6. Three days after being assigned Ulrich he almost requested a room change (he's so happy he didn't).

Odd's stomach is currently attempting escape-by-esophagus and he has a massive headache as he steps through the door to his new room, key held loosely in one hand and duffel bag slung over his shoulder. His roommate isn't in, which he takes as a good sign. He kicks the door shut behind him and surveys his new home. He shudders at the memory of the secretary's saccharine smile and cheerful voice as she'd slid the key across the table to him.

The room is moderately sized, about as big as Louise and Marie's back home. Two beds, two desks, two chairs, and two wardrobes. It's overly symmetrical and Odd feels an involuntary twitch in his left eye start up. The only break in the uniformity is his small pile of luggage stacked neatly in the corner by one of the wardrobes. His duffel bag shifts and he wanders over to the empty side of the room, setting the bag down on the freshly made bed. Kiwi yips happily as he unzips the bag and lets him loose to explore his new home.

He sinks down onto the bed, rubbing his temples, and examines the bed across from him. It's neatly made with military-precise corners and everything. There's a poster for some type of martial arts that Odd doesn't recognize hanging on the wall and a grass-stained football positioned at the foot of the bed.

"What d'you think, Kee?" he questions. Kiwi glances up from where he's sniffing at the football. "Alpha jock? Wannabe poser?"

Kiwi tilts his head, huffs, and then returns to sniffing around his roommate's belongings. Odd watches him for a few more minutes before he shrugs. It's only mid-afternoon but he feels nauseated and exhausted from the flight. He toes off his shoes and flops back onto his bed, kicking the duffel bag to the floor. He hears some of his things roll out, but he's too focused on not dying to really care. He'll sort it out later, along with the whole unpacking thing. He just needs a nap first.

/

He wakes, disoriented, to the sound of a door closing. His headache has subsided somewhat and his stomach isn't doing nearly as many acrobatics. He manages to sit-up without feeling the need to hurl, so overall he's counting his nap as a success. He pauses mid-eye rub to blink blearily at the other boy in the room with him.

The boy has dark brown hair and a confused expression on his face. He's dressed in loose shorts and a tank top and Odd may be slightly distracted by the boy's arms. Odd's throat feels unbearably dry, and Odd hopes it's from dehydration and not that he's just drooled in his sleep. Damn, he thinks. He blinks, rubs a hand over his chin quickly to check for any stray drool, and offers the boy a bright smile.

"Odd," he says, holding out a hand. He clears his throat and wonders if the water bottle from the plane is still in his duffle or if it rolled out somewhere when he wasn't paying attention.

"Not really," the boy replies in English. There's a hint of an accent there, not a French one either. Odd tries to place it. "I'm your roommate."

Odd mentally slaps his forehead. Of course. Jocks are dense. He always forgets that. "No," he says. He gestures to himself. "My name is Odd. Odd Della Robbia."

The boy is staring at him like he's speaking another language. Which, okay, technically he is, but it's English, same as the boy was speaking. This shouldn't be that complicated. Odd pulls his hand back, runs it through his hair. It's sticking up on one-side and he winces internally. Great.

"Ulrich," the boy says finally. "Stern."

"Good to meet you." Odd glances around, eyes slipping off of the athletic wear and landing on the football. It's moved to the center of the room, no doubt courtesy of Kiwi. "You're into sports?"

Ulrich opens his mouth to reply, but whatever it is he's about to say remains a mystery. His gaze is focused on something by the foot of his bed and Odd follows his horrified stare to see Kiwi pissing on a pair of cleats.

"What is that?"

"Oh, uh, that's Kiwi," Odd replies. He feels his neck begin to flush and leans over, gives a sharp whistle. "Kiwi, hey, Kee, stop that!" he calls. Kiwi's head jerks up and his tail wags as he crosses the room. "Sorry 'bout that. I'll get them cleaned up. Poor little guy, still a mess from the big, nasty airplane, huh?" he asks, scratching along Kiwi's shoulders.

