Chapter Text
Across the negotiating table, Soviet glared at him and China stared back defiantly. Soviet’s gaze was like a storm, clouded and furious.
China had never thought he would ever see that look on his face, never thought the object of it would ever be himself. He furrowed his brow, pen tapping softly against the table.
Soviet spoke first. “The outbreaks of conflict are so far petty and isolated. If China chooses not to escalate, then the Soviets will do the same.”
China stared at him with distrust, broken promises at his feet. “Why should China trust the Soviet Union?”
“An armed conflict at the border will have disastrous consequences.” Soviet told him coldly. “The Soviet Union’s military power is far superior to China’s. As are its nuclear reserves.”
China didn’t take well to being threatened, and Soviet knew this about him. The person to whom he had given his whole heart on a platter was turning it against him.
“China greatly values its territorial integrity.” He gritted his teeth. “The unclaimed islands should go to China by default. It was our territory once.”
“You signed it away.” China felt rage simmering in his chest.
“My predecessor was forced, and the ownership of those islands was never clear-cut in the original treaty. It belongs to China by default. We have the right.”
Soviet laughed. “There is no such thing as a right. The strong dominate the poor, and that is the only constant of life. There are no such thing as inalienable principles.”
“Of course you can say that so easily.” China felt his temper rising. “Of course there is no such thing as an unalienable principle to you. You, who has abandoned his ideals like a revisionist without honor.”
Just like how Soviet knew his weak points, China also knew how to hit where it hurt. An unreadable expression crossed Soviet’s face as the sharp tongue he had trained himself rose to bite the hand that once fed.
“Still naive.” He commented, rising from the table with his palms on the wood. “Still reckless. You’ve learned nothing.”
He knew it wasn’t true. Soviet had taught him everything. How to hope and how to despair, how to love and hate. Soviet had indeed honored his promise to make him great.
“I will see you on the battlefield.” China told him, rising from his seat as well. His chair screeched against the floorboards and neither of them moved an inch.
China deeply resented in this moment how he had to look up to meet Soviet’s gaze. Always so high up and out of reach, once holding out a hand to China under the pretense of helping him up. Now sneering down at him and kicking him to the ground, no different from every other nation.
There was nothing to say. Something that had never been complete in the first place could not split.
Soviet left without a word.
China sank into the chair of Soviet’s office and swallowed down the memories which stared back at him from every inch of this room. He filed them away for safekeeping, selfishly sealing that distorted image of Soviet so that he did not have to look back on something marred by the present.
-
The river stretched languidly through the valleys, disappearing into mountainous horizons. Rain lashed at the banks of the Ussuri and turned the firm soil into mud beneath the boots of soldiers marching to war. Soviet’s figure emerged on the opposite bank amidst the looming, formidable tanks. Cold and intimidating as ever.
China—who had witnessed Soviet’s compassion for his closest ally and his contempt for his worst enemy—yelled the order without hesitation. The troops at his back charged with a cry and the Soviet soldiers answered it.
At the river cutting through the junction where Siberia met Manchuria, allies who had once stood side-by-side now faced each other. On opposite ends of a war-torn riverbank.
Soviet’s forces clashed with his on the island which had become the chokepoint for the battle. The deafening blow of artillery being fired punctuated the drumming of rain, gunpowder smoke permeating the raw air of spring.
China fought without stopping, always determined. He realized only after many minutes that his forces were pushing Soviet’s back to their side of the riverbank.
He lost sight of the enemy commander in the chaos, and then someone shoved China out of the fray by knocking him flat on his back. He kicked against Soviet’s chest with a grunt and scrambled back to his feet, bracing himself against the dirt.
China fired at his arm to put distance between them. They both knew that hand-to-hand combat was a weakness of China’s. The bullet just barely grazed Soviet, who twisted away instinctively to avoid the brunt.
China’s greatest close-range strength was his speed, and he couldn’t utilize it much in this bogged down marsh of a battlefield. He scanned the chaos and searched. Soviet pursued him swiftly into the edge of the forest as China ran toward solid ground.
Soviet was relentless. He tackled China to the mud, into a tangle of limbs with the weapons pressed between their bodies. China was disarmed easily when Soviet leveraged his superior strength to pull it away. He reached for the dagger hidden in his uniform jacket, but Soviet twisted his arm and kicked that away too.
China knew it was inevitable. He couldn’t win here against the person who had trained him, who knew his every weakness and could predict his every move.
Soviet dragged him to his feet by the collar and braced him against the trunk of a tree. Soviet’s coat was streaked with mud, his gaze with something China recognized as mania.
For a single, wild moment, China thought that Soviet was going to kiss him. Then, the stiff barrel of Soviet’s rifle pressed into his stomach. China froze.
He knew he wouldn’t die if Soviet pulled the trigger, but it would hurt like hell. After all the hurt they had caused each other in these past few years, at least this wound would eventually heal without a trace.
China shook the water out of his own bangs, breathing heavily. The rain trickling down Soviet’s brow tracked down his face like tears and it was the closest China would ever come to seeing his steadfast mentor cry.
