Chapter Text
“Perfetto tesoro! I knew that you’ll agree, now. Let the process begin, eh?” Terzo exclaimed happily and you had a wide smile on your face. Tears dwelled your eyes, as you could see your parents hug each other and jump happily with proud smiles.
With a shaky breath you asked. “So what do I have to do?”
And with those words, the roller coaster began. First they had to apply for your visa in Sweden, then you had to go to the immigration office in Germany for an interview where they asked you a lot of questions. You felt as if you committed some kind of crime. You prepared for days in advance for all of these, so to your luck? It was really quick. Then they had to send it to the Sweden immigration, where they went for an interview, then you were on a waiting list. The next stage was to sort out the rent in your flat and the furniture you bought for that flat which your parents will help you with in the end by selling it once you are over there. You called your landlord who came round and sorted out your lease, which thankfully ended in February 2018 , so you agreed that if the paperwork hadn"t been sorted by then, he would always give you a single month"s lease until it was done.
Another day passed, it was the beginning of February. You got up and went for a walk outside, stopping on the way to do a little shopping so you could cook something. You tried to live frugally, because you were living on savings. You could have gotten a job at a coffee shop somewhere to make at least some money, but your parents insisted that they"d rather send you some extra cash every week so you could take it easy and get ready for a new job and a new life. On your way home, you stopped at the mailbox, where a large envelope was sticking out. Your heart skipped a beat because you knew what it was. Even though Terzo had reassured many times that it would be fine and nothing to worry about, you never know with the authorities, it only takes one thing to go wrong and they"ll deny your application in a heartbeat.
You ran to your living room so fast that you tripped multiple times and for sure if someone watched you? They’ll for sure have a good show. You tore apart the envelope as you were reading through the lines. Before you could find the verdict, your phone rang in your pocket.
Terzo.
“Hello picolina, did you get the news, yes?” He said calmly. “Yes I did, I was just about to find out if I passed or not. But, please. You tell me how it went.” You said nervously as you were stepping from one corner to another one holding the envelope in your armpit.
“Well, where to start.” He said with a saddened voice.
Cold sweat covered your body and your breath hitched.
“How about a little trip to Sweden, leaving tomorrow morning? Si? You made it!” You could hear him clapping his gloved hands together. You finally allowed your lungs to take in some air as the weight dropped down your shoulders. “I am approved! I am approved! I am approved! Holy Jesus dog shit, pinch me if I’m dreaming!” You jumped up and down squealing to the phone when suddenly you realized that someone was on another side of the phone.
“Oh I am sorry!”
He was laughing at your response. “No need to apologize picolina you are happy and have a big reason to be, so will you be ready tomorrow by 1pm so we could pick you up? Or, eh. Our people?”
“Tomorrow!?” You said out loud and shocked. “Si, si, tomorrow heh. We can delay it if you need, but why to wait, eh?”
“Then … You said by 1pm tomorrow? I think … I can make it by then. But, what about my guitars and these things? How am I able to pack it all?” You said out loud, more like your thoughts that were now racing through your mind.
“Bella, pack everything you need. The plane takes off by 5pm, there will be enough time to figure it out. Pack clothes, your must have things, yes? And the rest of it, leave to us.”
“Okai, okai. I think I got this. Thank you so much Terzo. I appreciate your help so much.” You said now calmly as you smiled on the posters on your wall, where he stood with ghouls.
“No need to thank me, it was all you! We only reached you out. Now, go and pack, si? Tomorrow, 1pm, be ready.” He said with a soft and deeper voice.
You hung up the phone and looked around the living room. Photos, posters, vinyl records, your one somehow still alive cactus in the corner, the rug, and a few of your favorite mugs. That"s all you"ll take from here, the rest will be sold by your parents, or has been here since you moved in. You"ve made a list of things that need to be packed now and things that can wait.
First, all your clothes and shoes, along with your guitar, laptop, chargers, cosmetics. Photo albums, a couple of vinyl records, posters, your two favorite teacups, what else? Eh, that’s it. You truly don’t have a lot of things. Alright, time to work. You blasted some music out on speakers while you dug through the storage room to get all of your luggage out, you placed the smallest one in the living room, and two bigger ones in your bedroom.
At first you packed all your belongings from the living room, you took down all framed photos and carefully peeled down posters. Then you went through your vinyl records and chose a few of them that sit in the bottom of the luggage. Next step was to wrap your two mugs into some towels, to prevent them from breaking during transport. Then you rolled your little carpet tightly and wrapped it with tape.
