HAPPY NEW YEAR! I know I'm a little late for some parts of the world, but I really do hope you have a fantastic year this year. Be happy and smile. Now with the new year wishes pass, the amount of times that I've tried to write this chapter for a Christmas release and failed miserably explains why it's now being released for New Year's, but you know, what better way to start a new year than learning about someone's past. I did make it longer just to make it up for missing all the holidays.

I hope you enjoy it, I actually had a hard time writing this chapter. I felt like it's very choppy and a bit rushed (and still do), but I hope you enjoy it and would love your feedback on what you thought. Thank you so much for the reviews from last chapters and please do continue leaving reviews. I really do want to hear what you think, even if you just fangirl over stuff, I'll be right there fangirlling with you.

Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia; Himaruya Hidekaz own it. I don't own any schools in this chapter nor do I have any association with them. I find it easier to just use school names than to make something up. I only own any OCs I may have used and the plot.

Chapter 14

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Matthew often wondered why adults would ask that question and agree to whatever the child answered. They would agree and praise the child in whichever occupation they chosen. Only after he had left home and lived on his own had he realized the question despite the wide array of answers; was limiting once he was older.

The sky's the limit as a child. The answers varied from one extreme to the next. Wanted to be an astronaut? President? Pilot? Superhero? Queen of England? Wanted to be all of that and own a pony? That was fine for a parent. Even if the child wanted to be an alien when they grew up. All would be approved and praised.

So why isn't it the same once they were older?

When asked the question of what he wanted to be when he grew up, Matthew wanted to be just like his parents. Though he wasn't sure what they exactly did. He known that they often were out in the field. Their work has helped many people from what they said. For that reason alone, that's what he wanted, to be someone that could help a lot of people. His brother wanted to be a superhero just like Captain America. Though that was the most common one, Alfred often changed his mind, most of them were extreme. One week it was a dare devil, the next week an astronaut, the following, a cowboy. He even wanted to be a toy one time due to a movie. And much like any other parent, they approved and told them, you'll be the best one ever.

Approval and acceptance. Wasn't that what most kids wanted? Wasn't that what most people wanted? To be able to have a place where they were undeniably accepted regardless of what they did.

Growing up with an older brother meant many things to Matthew. One, he had someone to look to for advice and spend time with. Two, rivalry between the two often occurred for sports and grades. And three, the fight for their parent's affection and attention.

Sadly with the last one, Matthew usually lost out. Though he was often the well-behaved child, listening to his parents and following the rules. Alfred took majority of the spotlight due to his antics and what most parents would deem as rebellious behavior. And Matthew often wondered if that was the reason, why his parents pushed him more towards science. They found that being similar to them meant that they were more well-behaved.

There were a few months before graduation. All the seniors were scrambling to get things ready for their last year. Especially college acceptance letters. Matthew had sent his in for early decision and was waiting patiently for his letter as he watched his brother scramble to get his before break.

"Yo Mattie. Whatcha doing? Writing your acceptance speech to mom and dad for getting into University of Toronto?" He snickered a bit.

Matthew huffed, but ignored his brother as he continued typing on his desktop allowing the words in his head to flow onto the screen. "No, just working on my story. And how's your college application going?"

"Hey I applied to somewhere just now." He entered the room and sat on the bed, staring at the screen. "Your hobby is getting out of control. With the amount of things you've written you should just become a writer like Arthur."

After finding a good place to stop, Matthew turned around in his computer chair to give him his full attention. "It's a hobby. So, where did you apply to?"

His grin widen from the question before pulling out one of the brochures from the college fair a few days ago. "N.Y.U., baby."

"New York University…? You applied for a school in America?"

"That's right. For game design and programming."

"Does mom and dad know about this?"

Alfred shrugged casually. "I'll tell them when I get the letter. Besides, I thought you'd go to one of those Ivy League schools in America instead of staying here."

"Dad is an alumni at University of Toronto."

"Yea, yea, and so was mom with Harvard. They still remind us every day." He rolled his eyes. "But I doubt either of them will help me out with game design."

