After the incident in the bathroom, Sealand sat quietly in the world meeting, trying to write notes down to give to England later, but his mind kept wandering to think over what has happened between him and Belarus.
"Sealand, are you paying attention?" Germany suddenly asked loudly and the boy gasped, hand jerking and accidentally scratching a long line across the many paragraphs of sentences he managed to write up without making spelling mistakes.
"I did! I swear!" he gulped and looked at the large man fearfully, voice almost breaking down. He didn't realise how upset he sounded until he heard other nations in the room whispering to each other in concern.
"Germany, he was paying attention but look at what you made him do!" Hungary spoke up sternly and tutted, picking up Sealand's sheet of ruined paper and held it up to show the German.
Germany's ears turned red and he ran his hand through his hair. "O-oh, sorry, Sealand. I do apologise for that." Sealand only sighed quietly, not feeling like speaking up for himself. For now, his thoughts are focused on making things better for England, by planning on making it up to him.
Time passed when the meeting was close to finishing. Sealand noticed Belarus standing up from her seat, looking directly at Germany while carrying a wad of papers.
"Germany, I want to lodge in a petition for Sealand to become a nation," she requested. The boy sitting beside her stared up at her, hoping that things will go to plan.
The German host scratched his head. "I suppose you can. We finished covering all the points of today's meeting, so we shall break up early. Proceed."
"Thank you," Belarus thanked him and looked around the long table at everyone, "whoever wishes to add their signature to this petition, please do so right now."
Not many nations listened, however, as most are already getting their papers packed up to leave the room. Sealand's heart dropped. 90% of the countries are already ignoring him so readily like he wasn't there in the first place, not even sparing him a glance as they went their way.
But then a chirpy young man skipped over to them, chanting 'veh~' as he went along and walked up to him, patting his head.
"Ciao, Sealand!" Italy greeted, "I'll sign your petition!"
Sealand brightened up and smiled brightly. "What? Really?"
"Of course!" Italy agreed, "after seeing how sad you were for England, it shows how much you value your family, which in return shows how important relations are between nations no matter how much they fight!"
The boy giggled and rubbed the back of his head. "Well, thanks… he's a jerk, but he's cool when he wants to be." America overheard that and he snorted loudly, earning him a glare.
"Dude, are we talking about that bad-tempered dude?" he laughed.
"As a matter of fact, we are!" the child growled and quickly stood up from his chair so fast it fell back with a noisy clatter.
Belarus also joined the conversation, staring at the American, crossing her arms "Yes, America, what do you have against this boy's family? Is it because you practically ejected yourself from it when you didn't really have to in order to be independent?"
That was sharp to hear. Sealand shot a glare at the young woman; "Woah, hey! That's just wrong!"
She just hissed at him; "You started it, and you know it."
America fell strangely silent, looking at Sealand for a long time before turning away quietly and left the room, followed by a concerned Canadian. Sealand's heart dropped.
"I'm off."
Blinking, Sealand looked up to see Belarus but she already left the room, but not without leaving the wad of petition pages on the table at Sealand's spot, which has only gotten 2 signatures – Belarus's and Italy's.
"It's America's fault!" Sealand growled and kicked the table leg, trying to dull a strange feeling stirring in his conscience.
Dejected, Sealand left the meeting room with his satchel full of papers along with the signature-pages carefully tied together with a ribbon. After how the past week went, he felt discouraged. But thoughts of the 'incident' between him and Belarus in the bathroom plagued his mind even more. It was truly bizarre to a boy his age; many would secretly look at bikini magazines while their mothers aren't looking, but they wouldn't dream of touching the airbrushed models out of prepubescent curiosity. Heck, Sealand was raised by England, a gentleman with the annoying penchant of reminding the boy about manners and respect, but he wouldn't dream of touching anyone unless it was necessary. Besides, Belarus was decent with that black vest. Now that he thought about it, he recalled seeing slight-bulges on the vest with knife handles sticking out… Ah, so that's where she hides her armoury.
But boobies are still scarier to think about than knives.
