Chapter Text
Chapter One
The car smelled faintly of wet dog and pine-scented air freshener. The radio hissed every few seconds before settling into another Slovenian pop song, cheerful and incomprehensible. Jonas kept one hand on the handle above the window and the other wrapped tightly around the shopping list. The paper was already soft at the edges. It kept shaking whenever Tadej took a corner too fast.
Tilen’s car was small, the kind that hummed nervously above eighty. The dashboard light blinked even though nobody knew why. Jonas hadn’t asked. He didn’t want to know. It was only a twenty-minute drive, and he told himself they would survive it.
Tadej, who swore he had a licence, drove like the world was an obstacle course. He changed lanes with the confidence of someone blessed by a higher power and the attention span of someone cursed by the same one. When he flipped the sun visor down with one hand and waved at a cyclist with the other, Jonas made the sign of the cross.
His elbow hit the window. Tadej glanced at him, laughing.
“You okay there?”
“Perfect,” Jonas said through clenched teeth.
“Good. I’m a great driver.”
“You’re something.”
Sunlight cut through the windshield in patches, sliding over Tadej’s cheek and across the steering wheel. The song on the radio climbed into a chorus. Tadej hummed along. The language didn’t matter; the tune was stupidly happy. Jonas stared at the road, at the soft blur of hills behind billboards, at the white-blue sky that still felt unreal after a winter of
rain.
The shopping list rested on his knee. Essentials only. He had written that at the top in small block letters. Below: plates, lamp, towels, one plant. The handwriting was neat, controlled. He already knew they would come home with twice as much. IKEA’s curse. Twenty candles, napkins with flowers and dots, ten different types of potted plants. Bedding, because apparently the striped one looked friendlier.
He could already see it. He would try to be reasonable, Tadej would throw a pillow at him, and by the end of the day their cart would look like a personality crisis.
The car rattled over a speed bump. Jonas’s stomach jumped; Tadej cursed softly.
“Didn’t see it,” Tadej muttered.
Jonas tightened his grip on the handle. “Maybe look next time.”
“I was looking! Just not… there.”
“Helpful.”
“Thank you.”
There was a grin in Tadej’s voice that Jonas didn’t want to enjoy but did anyway.
Traffic slowed near the industrial zone. Warehouses, parking lots, grey facades. The sun hit the glass of shopfronts and made them flash like mirrors. Jonas squinted, blinking at the blur of blue and silver. The air inside the car was warm, almost too warm. He rolled the window down an inch and felt the air shift, smelled something like dust and blooming trees. Ljubljana in spring. He was still learning what it smelled like.
Tadej drummed his fingers against the wheel in time with the beat. His hair glowed almost gold in the light. There was a small scar near his temple Jonas had never noticed before. He wondered how long it had been there.
“You’ll like IKEA here,” Tadej said suddenly. “It’s the same as everywhere else, but better, because I’m here.”
Jonas laughed under his breath. “That’s debatable.”
“Everything’s debatable with you.”
“Not everything.”
“Name one thing that isn’t.”
“This conversation.”
Tadej glanced at him again, grinning. The car drifted slightly toward the line. Jonas cleared his throat. “Road.”
“Right, right.”
He corrected, humming again, unbothered.
Jonas looked down at the list. He had drawn a small square next to each item, ready to check them off. It felt pointless. They would fill the car anyway. Still, the list was something solid to hold. It made him feel organised, prepared, even if everything else still felt like borrowed time.
A truck passed, shaking the little car. Tadej swore again, switched the radio station. More static, another bright song. Slovenian again. Jonas tried to catch a word or two, but it slipped past him like water.
The city stretched wider now - shopping centres, half-built houses, small gardens behind fences. The sunlight kept moving, sliding over the dashboard, the list, his wrist. It wasn’t warm, not really, but it was there. Enough to make the inside of his chest loosen a little.
Tadej pointed ahead. “There! See it?”
And there it was - the blue and yellow sign, huge against the pale sky. Jonas exhaled through his nose, relief mixed with disbelief that they had survived.
