When in doubt, yeet it out.
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🇺🇸 America 🇺🇸
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After the day ended, I ended up going to find Russia. I figured we might as well get started on the project now, plus I may have been a little excited to hang out with him again, although it would be work related and I know he wouldn't really have much fun. But still, I couldn't help myself. I turned the corner with my bag, still trying to cram my last binder in there, before I finally got it in and started going towards the general vicinity of his locker.
I saw him talking to Ukraine as they began walking my direction. I smiled and waved, as they both waved back, although Ukraine was the only one to smile at me. I approached and walked next to Russia.
"Hey guys." I said.
"Prevet, Ameryka." Russia greeted, still looking forwards.
"Hi there." Ukraine said.
"Are you guys open to working in the project today?" I asked. Ukraine nodded.
"Yup! Me and Canada are partners so he was planning on coming over as well." She confirmed. I raised my eyebrows.
"But aren't you and Canada in two different classes?" I asked. She nodded.
"Yeah, but we talked to the teacher and she said if we wanted to work together, we just had to do a little extra and we would have to present to her together sometime all three of us could do it, so probably lunch. It worked out alright." I nodded at her as I looked around for Canada. I saw him by his Locker getting a binder before closing it. He turned around and saw us and waved. Me and Ukraine waved back, and he walked next to her. We all walked towards Russia's house. Ukraine and Canada were in a discussion of their own, although they were still right next to us. I looked up at Russia while we walked, mostly because he wasn't talking at all.
"Are you holding up?" I asked quietly. He kept his eyes forwards.
"Da. I'm fine, Ameryka." He said, although he still looked exhausted. I just gave a sigh.
"I know that's not true, Rus. I can see it written all over your face."
He didn't even complain about me calling him Rus, he just let out a sigh. "Can we not discuss this right now?" He said, his voice tired. I just nodded slowly and continued walking.
I'm worried about him.
We picked our younger siblings up from school and told them our plan. They walked home the selves, while Belarus stuck with us. She clung to Ukraine and Russia as we went to their house.
My mind wandered as we reached the house, but once the door was open, I came back to and focused again. Russia almost immediately began to head towards the stairs. Belarus waved to us and ran off to her room and closed the door.
"We can just work here in the living room." I heard Ukraine say. I turned and waved to Canada and we smiled at each other as they sat cross legged on the floor. I followed Russia upstairs. I could faintly hear my brother and Ukraine talking downstairs, but t stopped once we reached Russia's room. He opened his door and walked in, setting the bag on the floor. I followed him in and closed the door behind me, although I was Pat sure if he wanted it open or closed. He sat on the edge of the bed and opened his window so fresh air could come rushing in. He looked at me and I sat down next to him.
"So." He said, leaning back against the wall where the window was behind him.
"So." I said back. We sat is awkward silence for a moment as I pulled out my notebook, and he raised his brow at me.
"Any ideas for what to do?" He asked. I chewed my lip, thinking.
"We could do Huntington's... or C.E.S, maybe Trisomy-21..." I said slowly. "I can't think of any others off the top of my head." I glanced over at him as he raised a finger up and began numbering a few more off.
"Cystic Fibrosis, Tay-Sachs disease, Sickle Cell..." he paused. "Hemophilia, muscular atrophy... yeah that's all I can remember. I just blinked at him.
"More than I remembered." I reassured. He shrugged at me.
"Do you have one in particular you want to do?" I asked. He shook his head.
"Ya ne znayu." He replied, his voice still tired. I still had no idea what it meant but I figured he wasn't sure either. I looked at all our options again.
"Why don't we just do this one." I pointed to one of the options I'd written down. He read over the options again and gave me a nod.
"How are we going to present it?" He asked. I thought for a moment.
"Poster? Or a PowerPoint?"
He nodded. "A poster could work. We will have to buy one at some point." We agreed and he took out his binder. He flipped it open to a clean page and looked at me, pencil in hand. "How should we lay it out?"
I started telling him the different requirements and he drew out a model of how our board could look. Actually, he drew out a few of them.
"What do you think?" He asked, sitting back a little. I looked at the different models he'd made out, which were pretty impressive drawings just for sketches a board. I found one that drew my attention and I gestured to it.
