What is... "Home?" (Hetalia Fanfic, W.A. '13 Finalist)

Chapter 62~!

"I can't go! This won't work!" I exclaimed, running around the hotel room wearing only what I'd worn to bed. Thanks to my speedy recovering abilities, my leg was just fine, if a little tender to the touch. "How'm I supposed to go to Gakuen when all my stuff's gone up in smoke? Literally? AAGH!"

"Melina... Did you look in the bottom of your bag, maybe? Something might be in there that could help," Matthew suggested, still eating from the room service cart full of pancakes we'd ordered for breakfast (his pancakes were better by far, for the record). "I mean, my present survived in there, why not something else?"

"Hey, good idea!" I said, pulling my bag off the back of the chair and dumping out the contents unceremoniusly. A roll of bandages I never used on Mattie's costume from Halloween, my iPod, my laptop, my wallet, my Swiss Army knife, and a hard candy with some lint stuck to it. I booted up my laptop and found it to be working, same with my iPod. "Thank goodness none of the animals peed in my bag..."

"Bandages, good, you can wrap your chest with those," Mattie said as he came to sit by me on the bed. "And your electronics survived, too."

"Wooohooo!" I cheered, getting Wifi on my iPod and looking at my email. "Holy... 31 new comments on my story. That's scary!"

"But that's good, you're becoming well known on Wattpad now," Mattie pointed out, and I smiled and nodded.

"Who woulda thunk it?"

~~~

"Jeans! Wonderful wonderful jeans!" I cried out, glomming onto a pair of denim pants and hugging it happily. We might have hit a coffee place on our way to a store. Just might have. "I missed you so!"

Matthew couldn't help but laugh from behind me. "What's with your sudden happiness at seeing jeans?"

"I haven't worn jeans in so long, I almost forgot how good they felt," I explained, still hugging the pair. "I love denim!"

"Okay, well, we just need a couple outfits for the both of us, just until the school can get more uniforms," Mattie said as he went into the section that was his size. I browsed around, grabbing a couple of the pairs I liked best and a few T-shirts to go along with them.

"I WUUUV JEANS~!" I sang from my stall in the men's dressing room (that was so weird, changing in there!).

~~~

"Mattie, Mel- Malcolm, dudes! You made it, sweet!" Alfred called after he turned and spotted us coming up the path leading to a building I hadn't been in before. "And you both got new clothes, I see!"

"Yay for us!" I said, switching my voice on instinct.

"Whoa, someone's happy. What'd you do, Mattie?"

"Coffee place," Matthew replied, and I clapped my palms together happily with my eyes closed. "I'm starting to think it was a mistake."

"Ah. Well come on in, we're almost ready to get started."

The three of us walked inside and through a hallway, making one turn to the left and finding ourselves outside a large conference room. Inside were a few of my favorite countries, including Italy, Japan, Germany, the BTT (that's what they call themselves, but they won't tell me what it stands for!), Romano, China, Rayn, and Kadi. I noticed that they all knew I was a girl and instantly relaxed. We went in and the low chatter barely hushed as the door opened.

"Okay, dudes! Are we ready to hear what we found out?" America asked, taking his usual place at the head of the table.

"Ja, America, just get on vith it," Germany grumbled. "Ve have been here for an hour and nozhing has been told to us."

"Sorry, I was waiting for everyone to get here!" America said without much apology in his voice. "'Kay, so! Turns out that there was an organization who planned that fire. They made sure to set it when no one else was inside because it was just a warning, but still."

A low hush swept over all those present.

"Vee~ That's-a scary..." Italy trailed off.

"Do we have a name to put to these people?" China asked, but America shook his head.

"'Fraid not. They only left us a note with the main office right after Mrs. Theresa left for the night, and the cameras were turned off so we don't have any video to go on."

"So zhen how do ve know zhis is real?" Germany asked.

"You guys wanna take a look at the note? Here, I'll read it aloud," America said, producing it from his pocket and holding it up.

"Dear countries,

We know your not just ordinary people so please don't take us lightly. Disband your school before we come again or you will regret it. Also you will not see us because we cannot be found. Dont try to look for us.

Sincerely,

Those Who Don't Wish To Be Found"

"See? We dunno who did it, but we're trying to find out who," America said.

"May I see the note, America-san?" Japan asked, and America nodded while handing it to him. The note was read and passed around, but no one got anything else from it.

That is, until Rayn and I read it at the same time (she sat on my left).

"Wait a second!" we said at the same time, then looked each other and slapped a high-five. "Awesome!"

"Vhat do you vant?" Prussia asked, but we shook our heads and laughed.

"No, not you, Prussia," Rayn said, and I smiled before looking back at the note.

"Okay, look at this. The punctuation from this note is horrible. They have the wrong "your" and almost no commas where they should be," I said.

"That tells us that maybe they aren't very well-educated in the English language," Rayn added. "I should know, English was my... fourth language. Yeah, fourth."

"Okay, well, that's a possibility," Spain said with a nod.

"So what're we gonna do? We can't disband the school," I insisted.

"I know, we've only got half a year left, anyway," America said. "No, more like less than four months. So let's have a vote. All those in favor of closing the school, raise your hand."

No one did.

"And all those in favor of keeping the school open?"

All hands went up, including my own and America's.

"Yay!" I exclaimed happily. "Gakuen Academy forever!"

"Vee~ No, that's pasta forever!" Italy corrected.

"Oh, right right right," I said with a grin. We shouted "PASTAAA~!" in unison, making Germany groan.

"Not anozher vone," he grumbled, and Japan patted his arm once in sympathy.

"Hey, Melina! Let's-a go make some pasta for everyone right now, in celebration!" Italy suggested, and I beamed while nodding.

"Okay!"

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Yeah, I didn't know what else to do... So there ya go! I hope I can think up more soon! WUUUUVS~!!

Apologies for shortness!! My brain is kinda dead as I type this~ XP