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“So, what do you do, Jere?”
Opposite him, leaning over his teacup, Jere pulls the sleeves of his hoodie over his hands while he glances at Bojan, looking like he’s pondering his answer.
The place Jere suggested is not at all what Bojan had expected. It is on the edge of the Senate Square in Helsinki, in a building following the neoclassical architecture of the whole square, overlooked by the Cathedral. Bojan was maybe expecting something super trendy and filled with hipsters, but this place feels like a historical home of an US president, complete with faux-antique chairs and flowery wallpapers.
Bojan likes to do this - find a date on Tinder and use them to discover cool places to visit in whatever city he is in. It’s not really about hooking up, even though that is also known to happen, but more about getting a feel of the place in a way that no tourist website could offer him. “What is your favourite spot?” he likes to ask.
“Do you do brunch?” was the question he had shot this guy, Jere, the night before, when they had been trading casual messages after matching.
The answer had taken a while, but then a “I can do brunch” came back and Bojan had wasted no time asking about his favourite place.
So here they are.
Jere is cute. Something about his goofy looks, his black bowl cut and his nose ring had caught Bojan’s attention in his pictures and made him swipe right even though he couldn’t understand his profile text at all.
Jere’s English is stilted but he doesn’t seem bothered, babbling about whatever topic they touch on. At first he seemed subdued, almost shy, but the first time his giggle breaks out and his nose does this ridiculous crunch Bojan thinks there’s a mischievous side for him for sure. Bojan can’t help but to grin back.
Jere’s laugher is infectious. Bojan has always had a weak spot for a laugh that doesn’t care who hears it.
Making him laugh is like losing at Jenga, Bojan thinks. You never know when it’s coming, but when the tower suddenly crumbles down at your touch, you can’t help but be delighted at the loud cackle, the chaotic jumble that follows.
Bojan wants to find all the ways he can to sway that citadel, knock it out of balance, shake loose the pieces of Jere’s laughter and make them cascade over the table.
He wants to keep losing.
For now, anyway, he corrects his thoughts. There’s no point in getting to know Jere too well. In a few days, Bojan will have moved on anyway.
See, Bojan is a free agent. Right now, he doesn’t have obligations, he avoids schedules - and attachments. He doesn’t spend too long in any city, or in any bed. The only way he wants to be tied down is with handcuffs, to a bedpost, by someone sturdier than himself, and even then he wants to be gone before his day ticket for public transport expires.
He trusts chance and the universe to take him where he needs to be.
Jere hasn’t answered his question yet. Bojan feels like he’s being assessed, Jere watching him and twiddling with his ring.
“Music,” Jere then says, and Bojan’s ears perk up.
“Oh, really? You’re a musician? That’s so cool. I’m actually–”
Bojan cuts himself off. Maybe they won’t go there right now.
“What kind of music do you make?” he asks instead. Jere takes a beat. Then he smiles.
“You want to hear? I have gig tonight.”
The place is some kind of a club. Bojan’s name is on the list just like Jere promised, but he is surprised when someone points him to a VIP section over to the side. There are plenty of other people there already, and Bojan tries to be inconspicuous and hopes no-one asks him who he is and if he knows Jere.
The club is pretty full, and people are flocking to the front of the stage. The VIP area goes all the way up to a section of a barricade, on the left side of the stage. A few people are standing there, but Bojan hangs back. He takes in the surroundings.
Jere’s artist name, Käärijä, greets him from a banner that’s hung on stage. The font is pointy and aggressive. People on the floor are dressed up in all kinds of ways: Bojan sees spikes and collars and mesh and leather, and starts to wonder what he has got himself into. At the very least he feels seriously underdressed. He tries to fit together the Jere he met this morning with the vibe that the stage and the audience are giving him, but it’s not really clicking. Maybe when he actually sees him perform?
Bojan purposefully hasn’t checked up on Jere’s music beforehand. He’s not sure why, but maybe he just wants to be surprised. Now he has no idea what to expect.
Whatever Bojan thought seeing Jere perform live would be, it was not this.
Jere’s breasts are glistening with sweat, his hair is a mess, his makeup is in ruins and his fingers have smudged black lines on his chest that look like claw marks.
Bojan stares as he keeps sliding his hand across his stomach, as he slaps his tattoo covered chest, as he throws his head back and thrusts his tongue out in a movement that Bojan can feel in his bones.
Bones or boner, his mind quips, but Bojan chases the thought away.
It is undoubtedly Jere on that stage - the same bowl cut, the same deep, amazing eyes. But he’s also someone totally different, someone bold and feral and ridiculous.
The whole show makes Bojan just feel, feel something primal and exhilarating. The music is full of energy; sometimes it feels like rage, sometimes like frustration. Without even noticing, Bojan is dancing and shouting and sweating his ass off, abandoning himself in the music and the crowd and the sight of Jere’s nipples and his belly button and what looks like a scar right above his waistline.
Bojan wants to taste them all, dip his tongue in, lap the sweat from Jere’s skin.
And he refuses to be ashamed of it.
At times, Jere banters with the audience and makes them laugh, holding the microphone casually, other hand under his arm, weight on one leg, leaning on his hip. Bojan can’t understand a word but he also can’t look away. He’s afraid to blink.
Bojan is dying to be where that microphone is.
A new song starts, and Bojan has no clue what’s going on, any more than with the other songs. There is a horn in the beginning, and the chorus sounds like a pirate chant of some kind. He’s been edging closer to the stage, bit by bit, and now he’s quite close to the barricade when his eyes suddenly lock with Jere’s.
Jere’s eyes flash in recognition, and a sly smile forms on his lips.
