Prussia ‧₊˚. ⸝⸝ 05

Prussia has seen wars, borders fall, kings lose their crowns. None of it ever made him nervous. But the way you look at him sometimes does.

He catches it in quiet moments. When he’s polishing his sword, you’re already there, watching from the corner of the room. When he laughs too loud, your eyes don’t flinch. They follow. Always steady. Always calm.

“You sure know how to sneak up on people,” he says one evening, trying to joke it away. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were spying on the awesome me.”

You just smile, slow and polite. Then you write on a small scrap of parchment. ‘Someone should keep an eye on you’

He laughs, but it comes out thinner than he wants. “You sound like Hungary. She says I’m trouble too.”

’You are trouble’ you write, then look up at him with something soft in your eyes. That’s why you need watching.

The room feels smaller. The firelight catches in your hair, in your stillness. He should say something, but his throat feels tight.

Later, when he leaves to check on little Germany sleeping down the hall, he swears he feels your gaze on his back. Warm. Unblinking.

That night, he dreams of eyes in the dark. Yours, calm and clear, the only thing that doesn’t fade when the rest of the world starts to vanish.

He tells himself it’s nothing. That you’re quiet, not strange. That you care, maybe a little too much.

But the next morning, he finds a feather from his uniform tucked under your notebook, pressed flat like a keepsake.

He stares at it for a long time before muttering, “You really are watching me, huh?”

And somehow, the thought makes his heart beat faster.