Chapter Text
First day of summer holidays at grandma's place. Summers at the countryside at grandma's were the best and Jere couldn't have been happier — there were fresh cinnamon buns and sugar buns almost daily, the garden was full of redcurrant bushes, and he could play all day with his big brother. There were free football fields and beaches literally everywhere, that they often visited with their dad. It was pure heaven until the year Jere turned 9.
All of a sudden people had learned from older kids at school that it actually mattered who you spend your holidays with. That there were people that have to be deemed different, unfit to the friend groups, and for the sake of social cohesion there had to be us and them. That being sensitive with lots of imagination wasn't an advantage anymore.
You had to adapt or become an outcast.
"Kuunnelkaa nytte miten se puhhuu!!"
Pointing fingers, laughter, smirks. Jere had been playing football at a nearby football field with a new friend. Jere had seen him last summer on the same field many times, he had tried to initiate conversations, but they'd never talked much. This time they had, however, ended up talking about football and ended up discussing who's dad is the coolest. The other kid's dad allegedly owned a wide variety of agricultural machines, and Jere wasn't quite sure how to make his dad sound cooler after that, but he sure tried his best.
In the middle of the discussion, the other kids appeared out of nowhere. Bravest one of the other kids had the courage to come and ask why does he speak like that, his friends following him from few meters back. Jere would have liked to continue kicking the football with his new friend, especially as he had come up with some quite good arguments on his dad's behalf, but the kid looked scared and waved a quick goodbye and rode home with his bike. Jere was left alone to deal with a group of malicious faces, who for some reason had a problem with the way he talked.
He wasn't too surprised. He had always been the black sheep, not quite fitting in. He was always called out for the ways he spoke: in Vantaa he replaced too many rarest consonants with more common ones on his every word and sounded like a hillbilly every autumn and winter. Come summer in Nivala, his consonants were again way too sharp and he was treated as a snob and an "etelän vetelä", a slack guy from Southern Finland. He considered himself as no more nor less than Jere from Vantaa — he had hard time understanding why the way you spoke mattered so much, as long as you were understood and you were not hurting anyone.
He tried to ask why it mattered so much. In Vantaa, even if you were made fun of the way you spoke, it was always by the people who knew how you usually spoke — it wasn't directed to everyone with an accent, just those who seemed to have a lag in their switch between dialects. But here in Northern Ostrobotnia the kids seemed ridiculously territorial, pushing people away at the slightest difference as if it was contagious, and Jere ended up walking and carrying his football to his grandma's place hours before he had intended.
He knew it wasn't all about the dialect and language. There was more to it. He couldn't stand it when his summer pals found newborn kittens from their families' barns, and then proceeded to shoot them with their dads. (Authors note: You can't make this shit up, unfortunately this still happens in 21st century. It's illegal, but far too common). He tried to be strong, act like he was enjoying it too, but most of the time tears started pouring on his face. Other boys called him too sensitive, being a girl for crying over such matters.
Following years Jere learnt to put on a mask on his summer holidays. He wanted to be invited to the bike rides to the ice cream kiosque. To kick football with the cool kids on the forbidden slope between market square and library. He wanted to go for swims with other boys to an old quarry filled with water and to the Pidisjärvi beach alongside a river — latter being less popular, because local water treatment plant had a habit of shoving toilet flushes to the river every time they had ignored basic maintenance work..
More than anything Jere wanted to belong. He played along, sitting on the slope of Library next to the market square, "smoking" chocolate cigarettes with other kids. Stealing apples from the neighbours' trees and taking advantage of gullible people on Habbo hotel....
Wearing a mask became his habit. He became the funny guy, who's responsibility was lifting everyone else's spirit, especially after having changed schools when he was 9. But wearing a mask every very day comes with a cost. Jere grew more shorttempered, and had impressive fights with everyone around him. His mom was less impressed though. Luckily Jere could let some fumes out by playing ice hockey almost daily during winter season.
Having fights and playing ice hockey with other boys had a clear benefit: having always been very tactile, being born in a country where everyone kept their 2 meters distance even with friends was a nightmare. Picking fights with words and ending fights physically permitted him to be very close to others and experience strong emotions next to other teenaged boys.
Until the incident when he was 14.
He had found some booze from a home bar with his ice hockey friends, and they were having a good time. He felt an urge to provoke the prettiest boy of their friend group to a fight. First it was just jostling and pushing each other around, trying to make one another fall on the ground, but it proceeded to choking. When Jere tried to free himself by pulling the other guy's hair, Jere couldn't resist caressing hottie's cheek with his other hand. It was more of an instinct than well-planned thing.
The guy was shocked, and so was Jere. The guy pushed Jere to the ground, starting to wrestle him. Guy's friends formed a ring around them. He was being hold down to the ground by the most hot guy of the group, who happened to sit on his lap, still wrestling him.
"Hey guys, that faggot tried to hit on me so I gave him what he deserved, and now he's here begging for more. That looser has a tiny dick, but he sure has a boner", the guy announced to the ring, moving little forwards and grabbing Jere's bulge. Jere couldn't help but twitch his hips a little. Hottie laughed and pinched his fingers tightly around Jere's genitals through his trousers, and Jere gasped out loud. Hottie proceeded to twist his hand to the point it was very painful, before letting go and getting up, laughing at Jere.
Everyone started announcing their disgust, "faaggooot", laughing at Jere. Despite the loose micmacs they all were wearing, the guy had noted Jere's excitement. "No, it's not that, it was a joke!! A joke!!! Come on, you know me, I'm always joking around" Jere turned to his stomach to hide the bulge from others, and it didn't help to convince them. "I didn't mean to...". He received some kicks, "go away faggot, never show your face here again", was even spat on. He had never felt as humiliated before.
Now Jere had lived through many of a fight, physical damage was almost non-existent on this one. Hell, he had even liked the physical aspect on this one. However for a guy for whom the friends and family are everything, being all of a sudden turned down by the people who were supposed to be your safetynet, for the sake of exploring your sexuality, left the deepest scars he had ever got from a fight.
He wouldn't have minded if he was alone and invisible at school, for he was not : he received lots of negative attention, as if he had a big shooting target on his back. He were pointed fingers in school corridors and cafeteria. People where whispering. Some where plain right shouting "homo" after he walked past in the school corridors. He tried not to cry, by clenching his fists the best he could.
He cried to a pillow on most days when he got home. The following months were difficult. He was mostly alone. Even his ice hockey coach had felt the vibe was off, and had dismissed him from the team, claiming he was too short of a guy to play ice hockey on this level. He was suddenly left with very little to do after school, which was heartbreaking, as he didn't really enjoy school either
He had scary fights with his brother, one where he ended up destroying half of the kitchen chairs by throwing them to the wall. He tried desperately to figure out if he was still safe with people who were supposed to be there for him. Turns out he was, but why didn't they see what he was going through?? Why didn't they make more efforts to uplift him? It seemed like all his parents could see at the moment was his new baby brother.