Won't You Die Tonight For Love

“What do you mean you’re leaving?” I nearly shouted. Jarno looked around as if he were ashamed, though he might as well have been. Over the days we’ve known each other, we’ve grown so close, and now, suddenly, he’s leaving me. I felt like crying out of sadness and frustration.

“It’s time for us to go home, Juliet. I’m sorry... but Finland is our home,” he replied, rubbing the back of his neck and slightly wincing as the words came from his mouth. He sat down on the bed next to me. Although my hair was still wet from the shower I had just taken before Jarno came to talk to me, he twisted it around his fingers, giving me a small smile.

“I know, Jarno, it’s just... I didn’t know you were planning to leave so soon after you got here,” I said, lowering my head to look at my hands.

“I wouldn’t have planned on leaving so soon if I had known you.” A smile escaped my lips and I looked up into Jarno’s eyes, and he was smiling back at me. Without another word, I gave him a long hug. “But if it makes you feel any better, I’ll give you a call once in a while,” Jarno said. I could feel his chin move against my shoulder as he spoke, making me giggle.

“You better.” Suddenly, we heard the door swing open, the surprise causing us to separate in the blink of an eye as if we were schoolchildren being caught doing something against the rules.

“Hey, guys, we gotta get going. Their plane leaves in a few hours,” Bam said, giving us a suspicious look. “Juliet, are you going?”

“Uh, yeah, sure. Let me just put my hair up and I’ll be ready.” Bam nodded and told Jarno to ‘come on’. Jarno got up to leave and, before going, turned to give me one more smirk and a wink.

The car ride was as obnoxious as ever. I was seated in the very back, something I’ve learned to do if I didn’t want to get too involved with the boys’ silly shenanigans. Bam and the Dudesons were screaming along with Turbonegro enthusiastically, dancing around so much they were making the car move from side to side at stops. The general mood was hyper and happy. I, on the other hand, thought that at least Bam could be a bit more focused on driving. He was, in fact, the driver.

The only other sane person around was Ville, who was sitting next to me and chuckling every so often from something one of the boys did. I remembered waking up in his arms. For a few seconds I was so confused, but as I started to remember what had happened last night, I felt strangely safe and comfortable. Ville was already awake, it seemed, and when I looked up to him, he smiled and moved hair from my face. It was then that I took a shower and, when I came back, he was gone.

~. ~. ~. ~ VILLE’S POV ~. ~. ~. ~

“What more could you expect from children?” I suddenly said with a grin as they sang along to Good Head by Turbonegro, of course. Juliet laughed, shrugging. Jarppi turned around and rested his chin on his hands, grinning at both of us.

“So, when’s the wedding, you two lovebirds?” My face went blank from the shock. I looked over to Juliet who only blushed, looking out the window to avoid our eyes.

“We’re still trying to figure out the dates,” I said jokingly with a smile, trying to save the awkward position we were both in. It seemed to work, as Jarppi laughed, giving us his famous ‘two thumbs up’ while saying “As long as I’m invited.”

When he turned around to rejoin the chaos that was going on in the car, Juliet looked back at me, stifling her laughter.

~. ~. ~. ~ JULIET’S POV ~. ~. ~. ~

As we walked through the airport, Jukka and Jarppi each held one of my hands (since I was put in charge of keeping an eye on them) poking each other. They’d been doing this since we got into the airport. First it was just poking each other, but that all too quickly escalated into Jukka tackling Jarppi to the ground and beating each other up with insane laughter. One of the security officers warned us that we’d have to go if we didn’t stop this ‘nonsense’, which prompted everyone to look at me and act as the mother. So now, there I was, saying, “Stop it,” every twenty seconds.

The entire time we were making our slow but steady way to the terminals, the group was just laughing and talking about everything and anything that came to mind. We had just passed through security when a girl came over to us. She looked to be in her late teens to early twenties and judging by her shirt, an ornate heartagram, came for Ville.

“Ville Valo?” she asked excitedly. Ville, always the gentleman, smiled handsomely and replied with, “Yes?” The girl had one of the largest grins I’ve ever seen.

“Hi, I’m Raven and I’m a really huge fan of yours,” she said in what seemed like a mere second. I refrained from letting out a giggle.

Before Ville had a chance to speak, Raven continued, saying, “Would you mind taking a picture with me?”

“Of course, darling. Anything for a beautiful lady such as yourself,” he replied with a charming smile. Raven blushed before handing me the camera. A displeased look came to my face but I agreed to take the picture nonetheless.

Raven didn’t seem to know a thing of personal space as she took care to snuggle right up to Ville. He, in return, put an arm around her waist and both smiled in extremely opposite ways. Ville smiled with casualty, as if this sort of thing happened on a regular basis for him (as it very well did). However, Raven, who did not regularly come across experiences such as this, smiled as if she had won ownership over the universe.

Holding the camera with a forced neutral expression, I quickly took the picture and then handed the camera back to the kid. Raven thanked me quickly before turning back her attention completely to Ville.

“Thank you so much, I am just such a gigantic fan and this just made my life,” she exclaimed, looking as if she were about to break into joyous tears.

“You are very welcome, my dear. Thank you for being such a loyal and devoted listener,” Ville said with a slight bow. Despite myself, I felt my cheeks grow hot from jealousy. I was annoyed by this girl and Ville saw that when he looked over. “Well, my dear,” he started, turning his attention back to Raven, “it has been an immense pleasure meeting you, but I’m afraid my band of merry men and one woman and I have to go.”