"You never know, why don't you look into it? Toronto has a good diversity in majors, maybe they'll have game design."

"I don't want to become a mini version of our parents and you shouldn't either. You don't have to do something cause mom and dad did it."

Matthew was taken back a bit at Alfred's words. He had known his parents always had an outlook of going to college with a good major to obtain a good stable life. They had pushed that onto their kids too, often warning them about majors that wouldn't be a good life choice. "I like biology. I've even got top grades in it."

Alfred rolled his eyes this time. "I've gotten top grades in wood shop, you don't see me applying to school for that."

Irritated by his words, he approached his brother. "It's a good choice, Al. I've talked to mom and dad, they seemed happy about the decision and so am I. What's wrong with majoring in something you're good at?"

This made Alfred get to his feet. "I'm just saying, shouldn't you go for something you like? But you know if biology makes you feel all giddy inside then there's no complaints."

"Right, there's no complaints."

"Fine then."

Matthew frowned as his brother left the room. What was wrong with his decision? If anything, his brother was in the wrong for choosing a field that could prove difficult to get into. Returning his chair, he continued writing the scene, ignoring what his brother said.

As the months flew by, graduation came and went without stopping. Matthew found himself enjoying his father's old school of University of Toronto. He listened to his father's stories when he was in college. The memories only left him excited to make his own. He found the diverse people enjoyable and interesting and his two roommates Vlad and Kalin were just as fascinating.

The two had grown up together and ended up going to the same school as well. They were warm and friendly, welcoming Matthew into their group quickly. Vlad was studying in the same major as him while Kalin was majoring in history. He soon discovered why Kalin often looked at Matthew with a worried face when he left the two alone.

"Matt," Vlad spoke during their break from their lab period, his red eyes almost grinning with joy. "Kalin was telling me about this project he has to do for family history. So he went digging through some of his family old heirlooms and found out his father had taken part of one of the wars when he lived in Bulgaria."

Leaving his finger on where he last stopped, Matthew turned to listen. He had a feeling something was off from the smile he gave. Kalin had often warned him about Vlad's stories, he wondered if this was one of them. "Isn't that something to be proud of?"

"Of course!" Giving a toothy grin. "But what was interesting was the photos taken during that time. He was showing me them and I pointed out one of the people in the picture. He looked a bit weird."

"Weird?"

"Yea, the uniform looked a bit different compared to the other soldiers around him."

"Was he on the other side? Or apart of a different military?"

"That's the weird part! We're not entirely sure. He also looked a bit transparent. So he asked his dad and he said he's never seen that person there. He would've remembered since he was close to everyone on the team."

Matthew slightly paled, realizing that this was the turn for the worst part of the story. "…so…"

"I think it was an apparition from another war or something. There's no doubt about it."

The last three months he'd spent with the man, he'd come to realized how much Vlad adored the paranormal. Like his brother, he often didn't enjoy listening to ghost stories. Due to this, he was able to avoid most of the conversations, but Kalin kept telling him to watch out. With that warning in the back of his mind, Vlad's eyes lit up as he continued talking to him about the paranormal, the chances of it being real, why the man was there and all his theories.

A chill ran down his spine as he continued to listen to him, wondering if he should try to block it out or not. Instead, he attempted to look at his notebook to half listen to him and half distract himself. It didn't work as well as he wanted, but he was soon saved by the professor announcing the end of break.

This was his normal life in college. Labs twice a week, two to three classes per day, and time spent with his two roommates. He was happy and settled into the lifestyle easily. He found the material to be interesting and though he had some problems here and there, he found ways to get around it. That was until the second semester hit him.

Suddenly, the material became harder and the amount of free time he had, was cut short. Each of his classes had given him work that often overlapped with other classes. For once, Matthew felt overwhelmed. The material no longer came as easily to him. With the newer material, it had left him stumped. Everything at that time just seemed to stop working.

"Matthew, you don't look too good. Want some coffee?"

