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Johannes has by now accepted that sometimes Jonttu and Aarni want to do strange things for no apparent reason. He is used to the games and the jokes that come with it. By now he has even learned to recognize the looks they give each other and him when one of those moments has arrived.
That is why he is immediately on edge upon getting out of bed, as Aarni rushes around him to block the doorway.
Johannes pauses to stare at Aarni blankly before trying to step around, but Aarni doesn't let him.
Johannes steps back. "What? Am I not allowed to go to the bathroom anymore?"
Aarni glances at Jonttu and it is one of those looks.
Jonttu begrudgingly gets up. He gives Johannes a mysterious wink before going past Aarni without hindrance and disappearing into the apartment at large, closing the bedroom door behind himself.
Johannes considers trying to rush past Aarni, but Aarni might just wrestle him to the ground if he tries and it's too early for that today, so Johannes just continues staring at Aarni who stares back, a smile creeping up on his face.
Whatever strangeness they have planned, it is far too early for it, Johannes thinks.
It is also kind of ridiculous. Neither of them is even properly dressed yet.
"Okay!" Jonttu yells from somewhere in the apartment.
Aarni grins much wider then. It is most certainly one of those moments.
Aarni steps closer, grabs Johannes by the shoulders and spins him around before covering his eyes.
"Seriously?" Johannes asks.
"It's a fun thing, I promise."
Johannes rolls his eyes and can feel his eyelashes drag against Aarni's palms, which is weird but at least he knows that Aarni most definitely knows he rolled his eyes, even if he didn't see it. Good.
"It's morning is what it is," Johannes mutters, but allows himself to be blindly guided out of the room.
It is surprisingly easy to navigate, and they make it to what Johannes is pretty sure is their kitchen in one piece. Johannes does have some concerns though, because he can smell just a bit of smoke.
"Surprise!"
The world comes back into focus as Aarni uncovers his eyes. They are in the kitchen and in front of him is a cake.
It has exactly one candle on it, in the shape of a number one.
Like a birthday cake.
For him.
Johannes racks his brain. Silence settles in the wake of the exclamation.
Today is the 18th. In theory, today is his birthday.
Johannes looks at Jonttu and Aarni who look at him with those strange happy smiles. Johannes has to smile too, just at how clearly excited they are to make this as big of a deal as they possibly can because that's what they do whenever Johannes gives them the opportunity. It's why Johannes can predict these moments by now.
And Johannes smiles because in a way, this time, their strangeness and glee at whatever this moment is, is for once maybe justified in a way Johannes understands.
It was Aarni's birthday just a few days ago. He was quite cheerful then, though he had said they didn't really need to go through all the trouble for him. Still Jonttu had insisted, because 'what's the point otherwise?'. And they'd made it a big deal then too, because that is apparently what happens on birthdays.
It had been a very fun day, though not that far out of normal in the end. Just the three of them, just regular, fun things. Going out together. Eating some good food. Also cake.
Johannes looks at the cake.
Is that what today is supposed to be for him?
"Huh."
Aarni rolls his eyes.
"Told you." Jonttu chuckles at him before turning back to Johannes. "Come on. Make a wish."
Johannes looks at the cake for a few moments longer, thinking of what to wish for. In the 3 birthdays he has witnessed, he had always thought of what the person making the wish might wish for. What would one wish for if they had made it through a year?
Now Johannes has, and he doesn't really know. He has made it through a year and there isn't much to wish for at the end of it.
Things are good. He doesn't have much he could wish for.
It is also a bit weird to spend so much time considering what to wish for when it's entirely up to him and it can be whatever he wants.
Johannes closes his eyes, blows out the singular candle, and wishes for another year. Hopefully one with a smaller percentage of time spent in captivity.
Jonttu and Aarni clap and it's Johannes' turn to roll his eyes again, though he doesn't stop smiling. Soon enough Jonttu is slicing the cake.
"Y'know, I don't think it's a great idea to have cake for breakfast," Johannes says as Jonttu hands him a plate with nearly a quarter of the cake on it.
Jonttu serves himself a much more reasonable slice, before shrugging.
"What if it's really good cake, though?" Aarni challenges, serving himself a piece.
Johannes takes a bite of his cake. It is really good.
"I guess I can allow it."