He squeezed the trigger, toeing the edge of setting that bullet free. China inhaled sharply.
Soviet jammed the gun into the space between China’s arm and abdomen, and fired. When China turned, there was a wounded soldier falling to the ground behind him with a pained shout. As quickly as he had come, Soviet disappeared into the fray, gone when China looked back.
China’s hand subconsciously grasped at the unharmed skin of his abdomen, staring at the spot where Soviet had disappeared. He blinked and turned around, rushing to help the soldier.
-
Pakistan came to see him after the battle, anxiously knocking on China’s office door. China hadn't gotten a chance to change out of his uniform, which was still streaked with dirt and blood.
Pakistan’s eyes widened when the sight greeted him. “Are you okay? Did you get hurt?”
“It’s nothing I can't handle.” China told him with a soft smile.
The boy hesitated, as if he wanted to say something he felt he shouldn't.
“What’s on your mind?”
“You just fought the Soviet.” Pakistan said slowly. “Your… ex-lover. Do you still… was it difficult? Do you still have feelings for him?”
It was a thought that had crossed the mind of every nation at some point, whether witnessing him and Soviet quarreling at a conference or exchanging blows on the battlefield. Because the opposite of love was not hate, but rather apathy.
Him and Soviet had entangled themselves with the delusion that they were headed on the same path, but they were parallel lines with different destinies that could never intersect. He really did owe everything he knew to Soviet, but neither of them had anticipated that he would learn the harsh truths of reality by his own mentor’s hand. Did he still have feelings for Soviet?
Yes, yes, yes. Urged China’s every thought and every fiber of his being.
“It doesn’t matter.” Said China, and it was the most acute of lies.
-
China gingerly peeled off his uniform shirt and wiped the streaked mud from his cheek with a damp towel. He stared into the mirror across from him on the wall, examining the various gashes and scrapes across his torso.
He picked up a piece of cotton dipped in rubbing alcohol and started to clean the wounds.
The door swung open, making China look up abruptly.
Soviet’s expression was stony. China hissed and reached for his shirt, but Soviet crossed the room in a few paces and ripped it out of his hand.
“What are you—” He pressed his lips to China's in a brutal, biting kiss. China tried to pull away, but Soviet’s hand clamped painfully around his jaw and forced his face closer. It had more fervor and anger than even the most passionate of kisses—China could only describe it as punishing.
Soviet’s teeth bit at his tongue until he drew blood. He wrapped a gloved hand around China’s waist and then dug his fingers painfully into one of the shallow gashes.
China gasped into Soviet’s mouth, groaning at the stinging pain and finally shoving Soviet away. He wiped the blood pouring down his chin with the back of his hand as they both breathed heavily for a moment.
“Who let you in?” He asked.
“It doesn’t matter.” Soviet pulled China towards him by the arm, making China gasp as his fingers pressed against another injury.
“Let me go—” China didn’t trust Soviet not to fingerfuck his wounds again, the damn bastard. Instead, Soviet pushed China into a chair and then picked up the gauze which China had dropped. He knelt down and started to clean the gash at China’s waist with a kind of perfunctory gentleness that was infinitely worse than his deliberate torment.
China swallowed and repeated, “Let me go.”
Soviet didn’t answer. He finished dressing the wounds with ease, and then regarded China expressionlessly. China looked back at him with frustration, until Soviet cupped his jaw and kissed him gently.
The blood still dripping from China’s tongue filled their mouths. Soviet licked at the injury as if to soothe it, and all the anger and resentment in China’s chest was punctured with the deepest blade of hurt.
He didn't want to kiss Soviet as if nothing had ever happened between them. It would only pull him back into an era that was long overdue, which he never intended to return to. He never could return to that gentle look in Soviet’s eyes.
“Don’t.” China murmured when Soviet pulled away. It sounded more like a plea than a demand.
Soviet sat wordlessly across from him on a vacant chair.
“Why didn’t you shoot?”
Once again, he didn’t answer. Maybe he didn't know, himself. China turned away from the man whose friendship had raised him, whose betrayal had tempered him.
Soviet finally remarked, “You’re not wearing it anymore.”
They both knew what he was talking about. China stopped himself from turning toward the shelf that housed Soviet’s hammer-and-sickle emblem, which he polished every day before leaving the office.
“I’m not.” China said. Their shared friendship, ideology, and future were all gone. The longest border in the world had become an insurmountable divide. “The Soviet Union’s symbol does not belong to me anymore.”
What China didn't know is that after the next two decades, he would return to those birch forests having once been someone’s student, comrade, lover, enemy, and finally nothing but a memory. He would drop a handful of sunflowers beside a cracked headstone and remove the pin from his chest, the first of countless gifts given to him by his beloved mentor. With the knowledge that Soviet’s ghost would linger in every corner for the rest of his life, China would place it before the grave and sit on the frozen ground unmovingly until the sun set.
-
What Soviet didn’t know about was that once China seemed to have dozed off in his chair that day after the battle, he felt Soviet pick him up and place him onto the couch.
China felt Soviet touch his cheek, muttering like a secret, “I love you,” and China achingly knew that it would never be a lie. He almost wished it was.