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Objectively, there were worst places to be than the tube at 7am, but that was a terribly easy thing to forget when you’re sleep deprived, crammed in with strangers with wildly varying levels of politeness, and having to deal with a lot of bullshit.
Kaisa groaned as Manuel’s icon popped up with unread messages on her discord app, no doubt explaining his rationale behind taking back the guy he’d just broken with for disrespecting his boundaries. This was an old song and dance. Kaisa knew nothing she said could dissuade her best friend, not when he was so certain that he was never going to be this in love again.
And honestly, Kaisa kind of hoped he was right. You had to be arse over teakettle to keep coming back after so many fights. She only wished she didn’t have to be the one to pick up the pieces every time it happened.
Knowing that if she didn’t give him any attention soon, he might think twice and delete all the messages with the juicy details, Kaisa’s thumb hovered over the icon (which was currently a Cedar tree, for some reason). The only thing that stopped her was realizing, with some surprise, that she was being talked to.
“Rough day already, huh?” The woman sitting beside her asked with more genuine sympathy in her voice than a complete stranger should be able to showcase. She seemed to be about her age, with messy brown curls and a kind smile, and had earned Kaisa’s respect in the previous half an hour they’d been sitting together by giving her a polite good morning and remaining otherwise silent.
Uncharacteristically, Kaisa found she for once didn’t mind being talked to during her detestable commute. This time she had something she had to tell someone lest she blow up like a party balloon from sheer stress.
“My friend is taking his ex back!” She snapped, not caring if she sounded insane because that’s how she felt, at that point, “I mean, once is understandable. Twice looks a little silly, but sure, love is blind, I guess. The thing is I have lost count of how many times this has happened! It’s been going on for years.”
The stranger’s eyes widened, and in a split second Kaisa’s face heated up in embarrassment at having dumped that on someone she did not at all know, until it became clear that the other woman’s surprise was not for the reasons Kaisa had assumed.
“You too?!” The brunette gasped, letting her (thankfully empty) paper coffee cup fall to the ground in the heat of the moment. “I have the exact same problem!”
Foregoing her usual rule of avoiding conversations with people she wasn’t in a position to walk away from whenever she felt like, Kaisa unglued herself from the window so she could be two centimetres closer to the stranger. “I am so sorry for you.”
“Ditto!” The woman lifted her hand as if to pretend to be raising her a glass, only to find out her cup was laying on the floor. “Oh, crap.”
Since the stranger had a lapful of bags and something that Kaisa thought looked like an easel, she bent over to grab the cup herself. It was a ridiculously tiny thing, but when she gave it back, the woman smiled as if it had been the most cavalier act she’d ever witnessed.
“Thank you so much!”
“Don’t thank me,” she waved her off, and then, because her other option for spending time during the rest of her commute was to read Manuel’s texts, she added, “I do take gossip about your friend as an acceptable show of gratitude, though.”
Johanna laughed, and even though the metal screeching from the tube’s trails and the audio from some idiot’s TikToks got in the way, it was still the sweetest laughter Kaisa had ever heard.
“Okay, okay. You’re not going to believe the things this guy did to my friend–”
They spent the rest of the ride chatting, and comparing the bizarre situations their best friends had been submitted to and forgiven. When Johanna regretfully said they’d arrived at her stop, Kaisa laughed and offered to help with her bags; fate seemed to want them to keep talking shit about their friends’ lovers, because that was Kaisa’s station as well.
Johanna had graciously refused Kaisa’s offer to help, carrying everything she’d brought with a nonchalant ease that got Kaisa feeling some type of way, but they’d only parted ways when they each had to take a different direction to head for their workplaces.
“But you know what, I may be luckier than you.” The stranger said after they’d each gotten their cycle of ‘goodbye, pleasure to meet you’ over. Kaisa lifted an eyebrow.
“And why is that?”
“Because my friend assured me that they’re never getting back together.”
“Good for him, honestly.” Kaisa adjusted the strap of her messenger bag on her shoulder, smiling and being smiled at in return. “But most of all, good for you.”
They each went on their merry way, and as she restacked books and pointed out to patrons that you could not return books with any sort of liquid spilled over it without paying a fine, she didn’t think about the stranger again. Not aside from fleeting thoughts about her smile and her curls, at least. They were really sort of lovely.
Until later that afternoon, when she stopped at the station’s convenience store to grab something to feed her soul (which was Kaisa’s code for “able to single handedly deteriorate her health”) and the person in front of her in line was wearing a familiar hat and overcoat.
“More caffeine? Looks like I’m not the one having a crappy day anymore.”
The woman jumped in surprise upon hearing her voice, and turned to face Kaisa with a delicate pink tint on her cheeks. She tried to hide the can of energetic drink in front of herself, as if Kaisa hadn’t already seen it.
“Ugh, I don't usually drink this sort of stuff but I’m tired and I’m going to need to head back to my best friend’s before going home. Wanna guess why?”
