Veneziano was in the kitchen of their Chinese home when he heard Romano mumbling to himself as he entered the kitchen.
"Romano!" he yelled when he looked over his shoulder at his older brother. "What's wrong?"
"There are people outside making so much noise that they woke me up," Romano grumbled, walking over to the window.
"She flew behind the tree!" Romano heard someone yell from outside. "She's just hiding! Go look!" Romano rolled his eyes at the backs of the two children outside.
"We have neighbors?" Veneziano smiled happily, appearing next to the window. "We should go say hello!"
The older nation shook his head. "Noisy neighbors," he practically growled. "Of all the places you've could've picked, you pick the house next to a bunch of kids with overactive imaginations."
"Over there! Behind that tree!"
"It looked nice in the picture I saw," Veneziano fretted as he tried to hand Romano a plate of food.
South Italy shook his head and pushed the plate away. "I'm going have a talk with them. They can't just make noise so early in the morning and expect people to be okay with it."
Veneziano glanced up at the clock. It was nearly one in the afternoon. "I don't think that's a..."
"You said you wanted to say hello!" Romano snapped, storming out the front door. The nation was barely a few meters down the path before he stopped dead in his tracks. "Hong Kong," he whispered to himself, watching the nation walking away from the two children. "Ven! What do you think Hong Kong is doing out here?"
"I don't know," the younger nation replied in a worried tone.
"We need to get out of here."
"Russia won't be in his country," Veneziano whispered quietly. "I read that he was out..." He shook his head and pulled his brother back to the house. "We'll go to Russia," he said. "It's large and the odds of running into anyone are very slim," he explained quickly. "We can probably stay there for a longer time than we would be able to in a smaller country. It'll help us get a footing until we can figure out where to go next."
"I don't think we should stay in one place for too long," Romano stated. "No matter how big the country is." The two nations were throwing all of the things they had brought with them into bags and cleaning up the house as best as they could in the short amount of time that they had to live.
"But I think I know the perfect place for us to go!" Veneziano insisted, stopping what he was doing. "We just need to go to Russia until I think I can get us there! It probably won't take that long, but just in case." Seeing the look of incredulity on Romano's face, he looked away and shoved a few more things into his bag.
"Come on, Veneziano. Be a realist. You're never going to get us to this 'perfect place.' We just need to get out of here now and deal with everything else later." He zipped up his bag and threw it over his shoulder. "You ready?"
The younger nation nodded slowly and zipped up his bag. "But how are we ever going to have fun if we never stop to enjoy some of the places we go to?"
"What is this fun you're obsessed with?" Romano demanded. "Aren't we doing this to stay safe? Wasn't that the point of this?"
"But, just because we don't feel safe doesn't mean we can't have a little fun along the way."
South Italy shook his head and walked out of the house, heading north for Russia. "You need to put your head on straight, Ven."
"But teacher! The baltics! They are attacking them!" Hong Kong yelled to China as they ran past the Italy brothers without noticing them.
Romano laughed nervously. "Maybe we need to head farther north."
"Um.. Romano?" Veneziano said nervously as they approached a large house. "I'm pretty sure this is Russia's home."
"Veneziano, I'd think I'd know if this was Russia's house, don't you think?"
"I think we just need to pick a place to rest while I figure out how we are going to get to the place I was telling you about."
"Shh," Romano hissed. "This place is perfect!" The older nation approached one of the windows and peered inside, noticing that he was looking into a dark kitchen. "See? It's fully furnished and it doesn't look like anyone is here. We can just..."
Romano was cut off by a shout of "shut up!' from inside the house, followed by manic laughter.
"Um... Can we go now?" Veneziano asked, rubbing his hands together.
"Shh."
"Will you two just stop," someone called in a bored tone as Veneziano pulled his brother away from the house.
Romano settled happily in a little house they found just over the Mongolian/Chinese border. "See?" he said cheerfully. "I told you I'd find us a great place to rest for a while. Now we can get some sleep in a real bed and have a decent meal."
Veneziano nodded slightly and sat on the floor next to Romano's bed. "Do you think we'll be able to go souvenir shopping?"
"Shopping? Ven, this is a small town, I don't think we'll be able to," Romano stopped suddenly and tilted his head toward the window. He narrowed his eyes. "Is someone screaming?"
North Italy jumped up and threw open the curtains. Outside, there were a couple of people running by. "Maybe their throwing a party!" he smiled happily.
Romano walked over quickly and opened the window so they could clearly hear what was going on. All around them, people seemed to be yelling "bomb" and the news was spreading fast.
"Bomb?" Veneziano said confused. "What bomb?"
As if in reply, Veneziano jumped when he heard a loud explosion nearby.
"We have to go," Romano said, grabbing their not yet unpacked bags. "Hurry!" He stumbled through the unfamiliar house and out the front door, following the running mob of people.
Before long, they reached a river where most people were stopping and trying to catch their breath. To escape the crowd, the brothers waded through the river and ran west, hoping to find someplace else to sleep.