Once you were done, the next stop was your clothes, shoes and cosmetics. You went with two pairs of winter shoes, two pairs of sneakers, one pair of sport shoes and a few sandals. The rest has to go into a box. You then skippy jumped into the bathroom where you took fabric organizers and threw all your skin care products into the first one, then into your second one, all of your make up went, during that process you also got rid of old makeup that dried off. The last one was all of your body lotions and shampoos and hair masks, well that will be more complicated than you thought. You went with an unopened bottle of shampoo, hair mask, body lotion and body wash, the rest of them will go into another separated box. You took the fabric organizers to the bedroom and placed them neatly into now almost full luggage. Next step clothes! For travel? You will for sure take a vest, oversized sweater, leggings and one of the sneakers.
You’ve been packing up the whole day into boxes, you also called your parents that were more excited than you.
You were walking anxiety and mess. Technically 2 in 1.
It was night time already and you took a shower and then looked around the flat to see if you had everything with you. You looked satisfied, all must haves were in the middle of the apartment together with your guitar in a hard case. It was done. So you decided it was time to try and call Sam once again, but as you called him, he did not pick up. Again. Maybe he was just busy, you thought. And went to sleep.
—
*KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK*
At the sound of the knock, you abruptly got out of bed. You looked at the time and it was 1:30pm! “FUCK oh WOOOA!” You yelped as you tripped over the corner of your bed as you rushed to the door. You opened it up and there were a few guys hovering over your small presence in all black uniforms, you could see their amused faces as you greeted them.
“H-Hello, you are here too...” You cleared your throat as you pinched the bridge of your nose. “To help me with the … stuff?” You looked behind you on the luggage and a few boxes.
“Yes, we thought you changed your mind at first, but well it seems that someone had a good sleep tonight.” The tallest man said as he looked down at you. Then it hit you. You only wore panties and loose t-shirt. “Shit! I am so sorry for this” You said quickly as you tried to pull down the t-shirt.
“No problem, it is not a big deal. All of this?” He pointed to the neatly organized luggage and boxes. You gave him a slight nod. “But, can I take a shower first please? It will be quick I promise, I just want to freshen up.” You asked shily as you looked down.
“Take your time Bella, we’ll take these down while you are..” He said with dramatic pause. “Freshening up.” He winked at you and you blushed softly. “Oh and can you please leave this one as the last one? I have to put back the dryer and cosmetics.” You said quickly on your way to the bathroom, you turned around and he gave you a soft nod.
You took a quick shower as you promised, washed your hair only with a shampoo this time, and in a few minutes you were done, wrapped in your towel blow drying your hair quickly, but then you realized that you forgot to close the door to the bedroom and you had to run fast through the room to get your clothes, which you of course forgot on the bed. You could hear footsteps leading out of your flat so you took the chance and quickly ran, but as you thought you made it?
You slipped and a loud thud echoed through your flat.
The head of one man that was observing your living room looked in your direction and walked briskly to you to help you up. As he helped you up, you then realized how you looked. Or more what you were wearing. A towel that was hanging on your body with all of its force. You could feel it was slowly slipping your body so you catched it right before it slipped down.
Ugh, why.
“Are you alright? It seemed painful.” He asked with his eyebrows squinted together while he scanned your presence. “I am good just, slipped heh, that’s all me, still falling over invisible … ehm, obstacles.” You looked up at him and then noticed that he still had one of his big warm hands on your waist. He seemed to realize it too and quickly let go.
“Forgive me, I didn’t mean to eh. Invade your privacy that much um. So” He cleared his throat. “All good, thank you … “ You looked up at him and waited for him to tell you his name.
“Antony, my name is Antony. Now, get ready, we have to go.” He chuckled, amused, and left. As he did, he closed the door behind you. Well, perfect, not only he’d seen you with messy hair, sleepy eyes, wrinkles from sleep, half naked but now almost naked and you almost showed him more than you wanted to. But when you think about it, Antony was for sure a damn pretty ass man. You shook your head to concentrate once again and slipped into your comfy travel clothes. As you promised, it"s been nearly 30 minutes together, and you only dropped the last cosmetics and dryer to the last piece of luggage, grabbed your backpack, phone, checked your passport, documents, left the flat keys on the table, and took a deep breath as you stepped out of the door. This place held beautiful memories, but mostly the bad ones.
New life, new start, new beginning ahead of you.
And with that, the door clicked behind you. You noticed Antony with the two guys standing near the hall as they waited for you. Antony took your backpack and they walked you to the van that waited in the parking place. They opened the door for you and you sat down and buckled up. On the way to the airport, you stopped at a bakery where Antony brought you breakfast and coffee. You were more than pleasantly surprised, because you weren"t used to it. After a few minutes, you finished the last bite of the sweet cupcake along with the last sip of bitter coffee and watched the landscape pass by outside the van windows. The other two guys did not say a single word the whole time, and if yes? It was maybe during your shower time, as they dragged all your belongings down to the van.