Kaisa’s cheeks hurt from holding back a smile. “Why?”
“Because he’s taking his ex back and wants help getting the flat ready!”
The laugh Kaisa barked out turned more than a few heads to look back at them, but the commuter seemed to appreciate her brand of commiseration.
“Come on, man,” she said, reaching out and quickly grabbing the energy drink can before the other woman could stop her. “Let me pay for this. You need a treat.”
The brunette frowned, and it was clear that only pure politeness stopped her from grabbing the can right back. “I can’t let you!”
Tilting her head, Kaisa gave her a knowing look. The people who’d turned to look at them were rolling their eyes at this point. “If you can help a buddy impress his crappy boyfriend, you can let a nice girl pay for your drink, can’t you?”
Though Kaisa didn’t really know why, the woman blushed a little more noticeably this time. Her gaze was at her feet when she answered.
“I suppose I can.”
“That’s what I thought.”
Kaisa didn’t see the timid smile on the brunette’s face when she walked ahead to pay for both the Jorts package and the energy drink, but she did know that that evening, having company made the commute back home feel infinitely more pleasant.
──●◎●──
“Hey, wingwoman stranger!”
For about a week, they hadn’t happened to meet at the station or take the same carriage; and they were sure of it, because even though neither of them were aware, they’d each looked for one another every morning when they got in for their journey.
It was only the first stop after Kaisa had gotten in. The car was still empty enough that there were many seats available (and a very bearable amount of different sounds and smells, though neither of those would last long), but the brunette still took the aisle seat right by Kaisa. The librarian lifted an eyebrow, slipping a bookmark into the murder mystery she’d been reading without thinking twice about it.
“Is that how you think about me?”
The woman took off her hat, running a hand over the strands that stood up because of it. Her hair was tamer this time, Kaisa noticed, and instead of carrying many items she had just one – worryingly big – backpack. She quirked up her lips at Kaisa.
“I kinda do, yeah!” She chuckled, and the way the corners of her eyes crinkled was so charming that Kaisa felt a funny fluttering in her belly, “How do you think about me?”
“What makes you think I do?” Kaisa retorted before she thought any better of it, trying to throw in a smirk for the intended effect. Unfortunately, the intended effect would only have been achieved if the commuter was an entirely different person. Instead of chuckling like the librarian had expected (that technique usually worked on patrons when she wanted them to think she was cool), Johanna’s face went red so quickly that Kaisa had the sudden irrational fear she might start chiming like a kettle.
“I’m only joking!” She rushed to amend, filled with horror at the notion of making such a sweet person feel like a nuisance, “I think you’re pretty cool.”
And, because her brain didn’t think that had been quite enough, she added under her breath, “Sorry.”
That finally got the brunette to smile easily again, and it was such a relief that Kaisa didn’t even care anymore if she was the one blushing now. Good. She’d fixed her mistake without even having to reveal that she actually thought of her as “the beautiful lady from the tube”.
“That’s alright!” The woman chirped, “It’ll be even better if you give me an alternative so I don’t have to call you that in my head.”
Extending her hand as was her habit, despite the informal situation, Kaisa bowed her head just slightly. ‘Kaisa. Nice to officially meet you.”
For a split second, the woman seemed to have been caught off guard, before clasping Kaisa’s hand with both of hers for a handshake. It was autumn, and the carriage’s air conditioning system was as brutal as ever, but the touch was warm. The librarian thought she looked like one of those people whose hands were always warm.
“Johanna”, she said with a smile, and that’s how the entire trip went from then on. They spoke in hushed tones when they could, mindful of their fellow commuters until the other said something that rendered them unable not to laugh. They talked about their jobs – Johanna, it turned out, was a freelance artist as well as a clerk at a local chain store – and their reasons for not living closer to them – both of them had older people in their lives they wanted to live close by, in case of emergency. Johanna was halfway to convincing her she simply had to go have brunch with her and her Aunt Astrid one day when two things happened at once:
The first was the carriage’s sound system warning them that their stop was next.
The second was the ring of a message arriving at Johanna’s phone.
As Kaisa put away her book (which she had completely forgotten she’d even been holding that entire time), her peripheral vision caught Johanna opening what looked to be her instagram, right before she groaned loudly.
“They’ve fought again!” She cried, before Kaisa even had the chance to ask what was wrong. Sympathetic but happy to not be the one in that position for once, the librarian huffed while Johanna buried her face in her hands.
“You didn’t have a coffee cup today.” Kaisa awkwardly patted her shoulder blade, easily accessible from the way Johanna had hunched herself forward in despair. “May I get you some at the station? Don’t know about you, but I’m a few minutes early.”
“Oh, I’d accept it even if I was running two hours late.” Johanna rubbed at her eyes before picking up her bag from the floor in front of her, getting up and allowing Kaisa to take the lead. “But I’m paying this time.”