Ulrich's scowl is in full force, which is a pity in Odd's opinion. "I'm going to take a shower," Ulrich announces. He's staring at Kiwi as though he's Satan's spawn, which is just unfair. "When I get back, that thing better be gone."

"Hey!" Odd protests.

"I mean it," Ulrich snaps. He crosses the room, keeping a wide berth between himself and Kiwi, and digs through one of the dressers. "Pets aren't allowed on campus. He goes or I tell the headmaster."

Odd stares open-mouthed as the other boy slams out of the room. His temples pulse from the force of the slam and he hoists Kiwi up onto his lap. "Jocks," he grumbles. Kiwi licks at his chin and he laughs. "What does he know, eh? You'll win him over in no time, won't you?"

Kiwi yips, tail wagging enthusiastically and Odd grins at him. Ulrich may be a bit thick-headed, but Odd's confident he'll win him over.

. . … . . .

Day two doesn't run much smoother.

Honestly, it was a harmless prank. One that even Louise wouldn't make too much of a fuss over. His roommate has no sense of humor.

"Look, I don't see what the big deal is," Odd says as they make their way through the school grounds. Ulrich is striding fast enough that Odd feels like he has to almost jog to keep up, which is just rude. "At least you aren't late!"

"Seven alarm clocks," Ulrich snaps. "Who even has seven alarm clocks to hide?"

Odd shrugs. They'd been buy one-get one at the airport kiosk and he'd figured they might come in handy later. So what if his roommate wouldn't know a good prank if it bit him on the nose? Maybe he just wasn't a morning person.

"Yeah, well, look at the bright side." Ulrich shoots him an incredulous look over his shoulder and Odd beams back at him. "We'll be early enough to get all the good breakfast."

Ulrich simply turns back around and storms into the cafeteria.

/

"You don't understand," Odd whines.

"What don't I understand?" Pauline laughs. Odd's fingers tighten on his phone casing reflexively, desperately. He hasn't realized how much he's missed hearing Norwegian. And it's only been two days. "Did you finally meet someone who can put you in your place?"

Odd rolls his eyes, relaxes his grip. The sudden wave of homesickness is replaced with the familiar low burn of fond annoyance. He should've called Elisabeth instead. Pauline thinks she's so mature now that she's at university.

"Odd."

"My roommate," he sighs, a bit dramatically he'll admit, "is a rock."

"A rock."

"Yes, a boring, brown rock. A pebble. The type that looks unobtrusive and somehow wheedles its way into your shoe so that you end up with a bruised foot."

"Or, you could take the pebble out of your shoe."

"I'm hanging up."

"Alright, alright." Pauline laughs again, deep and low with genuine amusement. Odd tries to hold onto his annoyance, but he has missed his sister. "So you have a pebble for a roommate," she says seriously. "Are you sure he's a pebble? I know this is a hard concept for you to grasp sometimes, but maybe he's shy."

"He's a jock."

"Jocks can be shy, too."

"Not in my experience."

There's a pause on the other end of the line and Odd winces, wonders if he went too far. Pauline sighs. "Is this about Aleksander?"

"What? No!"

"Odd."

He really should've called Elisabeth instead.

"Look," he says. "The thing with Aleksander…I apologized to Louise for it. But, I mean, I did her a favor, right?" Pauline's silence is palpable. "This has nothing to do with him, yeah? It wouldn't matter if Ulrich was a jock or a musician or a scientist or whatever! The boy doesn't have a funny bone in his body. And he has a vendetta against Kiwi."

"Kiwi? What does Kiwi have to do with anything?"

"Uh…"

"Odd, you didn't."

"Kiwi's a smart dog, doesn't he deserve an education too?"

The groan on the other end of the phone makes him grin. He can picture Pauline's expression perfectly. The way her forehead rests in her palm, the way she's pressing her lips together to hide her smile. "Pappa will kill you."

"It's fine, the school doesn't mind." He settles back against the tree and throws the ball for Kiwi to chase. His roommate had come in scowling and Odd had grabbed the dog, bundled him in a sweatshirt it was still too warm to wear, and retreated out to the wooded area around the school instead of dealing with whatever Mr. All-Star had going on. "Look, can you just be helpful and tell me what to do?"

