Disclaimer: All the characters are Hidekazu Himaruya's.

Summary: Matthew just wanted Alfred to meet Gilbert first and make sure he wasn't crazy IRL. Gilbert just accidentally sent his brother's photo instead of his own. Sending your Net friend a photo of yourself before a meeting is hard, not to mention actually meeting him. (Human au, small PruCan hints)

A/N: My second ever Hetalia fan fic. This is based on Arina Tanemura's short story 'This love is nonfiction' (hence the name, I was really out of ideas, sorry!). I read it from a collection of her mangas called 'Short Tempered Melancholic'.

I liked the idea so I made a version of it with Prussia and Canada. In the original the girl was ashamed of her looks and sent her (cuter) friend's pic instead, but in this I tried to make the photo-swap different and tried to make the reasons something that'd fit them. That made writing the summary difficult but I think I managed somehow...

Most of the first chapter was done months and months before the rest (that was finished yesterday and today) so a change in style might be possible. :D

Please enjoy!

CHAPTER ONE – MATTHEW

From: Gil the Awesome

To: Maple Matt

Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: happyland sat 7th

Attached files: to_matt

Awesome you can make it! We'll have such an awesome day you'll never forget it in your life! xD finally meeting you is so cool (and weird)! I'm just worried to leave my cute little bird to my bro for the day, he's such a schedule freak he might scare little-Gil who's used to my bestest ever care.

Anyways I promised my pic so here's one (from a party I had my bro throw last summer) I'm the handsome albino in case there're intruders in the pic (like my little bro or his boytoy or my totally gay bff)

Yeah so send me your pic soon? See you on sat 7th then

With awesome,

Gil

Matthew sighed upon finishing reading the e-mail. So, the day had finally arrived. The day when he should send his picture to his long-time pen pal Gilbert whom he was going to meet the coming Saturday.

Oh how he had dreaded and avoided and postponed this but now it had to happen. 'Send me your pic soon?' Even though it had a question mark at the end it didn't mean anything: Gilbert could have put an exclamation mark there just as well the way it screamed at Matthew.

Sigh. But be the situation the way it was with him and his picture, he really did want to see what Gilbert looked like.

Gilbert had often described himself with such praising words as 'sexy', 'handsome', 'great, 'awesome' - one of his favorites - and even 'cute' once when he had been telling about how cute he had acted on a trip to a museum. How, Matthew had no idea, as he knew Gilbert enough to know being cute in a museum wasn't really his thing. He had also mentioned being an albino a few times but Matthew had never asked more as he didn't know if the subject was touchy or not. He had also once mentioned – when giving Matthew a thorough story of his little brother whom he held very dear to him – that he was skinnier than his brother and got often mistaken for the younger one due to that.

So, with all this in mind Matthew dragged the cursor to the to_matt file and clicked it open.

And stared.

"What the - ?"

Matthew twitched. This was Gilbert? The loud, albino, skinnier-than-his-little-brother Gilbert?

Matthew had to admit this wasn't how he had imagined Gilbert to look. Somehow he had always thought Gilbert to have messy, wild hair which he really didn't bother to tame. Possibly red eyes - that weren't even that common with albinos but never mind, it fit his personality better - and of course Matthew had thought Gilbert to be about his body size, not twice him!

But this, this was nothing like he had imagined! Ok, maybe the beer but nothing else!

Because the man in the picture was, first of all, huge. Huge meaning tall, muscular and with wide shoulders. If this was 'skinnier-than-his-little-brother' then what kind of a giant was his little brother?

Secondly, Matthew would have never guessed this man to be an albino. Sure, he was pale with pale blue eyes but Matthew had always imagined Gilbert to be, well, whiter. Someone who would immediately turn heads on the streets.

And third, that hair-do! It was nothing like the wild hair Matthew had always imagined Gilbert to have, but a slicked back style.

"Oh god…" Matthew sighed and twirled his chair around once. Well, this proved that you really shouldn't judge a book by the cover because they might hide just about anything behind them. "At least he's got beer…" Matthew muttered staring at the bottle of beer Gilbert had in his hand. He had raised it and was grinning slightly, a smaller and darker, happy young man next to him. "I guess that's either Francis or Antonio…."

"Dude, you talkin' to yourself or somethin'?"

Matthew yelped as his brother stepped into the room without a warning. "Al! You scared me!"

Alfred laughed and threw his arms over his brother's shoulders. "So, whatcha muttering about here?"

"Gilbert", Matthew said quietly.

"Huh? Your Net friend? What about him?"

"He just…" Matthew thought for a second what to say. Why was he even upset like this? Just because Gilbert didn't look like he had thought – and also kind of hoped, he admitted in his mind – he would look like. Or was it all because he had to send his own picture to him in return, a thing Matthew had been dreading ever since the topic had first been brought up. "We're exchanging pics for our meeting. It's a bit nervous."

"Oh, did he send his? Lemme see!" Without waiting Alfred rushed over Matthew to the computer, spinning Matthew around on his chair in his haste. "Dude, he's huge! You're gonna look like a beetle next to him!"

"And he calls himself skinny! He says his little brother is bigger than him."

"Wow, wonder what a giant he is…" Alfred tilted his head and studied the picture. "So, what picture you sending?"

Matthew startled at the question and stopped twirling the chair around. "I dunno. I really dunno. I don't even know if I want to send him my pic."

"C'mon! He sent his and you won't answer him? Even I know that'd be totally rude."

"Agh, alright, I'll find something…"

"Great! Good deed of the day done! Time to get some ice cream!"

"Hey, could you bring – " But Alfred was already out of the room before Matthew had time to ask for anything. Matthew sighed. Typical Al, first sounding kind of intelligent and caring and then running off.

Absentmindedly Matthew turned to the computer and left his e-mail open while looking for a picture of himself. He honestly had no idea if he even had any as he was camera shy - camera phobic, Alfred called him - but maybe form their last birthday party…

Looking around his messy files Matthew finally found one titled 'bday 2011' and clicked it open. Inside were 73 pictures. It's a wonder if there isn't one picture of me, Matthew thought to himself as he clicked the first open.

Alright. So the first one was a picture of drunken Arthur and Alfred. So was the second. And the third…

At least after the fourth picture they started getting slightly more… normal and included others besides Arthur and Alfred. There was just one problem: only five of the pictures included Matthew.

"Why aren't there more…" Oh, of course because Matthew hated being photographed. No wonder.

And out of these five he was supposed to pick one for Gilbert? He didn't even know if he was really ready to meet Gilbert and he had only these five pictures to choose from.

Picture number one: Matthew slouching on an armchair with a bottle of coke, his head lolling to his shoulder and his eyes half closed.

Picture number two: his Cuban friend Carlos shaking Matthew by his shoulders and Matthew looking overly frightened.

Picture number three: Alfred grinning widely at the camera with a hand on Matthew's shoulder while Matthew's face had been captured only half-way as he had shied away from the picture.

Picture number four: Matthew from the back with a pink cupcake on his head.

Picture number five: Matthew grinning straight at the camera with his face completely covered in flag stickers.

"Great…"

There was only one solution to this, it seemed.