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Chapter Text

He could feel how his stomach tried to launch itself out of his body. Why did he ever think that this was a good idea? Students around him were smiling and chatting with people they already knew, people they’d known for years. Every single one of them brushing past him as if he were a ghost. He very well could’ve been one. Most, if not everyone else had just come back to school after one single summer break, straight from an earlier year of school. They knew how this would work, at least had a good idea of it, but not him. He had long forgotten what school was like, and it scared him.

The first two days were stressful, loads of information about his teachers and how the following week would go. At times, the professors would ask the students to talk about themselves, get to know each other, talk out loud. It made bile rise in Simon’s throat. Letting others get to know him had been the absolute last thing he wanted. He spoke as little as possible and avoided eye contact with most of the people in the room. Most of all, he wanted to retreat to his safe apartment, he wanted to read his books while his cat was curled up onto his chest, peacefully asleep. He was about to let his mind drift away from the torturous chamber he found himself in when his professor spoke about something he had never read about earlier.

“You’ll need to take a foreign language if you want to pass my class. The school have many different courses you can take so I promise every single one of you will find something that suits to your taste.” Simon saw a row of the languages he could take on the board when he lifted his gaze. French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Dutch, Norwegian and German was the main few. “If you’re mother tongue isn’t English then you can have private lessons in your first language, but that means you will have to take it up with an exam.” Simon felt the bile threatening again. It hadn’t been information he had found while frantically researching the school and he felt lied to.

He settled for Russian. He had always found the language interesting and if he knew it, then it meant he could start to dive into Russian literature. As the rest of the week came and went, Simon could feel himself getting more and more excited about starting his Russian classes. But on Sunday, the day before he would get to step into that classroom, he got a mail, and the content made the bile, once again, rise. By now, he had accepted that that would continue to happen for the next few weeks at most. The letter informed him that the Russian classes were full, and for some infuriating reason, he was now going to take Norwegian. The soul reason for that was that the two countries bordered each other. Simon had tried taking Norwegian earlier in school, almost four years ago and he had hated every single second of it. He only had to pass; he didn’t have to do well in it. It would be fine. But Simon was convinced it was a lie: it wouldn’t be fine.

Chapter Text

It was 0750 in the morning, Monday. Simon had his heart in his throat and his hands stuffed in his pockets. He could feel how sweaty they were. He walked through the door to the Norwegian lecture after checking thrice that it was the right room. He had been ready to turn on his heel and leave, flee with his tail between his legs, but he didn’t and that alone made his shriveled-up pride smile weakly.

The classroom was almost empty to Simon’s relief, there was only one other student there and he seemed to not take notice of him. After a quick glance over the room, he let out the breath he’d been holding as he saw the seat furthest from both the board and the door was free, he didn’t hesitate to claim it as his. His heart was still razing, and he couldn’t tell if it was the stairs fault or the creeping dread. There wasn’t really a difference to him.

While anxiously waiting for more people to arrive, he pulled out the book he was currently reading, ‘Of Mice and Men’. It was better to read about fictional characters being served the worst of life than accepting his own poor excuse of one. As he read, he didn’t fail to notice the two students who decided to sit in front of his desk, they didn’t chat him up or anything, they were just loud, it almost hurt Simon’s ears. The guy who’d been in the classroom when he had arrived turned around to look at the newcomers, and with a look thrown at Simon, he had an idea that the strangers didn’t like the noise either.

Only a few more people arrived before the lecture started, it filled Simon’s heart with hope. Maybe this would be a small class? Maybe he’d be able to be vocal when the professor asked questions. It was a small thing to be hopeful over, but it was something.

“Hallo, klasse.” The professor started in Norwegian, easy enough that anyone could understand what she was talking about. “My name is Professor Siegel. We won’t be doing a lot of work today, just some very basics.” Professor Siegel looked around the small class and frowned. “I’ll take attendance before we start so I can see who’s here and who’s not.” She turned her attention to her pc. Bile was threatening again. It was a stupid thing to be nervous about. But there was nothing he could do to get away from it. God damn, he felt pathetic.

The Professor started to read out the names of students in class, most being absent, but Simon was attentive, trying to see who was who out of the student who were in class. “Gustavo?” The man right in front of Ghost, a guy with pin straight brown hair and a grotesque punchable face answered to the name. His voice was annoying. “Helen?” A young woman on the opposite side of the room answered quietly. Another few names were called out with no answer. “John?” The guy who had been in the classroom when Simon came in answered. His voice was deep, a little rough. Simon was surprised that he had a Scottish accent.

