Author's Note: Sorry this update took so long! I had this chapter partially written and then I started my summer internship and the time I thought I was going to spend on the car ride home writing I spent sleeping. This past weekend I ended up filing away what I had written and starting from scratch. Be sure to read the notes at the end of the chapter. And thanks again to my lovely beta Icelilly - who is partially responsible for some yaoi worming its way into my plan for this story (though it remains mostly Het pairings).
Chapter II
Lukas Bondevik didn't exactly hate people, but he found a great deal of them annoying and difficult to deal with. None were more difficult than his brother Emil.
Lukas loved his brother, but Emil was simply inept when it came to dealing with others. Lukas was no social butterfly, but unlike Emil he would have enjoyed having some friends growing up that weren't related to him by blood.
Well, he did have two friends growing up, but he hadn't seen them in-
"Lukas? Lukas Bondevik? Is that you?"
Shit.
Lukas recognized the cheerful blond boy immediately as he set his books down on the desk next to him. The last thing he wanted to get caught up in this loser's crap again.
The blonde boy leaned over with a somewhat hurt expression on his face, "Lukas, it's me! Mike! Don't ya remember me?"
Lukas reluctantly nodded, "Yeah. Mikkel Densen, correct?"
A huge grin spread across Mikkel's face. "I knew it! It's been ages! How are ya Luke? Is Milo here too?"
Lukas sighed, suppressing the urge to summon his troll and squash Mikkel like a fly, "You know that I don't like being called Luke. And I think Emil might hurt you if you call him 'Milo'."
"Emil and Lukas are such serious names though," Mikkel said, ignoring Lukas' annoyed expression, "Luke and Milo are so much more whimsical, ya know?"
Yeah, me and Emil are really fucking whimsical. Lukas thought to himself, beginning to tune out Mikkel's jabbering. It was only a few more minutes until the teacher arrived and called the class to order, forcing Mikkel to stop talking and Lukas to silently rejoice.
Of course, as soon as the teacher had them told them to begin working in pairs, Mikkel practically tripped over his desk in his rush to get to Lukas, despite the fact they were sitting right next to each other, much to the amusement of the rest of the class.
"So what have ya been up to the past couple of years?" Mikkel said, clearly preparing to launch into a long tirade, "It was such a drag when you and Milo left. It was just me and Berwald, and we were at each other's throats for a while but now we're tight, amazing right?"
Lukas raised his eyebrows in genuine surprise, "Yeah, it kind of is…"
When they were younger, Mikkel was certainly as hyper as he was now, but Lukas found the boy sitting next to him a lot friendlier than the guy he remembered from years ago. The Mikkel he knew had been a major control freak, and had butted heads with the perpetually shy and intimidating Berwald more than he could remember. The fact that one hadn't killed the other after they left was an amazing achievement in and of itself.
Mikkel nodded enthusiastically and continued, pointing out all the girls in the class that he had professed his undying love to in junior high and had told him to get lost. Lukas found himself laughing along with Mikkel's strange stories, but out of sympathy for the unlucky in love, not because he was, you know, actually having fun.
Before they knew it the bell rang, and Lukas absent-mindedly handed in the assignment that he had done when Mikkel had randomly taken a 10 minute bathroom break. The two of them continued talking in the hallway (meaning that Mikkel talked and Lukas half-listened) and discovered that they shared the next class as well.
"Huh, what are the odds?" Lukas pointed out as he took his normal seat. Mikkel immediately sat down at the adjoining desk, annoying the girl who had been sitting there the past couple of weeks.
"Yeah, can you believe we have all the same classes? This'll be just like elementary school-"
"What?" Lukas interrupted, speaking a bit louder than he had intended, causing a few of the students that had arrived to cast him odd looks.
Mikkel nodded, unfazed. "Yeah, I had noticed you in class the first two weeks, but I wasn't sure if you were who I thought you were, and I was a bit shy to ask until this morning."
Again, Lukas stared at Mikkel in amazement. What the hell happened to the overconfident jerk I knew years ago?