Matthew was resting his head on one of his thick, heavy textbooks. Mid-terms were coming and no matter what he did, he felt as if none of the material were going to stick in his mind in time for the test tomorrow. He turned to notice the dark haired man leaning over his desk holding a pot of coffee. The smell tempted him, but he knew coffee never worked on him. Regardless he nodded and Kalin poured it into a mug, placing it by him.

"Your dark circles are going to start matching Vlad soon enough." He spoke, though his eyes were just as worn and tired as Matthew's.

With the burning drink in hand, he thanked his roommate and allowed the heat to warm him up. "Where is Vlad?"

"He's napping on the couch right now. I'm about to go wake him up. You sure you don't want a break? It won't do you any good if you sleep through your test tomorrow."

He yawned, but stood up to stretch. "No it's fine. I still need to understand this."

Kalin only nodded before going towards the couch, attempting to wake up his friend.

Despite his attempts to study the previous night, he was positive he didn't do as well as he's hoped when he left the classroom. There were some answers that he knew the professor was going to give him a questionable look afterwards. Once the test was finished, he trod back to his dorm and fell into bed. Vlad had followed the same suit and Kalin, who had finished his test earlier was already sleeping.

The results were eventually posted online and Matthew could feel his heart drop. Despite passing, almost all of his classes, his grades were between average or below. None had gotten to failing and he prayed they never will. With that, the classes still continued, as they now prepared them for finals. The tiredness never left him as he dragged himself to continue the rest of the year seeing similar results with the finals.

That summer he returned back to a much needed hibernation, resting in bed for majority of the first week. He hadn't told his parents much about the results, only mentioning bits and pieces of fonder memory. They only nodded, telling them how proud they were of him for choosing a 'better' path than his older brother.

A week later, Alfred had told him he was returning back home. His parents had work, so he had the great pleasure of picking up his brother. While waiting for him at the airport, Matthew wondered if Alfred was in the same boat as him. Was he just as drained as he was? Was he tired after the semester was over? Was he glad it was over for the summer break?

But like many things he had assumed, he was wrong. Alfred returned home full of smiles. He threw an arm over his brother as they headed out, speaking happily of his year. It was without question, he was excited for the next. While listening to his brother continue talking, he couldn't help, but wonder, was he doing something wrong?

"Hey Mattie, how's your school? Are you happy there?" Alfred asked.

Matthew looked into his brother's sky blue eyes. They looked worried, but Matthew didn't want to admit it to his brother. Call it his stupid pride and rivalry over his brother. He wasn't happy, he wanted to crawl under a rock and wait until the three years were over to see if it was better. He didn't feel any of the energy that his brother felt for his school, yet he gave a small smile, pushing the thought away. "Yea. I am."

The summer had ended and Matthew returned back to his college with the same roommates. Vlad had insisted on rooming together again and Matthew wasn't about to deny good company, no matter how down in the dumps he felt. The three month vacation had left him realizing that he may have blown it out of proportion. After all, it was only one year, he still had three more and he was sure it was just bad semester.

Matthew stared blankly at his textbook before gazing up at his blank document. The homework assignment was due tomorrow morning, yet he couldn't find it to concentrate after finishing his last assignment. He took one last look at the textbook before deciding to procrastinate it by looking through his usb's folder. Stopping on a folder named, 'Stories', he opened it before staring at the multiple files in it. My old stories… Reminiscing in them, he picked one of the files and started to scan through them.

It had been a half an hour before Vlad poke his head over from one of the computer cubicles next to him. "Hey Matt, did you understand the seventh question? I can't seem to find it."

Matthew looked up from his screen, looking a bit flustered. "What?"

He blinked before looking onto his screen. "Are you working on an essay?"

"No… Not exactly…" He started, switching to the other word document as quickly as he could. "Which question were you talking about?"

Vlad only shrugged it off before asking for the question again, which Matthew dutifully replied. "Oh, I haven't gotten to that one yet." His attention returned back to his textbook as he went to the question to read it.

The man stared a bit perplexed at Matthew's screen again noticing the empty page. "You haven't even started?"

He looked sheepishly. "Sorry, I got distracted."

"By an essay?"

"A book actually. I wrote it back in high school."

Vlad's eyebrow rose. "You're an author?"