As a few more names were called out into the void, Simon’s nerves started to burn. He was quietly clearing his throat, trying to get rid of anything that would make his voice sound weird, or dumb. The only thing that did was make his throat close in panic, he could feel his palms start to prickle and how his heart started to painfully thump in his chest.

‘No, no, please not now, not now, fuck.’

His vision started to become hazy and unfocused as more names was called out and a student answering every now and again. He felt trapped, like the room was shrinking. He could only hear the voice of the professor as well as his own blood rushing in panic in his ears. His mind started to prickle and fog. He was having an attack.

“Simon?” Professor Siegel called out. Simon’s head snapped up to look at her. Fuck, he couldn’t answer, he couldn’t fucking speak. It felt like a fishing hook had impaled his Adam’s apple. So, he didn’t answer. Instead, he raised his hand so the professor could see he was there. She noticed, a concerned expression curtaining her face, nodded and continued. A tiny shiver of relief crawled up his spine until the men in front of him, all three, turned to look at him. He froze back up and just looked at them.

“You’re Simon?” Gustus, the guy with the grotesque face asked. There was a mean smile on his face. Simon just nodded. They looked at him for another second or day before returning their half assed focus to the professor. Simon looked down at his palms and froze as he noticed his nails had somehow broken the skin, he was bleeding. He looked through his backpack to get some tissues. No one could know if they didn’t already.

“Brent?” The second of the two answered. Simon relaxed slightly in his seat as he wasn’t the focus anymore. But it was short lived. “Alright, class, I want you to go in groups and write down any Norwegian word you might now. If there is none, then don’t worry.” She paused for a second and started to indicate the groups. “… and Brent, Gustavo, and Simon can be a group.” Simon wanted to be swallowed up by the ground.

It took a few seconds before the two others got the idea that they should turn around to work with Simon. “I know ‘hei’, ‘hade’.” Brent spoke up. Gust reacted as if he had just read a whole book in Perfect Norwegian and Simon couldn’t help but roll his eyes. Gus said something as well before they turned to him. “What about you?” It was obvious they didn’t care about what he said.

“Sommerfugl...” Simon had written a few more words down for himself. “Oh, and p-prevansjons piller.” He had no clue why he knew the last one, he felt embarrassed. The two others didn’t react, they were talking to each other about other words. So, Simon did what he does best, he worked alone. It only took a few minutes before Professor Siegel spoke up again.

“Does anyone know of any Norwegian words?” A guy raised his hand, the professor let him speak.

“Jeg.” He said it confidently, as if only a genius could figure that one out. The guy beside him barked out a praise.

“Trene.” Someone else said after getting the word.

“Hei og hade.” He said it with a hard g, which Simon knew for a fact was wrong. As well as the wrong sound for the o. Simon gingerly raised his hand, a flush came over his face as he was called on.

“Sommerfugl?” He didn’t look up from his notebook.

“Sommerfugl, ja.” Professor Siegel replied with a more correct pronunciation. It made Simon feel dumb, she hadn’t corrected anyone else’s pronunciation even if it was needed. Why did she correct him. Were the other guys actually better than him. Could she tell he wasn’t supposed to be with this litter of student. Was it that obvious that he was four years older than the others. His mind was razing. “We’ll take five minutes. Be back here at 0845, don’t be tardy.” She informed the rest. The guys practically ran out of the room. The girls walked out with a little more patience. The only ones left was John, Simon had obviously stayed as well.

John turned to him. “Not a talker either?” It took a while before Simon realized he was talking to him. He looked up and for once took notice of the man’s face. He had tanned skin, stubble on his chin, his eyes were a vivid blue that matched his kind face. He would’ve almost been pretty if it hadn't been for the laughable hair. A god damn mohawk. One of the worse ones that Simon had seen.

“Hate Norwegian.” He didn’t feel like being friendly with the Scotsman.

“You’ve had it before?” John looked puzzled.

“Yeah, four years ago.” Simon didn’t understand what about him seemed approachable. He assumed a fair share of others would refer to him as a school shooter if they were being nice. It wasn’t a though he enjoyed, but Simon did humour the idea of himself being a skilled soldier who brought fear to anyone who saw him.

“Does that mean you’ve been to college before?”

