2. Ace of Hearts
A girl named Natalie sits contentedly, the sun shimmering like a blessing on her waist-length winter blonde hair. Her heart-shaped face beams up at the sky. Her steel blue eyes are grinning stars, and her lips form the shape of a smile to match, one of those purely iridescent ones you typically find artificially plastered to the faces of supermodels in magazines. The difference between those and hers is that hers is very real.
She's very happy.
She's with a man with the strange name of Vash.
Otherwise known as Switzerland.
Wiry and blonde, he's somewhat of a boyfriend. He had never used the word, and she had never asked, but they've spent a lot of time together. A lot. So, Natalie hadn't felt too guilty when she'd dashed off to Europe with him without even telling her three closest friends. They'll survive without me for a few weeks, she'd reckoned. She and her three closest friends are like sisters. They had the tattoos to prove it, didn't they?
She looks to hers now. Today, she is wearing one of her signature off-the-shoulder shirts, white and gossamer, so the place at the very top of her left arm is easily visible. There it is: a black heart about the width of a playing card with a red diamond nestled inside.
Her friends had once been the most important things in the world to her. They still are, but now Vash is mixed in there somewhere, too. The four of them all share residency in her heart, but she couldn't help but wonder whether or not Vash had more room in there. Love does screwy things to your priorities.
The two of them are at a mansion, a typically stuffy mansion under the even stuffier ownership of Roderich Edelstein, aka Austria. Natalie has trouble talking to Roderich, as does Vash, but yet here they are, at his mansion.
Switzerland had explained to her that it was the Germanic family reunion, an assembly the likes of which hasn't been seen since before the Second World War. It was the type of occasion you only miss if you have a desire to be shunned by the other members of your immortal family for the rest of eternity.
Thus, Switzerland had complied with the invitation and come, dragging Natalie along with the promise of introducing her to his lacy little sister, Liechtenstein. Oddly enough, several countries including Germany have yet to show, and this seems weird because Natalie had always taken him to be the most punctual breathing being on the planet.
They had been sitting outside together on the estate's grounds, at a gossamer white cast iron table set within Austria's admittedly beautiful garden. Switzerland had abruptly decided that the moment called for some lemonade and dashed insanely back to the mansion, blushing red as posies as he went. Natalie had snickered at his abruptness – he's always making excuses when he's embarrassed. And he's embarrassed quite often.
"What's taking him so long?" she asks the glistening flowers, impatient. It's been a while since he'd so fleetingly rushed off, maybe an hour or two. "What could he possibly be doing?"
Natalie doesn't worry, though. Switzerland worries enough for the both of them and then some.
Instead, she keeps up her smile.
"He'll come back," she reassures herself. "He always comes back."