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“But why are you leaving so early? And on a Saturday too!” Kaisa had been expecting this sort of comment from Tildy. The older woman very openly worried about her not getting enough time for sleep and leisure, certainly she wouldn’t let it drop that Kaisa would be leaving home before anyone was awake in that house of early risers. “If you want so badly to get an early start, why don’t you study at home?”

After setting the bowl with pasta down at the center of the table, Kaisa took a moment to sip her water before answering, doing her best to seem calm and controlled, and most certainly not nervous at the prospect of the slightest social interaction. “Well, because I actually made an appointment to meet up with a classmate at the library to study together.”

Both pairs of eyes stared into her with surprise.

“Is it really so unbelievable that I’m hanging out with someone?” She asked with more bitterness than intended when neither said anything, picking up balls of falafel from a silver tray and putting them on her plate.

“No!” Both of them assured at the same time, and Tildy hurried to put a hand to her older daughter’s forearm to get her attention.

“Sugar, we just hadn’t been expecting that since you prefer to study alone. But that’s wonderful! Shame that you’ll have to leave before breakfast, but you’ll be back for lunch, right?”

“Sure.” Kaisa shrugged. “I wouldn’t want to be late for us to leave for Frida’s scouts thing, anyway. I’ll just be away for the morning.”

From the opposite side of the table, Frida beamed at the reminder. The Raven Leader had proposed a bonding activity, for which each kid could bring an adult of their choice for a group trivia. Kaisa had secretly been ecstatic when Frida invited her to come along.

“And by the way.” Apparently Kaisa’s answers had been enough to satisfy her family for now, because Frida took the opportunity to take the conversation away from her weekend study plans. “I have English homework today. Will you study with me after dinner?”

“Only if you give me your desert, kid.”

In front of her, Frida rolled her eyes as Tildy let out a happy chuckle at the sight of her children. She hadn’t even needed to ask, really. Studying with her sister was one of Kaisa’s favourite things in the world, and she loved doing so whenever she was allowed to. Even  when Frida didn’t want help studying, they still did it side by side when they were both home. It made Kaisa feel helpful. And loved, if she was being honest.

“You get half of it.”

“Only half? For helping you with English? That’s hardly fair. I deserve seventy five percent of it at least.”

“Fine. But only as a prize for having finally made a friend in class.”

Considering Tildy’s presence besides them, Kaisa didn’t kick Frida’s ankles under the table like she wanted to, but resigned herself to giving her a piercing stare that promised retribution.

Of course, when they cleared the table and Tildy brought the dessert, a pistachio mousse that she’d tried making for the first time, they had both forgotten about it and were already laughing and paying attention to the stories each one of the three had to tell about their day.

                                                   ………

Edmund was staring at her weird. 

Well, maybe she deserved it, because she was acting a little weirder than normal. It wasn’t every day that she ate breakfast glancing at the kitchen clock every twenty seconds, or asked for his advice on what to wear, or put on perfume and lipgloss to go to the library.

But it wasn’t every day she got to go to the library with her crush either.

“Well, how do I look?” She stood in front of her cousin, her arms spread by her sides for his evaluation. She had chosen a brown skirt that went just over her knees, a grey checked button down shirt with the sleeves rolled to her elbows, black oxfords and a thin leather belt to tie it all together. When she had last checked herself in the mirror, she thought she looked pretty good, but the look Edmund was giving her wasn’t one of approval. He looked like he was trying to put puzzle pieces together, running a hand over his dark brown stubble which had begun to grow back after he shaved it for the summer.

“So?” She prompted when he said nothing. “How do I look?”

“Not like you’re going to the library.” He said at last, and raised his eyebrows at her from his seat on their living room couch. “Who’s the lucky person?”

Johanna huffed, dropping her arms. “This isn’t a date!”

“You’re the one who’s saying anything about a date.”

“Oh, shut up, you implied it.”

He put his hands up in surrender. “I’m not saying it’s bad, Jo, just maybe a little overdressed to go study at the uni’s library.”

Johanna picked at her skirt half heartedly. “Do you think she’ll find me creepy if I show up like this?”

“Honestly, if this really isn’t a date and you two are just going to study, then I really hope that the girl will be more interested in the subject than in what you’re wearing.”

Despite having already known this, Johanna felt herself deflate a little. Even if she knew that Kaisa was only doing this because she was hoping to absorb some of Johanna’s luck in that discipline, some part of her (admittedly a large one) couldn’t help but hope she’d see something in Johanna along the way. To be reminded that Kaisa would probably be too absorbed in damned neoclassicism to even notice her was very disheartening.

“You’re right.” She said, a little annoyed to admit it. And then, knowing that she needed to tell someone and that she could trust her cousin, she continued without being asked. “Remember some weeks ago, in the beginning of the semester, when I went looking for a classmate’s social media everywhere, and couldn’t find her? I’m pretty sure I told you. The girl has no instagram, twitter, facebook, or tiktok. Literally the only traces of her I could find were on spotify and tumblr.”

