"America."
America stood up, gave everybody an enthusiastic but draining speech on all of his problems, always promising a solution but never coming up with one. A couple countries sighed, groaning. The rest, particularly the Allies, shushed them.
But his speech continued, on and on. At least he's not eating hamburgers this time, England thought. He hated listening to America's speeches.
"America, could you please wrap this up?" England prodded. He'd gone over the eight-minute time limit, and was now at ten minutes.
America finished. England didn't even hear anything that he said.
Everybody was used to his behaviour. Not that anyone liked it, but that didn't really matter. Just America's egotistical behaviour, nothing to be overly annoyed about.
Still, something was different about America today, that the other countries noted but didn't bother to care for. America was weary. He had a sort of drag in his voice, and his words slurred together.
As the other people talked, America scribbled down notes furiously. It was what he was supposed to do; but he never did. Usually, the younger nation would just ask England for a copy, and that was what he had been doing for the last ten years or so. England was still annoyed by it, but simply complied.
Now, though, he filled page after page. He was writing exactly what the others said. He wrote down every single problem of every nation.
Everyone left shortly after. The other speeches were brief; they always were. China and Sweden were always exhausted by America's speeches, always slightly annoyed. China wore the annoyance better, seeing as he didn't actually have any sort of hatred for America. Sweden, however, had no connection to America, was not empathetic towards how young the nation was, and rarely had anything major to report anyway.
America stayed behind for awhile after the meeting, just sitting there. He actually looked really, really upset. England was cleaning up. "America, why are you still here? Usually you leave within a few minutes, it's fifteen after the meeting."
"What? Oh, right." America smiled again, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Yeah... I just zoned out, I guess. See yah, Iggy!"
England frowned. He hated when America called him that. But America was already slinging his bag over his shoulders, waving cheerfully.
He finished cleaning up, and then left, pushing America out of his mind.
Shortly after, America was just leaving London. He could feel his throat closing up, hot tears welling in his eyes, but they didn't fall. He paused for a moment, adjusting his glasses, before boarding the flight back home.