Tatiana's visit provides a pleasant break in the monotony that my days have settled into. I am getting more restless as the days pass, even though I try to hide it from Aksel. He's busy with work now and I don't want him to worry needlessly. It's not that I dislike life in Helsinki, but now that the novelty, the sense of adventure, has worn off, I'm starting to feel the strain – the strain of all the little differences that, when separate, don't seem like much. But when they all start to pile up like this...

I feel displaced and restless.

I feel like there is an itch inside of my heart that can never be appeased. And it's making me more uncomfortable by the day.

"How's it going?" Tatiana asks me, taking a sip of her coffee. We're sitting in a café in the city area. It's a café that she likes to come to whenever she's in Helsinki, she says, even though I've never heard of it before this. "How's life going for you over here?"

"I..." I'm not quite sure what to say. How is life going? Probably not that well. But it's her country too; I can't tell her that. I end up shrugging and gesturing vaguely, "It's going fine, I guess."

Tatiana is looking at me with a slight crease in her brow. "Are you sure?" she asks in a soft voice. "You look..."

"What?" I prompt, when she leaves her sentence hanging. "I look bad?" I try to laugh, to turn it into a joke. But Tatiana is looking at me seriously.

"Not bad," she says. "Just a little sad."

Her words send a jolt to my chest. I curve my lips into a smile, waving it off. "Don't be silly. I'm not sad."

"You know you can always come to me if you need someone to talk to," she tells me. "Day or night, it doesn't matter."

I feel tears prick my eyes. I get sentimental over the smallest things lately. But it's been a while since I've felt like I have a friend to go to. I still text my friends from back home, of course, but it's getting increasingly obvious from their messages that I'm outside of the loop now. They talk about events and incidents that I don't know about. It's getting harder and harder to join in the conversation. "Yeah," I murmur, looking down because I don't want her to see my expression. "I know."

She sips her coffee silently for a while, and I follow suit, inwardly crinkling up my nose at the bitterness. The Finns are genuinely crazy about their coffee. Germans drink a lot of coffee, too, but not as much as Finns.

Personally, I've always preferred tea.

"What do you think of Finland?" Tatiana asks then, the one question I've come to expect. That, along with the usual, where are you from, China?

I've worked out a default response to this question. As I rattle off the attractions I've been to, and how beautiful Helsinki is in general, I see Tatiana laugh at me.

"No, really," she says. "Don't worry, I won't hate you if you hate Finland. I mean,we get close to no sun in the winter. And it's damned cold – although Helsinki is so much to the South that it's definitely warmer here. But it must be colder than what you're used to."

I blink at her. Her candidness has shocked me.

She rolls her eyes, "Oh, come on. We've been friends for two years. Do you think I wouldn't be able to see through your rehearsed spiel?"

It takes me a minute for me to remember what the word spiel means in English. All this switching of languages messes me up sometimes.

"I don't hate Finland," I tell her. I don't want her to think that. I really don't. "But... well, things are so much different here. I do like Helsinki, though. It's a nice city."

"Have you tried any traditional Finnish food?"

"Oh, yeah," I say, laughing a little at the memory, "I've had reindeer steak, reindeer stew..."

Tatiana laughs too. "And other than reindeer?"

"Oh, and we had sweetened potato casserole for dinner a couple days ago."

"Imelletty Perunalaatikko?" Tatiana asks, after a moment's pause as she translates that in her head. "But Christmas is over."

I stare blankly at her. What does Christmas have to do with it?

"It's a dish eaten at Christmas-time," Tatiana tells me, seeing the look on my face.

"Oh." Aksel hadn't said anything about that. He'd just smiled at me, a fond smile, and he'd looked so happy that I had cooked him dinner. He had finished everything, and then we had left the dishes lying on the table as he'd swept me off to the bedroom – my turn to thank you, he'd said. I had considered the night a great success.

Shit. I suddenly feel embarrassed. And I had been so proud about mastering my first Finnish dish, too.

"Did Aksel want to introduce you to some traditional Christmas dishes?" Tatiana asks.

I bite my lip, almost tempted to lie to her. Then I shake my head and admit, "I made it for him."

Tatiana blinks at me, taking a while to digest that. "Oh," she says finally, dragging out the word, and I know she has understood what I haven't said.

