Meeting times were probably the least serious a nation could get. When one of them was speaking those closest to the podium would unfortunately have to stay relatively quiet and pay at least a little attention, but that left the rest of the table (or assembly room) to do whatever the fuck they wanted. Today, while Switzerland slogged through a talk on agriculture and industrialization-Liechtenstein hanging off his every word from her place next to his empty seat-most everyone was passing notes or checking their phones.

Prussia, unfortunately, was seated next to his brother, so he couldn't be too obvious in not paying attention. Germany had no problem with giving him a sharp pinch on his leg whenever he snickered to himself or made too many rustling sounds with his notes. So there wasn't much for him to do in the way of not paying attention except try to catch the eye of any of the nations sat across from him.

He spent a while folding a piece of paper into an elephant the way Japan taught him, and then he floated it in his water glass. When that got boring, he drew caricatures of some of his past battles on the back of another sheet of notepaper, making sure to express Austria's fear at the end of his sword explicitly when he got to his capture of Silesia. The other nation got exceptionally flustered while Prussia alternately stared at him for minutes at a time and scribbled on his paper, his tongue sticking out of the side of his mouth in concentration.

When that too got boring, Prussia looked up to where France was sitting and attempted to get his attention. They made faces at each other for a while, biting their lips to keep from laughing outright, but England ruined it by hitting France in the arm to make him stop. France shot him an apologetic expression and went back to taking rather diligent notes on what Switzerland was saying.

Then Prussia tried to get Spain's attention. The other nation was at an odd angle to him and didn't see his subtle movements, too busy talking to Belgium on his right. Being ignored was totally not awesome, but he supposed he could let Spain off this one time. On Spain's left, however, Southern Italy was watching Prussia oddly.

The ex-nation noticed almost instantly. He lowered his rapidly waving hand and cocked his head at Romano, furrowing his brow in confusion when the other nation turned a very attractive shade of red and ducked his head.

The shyness wasn't entirely unwarranted. Despite Romano's very vocal condemnation of "potato-bastards," they had quite willingly hung out together more than a few times without Veneziano or Germany's encouragement. They had a bit of a talk about being older brothers, and then an even longer talk on a later date about being the unnecessary older brothers (it may have even ended in tears on both of their parts but that secret was safe with them). A few meetings after that, they were consistently having dinner and amiably sharing stories about their very different pasts.

Their last outing before this world meeting, Prussia stayed almost a week in a Roman hotel and did all the stereotypical tourist things with Romano. On his last day, crying crocodile tears in the airport at having to leave his charming Italian behind, Prussia was very surprised with a heartfelt goodbye kiss from the normally rude to the point of cruel nation. They kissed a few more slow, sweet times before the boarding call for Prussia's plane and they didn't say any more goodbyes, leaving them in a kind of friendship-limbo for a week until now.

Prussia kept staring at him until he looked up again. This time Romano's blush had settled to a nice kind of coral color that went well with his skin. 'Cute,' Prussia dared to mouth at him, grinning in delight when Romano made a rude gesture back at him. Veneziano frowned as if scolding his brother, but when he saw Prussia stick his tongue out he grinned and stuck his out as well before turning back to his conversation-in-writing with Japan.

Romano tucked a little of his hair behind his ear and leaned his elbows on the hardwood table, folding his arms and resting his chin on them like he was settling in for a while of watching the ex-nation. Prussia felt his own face start to get a little red-the first time Romano had looked back at him across a meeting table all those years ago, he had crossed his arms across his chest and leaned back in his chair, lifting his chin in an obviously unwelcoming position. Now, despite the uncomfortable chairs and boring drone of Switzerland's voice, he looked almost content.

Prussia counteracted this contentment by making a show of trying to stick his tongue up his own nose. Romano ducked his head again, but instead of embarrassment, this time it was laughter. 'Stop, potato-licker,' he mouthed back when he got control of himself.

There was a sudden shuffling and standing up surrounding them and they looked around, just noticing that the lunch break had started. Prussia stood up and stretched, loosening his tie with a sharp exhale while the other nations filed out of the conference room past him.

"Prussia." He looked back over the table at the sound of his name, once again meeting Romano's bright honey eyes. Romano's normal frown was back, but there was also a slight grin pulling at the corner of his lips; once he had Prussia's attention he gestured for the nation to follow him. Prussia cocked an eyebrow and did an exaggerated little hip thrust in question, like Romano would really be up for a quick fuck in some broom closet when they didn't eve know what they were to each other yet.

Those honey eyes turned skyward and Romano folded his hands in supplication, whispering "Madre di Dio" at the ceiling. Prussia laughed loudly, thankful that the meeting had already let out.