Daníell slides his hand lightly over the rich wooden railing as he walks down the dorm house, eyeing the familiar surroundings: White, monotonous walls, wine-red rugs, and the familiar, overpowering smell of girl's perfume by the nearby rooms, his sight (nor smell) not daunted by the early morning darkness that envelopes the building. His sneaker-clad feet make not a single noise as he gingerly sneaks out of the dormitory to be the first one to class. The Antarctic-haired boy very much dislikes the stress of having to push, and be pushed, around by the whole student body in the clogged hallways to reach a place that he's frankly not interested to be in, anyway.
Here is better than being stuck in a bothersome nightmare, though. It's a tad comforting to know that the previously solid world isn't going to burst into an insane electric landscape at the blink of an eye.
Just a tad comforting. Nothing more than that.
"Hey, Iceland-boy!" A voice hoots out to him, grinning evident in the elevated mood of the words. He swishes his head, seeking out the origin of the obnoxious shout, though not needing to look very far when an incredibly towering, energetic body basically teleports to the foreground. He's filled with distress and horrible discomfort.
A muscle-thick arm wraps itself heavily around his shoulder like a half hug, this persons form of a greeting embrace. The tall Scandinavian male steps back, and jubilous cobalt eyes meet his, Daníell's own tainted the colour of Tyrian dyed by partial albinism and funky genetics. His only form of response is a small nod of the head and a startled, wide-eyed expression.
Flanking the Danish giant known as Mathias Køhler is a duo of equally fair-haired, blue-eyed Northern boys who go by the names of Axel Olsen and Berwald Oxenstierna, the first a clever, little-worded Norwegian exchange student, and the latter an essentially-neutral-on-everything Swedish immigrant who's exterior has even less life than the other teenager. They both nod to him in acknowledgement of his presence the same way the Icelandic boy did to Mathias.
Their greeting is brief, and now they walk at a steady pace down the ample corridor, spread out to occupy the whole width of the hallway. He's still a bit shocked by the spontaneous greeting, and the fright turns to poorly masked irritation as his usually tranquil stroll to the school building has been ruined by the blundering fool and his pair of... "brothers", which he, to his dismay, has been included into.
Yes, to this lame, private highschool stuck in the middle of no-where (somewhere in Maine, USA), the four of them, plus a petite, happy-go-lucky Finnish teen called Tino V-something, are known as the Nordic 5. A cheesy, yet catchy name that started up one day when the five of them met after school by the courtyard out of pure coincidence, and a rather popular nerd of a sort recognised the connection between them, and loudly exclaimed to his chums, "Look! It's the Nordic 5!".
From that moment on, they became inseparable, which strengthened their label. The only exceptions for not being by each other's sides being school schedules, as each in separate classes, and him in a different grade altogether, or when Mathias became violently drunk, a predicament he often gets himself into.
He's snapped out of his quick overview when Axel coughs. He looks over to him, as the others do too, and the Norwegian's expression is just a bit filled with his trademark "cold confusion"; slightly knitted eyebrows, narrowed, judging eyes, and pursed lips.
"It's rather quiet, don't you think?" He murmurs with a scratchy, business-like voice, the words just slightly bent with the unique Norwegian twang. As soon as he sees Mathias's mischievous smirk, he quickly tags along in a stern matter, "Not that it bothers me at all, for the record."
"Yeah," Berwald agrees, the monosyllable not tinted with his typical awkward mumbling or accent. "Denny, s'everythin' alright? You're more... talkative."
Denny's the nickname the group has given to Mathias, a joke diminutive of 'Denmark', the nation he's from. Moving on, the Dane stifles a laugh, and shakes his head.
"No, just... Thinking," He admits, rubbing his eyes. "I gotta stupid test tah do in English, over some poet-dude that I reeeeeally don't care about, t'be honest."
He shoots a particular glance at Daníell, a life in his eyes that he can't seem to understand. "Plus, tracking this guy in the wee hours of the new day with you guys is kinda tiring. D'n't even get that much sleep last night!"
"Guess what, that's your fault," He mutters angrily to him, exasperated. 'Tracking him', really? "Don't you think that's a bit creepy?"
"Let's see," The spiky-haired Scandinavian begins, sighing a bit at his easily triggered annoyance. "You tell me what's weirder- the fact that we're just kind of curious of why you're up so early, or the fact that... You're, well, up so early."
His inquiry leaves the Icelander subdued. Suddenly, as they take a turn out to the exit, his eyebrows shoot up, and his lips round to pronounce a very dramatic "oooooh!". They pause, metres away from the windowed door that goes to the court-yard and classrooms.
"Let me guess, it's a special someone?" He says, holding back a smile. Daníell rolls his eyes and huffs. This man is out of his mind.
"No, you fool, I just want to be able to get to class when it's nice and quiet," He explains in the least brusque way possible, giving the rising sun a fleeting look. He's going to be late at this rate.