Over the next three classes, Lukas learned that Mikkel and Berwald had a few other friends during their time in junior high, but the rest had decided to attend another high school. Lukas was a bit surprised that Mike… er, Mikkel skipped over talking about them and instead launched into the first two weeks of high school.
"So yeah we're pretty friendly with this guy Tino who we didn't talk to much in junior high," Mikkel said in a hushed tone, casting a wearing glance to the other side of the classroom. Lukas followed his gaze and noticed that he was staring at Ivan.
Mikkel turned back to Lukas, "Apparently, something big went down over the summer and Tino and another guy named Toris left Ivan Braginski's circle. I'm not sure if you remember, but no one ever leaves Ivan's circle."
Lukas once again failed to fight back his surprised expression. Sure the Ivan he remembered from Elementary school had been tough, but he didn't remember him being so intimidating to the other students.
"Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, I think Berwald has a crush on someone." Mikkel injected in his normal hyper voice.
Lukas suppressed the urge to faint from this onslaught of surprises. Luckily for him, the teacher began her lecture, and he was left silently absorbing everything that he'd learned over the past couple of hours.
By the time they made it to the cafeteria, Lukas was basically all caught up with every single event that's transpired in Mikkel's life between the end of Elementary school and now. Though Mikkel barely talked about his other friends in middle school, and didn't elaborate any more on Berwald's love life, which was perfectly fine with him.
Lukas eyed the lunch line and saw Arthur nearly get trampled by the other students, and was once again thankful that he made a habit of packing his own lunch.
Mikkel, however, hadn't, and pointed to a table where he recognized a boy who must be Berwald signal him over with a single wave. A smaller boy sat next to him, and waved him over a bit more anxiously. As he got closer, he realized that the boy, who must be Tino - as he matched Mikkel's description - looked a bit frightened sitting next to Berwald by himself.
Lukas couldn't exactly blame him. Berwald had been tall in Elementary school, but now he practically towered over all the other students, and had an intimidating expression that Lukas learned long ago was rarely a true indication of his actual mood. He empathized, as his face wasn't particularly expressive either, but he came across more bored than angry.
"Hey, so I gu's ya were Lukas af'er al'. Good ta see you ag'in," Berwald mumbled, taking a bite of his sandwich.
"Yeah, hello," Tino smiled, clearly more comfortable, "My name is Tino, I'm told you went to Elementary school with us, so I guess it's good to see you again."
Lukas nodded not sure how to respond. It was then that he noticed Emil carrying his lunch tray out of the line, and Lukas waved his brother over. Emil stared in surprise before he seemed to recognize Berwald, and appeared to hesitate before walking over to the trio.
"Hey Berwald, haven't seen you in ages," Emil said shyly as he sat down, avoiding eye contact. Lukas flashed Berwald an apologetic look, but the other boy either didn't acknowledge Emil's discomfort or didn't notice.
After introductions were made, the next few minutes were spent comparing classes, before they were interrupted by a commotion a few tables away.
Lukas immediately recognized who was at the center of the commotion.
"Francis never gives up does he?" Emil deadpanned, taking a bite of his fish taco.
"What's his deal anyway?" Tino asked, eying him as he headed over to another table, "He keeps making poses and hitting on all the girls."
"Well, anything with a pulse actually," Lukas explained, munching on the sandwich he brought from home, "The first week of school, Francis said he and Michelle St. Ange got to second base underneath the bleachers after the football team's first practice game."
"Damn," Tino remarked, "Is there any truth to it?"
"I doubt it," Emil responded, making eye contact for the first time, "He and his friends are full of hot air, and most of their stories are blatant exaggeration or fabrication."
"I can attest any stories relating to his cooking are true though. His palette is absolutely fantastic."
Lukas looked up to see a boy who looked a year older than himself standing near the table. He was among the tanner students, but compared to Lukas's fair skin he looked even darker.
"Hey Pops," Emil threw up his hand in greeting as he finished his taco in one gulp, then motioned towards the others, "This is my brother Lukas, and the odd couple over there is Berwald and Tino."
