𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑ this side of paradise

Chapter 1

- Ask me why my heart's inside my throat

"stop crying, stop crying" he thought as warm tears fell from his eyes and ran down through his cheeks, "stop crying".

The tears reached his chin, and fell on his notebook, wetting the pages and the ink.

«Bondevik?» that word, his last name, sounded so far away. He felt like he was he was buried underground.
«Bondevik, have you done your homework?»

"Stop crying..."

Something was holding him from answering, and it wasn't only the tears or his classmates staring at him. Words just blocked in his throat. He couldn't speak even if he wanted to.

He heard some of his classmates chuckling: great, that moment was just another thing they could tease him about.

«Hedriksen, what's the answer for question number two?» the teacher sighed, turning around.

Emil raised his gaze and wiped quickly the tears with his sweater's sleeve. He slowly turned to one of the windows next to his desk.

It was raining.
He loved rainy mornings. It would've been better if he was snuggling in a blanket in front of a fireplace, with a cup of hot tea, and a cat he would've named Nava. Sadly they didn't have the money and time to maintain a cat.

The relaxing sound of the drops hitting the window almost calmed down the wild beating of his heart, but still it looked like it was going to explode.

Why was he so anxious? Why was he so awkward? When did it happen? Was it related to his parent's death?

The only thought of his parents made him go pale and sent a shiver down his spine. They were so sweet and kind; why did they have to die? What did they do?
If he could go back at that time, he would've tried to convince them it was better if they stayed home instead of going on a holiday in Sweden.
Maybe they could avoid that incident.
If so, Emil wouldn't have a stutter. He could've never stuttered in his life! Or maybe not like after the incident; the trauma that event gave him kind of 'damaged his brain and made him develop a speech disorder', or at least that was what his brother said.

He grabbed his propelling pencil and started doodling on the only piece of dry paper. He loved propelling pencils; he didn't have to temper them, and the lines were really smooth.
In that period, the most recurrent doodle someone could find in Emil's notebook was a duck on a skateboard.

He liked that doodle; it was easy to draw, and the idea of a duck skating was pretty funny to him.

His desk-mate shook him gently.

Emil turned to the girl, which looked at him concerned; she was his only friend, in all of the school. Well, he tried to make friends all the year before; nothing ever worked, and Emil started suspecting the girl was his friend just because she pitied him.

At the end he actually tried to be friends with a spider and some other bugs, and they still were better friends than any friend he had in his whole life.

«hey, Em...» she whispered leaning to him, «what's wrong? These days you're crying a lot...»

«everything's f- f- fine» he answered forcing a small smile, «no n- n- n- need to worry»

Damn that stutter, it made him feel pathetic.

«what was y- y- your name, again?»

«my...my name? Em, we've been knowing each other for years! How did you forget my name?»

«d–unno»

The blondie sighed, «I'm...»

«Zwingli, Bondevik, stop talking and pay attention»

~

A bunch of students, once again, was rushing out the school, as the last classes of the day came to an end.

Emil wasn't on of them; if there was something he hated more than his stutter, it was surely fast motion.

He grabbed his backpack, and as the classroom emptied he got out the school.
Luckily no bullies were in the corridors, just some teachers.
He got out, and turned right to get to his house.

The street he lived in wasn't that populated, most of the places were indeed stores and a library.

Shops like a souvenirs store, jewellery store, and the loveliest stationery store in the whole universe.
Emil used to go there and buy pens, highlighters and other cool stuff almost every day since he moved in that city. The owner knew him since he was a child, and Emil wasn't awkward at all there.
It was like a huge personality change.

Then Lukas, his older brother, would've scolded him for wasting money on stuff he already had, but Emil just shrugged it off every time.
He lived with Lukas and his boyfriend, Matthias, a loud and annoying dane, in a small apartment near thar stationery store.
He climbed the stairs to the entrance of the house, then grabbed the keys from his hoodie and opened the door.

«I'm b–ack»
Damn those Bs! He didn't know why, but every time he had to say a word starting with the letters b and d, he involuntarily prolonged it. Probably it was part of the Speech disorder starter pack, or how the hell Matthias called it.

As he walked in he found himself tangled in one of Matthias' famous bear hugs.

«Welcome back Emil!~» the man said enthusiastically.

«'Thias, let him breathe» he heard the voice of his brother, and the sound of the door shutting closed.

As instructed, the dane let Emil out of his grip, but he started pinching his cheeks.
He said Emil had the softest cheeks he ever pinched. The question arised spontaneously, how many cheeks did he pinch in his life?

«how was your day, lillebror?» Lukas asked, giving him the smallest smile ever, still huge for his standards.

«As e- e- every other d–ay» the younger replied, kinda gloomy.

A pause of silence.

«did...did anyone tease you again for your stutter?» Lukas broke the silence, in a kind of concerned expression. Or maybe it was Emil's imagination. Like, Lukas expressing his feelings? Just in a fever dream.

Emil started tearing up. Yes...it was true; why did they do, though?
Didn't they have anything better to do?

...~ pov switch

Why was his family so loud? And annoying? And numerous? And why did Yao feel the need to adopt all those siblings? Was he feeling THAT lonely?

Mei and Yao were arguing again.
It was nearly midnight and he couldn't sleep. Much contrary to his "twin" Yong Soo, who was somehow sound asleep.

Maybe he could text someone!

Nah, he was pretty sure nobody he knew was awake at that hour.

(Oh, was that Kiku shouting? How did they make him lose it? That was the hardest thing Leon ever attempted to do!
Good lord...)

Then an idea popped in his mind.
Maybe he could text a stranger, and he had the best website for that; bless Tik Tok.

Random number generator!

He grabbed his phone from under the pillow, opened google and searched up the website, and as he found it, tapped the icon saying "generate number".

+47 *** *** ****.