Anri wasn't entirely sure how to react when she had flung open the door of her home after an outing with her friend and was met with the sight of a very tall man with very spiky hair talking to her very short mother in a deep voice. It hadn't helped whatsoever that as she threw open the door, before she had even noticed the man, and proceeded to scream her usual greeting of "HELLO, FUCKWADS! YOUR QUEEN HAS ARRIVED! PREPARE YOUR ANUSES!" That resulted in both her mother and the tall man whipping around to face the door. Anri froze as she stared at the tall–excessively handsome–man who simply stared back at her.
She paled, a horrified expression on her face at the realization that her first impression on this extremely attractive stranger had included the words 'fuckwads' and 'anuses.' As if to add insult to injury, her younger brother Nikolaas proceeded to scream from upstairs, "YOUR HIGHNESS. I CAN'T FIND THE LUBE!" At any other given time, perhaps Anri would marvel at the well oiled machine that was their sibling-ry but at the moment she was too mortified at the fact that the attractive stranger had just witnessed something that could easily be read as incest and would probably label her as the Queen of Fuckwads, Anuses, and Lube. That's what her mother had labeled her at least when she had first heard the chant that she and Niko exchanged on a daily basis.
"…And this is my daughter, Anri." Anri's mother said after clearing her throat as she tried to hide her ashamed blush behind her hand. Mr. Attractive turned back to Anri's mother, completely ignoring Anri herself. Still, she could swear that the tips of his ears were flushed red. "The one you heard yelling was Nikolaas, but we call him either Niek or Niko."
Mr. Attractive grunted, staring down at his feet in a manner that was almost bashful as a light blush spread across his cheeks as well. Did I put that there? Anri wondered to herself, staring unashamedly at Mr. Attractive. He must have noticed because he only seemed to blush more. Damn, Anri took this dude to be the strong and silent type, not the one who blushed at the very mention of anuses and lube.
Anri awkwardly cleared her throat. "I'll just be heading upstairs now. Bye mom, bye Mr. Attractive, bye door. Call me when dinner's ready." She practically squeaked out all of her words, not bothering to breathe as she instead turned and bolted up the stairs, ignoring her mother's call of "ANRI!" and rushing into her little bother's room, making sure to close the door behind her before she let out a scream. Not that closing the door did much good, the wall were actually pretty thin in this house so it was likely that both her mother and Mr. Attractive had heard her shriek.
Sinking down the door, she buried her face in her hands and let out a groan.
"…As much as I appreciate your presence, and trust me, I do, seeing as it's my room I find it my responsibility to ask you for the reasons behind you being here." Niko asked, not even bothering to look up from his computer at his sister.
"Did you know that there is an extremely attractive man downstairs speaking to mom right now?" Anri hissed, looking up from her hands and instead glaring at her brother who actually looked up from the computer, the usual fringe covering one of his eyes pinned back and a set of sleek looking glasses perched on his nose.
"Extremely attractive?" He questioned, apparently not seeing the threat that seemed to hang of Anri.
"Extremely, but that's not the point. The point is he heard all of that! Everything that we just said. All of it!" Anri sobbed, pushing herself down so that she was lying face first into the soft carpet coating Niko's floor.
"Well then." Niko said. "Looks like the extremely attractive man will never be able to look at you again without imagining anuses and lube and what you and I will be using them for."
Anri groaned and allowed herself to lift her head up and smack it back down onto the ground. The room was silent other than the soft clicks of Nikolaas tapping at his laptop. "Mr. Attractive." Anri mumbled, muffled by the carpet–which she was currently receiving a mouthful of.
"Hmm?" Niko hummed, his eyes once again glued on the computer screen.
Anri lifted her head up. "Mr. Attractive. That's what I've dubbed him."
"Perhaps Mr. Refreshing is a little more accurate. I mean, if he is so extremely attractive, even by Anri standards that's better looking than most males in our school. Excluding me, of course."
With a snort, Anri set her face back into the carpet. "You aren't at all embarrassed?" She asked, watching Niko closely.
He simply shrugged, sparing a quick glance at his sister. "I don't see why I should be. I mean, he's the stranger in our house, plus he'll probably be out and back to Attractive-land-way in a few minutes. You'll probably never see him again. Plus, I mean, this was one of our pretty tame greetings. You should be grateful he didn't have to hear your infamous anal cavity entry speech. Neither of us said anything really bad after all."
Anri groaned once again, this time at her brother's stupidity. "This is why I don't talk to you about stuff." She pulled her phone out of her back pocket and stood up, settling herself onto her brother's messy bad, allowing him to shift himself around to accommodate for her. She shot off a quick text explaining her dilemma to her friends, hoping either Léonne or Erzsébet would see it first. Maybe they would be able to provide some advice.
Niko snorted. "Please, you tell me literally everything that you tell your friends."
Anri puffed her cheeks up and crinkled her nose up at her brother. "I call bullshit."
"Really?" Niko shot her a deadpan look. "Last week you spent three hours talking to me about how Klojo had nearly killed your history teacher when you snuck her to school in your sweater. You proceeded to text Liesl and Natalia about it for three minutes. A month ago you went to Canada for a hiking trip with your friends and when you got back you recited to me everything that the eight of you had said. You even told me about Liên talking in her sleep."
Anri glared at her brother, although he wasn't wrong. She did have a habit of telling him everything. They surprisingly had a well developed positive sibling relationship versus ones such as Natalia had with her older brother and sister, both of whom were off in Russia and the Ukraine respectively for university.