"Nice to meet you," the boy said, flashing a smile that made a group of girls at a nearby table swoon, "My name's Sadiq. Emil, Heracles said that his mom needs help stocking supplies in her weird shop, and he's dragged me and the other guys into helping him."
"I'll help too I guess, I have nothing better to do." Emil replied, wiping his face, "We can always go to that market tomorrow."
"Okay cool. And join us for lunch one of these days okay? I don't think that Francis guy will be bothering us again if I know Frascuelo." Sadiq waved as he headed over to a group of other attractive boys with Mediterranean complexions. Sure enough, Francis was over there making a spectacle of himself. Most of them looked bored, but one boy with a strange haircut looked mildly annoyed at not being able to eat his lunch in peace.
"Don't tell me you actually made friends?" Lukas said, not sure if he could take any more shocks in one day.
Emil gave him an annoyed look, "Look, I took what you said about not being such a damn priss and was mister social the past two weeks. I never told you because- Damn it Lukas stop making that face you are not going to faint in the middle of the Cafeteria and make a spectacle of us."
If he hadn't been carrying a tray, Mike would have pumped his fists in victory after escaping the pit of death that was the lunch line. Would it really kill them to make more room?
He flashed a smile at a pretty girl who he thought was waving at him before he realized that she was actually looking at the Hispanic boy standing behind him. Luckily, neither of them seemed to notice, and Mike composed himself before looking for the table he had seen Luke head towards when they first walked in. He felt his shoulder's relax when he saw Milo and Tino engaged in an animated conversation while Luke and Berwald talked more in a more reserved fashion. He was worried that something may have happened, and he didn't want to go through that crap from junior high again.
When Luke had told him that he and Milo were going to a different middle school, he dreaded the idea of heading into a new school year with Berwald as his only, using the term loosely, friend. He didn't have much to worry about though. As soon as he joined the soccer team, he found himself with a bunch of new friends who shared many of the same interests as he did.
Still, even though they weren't particularly close at this point, Mike found himself inviting Berwald along to hang out mostly out of habit. They had fallen out of touch with Luke and Milo after the brothers transferred, and Berwald had a much more difficult time making friends than Mike did.
His new friends weren't exactly thrilled with having Berwald around, but they warmed up to him when they realized he made them look even tougher than they already did as popular athletes. And Berwald's height and general demeanor made it so he didn't get many looks if he were to carry alcohol on the subway on the rare occasions when they would risk meeting up to party and get drunk.
Oddly enough, Mike found himself actually growing to like the guy, who he found a huge stick in the mud during elementary school. Before he knew it, they would sometimes even hang out by themselves – at each other's apartments or downtown where Berwald would watch Mike fail to get girls to go out with him. Mike figured at the time that Berwald was too shy to give it a go himself, or was afraid of scaring one of the more timid girls with his intimidating facial expressions.
Towards the end of eighth grade, though, this perfect arrangement of sorts was turned on its head.
For once, it was Mike dragging an inebriated Berwald home after a night of drinking with the guys. His parents knew that Berwald was responsible and kept up his grades, so they would turn a blind eye in the rare instance he would push the boundaries, so to speak, and have some fun. That particular night they were out to dinner though, so Mike didn't have to come up with any explanations when he helped Berwald to his room.
"Man, I've never seen you drink like that!" Mike exclaimed, as Berwald steadied himself on his bed. "What got into you tonight?"
"Lute talkin' 'bout 'dat girl." Berwald muttered. Or slurred, Mike couldn't really tell. For someone so drunk, Berwald was pretty composed and mentally sound, despite his unsteady feet.
"I don't blame ya," Mike snickered, "He did go on a bit much about that right. I swear, its not like she was the first girl to ever dump his ass."
"Yeah," Berwald said uncomfortably, casting his eyes downward.
Mike grinned and patted Berwald on the shoulder, "Lighten up. At least it wasn't one of my rejection stories. Well, more like several, since they're all so short."
Berwald cracked a bit of a smile at that before falling back on the bed. Mike laughed, "See, told ya it could've been worse. Though from how picky you are in the romance department, I'd bet if you went on a tangent like that, it would put the rest of ours to shame."