—
It was long dark outside by the time you got to the airport, and again, everyone was quiet. You didn"t mind, it wasn"t an uncomfortable silence, you enjoyed the peace and quiet all the way to the airport, and the whole flight. After arriving in Sweden, all you guys loaded your luggage on the trolley, and walked to the parking lot where the same van was parked as the one you took from your now old apartment to the airport. It was really cold, freezing and there was snow everywhere. You regretted your choice of shoes when you saw what you had to go through, because you knew your shoes would get soaked. You were already tired, and by the time you got into the freezing car, Antony sat down next to you and handed you a smaller travel blanket when he saw your teeth chattering.
“There, take it and get comfortable. The ride would be long, so feel free to get some sleep, I am sure it’s been a long day for you Bella.” He said while he buckled himself up in his seat.
“T-t-t-hank yo-u-u, woooah, it is so damn cold here.” You tried to control your shaking as you wrapped yourself in the blanket. He only gave you a slight smile and yet again, the van moved forward. You felt nervous and feared your arrival, how are people in the Ministry? Will they be mean? Happy? Welcoming? But you couldn’t think about it anymore, as the engine was humming a monotonous deep roar, as the car rocked you to a peaceful sleep.
—
(Antony"s pov)
One of the guys in the front looked into the mirror, and could see Bella’s head softly bumping into the window, as the car hit small holes from time to time.
“So, your name is Antony now?” The guy behind the steering wheel said softly, as he looked back at you and laughed quietly. You looked into his eyes, that reflected the traffic lights in the mirror.
“So funny Rain, what was I supposed to do? Tell her hi, my name is Aether, and of course there are not a lot of people with this name, so you probably know who I am?” You said sarcastically with a joking tone and dragged your palm over your face.
Another guy on the passenger seat turned around in your direction as he said. “No, of course not, but actually. It would’ve been more fun, don’t you think?”
“Shut up Swiss, everything is fun to you, without knowing the consequences. Don’t you remember the last time? Huh? No? Let me remind you.” You took a deep breath. “So let me remind you what happened. That one time at the bar after one of our shows, there was this poor girl who-.” You couldn’t even finish the line when Swiss jumped into your speech.
“Okai, okai, it was this time and the only time something like that happened, and we agreed that nobody will ever… EVER!” He raised his voice.
“Shhhh!” Rain and Aether scolded him to lower his voice again, to not to wake Bella up.
“Ever happen again.” Swiss finished the sentence in a whisper and turned back towards the road direction.
But it wouldn’t be Swiss if he was quiet. “Actually, dear ANTONY.” He put the emphasis on the last word and used his fingers to indicate the quotation marks.
“What happened in the bedroom, after she came out of the shower, hmm? Tell me ANTONY.” He smirked back at you.
“It was a pure accident, she slipped, and had only a towel on, alright? I am not as you are. But you know what, let me ask you a question. Are you jealous? I noticed how you stared at her every ritual she’s been to, I am sure you wished to be at my spot when I helped her out and..”
Rain took a deep breath as he clenched his hands on the steering wheel. “You, two.”
“Stop arguing right now, Swiss, you like her, we all know it, Aether, you were there by coincidence when it happened. Now shut up, and enjoy the ride, if not, one of you will drive.” Rain said sternly, the annoyance in his voice was clear.
Swiss huffed and proceeded to look out of the window, and you just noted that you won, once again, on him. As always. You looked at Bella instead and noticed that her teeth were still chattering, you then looked down on her feet and noticed her sneakers. You remembered how much snow there was in the parking lot and leaned forward to gently touch her ankle. It was cold and soaked. You then gently untied her shoes and took them off, Rain turned on the heating down on feet instead and within a few minutes, she was sleeping comfortably once again.
—
(Back to Isy’s pov)
“Bella, we’ll be there in less than 30 minutes, wake up.” Someone shook your shoulder lightly and you opened your still heavy lidded eyes.
“Already? How long have I been asleep?” You stretched your arms and yawned.
“For around 4 hours?” Antony looked at his phone. “Yes, 4 hours.”
“Where are my shoes? I don’t remember taking them off.” You said.
“I took them off, your feet were soaked from that snow earlier, sorry for that.” You smiled at him and thanked him afterwards. “Thank you, but you didn’t have to.” He only shook his head and pointed towards the direction on your side.
You looked to the left and noticed a beautiful city far away down the road. It only had street lights on, but you could tell, it was magical.
“That is the city, where people from the Ministry go for some fun over weekends. There is almost everything, someone will tell you more about it later.” Antony smiled at you even though your head was turned towards the city.