"What do you want me to say? Sometimes roommates work, sometimes they don't. Can you request a room change?"

"Possibly…" He frowns, picks up the ball Kiwi drops in his lap and tosses it again. "But that feels like giving up. I don't want him to win."

"Then suck it up and be a big boy. As fun as this crisis has been, I have a study date. You good?"

"Study date?" He waggles his eyebrows even though she can't see him. "And who will you be studying with, Polly?"

"Goodbye, Odd."

She hangs up before he can say anything further. Rude.

. . … . .

"I swear to God if you don't get rid of that mutt-"

"Don't call him that! Do you want him to get a complex?"

"I want him to stop eating all my things!"

"Maybe if you stopped threatening him he'd be more amenable to leaving your crap alone!"

Odd pulls Kiwi into his lap, hugging the little dog to his chest while Ulrich glowers from the floor by his desk. He's valiantly (and vainly) attempting to put his science project back together from where Kiwi's chewed the poster board up during the night. But, honestly, what was he expecting by leaving it on the floor like that?

"Du kannst mich mal," Ulrich mutters. Odd isn't quite sure what his roommate is saying, but he's been around enough languages to know when he's being insulted. He glares across the room.

"Same to you, buddy," he replies.

Ulrich just continues muttering to himself in German and Odd rolls his eyes, scratches Kiwi lightly behind the ears.

"Don't worry about the mean old roommate," Odd murmurs soothingly. "He's got a stick so far up his ass it's amazing he can sit down at all."

One of Ulrich's dog-piss stained cleats soars across the room at Odd's head. He doesn't quite dodge fast enough and it hits him in the shoulder. Right, he'd promised to have that cleaned, hadn't he?

/

The figurative straw that breaks the metaphorical camel's back is when he opens the dorm room door to find it empty. No Ulrich. No Kiwi. Kiwi's leash is missing from his bedside table as well.

Odd curses in Norwegian, Italian, English, and French, just for good measure. He even throws in a mangled version of one of Ulrich's favorite phrases, and races out of his room. He is going to murder his roommate if he's done anything to Kiwi.

/

"Look," Odd says. He shoves his hands into his pockets, rocks back on his heels. He bounces onto his toes. He pulls his hands free, crosses them over his chest instead. "Truce?" he offers.

Ulrich stares at the proffered hand as though it's suddenly going to turn into a pincer or giant paw or something. Which, given the way things had gone, alright, maybe. But also, no.

"Taking Kiwi to use as an experiment was, and is, still a major no. I'm still upset about that. Kiwi's a good dog." He pauses, rocks back on his heels again, pulls his hand back to run through his hair instead. He's used half a bottle of gel to style it like it had been on Lyoko. It's kind of cool, but hard to get used to. "Look, I'm upset, but that was, that was really cool too. So, if we're going to be working together, then we should try and get along, right?"

Ulrich is still staring at him and Odd has a moment of internal panic that he just said all of this in Norwegian or Italian or something. He runs the words through his head. No, he had definitely used English. He's 95% sure.

"Right, good chat then."

"You're right," Ulrich says. He holds his hand out, like Odd's had been. Odd takes it, feels Ulrich's firm grip, like he's shaken hundreds of hands in his short lifetime. Odd's feels slightly awkward in comparison, which, truth be told, isn't all that unusual. Fake it until you make it and all that.

"Don't sound so surprised, I'm right quite often."

Ulrich releases his hand, shakes his head, and doesn't hide the way the corner of his mouth hitches slightly. "You were good, in there. Play a lot of video games?"

Odd laughs in surprise. "Uh, yeah, duh. What, you saying you play?"

There's a glint in Ulrich's eye, something mischievous and amused that Odd hasn't seen in the days he's been here. "Tonight, if nothing…comes up. Best two out of three."

"Yeah, what's the winner get?"

"I win, you tell Jim you were the one who spray painted the football field." Odd splutters, tries to deny it, and Ulrich just raises an eyebrow. "Like it was hard to guess it was you."