Berwald mumbled something illegible in response, and Mike raised his hand and waved, "Okay, goodnight you big lummox. I'm heading out."
Mike was turning the doorknob when he heard Berwald say, "Hey 'ike?"
"Yeah?"
There was a pause, and Mike turned around to see Berwald sitting up with a somewhat distressed look on Berwald's face. "Um, ne'ermind" Berwald finished, before flopping down on the bed again.
"Oh come on, what is it?" Mike sighed, before something clicked in his mind, "Oh man, there isn't a girl you like is there? What happened? Did she dump ya?"
"No," Berwald said in a muffled voice, face in the sheets, which Mike attributed to the alcohol, "not 'hat. 'ust 'orget it 'kay? It 'as s'upid"
"Stupid? Knowing you, I doubt it," Mike frowned, thinking, "Okay, I'm fresh out of ideas. What's on your mind?"
"'s nothin' okay," Berwald mumbled, "'night."
Mike felt himself get a bit annoyed, "Oh please, I've known you for years. I'm calling bullshit. What's up with you? You're acting weird."
He heard Berwald sigh, and he rolled over and stared at the wall, avoiding eye contact with Mike. "'ur not gon' let me get 'ny sleep un'il I 'ell ya right?"
"Yup," Mike replied cheerfully, leaning against the door.
Berwald mumbled something, and Mike leaned forward. "What? Couldn't hear ya?"
"I'm.. g…" Berwald mumbled again.
"I can't hear you?" Mike shouted enthusiastically.
"I'm Gay."
"See," Mike grinned, "That wasn't so…what?"
Mike felt his brain tune into one of those channels that was all static. Berwald is Gay? Mike just stared at his friend dumbfounded until he heard loud snoring.
Of course he would fall asleep now, Mike thought to himself. Still stunned, he threw a nearby blanket over his friend before quietly leaving the apartment.
The next day, it didn't seem like anything had changed. The rest of the guys had gotten tired of Lute's bitching and told him to stop whining and find someone hotter. Berwald was quiet and composed as usual, and life continued as it always had. Except now, Berwald seemed to be avoiding being alone with him at every turn. Mike desperately wanted to address the elephant in the room, but clearly Berwald didn't agree.
A few weeks later, Mike walked into class and saw the guys, sans Berwald, hanging out in the usual corner. It took Mike a second to notice Berwald sitting on the opposite side of the room, a dejected look on his face. A girl whom Mike recognized as May was talking to Berwald and rubbing his shoulder, a concerned look on her face.
"Hey Berwald, May, what's going on?" Mike asked, feeling a bit nervous.
Berwald mumbled something and continued to look down at his desk. May looked up and gave Mike a look so angry that he almost fell over from the force of it, "Your stupid friends are jerks you know that?"
"What?" Mike replied, still reeling.
May nodded to the opposite end of the room, "Lutalo called Berwald a fag and punched him in the face."
"What?" Mike said, and felt himself grip the desk when he noticed the welt forming around Berwald's left eye.
May shouted something else, but Mike was too angry to listen, before he knew it, he had stomped over to the group and punched Lute in the jaw.
May was currently in the office testifying as to what had happened. Mike and Berwald sat on one side of the waiting room with Lute on the other, each nursing bruises. Lute was pointedly looking away from them, which was perfectly fine with Mike.
"I want to know something," Mike broke the silence, though Lute was too far away to hear, as it was a fairly large room, with a slew of empty faculty desks in the middle.
"Wha?" Berwald asked, his good eye downcast as his over was covered with an ice pace from the nurse.
"Why didn't you punch him yourself? You're capable enough. It's called standing up for yourself."
Berwald looked up, surprised, before mumbling "I 'an'ed to st'y neu'ral for once."
Mike stared, before bursting out laughing, "Neutral? Seriously? You used to kick my ass in elementary school, and now you want to stay neutral?"
Berwald nodded, a bit of a smile forming before dropping again, "I wan'ed to as'… Why'd ya do it?"
"Because no one messes with my friends, especially my best friend," Mike said, attempting to strike a pose but ended up aggravating his injured shoulder instead.