The road started to get bumpier by every minute, the forest around you seemed to darken up meter by meter, and then suddenly you noticed the tips of the turrets pointing through the forest. There was now more decent driveaway, and few lights. And there it was, in all of its beauty. Majestic Ministry It looked dark, and you didn’t know if it was the night or if it was truly such a dark building, but all you knew, it was huge. You observed the entrance door, well more of a portal, as the van stopped in front of it. The door from the van opened up and Antony called your name.
“Bella, we’ll take all your belongings to your room, there is Terzo awaiting you already.” You gulped at his words, you still felt tired, since now it was almost 2am and freezing cold. You thanked them all as they got all of your bags and walked behind them towards the portal. Someone opened the old heavy door up.
“Oh picolina! Long time no see, eh? Come, come inside, it is so cold.” Terzo welcomed you as he walked towards your direction. Once when he stood close enough to you, he grabbed your hand and kissed the hem of your hand softly.
“So tell me, how was the travel with these gentlemans? Did they behave?” Terzo let out a nervous laugh, which you brushed off at this moment. “It was quiet, Antony was the only one who said few words actually, but … they were helpful, I have to thank them for the escort and help actually.” You said as you looked at him.
“You will have more than enough time to do it later tesoro, now, follow me. What do you think about…” He said with dramatic pause. “This?” And then opened his arms for dramatic effect. You looked around and noticed high ceilings, halls were lit up with candles, and in the entrance hall, there was a staircase that led to another floor of the Ministry. The floor was from a cold polished stone. He walked you through infinite halls, and you blamed your sleepiness, but you could see his white eye slightly glow in the darker spots.
“So, there it is. Your own personal room. There is the key, try not to lose it si?” He laughed as the door squealed.
You walked in and there was a spacious room awaiting you. Huge closet on the right side, standing mirror, queen sized bed with dark sheets, the floor was wooden as well. Right in front of you, a majestic huge window that let the moonlight lighten up the room, and in front of it, dark table with a chair was placed. You looked around more and noticed smaller closet to the right side of the table together with a night stand.
To your left there was another door that led to the bathroom, Terzo chuckled at your expression, and opened the door for you. You walked into the bathroom and noticed how spacious it was, you thought it would be cramped up together, but no. Oval bathtub sitting under a smaller window, mirror and cabinets with sink, toilet and a shower and few more shelfs.
Terzo walked you back to the bedroom and then you noticed that all your bags were sitting in the corner.
“It is beautiful, a little dark, but it suits it. I was honestly afraid for a second that it would be a tiny room, with a single bed, small closet and a table, but this is luxurious accommodation. Thank you!” You said with a wide smile and looked in his direction.
“Thank you piccolino, you are so sweet. I eh, I tried to give you a better room, but there were few issues. So, I am happy that you are happy!”
“But, now. Rest Bella, tomorrow.” He looked at his watch. “Ehm, today, one of our sisters will pick you up by 9am to show you around, si? You will start with your duty on monday, where you’ll be introduced to your co-workers. They are excited to meet new guitar technician, especially someone as talented as you are.” He winked at you.
Thanks.” You blushed and mumbled soft sleepy, as you looked up to his eyes.
He then clasped his hands together. “Perfetto, I will leave you now, so you can rest. Oh, and if your heart desires snacks, check the upper drawer. There is always something to munch on.”
“Thank you, again. I-I am only saying thank you, but just eh … yeah, this all is amazing.” You blurted out.
“We thank you, now, go and rest. Sleep well Bella.” He gave you a soft peck on your cheek. As he did, you noticed, he had his face paint on. It was literally close to 3am now. You had to ask.
NO! Be quiet.
But he is leaving now.
No, it is none of your business. Your mind argued for a second.
Just do it!
“Oh, may I ask why you still have your face paint on? There were no shows today.” Your mouth spoke faster than you thought.
He stopped and froze. “Eh it is, it was for rehearsal, it helps to … to, t-o stay in my role. Good night.” Terzo said a bit shocked by your question and you could tell he did not want to talk about it more. Perfect Bella, now you possibly upset him, by your ability to talk first without thinking. Just perfect.
You looked around the room, and walked towards your luggage. You could use a brisk shower and hop into the bed, you felt dizzy from lack of normal sleep and you had to get ready within a few hours. You dug through the clothes and finally found a comfortable t-shirt and shorts for sleep. You grabbed your body wash and lotion and walked into the cold bathroom. You had the need to take a bath, but you also knew you did not want to waste any more time.
The shower went quickly, and you then applied a decent amount of lotion on your body and slipped into your pjay. As you laid into the bed, and finally started to drift off sleep …
“FUCK!” You startled yourself. “I have to text my parents god damnit.” You reached for your phone and sent them both a short message that you made it there safely, that you will call them tomorrow, well, today at night.
You closed your eyes and thought about everything. You made it.