"How about this one?" I asked. He looked at it and gave a nod. "Sure."
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We continued our work for the rest of the night, researching the disease we chose and writing notes on it. I read the information we found and Russia wrote it down. At one point, I looked over at his notes. I felt my eyes widen a little when I saw part way through the paper, he'd started writing in russian instead of English.
"Rus?" I asked. He blinked and looked up at me with tiredness in his eyes. "Chto."
"Your notes..." I said, gesturing to the paper. He looked down in confusion before blinking.
"Oh. I'm sorry..." he said, scribbling over all the russian he'd written. "Let's go back and fix it..."
"Rus, maybe we should stop. You seem exhausted. Plus, it's already past 7:30." I stated, after checking my phone. "We have a couple more days to work on this project you know."
He looked at me with a sigh and closed his eyes, flipping his binder closed. "Fine."
I looked at his face again, noticing how exhausted he looked. His eyelids were drooping, he still had the bags, and overall, he just didn't look too good. I could could also easily see the wound in his cheek from the knife blade he'd taken when getting me out of the mugging situation. It was healing over, but probably wouldn't be gone for a while. And it would also probably leave a scar. The wound on his lip was much improved, the bruising was virtually gone and all that was left was a small scab.
"Are you hungry at all, American?" He asked, sliding the binder into his bag. I shrugged.
"Sure, I could eat."
"I'll go check on Kanada and Ukraina to see if I should cook something or not." He said. I nodded as he stood up and walked to the door. He walked out and I waited for him while looking out the window. I packed my stuff up and put it away as he did his thing. Soon enough, he came back carrying a chocolate bar and tossed it to me. I caught it and looked up at him.
"They were watching a movie and eating popcorn, so I figured they were fine." He said. I felt myself smiling a little.
"Aww, how romantic of them." He rolled his eyes but didn't argue with me. As he sat back down, I saw he didn't bring any food for himself.
"Aren't you hungry?" I asked.
"Nyet." He said, looking out the window. I raised my eyebrow.
"When was the last time you ate, Russia?" I asked him. He turned his head over to me calmly. "This morning."
"You must be hungry, you haven't barely eaten anything!"
"Ameryka, this is normal for me. I eat in the morning and I eat dinner whenever my sisters want dinner. I'm not hungry, okay?" He explained.
"Russia, you're gonna starve that way."
He rolled his eyes at me. "You can survive over 3 weeks without food. I eat at least one meal a day. I'm not starving and I'm not going to die." He said, his tone slightly exasperated.
Fine. Two can play that game.
I made a hm noise and opened the bar up. He turned back to the window. I tried not to laugh a little as I broke a piece of chocolate off.
"Rus." I said. He turned over to me.
"Wha..."
I cut him off as I pushed the chocolate into his mouth. He looked at me with wide eyes as I did it, the chocolate pinched between his teeth. He seemed at a loss for words for a moment as he quickly pulled the piece into his mouth and looked at me.
"What the hell?"
"If you're not going to eat voluntarily, then I'm going to feed you." I said, breaking another piece of chocolate off.
I felt a laugh rising in my chest as his face became embarrassed and he turned his head away back to the window. He turned it farther away now, though, avoiding eye contact.
"Rus~" I said, trying to get his attention. He just kept his head turned away from me. I reached out and took hold of his chin, making him face me. He just looked at me with an awkward expression as I held it to his lips. I realized he could very easily shove me away or just smack my hand away, but I knew he wouldn't. I held him in place, waiting.
Eventually, I gave him a satisfied smile as he closed his teeth around the chocolate in my hand and turned his head away from me.
"Happy?" He mumbled. I gave him a smile.
"You're gonna eat half this bar, and then I'll be happy." I said. He turned back to me with a flustered expression.
"Dammit, just give me the bar." He said, taking it from my hand and breaking it in half before giving me part back. He leaned out the window and broke a piece off, eating it himself.
"Good boy." I snickered.
He kept his gaze averted and glared out the window. "Shut your fucking mouth." He mumbled.
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Lmfao, America feeding Russia chocolate. The first time Russia has blushed in his book.
My soul left my body and I'm laughing so hard at the "good boy" part. 😂👌🏻