Winter's Sleep (A RusGer Fanfiction)

Chapter V: Presence, and the Loveliness of rain.

Russia knew two things when he first saw Germany standing in the middle of the empty street without an umbrella shielding him from rain. One, his cough might worsen than the one he heard through the window yesterday, and two, he was crying.

The boy had been standing there rigidly, a hand clenching hard on his chest, and he could see how he was breathing heavily as if he had been running. He was completely drenched to the boot, his black clothes dripping with rainwater and his black hair lacking its shine as it clung to his face. And his face–

Hollow.

Questions arose within him, but he set those aside and dropped his burning cigarette to the puddle around him. He made no move at all, even after he called him like his voice went through him. Russia quickly took off his jacket and used it to shield him from rain. Looking closer at him, it seemed like he was in a trance, except the sound of his gasp proved him the otherwise. He grabbed his hand and dragged him away from the rain, and slung his jacket over his drenched clothes.

"What are you doing in the rain, deutschland?" he asked calmly, holding back the surprise that emerged. "Where's your umbrella?"

But he gave him no reply. He just stared at him silently with a couple of deep breaths. Russia wiped away the water on his face and furrowed his eyebrow when he felt his cold skin. He held back a sigh, then.

"You just recovered from that great cough and already out in the rain. You're going to catch a cold at this rate," he added, and this time, he replied in a whimper.

"I forgot to bring my umbrella."

More questions appeared in his head. It had been cloudy since the dawn and for him to be forgetting his umbrella was something that he found to be impossible.

Unless he's being distracted by something, he usually won't make any mistakes.

That was what Russia had gathered from watching him work for seven days. Even if he distracted him by throwing questions or talking about things unrelated to him or his work, he rarely made any mistakes. It was very impressive of him to be entirely focused on his work while holding a lengthy talk with him.

So, this was weird. Really weird.

His eyes narrowed at his reply, finding it suspicious and odd, but said nothing more to it. However, Russia could not shove aside the fact that he seemed to be breathless, which he thought to be the source of his tears. Somehow, Russia knew that he was in pain, but he could not be sure if that was really the case. Did the rain trigger his cough? Was it more painful than the one he had yesterday?

He remembered how he shrieked and jerked his body away from him as if he hurt him with his touch. His voice was raspy; the remnants of the cough was still there somewhere in him. He had a panicked look on his face when he lifted his head, had his eyes all teary, and he watched in surprise as tears rolled down to his cheek.

"I'm fine, no need to worry."

As if he would believe that. Even polska felt the same way. There was something weird about him, and if that cough was the same as the one he had one week ago, then it must have been worsened.

But he never expected him to be the type of person who forced themselves to the point of exhaustion, the self-destructive type. That was kind of contradicting of him – to be so focused on his work but hating the subject of his work at the same time. Russia had never encountered one who lasted long with that type, even in his line of work.

But there he was, a boy younger than him by probably two or three years, who overworked himself with something he hated to the point of not taking proper care of himself.