Chapter Text
April 2018
Saturday
“Have you seen my maroon hoodie?
Hello?
Isak?”
What is it now?
Isak’s head sprang up from his pillow after he heard his roommates voice, pulling him out of his sleep.
“Hva faen, Even? Hva vil du?” Isak asked then slammed his head back into his blue pillow.
Why does EVERYONE have to bother him when he’s finally able to get some sleep?
“Have you seen my maroon hoodie?” Even asks again.
“Nei, jeg har ikke,” Isak says and rolls under his striped blanket to face away from the light coming into the room from the door that Even is keeping open.
“Isak, it’s almost 15. You need to get up,” Even said.
“Jesus, you sound like Eskild. Faen, can you please close the door it’s so bright!”
“You’re a vampire,” Even chuckled before stepping into Isak’s room and closing his door behind him. He walked over to the bed and laid down next to where Isak was lying. Isak rolled back around in the bed and faced Even.
“Are you going out?” Isak asks.
“Ja. Sonja asked me to lunch with her parents,” Even says as he begins carding his fingers through Isak’s golden waves.
Oh, Sonja...
“How is she doing?”
He doesn’t care.
“I haven’t seen her in a while.”
He’s not so secretly glad he hasn’t seen his roommate’s girlfriend in a solid two weeks.
“She’s good. Stressed though.”
“Aren’t we all?” Isak can only imagine the bright smile Even has plastered on his face as he laughs at Isak’s comment. His eyes are still closed and all he wants is to fall back asleep.
Even takes his hand away from Isak’s hand and starts using his long fingers to trace his facial features. His first finger runs down his eyebrow, fixing the hairs that were pushed around during his sleep. His thumb drags along his cheekbone then skips over his lips and down to his chin which then drags down along his jawline.
He loves this.
“I should probably go,” Even states.
Please no.
“Can you wait for me to fall asleep again?” Isak asks.
“Of course,” he says then starts back again at Isak’s eyebrows.
Thank you.
“Thank you.”
Isak then cuddles closer to Even, resting his head against Even’s chest. He takes a large inhale, his nose filling with Even’s sent that Isak can’t help but love.
Isak has been living with Even (along with Eskild and Linn) for about two years now. He moved in at the end of his first year of high school when he was only sixteen; running into Eskild at a gay bar while drunk off his ass in the middle of the night.
When Eskild offered Isak a place to stay for the night, he couldn’t refuse. He was brought back to the basement of Eskild’s apartment. To his drunken surprise, there was already another person staying in his basement. Of course, Isak thought this was a little weird.
Did this guy just bring drunk lonely teenagers to their basements in the promise of shelter?
He found out the next day that he and the other boy in the basement were lucky enough to stumble across Eskild; and that the other boy’s name is Even. They wouldn’t know where they’d be today if they had never met the red-haired man those fateful nights.
When Even finally noticed that Isak’s breathing had slowed down and his face was soft, he slowly got out of Isak’s embrace and left his room; quietly closing the door.
“Even! Hei!” he heard Eskild say as he walked by the doorway to the kitchen.
“Hei, Eskild. What’s up?” Even asked while walking over to the small table they had in their shared kitchen. On top of the table was the maroon hoodie he had woken Isak up looking for.
Usually, when he couldn’t find a piece of clothing he assumed that Isak must have it.
“Linn and I are trying to find a movie to watch in her room and I was getting us some snacks,” he explained.
“Fett,” Even said plainly.
“Going out?” Eskild asks.
“I’m going for a late lunch with Sonja.”
“Oh, Sonja,” Eskild said and turned his back to Even, opening the cabinet and rummaging through it looking for something for him and Linn.
“Yes... Sonja,” Even said, his voice slightly higher in a questioning tone. “Well, I’ll see you later. Have fun with Linn,” he said and turned the corner out of the doorway. “Oh! Also, can you please make sure Isak gets up some time today and eats something?” Even requested.
“Of course, Baby Giraffe,” Eskild says and winks at him.
“Takk. Ha det, Eskild.”
“Ha det!” Even heard Eskild yell back as he closed the apartment door behind him.
-
When Isak woke up he half expected Even to still be there lying there next to him. He let out a sigh of disappointment when he saw the other side of his bed, empty.
Disappointed but not surprised
His stomach growled loudly as the realization that he hadn’t eaten yet that day sunk in. He slid out of his warm cocoon of a bed and slipped on a gray hoodie he found on the floor. He exited his room and made his way over to the kitchen to grab some food.
When he got into the kitchen he scanned the room to see if there were any easy snacks just sitting on the counter ready for him to grab and take back into the room. His eyes landed on a bowl of small noodles sitting on the counter; plastic wrap covering the top along with a small yellow post-it note on top.
He walked over to the counter and picked the square note up and read the small message.
Isak,
Take the plastic off and microwave for a minute with a paper towel covering the top and enjoy.
Xoxo
-Eskild
He smiled to himself, silently thankful for Eskild’s kindness. He did as the note said and microwaved the small bowl of pasta then brought it back to his room. He snuggles up back in his still warm bed and turned Netflix on his TV and turned on a random episode of Family Guy.
He pulled his phone out and typed a small message. After he hit send he pulled the bowl onto his lap and got comfortable and ate his dinner.
Isak: thanks for the food <3
Eskild: anything for you, angel <33333
-
Monday
His eyes slowly shutting, him no longer being able to keep them open. His face smooshes harder into his left hand propped up on his elbow. The teacher’s voice echoing in his head, barely comprehending whatever she was talking about today.
