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Exactly 2:30 a.m. The loudest, most annoying alarm clock rang. It wasn't his though, but his neighbour's. Loud enough to wake him up every night.
Cor sighed tiredly as he threw a pillow over his face and ears to drown the nerve wracking sound out. It didn't work. The alarm rang for five whole minutes until it was finally silenced.
Who in the world would wake up at a time like this? And why? Actually, Cor knew who. His neighbour that had settled in next to his apartment six months ago.
A young man from the far away country of Niflheim. Ever since it's environment was polluted beyond repair by their industries and labs, it became mostly uninhabitable.
Cor never had a problem with any of the Niflheimians, until that man next door moved in. First of all, he was rude. Cor always greeted him when they met outside their apartments on the floor. The closest to a greeting back was a grunting sound from the blond man.
But the worst thing was still that way too loud, too early alarm in the middle of the night. And if he had to set it that early, why let it ring for about five to ten minutes every time?
Cor rolled on to the side in his bed, enjoying the silence once again. Did that guy do that just to mock him, maybe? Did Cor do anything to make the Nif angry? It was time to finally confront him. Later, he thought, after a few more hours of sleep.
---
Loqi left his apartment at 3:00 a.m. All he did was to take a quick shower. It was too early for breakfast. He never returned home before 8:00 p.m. This time, his neighbour was waiting in front of his apartment door.
Loqi raised an eyebrow. He was tired, like, damn fricking tired. All he wanted was to get home, eat a quick dinner, and flop into his bed.
"Is there a reason why you're blocking my door?" Loqi asked, his voice sounded strained and quite annoyed.
Cor moved a few steps towards the other man. He ran a hand through his short, dark hair. "Listen, Mister.." - Cor side-glanced at the nameplate next to Loqi's door. - "Tummelt. I have a feeling you don't like me."
Loqi's eyebrow raised even higher. "I certainly hate living here in this country, in this city.. but why the heck should I hate you? Never even talked to you before."
"Right, even though I greet you every time we meet. You don't even look my way, nor reply." Cor sighed out a tad more aggressive than he meant it to be.
There was a silence that lingered for a few seconds. "You do?" Loqi's cheeks turned a little pink. That was damn embarrassing. This whole situation was so damn embarrassing, a part of him wanted to run down the stairs and hide in the basement.
"Fuuuuuck.." Loqi breathed out the word, dragging it longer. Cor stared at him in confusion. What was going on now? Did that mean the Nif didn't notice?
"If you don't stand directly in front of me while talking, I won't hear you." Loqi hated to admit it, but ever since an incident back in Niflheim, he had troubles with his hearing. He didn’t hear anything at first, then it got at least a little better.
Cor started to puzzle it together. The reason Loqi never reacted to him, was because Cor stood about a meter or two away from him when they met, and Loqi wasn't facing in his direction. The reason for the loud alarm must be the same, he wouldn't hear it otherwise.
"I see. I'm sorry, then." Cor smiled at him now. "I didn't mean to accuse you of anything." With a small sigh, Loqi waved it off. "You didn't know. Anything else?" It still seemed like there was something his neighbour wanted to say.
"Right...I get why your alarm is that loud now, but.. why so damn early? You know, you wake me up every time. At half three in the night, your alarm goes off and you won't shut it until minutes later. Do you need so much time until you hear it?"
"I set it so early because I have to leave at 3:00 a.m., and yes, it's loud so I hear it. And no, I hear the alarm, but I need so long to actually wake up. More questions?" Loqi yawned, sucking in a lot of air while doing so. He remembered how damn tired he was and wanted to end the conversation.
Cor caught on to why Loqi tried to keep that conversation short. It was clear as day that when Loqi woke up early every day, then returned home just now, he probably didn't get much sleep. The Nif looked really tired. His skin seemed paler than it should be, rather unhealthy, and there were quite dark circles under his eyes.
"You must be tired. Is there a day where you have a little more time?" Somehow, Cor didn't want to stop talking to the younger man, but since the other was so sleepy, he didn't want to keep him from his well-deserved sleep either.
"First you think I hate you, now you're asking for what - a date?" Loqi couldn't contain a chuckle. "Sundays. Afternoon, though." It was weird, without thinking about it, he’d just agreed to it. Maybe it was because talking to this man felt good? refreshing? He wasn’t sure.
Cor didn’t really think of it as a date before Loqi mentioned it. Now he felt a little shy about asking, but still felt glad he was given an answer. “Well, if you want to call it that way..” Cor smiled softly. “Alright. How about you just ring at my door this sunday? I’ll be home the whole day.”
“Sure..” Loqi couldn’t stop another yawn. “Mhh..I’ll try to stop the alarm a little faster tomorrow..” he muttered. He never thought about how it may disturb his neighbour. Loqi just couldn’t bring himself to get up and move his arm towards the alarm clock right away, he struggled a lot with that. If his sleep would be better, that might not be such a problem.
“That would be so kind of you.” With a gentle expression, Cor wished him a good night. Loqi fumbled with his keys as he opened his apartment door. Without putting much thought into it, he signed ‘Thank you’ to Cor before he entered and closed the door behind him. What he didn’t know was, that Cor could understand it.
Loqi didn’t care about dinner anymore. He changed, cleaned himself, and fell right into his bed. Even though he had to ditch his sparse free time and dinner, he didn’t feel like he wasted time. It was a strange feeling. Cor was the first person he really, actually talked to after coming here. After feeling kind of left out in this world, it was an unknown yet valuable sensation.
---
The next two days, Loqi kept his promise and actually managed to shut the alarm off a few seconds or a minute after it started ringing. Still, somehow, Cor couldn’t fall back to sleep right away. He tended to just slightly drift off until he heard Loqi’s door open and close half an hour later. Unconsciously, Cor wanted to check if he really managed to get up.
