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“Scheiße!” Seb berates himself as he rushes down the steps of the empty train station.
He’d gotten carried away chatting with his friends, and failed to realise that the last train was arriving soon, and if he failed to catch it, he’d be left walking the long way home.
He looks up at the electronic board hanging from the ceiling, feeling a sense of dread wash over him as thoughts of accidentally missing the last train flood his mind. Thank goodness, he did not. In fact, he’d hardly needed to rush.
There had been a delay three stops before, causing the train to be twenty minutes behind schedule. Seb thanked his lucky stars for this one, for he would be able to return home without issue.
Since the station is relatively empty, he takes a seat on one of the benches, to wait out the long time before the train’s arrival.
It is only when he sits down, does he realise that he is not alone. On a bench next to him, is a man sprawled over the seats, clearly in a deep sleep.
The sleeping stranger is blond, resting with one arm under his head to act as a support, with the other resting on his chest, barely holding his phone which is ever so slowly slipping out of his grasp.
The man’s expression was guarded, jaw noticeably set and brows too furrowed for him to look peaceful. For a moment, Seb wonders what the man is dreaming about. It doesn’t seem like a good dream.
His chest rises and falls steadily with every breath Sebastian watches him take, due to having nothing to do but watch the other man coexist beside him.
Seb begins to notice small details about the man as he continues to sleep, blissfully unaware of Seb observing him like a lab specimen.
There is a pair of sunglasses slotted into the man’s jacket pocket, the tinted lens peeking out sporting a noticeable crack. Seb wonders how that happened.
The man is sporting a black windbreaker, the sleeves rolled up just enough for Seb to catch a glimpse of the tattoo on his forearm. He can’t quite make out what it says, but he can read the word “Ice” on the exposed portion of inked skin.
The light grey shirt the man has on seems to be stained in dark patches, with some mechanical oil or grease, Seb guesses, likely from the same stuff as the dark gunk under the man’s short fingernails.
The man’s fingers loosen ever so slightly, causing his phone to fall out of his grasp and clatter to the floor, the sudden noise jolting him awake. Seb is still staring at the blond man even as he sits up and starts rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.
He quickly picks up his phone and stretches, yawning as he turns to face Seb. “You going to stop staring?” he asks in a deadpan tone, snapping Seb out of it.
“A-ah, sorry about that. I didn’t mean to stare.” Seb hastily apologised.
“Still did.” The man mumbles, his voice sounding incredibly monotone, when paired with the thick accent in his voice that Seb struggled to identify, made the words sound far more attractive than they should have in Seb’s mind.
“When’s the next train?” the man questions, turning to Seb and staring unsettlingly into his eyes.
“In fifteen minutes. There was a delay so we thankfully didn’t miss it. This is the last one of the day.” Seb quickly answers.
This causes the man’s gorgeous blue-grey eyes to widen in incredulity. God, Seb had only just seen the man’s eyes, yet his brain was starting to gaslight him into believing that the man sitting there had the most beautiful pair of eyes that he had ever seen. His brain was probably right.
“Perkele… I was asleep for that long…” The man mutters to himself, with an additional string of curses with such intensity that it could almost make a sailor jealous.
Seb guessed that he was Finnish, judging by the language in which he was currently swearing in. That didn’t help much with Seb’s brain already screaming that the man was attractive. Seb liked the way he cursed in Finnish.
He caught himself the moment that thought floated to the surface of his mind. That was a stranger he was thinking about, he didn’t even know the man!
“Well, at least there’s one last train you can catch?” Seb interjects, trying to instil some optimism into the situation.
“I suppose.” The man replies, seeming to have calmed down for now.
Deciding to break the ice, Seb introduces himself. “I’m Sebastian, what’s your name?”
The man thinks for a while, clearly contemplating whether or not he should give his name to a complete stranger, before responding.
“Kimi,” he grunts.
“Nice to meet you, Kimi.” Kimi only grunts in acknowledgement, pulling the duffel bag at his feet up and slinging it onto his shoulder.
“So… you do mechanical work, i’m guessing?” Seb decides to chat, hoping to break the awkward silence. He pushes down the delusional part of him begging for the man’s number.
Kimi shoots him an annoyed glare, which almost makes Seb cower and apologise from the sheer indignation in his eyes, but Kimi answers anyway.
“Mhm. I fix cars, bikes, anything people pay me to.” Kimi mumbles, looking at the ground and fidgeting with the strap of his duffel.
“I see. Any reason why you’re out so late?” Seb decides to press, hoping Kimi doesn’t mind his attempts at small talk.
“Had too much to drink. Fell asleep by accident.”
Sebastian is about to rack his brain for some other questions he can ask Kimi to continue their small little chat, since the other man seems so disinterested, only for Kimi to suddenly speak up.
“What about you?”
“Oh, I just went to have dinner with my friends and lost track of time. Almost missed the train, so I should probably be more careful next time.” Seb answers, trying to mask his surprise at the stranger finally deciding to contribute to the conversation.
“A bit stupid of you, to almost miss your train because you got carried away.” Kimi remarks, causing Seb to retort.
“Hey, you almost missed the last train because you fell asleep! That’s also a bit stupid.”
“Fair enough.”
Kimi was surprisingly easy to converse with, and as he slowly warmed up to Seb, he was far easier to chat with, the both of them talking about random things, their banter slowly growing more comfortable as they got to know each other.
“You run a charity that raises money to save the bees? I would donate if I had any spare change on me. Unfortunately, I need to eat.”
