"You can stay with me until you find a place," Priscilla tells me two days later.

It's my first day back at class, after making it back to Helsinki. The day before, I'd managed to get a place at an AirBnB in the Kallio district – not the best option, considering that the cost per night is too high for a tiny studio apartment in which two of the light bulbs don't work. I've only been there a night, and I'm already tired of going around the apartment with only the light from my phone during sunset hours.

Even so, it's better than being homeless. I've said as much to Priscilla and the gang, after telling them nothing more than the fact that I've moved out of my original apartment. There had been a silence while they must've filled in the blanks in their heads. Then Priscilla came out with her offer.

It takes me by surprise. As I blink at her, my mouth half-open, my mind working furiously to catch up with current events, Priscilla laughs at my befuddled expression.

"It's not a big deal," she says. "It'll be like an extended sleepover! How fun would that be?"

"But..." I am still trying to process this turn the conversation has taken. It was one thing to crash at Tatiana's, but another entirely to impose on Priscilla. I've been friends with Tatiana for over two years now. I don't even know Priscilla that well. "I don't want to be a bother."

"Oh, come on!" Priscilla blows out an exasperated breath of air. "You won't be a bother. I have the whole apartment to myself and there's plenty of space."

"Someone's rich," Ludo comments dryly.

Priscilla shoots him a glare, fixing her hands on her hips. "It's a studio apartment, not a mansion."

Ludo shrugs. "I rent an apartment with four other people. Living alone is a luxury to me."

Grimacing, Priscilla turns her attention back on me. "What do you say, Emi? It's better than wasting money on that hovel that doesn't even have working lights, right?"

"That's true," I finally concede. "But are you sure it's okay? Will your landlord agree to it?"

She shrugs. "I'll text him to ask, but it should be fine as long as I pay the rent on time. He doesn't really care about much else."

"I'll pay for it if he asks for extra," I'm quick to assert. "I don't want to put you out more than you already are."

Priscilla huffs. "How many times do I need to tell you, it's no trouble at all. That's what friends are for. Now, have you paid for your AirBnB or can you still back out of it?"

"I've paid for a week's stay, and I don't think I can get a refund. But it's okay. I'll stay till the end of the week before moving to yours."

"Ask for a refund!" Zuzi interjects. "You shouldn't be staying somewhere where the lights don't even work. They should've given you a refund anyway."

Ludo is nodding, too. Frederik, loathe to agree with anything Zuzi says, twists his lips and shrugs.

"Why not contact them and see if you can get refunded if you move out immediately?" Priscilla says. "I'll text my landlord now."

This is moving all too fast for me, but they're only trying to help, so I smile and acquiesce. "I'll text to ask later," I promise, even though I'm not entirely sure I will be doing such a thing.

It hadn't crossed my mind to ask for a refund at all. I haven't met the owner of the apartment face-to-face – she left the key for me at a bar next door, where I went to pick it up – and I have no desire to potentially get into a disagreement with her. If keeping the peace means not getting my payment back, so be it. I can even stay in the dark for the rest of the week, if it comes down to it.

But I don't tell any of the others this. I get the feeling they will try to persuade me otherwise. They are all so... assertive. If it had been any one of them in the dark apartment that first night in Kallio, I'm sure they would have lodged a complaint with the owner that very night.

Maybe it's people like them who always manage to get what they want. Meanwhile, I'm quietly cursing in the dark every night.

Elina chooses this moment to return, trailed by a couple of stragglers who left the class during the break. The rest of us haven't bothered – there's nothing much to do in the short fifteen minutes that the break affords us. Other than for me to recount my rental woes, as it appears.

Ludo unfolds himself from the table he's been sitting on and slides back into his seat a few tables away. The rest of the class shifts itself to get ready for lesson again. I pick up my pen and stare downward, my eyes not entirely focused on the notebook before me. I've written a few things, but it's obvious that I've missed way too many classes for anything to stick now.

I sit through the class, though, dutifully taking notes whenever I understand something. Beside me, Priscilla is scribbling away in her notebook, recording down what seems to be almost every statement that comes out of Elina's mouth.

I absently think to myself that I would like to borrow Priscilla's notes for my own reference sometime.

After class, I fidget with my books, putting them one by one into my bag at the slowest pace known to mankind. I'm waiting for the class to clear out.

"Are you coming to dinner with us, Emi?" Priscilla asks me.

