"Oh, I just love weddings!" My sister said excitedly beside me. Her giant boobs bounced up and down as she shook in excitement. She usually didn't have time to go since she was poor and had to work so hard. I'd never gone to a wedding with Ukraine before. Well, I wouldn't say with. She said she was only going with me because she was invited, too. Her boss was strange and didn't want us to interact with each other. I understood, though. Bosses could be quite strange and demanding.
Usually I was dragged along to weddings by Belarus. I guess she thought that it would give me some sort of idea. Yet, the invitation specifically said no Belarus. I grabbed the white card out of my jacket and read it over one more time.
"You are, like, cordially invited to the wedding of Poland and Lithuania. I'm like super excited! R.S.V.P and whatever. What does that mean anyway? Maybe France will know...oh, she says it means respondez, s'il vous plait. Well, do that, just don't bring Belarus! She is SO not invited. I'm only inviting you so I can show off Lithuania is mine. Mine! Muahahaha! Anyway, it'd still be like awesome if you came."
It was pretty hard keeping it a secret from Belarus, but I somehow managed it. I opened up the doors to the church. It seemed like everyone was there. Well, everyone except Belarus. Lithuania looked busy with the other guests. He flinched when he saw me. I smiled at him.
"Mr. Russia! What a pleasant surprise! What are you doing here?" he stammered.
I flashed him my invitation. "Poland invited me."
"Ah," Lithuania seemed to nod in understanding. "Poland did go a little overboard in the invitations. Not that you wouldn't have been invited, of course!" he said nervously.
I smiled at the others beside him. They looked as if they were as nervous as Lithuania. It had been a while since I had seen the Baltics. Estonia and Latvia moved slightly behind Lithuania. They were wearing matching suits. They must be Lithuania's groomsmen. It reminded me of the time we all lived together. They sort of made my sisters bearable.
In the auditorium, I found a seat on the right side. The room became pretty full. Lots of people I hadn't seen for a while we're here. A few of them were quite different from what I remembered.
The ceremony started. Lithuania stood alone up by the alter. Eventually, Estonia came in escorting France. France was wearing a low cut magenta dress. That wasn't really the surprising part. The surprising part was that France was a girl. As she walked down the aisle she found England in the crowd. He looked pretty cross. She winked at him and blew him a kiss.
Next came Latvia escorting Italy. I still got a little shocked to see her as a girl, though I already knew she was. I was at her wedding to Germany after all.
"Mamma!" a little voice cried. Her little voice filled the room. The source was a cute toddler with wavy strawberry-blonde hair in Germany's lap. With an amused look on his face, Germany quietly shushed her. Italy turned to the girl and smiled brightly. She waved at her little girl. Italy took her place at France's side on the left. Their dresses were the same color, but Italy's was cut a bit more modestly.
The traditional song came on. Poland appeared at the entrance. Everybody looked back to her and got up at her presence. Her dress was the lightest pink. Light, transparent pink, lacy layers flowed over her long skirt creating flowing ruffles. Her hair was simple and framed her glowing face. Small little white and pink wildflowers were weaved into her hair. She was positively beaming as she hiked up her skirts and ran down the aisle. She grabbed both of Lithuania's hands and bounced excitedly on her toes. She showered kisses on Lithuania's face despite the continued shock of the audience. She waved for the priest to start the ceremony already once she had finished kissing Lithuania.
Lithuania was in awe of Poland. He looked as ecstatic as she throughout the whole ceremony. His face was smudged by pink lipstick. They couldn't keep their eyes off each other the whole time. Lithuania and Poland slipped the rings on each other. At the appropriate time, Lithuania had a huge smile on his face. He placed his hands on the small of Poland's back. She locked her hands behind his neck, grinning in anticipation. He pulled her up into a deep kiss. They kissed several times despite the growing uncomfortableness of the audience. They stopped kissing, and the room cheered.
I swirled the bubbly drink in the glass. It was so weak. I reached into my coat and got out my vodka bottle and pored a bit onto the champagne. I tasted it. Much better.
I couldn't help but think of China. I wish she was here. I would have liked to take her. She'd probably wear her favorite red. She'd probably disapprove of my adding vodka to the champagne. She'd say it'd already had alcohol in it. She'd probably yell at me for referring to her as she all the time. I couldn't help it. That's just the way I always thought of her. Beautiful, strong China.
"Yo, Russia!" America came up beside me.
"Hello, America."
"Do you know where China is? I wanted to talk about business."
Ow, that hurt. It hurt more than I anticipated. "Sorry, America. I don't know where China is."
"Really?" America said, clearly stunned. "I thought you'd know for sure because of your super stalking ability. No one has seen China in forever. But seriously due, you need to work on that creepiness. Get a hobby or something."
"I do have hobby," I said.
"I really hope like that doesn't involve partitioning me," Poland said. She was practically joined to Lithuania as they expanded our little group.
I smiled at the memory. "Ah, good times!"
"I don't quite remember them as good..." Lithuania mumbled.
"Congratulations, man!" America clapped Lithuania on the back. "Ya managed to snag a chick!"
That reminded me of a question I had been meaning to ask. "Lithuania, how did you make Poland say yes?"
"Make me?" Poland said.
"Um, well, I didn't make her do anything. I just asked her, and she said yes before I even finished getting the question out."
"It was adorable. He was so nervous." Lithuania looked eyes full of love at his new bride.
"Hi...I hope I'm not interrupting. We'd just like to offer our congratulations!" Finland joined us. He had in tow a very tall blonde with long hair. Their fingers were intertwined.
"I'm glad you could make it, Finland! Who's this? I don't believe we met," Lithuania said.