Berwald stared, stunned, "Bes' frien'?"
Mike nodded, moving his shoulder in a futile attempt to calm the pain, "Yup. Why do you look so surprised? I couldn't care less if you're gay. All this means is that I'll have less competition in wooing the ladies. That reminds me, do you think that May girl is single?"
As Mike turned to face Berwald, he unexpectedly found himself embraced by his friend.
"Mike… ther's som'thin' els' ya shou'd know."
"You're not in love with me are you?"
Berwald snorted, "God no. Mei's datin' som'body."
Mike groaned, "Damn it! I'm gonna be single forever."
After Lukas stopped stressing out over all the, to put in mildly, insane developments of the day, he was able to sit and have a rational conversation with Berwald and catch up on old times. It took Lukas all of 30 seconds to realize that his hunch back when he was eight was correct; Berwald was obviously gay – at least, it was obvious to him - which probably explained Mikkel's reluctance to talk about their junior high school days.
Lukas was more wrapped up with the fact that Emil had gotten actual friends. It was something he never imagined happening after they separated from Mikkel and Berwald when they headed off to junior high.
Both brothers were introverted, and didn't particularly like stepping outside of their comfort zone and taking the chance to possibly make a new friend, nor were they particularly skilled at doing so.
The difference was, Emil was perfectly content being off by himself. As much as Lukas hated to admit it, he liked having friends. Unfortunately, no one came barreling into his life like Mikkel had on the first day of kindergarten. Here, everyone's circle of friends was complete – copied and pasted over from the elementary school they had all attended – each person perfectly happy with what they had.
It was three months after they entered junior high that their grandmother died.
Her husband had died several years earlier, and she had been living with her daughter and her family ever since. Lukas was the most upset, as he had spent a great deal of time with her growing up, listening to her stories – most of them fantastical tales of her childhood back in Norway. Fantastical in that they involved magic, and magical creatures. And everyone knew that kind of stuff didn't exist.
It was when they were cleaning out her room that Lukas had found the book. In many of her stories, His grandmother had often mentioned a worn, leather-bound spell-book that had been given to her by her father on her twelfth birthday, and was the starting point of all her adventures. Lukas hardly believed that it held any magic, but refused to get rid of it when his mother told him to just put it in the discard pile.
That night, Lukas lay in bed reading through the spells. Some of them were chants, many in Norwegian, but there were also others in a variety of languages. After a few hours of studying each one, wide-eyed at the amount of detail devoted in crafting each page, he found the one he had been looking for.
In his favorite story his grandmother told, she had gone out to the fields and summoned a pixie. The creature had been annoyed at first, but quickly became excited when it realized it had entered the human realm. For the next few years, whenever she had felt sad or lonely, she summoned it with a spell much less complicated than when she first had. The pixie would do everything in its power to cheer her up, and she would thank it by providing it with supplies largely scarce in the world from whilst she came.
When she turned seventeen, she got into a fight with her mother, and she tried to summon the pixie to give her comfort. However, instead, a small green mist briefly appeared, and then vanished. Puzzled, she tried again and again, but each subsequent time nothing happened. Her father later told her that her pixie friend had likely passed away, and the green mist was a signal letting her know that the contract she had made with it had been broken.
While she had been tempted to summon another pixie with the original spell, the idea of replacing her friend had been too painful. On that day she vowed that she would take strength from the comfort the pixie had given her in the past, and readily made amends with her mother, and carried the creature's kindness around her for the rest of her life.
Lukas stared at the spell, which was in Norwegian but seemed simple enough to pronounce. Quietly, as not to wake anyone else in the apartment, he began the chant as directed, clamping the crystal cross his grandmother had given him years before on his tenth birthday.
He heard a snap, and was about to open his eyes when he felt his legs give out from under him, Well that can't be good. He opened his eyes. It wasn't good. At all.
Before him stood a troll. A small troll, but a troll nonetheless. His urge to scream was suppressed by the shock to his system and how drained he felt after completing the chant.
He was about to speak a greeting, when the troll made a huge grin, let out a howl, and began tearing up his room.
