"Hey. Hey Emil."

"What?"

"How many jumping jacks can you do in one minute?"

Emil rolled his eyes and faced the computer screen that Leon's face flashed on. With a sigh, he held up his notebook. "I'm trying to study, if you haven't noticed."

Leon crossed his arms. "Then why do I even need to be on Skype?" he asked.

"Haven't I told you about fifty times that I study better in the presence of someone else?"

"Yes." Leon reached for his video game controller and turned on his television and played for a while, allowing Emil to continue doing his work. After three tries at a level and losing each time, he cursed and tossed the controller across the room.

"Emiiiilllll," Leon whined.

"Aaand… using the quadratic formula you can tell that one of the roots is equal to-"

"Emil!"

"Shut up!"

"I have something important to tell you."

Emil sighed. "Fine. But make it quick though. I have a math test tomorrow"

"So you know I signed up for a foreign exchange student thing?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, I got in."

Emil looked up at Leon's face in surprise, his attention completely diverged from his homework for the first time. "R-really?"

A smile touched Leon's face. "Yep."

Emil's heart fluttered in excitement. "So… I might get to see you in person?"

"Uh-huh."

The thought of actually seeing Leon in person sent a warm feeling through Emil and a smile to his face. They had been pen pals since two years ago for the language that Leon was learning, Icelandic. Of course, with modern day technology, they didn't excess effort of mailing letters way across the globe, so they had exchanged Skype accounts and phone numbers and gotten to know each other pretty well. Emil had hated to admit it, but he had developed a slight crush on Leon. And to see him in person…

"Whatcha thinkin' about?" Leon's voice snapped Emil out of his thoughts and his face reddened.

"Uh… N-nothing."

"Was it really nothing?" Leon asked, bringing his face closer to the camera.

"Yes. I have to go now. Bye."

"Already?"

"Yep."

Leon waved and smiled again. "Bye then," he said before disconnecting from the internet.

Emil had somehow convinced Lukas, his older brother and legal guardian to volunteer for the foreign exchange program and take in someone. Since not many people actually learned Icelandic fluently and came to Iceland, there had to be a decent chance that Leon would end up with them.

It was an average Sunday when Lukas received the call. He burst in through Emil's door.

"What?" Emil asked, not looking up.

"We got the call from the exchange agency. It's this kid named Leon or something."

Emil jumped up and threw his book to the ground. "Really!?"

Gesturing to the computer room across the hall, Lukas nodded. "Just read the email to see if it's your friend or whatever."

Emil rushed to the room and opened their email as fast as he could, and indeed saw an email from some sort of program about who would be coming and what Lukas, as the one who would be responsible for taking care of Leon, should do to make preparations about it. Scrolling down, Emil saw a picture of Leon's face and his heart skipped a beat. This was real. Not only was he going to see Leon in person, he was going to live with him. In the same house… And they would go to the same school… It was like a dream come true. He had to tell Leon, never mind time zones.

Rushing back into his room, Emil pulled out his phone and pressed on Leon's name.

The last thing Leon expected to be woken up by was his phone on his nightstand buzzing. He had never received a call this late at night. Hell, this early in the morning.

He sloppily reached out an arm and grabbed his phone, pressing the "answer" button. "Hey," he grumbled, making sure his voice did not slip into the higher ranges, as it was prone to do when he was tired.

It was Emil's excited voice. Wait… excited? Even during the most exciting moments of his life, Emil's tone still remained relatively unrevealing about his mood, and never had he sounded excited. "We got the email about who we would get as an exchange student."

"It's like four AM here what's so great about that?"

"It's you! You're going to be living with us!"

Leon's eyes widened. He immediately regretted suggesting that they signed up as a joke a few months ago. "Great. Call me at a reasonable hour tomorrow," he said before hanging up on Emil.

The grogginess had disappeared from Leon's mind. Sure, he would finally get to see Emil, but living with him… he was bound to find out sometime. If Emil found out would he still want anything to do with Leon? Even losing Emil as a friend would hurt so much. Leon's head hit the pillow and he didn't sleep for the rest of that morning. He was too busy thinking about what would happen, thinking he knew for sure that he would lose his only friend.

A/N - TBH this is more of a prologue to set the stage than an actual first chapter, and it's kind of short, but it's an idea I had and needed to write. Also, if anyone wants to guess Leon's secret in the reviews I would like to see what you think.