Hey everyone! I'm so very sorry for updating so late. I love this chapter it's so cute! Get ready for an emotional ride of feels in this chapter because there's a lot. I believe this is also were the love between Emil and Leon grows!
Sadik - 26
"Emil! Get out of bed! You have an interrogation session with Leon, remember?" Mathias' obnoxiously loud voice caused tremors in the now-half-asleep boy's brain, and he groaned.
"Shut up, I'd rather not go to work today."
"Bror, Mathias and I are taking the day off today." Lukas uncovered the blankets off his lillebror's body.
Taking the day off...Both of them...? Wait! Then this means that...!
Gross.
Emil's eyes shot open, and he quickly pulled on a wrinkled collared shirt. "Oh, look at the time! I have to work, and by the way, I don't think I'll be back home until late. Wait, maybe I'll stay over at Tino's! You two have fun doing whatever you're doing! In fact, go ahead and get a headstart on whatever you're doing! I'll be out of the door in two seconds! Bye now, bróðir!"
Before Emil had shut the door, he could see Mathias pocketing something in his pants, looking quite serious and nervous at the same time.
How strange...Mathias is never serious. That means that Lukas is actually going to have a great day for once.
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Leon was waiting for Emil when he entered the office.
"My princess woke up with the bed head today, how adorable," Leon drawled out, his eyes stuck on a cellphone screen.
Emil glared at Leon, bringing a hand to his hair. "Stop calling me that," he mumbled halfheartedly. "And plus, we can't stay here long. We're interrogating someone, remember?"
Leon pulled on a thick jacket. "Interrogating an 'old friend,' how can I forget?"
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"Come on in, it's been a while, Emil!"
Strange. The guy wore a mask himself to work. Coincidence?
"Thank you, Sadik. My coworker and I came here to ask you a few questions."
"Coworker? Questions? What's all this about?"
Is this guy trying to deny the truth?! We know the facts already!
Leon held his hand out. "Leon Wang, nice to meet you."
Sadik took his hand, shaking it. "Ah, Emil! I didn't know your boyfriend was a polite one!"
Emil's face instantly reddened, and he glowered at his old friend. "He is not my boyfriend!"
Leon examined the room around him, looking for any suspicious signs that Sadik may be the murderer.
"Interested in art, Mr. Wang?" Sadik smiled at the Asian who was now clearly immersed in the painting he was staring at.
Actually, not really.
Leon was trying to piece all the facts together before he asked the questions. He had the evidence, so all he needed to do was make the guy admit to his crime!
"Yes, well, this piece is really quite complex. As for the questions we will be asking, those will be simpler...in a way."
Sadik nodded. "Then ask away. I'm an open book, Mr. Wang."
Leon sat back in a white cushioned sofa. "Mr. Adnan, where were you yesterday between morning and noon?"
Sadik paced the room slowly. "I believe that...I was in my office, working on a new project my company will be displaying."
Emil sat on the couch directly across from Leon's. "Do you know if any of your coworkers were out that day? Were any of them absent?"
"Hmm...I don't really remember. I don't think we had anyone absent that day. However, we have attendance records of everyone in this building, so feel free to check those out if they'll help."
Leon nodded. "We will, thank you. You don't mind if we check out yesterday's attendance record, do you?"
"No, not at all! Check out anything you'd like!" Sadik took a peek at his watch. "I must be going now. I have a business meeting! It was nice meeting you Leon, and it was nice seeing you again, Emil!"
When he had left, Leon sunk further into the couch. "He's a more than average kind of liar."
Emil narrowed his eyes. "What?"
"When someone is being asked questions on the crimes he or she committed, they twist the truth a little bit to make it fit their cover up story. In this case, Sadik is a more than average liar because he used the truth to his advantage. However, there's something that he's hiding from us, I could even hear it in his voice. He's trying to hide something away from us."
"How do you know all of this?! You haven't even signed up for a job in the police force or anything!
"I watch a lot of crime shows. Plus, the things I watch in Jackie Chan movies are helpful. But mostly, it's common sense...and a little bit of not being stupid."
"You are stupid."
Leon held back a chuckle. So cute.
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Back in the office, Leon and Emil were meticulously going through attendance records.
"His alibi seems to have checked out. Sadik was in the building on the day of the 'robbery,' and only several people, all part of lesser staff, were out that day. Do you think he sent lesser staff out to rob the place?"
"Well, it wouldn't hurt his company to blame his lesser ranking staff, but I think that Sadik would use people that he knows and trusts. I think that the robbers were most likely in a higher up position."
Emil's eyes scanned the higher ranking position attendance records. "What do you mean? They were all here yesterday."