This got a laugh out of Seb.
“So you have a motorbike, I see. How fast does it go?”
Kimi’s eyes light up as he starts talking about his motorbike to Seb. Seb can barely understand half of what Kimi is saying, but he keeps nodding along, finding himself slowly entranced in Kimi’s alluring blue-grey eyes.
So far, the both of them had discovered that they both shared a love for badminton, and although Kimi still seemed mainly disinterested, Seb prided himself in managing to make him talk about his bike. That proved that he was at least capable of engaging Kimi in small talk.
The train eventually arrived, and both men got on. As expected, the entire train was completely vacant, leaving both men with plenty of space to sit.
Seb sits down and pulls Kimi down to sit next to him, continuing the conversation. At least the man didn’t seem to mind as much.
“Are you taking the train all the way?” Kimi asks, which Seb nodded yes to and continued talking about bees.
Kimi was halfway through a sentence on how silly he thought it was to be this passionate about bees, when he paused all of a sudden.
“Wake me up when we need to get off.” With that, Kimi lies down on the empty seats next to Seb, closing his eyes and falling asleep almost immediately.
Once Seb got past the initial amusement and bewilderment of Kimi’s sudden action, he decides to ever so slightly shift Kimi up to his lap, and rest the man’s head on his thigh.
Kimi groggily opens one eye, looking up at Seb with that pretty shade of blue, before deciding not to protest and instead curling up further and falling back asleep.
After one stop, Seb decides to be more daring and run his fingers through the man‘s blond hair, which is far softer than it looks. Kimi tenses up at the initial touch, but gives in the moment Seb starts gently massaging his scalp.
Internally, Seb is questioning, just how he managed to get himself into such a situation. Kimi was such an odd man, that he had the off chance of meeting. So many little details about the man that he would possibly never understand, so many peculiarities that Seb found far more intriguing than he should.
The emotionless tone that he spoke to Seb in, his words seeming to carry no weight to them. His gorgeous glacier-blue eyes that seemed to unintentionally bore holes into him, making him feel a little uneasy whenever the stranger had looked directly at him.
Then there was the small habit he had noticed while talking to Kimi, was that he tended to interrupt his sentences and pivot to doing something else. Like just now, when he had gone straight to sleep despite being in conversation with Seb about the bees.
Sebastian doesn’t think he has met anyone as enigmatic as this Finnish stranger. Maybe they’d gotten too comfortable, too close, over such a short period of time, but he didn’t mind.
It felt oddly nice. Peaceful even. And how strange it was, to find solace in having a stranger lie on his lap and rest on him.
He didn’t know the man. He probably won’t meet Kimi again after this. But this was a weirdly comforting feeling, and Seb knew that once he and Kimi parted ways, he would miss this.
Whatever this was, what he was supposed to call his current situation, he didn’t know. He’d miss it regardless.
His thoughts are his only companion as the train continues on its journey. The robotic and almost irritatingly cheerful voice of the announcement blasts Seb’s ears as the train slowed to the final stop.
“Kimi. Wake up.” He shakes the shoulders of the man lying in his lap, who gets up immediately, dragging his duffel in one hand and rubbing his eyes with the other, getting off the train before the doors unceremoniously shut.
The two men are left standing on the platform, in silence. Kimi finally blinks long and hard, turning to look at Seb, almost as if expecting the German to speak up first.
Seb only looks back at him with the same expectancy.
Eventually, Kimi is the one who breaks the silence. “I should go. It’s late.” He says, a little too quickly. Seb nods vigorously in response.
Just as Kimi is about to walk away, Seb finally speaks up. “Will I ever see you again?” He questions, hesitantly. With the uncertain look in Kimi’s eyes, he can tell the other man is also thinking the same.
“…Maybe.” Kimi mumbles, his gaze darting away, finger tapping the strap of his duffel, as if in deep thought. After a few seconds of thinking, he rummages through the duffel bag, taking quite a while to finally procure the object he was searching for.
Eventually, he digs out a business card, creases on it like it had been used as origami paper once upon a time. There were smudges of grease on one of the corners of the small rectangular card, Seb noticed, as he took it from Kimi.
On the card, written in permanent marker, were the words “Räikkönen Auto Repair”, with a phone number lazily scrawled below the business name.
“That’s your… business card?” Seb asks, raising an eyebrow as he glances at the business name.
“Bwoah… yeah. My father started it. Took over. I-It’s my personal number… there on the card.” Kimi explains, a hand traveling to his neck, still not sufficient to hide the blush slowly creeping up and tinting his pale skin a rosy pink. Seb had to suppress a small smile at the sight.
“So… if you want to call… yeah.”
“I’ll take note of that, thanks. I’ll call sometime.” Seb replies, this time not even bothering to hide his smile, which seemed to make Kimi grow even redder.
“I… I’ll leave now. Good night.” Kimi mumbles, waving halfheartedly before walking off.
“Good night!” Seb calls out after him, before looking back at the number on the business card.
He thought back to all those minute details he noticed about Kimi. The broken sunglasses, the tattoo, the grease stains on his shirt. The colour of his eyes, the way he talked. Even the way he slept, where Seb, for the first time ever, found someone who could look both peaceful and guarded at the same time.
There were so many things he wanted, no, had to ask Kimi. There were just too many things he wanted to know. And perhaps he would.
Keying the phone number into his contacts, he realises, that for the first time, he’s glad that he almost missed his train.