Black Roses

Chapter 8

America sighed, collecting his things as he made his way to exit the UN netting room. All the countries of the world were filing out the door, now that he thought about it, that had to be a fire hazard. What would happen if there was a fire? How were 193 countries supposed to get out of this place in time? That sounded really unsafe.

[*cough cough* totally not referencing Never Left *cough*]

Now the the world meeting was over, America was making his way to his office, he hadn't been in it since he cleaned it a week ago.

"Rica? Where are you going?" Philippines asked, squeezing his way out of the mob and over to the star spangled country. Rica stopped, Turing to his friend.

"To my office?....to do work? Y'know, like ya do?" He said, awkwardly standing there, slightly confused.

"You actually do your work in your office?" Phil asked, raising a brow. This started to confuse Rica even more. Sure, Mexico had mentioned to him that most countries preferred to do work at home, and that few actually used their offices. In Rica's opinion, it was a bit of a dumb thing to do. Why would you want to work from home? There was a huge, glorious lobby, each office had soundproof walls, it's own closet, and decent amount of space. Well, it was roughly 4 times the size of a cubicle, so not huge. Though, in Rica's opinion, it was a good amount of space, and was private too. Plus if you needed to speak with another country you could just go to their office...granted this didn't work for Rica because no one was ever in their office.

Though, the appeal of working from hope was also very present. Hungry? Just go to your kitchen. Tired? Just take a nap. Don't feel like doing your work? No worries, just do it later, UN's not there to breathe down your neck about not doing paperwork.

"Yeah, I work in my office. I don't mind it. It's nice and quiet. Plus I still need to return some of the Old America's belongings to UK and France." Rica finally responded. Phil's happy persona seemed to falter at the mention of his deceased friend.

"Sorry I didn't mean to-"

"No it's okay. I'm over it, just miss him sometimes." Phil said somberly, citing Rica off.

"Anyways, I won't bother you any longer, you probably have a bunch of stuff to catch up on anyways. I'll see ya later Rica!"

"By Phil!" Rica called, watching the shorter man disappear down the hallway. Rica let out a sigh and made his way towards his office. He opened the door, wincing as he realized that he'd left it unlocked for a whole week.

Crap, I forgot to lock it... He felt his gut sink. Looking around, Rica saw that nothing was gone. There were even new stacks of paper waiting on his desk.

Wait...his desk. He stepped towards it, lifting the new stacks of papers from UN, he looked around. He set the papers aside.

Where's the folder? Rica looked around, becoming suspicious. He furrowed his brows, he had left it on the desk, and now it was gone. Did someone steal it? What was in it? It had no label at all, what if it was something important? Why would it have no label if it was important.

Rica sighed, he could now only hope that it was nothing.

— — —

"Rica c'mon!" Russia called, standing a few doors down the hall from Rica's office, whose door was wide open.

"I'm coming! I'm coming!" The shorter called, quickly scrambling together his things, shoving them into his briefcase before stumbling out of his office and down the hall towards Russia.

"Door! And lock it!" The taller man said, laughing lightly as Rica groaned, going back to his office door and closing it, this time making sure to lock the door.