“Thank God,” he said.
“Don’t thank Him yet,” Tadej replied, already turning into the parking lot. “Wait until we’ve built the shelves.”
Jonas gripped the handle again as they bounced over another bump. The lot was crowded, carts clattering, sunlight flashing on windshields. The air smelled like asphalt and cinnamon rolls already.
Tadej killed the engine and stretched, smiling at him. “You ready?”
“For what?”
“For domestic bliss.”
Jonas folded the list and shoved it in his pocket. “Let’s get this over with.”
He stepped out into the bright afternoon, the kind of light that didn’t promise anything but still showed up. The sky was pale, almost white, the clouds thin enough to let warmth through. Tadej locked the car, slung his arm briefly around Jonas’s shoulders, steering him toward the sliding doors.
𓍙.ೃ࿔*:･
Jonas took over pushing the cart so he would feel like a participant and not one of the items being moved around. He hated standing empty-handed in the middle of the flow, always in the way, always stared at by someone looking for a shortcut through the maze.
The metal handle under his palms grounded him; it squeaked faintly each time he turned a corner.
He hadn’t been in an IKEA for quite a while. He had forgotten how cosy but completely senseless it was. A world of perfect little rooms with walls that led nowhere. Who decided that plates belonged next to toilet brushes? Who thought pickles fit best near the bathrobes? It made no sense. It also made Tadej absurdly happy. There was already a packet of cheese puffs in their cart, wedged between a cushion and a houseplant neither of them could name.
Jonas stopped in front of the shelves stacked with plates. Rows and rows of white ceramic, all pretending to be different. Tadej had brought some things from his old flat, but two people were one person more than one, and everything suddenly seemed insufficient.
He compared two options: the cheap, simple white set, or an even cheaper mismatched one of four colours. It wasn’t even a choice.
“This one,” he said, putting the mismatched set into the cart.
Tadej leaned over his shoulder. “You sure? They look like they come from a school canteen.”
“Perfect. We’re poor.”
“Speak for yourself.”
Jonas rolled his eyes and kept walking.
Next came the mixing bowls. Bright plastic, stacked inside each other like nesting dolls.
He stopped again. On one of his first mornings here, when the city had still felt borrowed, he had woken up to the sound of Tadej whisking eggs for an omelette in a pot - metal on metal, impossibly loud. Apparently he had never owned a mixing bowl in his life.
Jonas picked up two sets, holding them side by side. “Small grey with big blue, or small orange with big pink?”
Tadej tilted his head, pretending to consider. “Pink? That’s pretty gay.”
Jonas glanced at him, dry. “Are you not?”
Tadej grinned. “Point taken.”
He dropped the pink and orange set into the cart. The sound of plastic clattering against metal echoed down the aisle.
They moved on. The wheels squeaked again. The sunlight from the high windows reached the floor in long rectangular patches, falling across fake kitchen counters and jars of fake pasta. Jonas kept his hands on the cart, feeling the low vibration through the handle, steadying himself against the hum of the place, the warm buzz of people and light.
When Jonas reached the towels, he realised he hadn’t seen Tadej for at least ten minutes. Not unusual. Tadej in a store was like a moth in a greenhouse - too many lights, too many colours, incapable of staying still.
Towels, meanwhile, were a science. Jonas liked the big, thick ones, the kind that took two days to dry. You could wrap yourself up after a shower, sit somewhere, and dissociate without freezing. That was the point.
Tadej, on the other hand, seemed to skip the towel stage altogether. The bathroom floor was always wet, puddles spreading like small lakes, and droplets followed him through the entire flat.
He stood in front of the stacks, thinking. White towels turned yellow from sunscreen in summer. Dark ones bled out in the first wash. Nothing survived long enough to stay perfect.
He ended up with a pair of pale green ones, balanced across the cart, when he finally spotted Tadej near the lamps. The idiot was flicking them on and off, testing the bulbs, looking delighted with himself.
Jonas walked over.
Tadej pointed at the towels immediately. “Oh great. Puke color.”
