It felt that this was where they belonged, still, yet they felt so out of place, so unsure of themselves—unsure of what they were supposed or allowed to say, unsure of why they were lingering instead of walking away.
Their eyes chased each other, only to run away once their gazes met.
Suddenly, a figure in the street below caught Arthur’s attention.
“Oh, would you look at that,” he said.
There, wearing short sleeves that looked so incongruous with his scarf, was Ivan, seemingly just now venturing out of the hotel to go for a walk. Kiku’s eyes followed him for a moment before losing all interest in knowing where he might be going.
“He's going to get heatstroke again,” he observed, simply.
Arthur snickered. “Probably.”
The hours went by without hurry, but still uninterruptedly. Ivan’s appearance made Arthur and Kiku become aware that the sun had, in fact, already passed its peak, without them ever noticing.
“We should go out too,” Arthur declared. “We can't be the only ones stuck here. Do you… have anything planned?”
“Not really.”
“Then let's go.” Arthur turned to face Kiku, who, much to his surprise, was already looking at him. His antsy eyes met Kiku’s weary gaze, and Arthur had to take a deep, steadying breath to prevent himself from stammering. “ …For old time's sake.”
For the first time that day, they held each other's gaze without trying to escape, and wordlessly headed out.
The street market had just closed for the day; vendors were in the process of getting ready to leave, and customers could still be seen carrying their grocery bags in the distance. People’s chatter flowed indistinctly in the air, whilst Arthur and Kiku walked and walked, aimlessly, almost as if wishing to get lost and never have to return to the hotel.
They passed by every tourist attraction the town had to offer without sparing any of them a glance. Famous shops, historical sites, and everything in between—nothing stirred in them anything that could distract them from each other's presence.
Eventually, they happened upon a poster, glued precariously on a bus stop, advertising the local observatory. It showed a childish drawing of the night sky, dotted with glittery stars.
Arthur and Kiku stopped to look at it. They had walked for so long that twilight already painted the world in a muted orange, making the deep blue poster stand out even more.
It said that the observatory was having a special exhibition, showing projections of videos and photos of the night sky taken in that town over the years. That very week would be the last, it said, and if they hurried, they would make it just in time for the last entry.
Certainly, it was a coincidence; it couldn’t be anything but—fate, if such a thing existed, would never waste time making sure two nations would run into something to remind them of that which they tried to forget while doing everything to remember.
Still, before they knew it, Arthur and Kiku were standing there, in a room full of mostly children and their parents, staring at the projections of the sky on the walls.
Honestly, nothing about the exhibition was very impressive to them, but that was to be expected. Judging by all the appropriately star-struck noises the children kept making and all of the “Maman, maman! Regarde!” they could hear, the intended audience was more than satisfied. That two sentimental old men like them would not find it to be all that wonderful was not something the organisers were concerned with, obviously.
At least there was no more uneasy silence, they thought, although it was replaced by that peculiar loneliness one feels when surrounded by unattainable happiness.
The projector painted them with stars, showing pictures of all the sights they had ignored on the way.
Arthur, after a moment in which he, in vain, tried to keep his eyes forward, looked to his side and saw Kiku looking up at the bright Polaris projected in front of them—his expression soft. Seeing the stars reflected in his dark brown eyes reminded Arthur of the ocean at night, of seeing nothing but thousands of stars, without being able to tell which was the reflection and which was reality. It reminded him of wanting to throw himself into the endless night sky.
Beautiful.
Once again, Arthur tried to stop himself, but he couldn’t help thinking of that night—of that strange, fanciful night, of not believing his ears when he heard his own name being called, of not believing that someone would come looking for him and choose him.
“It's been a while,” he said, unable to hold his tongue any longer. “Since the last time I saw the stars with you.”
Kiku looked at him for a second, then turned back to the stars.
He didn't really look at the sky that night, he suddenly realised. It was a starry night, that he knew, of course, but all he could really remember were the tears shining in the corner of Arthur's eyes—tears he didn’t understand at the time. He supposed Arthur didn't understand them either, just like he didn’t understand why the thought of not correcting that misunderstanding and letting Arthur believe he had been abandoned in favour of a better deal was so intolerable to him that he had to run up that hill to find him.
“It has been a while,” he agreed, his voice barely audible amid the childish wonder around them. “Quite a while.”
He stepped away from Arthur, pretending to want to see a constellation closer, but really only wanting to put an end to this nostalgic conversation once again. Kiku couldn’t understand why Arthur was doing this—why he was bringing that up. When had he gotten the impression that their friendship was one that could stand being reminded of what they once were without crumbling?
They couldn't go back, and they didn't want to—Kiku didn’t want to, and he knew that Arthur, not being as arrogantly complacent as he once was, also didn’t. So why bring it up? Why make his heart tighten so painfully in his chest? Why make his hands suddenly feel so cold?