I grimace, looking away. "I found the recipe online. They didn't say anything about Christmas... Or maybe it's my fault for not reading more closely."

Tatiana is laughing, but not in a mean way. "Oh my gosh, that's so cute! Emi," she waits until I turn back to look at her, "Honestly, it's nothing to be embarrassed about. I'm sure Aksel was just happy you cooked a Finnish dish for him. It says a lot about the effort you put in."

Hearing that makes me feel slightly better. I blew at a loose strand of hair, watching it fly out of my face. "I don't know why he didn't tell me, though," I mutter.

"It probably didn't matter to him," Tatiana says, then dismisses the subject. "So what's it like, living with him?" She smirks a little. "Have you gotten sick of him yet?"

"Um... No?" I shoot her a questioning look. "Am I supposed to?"

"Really?" she asks disbelievingly. "But he must have some bad habits you can't stand."

I try to think of some, but end up shaking my head slowly. "Not really."

Tatiana's blue eyes are narrowed at me. "Okay, then what was your first argument about?"

"We haven't argued yet." I'm reminded of Aksel's anger at my coming home late a few days ago, the night I got lost, but we hadn't really argued then, either.

"This is unreal." She leans forward, insistent. "Impossible – you have to argue over things like whose hair is clogging up the drain, at least."

I laugh. "He's blond, and I have dark brown hair. It's too obvious. We will never have to argue over that."

"Impossible," she repeats in a murmur. "You have to have some pet peeves about each other. Nobody is that compatible."

I think that over. "Well, I suppose... His ideal sleeping temperature is way too cold for me."

"Aha," exclaims Tatiana, as if my admission has restored her faith in the way the world works.

I shake my head at her. "Of course, we both have a lot of different habits, if that's what you want to hear. It takes a little adjusting, living together. But I don't think it's a big deal."

"Not a big deal," she mutters, casting her gaze sideways for a moment. "Yeah, I guess... If both parties are willing to compromise."

"Relationships are all about compromise, aren't they?" I ask rhetorically.

She chuckles, but doesn't say anything.

There is an odd look on her face, so I change the subject. "How long are you in Helsinki for?" I try to hide the hope in my voice, but it seems to shine through nonetheless. It feels so good to see another friendly face – not to say Aksel's friends haven't tried to be welcoming, but there's a difference between your own real friends and people who are only friends with you because you're dating one of theirs.

Tatiana makes a face. "Only over the weekend. I just wanted to get out of Tampere for a while."

"Oh." I eye her curiously. "Is everything okay with you?" We had been so busy talking about me and my life in Helsinki, that I had forgotten to ask about her.

"I guess so," she grimaces. "Just... A little bored, a little restless, you know?"

"Yeah, I know." I know it all too well.

Tatiana is smiling faintly. "You feel it, too? Maybe it's Finland that gives people this sort of feeling, hm?"

"No," I answer quickly, "it's not Finland at all."

She laughs. "You're probably more defensive of Finland than I am."

I am silent. I have to be, don't I? That's the way it always is. It's fine when people criticise their own country – expected, even – but when an outsider does it, everyone takes offence. It doesn't matter if you are simply repeating what they were just saying a minute before. As long as you're a foreigner, an immigrant, there is always that inerasable line between you and a natural-born citizen.

Tatiana blows out a breath. "Maybe I need a vacation, away from here."

"Where do you want to go?"

She shrugs. "I don't know. Somewhere further than Helsinki, at least. Further than Sweden, even."

The mention of Sweden reminds me of something. "Are you still in contact with Kjell and David?"

She laughs. "No. It's been a long time." Something like nostalgia flits across her expression. "We had some good times together in Edinburgh, huh?"

"Yeah." I'm biased, I know. Edinburgh, for me, was the beginning of everything. If I hadn't gone there at that exact time, I wouldn't have met Aksel. My whole life would be different.

That thought sends a chill down my spine. So much of one's happiness hinges on pure coincidence, doesn't it?

"Are you still in contact with them?" Tatiana asks me.

"David, no," I say, "but Kjell... We don't really talk much anymore, but every year we wish each other happy birthday on Facebook and end up chatting a little around that time."