“That’s olive.”
“Yeah, and olives make me puke.”
Jonas blinked slowly. “You’re honestly like a child. You weren’t this annoying in Copenhagen.”
Tadej’s face fell into a pout. “Why are you miserable?”
Jonas opened his mouth, then closed it again. He didn’t even know. Maybe it was because decorating the flat he shared with Tadej still felt like something temporary, like a dream he was borrowing until the real owner came back. Maybe because he couldn’t quite believe any of it yet.
He took a slow, deliberate breath - one of the kind his therapist would be proud of - and grimaced on the exhale.
Tadej grinned instantly, nodding as if Jonas had just passed a test. “Good boy.”
Jesus Christ. Jonas glanced over his shoulder to see if anyone had heard.
Tadej didn’t notice. He was already pulling something else from a shelf - an LED strip light. “For behind the sofa,” he said, as if that explained everything. Then he pointed towards the standing lamps. “Go pick two you like.”
Before Jonas could protest, Tadej gave the cart a gentle shove, steering him in that direction. Jonas sighed but let himself be pushed, towel pile threatening to slide off. Above them, the ceiling lights buzzed softly. Dust drifted in the sunlight, and for a moment he thought: maybe this was just what ordinary happiness looked like - ugly towels, bad jokes, and a boy who couldn’t stop flicking lamps.
𓍙.ೃ ࿔*:･
Their last stop was supposed to be in the warehouse. They had picked out a bedframe online a few days ago simple, light wood, easy to assemble. Back then, Tadej had leaned over Jonas’s shoulder and asked, half-serious, half-teasing, if he preferred two separate beds on each side of the room or one queen bed in the middle. Jonas had blushed and mumbled something about “whatever’s practical.” Tadej had grinned and dragged the queen-sized one into the digital cart without another word.
Right now, they were sleeping on two mattresses on the floor, pushed together. The arrangement worked, if you ignored the lack of frame and the fact that Tadej somehow managed to take up twice the surface he actually occupied. Jonas usually woke up first, bleary from the sound of Tadej’s alarm, half of Tadej’s body already sprawled across him while the other half tried to slide off onto the floor. The queen-sized bed would definitely be an improvement.
The warehouse air smelled like cardboard and sawdust. Sunlight cut through the high windows in long strips, lighting up clouds of dust. Jonas pushed the cart between rows of towering shelves, reading off the aisle numbers. Bedframes, wardrobes, chairs, all stacked to the ceiling in brown boxes that looked identical.
“Aisle thirty-four B,” he said.
Tadej walked a few steps ahead, humming. “So much Scandinavian wood,” he said suddenly, turning around to grin at him. “Do you feel at home?”
Jonas shoved him lightly with his shoulder. “Shut up.”
Tadej laughed, unbothered. Jonas rolled his eyes but couldn’t stop smiling. He didn’t need the white KALLAX shelves in the room when everything he needed was currently laughing at his own joke in the middle of an IKEA warehouse.
Ljubljana hadn’t exactly welcomed him with open arms. The first day, Tadej had been late picking him up from the airport, stuck in traffic while Jonas stood there with his bag digging into his shoulder, unsure where to wait. When Tadej finally arrived instead, Tilen's dog wouldn’t stop jumping, muddy paws streaking Jonas’s beige jacket.
Then came the apartment paperwork - forms nobody had mentioned, signatures missing, copies of copies. The streets were different, the language harder to catch, the air heavier
somehow.
But every day in that flat - in their flat - something small shifted. The corners felt less foreign. The light in the morning hit the wall differently. The space between them grew warmer.
And Jonas thought, not for the first time, that if the whole let’s see if we work out thing didn’t come true, if Tadej ever woke up one morning and decided it wasn’t enough, he might just climb out the window and keep walking until the world ended.
Because the idea of leaving felt impossible now.
𓍙.ೃ ࿔*:･
If Jonas ever met the person who came up with the IKEA food section, he’d probably have to thank them and shake their hand. Whoever decided that a furniture store also needed a cafeteria and a grocery aisle had understood human weakness perfectly. Who wouldn’t falter at the sight of elk-shaped pasta or chocolate cake after two hours of staring at flat-packed boxes?
