Into The Afternoon

Nordic Five (Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Iceland)

Well, really, it's just Norway and Iceland, here.

Lukas sighed, looking out the window with glazed eyes. He was absolutely sick of review work. So he might have missed a day or two last week when Emil had been home, sick. That shouldn't mean that he had to sacrifice his recess to do math booklets.

It was raining lightly, but not enough to warrant an indoor recess. He could hear the other children shouting on the playground. He didn't even like going outside – he would much rather be indoors, if he could help it, thank you – but it would be better than working through his third sheet of word problems, his pencil scratching along the paper at a painstakingly slow rate.

Mondays were just not good days, he decided. Not if they were meant for locking him in child prison.

Lukas acknowledged the fact that he was being slightly melodramatic.

He sighed again, filling out another problem. His supervising teacher had been called away, so he was alone in an unused classroom with only his homework booklets for company. It was tortuous. He understood the concepts, why did he have to keep working through the same problems two dozen times?

A knocking at the window roused him from his lethargy. He blinked, refocusing his eyes. He was surprised to see Emil's little face squashed against the window. Lukas quietly rose from his chair, creeping over to the window, trying not to make noise and alert a teacher to the fact that he was out off his seat.. He cracked it open. "Emeh? Lillebror, what are you doing?"

Emil grinned at him. "Found you! I looked for you all over, storebror, why aren't you out here?"

"Worksheets, Emeh. I missed some things last week, remember? When I stayed home with you."

"Oh."

Emil leaned in against the window, pulling up his hood to protect himself from the rain and wind. "Hong told me that his big brother nearly died again."

"What? What happened?" Lukas asked, tightening his hands into fists. He heard this too often for his liking, and it concerned him that Emil was friends with a little boy whose brother seemed determined to break his own neck.

"He tried to jump onto a car, from the big tree by the road. He would've gone splat," Emil answered, making the accompany hand gesture, "but his big brother stopped him. Kiku knocked Yong-Soo out of the tree before he jumped, so nobody got hit by a car today."

Lukas raked a hand through his hair, chewing on his lip. "I don't know how safe it is for you to keep spending time with these boys, Emeh."

"I'd be really safe!" Emil protested. "They always have older kids around. Like Yao, or their cousin, Lien, they're the oldest, or there's Kiku, he's really 'sponsible, Yao said, which means that he's a good person to look after other people, right, storebror?"

"I guess so." Although they were in the same grade, Lukas and Kiku were in different classes, and therefore did not see much of one another. Lukas didn't know him very well.

"And Kiku was being 'sponsible today, right, with Yong-Soo?"

"It's 'responsible', lillebror. And yes, I'd call that responsible."

"Mmm…" Emil pursed his lips, humming. "Hong said that Kiku got hurt, though. Like, his foot got really red, and sort of round and puffy. And he scraped his knees, too. I heard that there was a lot of blood. It would've hurt a whole lot, wouldn't it have, storebror? He didn't cry, though. Kiku's really brave, like you. He doesn't cry."

Lukas smiled faintly. "Big brothers are brave, because they don't want their little brothers to get scared. Imagine how Yong-Soo would have been acting if Kiku had started crying."

Thinking for a moment, Emil frowned. "He would've been really sorry. He'd have been scared."

"You're going to have quite the story to tell our big brothers, aren't you, Emeh?"

Emil put his fingers flat against the window, letting Lukas place his hand against his palm, on the other side of the glass. "It's better when you're out here to learn the story, too…"

"Which means that I have to finish my work, lillebror. It all has to be done, or I stay in at recess tomorrow, too."

"Alright, Luka." Emil pouted as he withdrew from the window. "You better come outside tomorrow, though."

"I will do my best," Lukas promised. "See you later, Emeh."

"See you, Luka."

His over-large coat flapping behind him, Emil ran off to join the rest of the children on the playground equipment. Reluctantly, Lukas closed the window, settling himself at his desk, and attacking the word problems once more.

He couldn't wait for the day to be over.

Translation

Lillebror – little brother

Storebror – big brother

Reader-senpai!

I am fully aware that this is not my best work, but I was rushing to get it updated tonight. So, yes… hopefully it was not an atrocious piece of trash.

My birthday is on Monday – leave a review as a present? Please? Favorites and follows are also lovely ^J^

Any form of constructive criticism is welcome. Even if you just say that you like/don't like the story, that would be marvelous!

~Kouhai