"How's it going with the class?" This a careful question from Aksel. It's the first weekend since I've started going for the class, and I haven't been updating him as much on it. Mostly because I don't like to talk about the class. "Have you made any friends yet?"

I busy myself with peeling the potatoes, letting the silence drag out.

After a moment, I look up and around, across to the counter where Aksel is standing. He's not looking at me. Instead, he's focusing, entirely too hard, on slicing the salmon into cubes.

"Not really," I mumble, turning back to my potatoes. "It's not easy – everyone seems to be in small cliques already. And you know how I am with that."

"Don't be silly. It's not hard for you to make friends."

I snort unceremoniously at his words. "Are you being serious right now?"

His tone is dry. "Remember how quickly you made friends with Kjell and David in Edinburgh?" He's probably remembering the beer-drinking contest that came that night too.

"I just kind of fell into that."

But he's right. I don't know why things are different from how they were in Edinburgh. Was it because I was all alone in a foreign country and felt more of an urgency to find a group to fit in with? Here, I have Aksel, even if I don't have any friends. After class, I have someone to come home to. The others probably go out drinking and hang out at each other's places. Maybe that's why they've gotten so close, so fast.

"You just have to try," Aksel says.

I'm squeezing the potato so hard that some juice leaks out over my fingers. "I am trying," I snap. "I don't need you to preach to me."

But then I grimace. Because I haven't been trying that hard. Just sitting there staring at people, hoping they'll make the first move to initiate conversation. That's not going to work, is it? I need to be more proactive.

"I wasn't trying to preach." I don't have to turn around to know that Aksel's head has snapped up. "I'm just saying... I know you can do it."

As I listen to the methodical clack of the knife blade meeting the chopping board, a surge of guilt rises up in my throat. He is always so supportive. I need to try harder. I need to do more. He must be so tired of my issues. I can't keep putting him through this.

"It takes time," he continues now. "You'll make friends."

"Yeah," I manage, in a choked voice.

Behind me, I hear the chopping stop. Just as I ready myself to turn around to see what Aksel is doing, I feel the weight of his arms land on both of my shoulders. His body is flush against mine, pushing me forward into the counter.

"Sorry," he says, his lips tickling the shell of my ear, "I would hug you properly, but my hands smell of salmon."

I can't help myself. I giggle.

He leans his head further forward to look at me properly. "Are you crying?"

I turn to face him. "No." His face is so close. I kiss him lightly on the cheek. I know he has shaved just this morning, but his skin already feels prickly now. "Don't worry. I'm not crying."

"Is everything okay?"

"Yeah. It's just like you said. It takes time." And then softer, "Stop worrying about me." I look back down at my potatoes, moving to continue my chore, as much as I can with him still wrapped around me. "I feel bad when you worry about me."

He is silent for a while. "Okay," he says finally. He moves away then, and a moment later I hear the chopping resume.

We work wordlessly after that, letting the normal cooking noises fill the silence between us – the whiz of the peeler, the tack-tack of the knife, the quiet clink of the pot being placed on the induction stove. Aksel is already standing by the stove when I whirl around.

"Looking for this?" He holds out the chopping board towards me.

"I was looking for the other one, actually." But I take it from it. "This one smells like fish now."

"Doesn't matter," he says dismissively. "Just use it."

I crinkle up my nose. "But then the potatoes are going to smell like salmon."

"They are all going to end up in the same pot, anyway," he shrugs. "They're all going to smell like each other in the end."

I glare at him.

"What," he says, raising his eyebrows, "Does it offend your German sensibilities to bend the rules and mix two things that don't belong together?"

I widen my eyes right back. "And you are aware they say the same thing about Finns, don't they?"

"What?"

"What, what?"

"What do they say about the Finns?"

The Finns. I resist the urge to chuckle at his phrasing. He makes it sound like he's not one of them.

"That Finns are boring sticklers for rules."

"Where did you hear this? It's not true at all."

