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Tord was an average teenager. He had a job at a disgusting fast food place called Biggie’s Burgers, he got mostly A’s and B’s in all his classes, he liked to draw, he watched porn. He was just like most of the people in his grade. The only difference was, because he’d come from Norway only a year ago, he didn’t know a whole lot of English. He knew enough to get by a conversation, but his English was always broken. His mother didn’t know a lot of English either, so she got him a tutor, someone who could help him learn. Her name was Alice J. Halo, a ginger girl with tanned caucasian skin, and freckles along her cheeks and shoulders. She was about 23 years old, just out of college, lived in a rich family, a very large rich family. With many siblings, she’d sometimes share with Tord photos from visits to her parent’s house during her lunch breaks.
Four brothers, two of which Tord had yet to see for himself. Three sisters, most very young, one two years younger than Tord. And a single nonbinary sibling, who’s chosen name was Dillan.
Most of them were gingers, like Alice, though some were blond, like Alice’s mum. Tord liked learning about them.
As Tord sat in his room, picking through his teeth as if there wasn’t floss right next to his bed, his mother called for him. He stumbles tiredly into the living room, noticing Alice standing in the doorway. He goes towards her, confused.
“Hi, Tord!” Alice bends down to be at eye level with the teen. Tord was 5’11 and still growing, but Alice and her family had some weird tall genes that made them the height of basketball players, so she had him beat height-wise. Alice was probably 6’5, as far as Tord could tell.
“Hi, Alice..” Tord’s voice is a whisper. Though he liked and was used to Alice, he still felt a little awkward. Maybe it was his bad English, making him scared to speak full sentences. Alice straightens up, looking down at Tord still.
“I have some exciting news about today’s tutoring!” Alice kept her excited tone, as if she were talking to a small child. Tord curves his lips in a small, unnoticeable smile, chuckling a little. To some, the tone was demeaning. To Tord, it was funny. He liked thinking about how adults saw him. Teachers saw him as a genius, the next Jimmy Neutron, his mum saw him as a growing boy with “hormones”, and his tutor saw him as an eleven-year-old.
“What?” Tord asks.
“Well, there’s good news and bad news. The bad news is, I had to sell my home/office and can’t tutor you there anymore...”
“You can’t not tutor? But..” Tord’s broken English shows in his distress. He panics a bit. He wouldn’t be able to warm up to any other people, Alice was the perfect teacher, the perfect “friend” (of sorts).
“Oh, nono, don’t worry! I’ll still tutor you!” Tord calms down at these words, allowing her to continue, “I just meant I’ll have to tutor you somewhere else! And the good news is that place is my parent’s house! You’ll get to meet all my siblings!” Tord backs up a bit, going behind his mum.
“B-but...”
“You don’t have to talk to them, they won’t bother us, but it’ll be nice to see them in real life rather than just a photo, right?” Alice smiles warmly at Tord, who calms down yet again, giving her a nervous nod. Alice gestures for Tord to follow her. “C’mon, your mother said I could drive you there.”
With that, Tord is sitting in the passenger seat of a pine-scented car, looking out the window and wondering about Alice’s siblings.
“Are they nice?” Tord asks, referring to the aforementioned siblings.
“Most of them.”
That makes Tord gulp.
“Any around my age?” Tord awaits an answer, cleaning the inside of his nails.
“No girls, but there are three boys around your age.”
“Names? How old?”
“There’s Rodrick, he’s 17. Derik, who’s 15. And Matt, who’s 16.” Alice pauses at a stoplight.
“Matt?” Tord doesn’t recognize the name.
“He’s one of the brothers I haven’t got recent pictures of, along with the much younger James, who’s 6 as of now.” Alice turns to the right.
“Oh... so Matt old as me?”
“Yeah, he’s your age, but he’s turning 17 in a month.” Alice makes a few more turns, leaving the car silent as the conversation falls flat. Tord is too busy thinking about who Matt is, what he looks like, to give a reply. He plays with his seatbelt the rest of the ride, looking down at his knees.
