Month of Sorrow

Chapter 7 - Strings of Fate (part 2)

Philia's face looked like she was caught off-guard. "Um, I'm sorry. I know that neither you nor Emil are not huge fans of Gilbert..."

"Because Gilbert's a freaking douchebag to everybody!" said Hong Kong, raising his voice slightly.

Philia just shrugged. "Well, almost."

"Well, I heard that he flirts with Matthew, but he always rejects his advances. I heard from someone that Gilbert once had a crush on Elizabeta, though..."

"Yeah, I heard that, too."

And so, their conversation consisted mostly of Hong Kong and Philia's younger and older siblings; one such example is that Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan and the other Asians were all raised by China, although the latter first found Hong Kong when he was only a baby by a sandy beach. Philia thought it was cute. She also said that she was raised by Spain along with Romano and she and Luzon had many Hispanic siblings, though Philia was the only one out of the two to spend the most time with Romano and Mexico, so she looked up to them as her older brothers, with Mexico being the most fiercely protective of her. She even joked that she doesn't think that Mexico would approve of her being friends with Hong Kong respectively, which earned a laugh from the latter, though Hong Kong wouldn't think that China wouldn't like the idea of him hanging out with Philia or Luzon, or else the Philippine twins altogether, with the Filipina agreeing with him immeasurably, although during this, Hong Kong had to avoid the subject of the tour bus incident and China forbidding him to see the Philippine islands ever again hereafter, because he knew that it wouldn't be a comfortable subject for them.

Then their talk lead to learning more of each other's languages once again, and just like last time, they would burst into laughter if one of them pronounces their words wrong.

"No, no, say it like this!" Philia was saying, trying to contain her laughter. "'Puno.'"

"Puno," Hong Kong repeated, though his natural British accent keeps on interfering.

"That-that was close enough!" Philia put her hand on her mouth to keep herself from laughing uncontrollably.

"Okay, now let's see if you can say 'tree' in Cantonese," said Hong Kong. "'Syu.'"

Philia inhaled lightly. "'Syu.'"

"That is awesome. Way better than my Filipino."

"Y-You think so?"

"Yeah. Although I can learn Filipino online."

"Yeah, that's true..."

There was yet another moment of awkward silence between them. What with temperature being a little cool, Hong Kong wondered if Philia was feeling cold just because she's wearing a pastel yellow short-sleeved tunic and white short shorts (complete with white ankle socks and bright yellow heeled ballet flats. Hong Kong thought Philia looked cute in all this yellow, like she's all dressed up for Easter).