Arthur was far from being oblivious to Kiku's discomfort. He saw it in the distance he put between them, in the way his hands twitched ever so slightly, and honestly, he didn’t know what he wanted either. Any other day, he would have been the first to flinch away from Kiku's warmth as though it burned him. He would have brushed him off with sparse words, would have averted his gaze instead of lingering, and it would have been the right thing to do.
If he had done that, his heart wouldn't have been aching as it was at that moment.
Still, against his better judgment, he took a step forward to stand beside his former lover, limbs moving as though on their own account.
“Do you remember,” he asked. “My first gift to you?”
And despite everything, despite how much he didn’t want to go down his hopeless road, Kiku couldn't stop a small smile from appearing on his lips.
“The telescope,” he replied, remembering the silver gilt telescope, a novelty at the time, and the boy, a novelty to him, who had given it to him. “Of course I remember.”
“I was so proud of myself for giving you something you actually liked—like ‘take that, Netherlands!’ or something,” Arthur said, sounding like he was still quite proud of himself in his nostalgia. “It was all for nought in the end, but still.”
Kiku closed his eyes for a moment. It was all for nought, yes—one could say that about everything in their relationship.
The morning walks, the chess matches, the flowers they planted in each other's gardens, the books they borrowed and never returned. It was all for nought.
Half of him wanted to tell Arthur to shut up before he said something he'd regret later, but with each second that passed, that half became weaker and weaker.
“It was destroyed in a fire, that telescope,” Kiku murmured. “Those things are always so fragile.”
“I lost your silk screens, too, so we're even.”
They fell into silence once again. The room went dark for a second before an image of a starry sky over the bay lit it back up, to the delight of the children, their parents, and everyone else in that room.
Kiku thought about walking away again, but something stopped him from doing so. There was a couple standing just ahead of them, holding hands, peacefully gazing at the stars. For some reason, seeing them made Kiku's resolve falter. The rational part of him became even weaker.
He never minded being alone, never. He would always prefer the silence of his house over the loudness that came with being around people—the only time he could ever relax, stop acting and allow himself to just be, was when he was alone, in complete isolation. He cherished his solitude over anyone else, always had and always will.
Sometimes, though, when nights were a bit too cold and quiet, he wished to have someone.
Sometimes, he longed for the one he once had in his arms, longed for the sweet understanding he never found anywhere else, longed, longed, longed, so desperately that it felt like his feelings gained a will of their own—he pushed them away, tried to ignore them, but they were always there, calling out like a child.
They would make him remember the nights he and Arthur spent nestled in each other's arms, their whispered unattainable promises and quiet laughter.
He wondered if the same rebellious feelings also plagued Arthur's mind. Kiku had, until now, believed that Arthur spoke recklessly, without caring for the hurt his nostalgia might cause, but now, in that dark room lit up by projections of stars, he realised he could hear nothing but sincerity in his voice.
“Do you think…” Arthur hesitantly said, then paused for a second, thinking over his words. Kiku noticed that he was also looking at the couple. “Do you think we could have ever been like that?”
“No,” he replied, without hesitation. “No, that could have never been us.”
“...I guess so,” Arthur chuckled awkwardly, trying to pretend Kiku's certainty didn't sting. He knew it was true, after all. He didn’t want to remember it, but they weren't together anymore for a reason—multiple reasons that went far beyond them as nations.
Arthur knew that if they ever tried to take each other’s hands again, they would each be scratched by old thorns. He wanted nothing more than to bring Kiku into his arms, but he knew that a silent, slow and painful destruction would be inevitable afterwards. Wasn’t that why they avoid being alone so much? Wasn’t that why Arthur always held back, convinced that having those rose-tinted memories was better than having nothing at all, convinced that he’d rather die of loneliness like a guinea pig than for him and Kiku to hurt each other again?
“But,” Kiku whispered, interrupting his train of thought as he took a small step towards Arthur, so that he could be heard. “The way we were was enough, wasn't it?”
“...It was. We never needed anything else.”
A melancholic yet peaceful haze washed over them. Nothing more needed to be said.
They stayed for a couple of minutes more, then walked out into the evening. The heat was now lessened by a light breeze, and the sky, although not as starry as it had been on those pictures, was a light blue with a few stars, twinkling here and there.
It was enough.
Like the small mundane paragraphs that always ended up sandwiched between bitterness in their letters, Arthur and Kiku felt like this moment, this one summer day, could be the one day that allowed themselves to reach out for the unreachable—the one day they would allow themselves to remember that they kissed once, even though they also hurt each other; they held each other once, despite the venomous remarks that escaped from their lips.
They were almost happy together, once upon a time, so, so long ago.
They never were and never would be like that young couple, who can freely hold each other's hands without fearing tomorrow and who can dream about a future together, but that never mattered.
Although separated by ten thousand leagues of clouds and waves, they were by each other's side at this small moment, and that was enough.