Kaisa looked back at her just long enough to smile, before turning her gaze back forward lest she trip over some commuter’s leg (or their child). The station’s shitty coffee shop wasn’t as bad as she remembered – the tables were even half clean – and the bitter coffee was bearable. They parted ways with a friendly wave, at which point Kaisa noticed her mood was drastically better than it generally was at this point in the morning.
The librarian was happy, and proud of herself for successfully bonding with another human being, and she thought that good mood might last the entire day. However, that was not to be. Because as soon as she checked her phone upon arriving at the library, she found new notifications from her best friend.
Manny had been thrown out of Edmund’s flat. Again.
──●◎●──
Kaisa wasn’t there when Johanna arrived at the station again, and she hoped it was because her new friend had managed to go home earlier that day. Johanna herself had no such luck.
She took the second stop from the train that took her back home every day, crossing the packed station bumping shoulders with as few people as possible, and emerged into familiar streets. There were brown leaves all over the sidewalk, but Johanna didn’t even have the presence of mind to be satisfied with their crunch under her boots. A turn right, two blocks forward, another turn right, second building on the street. She knew the path by heart.
Ed ringed her in immediately, and it didn’t say good things about his current state that he’d probably been looking out of the window just waiting for her to arrive. Johanna braced herself for what would surely be another evening of drinking a lot less wine than her best friend so that at least one of them was in full possession of their mental capacities.
Not that he was on his day to day, anyway. Not if the last few years of relationship chaos were any indication.
She sighed and leaned against the walls of the old lift, knowing it would take an absurd amount of time to get her up eight floors (but that she was regardless too tired to take the stairs). It was always like this. She loved Ed, she truly did. He’d been there for her when nobody else had, and even though that might be a consequence of only having one family member to speak of, her friend was a brother to her. But he’d been on and off with Manuel for years, and that couldn’t be good for him. She kept trying to tell him to meet new people, or to at least take some time to himself, but it was inevitable; they always ended up going back to each other.
Which, on one hand, made Johanna endlessly exasperated. Enjoying someone’s company didn’t stop her from being annoyed when she had to listen to them list all their partner’s flaws just to take them back almost immediately after. At least, not after the seventh time that had happened. Johanna had stopped counting at around Breakup nº10.
At the same time, some foolish part of her that still hadn’t gotten all the romcoms she’d watched as a teen out of her system couldn’t help but feel a sting of jealousy. Not at the messy fights and even messier make ups, of course. But when in her life had she ever experienced a feeling that strong? Johanna hadn’t dated since, hell, since high school, and every time Edmund called her for advice she had to wonder if she was even qualified to give any. How could she be, when she couldn’t even fathom loving someone enough to keep choosing them despite all the fuck ups?
But those occasions weren’t about her, and Johanna did her best to not make them so. They were about Ed and his broken (and fixed and broken and fixed and broken–) heart, and being there was the least she could do for him.
She remembered to check in with Astrid to see if she should stop by the market or the drugstore to get her anything before going back home, and that’s when she saw it, just before the lift stopped moving: a request to follow her on Instagram.
It was Kaisa, one quick look at the profile picture told her so. Her icon was an artful picture of her reading by lamplight, and the way she looked so at ease made Johanna suspect that she hadn’t been aware when it was taken. Her bio was empty save for a book emoji and a crystal ball one, and Johanna quickly accepted the request before requesting to follow her right back. She only had time to send her a quick “hi!” before the lift’s doors opened and she was face to face with her best friend.
He looked like he was about to start dissing Manuel immediately, but before he had the chance, he caught up to Johanna’s smile and his frown switched into a smirk.
“Evening, Jo. What’s got you happy like that, huh?”
“Memes.” She stated in a way that made it clear there would be no more discussion of the matter, though she put her phone away far too quickly to even pretend she’d been believable. Edmund raised an eyebrow, clearly thrilled about the prospect of getting something juicy from Johanna for a change; as if she didn’t know exactly how to get him off her case.
“So, what was it with him this time?”
The words had a magical effect. Edmund immediately went back to scowling, not bothering to wait until they were inside the flat to begin his rant. Manuel’s stuff was still scattered throughout the place, a stack of vinyls on the coffee table, a horrid jacket at the coat hanger, a mythology book on the kitchen counter. As far as roommates went, Edmund’s beau seemed to be one of the tidier ones, but it still felt jarring to Johanna that she never knew whether his things would be around or not when she came to visit.
“I got back from my night shift,” Ed grumbled, going straight to the kitchen to pour himself a glass of wine, “and I woke him up, briefly, to give him a kiss.”
Johanna made herself comfortable on one of the stools by the counter, knowing damn well how stories about their clashing schedules went. But just because she knew Ed was waiting for it, she asked.
“And?”
“And he got mad at me!” He threw his hands up, “He grumbled and acted grumpy all morning.”
