Austria walked over and sat down to his piano, expecting to play the piece he had just written. He didn't expect an off-tune sound just as soon as he put a finger on a key.

"What the…?" he wondered as he went to check what it was. Under his piano was Holy Roman Empire's hat. He picked it up, only to notice a piece of paper under it. It simply read:

Hsz-bgzm~

He xnt fds sghr ldrrzfd, qdokx zs sgd rzld okzbd sn sghr ptdrshnm: Cn xnt knud ld?

- GQD

Austria stared in confusion for a time at this message, wondering what it could mean, why it was in his piano, and why Holy Roman Empire, whom he believed to be very sensible, would have scribbled out such a confusing note. "Excuse me, Mr. Austria, I think that's mine?"

He looked down to see Ita-chan, staring up at him in a puppy-dog like glance. Not quite getting why she wanted the piece of paper, he handed it to her, and she smiled widely up at him. "Thank you, Mr. Austria!" she exclaimed before running off, excited, hopefully to return to her chores, leaving a confused Austria behind. "That was odd…"

A little while later, the Austrian got up to get a glass of water. When he returned, he sat down, only to hear that same offkey sound. "Gah, what the?"

He opened up his piano only to find Italy's hat inside it, and underneath it was a note. A note that he barely had time to look over and see:

GQD~

Xdr! Xdr, H cn, vhsg zkk lx gdzqs… dudm he hs cndrm's rddl khjd hs….

~Hsz-bgzm

…before it was snatched from his grip by Holy Roman Empire, now hatless, who gave him a curt "Thank you," before leaving. This event combined with the one before it made Austria more curious than ever…

Before long, and after another, smaller break from his piano, he came back into the room and started to play. Ah, finally, no off-key sound, although it still sounded somewhat strange. After a while, he heard a small squeak, and looked over just in time to see Italy disappear around the corner. Almost guessing why she had come into the room, Austria went and opened his piano.

Sure enough, there was a note in there.

He quickly scanned it over to see-

Ita-chan.

I am using plain language because this message isn't possibly dangerous in the wrong hands. All I need to say is:

We need to find a different drop place for our messages. Austria is getting suspicious about his piano.

~HRE

Austria pondered on this thought for a while. So… Holy Roman Empire and Italy were communicating in code? And thought it endangering if they wrote it out in plain language? And placed it in HIS piano, which he strictly forbade anyone to touch? Things certainly were odd…

That night, as he was lying in bed, he couldn't help but to think about what had just gone on. And what could that code have been…?

Startled into action, and curious even if he WAS a gentleman and this was supposed to be a private thing, he jotted down the messages again, as he had remembered them. (Thank goodness his memory was so good!)

Well, of course, the names had to go in there, Ita-chan and HRE (Since this was the way they had adressed each other in the last message). Now what WAS the code? He tried to exchange the letters for the ones before them, only to get:

Gd wms –

And stopping. It still made no sense. He then tried using the letter that FOLLOWED the letters, which gave him:

If you get this message, reply at the same place to this question: Do you love me?

And Then,

Yes! Yes, I do, with all my heart… even if it doesn't seem like it…

Austria stiffened as he finished reading it. He didn't quite get what was going on, but he had a suspicion that it had something to do with "young love"… but why exchange the notes in his piano?

AN: Okay, recently, I've been getting into Hetalia, especially HRExChibitalia (besides USUK, NiChu, GerIta, and Spamano), so I just HAD to write something with them. This was originally planned to be a comic, but I didn't have the patience for something like that, and made it into a fanfic instead.

If you're wondering, Italy is refered to as a "she" here because both Austria AND HRE believed Italy to be a girl. XD Also, I don't know why they used Austria's piano for a code-dropping place, or why they even WERE communicating in code... to make things interesting?

Well, anyway, I hope you enjoyed this story, and if you figured out the code before Austria cracked it... well, kudos to you! (I actually had to refigure out what they said to each other, because I forgot... it was painful..)