"I'll be right there – I just need to speak to Elina about something."

"Sure! We'll wait for you outside." With a sympathetic smile that makes me think she has guessed at my reason for staying back, Priscilla leaves the room, trailing after Zuzi and Frederik, who are already bickering about what to eat even as they head through the doorway.

When the classroom is mostly empty, I slowly make my way to the front of the class and stay hovering by Elina's desk. She's clearing away her materials for the day, and I fidget, wondering if it would be polite to help her.

She looks up and smiles at me. "Hello, Emi. It's nice to see you back."

Involuntarily, my cheeks heat up. I look down on the ground and mumble, "I'm sorry I've missed so much. Things have been a little... difficult."

When I glance back up, I realise that Elina actually looks worried on my behalf. "Is everything all right?" she asks.

"Oh, yes, it's fine now," I say, flapping a hand through the air as if to wave away the notion. "I wanted to talk to you about something, though."

She lays the documents in her hands onto the table and looks at me expectantly. "Yes?"

"Ehm..." I clear my throat. Then I take a breath and plunge straight into it. "Like I said, I've missed a lot of the class. So I was wondering if you could give me the worksheets and exercises for the times I've been absent, and... I can read up on the chapters in the textbook on my own. But I was hoping that if I have a question, I could come to you for help?"

"Of course!" Elina looks surprised at my sudden initiative. Then she relaxes and stares at me consideringly. I'm about to thank her and leave to join the others, when she speaks up again. "I want to help you, Emi. That's why I'm going to offer you this, on the condition that you don't tell anyone about it," she laughs, "or they would want it too, and I would never get any free time."

I blink at her, not fully understanding what she's talking about, and she puts me out of my misery with her next statement.

"I have some time before this class begins, so what do you say that we go over the material you've missed, perhaps for an hour every day until you're caught up?" She smiles at my astounded look. "Coffee will be on you, of course. How about that?"

I almost trip over my tongue in my haste to reply. I can see a good deal when I'm presented with one, even if it does give me a ball of anxiety deep in the pit of my stomach. "I would love that. Is it really okay, though?"

Elina waves a hand flippantly, much like the way I did mere moments ago. "It's fine, we're not breaking any rules. I want to help you to catch up with everything you've missed."

I don't know what else to say, so I stammer out a, "Thank you. Thank you very much."

"It's no trouble at all." She smiles at me. "I'm glad you're taking an interest in the language now."

That last statement hits me harder than it should have. Was it that obvious I hadn't been happy learning Finnish before? Forcing a smile, I bid her goodbye and make my escape.

Priscilla and the rest are waiting for me a little way from the classroom, crowded against the wall and chatting amongst themselves. When I emerge, Ludo straightens and says, "Finally. That took forever."

I open my mouth to apologise, but Zuzi interjects. "Oh, ignore him. He's just being a cranky ass because he's hungry."

"I'm sorry you had to wait," I say meekly.

Zuzi rolls her eyes. "Like I said – ignore him."

"You should learn some manners from Emi," Frederik tells Zuzi. She turns on him then, but Priscilla blocks out their ensuing argument by stepping closer to me and asking softly, "Is everything okay?"

I nod. "Yes, everything's fine." Then I smile at her. Thanks for worrying about me, I want to say, but it sounds too cheesy even in my own thoughts. "Thanks," I say instead.

Priscilla laughs and throws an arm around me. "No worries. Okay – we'd better go for dinner now, before Zuzi and Frederik kill each other."

***

I end up agreeing to move in with Priscilla the next day, mostly because she wouldn't shut up about it once she'd gotten the okay from her landlord.

"There's no way I can in good conscience leave you in that dark, haunted apartment when you can just move in!" she declares. "He says you don't even have to pay anything, as long as you leave by the time the month is up."

"It's not haunted," I counter, choosing to focus on the less important part of her statements. "The lights are kaput, but that doesn't mean it's haunted."

"That's what you think," Ludo says, pitching his voice ominously low.

I roll my eyes at him.

"You just rolled your eyes!" Zuzi exclaims.

I blink at her. "And so?"

She's laughing. "Welcome to the club."

"The club of what?" Ludo seems to read my mind. I shake my head, showing that I'm as lost as he is.

"The club of showing how annoying you guys are," Zuzi explains. "Emi has always been so nice and polite, even though all you do is complain. She's finally come to her senses now."