“And was that it?” Johanna rubbed at her temples, knowing for a fact that that was, in fact, not going to be it.
“There’s more!” Johanna was going to jump out of the window, “we went to the mall in the evening, and there were some kids running around on the playground–”
“Yes, they tend to do that.”
He shot her a poisonous glare, but didn’t ever halt. “And I was looking at them because, you know, they’re pretty cute!”
The sigh that left Johanna’s body resembled a balloon being deflated. She also knew where this one was going. It was as if she’d memorised all their arguments by now, and honestly, it was a little despairing that she was spending her brain power on that.
“And then–” Edmund waved around a finger emphatically.
“Here we go.”
“And then, he laughed at me!”
Johanna groaned, laying her head on top of her arms as they rested upon the kitchen counter. “God, what an asshole!”
“Right?!” He took a swing from his glass, “I know how he feels about having children, I’ve made my peace with it! But he just went and –”
The man didn’t even finish the sentence, opting to take a feel more gulps of red wine instead. Johanna felt, not for the first time (and she wasn’t gullible enough to think it might be the last any longer), the urge to kick Manuel in the back of his knees and keep on kicking when he was down. Ed didn’t cry over him anymore, but that didn’t mean he didn’t get hurt every time something like that happened. And the worst part was that Johanna knew nothing she could say or do would stop Ed from letting him do it all again.
So she didn’t. She just accepted the glass her best friend offered her, and offered him her shoulder, and let him win the battle over who would pick which movie they watched.
And, because she prided herself on how good of a friend she was, she didn’t check her phone until she was on her way back home.
──●◎●──
──●◎●──
At first, when she spotted a familiar figure at the library, Kaisa brushed it off as seeing what she wanted to, and chastened her heart for doing a stupid little flip at the sight. A brunette in flannel and sneakers didn’t equate Johanna, that was just thirty percent of the lesbian population. What did mean something, however, was when the patron turned around and smiled with what was very much Johanna’s face. If that didn’t mean the person was actually Johanna, then Kaisa would have to take a spontaneous little trip to the nearest mental hospital.
So off she went to greet her, and to find out what brought her to Kaisa’s workplace during the precious minutes of her lunch break. The thrill that the librarian felt upon finding out that the reason behind the visit was not a book, but Kaisa herself, was enough to make her understand there was something going on with her.
It was hard to worry when she knew nothing that went down in her romantic life could go worse than Manny’s, so there was that.
Johanna had sheepishly stated she thought that both of them dealt with far too much shit to do it sober, and that if they enjoyed each other’s company, there was no reason to do so alone. Kaisa agreed wholeheartedly with her sound reasoning, so they exchanged phone numbers – Kaisa did not open instagram nearly often enough for it to be a good communication method – and agreed to find an opening in both of their schedules to hang out.
And, because Johanna had already gone to the trouble of walking all the way to the library, Kaisa went out on a limb and asked if she wanted to grab a bite nearby before going back to work.
She really hoped she wasn’t being delusional again, but something about the way the artist’s face lit up at the invitation made her think that this could be leading somewhere interesting.
──●◎●──
──●◎●──
Grove Park wasn’t exactly a must see in their city, but it was relatively clean, had benches and, most importantly, was within walking distance for both of them. They each clearly already spent too much of their lives inside public transport to inflict even more of it upon themselves willignly.
The park wasn’t where they met, however; their plan was much better than that. Instead, at five in the afternoon of a mild weathered Saturday, a librarian and an artist met in front of their local supermarket.
In theory, the plan was to buy cheap alcohol to drown their problems while laughing at their own (and their best friends’) expense. It quickly became evident, however, that a) Neither of them were drinkers and b) They weren’t the most laser focused people, either. Anyone that passed by them in the drinks aisle would have thought that they were either already drunk or just plain stupid, judging by the way they giggled uncontrollably at their sheer lack of knowledge on the matter.
“This is embarrassing!” Johanna snorted behind her hand, looking at a Kaisa who had been trying to decode a wine bottle label before she broke into giggles at her own inability, “My best friend knows a lot about this stuff, he always serves me when I visit him. And I know nothing!”
Kaisa nodded at her with wide eyes. “Mine too! He’s into all sorts of fancy stuff, I can’t even tell the grapes ap–”
The sentence was left unfinished as both of them were once more overtaken by laughter, having to place the bottles back on the shelves before they accidently broke one of them.
In the end, all the alcohol they left with were two colourful cans of (or at least so they claimed) cocktails. And those were the least sugary items in their cart.
Well, alright, maybe they got sidetracked.
They left the market with far more sweets than anything else, joking that perhaps there was more than one way to drown one’s problems. Who was to say chocolate didn’t work just as well?
When they looked back at that evening years later, their nostalgia would not need to trick them into thinking it had been anything other than it really had. The setting sun, the golden leaves, the plants that were one summer away from being accurately described as untamed, all made them feel like they were inside a fairytale book.