"Shut up, okay? At least they help me." She muttered, hugging one of her knees to her face.
"Now it's my turn to call bull." Niko said, mostly to himself as he continued to tap away at his keyboard.
Anri had learnt over her many years of living with Niko not to ask what he was doing. One day he would be compiling various expenses on an Excel spreadsheet and the next he would be watching gay porn and critiquing it based on originality and accuracy. Based on the excessive amount of clicking followed by a long pause, he was most likely in a skype group chat with some of his weird foreign friends whom Anri was apparently 'never allowed to meet' due to the fact that they were 'too attractive' for her. Taking into account the man downstairs–Anri wondered to herself if he had left yet and if not could she get his number–she doubted any amount of attractive men could even begin to rival him.
"Anri! Niko!" Their mother's voice called from the kitchen down below, "It's dinner time, come set the table!"
"Coming, mother." They chorused, Niko taking his time to put away his laptop as Anri sprung from the bed and all but rushed down the stairs and into the kitchen, anxious to eat. Dinner was probably the best time of day considering how well their mother could cook. Plus, they almost always had some small hand made dessert or were allowed to walk a few blocks to the bubble tea place that Mei worked at during the summer.
Anri froze once again at the sight in front of her. Her mother was gently dishing spaghetti into a large bowl and instructing one Mr. Attractive where to find the cups–top cupboard on the right incase you wanted to know–and to simply set them on the table.
As Mr. Attractive swung around, his eyes met Anri's and a light blush once again covered his cheeks and he averted his eyes, effectively causing Anri to blush as well.
"There you are, Anri!" Her mother sighed as she spooned out some sauce into another bowl. "Get the plate and silverware and set the table for four."
Anri merely nodded, looking at her feet as she passed by Mr. Attractive. She snuck a look at his ass as discreetly as possible before grabbing four plates and four sets of knives and forks, setting them down at the table in the places which Mr. Attractive had set the cups, all the while trying to ignore said man who was standing off to the side awkwardly. Was he looking at her? It felt like he was looking at her.
"Yahoo!" Niko sang as he entered the kitchen, not noticing Mr. Attractive standing silently off to the side as he slid across the floor and to his mother. "What can I do for you, mother dearest?"
Their mother rolled her eyes. "You and Anri can fill a pitcher of water and set it on the table along with the milk and the juice. You know, the thing that you do every night?"
"Well, you never know when you may decide to shake it up." Niko teased before sliding over to the fridge. "Annie, fetch the water and I shall bring the juice and the milk." He turned to face his sister, wiggling his eyebrows.
"Next time you do that I will rip your eyebrows off." Anri hissed as she snatched the pitcher off of the counter and filled the filter with tap water, allowing it to clean the water slowly.
Niko gasped. "At least keep my left eyebrow, that's the one that people actually see after all."
"You know, I never asked," Their mother spoke up as she set the salad and pasta on the table, gesturing for Mr. Attractive to sit down. "But what in the world is up with that funky hairstyle of yours?"
"Remember when Anri punched me?" Niko asked as he passed the milk back to Anri to set on the table and continuing to rummage through the refrigerator for the juice.
"I'd gladly do it again." Anri threatened as she set the pitcher of water and the milk jug on the table.
"Yeah, yeah. I'm sure you would. Anyways, Annie here gave me a black eye and, at the risk of going to school and being questioned, I instead put my hair down over my eye. It just stuck." Niko said. "Aha! Here it is! Mother, why must you stick the juice as far back in the fridge as you possibly can?"
"Because it's funny to watch you suffer." Anri replied, settling down in the seat across from Mr. Attractive.
"I'm sure it is." Niko said glancing up at the table and finally noticing Mr. Attractive. "Whoa! When did you get here?"
"Niko." His mother reprimanded before gesturing for him to join them at the table. He shrugged and stole the seat next to Mr. Attractive, eying him suspiciously.
Their mother quickly followed and soon they were all seated, Anri already dishing pasta out onto her plate.
"Anyways." Their mother said, "This is Lars Van Der Berg. He's from…the Netherlands, correct?" Mr. Attractive who apparently went under the alias of Lars nodded, his face stoic and devoid of any blush. "Yes, well, he was going to a private boys academy here in America but it unfortunately…blew up, you said?"
"Yes." He said, his voice deep and his accent thick. It was quite enchanting actually. "A boy set off fireworks across the entire first floor and the school blew up."
"Okay, so his school blew up." Their mother continued, "The school is about a town over and our school is the closest that is fit to their education so many of the students from Lars's school will being going to your school. A few will return to their home countries but most will be here. According to Lars, the students will begin, well, on Monday."
"So, tomorrow?" Anri said, glancing at Lars, who was able to meet her gaze without blushing. Instead he had a cold deadpanned look on his face.
"Yes." Her mother confirmed.
"Wow." Niko breathed, looking from Lars, to his mother, to Anri, and back to Lars. "I want to go to a private boys academy."
Klojo means Asshole in Flemish. Klojo in the story is a snake. That is all I have to say about Klojo.
Characters and Names
Anri – Belgium
Nikolaas (Niko) – Luxembourg
Lars (Mr. Attractive) – the Netherlands
Léonne – Monaco
Erzsébet – Hungary
Natalia – Belarus
Liesl – Liechtenstein
Liên – Vietnam
Mei – Taiwan.