Grown Like Others.

I sat in class next to Japa. I always did. Normally it'd be Japa, Sammy, and myself, but Sammy had been put in a different homeroom. It was the first day back after summer break, and already I was sick of the place.

It was third period when I first really saw him. Health class. He was sitting next to some kid with curly hair, front row. Japa and I shuffled to the back and made ourselves comfortable. As we did the work, I couldn't help but sneak a couple of glances at the back of this blonde's head every chance I got.

-

Three weeks later, I was sitting on the wall with Japa, Sammy and Matti. He was across the courtyard, in a circle of maybe ten people, laughing and talking. I knew his name now, Jonne. Jonne Liimatainen. And every now and then he'd raise his bottle of lemonade or a strawberry to his lips, but not once did he glance my way.

“Oi, Kris. Hello. Hi,” Matti said, waving his hand in front of my face. “As much as you'd like to think, darling brother of mine, you've got no chance with any of those chicks.”

I glared at him. I was quite aware of our social standing, as much as my younger brother would like to deny it.

“I'm going to get some food, you guys want anything?” Sammy asked, moving from his seat. Matti muttered something about going with him, and I shook my head.

As soon as they were out of earshot, Japa slid off the metal bar behind me and took Matti's seat.

“You alright, man?” he asked.

“Yeah, fine.”

-

Four weeks before the school break, and I was about ready to throw a fucking party. It had been six weeks of pure torment; from the teachers, from the all-round jackasses, and inadvertently, him.

I'd learned so much about him, just from being in his classes. The only class we didn't have together was our second elective. I had art, and according to Japa's ex-girlfriend, Jonne had textiles.

I'd learned he was so far out of my league, that I may as well be on another planet. He was the center of attention, and knew almost everyone. He didn't talk much in class, kept his head bent over the paper. His singing voice was amazing, something I discovered when he performed a Neil Young song for music class.

We were waiting for the science teacher when he walked up the aisle, stopping right beside me. I froze. My heart froze. My breathing stopped and I swear to fuck I could have died right there.

“Do you have a pen, by any chance?” he asked. Oh Christ, his voice.

I tripped over myself for a minute. “Uh. Erm. Yeah, sure,” I muttered, stealing the pen off Japa's desk and handing it to him. He smiled in thanks, and my stomach just exploded.

“I was using that!” Japa hissed, glaring at me.

I spent the entire lesson doodling hearts on the inside of my book, not paying attention to a single word the teacher said.

-

After the Easter break, I expected the cycle to just start all over again. I realised I was sorely mistaken when he sat beside me in Health. Japa was off sick, so I had nobody to fall back on.

“Hei, Kristian,” he smiled.

There was this little version of me prancing around my brain wearing pink lederhosen going he knows my name, he knows my name!

We got paired together to do the worksheets, and I cringed. Simply having him next to me in class as I wrote down everything in medical terms was awkward, and having to actually say them to him was just... awful.

“It's C, isn't it? Twenty-eight days?”

“No, dude. It's D. Twenty-five to thirty-five. See, if you look here,” he said, flicking back to the body of writing we were answering from. “Not all women have the same menstrual cycle. Twenty-eight days is the average.”

I didn't say anything.

-

The next couple of weeks passed, and I found myself growing oddly more comfortable around him. He'd sit next to me in music theory, and mutter a hello if we passed in the hall.

When it really got weird was when he walked over to Japa, Sammy, Matti and I when we were sitting on the brick wall one lunchtime. His usual group was across the courtyard, laughing at eating as if he was never there.

“Do you guys mind if I sit with you?”

Apparently his friends been going on about a party that had happened the Saturday before, and Jonne had been both sick and grounded. Rather than sit there and put up with them rubbing it in his face, he came over and sat with us. Somehow, Japa, Sammy and Matti disappeared, and I ended up walking him to his textiles class and making myself ten minutes late to art. As we walked up the corridor to the textiles room, I decided to ask him something. It took every ounce of courage in my body to say the words and I felt like such a fucking idiot.

“Uh, yeah. We're kind of having this party on the weekend, for my birthday... you don't have to buy me anything, but if you want to come, the invitation's there, y'know,” I muttered.

It was like he hadn't heard my obvious nerves. “Sure.”

-

It was the second social of the year, in the sixth week of term. I decided to go, my excuse to Matti being I wanted to get away from him for a night.