(One of those nice ones, with fairies and lessons about the power of friendship. Not the ones with faeries and lessons about the dangers of trusting strangers. This is an important distinction to make.)
The two of them simply chatted, for a while, both secretly terrified that the conversation would stall and they would not know how to pick it back up. That feared moment did not arrive. Then Johanna pulled out a sketchbook, just to show Kaisa a doodle she’d recently made, it ended up with them falling into an impromptu game of drawing something random until the other guessed what it was – Kaisa realised she was at a terrible disadvantage, but Johanna was laughing so much at her pathetic attempts at art that it was worth the humiliation. Only after some time of that game did they even remember everything they’d bought, and they dug into the sweets while pretending to be culinary chefs judging fancy desserts in a television program.
It was stupid, like they’d regressed back to being teenagers. It was also perfect.
By the time they got around to opening the cocktail cans, it was dark and they’d already forgotten why they were drinking to begin with. They clicked their drinks together in cheers, and failed not to cringe at the strong artificial flavour. Everything felt light and soft around the edges, and not because of the alcohol they’d barely just begun to consume. Kaisa felt as though reality was hazy, as though knowing that she was wearing pink lensed glasses didn’t take the beauty away from the experience at all. She didn’t know where any of this was going, but as foolish as that was, she hoped it never stopped.
With a feeling that could be either dread or excitement, Kaisa wondered if this was what being in love felt like. And the fact that she didn’t have it in her to berate herself for being hasty or naive sounded like a positive answer.
“Do you ever wish you could know what's going on inside the other guy’s head?” She blurted out, taking Johanna by surprise, and understandably so. “Your best friend’s boyfriend, I mean.”
It all started to make less sense. If that’s what love is like, how come the four of them kept letting such silly things get between them? When she stopped to really think about it, nothing Manuel had ever told her over the years had been unavoidable. If she stopped trying to side with her friend at all costs, she could look back and realise it always felt as though some part was missing. Like she wasn’t getting the full story. After all, if you love someone enough to keep coming back, why give them reason to leave in the first place?
“All the time,” Johanna sighed, and even though she probably wasn’t having the same train of thought as Kaisa, she seemed to understand what she meant perfectly well. “Honestly, sometimes I worry I’m missing something. Like, what if my friend is in the wrong here?”
The woman leaned forward, elbows on the tops of her thighs and gaze straight forward. There was a small lake in front of them, with a considerable amphibian population. A small frog jumped into the water, and Kaisa shuddered at the thought of one of the little creatures touching her. Johanna didn’t pay them any mind.
“That’s his problem, of course, but what if I do the same when I’m in a relationship? If I can’t see what the problem is, how could I know how to do better? Like, what if I’m clingy and want the relationship to revolve around me, and whatever else his boyfriend says about him?”
Kaisa took a long sip from the drink, immediately regretting it when it almost went down the wrong pipe. It was only through pure luck that Johanna kept looking forward and didn’t notice how she nearly choked for a split second, but she managed to regain composure soon enough.
“I see you there, to be honest.” Her voice sounded croaky, so she cleaned her throat. “I… I hate changing my schedule and I deal badly with not getting alone time. Basically, I'm like my friend in more ways than I’d like. That’s why he’s my friend, after all. And I wonder if that’ll get me thrown out into the streets for callousness one day.”
It was a good thing she’d put down her can, because if she’d almost had a problem before, she’d have died asphyxiated if she’d been drinking when Johanna put a gentle hand on top of her tight. Despite the gesture, she was looking at Kaisa softly, with a small furrow between her brows.
“I simply can’t imagine that happening.” She said, making sure to keep her eyes on Kaisa’s so she could feel just how very sincerely she meant that. It made the librarian feel like she was being stared down at by the sun itself. Still, she smiled, because getting to feel sunshine at all was a blessing.
“I can’t imagine that happening to you either, Anna.”
──●◎●──
Johanna walked her back to her apartment, because of course she did. Kaisa would have liked to say she’d insisted it wasn’t necessary, but that would make her a liar. The truth was that the second the woman had asked if she could accompany her home, Kaisa had crumbled under the sweetness of the gesture.
It was already late and the streets were mostly empty, but even then the silence between them didn’t feel awkward. It was… peaceful, if she had to describe it. It felt like understanding. It felt like not being alone.
Kaisa’s building was old, but charming, the kind of place that could be called “quaint”. There were vines on the grey walls, but they were barely noticeable under the weak lamplight. With no lift to speak of, they climbed the one set of stairs to her floor, stopping in front of a door with a mat that read “a spoiled cat and their servant live here”.
“Would you like to come in?” Kaisa offered, imagining this was the polite thing to do and telling herself she’d have done so even if the person she was talking to didn’t make her feel like her heart could beat right out of her chest at any minute. “I could make you a cup of tea, if you’d like. I have sugarless food inside, I promise!”
