Chapter Text
July. Weather: 22.2•C. Sky: clear.
After a mandatory sound check this morning for their stage show in the Kallio region in Helsinki before another interview with the radio producers in Vantaa, KAJ found themselves with a rare afternoon off-duty.
A carnival just so conveniently settled around the Sky Wheel Ferris wheel for the week, and the lively tents sprang up around the KAJ group as they waded their way through the crowd.
Jakob would explain and point every so often to anything that smelled even remotely meaty or greasy, redirecting his friends' gazes his way.
Kevin nodded in his direction. “Well, since I'm here, I am considering dropping by home, giving my wife a kiss, and walking Busis for her,” he said.
“Well, you’ll have to clip a leash on a second doggo here,” Axel joked. Jakob had the enthusiasm of an unbridled puppy, his teeth gleaming in the sun, as his attention was stolen by the glitzy, sparkling, colorful carnival booths surrounding him right and left.
“Well…” Kevin trailed off. “Tove Jansson park is nearby, if we want to walk the doggo....Axel? Thoughts?”
“Actually, I wanted to check out Merikasarmi,” Axel proclaimed. He subconsciously straightened his tie. “I need cultural enrichment.”
At least, that was what he was about to say. Then Jakob skipped over to the ring toss, enthusiastically beckoning his friends over.
“Oh, Kevin, now’s your chance to shine!” Jakob said. He promptly loaded the rings into Kevin’s arms before the latter could do anything. “I should watch — um, no, actually — be right back, guys!!”
"OI !!" Kevin explained after him. "Don't leave me hanging!"
Jakob waved his fingers towards him in a you're-on-your-own statement before he skittered off to a nearby vendor to buy food while Axel watched Kevin accept his fate. He stacked the rings in one hand and took one of them and aimed for the peg in front of him.
Only one ring missed a peg, and that one fell into the next ring toss.
"Impressive," Axel commented once Kevin got handed a large stuffed teddy bear as a prize. He smirked. "And you tell me that Drakan didn't do you any good?"
"Ja, I'm just tall is all," Kevin chortled. "We were just doing cap-toss all day, me and the boys."
"Bullshit! You sneaked out of cleaning duty!"
"Nej..."
At this point, Jakob came striding towards his comrades, bearing cotton candy, deep fried donuts, and salmiakki trailing a meter below his filled arms.
"You missed the grand ring-toss performance of Big Kev," Axel announced in a ringmaster voice.
"He saw me win enough times when he was stuck in the same unit as me," Kevin said, smirking as Jakob laughed.
“I should give this to Lina…” Kevin murmured. Then he reconsidered, because he could always win something smaller and more convenient to carry around with him. So instead, Kevin bestowed the bear onto a little competitor who'd lost to Kevin's round of game toss, who was jumping up and down with unbridled glee, with the mother prompting the kid to "say thank you to this kind man who gave you a toy."
“What about this child here?” Axel asked Kevin, indicating to Jakob, who stuck out his lip at Kevin in a mock-pleading attitude.
Kevin hung his head while laughing. “ Voi dear nån !”
"Well, anyways!" Jakob said, beaming at them through a mouthful of donut. "My excuse for breaking keto today! Don't tell my fiance!" He laughed.
They next got drawn into the target shooting stand. Axel paid and took up an air rifle, cocked it, and shot with considerable dexterity.
He was very close to the bulls' eye each time. However, not even after the 30th try did Axel manage to get it quite on target.
" Man, you're trying!" Jakob squealed, patting Axel on the back with one clean uncrusted side of his hand.
" Pappa would kill me," Axel grunted, remembering his hunting days in the forest. He thunked the air rifle next to Kevin, in a defeat. "Impact points on this thing shifts regularly anyway. I'll leave you to decide..."
Kevin picked up the rifle and, with hardly even a glance forward, he took aim. A hole instantly appeared dead in the center of the bullseye.
Jakob whooped with amazement -- followed by choking on some random Dumle that he swiped from a Osuuspankki stand.