Japa and Sammy went off to the dance floor to make absolute fools of themselves. I made my way into the bathroom, sat down against the wall, pulled a pen out of my pocket, and started drawing all over my hands.

I wasn't expecting him to come running in with his hair all frazzled. I wasn't expecting him to come in at all, but the state of his always-perfect hair was just... odd.

“Hei, Kris... why aren't you out there?” Jonne asked.

I rose from my place. “It's less boring in here, and the music's better.”

“But you can't do anything in here, or hear it.”

“That's my point.”

“Then why did you come?”

“Because I wanted to see you.”

As soon as I said that, I cursed myself. I headed straight for the bathroom door, my face pink and my heart about to jump out my mouth.

-

The Monday back at school after Friday's social, Jonne wasn't there. He was always there.

I kept my eye out for him the entire day, combing the ovals and courtyard for his blonde hair and white jeans.

Nothing.

After the last lesson, I made my way around the back of the school. Normally I would have caught the bus, but I really couldn't be bothered putting up with all the peope screaming at each other as if they were on opposite ends of the playing field.

Glancing around to check that no teachers were about, I opened my bag and unzipped the small pocket on the inside, pulling out my half-empty, squashed packet of cigarettes and the small pink lighter I always kept with them.

On a normal day I'd have waited until I got home, or at least off school grounds. But I just... needed one.

“You shouldn't smoke those, you know.”

I turned around, ready to bitch out whoever it was. That plan kind of failed when I saw it was Jonne.

Instead, I shrugged. “I don't care.”

He shifted his weight from foot to foot for a moment, before looking up at me much like a young child would. “Can I steal one?”

“You smoke?”

“Well, kind of...” he murmured, glancing around.

“Here,” I muttered, handing him one. I brought another to my own lips, lit it, and handed him the lighter.

“You walking home, or...?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you mind-”

“Uh, sure.”

Even though I appeared totally composed, totally normal, on the inside I was shaking. It was like that lunchtime all over again, only worse. Being in the school was one thing, but to be seen in a public place with someone like me? Blasphemous.

We ended up walking the not-as-public back way, in the end.

“Why weren't you in school today?” I asked him, feeling my nerves slowly settle.

Jonne sighed. “It's a long story, y'know?”

“We have a half-hour walk ahead of us,” I pointed out. “But if, you know you don't want to, then it's fine, I mean-”

“No, no. It's alright.”

“Sorry.”

“Don't apologize, you don't have to. There's no reason.”

“But-”

“Kristian, it's alright. Don't worry.”

-

After I walked home with him, and he opened up to me the way he did, he changed. He was still Jonne, totally and utterly, but... he was different.

The girls in his group would come up to him and try to kiss his cheek, and he'd pull away. Whenever they made stupid jokes about so-and-so being a dyke or whatever, he'd roll his eyes and say something about going to the cafeteria or having to get to class.

And somehow, the two of us walking home together became something of a regularity.

“Fuck, I'm dying for a fag,” he gushed one afternoon in the second week. I smiled.

“Do you not get any at home or something?”

“Butts. That's it. I'll nick off with a spare lighter and just... ashtrays.”

“Damn.”

Nothing eventful happened, but it never really did. We'd take the back way, avoiding the paths of his friends. That one lunchtime in the second term had been more than enough to get him some snide comments, and I didn't want to think what would happen if they saw him walking home with someone like me.

“So, uh...” Ugh. It was always like this. The awkward goodbye.

“Erm, Kristian... there's kind of something I've been meaning to tell you.”

My stomach just exploded. I swear, I could feel the mushroom cloud rising up into my mouth.

“What is it?”

“I...” he began, but trailed off. “Oh, nevermind. I've got to get going, really.”

“Jonne-”

“I'll see you tomorrow, I suppose.”

-

After that little incident, it just got awkward again. He went back to normal, as if he was in denial about something. It was odd... especially because it happened within the space of about a night.

So, a week after it, I waited for him behind the school. By the time I saw him, it was already half past three.

“Jonne.”

He didn't even look up, just kept his head buried in an issue of some magazine.

“Jonne. Jonne. Jonne.”

Nothing. He just walked straight fucking past me. Not even a glance.

“Fuck. I don't know what's crawled up your ass lately, but whatever it is... fuck. Did you convince someone to buy your fags for you? Hello. Hi. Talk to me, jackass.”