"I don't know," I say musingly, smirking a little. "You're a banker – there's nothing more boring than that."

"Hey." He looks at me out of mock-wounded eyes.

"I'm joking."

He smiles, the wounded look vanishing on demand. "I know."

I stick out my tongue at him, then turn back around to work on cutting up the potatoes. Behind me, I hear Aksel laugh.

I make quick work of the potatoes, then lift the whole chopping board with both hands before heading to the stove. I walk slowly, focusing hard on every step. One false step, and I'll drop the whole lot. I just know it.

When I finally come to a stop beside him, Aksel holds out a palm towards me without looking up from the pot.

"No. You've done everything else. I'll add the potatoes." Nudging him aside with an elbow, I sweep the potatoes off the board and into the pot.

"Wait–" Moving even before the word is fully out of his mouth, Aksel places his hand over mine and shoves the empty chopping board downwards, using it to shield me just as a particularly large splash resounds from within the pot when the potatoes hit the hot water.

"Oops," I say, stretching my lips into a grimace. "Sorry, I always forget."

"I know."

I look up at him, and I don't know what my expression shows, but his lips quirk upwards in response.

"You could sound less smug about it," I mutter.

He chuckles, his eyes flickering briefly away. "You're so cute," he says to the soup.

Unable to help myself, I reach up and frame his face in my hands. His gaze moves back to fix on mine. His skin is warm under my fingertips.

"Your hands smell of potatoes," he says, still smiling slightly. But he doesn't move away.

"Oh, oops." I drop my hands quickly.

"I don't mind."

We stand frozen in the moment, eyes locked onto each other. His pupils are gigantic in the middle of his irises. I'm not sure if it's because of the lighting indoors, or if he is feeling the same thrumming that is fluttering in my chest.

Then the soup on the stove starts to boil, and he looks away with a wry chuckle. He reaches for the wooden spoon and sticks it into the soup, the traces of a smile still lingering at the corners of his mouth.

I like watching him like this, I decide. Not eyes clouded with worry over me, but like this. Smiling. Happy. Not thinking about anything else.

The way he's supposed to be.

The way a relationship is supposed to make you feel. It's supposed to be a complement of your life, isn't it? Something that makes you happier; makes your life better. Not something that brings you more misery and worry.

He turns to look at me then, and I instinctively look away. And then I have to wonder why. He's my boyfriend. I can look at him whenever I want.

"It's done," Aksel announces, flicking the dial on the stove to an 'off' position. The soup continues to bubble from the remaining heat.

"I'll set the table," I say, moving away to get the bowls and cutlery.

"What do you want to eat with it? Is rye bread okay?"

"Okay."

"Or do you want something else? We don't have to eat rye bread all the time." I can tell it pains him to say this. He loves rye bread. Before I came along, he only ever ate rye bread. "We still have some sourdough bread, if you want."

"No," I say, "Salmon soup tastes best with rye bread."

Aksel stills for a moment, as if surprised by my statement, before he laughs. "Yeah. Ever since I was a kid, it's always salmon soup with rye bread."

"Laxsoppa," I say, reverting to what I know is the Swedish name for the soup. I've seen it enough times on the packaging of the pre-made soups in the supermarket. Salmon soup. In German, salmon is Lachs. In Swedish, it's lax. Lachssuppe. Laxsoppa. It all makes perfect sense.

"Lohikeitto," Aksel counters.

"Lo... to... what?"

"Lohikeitto," he repeats, dragging out each syllable this time.

"Lohikeito," I say.

"No, it's with two T's. Keitto. That means 'soup'."

"Keitto," I stutter a little at the double-T sound. "Lohikeitto."

Aksel's smile is brilliant. I meet his gaze, and am met with the bright blue that makes it look like the sun has just risen in his eyes. Something twists in the region of my heart.

Salmon soup. All I did was learn to say the Finnish word for salmon soup, and it makes him this happy.

How can I begrudge him this happiness?