"Just for fun. It was a hobby back then." He started typing up the seventh answer. "By the way, the answer was in the small text in the margins."

Vlad stared at his textbook page in disbelief. "Are you kidding me? I've been searching for it for ten minutes now!" He huffed before sitting down, writing up the answer.

The Canadian chuckled before going back to the beginning of the questions to work on them. Though he finally was able to get his work started, his mind still wandered back to the document that held his story. He knew what happened next, but he still wanted to read it again. Immerse himself into the story once again and see the world change around him. Wouldn't that be nice?

The following weeks afterwards, he found himself working on his old stories again. His free time was spent re-reading and editing. He stayed in the library longer, for when he was finished with his homework, he started working on the stories again.

It was a few weeks later when Kalin and Vlad started picking up the fact that Matthew was getting more distracted than usual.

"That essay must be really interesting." Kalin spoke a bit too loudly into the Canadian's ear as he looked at the screen.

Matthew jumped at Kalin's sudden voice. His head turned noticing the Bulgarian for the first time that day. "Kalin, I didn't realized you came home."

He chuckled. "I've been back for ten minutes now. Is Vlad in his room?"

"I think he said he had a group project to work on." He said about to return back to his work.

"I got back home half an hour ago!" Vlad yelled from his room, scaring both of them from his sudden voice. A moment later he walked out of the room, grinning. "Don't worry Kalin, he didn't see me either when I got back. Apparently, Matt's an author."

"Really?" His tone didn't sound surprise, but held interest. "How many books have you written?"

Quickly, Matthew shook his head. "No! It's just a hobby I picked up since middle school."

"A hobby doesn't often have over 100 pages of written material." Kalin spoke as he headed towards the open kitchen across the living room.

Vlad's eyes widen. "A hundred?" He immediately grinned, bouncing onto the couch next to him. "Looks like you're in charge of bedtime stories then."

Matthew laughed a bit. "Alright, that is if we ever go to sleep at the same time."

"Hey you should write a horror story. There's this story I've heard back in Romania that's been passed down and-"

Immediately Matthew and Kalin paled. "NO VLAD!"

Weeks have passed as the end of mid-terms came and went. Regardless of the tests, his mind was fully set on his stories as his grades took another dive. He panicked at first, worried on how he was going to pull them back up. Yet he found that he hadn't mind or a care a few days that followed. He was more worried on his story. He wanted to focus only on that and he did when he was finished classes.

Kalin passed by him one time, while he was working on the couch. He sat down beside him, peeking at the screen. "Hey Matthew."

Matthew looked over, but his eyes looked a bit dazed from focusing on the screen for too long. "Hey Kalin, Vlad isn't home."

He only smiled, knowing that he often asked him that question. "I know, he's visiting his family for the weekend, but that wasn't what I wanted to talk about. You've been focusing on that story like you're on a deadline. You sure it's a hobby?"

Matthew only knew Kalin for a year now, but he's always known him for how perceptive the man could be. Picking up smaller details that others didn't notice. He was a quiet guy, kept to himself usually, but was always friendly. "It is. It's not exactly a stable career if I decided to go into it."

Kalin only stared at him in disbelief before laughing. "You sound exactly like my grandparents. They always tell me to find a good career, get a good wife, buy a house and live a happy life."

"It sounds logical." He retorted.

"It does, but I've also listened to my dad complained about his job 24/7. It's a good job, he has a good house and wife, but he's not living a very happy life. At least not a hundred percent."

Matthew listened, curious. A good job, a significant other, and a house. Would that mean a happy life? "Are… you doing something you love, Kalin?"

"I am, I always love learning about history. It makes me curious on how what we did then and how it effects us now." He smiled fondly. "How about you? Are you doing something you love?"

He hesitated as he looked at the screen again. He knew if he said 'yes', it was obvious that he wasn't. His focus for majority of the semester had been elsewhere. His grades clearly showed his attention wasn't on the material any longer. No matter when he tried to work on his homework, he never gave the attention that it deserved especially for something that he was going to dedicate the rest of his life for.