He threw the book on the ground, straightening up. “Why are you still here?”

“Because I want to know what's gone wrong with you.”

He turned around, clearly pissed off.

“Pull your head out of your ass, maybe you'd notice.”

“Notice what?”

“What this place is like. What I have to do so I can keep my head above the water. Their little fucking guidelines on how to live and how to act and everything.”

I rolled my eyes. “Hah. Sure, I don't know a thing about being shunned and pushed around.”

Jonne huffed, picked his magazine of the ground and started walking again.

“It's last week, isn't it?” I said. “Your little secret, that's what's going on. What did you do, huh? Go to some college party and do a line? Fuck a chick and get her pregnant?”

“Is that really all you think I do?”

“Well, you're not exactly giving me anything to work from.”

I wasn't exactly prepared for the bitch-slap.

“You are what's wrong with me. Because you're so... you're so different, because you give a fuck, because you're there. Nobody else is. Nobody else ever has been.”

“What's that supposed to-”

“For the love of shit, Kristian! Do you need me to get a megaphone for you? Or maybe write it across the side of a building?” he exclaimed. “I have feelings for you, okay? Feelings. The type that guys like me aren't supposed to have. Ignoring you does nothing. Acting normal, like nothing's wrong, treating you normally, does nothing. Being close to you does fucking nothing! Shit, I don't know what to do anymore!”

I didn't care if anyone was around. I didn't care if anyone saw.

I kissed him. And for some strange reason I never comprehended, he kissed me back.

“Don't tell anyone, please.”

-

The back of the building became our rendezvous. During the day, it was barely an upward glance in each other's direction, but as soon as it came three o'clock and we were behind that building, it all changed.

That was, until one afternoon five weeks into this whole... thing. I wasn't sure what to call it, because it could have had a thousand names.

Our lips crashed together, his hair soft and smooth between my fingers. He'd been away the day before, and before that it had been the weekend and fuck had I missed him.

“Kris?”

We froze. Both of us. Just... stopped dead and pulled away from each other as if we'd been struck by lightning.

“Japa, I can explain-”

“Kris, what the fuck-”

“Japa, shut up.”

“K-”

“Fucking shut it.”

“Not until you tell me what's going on!”

I was about to say something else, when Jonne stepped in. “You don't need to fucking know.”

It seemed Japa kind of realized who it was at that moment. No doubt he thought it was a chick... even I had to admit, it was a believable excuse.

“The hell I don't!” Japa hissed. “Kris, what's-”

“I'll call you tonight,” I told him, trying to coax him away.

“No you won't. Tell me!”

Jonne rolled his eyes. “Are you blind, or just stupid?”

-

Thankfully, after a fair bit of begging, Japa kept his mouth shut. Jonne couldn't live without his social status, for a reason I never understood. Towards the end of the last term, he kind of shocked me when he sent me a note in science.

“Meet me at the usual at lunch.”

And I went, thinking maybe he'd had the idea to skip the afternoon session and he'd wanted me to come. But, as I almost always was, I was wrong.

I didn't even mutter a hello when he spoke.

“Do you want to go to the formal together?”

-

The week leading up to the formal was this big mess. At first, we had no idea how we were going to get there – I'd be expected to go with Japa and Sammy, and he'd be going with his lot. We didn't know what we were going to wear, how we were going to meet up, whether it'd be before or afterwards or even in the middle.

We managed, though. I'd slip notes into his bag during class and we'd spend all the time walking home pulling our hair out over how we were going to do it. Eventually, we came up with something. A skeleton at best, with no plan B, but it was something.

I got dressed at my place, waited for Sammy and Japa to pick me up. Matti was being the bitch he always was, teasing me about how I didn't have a date. We drove around town for a while, pulling up at whatever places we thought looked cool and acting like a bunch of stupid tourists.

Once we got to the function center, I realized just how many of the people in our school were graduating. Hundreds. Fuck.

The awards came and passed, as did all the dancing and whatever the fuck else. It all kind of became a blur, except for when the teachers hit pause for a moment. A bunch of students had done speeches – I knew they were coming up at some point, our homeroom teacher wouldn't shut up about it – and apparently it was their shot.

I didn't pay any attention until he got up. Not in the plan at all.

“Uh, fuck. Aah,” he stuttered, putting a crinkled sheet of paper up on the podium. “I'm so not good at these things, aha. I only did it because I'm a lazy shit who didn't want to find everyone at the end of this.”

