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The last chords of Sata kitaraa by Antti Huovila rang out at the Botnia nightclub and bar as Benjamin finished yet another song. In Finnish, on top of everything else. He let his arm rest draped over his guitar for a short moment as he fixed his fedora with his left hand. A lot had changed since Benjamin had started as a Junior Entertainer. That cursed job as Svanen Svante. He had set foot on Botnia Paradise for the first time, with stars in his eyes, dreaming of finally getting to perform to people. To sing and dance. Well, he had done just that.. But not in the way he'd imagined. It had been the opposite of living his dream. Nowadays someone else had to put on the swan costume every day. And while Benjamin was glad that he'd never have to do it again, he still felt a little bad that the job had fallen on his good friend, Josua, instead. Since that time he'd made the effort to really learn Finnish as one of the many things. The language didn't feel alien and scary to him, any longer.
Benjamin had also gotten used to people not listening to and paying full attention to him all of the time, to being just some background noise at times. It didn't get to him anymore like it had done at the start.
"So, that was that,"
he spoke up, mostly to himself, although there were some people who were attentively listening to him. He let his eyes to slowly traverse across the dimly-lit space.
"One of the many songs that I hold close to my heart. And that leads me to talk about a person. She is somewhere on this ship again tonight. She always is."
A smile adorned Benjamin's face as he thought about her.
"She was one of the first people I met when I first started out. I got to work with her. She was my boss, pretty much, and showed me the ropes of the thankless and awful job I'd been lured in to do. In some ways it was the worst time of my life. But also, at the same time.. It became the best time of my life. And it wouldn't have been that way if it weren't for her. She gave me a nickname on the very first day. Fanboy. She still uses it today and I doubt I'll ever be able to outrun it. It's those first impressions that are famously hard to shake off."
Someone, somewhere in the room, laughed at his words.
"Thank you. At least someone finds this entertaining,"
Benjamin added, his voice stable and perfectly neutral.
"Oh my god.. Sing something, I'm not sitting here just so I get to listen to you yap!"
someone else yelled soon after. Benjamin sighed.
"Now, I'm getting there, alright? The next song is coming up, but I can't sing it to you people without first telling you about the person who inspires me, who pushed me to keep chasing my dreams. I was ready to let them go so I could be with her. She is an inspiration, in every sense of the word."
No one said anything to that. No one clapped or cheered. Benjamin stared back at his audience, nearly stone-faced. A rare feat for someone as sunny and smiling as him.
"Alright, fine.. I get it, you're not impressed and you don't care about love stories. At least not about mine. You want a song. And a song you'll get. This is Juliette och Jonathan, originally by none other than Lotta Engberg. She competed in Melodifestivalen 1996 where she finished 3rd with this very song. Her single peaked at #51 at the Swedish singles chart. It's a song about love between two people who—"
Benjamin's love and passion for schlager had not died over the years. And he liked to believe that it never would.
"No one cares! Just sing the song!"
Someone raised his voice, and a deep frown washed over Benjamin's face.
"Well, I care,"
he mumbled under his breath, those words meant to no one but himself, before fixing the position of his guitar on his knees.
And as Benjamin's fingers started to run on the strings with ease and experience, he forgot all about the complaints from certain members of his crowd for the evening. He didn't waste another breath to worry about them as the familiar song swept him away. It was a song he had performed quite a few times before, and it had become a staple of his otherwise rotating setlist. In that moment the only things that existed were him, his guitar and a song he held dear.
Near the halfway point of the song, someone entered the nightclub and bar, emerging from the shadows into the light. Benjamin's eyes met hers from across the room. And as if he was being pulled by an invisible thread, Benjamin stood up from his stool and started to make his way to her, still singing and playing without missing even a single note. At the same time the person of his dreams also approached him. They met in the middle of the floor and Benjamin sang the last of the song directly to her as they looked each other in the eyes, showcasing all the love they felt for each other. He smiled at her. And she smiled right back.
"Hi, Fanboy,"
Julia breathed out the words as she reached for Benjamin's hands and took them in her own.
"Hey, Fru Kapten,
Benjamin said in a low but affectionate murmur as he linked Julia's fingers with his.
"You sounded good tonight.. But then again, you always do.."
Julia whispered in his ear.
There was something she didn't know about yet. But Benjamin had been thinking about it a lot. This wasn't the time and place for it, so she would still need to wait.
But the truth was that Benjamin couldn't imagine life without Julia any longer.. and was thinking about proposing to her.