Leon's eyes glinted. "What I'm saying is that, maybe Sadik used people from his higher ranking positions, persuading them to rob the place and kidnap Tino. Maybe, his higher staff was there in the building yesterday, but they left early. Sadik would place a cover for them, something, like, let's say, a doctor's appointment, or a dentist's appointment. In other words, Sadik really is the mastermind behind the attack. My suspicions were correct."
Emil was speechless for a second, violet eyes shining in awe. "How...?"
Leon smiled genuinely for the first time in weeks. "Let's just say that it takes common sense and stupidity."
Again, Emil's facial expression was that of in awe, except now a light dusting of pale rose lit his cheeks in a crimson glow.
I didn't know that he could smile like that... It's...strange, but...I could get used to more expressions like that.
"Y-yeah...common sense and stupidity, I guess..."
Leon's smile grew, and he focused his eyes on the attendance papers again. "So do you agree with my theory, Officer?"
"It's a little farfetched, and we don't have much evidence. But...I guess that it could work for now." Emil leaned back in his seat. "And, it's just Emil now. I quit my job as a policeman."
This caught the Asian's attention. "You did? I thought you just worked part time for both. Why did you quit?"
Talk about bringing back bad memories...Again. Emil sighed. "It just...wasn't for me. I always felt this way about the job, but what really passed the line was what happened on the last assignment I took."
As Leon listened intently to the Icelander's story, he felt his heart clench like cold steel every time he described an attack on him. It made him feel strange, as if he wanted to jump right in front of Emil and become his own human shield or something.
"Ah, I should be going home now...even if Mathias and my brother are in the middle of whatever they're doing..."
Leon tried not to laugh at this. They remind me of Kiku and his Greek boyfriend... "Do you mind if I get a ride home as well? My Korean cousin drove me here since I don't have enough money to buy a car yet...And I don't really want him driving me home..."
"Sure, but it can't be as bad as an Italian's driving. The two brothers here, Lovino and Feliciano, they are by far the scariest drivers in this town. Possibly the entire world."
"Maybe. Yong Soo works at a nightclub, so most of the time, he's not drunk on alcohol, he's completely drunk on party vibes. Like, seriously, his driving is like Western food made by an English guy that works in Chinatown."
The rest of the time, even on the way back, both boys discussed how bad their family and coworkers were at the most random things, all the while laughing along to whatever story one had to share with the other.
"And I was forced to play the whole thing!"
"You're serious?!"
"Yeah, like, of course! Now whenever I pick up a manga with two guys on the front cover. I can't even read it! I had to burn a whole shelf of manga because of that game!" Leon didn't know why he was talking so animatedly, but it was a nice change, as long as he was talking to Emil.
And each word he spoke, Emil would listen intently, and would respond with the cutest bubbles of laughter, his eyes drifting to his for a second, lifting them from the road.
Before either of them knew it, they were just a block away from Leon's house.
"Turn a left here, and it's the middle house." Leon squinted his eyes towards the upstairs windows, seeing two shadowy figures. He opened the car door, flashing Emil another smile. "Thanks for the ride. I'll see you at work tomorrow?"
Emil nodded. "Yeah. It was nice getting to know a little bit more about the coworker I'm working with. I'll see you then." And then he drove away.
There goes one of the only people that has really seen under my mask.
Leon sighed and closed the front door behind him, slipping off his shoes tiredly. I'll have to work at the cafe tomorrow...Hopefully I can get the morning or late night shift...
"-talk to him, aru." Is that Yao?
"-to, it just doesn't work, Yao-san." Kiku? But I thought he only stayed for dinner last night.
The already quiet conversation faded even quieter, making it virtually impossible for Leon to hear.
"I'm tired." Leon slowly trudged upstairs, closing his door behind him as quietly as he could.
Were Yao and Kiku talking about him? Did they sense Leon's discomfort that easily? Strange. I thought I closed myself up pretty good. I have an excuse for everything they say...But were all my efforts useless? I still don't understand this burning sensation in my chest, I can't identify it.
Once Leon's head reached his pillow, though, his thoughts were pushed back into the farthest depths of his mind.
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When Emil returned home from dropping off Leon, he found the house in a neater state than he expected it to. This added on to his already pleased state of mind, and a small smile crept up the corners of his lips.
"Lukas? Mathias? I'm home..."
He heard someone padding down the halls, and Mathias emerged from the shadows. His hair was thoroughly mussed, not like his usual hairdo, but messed up as if he just got up from bed. "Welcome back, bro. How was your day?" He sounded gloomier than usual.
"It was...fine...I guess. What the hell is wrong with you, Mathias? Why aren't you all ridiculously happy today? You seemed pretty glum this morning, too." Not that Emil cared, of course.
"Eh, it's nothing to worry about, kid. And about this morning...well, I...it's nothing to blow up about."