On sunday, the bell to Cor’s apartment rang about four in the afternoon. When he opened the door, Loqi stood there, with a plate full of different pieces of cake and pastries. “Oh, you didn’t have to bring something.” Cor took the plate from his guest, so Loqi could get rid of his shoes right at the entrance.
“These were leftovers.” Loqi mentioned while putting his shoes neatly away. He followed Cor into the living room. While Cor put the plate on the small table, he motioned for Loqi to have a seat on the couch.
“Leftovers? So you work in a bakery?” He asked, a little surprised. Loqi didn’t seem to be the type of person to work in a bakery. Cor imagined him working in a lab or anything more in the scientific fields. He could see Loqi roll his eyes at him, which made him even more confused.
“It’s only a part-time job and only for now. Thank your Lucian regulations of not accepting Niflheimian degrees or qualifications because you think your educational system is way better and different.” Loqi spat that out with quite the harsh undertone, but he couldn’t stop himself.
“Oh.” Cor was baffled. He didn’t know about that, but now that he knew, he found it was pretty stupid, too. Didn’t that make things only harder for the Nifs that tried to settle in here? “Then what’s your profession?”
“I’m an engineer. I have to take these stupid classes in the afternoon until I get some ‘oh so important’ certification that I am, in fact, a qualified engineer. Isn’t that great?” Loqi’s frustration went a bit overboard and he just snatched a pastry from the plate to bite into it with lots of enthusiasm. Stupid classes, stupid Lucian regulations.
While Cor finally settled down next to his guest, he thought about how classes must be hard for Loqi. “Do they know about your hearing problems? I mean, is it hard for you to follow the classes like that?”
The blond still munched on the pastry in his hand. “Eh. Not really. As long as they write it down somewhere, and I can copy that, it’s no problem.” The problems with his hearing were rather on the social side. Most people didn’t talk to him because they either didn’t know and thought Loqi was ignoring them, similar to what Cor thought at first. Or they knew, but thought it was too much a hassle to talk loud and clearly or repeat words if needed.
They kept discussing on that matter and others as well. Loqi brought a lot of insight to what it meant to be an immigrant from another country and how hard it was to actually live in Lucis, especially in Insomnia.
Cor admitted that he actually was the head of the Crownsguard, the ones protecting Insomnia and the Citadel. He told Loqi some small bits about his job. “Ever since a lot of Nifs started to immigrate to Insomnia, we’ve experienced an increase of violence.”
It wasn’t like the violence was only one-sided. It seemed that some Lucians clashed with the Niflheimians for obviously xenophobic, racist reasons. That was already bad enough on it’s own, but some Nifs had also gotten aggressive these past days. Cor could only guess that the most logical reason was sheer frustration.
The way they were treated truly wasn’t very welcoming, and now that Cor knew their well earned qualifications were worth nothing unless they took extra classes for half a year, didn’t really make things better. Loqi had to work from early in the morning till early in the afternoon to be able to make a living and still take classes in the late afternoons. Not everyone was probably lucky enough to find a job or take the classes.
Even if Loqi tried to hide it, Cor could see a little hint of sadness in his eyes. Cor thought it was completely understandable. Loqi was forced to leave his country. It wasn’t particularly his fault that their tap water had gotten so poisonous or their cities were full of smog. He was forced to find a job that he could do because his degree was not accepted, and a lot of people here treated him and his folks like they were some kind of alien race.
“Can I ask you something else?” Cor continued, and when Loqi nodded, he tried asking in the most careful way he could think of. “About your hearing. Has it been like this since birth?” Loqi’s reaction made Cor rethink his question as soon as he’d spelled it out. The blond visibly shrunk together, even though Loqi was already quite small.
The Nif needed a few long seconds to answer. “No..” Loqi breathed out the word. Then he inhaled and exhaled slowly. “There was an accident back in Niflheim. An explosion where I was working in. It was so loud, everything was drowned out. Couldn’t hear anything for months, the doctors said it wouldn’t get better than the way it is now.”
The whole incident was something that Loqi hated to remember. The shock, the pain, the ringing in his ears before he stopped hearing anything at all. He learned sign language back then to be able to communicate at all.
“I see, I’m sorry.” Cor truly was sorry, for what Loqi had to experience.Loqi didn’t even mention everything of the story. He left out the parts where he saw one of his colleagues die in the explosion. The memories that he tried hard to forget, but still robbed him a lot of already sparse sleep.
They kept talking for a few more hours, completely forgetting the time until Cor asked if Loqi didn’t have to get up early the next day. Loqi was shocked when he looked at the time. Of course he had to get up early. It never happened to him before to just forget the time. To talk to someone for so long and forget the damn time!
Cor calmly wished him a good night when Loqi rushed out and over to his apartment. It truly was strange, though. Cor hadn’t thought he would ever sit in his living room, eating cake and talking for hours with his Nif neighbour. He did learn a lot today, about things that should still be addressed and needed improvement.
---
Cor had gotten used to the early alarm of his neighbour by now, and it didn’t bother him anymore. Their sunday afternoon meetups became a regular thing. They talked, ate together, and both complained about little things. Work, lack of sleep, people acting stupid - that was mostly on Loqi’s part. But Cor liked to listen.
Strangely enough, Loqi’s hate for his new home had somehow subsided, even if it didn’t fade away completely. Maybe the reason was a certain neighbour? He wouldn’t admit it himself, and whenever Cor crossed his mind, he tried hard to get him out there again. Still, he had only one month left until he accomplished his certification and Loqi had to confess that, in fact, he was glad it meant to have a little more time.
Time that he could spent with a person that talked with him, loud and clear, and always listened to him in return.