I hope I can interest you guys with this next chapter. And guess what? There's an official Macau profile now! Though, he's tall and wears glasses and has a rather businesslike demeanor. Which is not at all how I envisioned him. But hey, you can't have everything the way you want!

I don't own Hetalia! end /AN/

Hong didn't do things when he was supposed to. He tended to follow his own pace, lollygagging around and sometimes even doing something that was the complete opposite of what he was supposed to do, like going back to bed when he was supposed to be getting ready for school. Such as right now.

"Hong! Why aren't you dressed? I told you to get up fifteen minutes ago!" Arthur's mom had come into the room to find the devious deed Hong had committed, fortunately after Arthur had finished dressing. He wouldn't call himself insecure, but there was just something about his mom seeing him undressed or only partly dressed that was embarassing, since he was so old.

Hong turned over in bed, so he wasn't facing Arthur's mom. She didn't seem stunned by the behavior; it was not exactly new. Alfred had been a nice kid, but he wasn't always well-behaved. "Hong. Get out of this bed now, or I will lift you out and dress you myself."

This seemed to get a worse reaction out of Hong, as he promptly burrowed under the Buzz Lightyear blanket. Arthur decided it was time to get out of there, and get his breakfast before his bus came. As he left, he could hear his mom trying to convince Hong to come out of his own free will, and it made him shake his head. She talked big, but generally she gave lighter retribution than she threatened to.

His mom had already scrambled some eggs and made toast, apparently so that Hong's first day of school would begin well. Arthur grabbed a plate and put some of the eggs between two pieces of toast to eat. Would Hong even be able to catch the bus at this point, he wondered? It was almost time to head to the corner of the street and wait to be picked up.

Then, he heard his mother coming down the stairs, and he was sure she would not have come down without success in her endeavor. And indeed, as he looked over, he saw her lugging Hong with her, the little boy pushing away from her as though she had deadly germs. He was dressed in a Superman t-shirt and jeans with big pockets, Arthur noted.

As soon as Arthur's mother put Hong down, he stopped pushing away from her and snatched up some toast, beginning to lick off the jam Arthur's mom had so lovingly put on it. Arthur's mom seemed to get a slightly exasperated look on her face. "Hong, honey, we eat all the food put before us. Not just the jam, alright?"

"Bye Mom!" Arthur couldn't stick around to see Hong's quirks further revealing themselves. As he bounded down the steps, he thought he heard his mom calling after him, but he pretended he didn't and continued on anyway. It was a very short way down to the end of the street, where several other children were waiting.

"Arthur! You're late!" accused Michelle, a strangely no-nonsense girl who Arthur sometimes didn't like to admit was his friend. He just scowled at her. "You know my mom. She always finds some way to slow things down."

He didn't always place the blame on his mother. In fact, he only did it when she wasn't there to defend herself. That way she didn't know and thus wasn't hurt by it, so it was okay. Or so Arthur's logic went. As Michelle raised an eyebrow, Arthur felt an arm wrap around his shoulders. "Strange how your mother seems to be to blame for everything. Is it also her fault you have eyebrows like caterpillars?"

"Francis!" Arthur just barely fought off the squeak in his voice as he threw off the older boy's arm. He turned the most sullen glare he was capable of on Francis. "You're such a creep! Stay away!"

However, the teen only laughed, in that annoying, nasally tone of his. "I cannot help it. You are just so funny when you turn red like that."

"I am not!" Arthur snapped back, unfortunately turning a deeper shade of red. Michelle groaned, getting in between the two. "Francis, quit antagonising Arthur. The bus's almost here, and I don't want you two fighting and missing it. Again."

A giggle came from the fourth party present, a girl who went by the name of Belle. She tended to claim she was a princess, just like Belle in Beauty and the Beast, and Francis had always supported her in that idea. She was his cousin, after all. "You guys are so hilarious..."

The bus pulled up, and Francis, of course, made sure he could get past Arthur first by pushing on his forehead and sending him backwards. "See you later! Au revoir!"

Stupid Francis and his French classes. It was like the kid thought he was a French citizen just because he could introduce himself and ask where the bathroom was. Arthur grumbled to himself as he scurried on after Michelle and Belle. Francis was sitting with Antonio and Gilbert by the time he got on, so that was a relief. That was all the way in the back, and Arthur didn't want to sit anywhere near there.

He ended up sitting next to Kiku, one of his buddies, right in front of Michelle and Belle. "Hey Kiku," he said, ignoring his girl friends (definitely a space there. Definitely!) in favor of one of his boy friends, "Did you like the English homework last night? I though it was a cool topic for a long answer."

It was. It was about what they thought America would be a like if they had lost the Revolutionary War. Arthur had always wondered about that himself, and how upset it must have made the British to lose their colony. He could sympathise with the king, who probably had wanted to keep them pretty badly if he'd sent so many soldiers over to keep it. His mom had always told him that King George III had it pretty rough with his siblings and children, so he probably felt horrible when he'd failed at something once again.

Kiku gave him a shrug, replying, "I suppose, though I thought it could have been more interesting." That was Kiku-speak for 'no, I actually didn't like it very much at all.'

"Oh. Alright." Arthur disengaged from the conversation, not at all interested in it if Kiku didn't want to talk about what he wanted to talk about. As he looked out the window, he saw several cars passing by: a red SUV with a soccer mom in it, a battered little white-ish car with a bunch of teens in it, a maroon minivan, just like the one his family had-

It was his mom. And Hong, Arthur was rather startled to realise, as the eight-year-old leaned rather dangerously out the window to stare at the kids in the school bus. "Hong!"

