Christmas with the Nordics
It was snowing. The street was quiet. I was walking quietly, listening to some peaceful songs on my phone. It was the day before Christmas. I felt really lonely. I didn't have any friends; I was always the girl, who never talks, who sits in the back of the classroom. I loved reading books, and my grades weren't worse or better than most of my classmates. I didn't have anyone I could talk to, so I always listened to music. It calmed me down.
My parents weren't home. In fact, they usually left me alone. They didn't care about me. They gave me money to study, but that was all. I was used to it, but I often cried about it when no one could see me.
I walked past a few families, children playing, and I felt a bit jealous. I sat down on a bench, and sighed. I put my headphones and my mobile next to me. I got these from my teacher, who felt sorry for me. I was just sitting, quietly humming my favourite song: Losing Grip by Avril Lavigne. It was a sad song, but I still liked it.
Suddenly a boy sat next to me. He had short blonde hair, and dark brown eyes. He gave me a warm smile.
"You don't mind if I sit here, do you?" he asked. He had a Finnish accent. I shook my head, and gave him a faint smile. "What's wrong?" he looked at me with worried eyes.
"It's nothing…" I shrugged with a sad smile. "I'm just surprised, that's all. That you know… you sat here."
"Oh, do I bother you?"
"No." I answered quickly. We were quiet for a while. "You're the first person who actually talked to me." I said, breaking the silence. He looked shocked.
"Huh? Why, don't you have any friends?"
"Not really." I said.
"What about siblings? Do you have any?" he asked curiously. I decided to chat with him; he seemed like a nice person.
"I don't have any. I live alone. My parents aren't home, either." I sighed.
"Do you want to come to my place?" he asked. My heart skipped a beat.
"Y-you mean… your h-home?" I stuttered. "Do you really mean it?"
"Well, it's Christmas tomorrow, and no one should spend it alone." he said cheerfully. I hesitantly nodded. He grabbed my hand, and he took me to a big house. The walls were light blue, and it was decorated with Christmas ornaments. The windows were huge. I just stood there, with my mouth open, and I stared at the boy's house.
"I have some friends, they live here too." he explained. "Oh, I'm Tino by the way."
"I'm [Name]."
"You have a cool name." he giggled. I blushed a bit, and he opened the door.
"Guys, I'm home!" we heard a voice of moving chairs, and four other boys appeared.
"Finally, we thought you weren't gonna make it!" the one with gravity defying hair laughed. "But who's that hot chick with you?" he asked, pointing at me. My face was burning.
"She's [Name], and she'll spend Christmas here with us." Tino said. The boys introduced themselves.
"I'm Mathias!" the first guys shouted. He seemed Danish. He was also blonde, and his eyes were ocean blue.
"My name is Lukas, and he is my brother, Emil." the one with emotionless face said, pointing at the other guy. He had Norwegian accent. Lukas was also blonde with a small hair curl on his head, and his eyes were dark blue. He had a cross shaped white thing in his hair. Emil had silverish blonde hair, and dark purplish eyes. They had the same face though; I could see they were related. A puffin was sitting on his shoulder.
"He is Mr Puffin." he said, pointing at the bird. I smiled; the name was a bit too obvious.
"I'm Berwald." the tallest one said. He was blonde too, with lighter blue eyes. He was glaring at me, and I felt a bit uncomfortable, but I looked him in the eyes. He wasn't as scary as I first thought. His accent was Swedish.
After that, Mathias dragged me to the kitchen.
"Hey, [Name], want some beer?" he asked loudly. I quickly shook my head.
"How old are you?" I carefully asked. He laughed again.
"Don't worry, I'm 18!" I sighed in relief. "You're funny!" he said, still laughing. Lukas went behind him, and started choking him with his tie.
"Leave her alone, will you?" he said. It didn't seem to bother the others, so I guessed this must've happened pretty often.
"Do you want some sweets?" Tino asked, holding a plate. "I made them." he said, with some pride in his voice. I happily nodded, and picked a cookie. I've never had anything so delicious before! It was amazing; I didn't have any words to describe it…
"Tino, this is fantastic!" he blushed from the sudden compliment.