He stopped at the shelf with the biscuits and took three packs of oat cookies. There were no oat cookies in Slovenia - at least he hadn’t found any. He’d rarely treated himself to them back home, but now the thought of drinking tea without one made something in his chest twist. Some homesickness could be solved with butter and oats.
Tadej was already standing in the restaurant queue when Jonas joined him, tray in hand. The line snaked past displays of frozen meatballs and jam jars, the smell of gravy heavy in the air.
“Köttbullar,” Tadej said, pointing at the sign. “Do Swedish people eat them every day, or just in IKEA?”
Jonas looked at him. “How would I know? You know Sweden and Denmark aren’t the same country, right?”
“Sure,” Tadej said, unconvincing. “But they’re close. Same idea.”
Jonas sighed. “What’s the Slovenian national dish, then?”
“Depends who you ask. My grandma says Bograč.”
“And what’s that?”
“Stew. Meat, bell peppers, potatoes. Everything in one pot. She’s making it Thursday. You’ll see. It’ll ruin your life - in a good way.”
Jonas smiled, tray shifting in his hands. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Keep it in your stomach,” Tadej said, grinning as the queue moved forward.
Jonas watched the steam rising from the metal trays behind the counter, listened to the murmur of people ordering, the scrape of cutlery against ceramic plates. Sunlight from the high windows reached the restaurant area, catching on the silver rails, soft and warm. For a moment, it felt like the world was smaller and easier: meatballs, cookies, laughter.
He nudged Tadej with his elbow. “You’re paying.”
“Obviously,” Tadej said, already piling food onto his tray.
𓍙.ೃ ࿔*:･
After eating, they decide they’re brave enough today to use the self-checkout. Tadej insists it’s faster; Jonas knows it never is. But he shrugs, because it’s not worth arguing over efficiency when the alternative is standing still with other people.
The lane is loud in that specific IKEA way - a mix of machine beeps, the smell of cinnamon buns from the café upstairs, children crying somewhere around lighting fixtures. Jonas pushes the cart forward, one hand on the handle, the other resting on the wobbling bedframe that threatens to topple the entire thing.
The cart looked respectable, almost. Pillows, sheets, a pan, a new set of glasses that wouldn’t crack the first time the dishwasher got too hot. Jonas was proud of that - practical things, things they’d actually use - until he spotted the fairy lights buried between the towels, the fruit bowl shaped like a lime, and the VÄGTYP doormat Tadej had waved at him earlier with the enthusiasm of someone presenting fine art.
Jonas had agreed immediately, because, well, look it up. You’d agree too.
At the self-checkout, Jonas took command like a man clinging to dignity. He lifted each item out of the cart, turned the barcode toward Tadej, who then aimed the small scanning gun with serious precision.
Biep.
Another item. Biep.
Jonas stacked them in organized piles, the rhythm oddly satisfying.
The bedframe poked from the cart like a ship’s mast, threatening to capsize the whole structure, but Tadej steadied it with one hand while scanning with the other.
“Multitasking,” he said, proud.
Jonas rolled his eyes but smiled. He was having fun, though he wouldn’t admit it.
The line behind them grew, the typical IKEA soundtrack humming overhead - distant chatter, metal clattering, someone’s toddler narrating their every breath. Jonas breathed
through the noise, still surprised how much less it clawed at him when Tadej was near.
When the last pillowcase had been beeped and bagged, Tadej reached for his wallet. He had to wriggle it out of his back pocket, twisting his hips, and Jonas was about to comment when a dozen tiny IKEA pens cascaded to the floor like hail.
Jonas closed his eyes. “Oh god.”
A worker glanced over. Jonas immediately crouched, gathering the pens, mortified. “You can’t just- you can’t harvest them, Tadej.”
“They’re free,” Tadej said, unbothered, still crouched too but laughing quietly.