Stressing about it all made him feel sick in his stomach, prompting him to make a phone call to fetch a cab to the airport. He was surprised that he made it there half an hour later without vomiting on the floor of the cab, and he gave the cab driver a nice tip along with the fare like England would do.
'Taxi drivers face a lot of abuse. It gives them more hope in humanity when they get nice tips,' he would say.
Peter breathed out a sad sigh; "I'm sorry, you jerk…"
Sealand arrived home safely on his artificial island and immediately made his way to the computer room, locking himself in there. He switched on all the computers before entering a strange website with a black background. He has delved into the Undernet, the dark part of the internet where websites aren't indexed by the mainstream search engines. He has gone off the grid with his IP address constantly changing every so often.
"Okay… So I got Belarus's signature because I hacked for her…" he muttered before picking up his mobile phone, picking a random number of another nation and held the phone to his ear, listening to the bleeps before someone picked up.
"'sup…" a man yawned as he answered, "Felix here… who's this again?"
"Hello, Poland!" Sealand chuckled nervously. Darn – he vowed to himself that he'd sound confident. "Say, is there someone you have a grudge against?"
There was a pause before the Pole replied. "Nah! Well, apart from that creepy-ass Russia, there's nobody I really hate to be honest. Like, hatin' on people is too tiring, y'know?"
"True…" Sealand looked around on a black market website, not feeling any appeal for the gold-painted guns or diamond-studded tiger bones, "but what if I find something embarrassing that belongs to Russia, and you want it but I need something in return in order to give you it?"
A pause reigned again and the boy began to think this was a bad idea, choosing just a random nation to make dodgy deals with, but then Poland suddenly spoke up. "Sure! What'cha need from me?"
"I need a signature for my petition on becoming a nation," the boy explained.
"Then it's a deal!" the Polish man cheered.
"Huh?" Sealand blinked in surprise.
"Just gimme some juicy details on that creep or something as long as I can use it as blackmail against him! Okay, I gotta get beauty sleep now, goodnight~!"
With that, the phone call cut off and the Sealander stared at his phone. "That seems too easy."
But now another thought nagged at him. Russia stood up for Sealand before, but he hasn't signed the petition even though he was right in the meeting room at the time he presented the petition papers. Would it still be right for search for blackmail against him…?
"Well he should've signed the petition then…" he muttered and began to search through the Undernet for information on Russia…
Poland sat on a park bench, playing on some game in his new mobile phone until Sealand walked up to him, holding a page of information printed on both sides. There was nobody else around apart from some pigeons and ducks wandering around for any nibbles left behind by screaming toddlers.
"Hello?" Sealand greeted, trying to sound enthusiastic, "I'm here with what you need."
"Uh-huh, yeah, hold on… Aww, man!" Poland whined when he lost the game and slipped his phone into his pocket. "So what was it I needed again?"
Sealand giggled. Poland really is an airhead. He reached over to hand the young man the sheet of paper. "It's the blackmail you wanted against Russia. Don't forget your part of the deal."
Poland pouted, but brought up a sparkling pink pen from his jacket pocket. "Fine, fine~! Hand me the paper, already!" With that, Sealand gave him a copy of the petition paper and watched as the Pole scribbled his name down in loopy handwriting before handing it back to Sealand. He beamed happily and handed the confidential document over to him.
"Thank you so much!"
"WHOO! No problem!" Poland cheered and immediately glanced at the paper, giggling like mad when he read a random passage. "Oooooh? He likes to sleep in the nude? THAT'S SO RAD! He even shoves his pipe up his own... chimney? Whut?"
"OKAY… I'm gonna leave now…" Sealand smiled and turned around to walk away when Poland called after him.
"Thanks a lot, Sealand!" the young man winked at him, giving him a thumbs-up, "I'll call you again if I need anything else!"
Sealand felt all the joy sucked out of his expression upon hearing that, but tried to dismiss that as a false promise from someone who easily forgets the simplest things.
That's another signature on his petition sealed, and many, many more to go...
TBC