At one point during the song, Jere is facing his guitarist and fondling his face, and Bojan really thinks they’re going to kiss any second. But then Jere steps away, the audience howling, and grins.
He comes to the front and actually jumps down from the stage, and straight onto a small platform on one of the barricade pieces. He points the mic towards the audience and makes them sing, and the way the front row almost gets a mouthful of his crotch makes Bojan sweat. He wants a taste of that.
And as if reading his mind, Jere is moving, coming to Bojan’s side, on the barricade again, and then he’s reaching. Right in front of Bojan. People make space for him as he leans over the railing and beckons Bojan closer. On instinct, Bojan moves - it’s not like he makes a decision about it, it just happens. Can anyone resist if Käärijä tells you to do something?
As soon as he is within Jere’s reach, he grabs him by the neck and pulls him closer.
All Bojan can see is Jere’s eyes, his smile as it fills his vision. He can smell Jere’s sweat just before their lips smash together and Bojan can feel Jere’s tongue on his lips, demanding entrance.
Bojan opens his mouth eagerly to invite it deeper, but as fast as the kiss begun, it’s already over, and Jere’s moving away.
Bojan is left panting, the crowd’s screams ringing in his ears.
He’s not sure what happened, only that he liked it.
There’s no denying it any more.
He’s gone. And hard.
Bojan is putting on his coat when his phone buzzes. The gig is over but he’s still reeling, adrenaline pumping through his veins. People around him are chatting excitedly, but Bojan feels like he wants to run away and hide, tear up his shirt, howl at the moon.
He pulls out his phone.
Jere: Hope you like show :) wanna meet?
Bojan accepts, but he is nervous. For the second time this evening he’s not sure what to expect. What will that creature from the stage look like now? The utter command he had on that stage is intimidating. What does one even say when encountering something like that?
Jere is wearing a big black puffer jacket. His hair is hidden under a beanie and the hood of the jacket is pulled over his head for good measure. His face is scrubbed clean and his hands are once again hidden inside his sleeves.
“Hi,” he says, gnawing at his lower lip, and somehow it hits Bojan deep in his gut.
Käärijä seems to have left the building, and there on the street, greeting Bojan, is the Jere he met that morning - cute, unassuming, bashful. His smile can still light up the whole street, and Bojan can’t help but smile back.
It’s attractive as hell, and Bojan can’t decide which version of Jere is hotter.
“Hi,” he says, hands in his pockets. “How’s your night going?”
Jere shifts his weight from one foot to another. “Good. Always feel a bit weird after gig.”
“How so?”
Jere looks at his left, then at Bojan. “Feel the hype. The… adrenalin. But also feel little empty. Sometimes.”
Bojan feels a pang in his gut at Jere’s words. He’s so soft, so vulnerable - a total opposite of what he just witnessed on stage.
He can’t help but wonder which Jere he gets if he takes him home.
Jere in front of him makes Bojan protective. He wants to take such good care of him he forgets all about the demands the world has put upon him. If they spend the night together, there will be nothing else in his mind but how good Bojan makes him feel.
But thinking back to the way he felt back at the club, Bojan thinks he also maybe wouldn’t object to being fucked through the mattress.
“Do you always kiss someone?” Bojan hears himself ask.
He likes to imagine Jere blushes a little.
“Sometimes I kiss Jukka. Guitarist. Fans love it.”
Bojan nods. So apparently Jere doesn’t have a habit of kissing fans. That’s good to know.
“They seem to love everything you do,” he ventures.
Jere shrugs. “It’s a show. They love see me with pretty boys.”
“Oh.” Bojan can’t hide his disappointment. “Just for show, then?”
Jere shoots him an amused look, but doesn’t say anything.
It was Jere who asked him to be here, Bojan thinks. So he decides it’s okay to be a bit bold.
“So,” he asks. “Do you ever kiss pretty boys…just for fun?”
Lying on his back on the bed, Jere’s so beautiful it takes Bojan’s breath away.
He reaches for Jere’s hoodie and pulls the zipper down. Jere is not wearing anything under it, and Bojan is greeted by the familiar sight of Jere’s chest. In the dim lighting of Bojan’s hotel room, Jere's skin glows. Jere looks at him with huge eyes, open and vulnerable, and Bojan’s breath catches as he gets lost in the look.
They take it slow, the first time. Bojan loves it.
Later, at the slightest hint from Bojan, it gets rougher and more frantic, and Jere doesn’t hesitate to order Bojan around, claim him as his own, take him apart.
Bojan loves it too.
Afterwards, Jere is zipping up his hoodie again, Bojan sitting on the side of the bed, watching.
This is where it should end, a lovely memory, a good story to tell.
Bojan grabs the hem of the hoodie and pulls Jere closer, until he’s standing right in front of Bojan. He lifts the shirt and buries his head under it, cheek against Jere’s stomach. There, in the dark, holding on to Jere’s waist, it’s easier to ask for what he wants, whisper it, lips on navel.
“Stay.”
Bojan is a free agent. He is a feather, blowing in the wind. He will not be tied down.
But if the wind just happens to carry him to some European cities on random days that just happen to coincide with the tour dates of a certain Finnish rapper, if he finds himself at the barricade of said shows, what then?
If he already knows the lyrics to some of the songs, if he takes his shirt off with the rest of the audience when Käärijä tells him to, if he shouts and laughs with him and at him, if his eyes are begging to get that kiss again, who’s going to judge him?
And if, after the gig, he follows the directions texted to him, to a hotel room downtown, eager and anxious and already turned on, who’s to know?
Sometimes the universe just aligns like that.
Who is he to fight it?