"No throwing up in the car." Jonttu points at him accusingly, before digging into his own piece.
Johannes looks down at the huge chunk of cake Jonttu has given him and then back to Jonttu. He hopes he doesn't have to tell Jonttu that it's his fault if that happens.
Aarni just laughs.
The car ride is as uneventful as any car ride is. Perhaps even more so, because Jonttu and Aarni refuse to tell him where they're going. Though that is something Jonttu and Aarni don't do so often these days, because the novelty of a surprise starts to wear off when the majority of your life experience is a lived surprise. At that point surprises start to become more stressful than anything, which Johannes himself didn't even realize until it started to become a problem.
Either way, today is supposedly supposed to be full of surprises, so Johannes allows it, and Jonttu and Aarni make the most of it.
When they pull up to a car park near an actual park, Johannes doesn't think much of it.
Aarni takes out three bags from the trunk and soon enough, they're approaching what Johannes knows is usually a football field.
Apparently in mid January, it is not used for playing football, despite the goals still there at each end. Instead it is all covered in ice.
Johannes has a sneaking suspicion of what this surprise may be.
There are a few people already there, mostly families with young children. As the three of them approach, Johannes watches a mother guide their tiny child on the ice, holding onto their hand as they clumsily glide along.
The three of them make it to a bench at the edge of the ice.
Skating seems quite fun, as Johannes watches. At the same time, the snow and ice now under his feet doesn't feel all that stable.
"I don't have skates," Johannes says for lack of anything better to articulate his feelings on the matter.
"Happy birthday!" Aarni says gleefully and shoves one of the three bags into his arms.
Jonttu follows him up by showing Johannes to sit down on the bench.
Johannes tugs them to sit down with him before he opens the bag up. There is a shoebox, and inside is a new pair of skates, in what most likely is his size.
They look fine. The blades glint in the artificial lights around the field. There is an elegance to them, as there is to the entire act of skating.
Johannes wonders if he'll manage to feel at all elegant today. He looks up to see the small child stumble and fall, the mother rushing to pick them up again.
Aarni also pulls out a helmet from his bag and hands it to Johannes.
The fact that there is only one helmet is not lost on Johannes, though looking at the tiny child stumbling along on the ice, it is probably warranted. He has no one over twice his height to hold him up at every moment, after all.
Still, he gives Aarni a deadpan stare that is met with just a bright grin.
So, with a deep breath of mental preparation, Johannes takes of his shoes and starts pulling on the skates.
Jonttu watches him struggle for all of two seconds before slapping his hands away and moving to crouch in front of him. "Not like that."
Johannes holds up his hands. "I wouldn't know."
"So watch and learn;" Jonttu smirks and grabs the laces and begins the process of tying up the skates.
Aarni is hiding a grin while lacing up his own.
"You're supposed to lace them up tight, like you're trying to cut off circulation to your feet," Jonttu says, before yanking the laces hard, making Johannes almost fall off the bench
"I see. I think."
Johannes can hear Aarni laughing. To save himself from further embarrassment, Johannes starts lacing up the second skate, following Jonttu's lead as best as he can. It takes quite a bit of effort, he finds, to get them that tight. Though maybe it's just because he's never done this before.
Once the skates are on, Aarni gives him no time to prepare at all before grabbing him by the hands and pulling him up onto his suddenly very unsteady feet.
"You ready?"
"No," Johannes says, trying to find his footing while essentially standing on two blades.
Suddenly this seems like a very bad idea.
Jonttu puts the helmet onto his head and Johannes decides to attach it while he's still standing.
"Well, lucky for you, we're not gonna wait!" Jonttu then says, far too cheerfully.
Aarni starts pulling him towards the ice and Jonttu follows behind him.
The first few steps there feel horribly unstable. And once he actually does step on the ice, he almost immediately falls, his foot sliding out from under him.
It seems Jonttu and Aarni had predicted that that would happen though, as they barely let him stumble. Jonttu's hands are secure at his sides and Aarni keeps hold of his hands despite the fact that Johannes suddenly realizes he may be kind of crushing his fingers with how tight he's holding on. Johannes takes a deep breath and tries to relax. It's easier said than done when his feet are sliding instead of standing secure on the ground because they are now skating.
Aarni looks at him, giving him a moment to find his balance again.