"Oh." Tatiana pauses, then asks offhandedly, "So how is he doing?"

"Good, probably," I squint, trying to remember. The last time I spoke to him was in September last year. "He got promoted at work, I think. He's doing pretty well."

"Hm." Tatiana's response is so short, her expression so bland, that I can't tell what she thinks of this news.

"Maybe if you want to talk to him..." But she has a boyfriend, I remember. Doesn't she? Or have they broken up?

She laughs at that, waving her hand dismissively. "Nah. Kjell and I didn't have what you and Aksel do. Not all flings have happy endings."

"A relationship isn't a happy ending, though," I say, pursing my lips together. "It's more of a constant work-in-progress."

Tatiana shakes her head. "Don't I know it."

"I guess, in that sense, happy endings don't technically exist, do they? People don't just get to live happily ever after." I stare into my coffee cup, wondering. Then I look up and see Tatiana's concerned gaze.

"Is everything all right with you and Aksel?"

I force a laugh. "Yeah. He's amazing. I just..." The problem isn't with Aksel at all.

"Emi," Tatiana says, looking at me seriously, "I am so envious of what you and Aksel have, do you know that?"

I stare at her in surprise. Then slowly, I concur, "Yeah, well, Aksel is a really great guy."

She laughs at me. "Why are you always so quick to dismiss yourself? Aksel isn't the hero you make him out to be, you know? He's kind of like every other guy around here – selfish, somewhat bratty..."

"But..." I balk at her assessment of Aksel. "He's not selfish or bratty – I'm the selfish and bratty one. He always lets me have my way, and he's always having to take care of me."

"And you have a rose-coloured view of him," Tatiana says, still chuckling, "But that's okay. You really should just give yourself more credit for what you bring to the relationship. He's with you for a reason, you know."

I think about that for a while. "Because he couldn't keep his dick in his pants when he met his first exotic girl and ended up getting in too deep?"

Tatiana shakes her head. "That sounds like such an innuendo, I don't even know if you're being serious."

I feel a reluctant smile curve my lips. I had been serious, but she's right. That had come out wrong.

"But seriously," Tatiana says, "I'm envious of you two, because you have something special, you know. The kind that keeps you coming back to each other no matter what. It's like you two were made for each other."

My eyebrows shoot up at that. "Okay..."

We obviously haven't been made for each other. For one, I'm such a hybrid that it's unlikely I could have been made for anyone. Besides, if Aksel and I had been made for each other, we wouldn't have been born in such different places. Isn't love supposed to be natural, to be easy? We've had to fight to be together every step of the way. We've had so many things against us – the distance, our differing cultures, and now... me. My struggle to fit into life in Finland.

And Aksel himself is so Finnish. He doesn't go around making it particularly obvious, but I can tell, especially when he's explaining Finnish history or customs to me, that he is proud to be Finn. He has such a strong national identity. He loves Finland. He loves living here. I believe that if soulmates did exist, Aksel's would be a Finnish girl.

That thought makes me scowl into my coffee. Even if Aksel belongs to some Finnish girl, well, she's too late. He's mine now.

Even if he would fit better, be more compatible, with someone who can fully understand and share in his culture, he's mine.

***

My catch-up session with Tatiana lasts for a good part of the afternoon. By the time we part ways, with a long hug and promises to meet again soon, it is three-thirty and the sun is hanging low in the sky. Tatiana is heading in the opposite direction, so I leave her and head for the nearest tram stop.

True to his word, the day after my six-hour detour home, I received a text message with our address from Aksel. He has also included a list of the buses and trams that I can take, as an appendix. He has thought of everything. I don't know how to feel. On one hand, I'm grateful for his help, but on the other...

It bothers me that I am getting too dependent on him.

Maybe I should try the walk home again, I decide now. It's still light out now, at least – barely, but the conditions today are definitely better than those from the other night. Besides, I've made it back once on foot. The second time should be easier, shouldn't it?

I am still weighing the pros and cons when I spot two familiar figures a little distance away.

It's Lumi and Janne. They're talking as they walk – well, Lumi is talking in rapid-fire Finnish, and Janne is walking with his hands in his pockets, throwing in the odd word when Lumi stops for breath. They're walking in the same direction I'm headed, but they're so engrossed in their conversations, neither of them have seen me yet.

