Chapter 2

AN: I'm finally back with an update! Merry preemptive Christmas! Thank you all for all your support! Liebestraum is a piece by Franz Lizst, a Hungarian composer. Listening to it might help the meaning of the story. :)

Hungary

Hungary sat at the piano bench, her hands splayed across the keys. This massive thing took up so much space in the living room, and seemed to her like an utter waste of time…but Austria loved it so. He would compose for what seemed like days on end, neglecting even his basic needs in the pursuit of perfection…an attitude she wished that he would apply to their marriage. All affection was instigated by her, and Austria was distant at best. All of her efforts to promote intimacy between them had failed, so she was going to surprise Austria with a grand gesture—learning his latest piece on the piano.

She squinted at the perfectly penned notes, hoping that something would begin to make sense. She had a small amount of knowledge regarding note reading, but this might as well have been in a different language. Accents and slurs and staccato…it might as well have been French. Hungary sighed, pushing away the composition. Maybe it would be best to start out with something easier. A scale, she thought. Austria always played scales before he started a piece, and they looked easy. All you had to do was play the notes right next to each other, right?

Brimming with confidence, she set her fingers on the keys, took a deep breath…and the ensuing noise would have made Mozart roll in his grave. To call it a work in progress would be charitable. Her fingers were inelegant sausages, tangling together and producing discordant sounds left and right. Baffled, she stared at the instrument. What could have gone wrong?

"Hungary?" she heard from the doorway. Hungary jumped and stifled a curse. She could have sworn Austria had been out. His expression as she turned around flushed her face in embarrassment; it was somewhere between shock, horror, surprise, and amusement, and under any other circumstances she would have found it funny. Now, however, it made her stomach turn in worry. "What…exactly, are you doing?" His tone was that of incredulity. Was he upset that she was playing his piano? It was awfully precious to him—she hadn't thought of that. An apology was already forming on Hungary's lips as Austria strode over to the piano.

"Your hands are flat! I'm hardly surprised you're having difficulties. For your fingers to work properly, you must keep a rounded hand at all times, like so." Hungary's jaw dropped, but this was hardly noticed by her husband, who was consumed in his new task. Austria grabbed her hand and moved it to the proper positioning, an action that made Hungary's heart stutter. Austria never touched her. But here she was, her hands in his, even if it was for a non-romantic purpose. "There. Now try it." Hungary started the scale, her hands a little shaky, and another series of discordant notes emerged, more easily this time. "You need to start on two C's, not just one. Here." Austria gently moved her hand two keys down.

This new scale sounded as it should, even though it was cut short by Hungary forgetting to cross over her fingers. A quick demonstration from Austria set this issue right, and quickly, she caught on. Soon the scales sounded pretty, but not as beautiful as Austria could make them sound. Hungary sighed, reflecting on the disappointment that her surprise was sure to be met with. Austria's brow furrowed at this new sound.

"Miss Hungary? What is it? That sounded nice."

"Oh, it's nothing," Hungary replied with a smile. Austria shook his head, taking a second to push his glasses up on his nose before resuming his previous position.

"Is there anything you wanted to learn to play?"

"Do you enjoy any particular pieces? One that might be easy to play?" Austria stood for a second, thinking, and reached to a piece sitting on the top of his piano.

"Liebestraum?" Hungary asked, noting the title. "What does it mean?" In reply, Austria simply turned the cover to expose the music within, a light blush rising on his cheeks. It was so subtle that Hungary wasn't even sure that she had really seen it.

"We will start out very slowly," Austria told her, and showed her how to read the piece. Within a few minutes, she was managing a clumsy semblance of the rhythm.

"How should it sound?" Hungary asked, curious now. She moved aside on the piano, allowing Austria to sit. Wordlessly, he began to play, his fingers dancing across the keys. The piano sang to Austria as he stroked one of the most beautiful rhythms Hungary had ever heard out of the keys. It ended too fast—the notes swirled around her and engulfed her in what was more than merely a "good" piece. Finally, she felt as though she was beginning to understand the love Austria had for this behemoth of an instrument.

"That was amazing," Hungary told him, with a smile. "It seemed so emotional!"

"It was," Austria murmured. Questions started to spring to Hungary's lips, but they were silenced when Austria's lips brushed hers for a moment all too brief, so brief that she could have imagined it. Everything seemed to stop, and her whole body felt flushed. Her heart stuttered, her cheeks turned red, and silence wrapped around her like an embrace. Hastily, Austria stood and walked away, his ears red and his posture overly stiff, leaving Hungary with questions and love swirling in tandem through her mind.