Cognizance (Hetalia)

Chapter Two

Canada

Matthew couldn't seem to process what had just happened. As he snuck through backrooms of the building, and waited for his turn to leave, it was like an error code blocked out his thought process as he tried to think back on it. Nobody else seemed to want to talk about it, either. As they walked through various rooms obviously designed more for functionality than public appearance, Matthew noted that both Alfred and Jett seemed pissed, Arthur seemed lost in thought and maybe slightly worried, and Francis looked almost smug. Ludwig, Feliciano, Kiku, Yao, Ivan, Yong-Soo, Arjun, Hasan, and Sadik were there as well, having been featured in Hetalia at some point, and while Matthew didn't make any specific notes about their apparent emotions, he noticed a wide variety of emotions there, too.

They were actually going to reveal? Matthew had to be dreaming. Or having a nightmare. Yeah, nightmare was a much better description. Growing up, he had been taught never to reveal what he was to humans; that he was immortal, that his existence was tied to a colony. Hell, Francis had initially even hid Matthew's existence from other nations! Knowledge of his existence was dangerous, both to his person and to his people. Matthew had taught the same thing to his children as well. It was ingrained in him. It was practically an instinct. Even imagining how the public would respond to knowledge of their existence made him feel nauseous.

"Matthew."

Matthew looked up, and Ludwig returned his gaze expectantly. Oh, right, it was his turn to leave the building. It was protocol since Hetalia had started for the nations featured in the manga and later anime to sneak out of the building, leaving one at a time in 10 minute increments. Matthew quickly ran his hand through his chin-length blond hair to change the part from its normal mid part, and tucked the long curl that likes to fall over his face behind his ear. That was the "disguise" Matthew had settled on for leaving meetings since Hetalia became popular. He did kind of regret agreeing to be featured in it, but he figured that eventually, its popularity would die down, and he could go back to leaving conferences and summits the normal way.

But an actual, official reveal would be permanent, he realized as he left the room and into the main lobby of the building. It was going to be permanent. They had already decided on revealing, Matthew remembered suddenly. This wasn't a hypothetical. They had decided to reveal.

He finally started to fully process the decision once he got back to his hotel room, which thankfully wasn't too far away from the building the summit was held in. He stood by his own stance of not revealing, but he did understand where the other nations were coming from. The amount of unknown in the whole situation had him on edge, too, and if there was a conspiracy starting it would be good to get ahead of it before it could do any real damage. However, if the conspiracy was already underway, it's entirely possible damage had already been done. After all, you have to be a pretty high-level official in order to even know about the personifications. If someone that high up was starting a conspiracy to overthrow their government, or even all of the governments of major countries... it might already be too late.

As he thought, he realized investigations into faculty to see who might've leaked their information would also be more difficult after they revealed. He knew most of the information gathering on personnel who were authorized to know about the personifications had mostly finished by this time, but many nations were still investigating personnel who didn't have authorization but might've learned about them anyways. That could definitely be tricky, although not impossible, after the reveal. He wished he had thought of that during the meeting.