"Thanks." he said, rubbing the back of his head. "These are only simple ones though, anyone could make them…"
"Wanna play some card games?" Emil said, with cards in his hands. "We might as well do something entertaining."
"How about strip poker?" Mathias said, winking at me. Lukas smacked him. "Ow!"
"I think we should play Uno instead." Tino suggested.
"How do you play it?" I asked.
"Huh? You never played it before?" Mathias asked. I shook my head. They explained the rules, and we sat down around the table. We played almost until midnight. Tino showed me a room I could sleep in, and we all said good night to each other.
Mathias was being chased around by Lukas. He was screaming like a little girl, and his sharp voice woke me up. I jumped from bed, and ran out to see if the apocalypse was coming or anything. Lukas finally caught Mathias, and he was trying to choke the Danish guy.
"What happened here?" I asked, trying to fully wake up.
"This idiot here jumped on me while he was drunk." Lukas said in a very annoyed tone. Mathias was apparently having a hangover.
"Wassup, Lukas *hic* dude? You should *hic* totally loosen *hic* up!" Mathias laughed and put his arm around Lukas.
"You drunken idiot…" Lukas turned to Emil and Berwald. "Bring me some water I can pour on him." they both nodded, and went to the kitchen. They came back with a bucket full of water. Lukas grabbed it, and held it above Mathias' head.
"Dude! You don't *hic* have to *hic* do it!" after two seconds Mathias was all wet.
"Go and have a shower, you brainless-" Lukas didn't finish his sentence, instead he pushed the Danish to the bathroom.
Berwald glared at Mathias, while Emil buried his face in his hands in embarrassment, and Tino just giggled awkwardly. I couldn't take it anymore, and burst out laughing. They looked at me.
"Sorry for laughing at you… I haven't been this happy since ages." I said. Tino gave me a friendly smile.
"Don't worry, I know it was funny." he said, winking. Berwald slightly nodded, and Emil just shrugged. They weren't even smiling, but I could see in their eyes that they found it hilarious too.
After all that commotion, Tino announced that breakfast was ready, and Mathias - who was less drunker now - ran down the stairs in record speed. He pulled me with him, and made me sat next to him.
Just when we finished eating, the doorbell rang. Tino stood up, opened it, and we saw a brownish haired boy, with brown eyes, and a hair curl sticking out from the left side of his head. He smiled childishly.
"Ciao!" he waved. "Sorry for bothering you, but could you lend me some flour? We just ran out of it."
"Of course, just a moment." Tino said, and grabbed a big packet of flour from the shelf. "Here you go, Feliciano." he said, giving it to the Italian. "Wait… since you're already here, why don't you try one of my cookies?"
"Sure!" Feliciano's face brightened up. He stayed for an hour; we had fun chatting and such. They introduced me to him too. In the end, he left with a huge box of cookies.
The rest of the day passed really fast, and before we realised, it was already 9:00 pm. I spent most of the time in a room alone, with a giant paper - which I got from Mathias - and lots of pencils. I was going to make a present for them.
Tino gathered everyone in the living room, with the Christmas tree he decorated. They were surprised that I also put a wrapped present under it. Mathias asked me what it was, but I just answered 'You'll see.' so he became very excited.
We followed the tradition, which meant that we can only open the presents next day, so Lukas needed to watch Mathias the whole time, who was trying to get at least one of them.
We were already going to sleep, when Tino came up with an idea.
"Hey, why don't we sleep together? It's Christmas after all." he said, waiting for positive answers. Everyone liked the idea, so we brought our blankets and pillows to the living room, and put them down where we wanted to. Mathias and Emil fought over the couch, but Lukas eventually stopped them, making Emil the winner. We listened to some songs and talked about what we'll do next day.
