More Than a Dream (COUNTRYHUMANS AU)

Harmony

Written: January 1, 2024
North Korea lay in bed, asleep. He had no other dreams since he fell back asleep. Heat radiated from his body and areas he was lying in. The house was still and silent, as all orderly things are. He felt two small hands on his shoulder, shaking him ever so slightly.

"North! Wake up!" Okinawa's voice rang through the silent room. "The sun is shining!" North sighed and got up, reaching for his eyepatch.

"What is it, Oki?" He grumbled. Okinawa snatched the eyepatch from the nightstand and sat in front of North Korea.

"The sun is out, so that means it's time to get up!" Okinawa went closer to North's face and carefully tied the eyepatch around North's head. North Korea checked the clock hanging on the wall.

"Oki, it's 5:50 am. Gimme a break." North Korea aggressively flung his blanket off of him.

"But Nooooooooorth!" Okinawa pleaded. "It's too bright outside! We can have fun while the others are asleep!" She grabbed onto North Korea's collar, tilted her head and gazed at him with puppy eyes. "Please?"

North Korea grimaced, and gently but firmly pushed Okinawa's hands away. "Alright, fine." He got up and made his bed.

"Yay!" Okinawa exclaimed. Her sea-green eyes gleamed with unadulterated joy and excitement. She ran to her room, giggling to herself. North pulled the end of his tank top down and begrudgingly followed Okinawa to her room.

North Korea let a huge yawn escape his lips. He went into Okinawa's room. Okinawa handed him a plastic tiara. "Put it on!" She went on the tips of her toes in a desperate attempt to put the tiara on North. North dodged Okinawa.

"I refuse." He crossed his arms and looked to his left. Okinawa was a little disgruntled, but her eyes soon lit up as she realized how to persuade North.

"Oh, come on! The fairies need a King, er, Supreme Leader!" She shook the crown.

"No. No, they don't." North growled, curses forming in the substructure of the cabinets in the back of his mind. If he did swear, Okinawa would rat him out, so he had to hold himself back. Okinawa smirks.

"Really, then?" She started. "What if I told you, um, American Imperialists exploited the workers and natural resources, and they don't know how to fix their country? North, they need stability!" She held her teddy bear up to North's face. It was quite old and a faded russet.

"Oki, no." North Korea scrunched his eyebrows.

"Bears don't have civilizations. They are not civil creatures."

"So Russia is not a civil creature?" Okinawa asked, hugging the teddy bear close to her.

"Russia is Russia. She's not a bear."

"Then why is it called a Russian Bear?" Okinawa tossed the teddy bear up and down. North Korea glared at Okinawa with a resentful energy. In response, Okinawa put a plastic crown on her head. "If I'm the princess, can you be the King?" Okinawa smiled softly and held the other plastic tiara to North's face. Okinawa and North Korea locked eyes, her sea-green ones like pieces of sea glass on a beach. North Korea's heliotrope-shaded eye outmatched Okinawa's in intensity, but Okinawa's were too pure to ignore. They were as clear as an Okinawan shore on a bright summer day.

Okinawa's eyes could plunge one onto the sea walls of Urasoe. The feeling of pumice mixed into the sand, the aroma of salt, the comfortable humidity on a windy day, and elderly fishermen sitting on a mossy cliff by the sea, chuckling as multitudes of small children flock to see what they caught. The teal hue of the sea reflected in her eyes. North Korea couldn't resist how innocent and welcoming his sister's pleading eyes were. He sighed and hardened his glare.