"Fine," Odd says. He crosses his arms, stares at Ulrich's self-assured smile. "When I win, you let me have your desserts for a week."

Ulrich laughs, holds his hand out again. "Fine, deal."

Odd can't hold back his grin as he shakes Ulrich's hand again, fingers digging in slightly on Ulrich's knuckles. He never could resist a challenge.

. . … . .

His mother calls a month into his exile. A month into eating too many sweets, staying up late playing video games, pulling (minor) pranks on students and staff. A month into midnight missions to Lyoko, facing near-death experiences with a (sometimes lame) joke and smile, learning to work as a team. She says everything he's wanted to hear since he boarded the plane in Oslo, since she slid the brochure across the table to him. He can hear the wind chimes hanging from the eaves of her studio, can hear the thrum of the kiln, can practically smell the paint and clay.

He feels homesickness, sharp and tangible, bitter as iron and enough to make his stomach roll like he's just stepped off a plane. He listens to her voice, laughs a bit. He tells her no. He tells her he's happy. He tells her he wants to stay. He tells her he's making friends. He tells himself it isn't a lie, it's a wish, and those aren't the same things.

Ulrich enters the room shortly after he hangs up the phone. He takes a look at his slobbered-up jersey and sighs loudly, but he doesn't yell at Kiwi or Odd. He's stopped doing that. Mostly. These past few weeks. Odd ignores him nevertheless, still staring at the phone in his hand. He's homesick and happy and ashamed that he hasn't missed home as much as he probably should.

"What's wrong?" Ulrich asks.

Odd glances up, smiles brightly and shrugs. "Call from home," he replies. "Trying to guilt trip me into going back."

Ulrich frowns. "Wasn't it your parents who sent you here as punishment?"

Odd laughs and shakes his head. "Parents, right?" he asks. He pushes himself up and fishes Kiwi's leash from the bedside drawer. "I'm taking Kiwi for a walk into town, want to come?"

Ulrich studies him for a moment before he nods. "Yeah, alright."

/

They pick their way along one of the wooded paths. Odd lets Ulrich take the lead; the other boy seems like he knows where he's going. Odd hasn't come this way before, he usually sticks to the main roads, but he has to admit it's nice wandering through the trees, seeing the changing colors of their leaves. Kiwi snuffles along next to him, pausing every few steps to mark his new territory.

"Your parents want you to go home?" Ulrich asks.

"Yeah," Odd replies. He whistles for Kiwi, tugs lightly at his leash when the little dog tries to follow a scent off-path.

"Are you going to?"

Odd glances over, but Ulrich isn't looking at him. He has his hands in his jacket pockets, his head tilted back. He's studying a tall tree, Odd isn't sure what kind it is or what has drawn Ulrich's attention. "Yeah," he says after a moment. "I promised I'd go back for Christmas. I'm not going to miss presents."

He laughs, sees the line of Ulrich's shoulders relax slightly. The other boy glances at him, offers him a serious nod. Not for the first time Odd wonders if it would kill Ulrich to actually laugh. Kiwi loses interest in whatever scent he was chasing, trots lightly back to him and tugs on the leash as if to say c'mon, hurry up, human.

"What about you?"

He doesn't expect an answer, and he doesn't get one. Not for a while anyway. Ulrich reaches out, breaks off a stick from a dying bush, fiddles with it. "I'll be going home, my mother requested it."

"Requested?"

Ulrich shrugs, runs the broken stick over the brush near the path, knocks loose leaves from their branches. "She wasn't exactly pleased when I was accepted here," he says finally.

"Is it just the two of you?"

Odd can see the opening of the trail ahead, realizes they're going to exit near the shoe shop in town. This way was quicker than the main roads. Ulrich's shoulders are tense again, Odd isn't sure why. It's been a month and he still feels like he barely knows his roommate.

"No," he says finally. "There's my father," he snaps the stick in two, "and my sister." Odd watches as Ulrich tosses the broken stick into the woods. It disappears into the underbrush.

