Medicine = Magic [RoChu Fanfiction]

Chapter Eighteen

"Are you sure you want to get that?" China playfully bumped Russia with his hip, "I'm telling you aru, that coffee does not taste good,"

"Oh? And you are warning me?" Russia snorted as he flipped through the Russian ruble (his currency) he held, counting it. An unexplainable happiness had overcome him this morning but he refused to believe it was connected to the outing he had planned with China.

"Yes aru!" China hissed, his voice shaking as he tried not to laugh, "It sucks!"

"Yeah yeah whatever," Russia shook his head, "I'm sure you're just being dramatic..."

"I'm really not aru," China shook his head harder, "you are going to regret this, I'll bet on it,"

"You will?" Russia raised a playful eyebrow at him.

"Yes!" China grinned, showing his rarely surfacing competitive side, "I'll bet you one hundred..." he paused before nodding, looking satisfied with the number he came up with, "...and thirty seven yuan you'll regret it aru~"

"I have no clue what that is in ruble but I'll bet on it too," Russia smirked, before looking up to see that the girl behind the counter was quickly walking over. He almost ignored China's snorted, 'twenty American dollars, you should be able to afford it', while staring at her. She wore the uniform, nothing special. Just a regular human.

"I'm sorry for the wait," the girl apologized, "One of my coworkers dropped an ice cream in the deep fryer and it made a mess,"

Russia heard China mutter 'it's fine' under his breath before raising his head higher and smiling at her, "I'm sure that would make a mess,"

"Yeah," she sighed, seemingly grateful that they hadn't started to chew her out over something that wasn't her fault, "but anyway, what do you two want?"

They ordered their food, Russia claiming the coffee despite China's warnings, on the other hand China hesitated before grabbing a soda. (Which Russia had been quite certain he didn't enjoy only a few years before.) As they made their way over to a corner table he commented on this, "I didn't think you liked soda,"

"I don't aru," China sighed, "I couldn't think of anything else to get without holding up the line,"

"There wasn't a line," Russia pointed out, plopping into one chair and almost spilling the still very hot coffee on himself, "and why worry about that?"

"It's called being polite Ivan," China smirked, sitting down as well, though he placed the drink on the table beforehand so as to not suffer the same fate Russia nearly had, "but of course you don't know much about that aru,"

Russia tried to protest but China shook his head, "I'm joking obviously, no need to worry aru,"

"Fine," Russia crossed his arms, leaning back slightly in his chair and smiling in a way that could have looked threatening if he didn't mean it truthfully, "what were we going to talk about again? Some things got lost in translation I'm sure."

China raised an eyebrow, talking around the plastic straw that he was now drinking out of, "What do you mean 'lost in translation'? We just discussed going to get drinks aru,"

Russia closed his eyes, leaning down and bringing the styrofoam cup up to his mouth, preparing to drink the hot liquid, "I don't know, I'm not exactly the best at conversation, perhaps you had specifics?"

"I did not aru," China shook his head, putting the soda back down again and watching carefully for Russia's reaction to the coffee. So when the white haired nation's eyes flew open, making a sort of retching noise in his throat, he smirked, "Is it bad?"