Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia.

A/N: Some Alfred x Arthur this time…I can't seem to stray from sad storylines.

傷跡

The footprints had melted deep, a stain over silvery canvas. The yet falling flakes cast a white blanket, filling in the crevices and undoing the straight-edged imprints left behind; erasing the remaining traces of human presence.

He had been there for a long time; long enough for the snow to wipe out the prints he had made in coming, for the snow to heap up around his boots as if gluing him down – gluing him down as if it had some way of knowing what was in the imminent future. He was cold, cold enough to not care of the snow settling itself into the creases of his clothes, the locks of his hair and the curves of his face. It melted with what heat still remaining in his body, snaked downwards as beads of liquid, finally freezing again from the cold.

Snow lands on his lashes but he makes no move to brush it away. It melts, and trickles from the corners of his eyes, down his sharp cheekbones and over lips chapped by the dry wind.

He remembers, and thinks that the cold of the snow can't compare.

By now, he has none of his own tears left to weep.

The rain on that day, he feels, was colder.

He steps forward, more so upwards, out of the deep indents made by his own boots, only now realising the unintentional marks left on the snow, only now realising how long he had been there.

He regrets. He remembers, and regrets. So he steps forward again. The ground disappears underneath his feet and nothing matters anymore. He was a man who had lived his life with regret, but he did not regret his death.

(If he had died with regret, it would have been too pitiful.)

Now, another stood silent in the same place, leather-gloved hands tucked securely into a heavy coat, ice-blue eyes cutting sharply through the cold with a still, relentless, stare. He is looking at the disappearing marks on the snow and he too remembers, of warmer times and happier times.

He too, remembers the cold rain. He too, remembers the tears.

Not his tears. Arthur's. It was always Arthur's.

It was always Arthur regretting––

(So you don't?)

……no. No. I don't.

He is thinking it honestly, because he doesn't regret, he doesn't; but Arthur rushes at him, face covered in tear stains but no tears, shouting at him, why did you do it?, why did you do that to me?; and salty tears leak from under Alfred's own eyelids. It was you, you Alfred, who made him welcome death with open arms; Alfred doesn't know so far, but he knows one thing and it is that even if Arthur has no more tears, Alfred can still cry even if he has forgotten how to.

He has forgotten because he hasn't cried. Because it was the rain, and not his tears.

He realises what he has done but he does not admit it, because admitting would mean that he was regretting and no, he didn't regret. Because he is America and America doesn't regret.

(Do you regret killing England?)

He hesitates.

He may not regret, but he can lie, and Alfred reasons that lying to himself won't hurt anyone.

He steps out of the snow with a wry smile, seeing the deep footprints he himself had made in the snow. Arthur's had just about disappeared – it was fitting that Alfred left behind another set. One step, another, a turn, and Alfred is standing at the edge with his back to the fall, letting the cold, cold wind whip his hair wildly into his face.

He adjusts his balance, sends his weight backwards, and the fall takes him head-first.