Emil narrowed his eyes, and took out a piece of mackerel from the kitchen. He whistled lowly, and a small bird with a large orange beak and a pink bow tie flew out, quickly devouring the piece of fish. Emil whistled again, this time in a different pitch, and Mr. Puffin (Emil's special pet name for his bird) rested himself atop Mathias' mussed bedhead. A sharp peck released a yelp from Mathias, followed by a string of Danish curses.
"Dammit, Emil! What's up with you?! Don't send your after me! I didn't do anything wrong!"
"I don't believe that what you said just now is entirely true. As for ...if you don't tell me what's going on right now, you're going to be going to work with a very large bump on your head and a shower of puffin hickeys."
Emil grinned to himself. That should totally get him. Once I mentioned ruining his face, Mathias got really scared! Ha ha! I totally have this one in the bag!
"Fine, well...this morning, before Lukas woke up, I called off work for Norgie and I. Then, I took the ring box that my mother had to the jeweler's to get the ring I reserved and bought. When I went to get it, they said that the ring had been taken already! And then, when I came home, I may or may not have drank a pint or two, and then Luke got totally pissed at me afterwards and left!"
Emil raised an eyebrow. "Wait. Why exactly was my bróðir so upset over you drinking? You always drink beer." Mathias' drinking habit wasn't a surprise to the Nordic family. In fact, most of the time, Lukas was Mathias' sober drive-home partner when Mathias was too drunk to stand, much less drive.
"Well...it was kind of our anniversary today...and I was kind of going to propose to Nor today. So when Lukas saw me drop-dead-drunk today of all days, I guess he kinda lost it. I wouldn't have gotten myself drunk if that ring was in my ring box! But no, I had to get all upset because that stupid jewelry store sold that ring to someone else already."
Emil's eyes widened. "Wait a second..." Mathias was the only person that the ring was reserved and bought by. That means that the ring was put under Mathias' name. Only Mathias could've received it, so why was the ring already gone with he tried to retrieve it? Emil inwardly groaned. He was starting to sound like a certain Asian co-worker.
"Hey, Ice. You all right there?" Mathias clapped a hand on his shoulder.
"Yeah...yeah, I'm fine." Someone took the ring, even though Mathias' name was already tagged onto it. What kind of jewelry store would hand off reserved pieces of jewelry to another buyer? Something doesn't match up. A jewelry store like this one wouldn't just hand away any ring that simply.
"I'm going to call it a night. Goodnight, Mathias. Don't drink too much tonight."
The Dane laughed. "Ha, I was going to do the same thing. I've already drank enough."
These pieces don't fit right into the puzzle! Mathias ordered that ring himself. The real question is...Who took the ring, and how did they do it?
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Emil woke up to the blaring sound of his alarm clock, which was strange for him. Usually, the annoyingly loud voice of Mathias would drag the Icelandic out of bed, but today, no, today was strangely different.
"Lukas? Mathias?" He padded through the hallway connecting his bedroom with the kitchen, and found a paper note taped to the table.
Lillebror,
Anko and I went to work early today. Eat breakfast. Meet us at work.
Bye.
Big Bror.
Emil groaned. "Bror's such a pain in the ass... Why did he go to work early? And with Mathias of all people?"
After breakfast, and a fairly short ride to the police station, Emil was greeted with a karate chop to his head.
"Ow! What the hell was that for?"
"Princess Emil, your presence is requested by Lukas Bondevik in the police headquarters."
What the hell?
When Emil had entered the police headquarters area, a crowd of policemen were clustered in the middle of the room, and it was eerily quiet.
"Emil, is that you?" Lukas almost never called him by his name...unless there was something serious going on.
"Yeah. Something going on, Lukas?" He pushed through the crowd of policemen to find his brother keeping a tight grip on Mathias' tie.
"Why don't you have a seat? And also, all of you other men, you can take a seat and pretend to be working on whatever you're supposed to be doing now." He let go of Mathias' tie.
The Dane began to cough and wheeze, loosening his tie some. "...Geez Nor...Why'd ya have to do that for? I could've easily come over to your desk...ACK!...it's not that hard to...CUH!...to walk a couple feet!"
"I did what I did because it was fun, and it was also punishment for yesterday." Lukas pulled a frown.
"...Sorry...Norge...but-but I can explain! You see, I was going to get you something very special from the jewelry store, and it just so happened that someone took it! It was robbed right from under my nose!"
Lukas smirked. "And that special something, Dane, would it so happen to be something dark blue and silver?"
It took a while for Mathias to figure out what colors his "special something" was. "Uh, y-yeah, I think so. Why?"