Kalin took his silence as an answer as he got up again. "There's this quote I've seen somewhere. I think it's plastered on the English department walls. It says that if you want to know where your heart is, look at where your mind wanders."

With that, he walked away leaving Matthew to his story. Alone again, he stared at his screen. The words Kalin spoke of often left him thinking. His eyes wandered onto his screen as he noticed the amount of words he's written, the amount of pages he's created, and the time he's spent on it. Could he really become a writer?

The thought stuck with him as he spent the remaining time working on his story. The longer he thought about the idea, the more he liked it. Sure, it would be hard. He knew how difficult it was to get into the writing industry, but thinking about his last few years, he has always been writing. When he was happy, he wrote. When he was sad, he wrote. He always turned to writing to express his thoughts and allowed his imagination to flow freely. Something that biology could never do.

That night while Kalin was out with some friends, he decided to call up his parents. He found they usually gave him good advice, but he was anxious. The last time they talked about this topic was with Alfred when he told them he got accepted into NYU. They didn't take it as well as he expected. They yelled at his irresponsibility from not telling them beforehand. Now that Matthew thought back to it, he applauded his brother for the courage to tell them. As the other line picked up, he wonder if he could have the same courage too.

"Hey mom?" He stopped himself, thinking it through, re-confirming himself again. I can do this. "I wanted to talk to you. I'm thinking about changing majors."

She sounded tired when she responded. "Matthew? Sorry I just returned back home. What did you want to talk about?"

His voice shook as he asked again. "I wanted to talk about changing majors, mom."

"…to what?"

"I don't know… But I think I want to be a writer."

A heavy sigh. "Matthew, you're just tired. It's after mid-terms and you're stressed. I understand. You're just having these thoughts."

"No, I'm considering it." He tried to hold firm, but he had understood where his mother was heading towards.

"Matthew, the chances of being a writer and making a living off of it is even worst than your brother's chances of getting into the video game industry. What are you going to do if you don't get a good job and can't survive on your own?"

Those exact words he has heard over and over again. And if he was honest to himself, he was getting so tired of listening to it. Whether the words were directed to himself or someone else, he was getting annoyed at it. Was it wrong to want to do something with his own life? Was it wrong to follow a dream now? "I want to write mom! I hate biology, I can't focus on it anymore! I don't want to do this anymore!"

There wasn't a response as the other line stayed silent for a few moments. "You're going to give up a good future just like your brother?" Her voice was cold and he could feel it from the other side.

He felt his courage falter. "I-I don't know yet… I said I was considering it."

"I see. Well it's late Matthew. Please sleep on this. I'll talk to you soon. Good night." She didn't wait for an answer as she hung up.

Matthew lowered his cell to his lap. Feeling frustrated as he squeezed his phone tightly. "…Night mom."

The following weeks, along with Vlad and Kalin's support. He started talking to his advisor and the English department. His friends' support had helped him through the problem, without consulting further with his parents. As he continued talking to different people he realized that he may have to look somewhere else for what he wanted. This time he didn't hesitate and by the early spring, he had his transfer ready for fall. He was taking courses that could transfer to his new university and with that he was ready.

He had wished he could stay longer with his roommates, they had grown close in the past two years but they knew that he needed to leave. As long as he was at University of Toronto, his father's legacy would haunt him. And the school, though they stated he could create his own major, he decided he wanted something structured. On their last day of their second year, Matthew thanked and wished his roommates luck before leaving the university for good.

He spent the summer writing as much as he could and that autumn, he arrived to the University of Chicago. According to his advisor, he'll basically be starting his second year over again, but he didn't mind. He knew he wanted to do this. He pulled his car up to his new dorm, looking at the brick building. "I'll be staying here for the next year." He spoke to himself as he walked in to get his room assignment.

"Hi! Name?" A cheery blonde asked.

"Matthew Williams."

Her fingers ran through the tiny envelopes before pulling out the key. "Fantastic, Matthew. I'll be your RA this year, Emma Jansen. If you have any question, just knock on my door." She handed the key to him with a bright smile. "Welcome to University of Chicago, Matthew."