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The ground seemed like it was falling away, and as China shivered in the cage he had been stuck into, he wondered if the kidnapers had put something into his food. It wouldn’t be unlike them, what with what they had done to the others. He shuddered, remembering the screams he had heard the night before, something about finding a severed arm in a cell? He didn’t know what that could mean for his friends, but all that he could hope was that the arm hadn't been Japan’s.
Even since he had woken up that morning, China had been dreaming about the other man. Not in a weird way, he had to remind himself, as his brain jumped to conclusions about his own thoughts, but in a memories kind of way. The two hadn’t exactly been close for a while now, and if he hadn’t been reminded of the friendship they used to have, China probably would have been hoping that the severed arm had been Japan’s, instead of hoping to hell that it wasn’t.
Why had he had the dream? He wasn’t exactly the most superstitious nation (or at least, he didn’t think himself to be), but he had to admit that it felt a little out of place. It wasn’t unknown for him to have a dream about the past (giving that dwelling on it was not very uncommon for any of the nations), but it wasn’t exactly common either. Someone like England or America seemed more likely too, but not him.
Honestly, sometimes it just felt like he had too many memories to properly get lost in them anymore. Like this situation, he mused, tugging on the chain that bound his left wrist, this wasn’t the first time he had been kidnapped. However, just because something is familiar, doesn't necessarily mean that it’s a good sort of familiar. (A cold cell with no proper bed and interrogations that went long into the night… That is quite a good example of that principle.)
He sighed and leaned back, bringing his free hand to his forehead to try and massage away the dizziness that still plagued him. He supposed that there was no real easy way out of this, especially given the fact that the cook seemed to be trying to keep them sedated. (But no luck to them, nations didn’t react to such drugs the way that humans did.)
At least he knew that he was okay.
. . . Right?
- - - - -
“China,” Japan had whispered, his tiny hands grasping at thin air. He was obviously worried, but he was also not a childish nation, no matter how young he was at the time. “I think that I might need to cry now.”
China remembered himself sighing and placing a hand on the younger nation’s face, smiling at him in a way that he hoped wouldn’t tell him the truth of their situation, “It’s okay to cry,” he had answered, tone just as quiet as that of his small friend, “Just try to keep it down right now, okay?”
Japan sniffed quietly and wiped his eyes, before nodding vigorously and setting his face back to one of calm. (Which could have fooled someone from a long distance, but from where China was sitting, he could see that tears still traced their paths under those dark eyes.)
But either way, he had been grateful for it. Grateful for the chance Japan had given them there. Grateful for the way that he had trusted him, maybe even loved him as a friend, but most of all, China had been grateful for how quickly Japan had been able to pull himself together. For, without that sudden calm, he doubted the two would have made it safely back home.
…But did that matter now?
For here he was, trapped in a dirty cell with only the screams of his friends to listen too. And only his own tears to try to hide. And for some reason, a nagging feeling in the back of his mind told him that even if Japan had been in his cell, he wouldn’t have had to worry about his tears anyway. (Of course, that could mean anything from Japan being so good at hiding his emotions that he no longer cried, to what he assumed the alarms going off were for.)
- - - - -
He was very tired, eyelids drooping as he felt himself growing limper. Maybe that drug had been tougher than he had expected. (Even the crying across the hall and the screams down it had calmed down, as if those nations had suddenly been struck by the sedative as well.)
He supposed that this was probably a good thing, what with the way the darkness in his mind had begun to overtake him, but as he tugged absentmindedly at the chains that bound him, China wished he had been given more time to think. Normally, he would have been sick of himself by now, tired of all the memories and flashbacks that bubbled through his head, but now that he had something to think about… Well, there was just a lot of it, that’s all.
He sighed and sunk into the concrete floor, collapsing into it like some sort of bruised folding chair. Was this a drug worth fighting? He hadn’t exactly been in danger as he had slept before, and he was sure that being awake through whatever they were making him sleep through would be a bad decision.
So instead of fighting the effects of the sedative, China decided to ‘sleep’ on it.
How had he gotten into this situation again? Oh yes, that was right, he had been kidnaped. Again, not the first or the last time it was going to happen, but it sure had happened.
What was weird about this time was how the people on the streets had treated it. There had been plenty of witnesses, plenty of people to watch him get shoved into the trunk of a car and battered with fists. (Plenty of people who could have stopped it.)
But instead of helping him with their own bodies, or even calling the police, they had seemed to be rooting for the monsters that had caused him this pain. “Best wishes!” They had cried, “We’ll miss you!”
What did that mean? He wondered, what sort of regular crowd would be cheering for the kidnapping and torture of the man who represented other people and other people’s land. Maybe it was the fact that he represented something, maybe it was the sort of past that plagued his memories, or maybe it was just who he was.
. . .
It wouldn’t be the first time for any of those things.
But from another perspective, it wouldn’t be the first time that he would have lost his friend. (And in fact, the rush of memories the night before had told him that it would be far from the last.)
Now, he was the one crying, silently, as a drug took him into the night.