After 15 minutes or so pass, Alice parks the car in the driveway of a house that’s almost like a mansion, getting out and waiting for Tord. Tord realizes he’s never seen a rich person’s house before, looking at the fancy gate and the fancy roof. He stares at the fancy garden as he walks on the fancy stones leading to the fancy porch. He stands silently behind Alice as she rings the fancy doorbell, and walks in with her after the fancy door is opened by the fancy butler. His jaw drops from the beauty of the house, the look of comfortableness that everything has. Alice smiles a bit seeing Tord so enamoured by this environment, leading him over to a room he guessed was where she was going to tutor him. What he didn’t expect when she opened the door was a bright orange-haired lad in lavender pants. He turns around at the sound of the door opening and gasps, running into his humongous closet to put on something more appropriate for a guest visit.
“Oh, I also should have mentioned that we’ll be using Matt’s room since my parents turned my old room into the room for the new baby, Lily.” Alice says casually before the teenage boy she was referring to walks out of his closet in a black shirt and baggy trousers. “So, Tord, say hi to Matt!” Alice holds out her hands towards Matt, who rolls his eyes, blushing from embarrassment.
“You could have at least knocked!” Matt whines. Throughout all of this, Tord is staring quietly at his feet, only looking up occasionally to get a glimpse of whoever’s talking. Matt turns his attention to the socially inept kid beside his sister. “Is this Tord? He’s cuter than you said he was..”
“Don’t go trying to flirt with him while I’m tutoring. He probably won’t even understand what you’re saying anyway.” Alice teases. Tord had to admit, he didn’t even understand a lot of this conversation, but the comment Matt made, he understood enough to grow a small blush over his cheeks.
“Hi, Matt... Yes, I am Tord. I am happy to meet you. You look cute, so.” Tord messes up a bit, but that’s fine. Matt understands him enough.
“Tord, it’s “too” not “so”. Learn to flirt, mkay?” Alice corrects, patting Tord’s shoulder. Tord looks at her, blushing slightly.
“O-oh... ok...” Tord looks down, trying to ignore the heat on his cheeks.
Within half an hour, Tord and Alice are working on contractions, an enemy of Tord’s. It’s hard for the Norwegian to understand using those words, what words could be put together to make a contraction, and what words couldn’t. It was easier for Tord to just say the two words separately, as he did in his native language. Matt, for the most part, stayed out of their conversations, playing video games, or reading a book. When he did interact with one of them, he was usually explaining English grammar to Tord in a simple way, or telling Tord about different slang terms he could use. Tord knew about bruv and lad, but twat was new. Alice got mad at Matt for teaching Tord that, apparently it was a cuss word. Tord ponders just how old Alice saw him, feeling a little happy when Matt defended by saying Tord was 100% old enough to cuss and there was nothing Alice could do about it. Tord was starting to really like this Matt guy...
“Alright, that’s all for now. I need a lunch break.” Alice gets up off the floor, stretching. Tord decides to do the same. When Alice leaves, Tord decides to stay and look around the room a bit. There’s a lot of old, rustic stuff, a very 1800s type aesthetic. Tord wonders what use Matt had for all these old things. As if to read his mind, Matt speaks up.
“I collect antiques. I love old stuff, ‘specially these 1800s things. Just love the history and the look and stuff. That bottle was the first Coca-Cola container, one of the ones for when they still put cocaine in the soda.” Matt blabs on. Tord doesn’t understand half of it...
“Antiques? You are saying huh?” Tord admits to not understanding Matt, leaving Matt feeling rather embarrassed.
“Oh. I forgot you got bad English...” Matt hums, playing with his bedsheets.
“It alright. You like wanna play togeter?” Tord mispronounces together as he points at Matt’s GameCube.
“Oh, sure. We can play together.” Matt turns on the device, putting in Super Smash Bros. Tord and him play for a bit, Matt winning for the most part.
