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“What’s wrong?”.
Määnin took in Freppa's dishevelled appearance, the other man clearly distressed. He took a step back, motioning for Määnin to come inside.
“I don’t know what happened. He went to the bathroom, and then he came out and… well, you’ll see”.
Määnin heard him before he saw him, quiet sniffles coming from inside the living room. As he stepped inside, he thought the room was empty at first, before his eyes landed on the denim ball on the floor. Tommy was curled up, eyes puffy and red, face streaked with tears, sniffling quietly to himself.
“He won’t tell me what happened, but I think he saw something on his phone”.
Freppa gestured to Tommy, who indeed was clutching his phone. What could Tommy have seen that would upset him this much? Was Seesar texting him about his sexuality again? He thought they’d finally gotten that to stop.
“Tommy, what’s wrong?”.
He crouched down, trying to make eye contact, but Tommy was staring resolutely at the floor, rocking back and forth. It was like he didn’t even notice that Määnin had appeared, lost in distressing thought. Okay, if Tommy wouldn’t tell him what was wrong, then Määnin would just have to find out some other way. He reached out to grab Tommy's phone, but something about the movement seemed to bring life back into him because he scrambled back as if struck.
“Calm down, just give me the phone, Tommy”.
“No”.
No? No! Tommy never said no to Määnin. Never. He could ask Tommy to lick his shoes, and he’d do it without question, but now he was saying no? Fine, they’d just have to do this the hard way. Määnin pounced on Tommy, wrestling him to the ground. Tommy was probably stronger than Määnin, but he was also tired and out of it from all the crying, so Määnin quickly gained the upper hand. Eventually, he got a hold of the phone, typing in the password (Määnin's birthday) before Tommy could stop him. Straddling Tommy, he used one hand to press the other man onto the floor and the other to open the phone. What he saw surprised him.
“Spotify? Why are you crying over Spotify?”.
Tommy slumped down, all fight going out of him.
“It’s stupid”.
“With you it always is”.
He heard Freppa's disapproving sigh, but he didn’t care. Määnin didn’t know how to talk about feelings, but he knew how to lovingly make fun of people. It had always worked for him and Tommy, and he would change now.
He examined the open app, trying to figure out why Tommy was crying over Spotify. Their numbers had been good lately, if anything Tommy should be happy. Then he saw it, the wrapped button. Spotify Wrapped must have just been released. Was that why Tommy was upset? He clicked it, letting the music fill the now silent room. Tommy tensed under him, telling him he’d found the right thing.
He didn’t have to scroll far before he found the reason for Tommy's tears. His most listened to song of the year, Bara bada bastu, started blaring out of the phone's speakers, and Tommy started to cry again.
“You listened to Bara bada bastu 512 times? I didn’t know you liked that gay sauna song”.
“I don’t. I hate it”.
Tommy still wasn’t looking at him, staring off in the distance as tears rolled down his cheeks.
“If you hate it so much, why have you listened to it over 500 times?”.
“To prove that it’s terrible. Whenever I get tired or feel like I have no inspiration to work on the band, I listen to it, and it fills me with rage, and it motivates me to know that if crap like that can be successful, then imagine what we can do with music that’s actually good”.
That made sense, at least in a Tommy logic sort of way.
“If you’ve only listened to it because you hate it, why are you so upset?”.
“Because, it’s embarrassing. Those kaj guys must think I’m a massive fan or something, I can never show my face again”.
That made less sense.
“Why would Kaj know that you’ve listened to their song?”.
“They sent me a video message”.
Määnin kept scrolling down until he found said video message. It seemed perfectly harmless, if a bit lame, to him.
“This isn’t personalised, they send this out to all of their listeners”.
“Of course it’s personalised, can’t you hear the mocking tone in their voice as they mention how much I’ve listened? They know, my life is over”.
“I’ve listened to their songs a bunch too, it’s not a bad thing to do”.
Määnin turned to face Freppa. Did he really think that would be helpful?
“Of course you listen to those sauna losers, they play your favourite genre, klein music”.
“I think their songs are fun, and Määnin is right anyway, the messages aren’t personalised. We were asked to make one too, I can’t believe we forgot”.
Tommy finally stopped crying, sitting up. Or, sitting up as much as he could while Määnin was still sitting on top of him.
“So my life isn’t over?”.
The pure relief on his face gave Määnin his brilliant idea. He got up from the floor, Tommy's phone still in hand. He opened the pictures app until he found the perfect photo. Now that Tommy realised no one would know about his Spotify, he seemed very tired, staying on the floor, his eyes closed.
After a moment, Freppa got a notification on his phone, looking up at Määnin in alarm.
“Määnin, why did you do that? That’s so mean”.
Tommy shot up, suddenly very awake.
“Do what?”.
Määnin handed him his phone back as a response. On the screen was the group chat between Vörejans and Kaj that was created to plan Kaj on ice. The latest message consisted of a screenshot from Tommy's Spotify account and a picture of Tommy in a sauna with the accompanying message “Love the song, 123 sauna”.