“Isak Valtersen, I swear to god if you don’t listen to me I will pour this entire bottle of water on your head,” he hears before Sana snaps her fingers in his face.
“Hva faen, Sana!” Isak says, pushing her fingers out of his face. He then looks up towards the front of the classroom where their teacher is standing and is no longer talking. On the board, he sees their new assignment that Sana was obviously trying to get him to start working on with her.
“Did you even hear anything she just said?” she asks, clearly expecting a disappointing answer.
“Not a word,” Isak says. He looks down at the notes he had taken that day. The only thing written on his paper was the date and the name of the subject that the rest of his class had managed to actually write on their notebooks.
“What would you do without me, Issy?” Sana asks as she hands him her notebook. Every line of the page filled, color coordinated, perfectly organized. Isak then took his pen and copied her notes onto his empty page.
“I’d probably still be in my second year,” Isak jokes. “I don’t deserve you, Sana.”
“And don’t you forget it,” she says with a serious face. They look at each other for a few seconds completely poker-faced before they both break out into smiles and continue what they were doing.
Once their class period is finished, Isak is finishing copying the last few notes and Sana is bubbling in the last question.
“So I did our work today, so you owe me,” she stated as a matter of fact.
“I owe you everything,” Isak laughs.
“Yeah, yeah. See you tomorrow, Issy,” she said and waves before taking her leave.
Isak packs all his books in his bag and pulls on his jacket while also taking his phone out that started vibrating with a single notification.
Even (kollektivet): you have lunch now?
Isak: ja
Even (kollektivet): KB in ten? :))
Isak: see you there
-
Isak arrived at the Kaffebrenneriet about twelve minutes later. The line wasn’t too long, only three people standing there. He could see Even’s blond hair above the head of the person he was currently serving. Isak smiled to himself and then stepped in line.
A few minutes later, the person in front of him stepped away to wait for their drink. Isak stepped forward and Even still hadn’t noticed that it was his best friend standing in front of him.
“Hold on a minute, sorry,” he said, his eyebrows scrunched together as he pressed random buttons on the cashier screen in front of him.
“Jesus! This service is fucking horrible! I hope you enjoy your one-star review on Yelp,” Isak said in a disgusted tone. Even’s head snapped up when he heard Isak’s words.
His face brightened and his mouth widened into a giant smile that made Isak smile as well.
Fuck, he’s so pretty
“Hey, you. Black coffee I presume?” Even asks.
“Nei, not today. Can I have a green tea?”
“Wow, changing it up. I like this new crazy Isak. He’s wild,” Even jokes as he writes Isak’s order on his cup.
“So wild,” Isak smiled. “Want to know what wild Isak did this morning?” Isak asked and placed both hands on the counter.
“What’s that?” Even asked and mirrored his movements.
“I left all the lights in the Kollektivet on, and I don’t even feel bad about it.”
“Wow, so crazy,” Even said and smiled.
-
Fifteen minutes later, Isak is walking back to school with his stomach filled all thanks to his best friend. His mind wonders as he walks. He wonders about how these next two months are going to go. His last two months of high school. Two months until he’s 19.
He then wonders about how his social life will play out. Will he go to uni with his friends? Are they all going to split up after this summer?
Of course, he hopes for the best. That all their friends get into their dream schools (preferably still in this country) and they continue to grow up together.
Maybe he just thinks he’s not ready to come out to another friend group. Only the boys know about him. And of course Sana, but Isak is sure she knew long before he told her.
The first person he came out to was Eskild though. He couldn’t exactly help it considering the location in which Eskild found Isak. Even was next. The day after Eskild had found him, Isak woke up to the large blond boy leaning against one of the walls in their shared basement space reading a small book.
They had talked for hours, both of them coming out to each other.
Isak continued on his day as normal. Both his and Jonas’ classes ended at 15:30 so they met at the end of the day.
“Kebabs?” Jonas asked.
“Of course,” Isak smiled back.
The two teenagers walked down the streets of Oslo to get their normal after-school snack. After they got their food, they made their way back to Isak’s place to play FIFA and probably smoke a little.
“So, what’s the news on Eva?” Isak asks.
“The news is I think it’s over for good,” Jonas says.
“Damn, really? What happened?”
“Your roommate happened,” Jonas said and Isak’s eyebrows sewed together.
What did Even do?
“My roommate?”
“Ja. Noora.”
“Oh, Noora! I thought you meant Even, hva faen,” he laughs.
“Nei. We all know Even wouldn’t make a move on Eva. Let alone anyone besides you,” Jonas says and laughs it off.
“What?” Isak asks.
“What?” Jonas says back.
“What do you mean “anyone besides me”?” Isak asks.
“I just mean,” he thinks for a few seconds. “When you told me you like boys, I thought that meant in like a week you’d come back to me and say that Even was finally your boyfriend. Or at least that you like him or something. But then months passed and nothing happened.”
“Seriously? You thought that me and Even were a thing?”
Before Jonas could answer him, there was a soft knock on his door. Isak told whoever it was to come in. Moments later, Even’s large hair was peeking around the door and he greeted both of the younger boys.
Isak hoped Even couldn’t hear his heart pounding in his chest, overthinking whether or not what he said right before Even knocked on his door was loud enough to hear from the hallway.
The last thing Isak wished for is for Even to find out that he’s been thinking of him in a way any other than friendship. This is the one friendship he hadn’t managed to fuck up in the past and he hopes he never will in the future.