"What the hell is going on in here?"
Lukas turned to see Emil standing at the door, his annoyed expression turned into shock when he saw the creature currently running amok on his brother's desk.
"Wha- What the hell is that thing?"
"Shut up!" Lukas hissed, desperately trying to figure something out. In his grandmother's story, the pixie she summoned had been friendly, but at first it had been hostile and tried to attack her. She quelled it by using her will and after calming it down never had to invoke that part of the contract ever again.
Stop, Come on, I command you to stop! Lukas thought to himself, eyes trained fiercely on the troll. It paid him no mind however, and decided that Emil's head looked like a comfy chair.
"Lukas, Get this thing off of me!" Emil yelled.
"I'm trying!" Lukas shouted, and immediately covered his mouth. Emil was one thing, but if their parents saw the troll that would be very bad. Very bad indeed.
It was at this point that the troll jumped on his bed and began tearing up his sheets.
"I command you to stop!" Lukas said in a stern voice, standing up and pointing his finger dramatically at the troll. Once again it ignored him. Damn it. Lukas frantically tried to think of something else to do, when the troll spotted his grandmother's spellbook and made its way to it.
"No! I told you to stop!" Lukas said, lunging for the book, anger coursing through his veins. He'd be damned if he let something that was so important to his grandmother and himself get destroyed by a fucking troll.
As if sensing the power behind his words, the troll stopped, and began glancing around the room, glaring at Lukas and Emil.
"What the hell happened here?"
Lukas turned to see his mother standing behind a disoriented Emil in the doorway. Crap, Lukas thought, the troll.
"Well, you see-" Lukas began.
"You two were fighting again weren't you? Damn it, look how much damage you've caused. Your father's going to throw a fit when he finds out how much it'll cost me to replace all of this!"
Lukas stared blankly at the furious woman standing before him. She's looking right at me, how the hell does she not see this troll?
Emil seemed to be in the same mindset, and opened his mouth to speak, "Well, actually-"
"-I started it," Lukas finished, giving his brother a hard stare, "Don't punish him, I caused most of the damage. I'm sorry."
Their mother sighed, "Okay then, Emil go back to bed. Lukas, you can go sleep on the couch in the living room. In the morning you're cleaning this all up, and you can forget hanging out with your friends and getting an allowance for the next year."
Lukas winced at that statement for more than one reason.
Emil was surprisingly good at keeping his mouth shut. Though as he put it, No one would believe me, and if I insisted they'd just send me to the nuthouse.
Lukas sent the troll away, and made sure to read through the entire spell-book with a fine-toothed comb. It was another four months before he tried summoning anything again.
Lucky Me, Lukas thought, as the same troll, albeit a bit larger, appeared again in his bedroom. Unlike the first time, he only summoned it partially, and it appeared a bit annoyed when it was unable to smash Lukas's desk.
"Sorry," Lukas grinned, "You can't make contact with anything unless I say you can."
The troll made an annoyed grunt before it floated to the ground and eyed Lukas warily.
"Do you like ice cream?" Lukas asked, tossing him a Klondike bar. The troll easily caught it, staring at him dumbfounded, before greedily scarfing it down.
Lukas smirked, This should be interesting.
Over the next two years, the two became more adept to each other, and soon Lukas didn't have to exert so much of his will over the creature. Oddly enough, Lukas found himself happy that he at least found a friend, and he wasn't spending his afternoons alone anymore.
Emil wasn't exactly happy with the arrangement though. Both Lukas and the troll derived great pleasure from scaring the crap out of him every chance they got. This mostly involved sending the troll alone into a room with Emil and his parents, causing the boy to yell when the creature jumped on his head and his parents to stare at their son as he ran around the room, groping his head for no apparent reason. Though after a few months Emil grew used to this behavior and didn't react whenever the troll tried to nest in his hair.
When the brothers started high school, Lukas arrived to discover that message scrawled on the front entrance. "'All Worthy of Participating in Magicks, use your skills to meet us at the last bell using the Path, if you so desire'" Lukas read aloud as the students talked to each other in their little groups inside their little comfort zone. Sounds like fun.