"Yeah, well, lucky you only have one," Odd says. He bumps his elbow into Ulrich's ribcage and offers him a bright smile. "I've got five and they're all horrible." Ulrich glances at him, raises an eyebrow. "Honest," he says, crossing his chest with his free hand. "They're all older and all annoying."

"Must be a family trait." Ulrich's mouth twitches. It isn't a laugh, isn't quite a smile either, but Odd'll take it.

"Don't be an asshole."

Ulrich ducks his head, shakes his head. Odd can still see the smile though. It feels like progress. It feels like maybe he hadn't lied to his mother after all.

. . … . .

"You know, I almost requested a room change because of you."

He isn't sure what possesses him to say it, thinks maybe it's the good food or the warmth from the fire on his face. Maybe it's because of his sisters blabbering on about new beginnings all morning and the waves of chatter that pass around and over them echoing those same sentiments.

"Because of me?" Ulrich questions. His voice goes up a few octaves at the end, a sure sign that he's pretending to be surprised. "I think you have that mixed up."

"Uh, uh," Odd replies.

They sit, staring at the bonfire for midsummer. The town is out in full, with music and dancing, and laughter. Odd sees Adele across the fire, chatting with former school friends, but he's lost track of the rest of his sisters in the crowd. He's aware of the warmth of the fire on his face, the warmth of Ulrich's body pressed against his side on the narrow bench. He swallows, throat dry.

"Your dog's the one that destroyed my things. You're lucky I didn't report him to Delmas."

Odd can't help the smile, leans forward a bit to escape the warmth of Ulrich's arm, and rests his elbows on his knees. He can sense Ulrich watching him curiously. "Yeah, I was lucky."

Ulrich nudges him with his knee. "Don't tell me you're getting sentimental."

"No. I just mean. If you had then you never would've stolen Kiwi and I never would've gotten involved with…everything." He shrugs.

"You sure you aren't getting sentimental?"

Odd snorts, sits back up so he can shove Ulrich properly. He smiles as Ulrich yelps and teeters on the edge of the bench before regaining his perch. "You sure you aren't losing your skills, Mr. All-Star?"

"Don't worry; I can still take you on Lyoko." Ulrich's voice is soft, the words hushed as though he expects Einstein to leap out of the shadows and accuse them of exposing Lyoko's secret. Odd doesn't try to hide his smile, hopes it distracts Ulrich from the shiver he feels race along his spine.

"Sure," Odd agrees, pitches his voice low as well. He doubts anyone here is paying them any mind though, too busy celebrating to wonder about the two boys speaking French. "Three of you against one of me, seems fair."

"No reason not to use every advantage," Ulrich comments.

"Or, just goes to show I'm that much better than you."

Ulrich snorts, rolls his eyes. But Odd's been around him for a year and a half now, long enough to know this is one of the fondly exasperated eye rolls. The type he gives when Einstein starts in on one of his techno-babble rants that flows over their heads mindlessly. The type he gives Yumi when she nags them about being more careful, when she scolds them for running late or copying homework. The type Odd's seen him give Sissi when she's complaining about one of the younger years and no one else is paying attention.

"Whatever helps you sleep at night," Ulrich states finally. He sits back, stretches, before getting to his feet. "I'm going to see if there's any more food left, you coming?"

"Nah," Odd comments. Ulrich gives him a surprised look and Odd offers him his best and most sincere innocent smile. "I'll hold onto our spot here."

Ulrich doesn't quite look convinced; he's known him long enough by now to know when he isn't being completely honest. But, he's also known him long enough to know when to push and when to drop things. Odd watches as Ulrich picks his way around the clumps of neighbors toward the tables where the food and beverages were set up earlier. After he loses Ulrich to the crowds he turns back to the fire. Louise is sitting on one of the benches across from him and he can't help but notice the way she's watching him, eyebrows pulled together and a deep furrow in her brow like she's figuring something out.

He hopes she doesn't think too hard and pull a muscle.

Du kannst mich mal - "Bite me" or "Go fuck yourself"