Arthur's yelp made Kiku jump, and notice the kid hanging out of the car beside them. It was as though Arthur's mom had also heard him, for her head briefly turned back towards Hong- and then snapped back violently. She was screaming at him, Arthur could tell, and the minivan swerved dangerously.

It was all rather surreal to Arthur. Was Hong even wearing a seat belt? It certainly didn't look like it. The whole bus was now focused on his new foster brother's peril, though the child himself looked as nonplussed as ever. Now Arthur's mom was starting to slow down, pulling off to the side of the road.

They were behind him now, and disappeared as the bus rounded a corner, before Arthur could even see if things turned out alright or not.

To say he was stunned was to say the ocean was big. It was an understatement.

Arthur could barely figure out what to think. What the heck was wrong with Hong? Was his mother crazy for fostering? What would the kids at school think? Was Hong even alive? Had his mother crashed in her panic? He was sure he had never seen her look like that before, not even when Alfred ate a mushroom from the yard and had to go get his stomach pumped.

"Arthur, who was that in your mom's minivan? Another foster kid?" It was Belle, leaning up against the seat to try and catch his attention. Arthur nodded numbly, still trying to process everything.

"Well, what's his name?" Belle inquired further, and Michelle was leaning forward as well, intent on hearing about this strange child. Arthur gave a sigh, as the bus was pulling up in front of the school. "His name's Hong. And, and, he's not like that normally."

What a lie. But Arthur did not want to make a sideshow out of Hong, because that would make him part of the circus as well. Belle giggled a little, asking, "What's he normally like? Only slightly crazy?"

Arthur could feel himself bristling a little, but the bus had stopped, and children were starting to pour out like pancake batter out of his mother's mixing bowl. "He's perfectly normal. In fact, he's really cool normally. Exactly the kind of little brother anyone would want."

They'd never know the difference, Arthur reasoned as he stepped off the bus. It was not as though Hong would go to the middle school or anything.

Out of the corner of his eye, he swore he saw a maroon minivan passing by towards the elementary school, but he decided to ignore it. He didn't want to think about Hong right now...


"Hong was very polite today, weren't you, Hong?" Arthur sawed at the pork roast on his plate, not really caring about how Hong did at school today, but knowing he was obliged to listen. His mother continued on, even though Hong didn't respond at all.

"He came up to Mrs. Ingram, introduced himself without me even telling him to, and then took his seat when she asked him to. Isn't that wonderful?" Why was his mom so insistent on reporting the details of the day to him? She hadn't even bothered to talk about his questions involving Hong and his leaning out of the van that morning, saying it was only a 'snafu.'

"Yeah mom, that's great." Arthur stuck a piece of the pork roast into his mouth, finding it rather chewy, though not quite like eating leather. He would never say his mom's cooking was bad, but Alfred and every one of Arthur's friends not polite enough to keep it to themselves had said such, so he figured his mother must have already killed his tastebuds.

Hong was shovelling the mashed potatoes into his mouth almost faster than a normal person would be able to swallow, though Arthur had the suspicion that had little to do with why he wasn't talking. Arthur's mom stroked Hong's head as she talked, not even seeming to notice the way he tried to lean out of her touch.

"We may have gotten off to a rocky start, but I think Hong's going to do just fine here!" Arthur's mom had that smile on her face, the one that was just a little too happy to be good news. She tended to use it when the situation truly didn't call for a smile, or when she wanted things to go well.

Arthur wanted to remind her that the child she was talking about was starting to lick the salad dressing off of his salad, and therefore he was not doing just fine, but he shut his mouth and kept it to himself. He knew it only make his mother unhappy, and an unhappy mom is an unhappy family.

"So, Arthur, how was school today?" Arthur's mom was looking over at him now, slight, sincere smile on her face. Arthur, however, didn't want to think about how school went. After the spectacle Hong had made of himself that morning, Belle and Michelle had pretty much spread the whole story about how he was Arthur's crazy foster brother, and people hadn't stopped asking him about it. Hong had only been with him since yesterday, so he'd mostly stuck with a rather taciturn approach to their inquiries, and interest had tapered off by the time he went home, but still... It was very aggravating.

"It went fine." If she wasn't going to explain things to him, he wasn't going to explain things to her. See how she liked it. However, all she did was correct him. "Arthur Kirkland, you do not speak to me that way. Tell me how things went."

Arthur didn't want to be punished, so he rather unwillingly said, "Yes mom. I had a good time talking with Kiku over lunch. He wants to come over sometime to do homework together. I also got my grade for my science project back. It was a B+."

Despite the rather stilted tone of his utterings, Arthur's mom seemed pleased. "You tell Kiku he can come over any time he likes. I'm glad you're such good friends; he's a good influence on you."

Arthur felt a little annoyed, needless to say, at his mother's praise of his good friend, but knew better than to complain. At least if his mom liked his friends, he would get to see them more often. He never saw Feliks anymore, for example, even though they had known each other a little while back. Not ever since Feliks showed up wearing bedazzled pants and a pink t-shirt.

"Hopefully Hong will make some good friends soon too, right honey?" Arthur's mom's words were a wish that would never come true, Arthur knew that much. He wouldn't hold his breath for the little misanthrope to make friends. With the attitude he had, there was no way anyone could come to like him.

Hong apparently decided he was done with dinner now, and got up to go, leaving a bowl of naked greens and an untouched piece of pork roast on his plate. As his mother tried to convince the socially-challenged boy to return to his seat and eat his dinner, Arthur knew there was no way Hong would ever be normal.

/AN/ I hope you enjoyed this chapter! And, as for future characters, China and Macau should show up as well. Just as a note, Francis is like 14, Michelle and Belle are 12 and 13, and Kiku is 12. I plan on updating soon!