Jonas drops the pens onto the counter with an exhausted clatter, one eyebrow raised.
“You’re single-handedly bankrupting the company.”
“They’ll survive,” Tadej says, waving his card toward the reader.
Jonas stands, brushing off his hands, ready to move on. But something catches his eye -
the open wallet in Tadej’s hand.
The front pocket is mesh, stretched slightly with use. Behind it, where most people tuck an ID or a photo of family, there’s a small, printed picture. The edges are soft, like it’s been there a while.
Jonas blinks once.
It’s him.
The photo from the cliffs. The one Tadej had taken half a year ago, when the sun had been so warm it felt like Spring already, when he’d been tired, pale, eyes red from crying earlier.
Miserable. He’d hated that day at the time. Hated that he’d fallen apart like that, that Tadej had seen him like that.
But he also knows he wouldn’t be standing here now if that day hadn’t happened. He wouldn’t have lasted. Maybe he wouldn’t have been at all.
His breath catches. The air feels thinner.
“Tadej..” His voice is barely a whisper.
Tadej looks up from the payment screen, follows his gaze to the wallet, and smiles. “Ah,” he says softly. “That.”
Jonas just stares for a second, too full of something he can’t name.
Of course Tadej had kept it. Of course he’d printed it. Slid it into his wallet like an oldfashioned grandparent, carrying it around every day while living his life on the other side of Europe.
Jonas almost laughs, but it comes out wrong - a shaky exhale instead.
“Why are you carrying it around?” he asks quietly.
Tadej shrugs, tucking the wallet back into his pocket. “It’s my favorite.”
Jonas shakes his head, disbelief tight in his throat. “I look awful in it.”
“You look real,” Tadej says simply, and that’s somehow worse.
Jonas feels the world tip a little. Not in the dizzy way it used to, when the edges of everything went black - but softer, like a wave hitting shore. He can’t look at Tadej for long; it’s too much. He looks down at the blue bag instead, full of folded towels and cheap glassware, pretending to check that nothing’s missing.
Beside him, Tadej is still smiling, that easy, steady warmth he’s somehow managed to hold through every storm. Jonas envies it. Needs it. Loves it.
The machine beeps again, louder this time - transaction complete.Jonas swallows. Forces a breath. “We done?”
“Done,” Tadej says, already pulling the cart forward. “Come on, strong man, let’s build a kingdom out of MDF.”
Jonas lets out a small huff of laughter, grabs the side of the cart to help steer it toward the exit.
And as the automatic doors slide open, letting the bright afternoon spill across the polished floor, he glances once more at Tadej’s back pocket - at the slight outline of the wallet pressing through the denim.
It’s ridiculous. Tender. Entirely too much.
He can’t help but smile.
𓍙.ೃ ࿔*:･
The drive home was quieter than the drive out.
Maybe because the day had burned most of their chaos away. Maybe because they were tired. Or maybe because Tadej was, for once, driving like a responsible citizen.
Jonas couldn’t tell if it was because Tadej had just noticed how low the fuel gauge was - the little orange light flickering like a warning of moral failure - or because the bedframe in the trunk was poking out so far forward that one plank rested firmly on Jonas’ shoulder. A single emergency brake and it would probably go straight through the windshield. Straight through him first.
“Drive gently,” Jonas muttered, as another bump in the road made the plank shift an inch.
“I am driving gently,” Tadej said. “You just have a delicate head.”
Jonas grunted, not convinced.
On his lap, he held a potted ficus - the most hopeful purchase of the day. The leaves kept swaying with every turn, brushing his cheek, blocking his view of the road entirely. He was slowly getting carsick, trapped in a world of green, but it felt wrong to move the plant. It was alive, technically. It deserved peace.
He stared into the tangle of its leaves, willing himself not to throw up, and tried to imagine which corner of the flat would be the most sunny one. The living room window, probably. Maybe near the radiator, so it wouldn’t freeze in winter. He hoped he’d remember to water it. He hoped he’d remember to do a lot of things.