A dimple appeared on Johanna’s face at her lopsided smile, and Kaisa was so sure this meant she would accept to stay for a couple more minutes that she almost turned to unlock the door behind her. It was hard not to let her own face drop at the answer.
“Not tonight, I’m afraid,” she said, ever so gently as if she was afraid Kaisa would feel offended at being turned down. As if the librarian could dream of being mad at her. “But I did want to ask you something.”
Kaisa raised an eyebrow; she could hear Freya sniffing on the other sound of the door.
“Go on.”
“Well,” Johanna looked away from her, gaze drawn towards the ground as she rubbed the back of her neck. “I’ve been having a lot of fun with you,” Kaisa bit the inside of her own cheek to keep from interrupting her or smiling like a loon, “I’m sorry if this is too forward, and please know that it’s fine if you just don’t feel like it, but… how would you feel about going on a date?”
Her mouth dropped open. She stopped hearing her cat, or sounds altogether, as her entire focus shifted onto the woman in front of her. Whatever face she was making – and she couldn’t bring herself to control that at all – must not have been too encouraging, because Johanna turned her eyes back to her feet and began fiddling with the hems of her jacket.
“With, with me,” Johanna added, as if Kaisa’s reaction could be attributed to confusion. She then felt her face heat up as she realised how silly she was being, and how she was probably humiliating herself in front of someone she’d barely gotten past the “stranger” phase with.
But that was alright, because Kaisa did not have the wits to notice a single thing.
“I’d love that.” The librarian says it at last, in a tone of voice that was far too eager. Which, naturally, Johanna also didn’t notice. She was too busy lighting up like a Christmas tree.
“Oh?” She breathed shakily, “oh, sweet! I’ll- I’ll text you about it?”
Kaisa nodded. “Please do.”
“Great!” Both of them were smiling ear to ear, by then. Freya had started scratching on the door from the inside, and Kaisa didn’t even have it in herself to care. “Thank you for tonight. It was amazing spending time with you.”
“Agreed.”
Knowing she was far too old to feel this awkward and feeling even more awkward because of it, Johanna looked around for a clue of what to do when Kaisa was looking at her like that. Like the artist was a particularly interesting book she wanted to read from cover to back in one single sitting.
“I guess I’ll get going, then –”
Before she had the chance to explain she’d be helping her aunt with gardening the next morning, she felt delicate fingers wrapping around her wrist and pulling her down to Kaisa’s level, and suddenly Kaisa’s lips were on her cheek, soft as anything. The contact lasted just long enough to leave a tingly sensation on her skin, but it was enough for Johanna to know her entire face must be pink.
At least Kaisa wasn’t in a much better state, either.
“Good night, Anna.”
And at least Johanna made it out of the building before punching the air and whooping in victory.
──●◎●──
──●◎●──
The coffee shop Kaisa walked into clearly tried too hard to pretend it was vintage. There were pictures from old newspapers framed on the walls, and the wallpaper looked like something she’d find at Tildy’s house. Even the ambience music had a grainy quality to make it seem like it came from a vinyl, despite the poorly hidden soundboxes. Still, the librarian would take it any day over Manuel’s first choice of establishment. He had first suggested they grab a bite at his favourite seafood place, but a couple of accurately used emojis from Kaisa had made him think better. The Salty Maised was not a place Kaisa would ever be convinced to step foot on again.
“What’s he claiming now?” Kaisa asked as soon as she was within Manny’s hearing range, forgoing any formal greeting; they were way past that. Her friend already had a teapot and a steaming cup in front of him, and she briefly considered asking for a second cup so she could have some of it before she better analysed the dubious liquid and thought better of it. Best to just order something she knew she could trust.
Which she did, and Manuel waited patiently as she placed her order and waited for it. Maybe waited eerily would be a better way to put it. Her friend was a weird guy, always had been. If she wasn’t so used to it by now, she might have been creeped out by the blank stare and the silent treatment he gave her while they waited. Kaisa drummed her fingertips on the table to the rhythm of a pop song that had been stuck on her mind lately. Manuel braided and unbraided the ends of his dark, wavy hair without ever looking down at it.
He should be very grateful Kaisa was as weird as she was as well.
A waiter brought her pot of red berries tea over, and the moment he had turned his back to them – not a second earlier, not a second later – Manuel finally answered.
“That I cannot commit.”
Kaisa tried to remember what her question had been to begin with, frowning as she stirred three sachets of sugar into her tea.
“And can you?”
“Well…” He drew the word out, sliding down his chair enough to rest his head on the back and look up at the ceiling. The man looked, if anything, tired. Not offended at the mere suggestion, and much less introspective. Like the complaint from his partner was just another nuisance.
Kaisa sighed, rubbing at her eyes until she saw blotches of colours she couldn’t name. She thought about how many times they’d had this conversation before. About how many times she’d reassured her friend that his partner was obsessive, that the guy didn’t deserve him. When had that ever worked?