"My guy, you must have had a LOT of free time at the barracks," Axel said, thumping Jakob on the back.
"It's not that," Jakob wheezed, seeing Kevin turn red in the face. "Kevin's from Årvas . Simple."
“ Komossa , to be more precise.”
“Same thing, same thing!”
Kevin didn’t argue with Jakob further. He looked at a small key-chain of a plush Mario Power star that he had just won and pocketed it into the inside of his coat pocket with a faint smile. A cute surprise for Lina.
Jakob did the ladder climb – all by himself, at Axel’s insistence that he couldn’t join since he had a sore back, and with Kevin saying that he didn’t want to get a sore back. The ladder flipped on Jakob halfway through, and he yelped as he smacked his back onto the bouncy platform below with a glorious THWAP .
“Owww…” Jakob grimaced and reached back to rub himself.
“Tsk, tsk,” Axel said, running over and looking over Jakob and shaking his head with an amused look. “What did we tell you?”
“The game operator made it look so easy when he did it,” Jakob said, laughing weakly. He took Kevin’s outstretched hand to hoist himself up.
The Can Knockdown proved more eventful. Jakob brushed his hands off some remaining crumbs and gave some of the cotton candy to Axel to step up and try his shot.
After a couple wind-ups, Jakob deftly tossed the ball into the centerpiece of the cans, which prompted all of them to be knocked cleanly off the steps.
Jakob repeated this two more times in succession before the game operator bestowed onto him a huge Moomin plushie.
"Too bad Jakob doesn't have any kids," Kevin chortled.
"He is a kid," Axel responded, smiling brightly.
Jakob didn't finish there. He continued his rounds on Can Knockdown. Each time, he received a prize, and each time, he pawned it off to a delighted kid that was crowded around him during each round. Within a short amount of time, he grew a slightly sizable audience of both parents and children, curious to peek at the adroit throwers.
The kid that received a Moomin plushie from Jakob brought along more friends and told them about this mysterious muffin man that gave away prize toys for free.
Even a couple seagulls, of all things, landed around Jakob, possibly in the hopes of snatching some cotton-candy giveaways.
Within time, the operator grew visibly annoyed, and at Axel's and Kevin's behest and insistence, they had to drag Jakob away.
"But I didn't give all of them toys!" he protested.
"Schakob, my dear friend, you probably didn't notice, but you were about to make the operator go bankrupt with all his prizes," Kevin said, laughing.
They quickly stopped to snack at another food stand, and after that, they piled into the passenger car of the SkyWheel Helsinki ferris wheel -- as one usually does when they visit a carnival.
"My God, Jakob, is this gonna be your second munkki?" Axel commented, sitting next to him
"Who says it's my second?" Jakob spoke up. He deftly finished off the second munnki before helping himself to a third. Axel clicked his tongue in mock shame while Kevin, being rather tall, made do with the cramped foot space by manspreading a little and leaning his head against the wall.
The Ferris wheel revved into action. It jerked the passenger up, slowly, so that the city view of Helsinki rose into view beneath them and they could look down onto it from all directions.
Axel was checking his notifications on his phone, as per his habit since he was in most control of the social media.
" Jävlar ! How did they know?!"
"Huh?" Jakob peered over Axel for a better look.
"And just when all we wanted to do was give a couple candies away. In private, " he grumbled. Axel shook his head as he read in a mock Swedish lilting accent, for he knew how the Swedish media did him dirty about their reputation as a humor group before Eurovision week. "’Not only are they actors, singers, directors, comedians, but philanthropists…’"
"You mean just humble prize-winners for the children?" Kevin said.
“Yeah, but the question is, how did they find out? ” Axel passed his hand over his face and looked down at the carnival grounds, almost as though expecting to find a horde of paparazzi waiting for them at the bottom.
The wheel jerked to a stop. KAJ's cabin swayed a little, right on top.