Outside, the sky had turned the flat grey that meant it would rain later, but not yet. The light bounced off wet asphalt and onto Tadej’s face, highlighting the focused curve of his jaw as he turned the wheel, eyes squinting at the traffic.
Jonas watched him for a while, quiet. The hum of the car, the smell of cardboard and wet soil, the absurd weight of the ficus on his knees - it all felt like a life he hadn’t realised he was building until now.
He thought about how the evening would go.
He’d start warming up dinner while Tadej drove back to return Tilen’s car. Then they’d eat, probably on the floor, because the table was still in pieces. After that they’d start building - the coffee table, or maybe the shelf, or the bed frame if they were feeling optimistic. Jonas would run the washing machine, load the dishwasher, pray that the fitted sheets Tadej picked didn’t bleed into the towels, and that the new glass set wouldn’t shatter on the first wash.
He pictured all of it - the mess, the laughter, the inevitable swearing when one of them read the wrong IKEA manual page - and it made his chest ache in that strange, heavy way again.
Why was it so much work to make yourself a home?
The ficus leaves trembled in another gust of air from the half-open window, and he realised, dimly, that this was it. That this was what people did. They built lives out of small chores and shared dinners, out of grocery runs and flat-pack furniture and mild car sickness.
He sighed, half to himself. “I feel like a housewife.”
Tadej flicked him a glance. “What?”
“Nothing,” Jonas said, lips twitching. “Just.. you’re out here driving around, having fun, while I’m at home cooking and doing laundry in my head.”
Tadej laughed. “I’m not having fun. I’m trying not to kill us.”
“That’s debatable,” Jonas said, nodding toward the bedframe.
They hit another bump. The plank creaked threateningly.
“Okay,” Tadej admitted, grinning. “Maybe a little dangerous fun.”
Jonas rolled his eyes, leaning his temple against the window. The glass was cool. He watched the reflection of the ficus leaves trembling against his shoulder, and thought - not unhappily - that this was what domesticity looked like on him. Tired, slightly carsick, ridiculous. Alive.
He murmured, “Who’s the woman in this relationship?”
Tadej didn’t miss a beat. “You,” he said cheerfully.
Jonas turned his head, mock-offended. “Excuse me?”
“Well,” Tadej said, smiling without looking away from the road, “you’re literally holding a plant and worrying about sheets.”
Jonas opened his mouth, ready to argue, then closed it again. “Fair point.”
Tadej grinned wider, eyes still forward. “But you’re the pretty one, so it balances.”
Jonas snorted, hiding a faint flush behind another exaggerated eye roll. “Focus on the road, idiot.”
“Yes, dear,” Tadej said.
Jonas pretended to glare, but he couldn’t stop the quiet smile tugging at his mouth.
Outside, the rain finally started, soft and steady against the windshield. Tadej turned on the wipers, slow rhythmic arcs sweeping the glass clear. The sound filled the car - that gentle, repetitive hush that made everything else fade into background.
Jonas shifted the ficus slightly, looked out through the streaked window, and exhaled. He didn’t know if this was what happiness was supposed to feel like. It wasn’t bright or easy.
But it was something that moved inside him, warm and steady. Something he could maybe live with.
The bedframe creaked again as they turned into their street, the wood pressing more firmly against his shoulder.
Jonas smiled faintly. “Home,” he said, almost to himself.
Tadej glanced over, grin softer now. “Home,” he echoed.
And for once, the word didn’t sound like a promise.
It sounded like the truth.
𓍙.ೃ ࿔*:･
Tadej parked crooked, half on the sidewalk, half in a no-stopping zone, and immediately claimed it would be fine.
“Five minutes,” he said confidently, turning the engine off. “Ten, max.”
Jonas didn’t believe him, but he didn’t argue. He was too tired to summon outrage. The sky had turned that deep, bruised blue that meant it would start raining again soon, and the streetlights had just flickered on.
The bedframe alone looked like a logistical nightmare. Jonas stared at it through the open trunk, then at the narrow staircase leading up to their building, then back at the bedframe. “We’re idiots,” he said.
