Disclaimer: Axis Powers Hetalia belongs to Himaruya Hidekaz

This Above All

Veneziano divides his attention evenly during supper: one third spent eating, another hanging off Germany's arm, and the rest clinging to his older brother's while showering Romano's tantrums with glowing praise of all of Germany's good points, the greatest of these being his patient, martyred tolerance for Romano's insults.

As they sit with their wine glasses in the cool evening air after Romano has stormed off for "a stroll," Veneziano turns to him and says, "Germany, don't you ever get tired of Romano hating you?"

Germany holds the words on his tongue, cupping them with a mouthful of wine to be swallowed, as he thinks: he has no right to say them. But then he wonders, maybe, if the problem is that no one who has any right ever discusses them. So he downs the wine, now warmed to the temperature of his mouth and unpleasantly sour in the back of his throat, and precipitates the dissolved words out of the liquid.

"I think," rolls out of his mouth, the words pushed deliberately by his tongue like granules tumbling one by one, "that Romano very fervently follows the ideal of 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"

Veneziano, he pretends in the falling dusk reverberating with insect songs, just didn't hear.