Tetra Pact

Chapter 21

Eden returned to Asbjørn's house the next day and was warmly received by his grandmother once again. She passed Eden two tetra paks from the kitchen, specially pushing the one with a note to her.

For the best girl ever. From your baby.

She stifled a giggle at the cheesy note and entered his room with her school assignments in hand. Asbjørn was already at his desk, typing furiously away on his computer. He glanced up when the door opened and his face immediately lit up when he saw her.

Eden walked over, shaking her head with a smile. She placed the tetra paks on the table next to him. "You gotta stop with this."

He wrapped his hand around her waist and pulled her down to his lap. "Did you know the A-B-Y in 'baby' stands for Asbjørn Ben Yao? I'm literally made for you," he said, softly.

"Where's the bathroom? I need to throw up," Eden responded, pretending to get up.

He held onto her. "Alright, I'll stop for now. Don't you need help with math?"

She spread the papers out on his table and indicated the particular worksheet she was having trouble with. He flipped through the assignment and sucked in his lips as he studied her notes.

"Integration?" he asked.

"Yeah, that shite makes my head hurt." She looked around the room. "Do you have another chair?"

"Nope," he replied promptly, making no move to find one.

"You're not making me sit on you the whole time," she told him, and his expression confirmed the exact opposite.

"Why not? Are you not comfortable?"

She narrowed her eyes at him. "You just recovered from food poisoning, darling. Are you not comfortable?"

"No." He grinned at her. "In fact, I quite like this position."

She rolled her eyes and pushed his head away playfully. "Let's start."

They spent the next two hours working through the assignment, and Eden swore she learned more in those couple of hours than her entire schooling duration. Although admittedly, it could be partially due to her inability to stay awake in school when she barely got any sleep the night before. The nanny she'd hired definitely made things a lot easier and freed up a lot of her time, and her father ever so occasionally stayed home to help. But she was never home at the same time as him.

Eden normally would forget about the three-year age gap between herself and Asbjørn, since it wasn't and she didn't feel like it was that big. They could still talk about the same things and share similar experiences, and the only time it was apparent that he was older was times like now, when he'd clearly graduated from school earlier than her. However, since he'd taken a gap year after year thirteen, he'd only spent a year more in the education system than her, so once again the gap wasn't obvious.

They finally finished the due - and overdue - assignments after a few excruciating hours. Asbjørn planted a kiss on her cheek. "Good job, darling."

"Thank you..." she began, noting his expression. "... baby."

She'd quickly picked up that Asbjørn's love languages were definitely physical touch and words of affirmation, and she'd soon also learnt that he'd gotten it from his grandparents. They were a loving family unit, and Asbjørn often hugged and kissed either of them throughout the day. On the other hand, Eden had suspected and confirmed through a love languages quiz on the internet that hers were quality time and acts of service. But it wasn't that she didn't like his touch - in fact, she felt fully loved in his embrace. However, she didn't think love language was something most people thought about, but she felt like it was important for her to recognise it in case she overlooked it.

He smiled at her again, and she was hit again with how deeply in love she was with him.

She rotated her body to face him and brushed his fringe out of his eyes. He looked at her seriously all of a sudden. "I need help, Eden. How do I become closer to my siblings?"

"How old are they again?"

"Sixteen, thirteen, ten and seven."

"Oh, thirteen? Erin's thirteen. I'm sure you'll be able to get along."

"Solveig is nothing like Erin."

"Well... Just treat them like your friends." She shrugged. "You're siblings; there's no stronger bond than that."

"You're forgetting I'm basically an only child. And that we come from different cultures. We're essentially two separate families."

She looked up at the ceiling thoughtfully and stroked his head. "I'm sure it's not that hard to find something in common. You can just talk to them like how you talk to your friends. Ask them to share about their school life, and maybe share about yours too."

"Do you do that with your brothers?" he asked.

"No," she laughed, realising how contradictory she was. "But we've spent our whole lives together that we're forced to be that close."

He scrunched up his face. "If only my siblings were as easy going as yours."

She slapped his shoulder. "Don't say that. If they aren't willing to talk to you, they're probably just awkward. You've just got to try harder until they give in."

Asbjørn pouted miserably.

She tilted his chin up and kissed him on the lips. "Stop sulking, they'll love you," she said firmly.

The smile immediately returned to his face.

***

Author's note:

Sorry for the shorter chapter, I didn't like how I wrote the second half of the chapter so I'm going to redo it but I don't know how long I'll take so I'm publishing this first. Thanks so much for reading! I'm a literal mess in school right now HAHA but I'll try to finish this soon! We have less than 10 chapters to go. :-)