China walked back to this house with a light skip to his step as his hands fastened around the straps of his basket-bag. Panda sat in the basket, making happy noises as the walked. Hong Kong, China's younger brother, walked beside him quietly.

China was excited to see Samantha again after the boring world meeting and he assumed that she would be happy to see him too. Samantha would be home from school by now. As he approached the large house, Panda let out a high squeal of excitement, making the country laugh.

China inserted the key into the keyhole of the door and turned it, opening the door.

"Samantha, We're home!" he announced cheerfully, placing Panda onto the couch. But there wasn't the usual thumping of feet when she used to run over to greet him. He frowned. Maybe she was still at school, working on a group project or rehearsing for Chapel with her teammates.

China went over to her room with Hong Kong following right behind him. He knocked on the door, his expression turning concerned.

"Samantha?" Hong Kong called, but the only response he got was silence. "Maybe she isn't here," he said, but before China could respond, the door unlocked and was opened a crack.

"Oh hello, China," she greeted him, and opened the door up more. "Hello, Hong Kong." She came out of the room and hugged them both gently, then looked at the ground, sighing. She was dressed in her usual school clothes: a light blue button-up shirt and a dark blue skort. On top of her shirt, she wore her dark blue hoodie.

Samantha didn't seem like her normal, cheery self. She seemed more tired...or sad...? In fact, she looked anything but happy. She gave them a smile, but the sadness in her eyes gave her true feelings away. China noticed this immediately, and his brown eyes softened. He took her hand and led her and Loung to the couch. Panda crawled over to her, and the two sat on either side of her.

"Samantha, what's wrong?" Yào asked. The girl's eyes widened slightly, as if surprised that they had noticed this so quickly.

"I'm--" she started to sat, but quickly changed her mind. They would never believe her even if she gave them that excuse. "I'm probably going to waste your time. Don't worry about me."

"What do you mean? We're your friends, you can tell us," Hong Kong said.

Samantha took a deep breath. "You guys are countries. I'm a human girl. You guys can live forever. I can't," she muttered. "For you, my whole lifetime would be a simple 5 minutes, then it would be gone. I can never live up to your standards. I would grow up too quickly, then, then I would just forget you and...and I just--I'm...not good enough for you."

"That's nonsense, aru. What gave you that idea?" China said.

"Just...something at school. I'm always the one who gets forgotten, I'm always the one who gets seen as not important, I'm the one who's the loner...anyway...what I'm saying is that I don't want to forget you and I don't want you to forget me either but the memories we have would come and go so quickly, and, and--" She lay backwards onto the couch so she faced the ceiling. A few tears fell down from the corners of her eyes.

"I don't know how to put it. I don't want to lose you because you're such a good friends and I treasure every moment we have, and in fact, I don't wanna forget anyone: China, Hong Kong, Canada, Hope, Shelby, Italy, England, Japan, France, Germany, Russia, America, Romano, the Nordics, the Baltic states, all my friends on Wattpad...basically all our friends! And--and...I sound ridiculous right now, don't I."

"Yeah, I think I get what you're trying to say. It seems very hard to explain," Hong Kong said. He brushed the tears away from Samantha's eyes.

"I just don't want to leave you guys. You've changed my life so much and made me feel so happy and so accepted. I guess I'm just afraid that people would forget me or reject me and--"

China held a finger to her lips. "Shush, aru. You're stressing yourself too much. That's not going to happen. We're not leaving. Right, Loung?"

He nodded.

"Really?" she asked, a tiny smile appearing on her face as the rest of the tears rolled down. She sat up.

"Really, aru."

"I love you guys." The words rolled off her tongue and before she knew it, Samantha wrapped both of them in their arms and pulled them into a very tight hug, happy tears forming in her eyes. They hugged her back, and she didn't care if she squeezed the breath out of them, she's never felt this safe and secure in her life.