“What’s it to you?” Simon scowled at him. John didn’t reply which made Simon groan slightly. He could’ve left it at that, he could’ve gone back to his book, but something in him made him answer. “Yeah. Four years ago.” He looked down, he didn’t want to see John’s reaction to him being four or something years older than him. He was embarrassed of it enough for a ton of other people already.

“So, you’re 26?” There was no teasing in John’s voice, just genuine curiosity.

“27, actually. And your 22, 23?” Simon had never thought that anyone else would be older than the general student body of their year.

“No, sir,” It was playful. “I’m 25.” There was a glint in John’s eyes that Simon wasn’t sure he’d like.

“You’re still just as young as them to me,” Simon said. He wasn’t sure why he said it, it made no sense to him.

“Okay, grandpa.” That little shit,

“Excuse me?” Simon felt something inside of him loosen, then tighten, then loosen again.

“You heard me. You said you were 27, that means you must be ancient, at least 1000 years old.”

“That doesn’t even make sense.” Simon breathed out in annoyance.

“Oh, it makes perfect sense.”

“Following that logic then, compared to the others, how old would you be?”

“Hm, 29 at most.” John grinned at him. He had a dimple on his left cheek, something Simon definitely didn’t notice.

“Fucking hell-“ Their conversation was thankfully cut short as Professor Siegel called everyone back and resumed the lecture.

The rest of the class was a blur. Simon hadn’t talked like that to someone for at least a few months, it made him feel warm and he couldn’t understand why. Professor Siegel played a Norwegian introduction audio on the projector and tasked the students to see if they could pick out what the man was saying, such things as his age, where he lived, his work, and what he did in his spare time. After, the class was once again paired up to try some comprehensive reading. Simon felt like his heart stopped when she paired John up with him, and he feared to suspect that that would become a regular thing.

Chapter Text

Thursday, 1322. Simon was still annoyed over taking Norwegian, something that wouldn’t change in the next three years, but there was little he could do to change it. He was the first of the students to get to the lecture, most others were probably chatting with friends before it started. They did have the next 15 minutes or so for that, but the extra time was useless for Simon. He sat down and continued reading his book, it was the best way to make the time pass.

Students slowly started to fill the room; John was one of them, but he didn’t talk to Simon. Monday had probably been a fluke; it didn’t bother him. It annoyed him, slightly. John seemed like a guy who’d talk to the quiet ones just to make fun of them later, he fit the criteria perfectly. He was fit, charismatic, and his style was what more popular students would wear, if one could even call them popular anymore, Simon didn’t know, he didn’t care either if it mattered. The more he thought about the what if’s, the more he pinched the paper of the book, and as the two loud guys walked in, being as loud as ever, he flinched and ripped the page slightly. His eyes widened and closed the book immediately, just as Professor Siegel walked in and called the lecture to a start.

She did the attendance again, and as last time, Simon didn’t answer, just raised his hand. It seemed like it was enough for the professor, and he shrank in his seat as a few, the loud ones and John, turned to look at him. “Today, we will start learning the basics of introductions. I need everyone to close their pc’s and turn their attention to me.” Simon looked up, he didn’t care to pass, but knowing the absolute basics could only do him good. “Norway has a few different ways to say hello, the two most used ones are ‘Hei’, and ‘Hallo’.” She wrote it up on the board, as well as the right translations for both. Just an easy hey and hello. She wrote a short sentence underneath in Norwegian before turning around and continuing talking. “Can anyone take a guess on what this means?” she motioned to the sentence. After a few seconds of thinking, Simon raised his hand, the answer was obvious to him for some reason. “Yes, Simon, go ahead.”

“It means my n-“

“My name is.” Brent interrupted, Gustus hit his arm and doubled over cackling. Professor Siegel paid them no mind and looked at Simon, waiting for him to finish. Simon swallowed back a lump that was caught in his throat.

“It means my name is,” he repeated. The professor nodded which in turn made Guvs almost howl out praise to Brent.

“Good, Simon. ‘Jeg heter professor Siegel.’ And in turn, I could ask ‘Hva heter du?’, what’s your name,” she wrote it on the board so they could take notes. Simon actually did for once. “We will go a little more in depth about questioning words later, but one thing to take notice of is that the h in ‘hva’ is silent, it sounds more like it’s after a. This goes for all the questioning words, so keep that in mind.” she wrote it up for good measure. “You might also want to say and ask where someone lives and where they’re from.” More writing. “’Jeg bor i’ and ‘jeg kommer fra’, which could turn into the questions ‘hvor bor du’ and ‘hvor kommer du fra’.” She continued with the phrase and question to inform about age.

