As part of my integration efforts upon arriving in Helsinki, I bought books – books on Finnish history, books on Finnish customs, books explaining the Finnish language. Aksel doesn't know about those. I hide them under the bed, because they made me feel silly.

I didn't want Aksel to find out, because it's embarrassing. These books show that I've been trying to force myself into belonging somewhere I don't, trying to infiltrate his culture. Not that it's working very well.

After Aksel switches back to speaking in English, however, I mostly forget about these books. They lie in the badly-hidden corner I've fashioned for them – stacked haphazardly against the wall under the bed in the master bedroom.

I've almost forgotten about their existence when Aksel stumbles across them. We're cleaning the apartment one weekend, and he's in charge of the master bedroom while I'm wiping down the counters in the kitchen. I hear the vacuum cleaner go off, but don't realise anything is amiss, until Aksel comes into the kitchen holding a book in each hand.

He's turning them over, reading the flap of each one as he walks in.

"How To Be More Finnish?" He is staring at the title, an incredulous look on his face. I freeze. "What the hell is this? Why did anyone write a book like this?"

I drop the cloth I've been holding and charge towards him, but he nimbly evades me and head's back to the bedroom. I give chase. Back in the bedroom, I realise the situation is worse than I feared. All of my books have been taken from their hiding place and are scattered beside the bed. As Aksel heads back for them, I push past him and I snatch up as many as I can, stuffing all of them under my pillow.

"Don't put them there," Aksel says. "They're dusty."

"We're going to change the bedsheets anyway," I point out. My face still feels hot. I flop on top of the pillow, as if hiding the books from sight will erase them from his memory.

I feel the mattress sink as Aksel sits down on the bed beside me. He touches my shoulder lightly. "Kulta... What's going on?"

I resolutely keep my back to him. "Nothing," I mumble into the pillow, guarding the books like a dragon hoards its treasure.

"Emilie..." I feel an insistent pressure on my shoulder as he tries to turn me around to face him. But I only bury my face deeper into my pillow.

"Emilie," I hear him repeat, his voice deeper, closer now, as he bends his head to try to look at me.

When I continue to ignore him, I hear him sigh, before something heavy settles over me. It's him. He's climbed onto the bed, over me, and he is dipping his head down to rest it beside mine, so that I can feel his breath ghosting my cheek. Part of his weight is on me, but he is still holding himself up on his elbows – he would crush me otherwise.

"Emilie," he whispers.

I keep my head hidden in the pillow, even though I can feel my body heating up at his nearness. My heart has started beating fast. I want to turn around and wrap myself around him.

He's playing dirty. He knows I can't stay away from him for long, especially not when he is this close.

By now, I am clutching my pillow in an effort to stop myself from turning around. "Go away," I say into the pillow.

"No," he says, against my ear, before he starts kissing the side of my neck, nibbling lightly at the skin there with playful lips. My feet twitch. My hands loosen their grip on the pillow case. I start squirming against him. I can hear my own breaths come faster, mingled in with Aksel's ragged ones. That's the only comfort I can find - that he is not immune to being this close to me either.

Oh, God. I want him so much.

With a half-groan, half-sob, I turn around to face him.

Damn it. I hate how he knows exactly the way to get me to do what he wants.

He is smiling smugly at me, and I lean up and press my mouth to his without preamble. "Damn you," I mutter into the kiss, words that he swallows up with his lips. As he rocks the full length of his body against mine, I reach up to pull his shirt.

"Don't try to distract me," he says, but he already looks plenty distracted. I can see his pupils dilated against the ice-blue of his irises - the curse of having light-coloured eyes. People can always tell what you're feeling. When you're interested. When you're aroused.

"You're the one who started it," I remind him, flinging the loosened tie away and starting on the buttons of his shirt next.

"We're supposed to talk about this," he says ruefully, tracing his thumb over my lips. I flick my tongue out to lick it. He inhales sharply and pulls his hand away from me. "Emilie," he prompts.

"Mm?" I hum, looking up at him. He looks back at me, and I see the exact moment he capitulates.

"Ach," he mutters, the word a guttural sound in his throat as he slides his hands up the sides of my body, pulling my shirt up as he does so. I raise my hands obligingly, and he yanks my shirt up over my head. It falls onto the floor next to the bed, forgotten. "Okay," he whispers, stroking my skin as I press myself up into his hands, "We'll talk later."

I tug on his neck to get him closer, and he leans forward willingly. He kisses me again, hot and hard, sticking his tongue roughly into my mouth first, and then relenting when I touch mine to his.

And we don't talk for a long while.

***

I have to hand it to him, though – he is extremely focused when he wants to be. When we're lying together later, limbs entangled, still spent from previous activities, he brings it up again.

"Why do you have those books, kulta?"