It was about half past 11, and Tino went to switch off the lights. They quickly fell asleep, but I couldn't. Not yet, at least. I just lay there, thinking about how lucky I was. I still couldn't believe what happened. I was alone and lonely for years, then five guys completely changed my life. I smiled thinking about them; the energetic Mathias, the serious Lukas, the cheerful Tino, Berwald, who was just simply quiet, and Emil, who looked grumpy, but he was friendly too. As I played with my hair, I heard a quiet voice.
"[Name], are you awake?" Emil whispered. I nodded, and then I remembered he couldn't see me in the dark.
"Yea, what is it?" I asked, looking in his direction. He was silent for a few seconds, when another voice spoke.
"You can't sleep, can you?" it was Berwald.
"Well, I'm still a bit excited." I replied.
"Same with me." Emil said. Then there was an awkward silence.
"Hey…" I turned to Berwald. "You know… you looked a bit scary at first sight, but you're really nice…" I didn't even know why I said it. I just felt like it.
"You think so?" Berwald chuckled. I could hear from his voice that he was happy about it. "Well, a lot of people say that I'm a bit… intimidating."
"But you're not." I said, giggling.
"[Name], eh… and what do you think about me?" Emil asked. I thought for a moment.
"I think you're a friendly and nice person, you just don't really show it." I said.
"You look grumpy as hell." Mathias spoke up. I tried not to laugh.
"Is everyone awake, or what?" Emil asked, poking Mathias with a pen, who tried to grab it.
"It would seem so." said Tino, while Emil and Mathias were fighting over the pen.
"Seriously…" Lukas sighed. Mathias managed to pull Emil down with the pen, so now he was laying on top of the Danish.
"Get off me, dude!" he shouted.
"Why did you pull me down in the first place?!" Emil smacked him, and climbed back to the couch.
A few hours passed, and this time everyone fell asleep for real.
"Hey, dudes, it's morning!" Mathias shouted. He was being held down by Lukas. "Let me go already, you meany!"
"You will wait for the others." Lukas said.
"You're already like this?" Emil sighed. "This means you'll be even worse later, with your full energy… Lukas, do something about him!"
"You mean 'big brother'." Lukas corrected him. Emil blushed.
"I'm not saying that!"
"Why?" I giggled. "It sounds cute."
"Yes, I agree." Tino said. "Besides, we're celebrating, you could at least say it once." Emil sighed again.
"Fine, big brother…" he muttered quietly. Lukas seemed satisfied, and he let Mathias go, who dived into the small hill of presents.
They got me some too. I was literally shocked, and thanked them countless times. After everyone had theirs, Lukas looked each of us in the eye.
"Are you ready?" we all nodded. "Three, two… one." and we began unwrapping the presents.
Mathias got a cool t-shirt with snowflakes on it - plus some cookies like everyone - from Tino, a new water gun - he started jumping up and down when he saw it - from Berwald, and a really rare kind of beer from Emil and Lukas. They warned him though, that he should never ever drink it when they're nearby.
Berwald got a handmade scarf with from Tino, a few books from Lukas and Emil, and a video game from Mathias.
Tino got a movie - that he wanted to watch for a long time - from Mathias, and a puzzle of some adorable animals from Berwald. When he saw Lukas' and Emil's present, he squealed. It was a small, white dog.
"So cute!" he hugged it, and the puppy licked his face. "I'll call you Hanatamago!"
Lukas and Emil both got warm sweaters from Tino, just with different patterns. Berwald gave Lukas a painting, while Emil ended up with a statue of a puffin. Mathias bought a spell book - for Lukas - and a huge packet of licorice - for Emil.
I carefully unwrapped mine, and I found a cute handmade cat plushie - from Tino - , a necklace - from Mathias - , a painting of flowers - from Berwald - , and a pack of sweets from Lukas and Emil.
They turned to the last one; I worked on it all day, and I was quite nervous. Mathias grinned, and started unwrapping it. I couldn't take it anymore, and closed my eyes.
"WOW, THIS IS AMAZING!" I heard Mathias shouting. He held up the drawing I made; I drew all five of them. "THIS LOOKS SO REALISTIC!" I blushed, but before I could thank him, they all pulled me into a tight hug.
Since then, we live together.
4