And had it ever even been true?
“Honestly, Manny, have you ever considered that maybe, just maybe, you are the jerk?”
“Look, perhaps that’s true,” Manny conceded, which was the wrong way to reply in this situation unless one was ready to admit full blame (he was not). “But I really don’t know what he wanted me to do! He started going on about how we never do anything with both of our friend groups, how we practically don’t know who are the other people in our lives or something –,” again the wrong thing to say, since it landed far from ‘caring’ and was far too detailed to be nonchalant, “and all I did was point out that we have no friend groups. We don’t talk to our families and we don’t talk to people. And we’re fine with that! I am, at least!”
Kaisa’s tea was scalding, but she still sipped from it. If anything, as a way to keep herself from pouring it over her friend.
“Don’t you think that maybe that’s what’s bothering him? Maybe he’s sad the two of you don’t have a good support system outside of each other.”
Manuel shrugged and raised his hands, his face still inexpressive to a concerning extent. “Well, how am I supposed to know? He accused me of bringing us both down and of saying that just to avoid meeting the people that matter to him.”
It was… strange, trying to put herself in his place. She’d always done so, of course. It was inevitable. But whenever she’d done this before, she’d always pictured a faceless form in the place of Manny’s boyfriend, a generic woman complaining about her job nonstop, or wanting to know where Kaisa was all the time, or arguing about what she wanted their future to be. It was easy to hate the faceless form. Easy to side with Manny.
Now, however, that her every waking moment (and many sleeping ones, as well) was filled with one specific visage, she pictured herself being woken up in the morning to get a sweet kiss from a tired Johanna, getting to make her breakfast and tuck her in before leaving for work. She pictured getting to think and even talk about a future together, like it was a given and not something she still had to worry about losing. She pictured being allowed to carve a place for herself in her life, to go help her work at her aunt’s garden and invite them over to Tildy’s for dinner.
And she really did not see her best friend’s point anymore.
“Kaisa? Earth to Kaisa.”
The librarian blinked, realising she’d been staring fixedly at some point in the wall behind Manny for quite some time. A lot more than was acceptable, probably, since her friend usually just left her be when she started openly daydreaming about one thing or another.
“Sorry. Zoned out, there.”
“Anyway,” He didn’t narrow his eyes at her, because that would require too much face muscle action, a skillset he truly didn’t seem to have gotten the hang of in his nearly thirty years on earth. “That being said, Edmund wants to have brunch with our friends. I trust you to act like a human being near my boyfriend and whoever it is he talks shit about me to.”
She groaned, finishing what was left of her tea before answering.
“Can’t you ask Victoria? You know how I hate these things.”
“I could, but I don’t trust Victoria to act like a human being near my boyfriend and his friends. Or ever, in fact,” he leaned forward, elbows on the table and hands intertwined as in prayer. “Can you be there? Pretty please?”
Kaisa pinched the bridge of her nose, but it was mostly for dramatic effect. She knew already she’d say yes. Who else did Manuel even have?
“Fine. I will,” The man made a whooping sound that was so lacking in emotion it sounded sarcastic. Kaisa knew him well enough this was as close to genuine as he got. “But Manny?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re an asshole. And you’re paying the bill.”
Refusing to let herself be hindered by the grating scratch of the chair against the wooden floor, Kaisa got up with as much conviction as she could muster, turned her back to him and left. She had a date to get ready for.
Behind her, Manuel sighed and shrugged half-heartedly.
“Yeah, that’s fair.”
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Let it never be said that Kaisa didn’t go out of her way for her friends. She arrived at the arranged diner half an hour earlier, having ridden shotgun into that side of town with Tildy, who had a meeting with her crocheting group that morning. The fact that she’d arrived in one piece, without any bruises on the places the seatbelt touched her skin, and only mildly traumatised by her mother’s driving was proof enough that the universe was rewarding her for being charitable enough to show up.
She had no idea how many people would arrive – which would depend, she gathered, on how many friends of Ed’s were willing to be put through this – so she’d sat herself at a booth upon arriving, figuring there was no reason to not be comfortable while she waited for them to arrive.
And that was that. She took her current read out of her purse and tried to block out the outside noises, of which there were blessedly few. The idea of being at a table with Manny, his problematic partner (or maybe Edmund and his problematic partner, she wasn’t sure anymore at that point), and random strangers was not an alluring one, but if push came to shove she could just put on her usual act. Pretending she was too cool and mysterious to talk to people instead of just socially inept wasn’t ideal, but it generally worked.
She’d been about to text Manny and ask if he was on his way when someone stopped directly by her, forcing her to look up.
The table in front of her was the only thing that stopped her from jumping up.
“Johanna?!”
