Hi everyone!

This is gonna be a three-chapter story with focus on dennor :)

It's gonna get a bit angsty later on, just so you're prepared. I'm probably gonna make both a sad and a happy ending. So don't worry, if your heart can't take it, you can just skip the sad one! ;)

Anyways, you didn't come here to hear me talk, so let's get on with the story. I hope you enjoy it!

Denmark - Mathias Køhler

Norway - Lukas Bondevik

...

Chapter 1 - The meeting

To everyone else it was a beautiful summer day. The sun was shining, the birds singing, the flowers blooming and the children laughing. In every direction were happy faces. Couples walking hand in hand, smiling to each other, small boys running around with a ball, with big grins on their faces. Everyone seemed to be having the time of their life. On a bench sat an elderly couple, throwing small bread crumbs to the birds gathering around them.

Yes, it was a beautiful summer day for almost everyone. However, one person couldn't disagree more. According to him, the heat was unbearable, the birds were singing too high pitched and the children's laughter was disturbing his reading. This person was none other than Lukas Bondevik.

Lukas had not always been a pessimist. In fact, he had been a really optimistic child. Always dreaming, always wishing. He was sure he would grow up to be an author or a poet, or someone else who could spread joy across the country. But fate wouldn't have it that way.

His father died when he was 9 years old. It was in the winter. One day they were a healthy, happy family, and the next they were planning a funeral. He had been in a car crash. A drunk idiot drove his car straight into the father's. Lukas' dad was declared dead at the scene. The other driver got away with a concussion.

Lukas' mother fell in to a deep depression. Everything went downhill from there. It was the worst few years of Lukas' life. His mother was drinking and hooking up with random dudes all the time. 10-year-old Lukas had to do almost everything himself. That is when he realized that the world was a cruel place, and that optimism was wasted on it.

When Lukas was 11, his mother took him to a park to tell him something. She bought him an ice cream, the first in many years, and told him with a smile that she was pregnant. Lukas lost it. He cried, and screamed, and ended up throwing his ice cream on the ground.

That was the last time his mother bought him ice cream.

9 months later came Emil. And Lukas regretted everything he had ever said about his mother's pregnancy. Because here was this little baby boy, his little baby brother, and everything in him screamed that he should protect him no matter what. So he did. He protected him the best way he could. Even when Emil's father left the mother, and she fell into depression again. Even when she tried to commit suicide and failed. Even when the moved to another country. Even when the mother wanted to give Emil up for adoption. And Lukas was still there for his brother when their mother finally succeeded in killing herself. Lukas was 21 when that happened. Emil was 10.

So Lukas was not an optimistic person. Sure, he smiled occasionally. But those smiles were mostly reserved for Emil, and Emil only. But that wasn't a problem. He rarely spoke to other people anyways. People found him scary. Most of them didn't even want approach him.

That is part of the reason why it surprised him so much when someone suddenly cleared their throat right beside him. He looked to the right and found that someone had sat down beside him on the bench. He looked tall. He was wearing a white t-shirt and red pants. On anyone else it would've looked really stupid. But he pulled it off. Maybe it was the combination of his clothes and his hair. His hair was ridiculously styled into spikes. The color was a soft golden color. It could've looked messy, but it looked good. Reminded Lukas of a lion for some reason. Might've just been the color though.

The thing Lukas really noticed was the smile. His smile seemed to light everything up, and the whole park suddenly seemed a lot brighter than before. Lukas found himself wanting to return that smile, and that was a very unusual feeling for him.

"Excuse me, I couldn't help but notice that you're reading 'Spring is coming' by G. H. Stride. And I just had to go and talk to you, because that is like, my favorite book of all time! All of the characters and the small details, and the way the author describes the Land of the Sleeping, and the way you can relate to every single scenario even though it's a fantasy book, and all of the hidden references to other fantasy books there is, and how you can see the author thought everything through before writing it, oh and the lights! Omg, the lights! Have you read that part about the lights yet? I mean, it's like my favorite part of the book, and that's saying a lot cause the whole book is just amazing and I'm amazed that more people haven't heard of it! Like, they're totally missing out on everything! I just borrowed the book one day from one of my friends, and suddenly my life changed. You know how sometimes it feels like your life just changes? That's how it felt! I felt like a new person! And I would've never even read the book if it hadn't been for the tea I spilled all over my newspaper, I knew it was a bad idea to drink tea when I usually go for coffee…"

Lukas had never heard anyone talk that much. As the stranger rambled on about coffee and bad luck, Lukas found himself unable to tear his eyes away from the stranger's beautiful blue eyes. He had thought that the stranger's smile was beautiful, but it was nothing compared to his eyes. It was a though Lukas saw deep into the soul of the stranger, as if he could see every feeling the man had ever felt. Those eyes were so filled with emotions, that Lukas almost felt as though he was intruding the stranger's privacy by looking at them.

"…And it turned out that he had just been trying to hit the spider! Can you believe that? I would've done anything to have been there, you know? … So how far are you with the book?"

Lukas almost didn't register that the man actually stopped talking. He realized that he had been staring at the man for a while now and quickly looked to the side. He had been caught up in looking at the man that he forgot to listen.

"Um... I'm sorry, could you repeat that last part…?" Lukas said slowly. His own voice sounded weird in his ears, for some reason. He wasn't used to being this speechless. He looked back at the stranger, and saw that his smile had gotten even bigger. Lukas hadn't thought it was possible.

"Of course! I just asked which chapter you were reading."

Lukas looked down at the book in his hands. He'd forgotten it was there. "I'm at chapter 8. I was just introduced to Karina."

"Omg, you're going to hate her later on!" The stranger exclaimed, and continued as if he hadn't just spoiled a major plot point.

"I'm Mathias by the way! What's your name?"

Lukas found himself smiling back at the stranger. It wasn't a big smile, but it was a genuine smile.

"I'm Lukas. " He said, and put out a hand for the stranger, Mathias, to take.

Matthias happily shook it before asking: "So, where do you live Lukas?"

They ended up talking for 3 hours, though it felt like 5 minutes, before Lukas told Mathias he had to go home to be there when his brother returned from school. He did get Mathias' number before leaving, and as he waved goodbye to Mathias, he felt a feeling in his whole body that he hadn't felt in many years.

Pure happiness.

...

So, that was the first chapter! Anyone reviewing will receive... Um... Something good.. Cake maybe? xD

I'll try to have the next chapter up soon, but I have a lot of school work right now. But it'll probably be there next week!

Oh and sorry if there were a lot of grammar mistakes. English is not my native language ^^ Feel free to tell me if I made some kind of huge mistake!

Thanks for reading this :)