A/N: I don't own Hetalia or the Office. I promise.
"It's Diversity Day," Elizabeta said to the camera with an unidentifiable expression. "Corporate mandated it, but for some reason they're letting Gilbert take full control of the meeting." She glanced out the window behind her, where the office manager was laying dramatically across Francis's desk in his best impression of the infamous "draw me like one of your French girls" scene. When she dragged her gaze back to the camera, her posture was much more pained and resigned. "I don't think they wanted to send anyone to have to deal with him."
"We have a lot of diversity in this office," Gilbert said proudly once everyone was gathered in the conference room. "I, myself, am an awesome Prussian-"
"What's that?" Alfred, who was sitting in the front row so he could stretch his long legs as far forward as he could, asked obnoxiously.
Gilbert faltered, but continued talking as if Alfred hadn't spoken. "I mean, in this room alone, what do we have? A Brit, two Italians, a Mexican-"
"Whoa, whoa," Antonio laughed awkwardly and glanced around the room uncertainly. "I hope you are not talking about me?"
"Now, Antonio," Gilbert said sympathetically, glancing pointedly at the camera. "It's nothing to be ashamed of."
Beside Antonio, Lovino started cackling so suddenly he very nearly fell out of his chair. Antonio absent-mindedly caught his shoulder before he could hurt himself.
His ever-present smile slipped a bit, but it held fast. "I'm not Mexican."
"But you speak Spanish," Felicks pointed out with a smirk, not even looking up from where he was inspecting his nails in the back of the room. (The camera zoomed in on his legs casually splayed across Toris's lap and panned up to meet the latter's flustered expression.)
Lovino wheezed loudly and wiped tears from his eyes.
Antonio laughed again, but the sound was much more forced than before. "Mexico isn't the only place that speaks Spanish." At everyone's prolonged silence (well, other than Lovino's childish giggling that was beginning to sound mildly alarming), he began to sound a bit more despairing. "How about Spain? You know, Spanish... Spain..."
"You're Spainish?" Gilbert asked suspiciously. "Hm, could've sworn you were Mexican."
"Nope," Antonio said through a gritted smile as Lovino (for all intents and purposes) started dying once again and doubled over to lean on Antonio for support.
("Spainish?" Antonio repeated to the camera later, aghast. He seemed at a loss for words and just stared blankly ahead for a few moments. Finally, he murmured to himself, "A Dios mío.")
("Mexican," Lovino snorted again, and the cameraman would never say it out loud but this was the happiest he'd ever seen the young Italian. He shook his head. "That's funny.")
("Of course I knew he was from Spain," Gilbert grinned guiltily. "Who do you think I am? Ignorant? Their football team beats ours every single year and I wanted to get back at him for it.")
"Anyway, back to the point at hand," Gilbert clapped his hands, then winked at the camera at the unintentional pun (which zoomed in on Roderich and Elizabeta exchanging irritated expressions at the situation). "The point of Diversity Day," he began grandly, kicking one foot up on a chair and leaning his elbow on it, "is to celebrate our differences and and share details about our individual cultures."
"Wow," Yao snorted quietly to Kiku, "he must've rehearsed that."
"So who wants to go first?" Gilbert asked expectantly.
The silence in the room was honestly kind of sad.
After a few moments stretched past with Gilbert refusing to step in and make things less awkward, Alfred finally spoke up.
"Well. I'm American," he said with a thousand-watt smile.
Gilbert waved his hand dismissively. "Doesn't count when we're in America."
"Well, I think it does," Alfred frowned. "It's my culture."
"Diversity," Gilbert drew the word out with a sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation. "Is about the stuff outside the country we're currently in."
"Well, that's not really fair," Alfred protested. "Isn't this just about culture? Why can't I celebrate mine?"
"It's called "white priviledge" and we celebrate it every day." Unfortunately, the only one to have caught the soft-spoken HR rep's quiet remark was Francis, who snorted loudly and clapped a hand over his mouth to hide it.
"Okay," Gilbert said with another long-suffering sigh. "Anyone else? Kiku, what about you?"
The young man looked startled at being suddenly addressed, and he stammered for a few moments before he could form actual words.
"Um, me?"
Gilbert rolled his eyes in mock irritation. "Yes, you! Come on, you have to be from some awesome Asian country."
Kiku's lips twitched as he briefly wondered whether he should be offended or not. "I am from Japan," he agreed.
"Hey, that's cool!" Gilbert said in excitement. "That's the place with the anime and the tentacle porn, right?"
Kiku's face flushed and his eyes widened in horror. "Well, yes, kind of, but it's not all like that-"
Gilbert finger-gunned him. "That's the spirit. Stereotypes are unawesome."
Kiku responded by leaning forward and hiding his face in his hands.
"Alright! Who's next? Come on, don't make me call on you like first graders."
"Gilbert, we have work to do," Arthur said wearily, as if tired of having to put up with the manager for the seven years he'd been there.
Gilbert made a noise of disgust. "Work, work, work, that's all you ever care about, Arthur."
"While I am at work, yes," Arthur retorted.
"Well, you know what? The office isn't a place for work," Gilbert said irritably. "It is an awesome place to come every morning and have fun."
"I don't think that's how it works," Elizabeta said carefully, flicking her gaze to the camera.
"You're just not looking at it the right way," Gilbert insisted. "I can bet you anything this job that you have right now, in this building, is tons more fun than starving to death in a box because you don't have a job to make money."
"Boxes can be fun," Heracles said dreamily.
"That is not the point." Gilbert rolled his eyes.
"Okay, this meeting is going nowhere," Roderich finally said, getting to his feet. "I am going back to work."
"You can't do that!" Gilbert protested, running to stand in front of the door so Roderich couldn't leave. "We have to finish or they'll yell at me again."
"But this is pointless," Arthur groused.
Gilbert gasped dramatically. "Arthur, are you racist?"
Arthur sputtered. "What? No!"
"You just said that diversity is pointless."
"I did not! I said the meeting was pointless!"
"The meeting about diversity!"
"This is exactly what I meant!" Roderich crossed his arms and huffed. "All we're ever going to do is argue, so there's no point in continuing the lecture."
"Guys, come on," Gilbert whined pathetically. "The letter said the discussion had to be at least half an hour long. We have another twenty-five minutes of this, so sit back down and let's talk about diversity like we're supposed to." Under his breath, he added just to Roderich, "I don't want Natalya to have to come down."
Roderich and Gilbert held meaningful stubborn eye contact for a few moments longer, neither one wanting to back down first. It was only when Francis coughed lewdly that Roderich jumped slightly and (face reddening) sat back beside Elizabeta.
Grinning smugly, Gilbert slid away from the door and crossed his arms. "Now who wants to go next?"
"We only had to be in there for another five minutes before he let us leave," Ivan said with a cheery smile (the camera shook a bit as the cameraman tried to keep his nervous hands steady). "I do not think he liked to be hearing about where I am from."
I'm not sure if there's going to be any real "shippy" moments in any of these one shots, or if they'll just stay as implied in the background. I might expand on a couple, though. Also, the ships will not necessarily follow the ones from the Office (like even though Belarus is taking the place of Jan and Prussia takes the place of Michael, there will be no unhealthy relationship between them).
Lastly, I can't decide if I prefer Austria/Prussia, Prussia/Hungary, or Austria/Hungary the best, so I guess it's up to fate for the final outcome lol.
Let me know what you thought! I'm always up for feedback.