I grimace at the question, turning away and burying my face back into the pillow. The pillow that is hiding said books, I remember suddenly. I've almost forgotten they were there. No wonder it feels so lumpy.

Aksel leans over me again. It's even worse this time, because neither of us has a stitch of clothing on. I almost groan out loud, because the feel of his skin against mine is...

Electrifying.

Even after so long, this hasn't gone away.

I feel a pang of unwarranted resentment. I want him so much. I need him so much. I am too dependent on him. Especially when I'm here – I'm like a child who can't understand anything, who can't survive in this foreign land without him.

"I wouldn't mind a repeat of just now," he says, his breath hot in my ear.

"Who says I want to do it with you again?" I ask sulkily, but I turn back around. I hook a hand over his neck, stroking the skin there, looking at the movement of my fingers so I won't have to look him in the face. He shivers a little under my touch. But he is persistent.

"Emilie?"

"You like to talk too much for a guy," I say, my voice almost a whine. "For a Finn."

"Are we back to the stereotypes?" he asks.

"What happened to the whole silent, brooding thing you were doing in Edinburgh?"

"I was trying to stay away from you," he says, and he sounds a little exasperated. "Why, do you find that more attractive?"

"Well, yeah," I say, but then I frown. If he had stayed that way all the while, I would never have gotten to know the real him. And I never would have fallen in love with him.

Silent and brooding is hot. Sexy. Mysterious. But love comes from understanding what's beneath the surface. It stems from communication.

Aksel is doing the whole silent, brooding thing now, half-glaring at me through hooded blue eyes. He hasn't looked at me like that in a long time, probably not since Edinburgh, and I suddenly decide that I don't like it when he looks at me like this.

I scoot forward and press a kiss to his jaw. "I'm glad you didn't stay away," I whisper.

His expression softens, albeit reluctantly. "Me too."

"Don't be angry," I say, burrowing into him. He shifts to accommodate me, wrapping an arm around me and sliding the other one in between us and stroking my hair with it.

"I'm not angry," he says quietly.

I heave a sigh, tucking my head against his shoulder. This is not a comfortable position for him, I know, but it feels good to bury myself against him.

It makes me feel, for a moment, as if I've found somewhere to belong.

"Are you going to talk to me now?"

I scowl. He's never going to let this go, is he?

"I just..." I'm mumbling, hoping he won't hear me. "I just want to fit in more in Finland. To be more... Finnish."

"You are not Finnish," he says. Even though I'm not looking at him, I can hear the frown in his voice. "You don't have to try to be Finnish."

"I'm not trying to be Finnish," I say, even though the titles of the books say otherwise. "I'm trying to fit in. And for that, I need to learn to speak Finnish, learn the customs, learn everything from scratch." I feel the all-too-familiar tears prick my eyes again. How am I ever going to find a job if I don't learn to assimilate? If I don't learn to speak Finnish well? My savings are running out. And I can't keep mooching off Aksel like this. I want to pay my share of the rent. I want to contribute to us. This is supposed to be our life here together, not just his.

"Hey," he says softly, pushing me back so that he can look at me. "You don't have to stress yourself out. Integrating into a society is a gradual process. You don't have to try to do it all at once."

"You'd make a terrible politician," I say. "Don't politicians in every country always love to advocate how when you're in Rome, do as the Romans do? When you're in Finland, be Finnish."

"I'm not a politician," he says, looking into my eyes seriously. "I'm your boyfriend. I want you the way you are, not some Finnish version of you."

Something goes soft in the region of my heart. He so rarely uses the word boyfriend that when he says it like that, it feels special. Almost too intimate.

"But I..."

But I want to become more Finnish for him, I want to say. I want to be able to share his culture, to be able to fit by his side. To be someone who is compatible with him, so that people won't question my presence here when I walk beside him. I can't change the way I look, but I can change my mannerisms. The way I speak. The way I dress. I can conform. I want to conform, to speak Finnish properly, to look more Finnish, to be Finnish, without really being Finnish.

"You'll never be Finnish," he goes on, and I know he means well, but hearing this matter-of-fact statement gives me a pain in the pit of my stomach. Because this means I'll never belong here, either. "Why try to be something you're not? You're fine the way you are."

Pressing my lips together, I shift my body towards his until I am fully ensconced in his arms again. "Yeah," I murmur, but there is one question in my mind that I don't voice.

I am not Finnish. Of course I'm not. And he's right – I'll never really learn to become Finnish. I'm too set in my own ways, too old to fully assimilate, the way children who immigrate at a young age do. But neither am I really German, not completely, nor Singaporean. I am so a part of all these cultures that I've ended up completely detached from all of them.

What am I?

And what do I have to do, so that I can fully belong here with Aksel?