“Hi!” Her – she couldn’t believe she was able to say this – girlfriend waved cutely, smiling down at the librarian. Kaisa smiled in spite of herself, feeling suddenly better simply on account of her presence. She’d had no idea Johanna would be at the diner, or even in that part of town; maybe this was a sign the day would not be a disaster, after all.
“How lovely to see you here,” Johanna said as she scooted into Kaisa’s booth after the latter had slid closer to the wall to free enough space.
“You too!” It was probably obvious, judging by the way she felt herself smile, but it didn’t hurt to say. “You won’t believe why I’m here.”
She put her book away inside her purse, now much more excited at the prospect of complaining about her current situation to the one person who would surely understand. Beginning at the fight which Manuel had told her about, Kaisa explained the ridiculous train of thoughts, words and actions that led to her being in that dinner, in that moment, on that day.
When she turned back to face Johanna, she’d expected what she always got after sharing Manny’s latest antic. A laugh, a pat on the back, a similar story. What she had not, however, expected, was the disbelieving, stone cold stare that the woman was giving her.
“Kaisa,” Johanna said, in a voice more serious than the librarian had ever heard. It sent a cold dread to her belly, wondering how on earth she’d fucked up this time, before she realized she wasn’t the one in trouble. “We’re wingmen for the same two idiots.”
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Edmund scowled at nothing in particular as he stomped into the dinner. His boyfriend followed in tow, looking far too pleased with himself and whistling a tune from one of his ancient records.
“Really, Eddie, what’s got you into knots this time? You said you wanted all of us to hang out, now we’re all here, hanging out.” He said as if it was a simple conclusion Edmund had been too stupid to come to by himself.
He took a deep breath, taking advantage of the several inches he had on Manuel to very pointedly not look at his face.
“I said,” he began, trying hard not to grit his teeth, “that since you were never interested in me meeting your friends, I’d at least ask Jo to hang out with us for a bit.”
Because when you want someone in your life, you want them to get along with the other people who’ll also be in the picture. That was his opinion, at least. He didn’t say it out loud because quite frankly, Ed was already tired of how petty he was getting. Manuel had brushed off on him after all those years.
“Yeah, you brought yours, I brought mine!” Manny chirped as if that made it sound any better.
“That’s the thing! You never wanted me to meet Kaisa, this is just your stupid idea of a retaliation!”
The waiters didn’t even try to guide them to a table as they passed by, instead just looking at each other meaningfully. They, too, were used to this song and dance.
“It’s not a “retaliation”,” Manuel argued, signing quotation marks into the air (he didn’t buy, not for one second, that Edmund wasn’t looking at him). “You have someone from your side, I have someone from my side. It’s only fair!”
Ed resisted the urge to roll his eyes, but not the one to groan. He buried his hands in his coat’s pockets lest he lose control and strangle his boyfriend.
“This is a relationship, not a war. There aren’t sides.”
“Well, technically this is a relationship fight, so there are, in fact, sides. Wouldn’t you agree, girls?”
Though Ed himself had failed to notice, Manuel had been leading them (hadn’t Ed been at the lead?) to the table where Kaisa and Johanna were sitting. Though his boyfriend had met his best friend before, brief contact on odd occasions here and there, Edmund had never had the chance to meet Kaisa.
And it sucked, because the moment he noticed that the woman matched the exact description Johanna had given of her new girlfriend, he realised he was done for.
“Girls?” Manuel asked again, slowly coming to the realisation that not only were neither of them rushing to pick sides or answering at all, they were also looking at the couple with twin looks of absolute wrath.
“You know what we agree with?” Kaisa asks, and it’s so obviously not a good idea to answer that that instead of even shooting his shot at sarcasm, Manuel exchanges a glance of mutual fright with Ed.
“That the two of you are perfect for each other. Please never get anyone else involved.”
It happened so quickly the two of them barely had time to process the situation and react. Johanna grasped Kaisa’s wrist and the pair rose together, walking past them and out of the dinner before either could protest.
They stared at their disappearing figures for about half a minute.
“Well. That happened,” Manuel shrugged. “Wanna order our usual?”
──●◎●──
It took crossing the street for them to start giggling, and walking one block further for them to start marvelling at what on earth had even happened.
“Do you reckon we’re ever going to end up like them?” Kaisa asks as they cross another street. They hadn’t agreed on what they were going to do yet, but by mutual understanding they both seemed to be approaching the river that crossed the city. Johanna laughed, squeezing her hand softly.
“Dearest, I think they’re on a whole different level which we aren’t close to being talented enough to achieve.”
The easy way with which the endearment crossed Johanna’s lips made a swarm of approximately ten thousand butterflies flutter in Kaisa’s belly. It was unfair that she should be the only one blushing, so she tugged on Johanna’s hand and gave as good as she got; as soon as the artist was looking at her, she got up on her tiptoes and pressed a kiss to the corner of Johanna’s lips.
She’d have to thank Manuel for that one. Something good had come out of being his wingwoman, after all.