As we stood at the gate, waiting for the signal that the plane is allowed boarding, we all shared many jokes and laughs. Jukka and Jarppi were, as usual, directing the laughs with their crazy antics. Several times they gained the attention of passersby, and that wasn’t meant to be a good thing most of the time. At one point, Jukka had taken it upon himself to feel it necessary to punch Jarppi in the balls. Although Jukka got a good head start, Jarppi was quickly after him. The chase went on until, once more, a security guard almost had to escort them from the premises. This is only what I get for letting my guard down, I suppose.

Fortunately after almost being kicked out of the airport for the second time, they seemed to calm down considerably. Now, even though Bam was with us and couldn’t follow a thing, the rest of us were chattering happily away in our mother tongue. Bam, after a while, looked quite irritated, though this only made the others speak even more in Finnish. Some things I translated to Bam, others... he wouldn’t want to hear anyway.

When the plane began boarding, I was reluctant to see my newfound friends go, especially Jarno. When the plane began boarding, he and I looked at each other and gave sweet, sad smiles. He was, after all, a phenomenal friend.

“You better call me, you hear?” Jarno warned with a smirk, seeming to clash with his upset eyes. I nodded with a laugh.

“I will call you whenever I even look at phone, and that is my promise.”

“Good because if you don’t, I’ll just have to call you. And trust me when I say that you don’t want that with our extreme time differences.”

“Goodbye, Jarno,” I said to him with a forced smile. He pulled me into a hug and said quietly into my ear, “Juliet, mä...” He sighed. “Tuun kaipaamaan sua.”

“I’ll miss you too, Jarno. I’ll miss you a lot,” I replied and as we separated, Jarno had a dismal look about himself.

“Well,” Jukka suddenly said, stepping towards me with that seemingly permanent sly look. “We shall meet again, Pretty Lady.”

Once everyone had exchanged either hugs, pats on the backs, or, in Bam’s case, a slap to the face, the Dudesons had finally left and the three of us that were remaining headed back to the car. I knew I would never forget them, and how could I anyway?

~. ~. ~. ~ JARNO’S POV ~. ~. ~. ~

With one last look at Juliet, I turned and walked down with my friends. I was going to tell her how I really feel, I was going to tell her I love her, but I couldn’t. It didn’t take an expert to see Ville was meant for Juliet and that I... Well, I would be nothing more than a friend.

And as my plane took off, I prayed for Ville to take care of her, for that job that I would have done so well, I had passed on to someone I knew should.

~. ~. ~. ~ JULIET’S POV ~. ~. ~. ~

“How about Georgia Rule?” I asked, holding up one of my most beloved movies. When Ville and I had returned from the airport, we had banished Bam and everyone else in the house from our room, closed the blinds, and decided to have a movie day.

“What’s it about?”

“Lindsay Lohan being an uncontrollable sex-slash-drugaholic.”

“Sounds pretty realistic, don’t you think?” Ville said with a chuckle. I rolled my eyes.

“No, the only difference is that by the end of the movie she changes her ways. Whoops, spoiled it.”

“Don’t worry, darling. I’d still love to watch it.”

And so we did. We sat casually on the bed with a bowl of popcorn. For those few hours, we had decided we were the most respected critics, for with every scene we had something new to comment on. It was a good thing I had already seen this move several times before because there was hardly any moments where we weren’t talking. That’s how our day was spent. After Georgia Rule, we had watched everything from horrors to comedies. By the time night had arrived, we were all movied-out. It was then we even thought to leave the room for the first time in ten hours to get a bite to eat. And even though we had done nothing in that day, it was bliss for me, for I had spent it with Ville.

We were just eating some microwave pizza when my phone vibrated and played Gothic Girl. Ville smirked at my choice of ringtone, but I just flipped him the bird and answered without looking at the caller ID.

“Hello?” There was a ton of background noise. Laughter, music, video games, and someone exceptionally close to the phone shouting ‘hi’ enthusiastically. I wish I had checked caller ID now.

“Hey, Juliet. How are you?” A voice with a thick accent said. An accent all too well known to me.

“Imp! It’s so good to hear from you! I’m great, just at Bam’s eating some pizza. What are you up to?” I replied with such newly acquired energy. Imp was, in short, one of my best friends. She lived in Helsinki with my other two best friends, Sini and Emil. We were all childhood friends, even though I moved to America.

“Just hanging with the dumbasses,” she said with an exasperated sigh. I could envision her looking straight at the others as she said this.

“Ah, shut up, hoe,” I heard from another female voice, which could only belong to Sini. I giggled, wishing I could be there.

“That’s wonderful, Imp, really,” I said with sarcasm dripping like honey from my voice.

“Yeah, but anyway. We all just wanted to call and let you know that we’re going to come visit you,” she said with such casualty that I choked on the bite of pizza I was swallowing at that moment.

“What?” I muttered, as it was the only thing I could say.

“Hope you don’t mind, but we wanted it to be a bit of a surprise. Don’t worry, Bam already knows.” Confusion was just one of the many emotions that were running through my mind, but it was the most prominent.

“But how?” I said only after a tremendously long pause. Imp was laughing at something a boy said in the background, though I couldn’t make out what it was.

“Huh? Oh, Sini logged into your email and got Bam’s email address from it,” she replied, as though this were the most obvious answer in the world, as though I should be saying ‘herp derp’ right now.

“Oh. Well, that’s good anyway... even though I didn’t know Sini had my password in the first place. But still, I’m glad! When are you flying out?”

“Tomorrow! Anyway, I’ll talk to you later, my phone is about to die. See you soon, princess!” And just like that, she hung up, leaving me hopelessly confused with my jaw about to the floor.