Lukas's thoughts broke as he heard the sound of a tray hit the table and Mikkel's grin entered his field of vision.
"Everyone having fun?" he laughed, as he squeezed in between Lukas and Emil and through his arms around their shoulders, "Damn it's great to see you guys again!"
"Get off," Lukas and Emil replied in unison, causing Mikkel to pout and Berwald to snicker.
"Anyway," Mikkel said, keeping his arms to himself now, "Did anyone else try out for the soccer team? I hear that there's this one kid that went to your school who is supposed to be amazing."
"There's a couple actually," Emil said thoughtfully, "Antonio Carriedo and Abel Janssen… oh and Shaun Nkoma is amazing too."
"'r socc'r team s'ked," Berwald said flatly.
Emil snickered, but Lukas saw Mikkel give Berwald a look before countering, "Well yeah, but I more than made up for it with my amazing skills!"
"You hav' 'mazin' s'lls? You s'ould've 'ocused on th'm 'nst'd of pla'in' socc'r." Berwald smirked folding his arms.
"I could still beat your sorry ass at it any day."
"Dou' it."
"Oh yeah," Mikkel proclaimed, slamming his fist down on the table, a wild grin on his face. "You and me. Soccer Field. Right now. We'll see whose owning who."
Berwald stood up and the two immediately made a dash for the door, nearly knocking over Michelle as she went to throw out her garbage. Emil rolled his eyes and Tino looked both relieved and amused.
"I guess some things never change." Lukas sighed, suppressing an amused look himself.
Mikkel arrived at their next class covered in dirt, with a huge grin that indicated that he had beaten Berwald, though he looked a bit more timid when the teacher yelled at him for being late and filthy. The last two classes flew by, and before Likas knew it he was watching Mikkel wave as he ran to go check the bulletin board to see if he made the soccer team.
Lukas whipped out his phone and saw a text from Arthur about the storage closet incident. He was only half-listening when the teacher addressed the class, as he was too amused watching Mikkel trying to maneuver himself so he didn't get his homework covered in dirt before he handed it in.
No idea what's going on. He texted rapidly, Gonna miss club today. Exhausted.
He put his phone, and sighed. It had been a long day, and he was looking forward to going home, sleeping, getting woken up by Emil whom the troll would mess with, eating dinner, and then going back to sleep after reading through his spell-book yet another time.
As for Mikkel, Berwald, and Emil? Well, he'd just let his subconscious deal with that battle tonight in his sleep. His conscious mind was way too burnt out deciphering them. Spells and trolls were so much easier, after all.
Author's Note: Once again, thank you for reading this far! I'll try and get the next chapter up soon - I have a better outline now than I did this past week.
Not all the characters have assigned names so I had to look up common names for each language or country. Iceland is Emil Bondevik, Denmark is Mikkel Densen, Cyprus is Frascuelo Spyrou, Uganda is Lutalo Patel, Taiwan is Wang Xiao Mei, Netherlands is Abel Janssen, and Cameroon is Roshaun Nkoma. And Denmark is lazy and Americanizes names and/or shortens them.
Explanation Time. Originally, the role played by Uganda was done by a Gary Stu named Jeremy. Then I realized how much I hated Gary Stus and pointless OCs, and when I thought of homophobia I could use I immediately thought of the current struggle in Uganda. In case you haven't heard, homosexuality is criminalized in Uganda, and in 2009 a bill was proposed that would make it so people could potentially get the death penalty simply for being gay. It also proposes that citizens who engage in same-sex activity outside the country be extradited for punishment back in Uganda. However, this gross violation of human rights has been opposed by basically every other country in the world, and its been in a sort of limbo ever since, despite strong support within the government. Please understand that I'm not going out to attack a country in this (even though I do find their proposed law and existing law on Homosexuality disgusting) and this will be addressed later to hopefully appease any concerns. Please don't flame me.
And I apologize if Sweden seem a bit OOC here. I was gonna include more of him to establish character but the chapter was already long in Microsoft Word and I was getting a migraine from writing his accent.