Finland had a huge grin on his face. "It's m'wife!" he mumbled enthusiastically.
The woman blushed. "I'm Sweden," she said. She pushed her glasses up her nose.
Everyone did a double take. Last I remembered, Sweden didn't have boobs. She fiddled nervously, uncomfortable with the sudden attention.
"Whoa! When did this happen?" America asked.
"Last Christmas, I asked Sweden to live the rest of our lives together. Once we finished our dream house, we got married," Finland recalled.
"Nothing fancy. Just a small wedding," Sweden added.
Finland pulled Sweden down and gave her a small peck on the cheek. She blushed again.
"Did someone say wedding?" France was coming toward us with her arms linked with Italy and Spain. England and Romano were sulking behind. France was sporting England's jacket over her dress.
"Can't we just go home already?" Romano complained to Spain. "The potato-bastard got to leave."
"Germany has to take care of a kid. He's got bedtime duties. And did you seriously just compare yourself to Germany?"
"I've got a half a kid..." Romano said.
Spain took Romano's hand and placed it on her bulging stomach. She grabbed his face and pulled him down to a kiss. "And when our little tomato gets here, you can make all the excuses you want. Just wait a little while longer. We can leave in a bit."
"Romano, you're such a party pooper! Let Spain have her fun while she still can! Speaking of weddings, where's your little China?" France winked at me.
"Dude, China just straight up disappeared! Not even Russia knows where he is! Not to be a bummer, but he was getting pretty old. He's about as old as England, isn't he? I'm just saying, he could've..."
"Just wait a minute! I'm not that old! China was way before me. France would know about that more than me!" England said.
"For the last time, I am not that much older than you!" France quipped.
"Grandpa Rome told me a long time ago that China had been around for a long time before he even existed," Italy added.
The mood went somber. Everyone knew the the Roman Empire had been gone for a while now. Few believed he was actually still alive. They all looked at me with such sympathy. I knew better. China was much too strong to disappear like that from me.
"Why everyone so sad? China'll come back to me. In mean time, think happy thoughts. Weddings are happy times! Don't you remember when you got engaged?"
Italy's face was bright. "Germany was so sweet! He brought me to the field of flowers that we played at when we were kids and proposed to me there!"
"How romantic!" France said. She had a smirk on her face. England was looking more and more uncomfortable.
"Well, I guess I was the one who proposed to Romano. I just thought it'd be fun!" Spain said.
"Ha! Fun? You call that stressful as fucking hell fun?" Romano said.
"We did have a lot of fun afterwards..." Spain insinuated.
Romano blushed bright red. He didn't have any more to say about that.
"Oh! So you're the one who asked him and he actually said yes? Fascinating!" France said again, her smirk only growing larger. "Poor me. I'm the only one not engaged. To think that the love of my life rejected me."
"Oh, for pity's sake, I was drunk! And you were a man! How could you possibly expect me to say yes?!" England blurted out. "You want to get married so bad? Fine, let's get married!"
"No!" France said quickly.
"Agh! Then what the hell do you want from me?!" England said in acute frustration.
"Oh, I know for a fact you can do better than that. I want your absolute best." She smiled at England's torment.
"Woman, I haven't the faintest..." England groaned loudly when he finally understood what France meant. He squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Volume 3...page 35...paragraph 2."
France's face started to gleam. Her smirk shifted to a genuine smile. "Closer, but you're going to have to say it all out loud, mon cher."
England opened his eyes. He didn't expect France to look so stunning. His irritated look faded. He started to look embarrassed. He grabbed France by the hand and led her away and out the door. She winked and waved goodbye to us.
"You sure seem to be interested about this, Russia. It's not like you to think so romantically. Any particular reason why? I mean, you don't have to tell us if you don't want to." Lithuania asked.
"No reason. But how did you know you would always be together? How did you know that you both loved each other?" I asked. I needed to convince China somehow. I couldn't understand why she wouldn't accept my love. How could I really tell if she loved me back?
"True love's kiss," everyone said at once. I was surprised. I hadn't expected the answer to be so unanimous. Was that all there was to it? It's true, I hadn't ever kissed China...
"I guess there's just something magical about a kiss..." Italy said whimsically. The couples looked longingly at each other.
Spain broke the temporary silence by yawning.
"Alright, now we really should go," Romano said.
Spain nodded. "Veneziano, do you want us to take you home?" Spain asked.
"Yeah, Germany could probably use a little break. Not that he'd ever admit it," Italy said. The three of them left together.
"We should go home, too," Sweden said.
Finland squeezed her hand. "Okay, honey. Thanks again for inviting us! I hope you have a happy life together!"
Sweden nodded in agreement. They left together, hand in hand the whole time.
More and more people left as the night went on. I snuck Ukraine home in the dark.
"Did you have a nice time?" I casually asked her.
"Mmmhmm, it was a nice wedding," Ukraine said.
"That's nice. I'll see you around, I guess. Or not," I said and smiled gently to her.
"Russia, are you...okay? I know I haven't exactly been there for you lately..."
I hugged my sister. It was rather uncomfortable. Her boobs were a bit too big. "Thank you, сестра."
She hugged me back gently. "I hope the best for you, брат."
It was late by the time I made it home. I didn't bother to turn on any lights. I made my way back to my room and flopped down on my bed. The dark air was quiet and alone. I rested my arm over my eyes. The nights were always the hardest. My thoughts always drifted to China. I missed her so much, it was driving me mad.
AN: Thank you to you all! You have no idea how much I appreciate you reading this! Especially those who reviewed and did something else. You know what you did ;) I really you guys have been enjoying this little story!