Johanna had immediately started following Kaisa’s Spotify playlists that night, when she got home after the first seminar and decided to do a light stalking on her. There weren’t many public playlists to be found, but Johanna really liked opening the program on her computer to find that there were other people she knew also listening to music. It made her feel connected to them. Not her tumblr blog, though. Johanna had had the good sense to leave it alone when she dug that up. What happened on tumblr, stayed on tumblr, and Johanna could respect that, even if it looked like it was only a studyblr that was very seldom updated.

“Oh, is that the girl?” Edmund exclaimed, sitting up straighter out of a sudden. “In which case, marry her. You don’t see many people who haven’t sold their souls to tiktok anymore.”

Johanna rolled her eyes. Her cousin was only five years older than her, but he honestly sounded like a grumpy old man sometimes. Even if he wasn’t entirely wrong.

“Thank you for your sage advice. I’ll be going now, see you later.”

“See you later, Jo!” Picking up the entomology book he’d been reading before Johanna asked for his opinion, Edmund layed down on the couch again. “Good luck on your date!”

                                                  ………

When she was ten steps away from the library’s front door, Johanna got a text.

Kaisa 🐈‍⬛🔮

Good morning. I’ve just arrived at the library, saved us a table on the right side at the back.

Seeing as she was so close, Johanna probably didn’t need to answer, but she felt bad about seeing the message and ignoring it, so she sent a quick “coming!” in reply.

Sure enough, when Johanna entered the building, gorgeous with its old wooden floor and ceiling high shelves, dating probably to the founding of the university, she spotted Kaisa sitting exactly where she’d said she’d be. The humanities library was essentially a long hall, rows of bookshelves intercalated with tables for the students to study at. Some were already there, even if it was morning on a weekend. For students who lived on campus, there were few better places to study than there. Luckily, Kaisa had indeed saved them a table, and when Johanna found it, between the two grammar bookshelves, she was looking out of the huge glass window on the wall, looking pensively and, quite honestly, like a romantic painting. But that might just be Johanna’s infatuation-addled mind. She was twisting a black ring around her right index finger with her thumb, most likely absent mindedly.

She noticed Johanna’s arrival before she had to greet her, and to Johanna’s surprise, smiled. It was shy and tentative, sure, but considering Johanna wasn’t even aware she could do that it felt almost blinding. It looked beautiful on her, Johanna thought. She would love to be the reason why Kaisa smiled more often.

“Good morning!” Johanna said, putting her backpack on the seat in front of where Kaisa had placed hers, so she could sit face to face with the woman herself. “How have you been?”

“Good morning. I’ve been well, thanks for asking. You?”

“Ditto.” Johanna unzipped her backpack and began wondering what she would even use to study. Truth be told, she’d been more concerned with… other things regarding this morning that hadn’t left much time for her to plan her study session properly. Which hadn’t probably been smart on her part, because now the pretty girl would be paying attention to what she did. Crap.

“Honestly, I was asking myself if you’d really show up.”

This made Johanna whip her head back to look at Kaisa, but she herself looked like she hadn’t a clue why she’d just said that. She looked like she wanted to gasp and put her hands over her mouth, but had decided that that was too loud for a library and chose to just go more pale instead. Something tugged at Johanna’s heart when she noticed that it wasn’t a joke, Kaisa had really been expecting her to give up on the idea, and was so relieved to be proven wrong that she hadn’t been able to filter her words.

Oh, Johanna was going to befriend this girl so hard.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world!” She answered, trying to lighten the mood. It seemed to work, and the colour came back to Kitty’s face with vengeance, giving her cheeks a lovely pinkish hue.

“Well.” Kaisa cleared her throat, opening the library textbook that Johanna had only just noticed was already on the table, along with her notebook from class, her laptop, a black (obviously) ball-point pen and a marker. Damn, that girl meant business. “Shall we get started?”

“Yeah! I’ll just… grab a textbook as well.”

Johanna got up and left to find the literature bookshelves, knowing damn well that the next couple of hours would be the least productive she’d have in her whole academic career.

                                                  ………

Johanna had said her secret was enjoying, and apparently, she had meant it. When Golden arrived, looking absurdly pretty (Kaisa considered herself to be relatively stylish, but seeing Johanna that morning made her reconsider that statement. That girl was on a whole new level of looking good, though she had to admit that her clothes were only a small part of it), Kaisa had thought to herself ‘this is it, this is how I find out I’ve been making some stupid study mistake I should have known was wrong all along’. Instead, what happened was that while Kaisa tried to work on synthesising the main characteristics and metaphors in the texts that had been discussed during that week’s seminar, she kept getting distracted by the excited expressions Johanna made whenever she read a new fact in her textbook.

“Kaisa!” She whispered at one point. “Look at this! Tomaz Antonio Gonzaga was exhiled from his country for supporting one of the independence movements! Then he lived the rest of his life in Africa, and even married a woman there. After everything he wrote about his first sweetheart! Can you believe it?”

“Isn’t that the author of Marília de Dirceu?” Kaisa raised an eyebrow, and Johanna nodded. “Yeah, his sweetheart was sixteen. This dude’s a pedo, I’ll believe anything you tell me about him.”

Kaisa would have felt bad for putting it so bluntly, but the way Johanna contorted her brow in anger and glared at the book, like it was a friend that had just betrayed her, had been too entertaining to regret it.