"Y'know, we don't have to do this if you don't want to."
How many times has Johannes heard those exact words from one of them this past year? That number must be quite high by now.
Johannes looks at the kid. The mother lets go of them, and after a few stumbling steps around, the kid glides after the mother, soon reaching her again as she cheers.
"I want to," Johannes says, like he has so many times before.
Aarni gives him an encouraging smile.
"Okay then," Jonttu chimes in, "Step one, if you fall, fall forwards."
That is all the warning Jonttu gives him before letting go of him and showing him, albeit very lightly, forwards as Aarni starts pulling him further onto the ice.
Johannes immediately wants to take it back as he loses his footing again and falls indeed forwards, the sound of Jonttu and Aarni's laughter the only thing to cover up his swears from being heard by the small child, far too young to hear such things.
Johannes lays there for a moment reconsidering his life choices. Unfortunately the ice is unforgivingly cold, so eventually he pushes himself up again, giving Jonttu a glare.
"Step two, learn to stand up," Jonttu says ever so helpfully.
Aarni rolls his eyes. "Get on one knee first and stand up from there. Slowly."
It still takes a bit too much effort, but Johannes manages. "I thought you guys were going to help me."
He pouts as Jonttu just shrugs, out of reach for Johannes to enact his revenge.
Aarni shrugs too, beginning skate circles around Johannes as Johannes tries to keep himself steady while standing still. "You'll learn easier if you're not leaning on one of us."
Johannes looks at his easy, smooth movements. He considers the small child who is very much still holding onto their mother on the other side of the field.
"That seems contradictory."
Aarni shrugs again, before giving him a softer look. "Find your balance. Then you kick back on the ice with one foot to push yourself forward."
Aarni slows down to let Johannes focus on his movements, Jonttu soon taking his place in running annoying circles around Johannes.
Unfortunately the simple instructions still fail to convey how difficult the act of simply 'finding your balance' and 'kicking back' simultaneously is, when your only experience with ice before has been in the form of small cubes in drinks.
Either way Johannes is forced to endure the trouble of figuring out how to actually move without someone holding his hand all the way through.
"If I slip and fall and die you won't even be allowed to host a funeral for me because the police can't find out," Johannes says, making Jonttu wheeze out a laugh.
"If you slip and fall and die on your birthday Jami will never let any of us live it down," Aarni replies.
Johannes shakes his head, surpsessing his own laugh because he is trying to actually move forwards and it's not as easy as Aarni and Jonttu are making it seem, skating around him like it's nothing at all.
Eventually Aarni does take pity on him, slowing to a stop in front of him and taking his hands again. "Don't lean on me. Stay on your feet, okay?"
"Okay."
It's still not quite easy, but it doesn't take long before Johannes gets the hang of the basics. Jonttu and Aarni cheer him on all the while, watching first from up close and then from a few steps away as he starts getting the hang of it. By the time lunch rolls around, he's starting to run laps around the rink, though not quite as graceful as his two companions, or the young girl who has been showing them all up by doing pirouettes with agility Johannes doesn't think he's seen anywhere before.
And Johannes falls flat on his face a few more times. But that's not so important.
"You okay?" Jonttu asks as he steps into the bedroom, fresh out of the shower now too.
Johannes regards his reflection. There are fewer bruises than he would have guessed. He used to get so many of them it's odd to see that several hours of falling on ice didn't do that much damage after all.
What's more odd is looking at the scars now.
They're not all a year old today. He is, but some of them are more recent than that.
Some are barely older than half a year.
He can't see them all with just the one mirror. The ones he can see easily look the same as they did yesterday. And the day before. And back in the fall. And the summer too.
But the ones that he doesn't see every day reveal the truth of them.
Those look different than the last time he looked at them in the mirror. He didn't see them yesterday, or the day before. He sees them so rarely. He doesn't even know what they looked like fresh. But he knows they looked different the last time.
All the scars did. Those are just the ones he looks at more rarely, so the difference to the last time is more notable.
Yet all the same, all the scars are healing. Even the stretch marks all over have started looking less prominent.
And all the bruises from before are long gone. These new ones seem normal in comparison. They're on his knees and elbows and side and back from where he fell.
Not on his wrists and shoulders and ankles and thighs and torso and arms and--
"Hey? Johannes?"