Tadej grinned. “No, we’re strong.”
Jonas sighed. “Idiots can be strong.”
They each took an end. Jonas in the back, Tadej in front. The wood pressed awkwardly against Jonas’ palms, heavy but not impossible, scraping against the stairwell walls as they turned the first corner.
By the second floor, Jonas was sweating.
By the third, he was rethinking every life choice that had led him here.
The building was old - beautiful from the outside, with high ceilings and tall windows - but its staircase was narrow, spiraling, and absolutely not designed for modern furniture. Each corner felt like an IQ test.
“Up, up, up,” Tadej called, lifting his end one step higher.
“I am up,” Jonas gritted through his teeth. “You’re the one stuck.”
Tadej adjusted his grip, the frame wobbling dangerously. “Wait, wait-”
Jonas froze. The whole thing tilted sidewards. Tadej stumbled one step down with a curse, shoes squealing against the wood. Jonas’ heart stopped. Without thinking, he let go of one hand to grab Tadej’s arm - like that would somehow stop a 70-kilo human and a bedframe from falling together down the stairs.
They held still for a long, breathless second, the frame creaking, the air thick with terror.
Then Tadej caught his balance again, panting, laughing. “We’re good!”
Jonas didn’t laugh. He could already picture the newspaper headline: Two idiots hospitalised in domestic accident. Neighbors unimpressed.
At best, they’d end up in matching casts in a shared room, eating mashed potatoes through straws.
“This is the stupidest thing we’ve ever done,” Jonas muttered, regaining his grip.
“Stupider than the curtain rod incident?” Tadej asked, voice strained as they started climbing again.
Jonas thought about last week when Tilen had almost fallen out the window while helping install their new curtains - and Jonas, in a fit of panic, had tried to grab him by the ankle while Tadej screamed from across the room.
“Okay,” Jonas admitted, “second stupidest.”
Tadej laughed, breathless. “Progress.”
By the time they reached the fourth floor, Jonas’ arms were shaking. His shoulder throbbed where the edge of the frame had pressed into it. He dropped his end the second they cleared the doorway, bending over with his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath.
Tadej leaned against the wall, hair sticking up in all directions, face flushed but triumphant. “See? Easy.”
Jonas glared at him. “You almost died.”
“Almost doesn’t count.”
Jonas wanted to argue but didn’t have the energy. He just shook his head, muttering something about madness, and went back down for the rest of the haul.
It felt like a fever dream after that - bags and boxes and the poor ficus, which somehow survived the journey without losing a single leaf. Groceries appeared in the kitchen. Towels stacked themselves onto chairs. The disassembled shelf leaned against the wall like it had always belonged there.
And miraculously, no one was seriously hurt.
Jonas stood in the middle of the living room, blinking at the chaos, too tired to even feel proud. His hands were raw, his shirt stuck to his back, and his brain was operating on autopilot.
He looked over at Tadej, who was already wiping his face with the hem of his t-shirt, smiling like a man who’d conquered something meaningful.
Jonas wanted to kiss him and strangle him at the same time.
“Go return the car before they tow it,” he said flatly.
“Yes, boss.” Tadej saluted, grinning, and grabbed the keys. He lingered for a second at the door, eyes soft, as if about to say something - then didn’t. Just winked. “Don’t build anything without me.”
Jonas snorted. “As if I’d start.”
When the door clicked shut, the quiet rushed in immediately.
The silence of a home mid-birth. Half-built, half-alive.
Jonas stood there for a moment longer, then exhaled and moved. The groceries needed unpacking. The laundry basket was full. There were still sheets to wash, dishes to rinse, a bed frame in pieces, and, apparently, an entire domestic life to maintain.
He walked to the washing machine, already pulling off the tags from the new towels. His body moved out of habit - sorting, folding, filling - while his mind stayed behind somewhere on the stairs, where Tadej had stumbled and Jonas had reached out without thinking.
He pressed start, listened to the low hum of the machine, and smiled to himself.
Housewife duties.
Fine. He could live with that.