unFRIENDLY RIVALRY: countryhumans

in vino veritas

"Come with us to the pub, mate" they said, "it'll be fun" they said...

But here he is, sitting in a pub filled with a bunch of people that hate his guts, breaking an old promise he has made to himself - it's been years since he drank serious amounts of alcohol. He did allow himself to have an occasional beer from time to time, but that was as far as he dared to go...
He promised himself not to drink spirits as often ever since he abolished communism. It reminded him too much of those gray, hungry, depressing days.

And yet... Here he was, in the UK's pub.

He probably wouldn't be here if not Hungary's constant nagging, beaconing him to go. He regretted complying with him, but he couldn't say no to his best friend like that, not when he seemed so ecstatic, which for Hungary was a rare occurrence.

The Hungarian's mood only seemed to brighten up a tad when he was around friends or when alcohol was involved. Seeing the sparkles in his best friend's hopeful eyes die out would hurt him more than anything, and so without much consideration he agreed.

Huge mistake.

The pub was stuffed to the brim with EU's Germanic and Anglogermanic countries alike, recieving an occasional spiteful stare from a few passer-bys.

He was sat between his already slightly tipsy companion to his right and Austria to his left, while the two of them talked, ignoring Poland's existence for the most part, Hungarian's biological brother glared at the bicoloured country, whenever his brother changed the topics making them more thematically focused on Poland.

Awkward, didn't quite describe how he felt. The whole experience gave off a weird ''meeting your partner's parents for the first time'' impression, except they weren't a couple and Austria wasn't Hungary's father.

Peer pressured and anxious, his stress levels only grew in response to hearing a particular cackle across the pub. Two voices - both of them he was more than familiar with, none of which were favourable at this moment. He couldn't quite make out what the two were talking about, but one thing he knew for sure, it didn't bode well to him.

He wanted to slap his own face, convincing himself that he really was awake and that this wasn't yet another one of those bizzare daydreams or a trick of a mind that affected the perception of his guilable senses.

Lately, his thoughts seemed to be orientated around one person in particular, and his nights were more often than not, disturbed by them.
Luck wasn't in his set of cards today because that very person he managed to successfully avoid for the past two weeks until today had came back to haunt him.

There was an unsettling sensation attached to these nightly brainstorms ;
a mix of incomprehendable emotions.
It was almost as if he felt happy when reminiscing about the peaceful sight of the other's sleeping face and very rare positive comments from his side, but the hurt he felt when those things were at a lack or replaced with those malicious comments, was simply unreasonable to him.
He never cared that much about other's opinions on him, he knew that they were almost always negative, so why did it trouble him so much now?
Why was it that he only felt so strongly about it when it came out of his rival's mouth?

He turned his eyes back to his best friend's face, trying to make his presence less noticeable to the duo sitting down across the other side of the pub, but doing so made almost no difference. The white and red country was sticking out like a sore thumb, his height making him stand out from the two nations that were much shorter than him.

He did expect Britain to be here, as he invited him to his pub as a way of saying thanks for helping him at work afterall, but he didn't quite expect Germany to show up too.
Not after the last meeting where UK had officially announced that he'll be leaving the EU...