And while they were waiting for the wheel to spin into action once again, Kevin yarned about how his parents caught two visitors (Tourists? Fans?) visiting his childhood home in Komosso while they were away at Eurovision.
“What nationality? Swedish? Did they look Swedish?" Kevin probed.
“They’re not really sure,” Kevin replied. "Hey, is this thing going down already?
Kevin glanced around. "Huh. It's not like it to be up this long."
"It wasn't that long!" Axel protested.
A pause in the convo.
“Well, on the bright side, now we have fans as far as the Philippines, so your visitors, Kevin? They could be from anywhere! How cool is that!” Jacob beamed.
“Charmer,” Alex said dryly, gripping the edge of the seat with his hands just a little tighter.
“It’s my house, not yours, that’s being stalked, Axel,” Kevin said after an abrupt pause . “Rest easy, man. You’re safe.”
Jacob chuckled harder, looking out towards the view. “I think it’s just the Ferris wheel that’s keeping Axel on edge.”
In classic Axel style, he neither confirmed nor denied it. Rather, he asked, “And you, Jakob? Any fangirl trouble?”
“Yeah! I’m now getting flowers, gifts, and love letters at my doorstep.” Jakob said. He sighed.
“Better than me, man. My parents are actually dead worried. And I’m worried about them, too…” Kevin trailed off, resting his chin into his hand and looking outside.
“Don’t see how you could be pissed at that,” Axel said pointedly at Jakob. “I would think most would like the idea.”
“Oh, you don’t understand. I’m not the one who’s angry. My wife is.” Jakob chuckled, shaking his head. He pulled out his phone. "Truth or dare?"
"I don't know what there is to dare here," Kevin joked.
"Truth or dare, Big Kev!"
"Truth."
"Who did you date before Lina?"
"Oh, remember Tilde? When we were touring with the choral group in 2008. Well, we snuck a free moment, and I actually took Tilde out to the Ferris wheel here,” Kevin said, smiling faintly.
“Ah…” Axel echoed. “Yes, she was temperamental.”
“And we looked at the top just like we are doing now. And she kissed me.” Kevin smirked. “We had a fling after that.”
“Ah…”
The two other men nodded along.
“Tilde?” Axel echoed. "After one date?“
“Yeah. In the back of an old parked pickup truck too. ”
“And that was it?”
“Yeah …that was it.
“‘Upstanding True Finnish boy’ was what your parents bragged to me when I bumped into them at the last Lucia ceremony,” Axel said, a touch of snide in his voice. “Although, I suppose, maybe school doesn’t count…”
“I don’t think he ever told you about Lovisa and Ida,” Jacob tittered.
“Ida!” Axel exploded. “Have pity, she was a broken kid who didn't have a strong brother figure to teach her boundaries! At least I value explicit consent and communication Kevin —“
“Calm down. We know you and Ida were also close,” Kevin said. “Then just say so, Axel. Don’t need to prove anything to anyone. We don’t judge here.”
"Why is everyone still saying I was with Ida!” Axel bristled. "It's not true! I was set on Louise, dammit!"
"Not how I remember it."
"Yes, yes! Everyone was spreading those stupid rumors about me...next, you'll tell me that you're the one who spread them!"
"I'm not a good enough liar for that."
Anyways,” Kevin said after a long pause, “Ida initiated first. So I just went with it.”
Another long pause.
“Well!” Jakob laughed shortly. “We are a comedy group, after all! We come with the territory, huh?”
“And did you have anyone before Alexandra?” Kevin nodded towards Jakob.
Axel started.
“Don’t do this to the poor innocent boy...”
“I was just joking.” Kevin smirked at his friends.
Jakob’s eyes became distant, and he didn’t say anything at first.
“She was like a flower in the swamp,” he said wistfully. “I sent her songs, poems…”
Kevin, the ever-hustling playboy at the moment, indicated polite curiosity.