I laugh. "You got all that from me rolling my eyes?"

"Yes!" Zuzi is adamant. She grabs my arm and pulls me in. "It's the first step in rebellion."

Priscilla is shaking her head, even as she laughs at Zuzi's little speech. "You, Zuzi, are the weirdest person I've ever met in my life."

Zuzi does a playful curtsy, spreading her hands in a flourish. "Thank you."

"I already have no idea what's going on," I admit to Ludo with a giggle in my voice.

"Around Zuzi, nobody does," Ludo snorts.

"We've gotten completely sidetracked," Priscilla realises, then turns back to me. "Emi, I'll come with you after class to help you move. We'll get you out of there tonight."

"Ooh, I love moving!" Zuzi claps her hands together. "I'll come help, too."

As if of an accord, the three of us turn to look at Ludo and Frederik. Frederik blanches.

"Listen," he says, "I'd love to, but I honestly can't make it tonight. I'm meeting a prospective buyer."

"A buyer for what?" I realise right then that I've never asked any of them what they do for a living. I don't even know if any of them have jobs – it seems tiring to be juggling a job on top of this intensive course, but not completely unfeasible.

"For some of my products." At my quizzical look, Frederik elaborates, "I'm trying to start my own business here, fixing and customising electronic gadgets for people."

"Oh. Wow." I'm at a loss for words. What he's doing is beyond my comprehension – I've never been that good with technology. "That's cool."

"It's hard work, but," he shrugs, "I enjoy it."

"Sure beats working for someone else," Ludo comments.

Priscilla and Zuzi chime in with their agreements. When I don't say anything, they all look at me.

"You disagree?" Ludo asks.

I hitch a shoulder up to ear-level and let it fall again. "I don't know," I admit with a sheepish grin. "I've never tried a full-time job yet. I came here right after graduating from university."

"Bachelor's or Master's?" Frederik wants to know. His question makes sense – most people here do their Master's together with their Bachelor's.

"Bachelor's," I tell him.

"You could do your Master's here, then," he observes.

That thought has never occurred to me. I open my mouth to reply, but Zuzi makes a strangled noise before I can.

"A Master's degree in Finnish?" She shudders. "That's my worst nightmare."

"I think that sounds really cool," Priscilla says. If I look closely at her, I can almost see the stars in her eyes. She is a real fan of all things Finnish.

Zuzi shakes her head. "You must be the only one out of all of us who's learning Finnish because you love it, not because you need to."

Priscilla laughs. "Oh, don't be so prickly," she exclaims. "You wouldn't have moved here if you didn't like Finland at all."

Zuzi grumbles under her breath, but doesn't refute Priscilla's insight. I smile to myself. Zuzi is all talk, but at the core of it, she must have found a strong reason for her to move and decide to stay in Helsinki.

The band of us – we've all come to Finland for our own personal reasons. It was different for me, since it had made no difference where I was moving as long as Aksel was there, but they had all weighed up the pros and cons of leaving the familiarity of their homeland to forge a new future somewhere else, and decided that Finland was the answer they preferred. And there is something admirable in the bravery it takes to make that decision.

I wonder if I would have had the courage to do something like that, if I hadn't known Aksel. Probably not.

When I tune back into the conversation, Priscilla is staring down Ludo, who has raised his hands in a gesture of defeat.

"Yeah, yeah," he sighs. "I'll be there to help."

Priscilla claps her hands together and turns back to me, beaming. "Great! Now we have a plan. Have you contacted your landlord about the refund yet?"

I grimace and shift my feet guiltily. "I wouldn't necessarily call her my landlord," I say.

Priscilla fixes her stern look on me. "Emi!"

I feel like mimicking Ludo's posture, but stuff my hands into my pockets to control myself. "All right, I'll text her later today."

Priscilla huffs. Zuzi offers, "I can do it for you, if you don't want to."

I would've gladly acquiesced, but something in me doesn't want to back down. "No, it's okay," I say. "I'll do it later. I promise."

"Great!" Priscilla repeats, just as Elina walks back in, signalling the end of the class break. "I can't wait till we get you moved in, it's going so fun living together."

I bite back the words that spring to mind – that it's likely she might change her mind about how fun it is once she realises I won't live up to her expectations for an exciting roommate. I smile back, watching out of the corner of my eye as Ludo slinks back to his seat, wishing I could slink away from Priscilla's over-enthusiasm the same way.