Do I greet them? Of course, I'm going to have to. But how do I greet them?

A handshake? A hug? Greeting kisses? What's the protocol for greeting acquaintances in Finland?

Or maybe I should turn around and just leave.

But then it's too late. Lumi has turned and caught sight of me.

"Oh, Emilie!" she exclaims, changing course mid-step and heading towards me. Janne trails in her wake, stopping a little further away. "Hi! What a coincidence."

"Hi," I say, "it's nice to see you again." Then I hesitate for a split second. Seeing the friendly smile on Lumi's face, though, I decide to go in for a quick hug. She looks startled as I move towards her, but she returns my hug.

Then I step towards Janne, only to see him shift slightly backwards in response.

Okay. Maybe the hug wasn't the right choice, after all. I am suddenly relieved that I didn't try greeting kisses, even on Lumi.

Ignoring the embarrassment pooling at the pit of my stomach, I smile at Janne to hide my awkwardness. "Hei," I say, with a lame wave.

"Hei," he responds, after a beat. He falls silent after, seemingly content to let the silence hover between us. His behaviour now reminds me a little of Aksel's from back when I'd just met him. Are all Finnish guys like this?

Luckily, Lumi steps in. "Are you on your way somewhere?" she asks me.

"I'm on my way home now," I tell her.

"Oh, we're heading that way too," Lumi says, looking genuinely happy about that. "We'll come with you."

For one paranoid moment, I think that Aksel has sent them to keep an eye on me, to make sure I don't get lost again. And then rationality returns and I remember that running into them in the first place is purely a coincidence.

"Where are you both headed?" I ask Lumi, as the three of us fall into step together.

"Back to my place," she answers. "I live in the district next to Töölö."

I glance at Janne, but he doesn't say anything about where he's going, or if he is in fact going to Lumi's rather than somewhere else. I wonder if there is something going on between him and Lumi. It feels like I see them together a lot. But I don't know them all that well, and it's none of my business anyway, so I don't ask.

"Oh," I say instead. "That's cool."

"How are you getting on in Helsinki?" Lumi asks me, as we walk together down the street.

"It's going fine," I say. But Tatiana's statement, you look... sad, keeps replaying in my mind. I clear my throat. "I've been trying to learn some Finnish on my own."

"Oh!" Lumi looks pleasantly surprised. "That's great."

"Yeah," I say, feeling unreasonably embarrassed by that admission. "But I've only just started. I'm not too good, I'm afraid."

She nods. "It's a difficult language. But I'm sure you'll be fine."

"I don't get to practise a lot," I say. "That sounds strange, doesn't it? I'm living in Finland but everyone speaks English, so there aren't many chances to speak."

"You could practise on us," she says.

"That'd be nice," I say with a smile, even though her suggestion has given me a jolt on the inside. My mind scrambles through the extremely limited Finnish vocabulary I have acquired thus far.

Speaking slowly, Lumi asks me a question in Finnish.

I know this, I think to myself. How are you? But I don't know how to answer. I don't know enough words to answer properly.

"I'm fine, thanks," I say, in my slow, choppy Finnish. "I met my friend earlier."

The two of them exchange glances. There is a smirk forming at the corner of Janne's mouth. "Um," Lumi says, switching to English, "Sorry, what did you mean to say?"

"I met my friend," I repeat, in English this time. I can feel my neck start to burn, and reach up to place a self-conscious hand at my throat. "Why, did I get it wrong?"

Lumi looks just as embarrassed as I am. "Näin ystäväni is probably what you meant to say."

The confusion must be showing on my face – after all, isn't that what I've just said? – because Janne helpfully supplies, "What you said was nain ystävääni, which means you had sex with your friend."

"Oh." I am mortified. "I'm sorry. My Finnish... I just started learning."

"It's okay," Lumi says, obviously trying to reassure me. "Finnish can be confusing. All you need is practice."

I know I should press on – how else am I ever going to improve in Finnish, if I keep speaking in English with the natives? – but the flush on my cheeks and the stone weighing in my chest induce me to murmur, with a forced smile, "Maybe next time. Let's just speak in English today."