"And even if it was a 'special someone', what would it matter to you?"
The Dane shrugs, a smile lingering on his lips. "Hey, it'd be kind of cute, don't 'cha think?"
When he doesn't reply, Denny ditches the topic, and resumes to openly brooding over the test.
"Mr. Kirkland is going tah give me the hang about this. Like... I can already imagine him pulling me aside and saying with 'is funny accent, "Oh, Mr. Kulherr, " he begins, badly mimicking the Englishman's Britannic accent and morphing his own surname. "Look at you! Can't even earn yourself an 80 on quiz for poetry! Poetry, for... the Queens sake!""
Berwald's raises his eyebrows slightly upon the mention of the Queen, a tick he's discovered to be the Swede's replacement for laughter.
"Anyway," Axel says, looking at the time on his sleek white iPhone, "If we loiter around any longer, we're going to make poor little Bror," Daníell scowls at the nickname, "be excessively late for class, don't you think? Come on, let's be more considerate."
The purple-eyed boy shifts his weight onto another leg, and looks out into the group to see any disagreeing. When it becomes non-evident in their faces, he moves straight through a gap between them, and pushes open the door with a tensed hand. He stops for a second, and looks over his shoulder to them.
"Don't do anything stupid," he warns, and steps out. There's a deep chuckle from one of them.
"I love you, too!" Mathias shouts back just as the door closes on him, causing him to grimace.
Once out in the open courtyard, he takes in a deep, chilling breath, and continues on his journey to the classrooms. Taking long, light strides shows that he's not physically weak- rather, an adventurer, a lover of nature, one who would spend his free time crawling around black volcanic beaches as a kid or hiking through the middle of his beloved country with a hefty backpack of supplies on him as he got older.
He's gotten out of practice, though. He's not fond of the large trees of New England. Iceland, very much unlike America, is devoid of these sky-scraping plants. The forests have been long deforested, leaving spacious, breath-taking landscapes of mossy green and arctic blue, or, pure gray on foggy days. He feels trapped underneath the giants, like a wild cat stuck in a zoo.
He finds no appeal in the un-energetic nature of this place, anyway. No auroras, no volcanoes (well, he's more happy with that than dissapointed), and no steaming rivers. Ultimately, he's been reduced to the occasional walk around a nearby river, and his routine trek to class, which there's no excitement or glory in. As of recently, blogging and music have become his forte, often combining the both to make a small internet diary of his musical discoveries accomplishments with a measly amount of followers.
He's about to take out his old iPod Classic, and jam out to some nice, rock-y tunes when out of the corner of his eye, there's a twitching. He turns around, half-expecting it to be one of his "brothers". To his surprise, it's just another kid hanging out on the lawn benches, checking some stuff on a laptop, the blurry jerk he saw probably them sliding over to the side or something. They're too far away to recognise, but the stranger's coal-dark hair is styled in such a way that makes them resemble no one he's ever seen. Bangs slung on his face with long strips on each side, and a plain back to it. Possibly Asian?
He dismisses this happening, and resumes strolling to the building, which is now very close in sight. Yet, there's something, like a feeling. It's close to dread, but with a dash of irresistible curiosity. He's good with faces, even at a distance. Who is this, this mysterious individual who's up at a time like this in the middle of a school yard on a laptop?
Daníell's about to let it go, fearing that going up to this person and introducing themselves would be potentially and unnecessarily awkward, when there's an accented "hey" directed to him (presuming no one else is in the premises). He sighs, turning around for someone the thrice time in under an hour, and...
Ó mæ god.
The prettiest individual greets his unsuspecting eyes, and his face slowly fills with a blazing blush, a detestable quirk his body has developed. He's never been especially attracted to men, but, god help him, this was one beautiful person- smooth, creamy skin, bright, jokester eyes, and strong eyebrows. Kind of like those Korean singer-boys Sweden would sometimes mention, minus, well, the eyebrows. He likes those eyebrows, though.
He bites his lip out of habit, and, out of his embarrassment, he just manages to squeak out a poor "hey" in return. Alright, it isn't that weak, but it's still enough to send him into a mental nervous breakdown.
"Excuse me," They say, and then pauses for a second, his mouth just open a bit, as if in deep thought. They look up for a split second, and get their ideas together. "My bad, do you know where I could, like, find Mr. Edelstein's class? I'm new here, sorry."
He holds in a breath, and his eyes wander around. Wh-
"Oh, if... No, that's OK, I can find it on my own if you're, like, busy or something or don't know," This boy apologises, then halts, seeing some odd expression bloom on the white-haired teen's face.
"Ah, no, that's not what I meant," he replies, and feels incredibly stupid since he technically didn't say anything, rather just... expressed something, with his face. "I was a bit surprised, actually- That's my first class."
And that's when he feels the world explode.