“Is that an a with a halo on top?” Some guy snickered, thinking he was clever. Simon rolled his eyes. He hated when people asked stupid question so others might laugh, it was low hanging fruit to him.

“No, this letter is an ‘å’. It’s one of three more letters in the Norwegian alphabet. It somewhat sounds like the o in or. There’s also ‘æ’ and ‘ø’,” she wrote them up. “æ sounds almost like the a in
sandwich, and ø almost like ugh.” She demonstrated a few times and wrote up some examples of Norwegian words that either had the letter or sound in it. “This isn’t something you have to get right the first time, so don’t beat yourself up for it.”

The lecture continued with some further comprehension audios, they had to write down what was said both in Norwegian and English. Simon could hear a few groans coming from other students, but he breezed through it. They spent the next ten minutes or so with this until the professor gave a new task.

“I want you to go in pairs and practice verbally what we’ve gone through today, everyone who has someone beside them works with them. Jack, you can move seats and work with Helen. John, you move seats and work with Simon.” Simon cursed silently under his breath. “Take turn with questions and answers, and if you finish fast, start with the task on page 13 in your books.”

Simon watched John’s every move as he made his way towards him. Simon’s table was bigger than the rest of the tables for some odd reason and John sat himself as far away from him as he could. John looked at him with a smile. “So, should I go first or you?” His tone was friendly, Simon didn’t trust him, neither did he answer, he just started, wanting to finish as fast as possible.

“Hva heter du?” Simon asked with a flat tone. Around them, he heard others mess up their pronunciation of ‘hva’, their h’s weren’t silent. He couldn’t tell if they didn’t hear a difference or if they forgot it. Why he cared was something he couldn’t explain either.

“Ah, what’s you-“ john started before being cut off.

“You’re supposed to answer in Norwegian.” Simon rolled his eyes and crossed his legs.

“Right, obviously.” John chuckled nervously. “Jeg heter John, uh, hva heter du?” Another detail Simon picked up was the r’s being more pronounced, almost rolling on the tongue, something John hadn’t picked up.

“Jeg heter Simon.” He looked at the board to see the next question. “Hvor kommer du fra?” ‘Where are you from?’

“Jeg kommer fra.. Scotland.” They hadn’t yet learnt how to say different countries in Norwegian so it stumped John slightly.

“Og hvor bor du?” Simon continued to ask, thought it would make sense to ask both right after each other.

“Jeg bor I Manchester. Hvor kommer du fra? Og hvor bor du?” John grinned at him, feeling very proud of the long sentence. It was almost cute... Simon frowned at his own thoughts. It was useless, worthless to be close to anyone. It had been years since he was close to someone, this wasn’t going to change that.

“Jeg kommer og bor i Manchester.” He wanted to leave again, he wanted to be home with his cat, he wanted to be anywhere but here. The room suddenly felt suffocating, but he swallowed it down and continued with the last question. “Hvor gammel er du?”

“Jeg er uh, jesus christ, maybe she should’ve taught us some numbers before this? We look like complete fools.” John exclaimed, leaning against his hand with a huff. Simon just looked at him for a few seconds before pulling his phone out. The silence stretched around them like a wet blanket of sorts. Bile was rising until Simon broke the probably no exiting tension, the one only he felt.

“Du er tjuefem år gammel.”

“What?” John looked at him through his fingers.

“Tjuefem, 25, du er tjuefem.” Simon didn’t look at John, still looking at his phone, they’d learn this later, but he didn’t care. “Unless you lied to me on Monday. Wouldn’t surprise me, honestly.” Correction, Simon couldn’t look at John, he wasn’t sure if he trusted either of them enough to do so.

“Oh, wow, you actually have a funny side to you.” John snickered after a while, it wasn’t funny to anyone but him.

“Whatever you say, hvor gammel er du?” Simon asked again, finally looking at the other man. There was a small flush to John’s face and Simon couldn’t get over that it was him who did that.

“Sure, sure. What did you say 25 was again? Can you repeat it?” John lifted his head from his hand, determined to get the word right.

“No.”

“Oh come on, big man, do me a favor.”

“No.”

“Please, you’re not being fair.”

“…tjuefem.”

John’s smile was burned into Simon’s mind for the rest of the day, not even a cold shower could help him. This was not going to be fine.