“Well…" Jakob smiled, but it was a sad smile. “You know, it’s always a mix of things that happen. Our parents weren’t friends. They were from different villages. And, I just sensed, we kinda …weren’t meant to be.” Jakob shrugged, smiling in a melancholic nostalgia. “But I was happy! I was happy to have dated her.”
"Tell us more, Jakob."
"Because each time I said hello, she smiled at me in the hallway. We had coffee together – hey, also! She gave me a ride on her motorcycle when mine got stuck on the road!" Jakob looked up at his friends with teeming eyes. "She held my hand when I cried to her about the death of my dog after school. She gave me flowers during graduation, too!" His smile was as warm and gentle as though he was seeing the scene unfold in front of him.
"What's very touching, actually," Kevin said.
"Yes! Well, it makes sense, she did say I was her favorite student!"
Axel and Kevin shot Jakob dumbfounded stares.
"S-student," Alex said flatly.
"Why, yes! Ms. Petersson, you remember her, right? Right?"
With warning, Axel pounced. He grabbed Jakob, shaking him by the shoulders so roughly that he was nearly mushed against the glass tile in their cramped passenger seat.
"Tell me where she hurt you!" Axel shouted, shaking Jakob into a tizzy.
"Uh, wuh?" Jakob blinked in confusion.
"Where did she touch you," Kevin said from his corner, leaning towards the scuffle.
"I don't understand!" Jakob cried.
"Of course you wouldn’t understand," Kevin spoke up loudly, "But you have to be very brave now..."
"I -- WHAT?!" Jakob shouted incredulously. "Look, I promise I haven't been thinking about her after Alexandra, okay?" He fumbled for his phone. "Look, I have to call Alexandra..."
"Call the police!" Alex roared, lunging for Jakob's phone, out of reach. The weight made the passenger car lurch back, then forth in its place. "No, call the TECH SUPPORT. When will they let us down already, dammit!"
Jakob was almost teary-eyed at this point. "Look, it's not a big deal, guys! I'm fine. FINE! I'm sure I said something to Alexandra about Ms. Petersson, but it's FINE. I think! I don't know!! Oh, why are you guys making me worry like this!"
Kevin staggering from the lurch, plopped back to his seat.
"Jakob, maybe there was a misunderstanding," he said matter-of-factly. "But what we want to know is, have you been in any inappropriate relations with the teacher? That's what Axel was implying."
"Oh!" Jakob burst out laughing. "I'm fine, for the last time! She treated me like an angel! She never even hugged me...!"
"It would not have been fine if it was anything more than that," Axel promptly finished. "But since it wasn't, well..."
"Guys. We found her hot -- Axel included, don't deny it! -- end of story. Nothing else happened," Kevin said, smirking. "By the way, having coffee with your teacher in the teacher loungeroom doesn't count as a date, Jakob." Kevin winked. "But, I guess she was only ten years older than us at the time, so it's understandable."
"Well," Jakob said wistfully, "she was a date to me, at least...."
Axel mopped his head in relief and turned his head in slight embarrassment, while Kevin said, peering onto the ground, "I don't mean to steer a bygone topic, but it looks like we got tech support piling up into the control box for the Ferris wheel..."
Axel leaned back and breathed heavily through his nose. Jakob looked over at Axel, sympathetic, saying nary a thing.
Back in Eurovision, the cameras caught three sprightly young fellows, in 70s style garb, blasting out a song about the joys of taking a sauna in all their exuberant confidence. What the cameras didn’t catch was Axel's panic attacks off-stage. So before the Eurovision finals, Axel had to sneak in some meditation techniques that Jakob taught him.
Ironically, Axel was the one who mentored Jakob in his teenage days to get over his fear on stage.
So it was with this realization that Axel prepared to take himself into his happy place and meditate on it.
"Truth or dare?" Jakob went for Axel this time.
"Truth," Axel muttered.
Jakob glanced at his screen, giggled, and continued: "Axel: have you ever stared at another guy's ass?"
Axel started. "Kind of fucking question is that?"
