Teenage Dream {HongIce}

Chapter Twenty Three

Emil never really had any friends to buy birthday presents for in the first place. A normal person would be thinking about how blessed they were to have friends but right now Emil was thinking that it was more along the lines of a curse, especially since that one friend was also his boyfriend.

Leon's birthday was tomorrow and of course Emil didn't have something for him yet because he still couldn't think of anything. He looked up online what doujinshis were after about seventeen different attempts of trying to spell it correctly. They seemed like weird comic books that were insanely expensive, not to mention that the shipping was hell. He really didn't know what to do, so now, it was time to pull out the big guns.

"Lukas!" Emil called from his doorway. A reply came in the form of a hum that essentially translated to a yes. "What did you get Matthias for his birthday?" As if on cue, the beautiful sound of Lukas choking on coffee met Emil's ears.

"Why are you asking?" Lukas inquired, still sounding as if there was coffee stuck in his throat. Emil could just picture him now; eyes watering, bright red cheeks and a very grumpy expression – he couldn't help but smile to himself.

"It's Leon's birthday tomorrow and he's one of the assholes who don't tell you what they want," Emil explained, too lazy to venture further than his bedroom door.

"And I'm guessing you haven't got anything," he assumed.

"Pretty much, I seriously don't know what to do," Emil whined.

"Do you know what he likes?"

"Yeah sort of," Emil winced. "He likes music... Um, clothes, young adult books, fireworks, movies... Uh, anime, tea, humid rain, warm weather, anything crispy, beaches, plumb blossoms, chrysanthemums, pretty girls, camellias, the colour red–" Emil listed pretty much everything that came to mind when he thought about Leon.

"Em, I think you're getting a little off track," Lukas interrupted. "I think you know what to get him, you've got a giant list, minus the flowers because that's a little too lovey dovey for friends." Emil wanted to interrupt Lukas and correct his comment about flowers, but remembered that he hadn't told Lukas. He felt bad for lying, so he promised himself that he would tell Lukas soon.

"Alright then, I'm going out," he announced, collecting his satchel and going to the front door to slip on some shoes.

"Okay. Remember your list so you can find something nice," Lukas called out. "And get more coffee, we ran out."

"Whatever," Emil replied rolling his eyes. He went to open the door but froze, remembering something. "Oh and I forgot to ask you, what did you get Matthias?" There was an awkward silence were Lukas attempted to choke back his words.

"I'd rather not say," he mumbled. Emil ignored his last words, he didn't want to think about what Lukas possibly could have gifted him. As he left the house his mind accidentally wandered to possibilities of what Matthias' gift may have been. At first the ideas were innocent, but then they turned to something that he considered kind of gross.

He arrived at the small shopping village down the road. It was getting late and all of the stores usually closed early, so there was even more stress due to the time constraints. First thing on his list: music. Of course Emil knew that Leon liked a lot of k-pop, c-pop and j-pop but also an array of DJs, dubstep, the occasional rock or punk rock band and some of the good oldies. There seemed to be something very important missing from his collection.

Sóley was definitely missing. So, Emil planned to make his collection of music a little more complete with his favourite album which was conveniently placed right near the front of the first store he visited. We Sink was probably one of the most beautiful albums he had ever listened to and where he got a lot of his inspiration with song writing.