Little ripple of giggles. I stood up from my seat, taking a small sip of my soda.

“This year has been... wild. I came in on the first day, freaking out because I thought I'd be automatically shunned into the outcast group. But Lauri... I guess you came to my rescue, man,” Jonne laughed.

“So much has happened this year since then. I've had a couple of rough patches, but that's normal I suppose. I've met so many people, each of them with this memorable streak to them. It would be difficult to name them all, but I'm sure you know who you are.”

He paused for a moment, clearing his throat.

“Erm, I'd like to ask someone to come up here, if I can,” he said, looking at the teacher behind him, who nodded.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

“Uh, could Kristian Mikkonen come up here, please?”

Double-fuck.

The entire venue kind of gasped. I wasn't sure if that was because they had no idea who I was, or because they did know and it was Jonne calling me up there. Maybe they were expecting a joke.

I took a deep breath and pushed my way through the crowd, feeling as if I'd run a marathon by the time I got up there. Jonne gestured for me to stand beside him, and it was like being at square one all over again. The butterflies, the heartbeat... fuck.

“Some of you will know Kristian, and some of you will not. Those of you who do are either his friends, or you'd rather not talk about it. Whatever you know of him, whether it be everything or nothing, I want you to listen to me now.”

“I was put in Kristian's homeroom way back on day one. I never thought anything of him, and it went like that for a long time. He was just an insignificant speck, just like any of you would be had you been where he was.

“Over time, Kristian became my friend. He'd walk me home in the afternoon, and we'd even go the back way so my social status wasn't bruised. He cared about me – he was the first and only of any of you that truly did.

“As I began talking to him more, I discovered there was much more to him than face value. He wasn't just that kid who sat with two guys and his little brother on the wall. He'd listen, he'd tell. Hell, he'd even give me his cigarettes.”

I saw the eyebrows raise, and I could feel the criticism in the room.

“I started thinking differently, and had any of you really given a damn, you would have noticed how those thoughts affected my actions. Kristian did. I'm not sure exactly what it was that slapped me and told me to come to terms with myself, but whatever it was... it happened. He chased after me when I refused to talk, stood there even when I slapped him and put the blame on his shoulders.

“Our walks home turned into our... our rendezvous. Our meeting times. A small half-hour or so every day that we could spend together.”

He sniffed a little bit.

“Because of you people, I couldn't say this earlier. Because of you, I held back in the beginning. I denied it, I tried to kid myself into thinking it was just some phase or something stupid like that.

“Because of you criticizing bitches with your strict specifications of good and bad, of right and wrong, of acceptable and disgusting... we were forced to meet each other behind the buildings, and spend half an hour together while you spent six with your boyfriends and girlfriends. You were kissing in the courtyard as if it was something simple, something that didn't matter. We were behind the building pressed together so hard that at times it hurt, because we didn't have what you do, because we could have lost it at any point. You take it for granted, really.

He took a deep breath.

“I don't care what you think anymore. After tonight, I won't ever see your faces again, and I'll be happy. You can scratch my messages out of your yearbooks if you like.

“What I really came up here tonight to say, is that I'm in love with this guy right here. Kristian Mikkonen. I'm a fag, for the kid who sits on the wall with his brother.”

And he kissed me. In front of the entire graduating class. In front of his friends, the teachers, the people we didn't even know.

He kissed me. He kissed me. He kissed me.

-

“Kris. Kris. Hei, Kris. C'mon, get up. Kris. Kristian.”

I stirred from my sleep, mumbling. “What time is it?”

“Almost two.”

“Aw, shit,” I groaned.

“I know, I know. C'mon, we've gotta be there at four and you haven't eaten or anything.”

I felt his weight on the bed beside me, his fingers toying with the ends of my hair. “You're nervous, kulta. I can tell.”

“Well, the last time we saw the assholes... except for, y'know, Lauri and my lot... it didn't exactly go down well.”

“I know, but maybe... maybe they've changed. Maybe they forgot. It's been what, five years?”

I snorted. “It's kind of hard to forget, love.”

“Yeah, but still...” he muttered. “I want to show them. I want them to see what we have.”

“Mm. I suppose,” I muttered. “I'll bet you twenty bucks that Rakel Liekki's a porn star,” I laughed.

He smiled. “You're on, bitch.”