Ivan blushed heavily. "It'll be fine..." He shrugged and set his now empty glass down.

With a rare show of generosity, the blonde pushes his soda over to the other man. "Hehe~ Either way, I won't be happy unless I feel that I tried. That's how I make myself happy, you see."

"Oh, I see..." He smiled down at the soda and hummed. "Well, sunflowers make me happy..."

He nods, absorbing the information. "Hm.. ..." He taps at he counter lightly "Well, have you tried using gardening to help? Some people can rock that out pretty well."

"It's too cold at my house to have a garden." He shrugged. "Maybe a green house though!"

"Yeah~! A greenhouse would totally work!" He grins and gives him a thumbs up "Epic thinking, dude! I heard they're way cool looking too!"

"I wouldn;t know how to start it though..." He shrugged "I guess I shall learn"

"I can help, of course~!" He hums slightly, caught up in thinking "I'll ask Lithuania. He pry knows at least a tiny bit.. and if that fails, I'll go bother Arthur about it. He's sorta a nut about gardening, sooo...."

"Well, as long as someone knows...." He sighed softly. "That way... I can grow sunflowers!!"

Alfred beams and nods "No worries, Dude. I got it. I'll help you out for sure, okay?" The blonde laughs "Afterall! That's what Heros are for~!"

Ivan laughed. "Well... thank you for being my hero tonight...." He hadn't even realized what he said until he said it

There's a second of pause as the blonde absorbs what was said before he goes a faint shade of pink. "... Was I?" Alfred's quick to try and recover from the surprise with a grin. "I-I mean, of course, dude! I'm glad I could share my amazingness with you~!"

He laughed softly then sighed. "You know... Being a country... it means you can't kill yourself...." He looked down at the soda glass.

Baby blue eyes gaze at the Russian for a moment before he nods, dropping his head back to the nest of his crossed arms. "Yeah. It also means you can't have a real family..." His voice sounds soft, solomn. "...A real one. With a Dad and Mom. Where you go to school and make friends and they ask about your day, or tell you how much they missed you. " He shrugs slightly "..... We're 'special'. Yay?"

"Special isn't good though..." He sighed and put his head down. "Special means that no matter what pain you're in, it won't ever end"

A gloomy sort of silence overcomes Alfred for a couple minutes as he thinks over the words. However, it's abruptly ended by the blonde somehow managing to catapult himself at the slightly larger nation. "Hey! Hey! That ain't true! There's no sort of pain that stays around forever! If you find out why it's there, that can help you find out how to fix it."

"That doesn't help.. it makes it worse..." he frownd and looked to America. "How do you stay so happy?"

"Promise not to tell my secret?" The American whispers in a conspiring manner. "Well...." He winks teasingly, flashing a Hollywoodesque smile his way. "A lot of blind hope. That's really all. I hope and hope that hey, thing's will be okay. And then I try my best to make sure it does. I believe no matter what. Even if everyone else tells me it's dumb or pointless... It..... it keeps me going."

Russia pondered over it for a moment. It was simple, but you had to have a lot of will to go through with something like that. "How do you do it...? What if it just gets so hopeless...?"

The smile wavers before it turns more sincere and Alfred shakes his head once "I'm just really good at playing dumb, I guess. I'm able to fool everyone. There's no reason I can't fool myself too." There's a quiet chuckle. "Sometimes, it's right when things are at it's worst that the best things occur."

"I guess I'll have to remember that..." He looked to the smaller nation with a light smile. "Thank you Alfred..."

Alfred laughs and offers the Russian a victory sign in response. "Like I said before.. it's what I'm here for. No thank you required."

"I still feel as though I need to thank you Alfred..." He smiled and ruffled the other's hair.

The blonde doesn't protest at the attention. Rather, he makes a pleased sort of hum as his eyes slip closed. "I will note that, then."

He laughed and looked to Alfred. "Are you busy tomorrow...? Perhaps we can hang out?"