Jonttu's reflection is behind him. And Aarni's is too, in the doorway.
"Everything okay?"'
Johannes takes a deep breath, preparing to answer, but his eyes move back to his reflection.
His body looks different too. He doesn't know how, can't point out the specifics, but it is different.
The shirts Aarni and Jonttu gave him back in the beginning of the summer fit different.
Jonttu dares to step closer and wraps his arms around his middle.
"Johannes?" Jonttu looks at him through the mirror.
There is worry in that look, and affection. It's a mix of emotions Johannes has gotten used to seeing. There is comfort in the movements, familiarity. Johannes doesn't know when those got there. It kind of feels like that's how it's always been.
Johannes takes another breath, letting his shoulders fall back down.
"I'm okay."
"Are you lying?" Jonttu asks, calmly.
Johannes shrugs, and puts his hands over Jonttu's.
There aren't any fresh scars. They're all healing.
"What's going on in that pretty little head of yours?" Jonttu asks, pressing a kiss to his shoulder.
Johannes looks over all the scars he can see, Jonttu's hands around him, Aarni's face as he looks at the two of them, slowly daring to get closer too to place his head on Johannes other shoulder.
"I'm one year old today," Johannes answers simply.
It's the truth, in its beautiful simplicity.
A year ago, in some lab that doesn't exist anymore, by people he never met and never will meet, he was made.
Over half a year ago, a singular door left unlocked by some forgetful laboratory worker gave him his first taste of freedom.
Johannes doesn't remember much of anything from a year ago. The hazy memories start from at best 10 months back.
It doesn't feel like he's been alive for that long.
It feels like he has been alive for a lifetime since that day.
Like two different lifetimes fit within that year, so drastically different from each other.
He looks at Aarni and Jonttu again. They're looking at the scars too.
He was born a year ago, yet he didn't start living before the summer.
In a way, he has known Jonttu and Aarni for all his life. All his real life, anyway.
"You are."
It is stupid to consider, but he doesn't have to be here. Actually, the fact that he is here is strange. It is strange that they found him first, that they took him in. It is strange that they trusted him.
And he trusted them in turn. By choice.
That choice has always felt like the right one. Even when he had no perspective on life, when he was scared to death of it being the wrong one, it felt right.
He doesn't have to be here, yet here he is. By choice.
Always by choice.
That has weight behind it, Johannes thinks.
Aarni reaches over and lets his fingers trace over a few of the lines on his thigh. Johannes still doesn't know quite what the point of them was. They're barely visible now, but Aarni knows they're there as well as Johannes does.
He can feel the steady rise and fall of his chest under Jonttu's hands.
"It doesn't feel like that should be today."
Jonttu's head is leaning very close to the tattoo. So is Aarni's. Johannes can still feel, in his mind, exactly where it is. It is a print on his skin, the only clue telling them that today is the day.
He wonders, briefly, if any of the other five before him got this long. It seems impossible none of them did. At the same time it feels impossible any of them did.
Is he the first one to celebrate one year?
Johannes can't imagine what a year would feel like if he had spent it all there. How the days had blurred, how the pain and the yelling and the ignoring and the books and the lights and the darkness had become routine, it seems impossible for that to go on for so long.
It seems impossible anyone could make it a year in that for so long.
"How so?"
Johannes was their biggest success. They told him that.
They'd told him that based on some arbitrary metric of success that Johannes doesn't care for.
Look at him now.
He is perfect in every way. That's not because of them.
They may have made him, but he succeeded only after he made it out.
He succeeded by choice.
"My life didn't start there."
Johannes looks over the scars once more.
He has made it a year. He has lived a lot of life in that year. He is very old, for being only one.
And still there is so much more life for him to live. Maybe enough for the scars to fade out completely, to where only Jonttu and Aarni will know they were ever there. Maybe enough for the lifetimes to far outweigh the eternity that came before.
Maybe enough for him to consider his birthday something not worth celebrating anymore.
Because today he has made it to 1. And that is something he wouldn't have even known to celebrate before he made it here.
Johannes closes his eyes and leans back against Jonttu. Jonttu wraps his arms around him a bit tighter, Aarni's arms joining them, holding him tight.
"Well, I'm glad it started eventually," Aarni whispers against his hair.