“Arg! Faen ta deg! Stupid game! You are dumb! I cannot win!” Tord yells frustratedly.
“Fawnn tuh dig??” Matt tries to replicate the sound, failing miserably.
“Oh, jeg so sorry, is Norski. Sorry for if you are confused.” Tord apologizes swiftly.
“Oh, it’s ok. I thought it might be Norwegian but I wouldn't know since I don’t know any of the language.” Matt explains. Tord nods, humming quietly. Matt, feeling quite awkward, attempts to speak again before being interrupted by Alice coming into the room with a mouthful of chocolate chip pancake, cut off from the large stack she had on a plate. Matt gasps, pointing to the food. “Where did you get that?! Gimme some!”
“Get your own, I’m not your servant,” Alice replies snarkily, giving Matt an idea.
“Gary! Get me some chocolate chip pancakes!!” Matt shouts. Tord is about to ask who Gary is when Alice speaks up.
“Of course, make the butler do everything for you like the fatass you are.” Alice rolls her eyes at Matt, who sticks out his tongue in response.
“That’s his job !” Matt exclaims. Alice scoffs, cutting another bite off her plate and eating it. Tord wants to ask for a pancake, but he’s afraid of pronouncing the name wrong, so he stays silent. Alice covers her mouth to speak as she chews, turning her head to Tord.
“Tord, I’ll be back to tutoring you in a bit. Just have to finish this food, mkay?” Alice waits for Tord’s answer, which is nothing but a simple nod, then leaves the room, closing the door on her way out. Matt turns back to Tord.
“You still wanna play? Until Alice the Bitch makes you get back to work?” Matt insults his older sister with a laugh. Tord turns to Matt with an unimpressed expression.
“Alice is not bitch! She is nice and funny!”
“I’m funnier.” Matt boasts.
“But Alice is prettier.” Tord gives a shit-eating grin Matt’s way. Matt looks utterly shattered by these words, looking at Tord with visible hurt on his face. Tord is just about to express the joking nature of his comment before Matt’s almost sad expression becomes slightly bitter.
“Well, you only say that because you’re straight.” Matt assumes, which causes Tord to laugh.
“I am bisexual, actual.” Tord crosses his arms. This statement only upsets Matt further. He grabs Tord and pushes him down on his stomach, getting up on top of him and crushing the other under his weight.
“My sister is an ugly wanker! I’m the pretty one!” Matt is almost screaming at Tord. Tord laughs, finding this amusing.
“I do not know what wanker mean!” Tord yells, still laughing. Matt pushes Tord’s face harder down on his carpeted floor. It’s starting to feel real, the violence of it. Tord grows a little weary and decides to quit the teasing. Matt clearly wasn’t enjoying it as much as he was. “I am sorry! Sorry! You maybe not be prettiest, but you are handsome-est! Most cute! Very hot boy!” Tord is still grinning as he speaks, his tone still cheery. Matt smiles at this answer, getting off of Tord and helping him up.
“I’m a hot man , Tord. I’m turning 17 next month, which means I'll be practically an adult.” Matt corrects proudly.
“There is a different??” Tord questions genuinely. Matt laughs a little.
“Yes. A difference in maturity.” Matt explains. Tord nods. There's a knock at the door.
“Oh, I see...” Tord looks down, then looks back up at Matt, “what is matour-ah-ty?” his pronunciation is bad, pretty bad.
“How grown-up you are,” Matt answers, getting up and going to the door and opening it. The fancy butler gives Matt his pancakes and Matt smiles and takes them, going back to Tord and sitting down with the food.
“Ah. So you are not matourahty.” Tord replies.
“You better shut up before I kick your ass.” Matt jokes, shoving Tord slightly before stuffing a heap of pancake into his mouth, much to Tord's amusement.
"Cute, Matthew. Very cute." Tord teases sarcastically, poking his index finger into one of the crevices of the pancake holding a melted chocolate chip and sucking off the chocolate that stuck to his fingers.