Kevin and Jakob burst out laughing. "Well, that did you some good! Distracting you from the now," Jakob crowed.
"You might as well tell us," Kevin said. "If you're worried we're not gonna make it down."
"I'm not worried we're not gonna make it down."
"Then you can tell us, just in case." Jakob then looked towards his phone. 'Or -- no pressure! But what you gonna do?"
Axel sat still, glaring outside the window.
"I think Jakob's waiting," Kevin said.
"Axel said gruffly, “I think there's a reason a lot of girls were into you."
"Only like, two and a half, dude," Kevin chortled, while Jakob howled. "Axel admits it! He admits it!"
"Hey, I'm talking from a girl's perspective here," Axel huffed.
Jakob took him for his word. He then turned to Kevin. "Truth or dare?"
Kevin smirked. "Dare." What could Jakob possibly dare him to do in this cramped space?
"Kevin, I want you to take Axel's hands into yours."
Kevin’s smirk dropped from his face at once. "Lord, where's this going..."
“No way in hell, ” Axel growled.
“It’s not forever, Axel! Just touch his hand!”
Well, Axel didn’t, so Jakob took both Axel’s and Kevin’s hand and had them clasp fingers to complete the dare. They pulled away, questioning how much cotton candy Jakob had stocked up on that day to be bouncing off the walls like this.
"Axel, your turn! Truth or dare?" Jakob continued, smitten with giggles.
"Dare," Axel responded. "Because I don't think you'll think of anything more absurd than this."
"Axel..." Jakob was smiling his stage-famous teethy smile at Axel, who was glaring straight past him, "I want you to repeat after me: Kevin."
"'...Lord, where's this going."
"I. Think. You. Have. a. Nice. Ass."
Axel spluttered while Jakob erupted into laughter again. Kevin, truth be told, looked more embarrassed by the minute. For the first time, he looked like he really wished to be down on the ground again.
"Truth or dare, Kevin?"
"Truth..." Kevin lightly facepalmed.
"Kevin...tell Axel what you most admire about him."
"What is this stupid shit," Axel muttered, while Kevin laughed. "Ah, finally, an actual question!" He shrugged. “What is there not to admire about him? Does that answer the question?”
A heavy pause. Then Axel grunted. “You’re very good about the stuck Ferris wheel situation.”
Jakob, always the sympathetic one, put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. Kevin simply listened and nodded. “I think the game scares me more than any stuck ferris wheel, to be honest…” he gave a short laugh.
"And ...?" Jakob spoke up, his goofy smile creeping up on him despite himself.
"And what?"
"What else do you admire Kevin for?"
"That's pretty much it."
"No it isn't."
"What are you on about?"
"That you think Kevin has a nice ass!"
"You won't stop with that!"
"I mean," Kevin spoke, "I remember, you made fun of me for my physique, back in high school. So I already chalked it up to you just being jealous of my height. Or my ass. Either way, I don't care."
Axed stopped to think.
"I was," he said simply. "But that was a long time ago."
"So you concede."
"I am a man of my word." Axel looked up to Kevin, as though drawing his own King.
At that moment, the wheel jerked forward. And what a glorious feeling! As it descended, the KAJ group briefly took a moment to celebrate.
"Jakob, tell me," Axel said sardonically as they landed on the bottom, "did you get those questions from Grindr?"
"It's just some cheap game," Jakob said, laughing. "Yeah, the questions are kinda weird, though..."
"Stop getting them from your fangirl websites. They're really perverted."
“I plead plausible deniability!” Jakob protested as he poked his head out of the passenger seat. But he wasn't done.
"No more candy for you," Kevin stated when Jakob continued flitting around his two bandmates, crowing about how he's never seen a romance with as much chemistry since Snufkin and Moomin.
"Hey Schakob," Axel whispered sardonically. "Truth or dare?"
"Truth!" Jakob replied.
"The truth and nothing but the truth. Who was really your next love after Ms. Petersson?"
"Ida!"