Lukas shoved Mathias down to floor roughly, leaving a very confused and frustrated Danish man. "Anko, you're a lazy and stupid idiot, Anko. You drink too much, and you're always too loud. You're a pain in the ass to deal with, and I don't even know why I go through all the trouble to put up with you."
Is Lukas...breaking up with Mathias? But it's been a couple of years already! He's put up with him for so long, why break up with him now? This doesn't make sense!
Wait. Lukas mentioned something about the ring...the color of it?
Emil jumped as someone pulled his body back. "What the heck?! Get off of me! Who are you?!"
"Chill it, Snow White. It's just me. So, did you solve it yet?"
Emil raised an eyebrow. "Solve...what?"
Leon smirked. "Well, like, the mystery behind Mathias' ring of course."
"How'd you find out about that?"
A rather chipper policeman spoke up.
"The loudmouth told everyone in headquarters. Even filed a police report about it!"
Emil sighed. "Well, that's probably why everyone is crowding around them."
The two went back to focusing their attention on Lukas, who had spent the time explaining everything that Mathias did wrong with his life.
"-and you're way too loud when you snore. You're way too dense, too, you thick-headed idiot. But..." Lukas blushed and directed his firm gaze at a very confused and worried Mathias. "...but despite all your stupid decisions and dumb habits, I've persevered through it. We've persevered through it. I know I haven't made good choices myself, and I know I've dragged you into a lot of my selfish decisions..." Mathias shook his head, pulling Lukas down into his lap.
"No, no, no! Luke, you've always made the right decisions! You're the best thing to happen to me since I've been born! Whatever we've done, we've done together, ja?"
"...I know, I know. I'm just...Thank you, Mathias."
"What're you trying to say, Nor?"
Mathias is an idiot sometimes. A very dense idiot.
"Um...What I've been trying to say this whole time is...We've made mistakes, but I'd like to make mistakes together. I want you to be with me for the rest of my life. I don't want to be lonely, I don't want to just lie awake and think of you, stupid Dane, you...me...us...yearning for a chance like this to come around. I want to wake up with you, I want to sleep by your side, I want to argue with you, not at you. And to do this...I have to ask you something."
This is the most he's said in quite a while.
Mathias' eyes shined with unshed tears. "I...finally understand, Lukas. I know what you're trying to ask. I-I've been trying to ask you that for the past month now. But once someone took the ring from under me, I couldn't ask you. I spent so much time working up the nerve to ask you this Lukas, and now I-"
Lukas pulled out a sparkling piece of jewelry from his pant pocket. "You mean...this ring?"
Mathias and Emil's eyes bugged out from their head, jaws dropping as low as they could. "NORGE?!" "BRÓÐIR?!"
Lukas gave Mathias a smile. "I sort of found the catalog you were looking at, Anko. And...when I saw the ring you circled, and I saw the date you were going to pick it up on, I kind of took it on my own..."
Mathias, jaw still unhinged from his mouth, grinned the biggest grin on the planet. "I'm so...dammit Lukas..." Tears began to pour down his face. "Can I...Can I ask you now, Norge? Are you okay if I ask you?"
Lukas nodded, the biggest smile Lukas had formed in his entire life planted on his face (and dang, did it look hot on that Norwegian face!). "Go ahead, Mathias. I'm here."
The Dane took a shaky breath. "Ever since I saw you in the courtroom, I knew that you'd be forever planted in my mind. What started as a simple attraction grew into a tangled...thing, that I knew I couldn't live without. Lukas, you're everything to me. I'm a selfish and loud jerk, but you keep me on my feet. I want to travel everywhere with you, whether it be back to Denmark or maybe to your home in Norway, I want to go everywhere, see everything with you. I'd spend everyday of my life with you, and that's why I'm going to ask you an important question." He took the ring from Lukas' palm and propped himself up on one knee. "Lukas Bondevik, will you marry me?"
Lukas nodded, a small light in his eyes that Emil couldn't identify. "Yes, Mathias. I will."
Mathias jumped up to his feet and swung his fiancée around in circles, kissing his lips repetitively. The whole police office cheered loudly, and Emil looked away, not sure whether to feel elated or disgusted at what he just saw.
"Congrats, Emil. Your brother's stuck with an obnoxious ball and chain." Leon patted Emil on the back.
The Icelandic grumbled. "I'm stuck with it everyday...This just makes it more permanent."
Leon forced himself not to laugh. "Well, now that that's out of the way, I found something intriguing about our case."
Before Emil could leave, Lukas tapped him on the shoulder lightly. "Do you see why Mathias and I decided to go to work early, Bror?"
Emil wrinkled his nose in disgust as Mathias practically carried his older brother over his shoulder. "Yeah, and it's totally gross. I won't be able to get any sleep tonight!"
Emil thought heard Leon snicker next to him. Emil groaned. "Whatever, let's just get on with this case."