*

In the end, it had been very nice to study with her, although not for any new techniques she’d discovered. Golden, as it turns out, was very enjoyable company. If Johanna was willing, Kaisa thought she would very much like to spend more time with her, including in other contexts where they didn’t have to keep their voices down.

Once the clock had hit midday, they were both famished and felt like their brains had turned into goo inside their skulls, having turned to other disciplines after they hit a two hour mark on neoclassicism. That’s how you knew the study session had been worth your while. They had put all of their stuff away in their backpacks and were heading to the circulation desk in order to drop off the library textbooks they had taken off the shelves when Johanna popped a question.

“I don’t know about you, but I could really use some lunch right now.” She began, hearing Kaisa mumble a ‘definitely’ beside her. “Want to go grab a bite at the cafeteria?”

Kaisa blinked, looking down at the floor to avoid glancing at Johanna, who was now looking at her expectantly. So she was willing to spend more time with her. Something about it made Kaisa feel a fluttering feeling in her stomach, but she attributed it to hunger. 

“I’m afraid I can’t, today.” She said, trying to put as much sincerity in her tone. Kaisa really didn’t want her thinking that her invitation was the problem. “I already told my family I would be having lunch with them today, and honestly I’d feel kind of bad to ditch them with so little notice. My mother must have already cooked it by now.”

It wasn’t at all a lie, but it wasn’t a whole truth either. The thing was, as much as Kaisa really wanted to spend longer with Johanna, she hadn’t come mentally prepared for it. She was really terrible with sudden changes of plan, they made her cranky and on edge and that wasn’t a side of her she wanted Golden to see, at least not yet. Kaisa ran on schedules.

“No worries!” Johanna chirped, a little too quickly and cheerfully for it to be honest. Not that Kaisa noticed that. 

“Maybe next time, though? We could have a fixed date each week, or when we’re both free, at least. If you're amenable.”

They had just placed their books on the circulation’s desk, but thankfully the librarian was nowhere around to witness the slightly baffled stare that Johanna gave Kaisa.

“Only if you want to, I mean.” Kaisa was quick to add once she noticed the odd look Johanna was giving her. She’d thought that the lunch invitation was a sign that Golden had enjoyed her company, but her current face probably meant that she was trying to think of an excuse to back out of the suggestion. Maybe she was just being polite when she mentioned lunch? Kaisa hated how complicated people were, sometimes. “I know you must be very busy, I totally understand it if you-“

“No!” Johanna was quick to cut through the chain of excuses that Kaisa was going ahead and making for her. “No, I’d love to make this a recurrent thing, actually. I’m just happy you suggested it. Hadn’t been expecting you to.”

Okay, Kaisa had probably deserved that one, she could admit that. But she was very grateful for Johanna’s directness, it made it infinitely easier to know they were on the same page. Sometimes it felt people her age communicated in hidden rules and complex signs; that was why she liked elders and children so much. They said what they meant and meant what they said. Interacting with them was much less tiring.

But Johanna… Johanna was nice, too. So far, she hadn’t at all felt drained with her. She was curious to see if that would remain the case if they interacted more often.

“I’d love to as well.” Kaisa smiled at her, and they finally stopped standing in front of the circulation desk to head towards the door. “What time is best for you?”

Johanna’s brow furrowed as she deliberated. She knew Kaisa didn’t live on campus; there’d be a lot more gossip going around about her if she did. Obviously, she had more free time on the weekends, but asking her to come here during days in which they didn’t have class probably meant her having to go out of her way to meet her.

“We could do this after our seminar on Tuesdays. Then we could come to the library or you could come to my house.”

“After you enjoy your sunset?” Kaisa teased, holding the front door open for Johanna and following right after her.

“Don’t worry about that, I can do it on other days. Besides, I'd rather spend time with you than with the sunset anyway.”

An obvious blush crept onto Kaisa’s cheeks, spreading all the way to her neck. Because of her skin colour, it was really very noticeable, but Johanna mercifully didn’t comment on it. At least she looked flustered rather than uncomfortable, so Johanna thought that probably meant it hadn’t been too much.

“How are you going home, anyway?” She asked once she realised that the path to her house was different from that of the building’s parking lot. They would likely need to say their goodbyes now, and a big part of Johanna truly wanted to postpone that as much as possible.

“Oh, I’ll just walk there.” Black Cat shrugged as if she thought nothing of it, but Johanna knew their university had been built detached from the town. There was now an avenue that connected the two, but the first houses only began appearing by its edges after around fifteen minutes of driving. If you didn’t dawdle, that was.

“Oh, really? How long does it take?”

“Around an hour, give or take.”

Johanna truly didn’t think that her gasp had been an overreaction. Sure, taking an one hour walk wasn’t something out of the ordinary, but doing it twice every day? And especially doing it now, when the sun was at its peak and she hadn’t eaten in hours? 

“Nope. Not allowing that. Come on, I’m driving you there.”

She left space for no disagreement, beginning to march towards her house and noticing with amusement that Kaisa struggled to keep up after a second of being too taken aback by Johanna’s suddenness to walk.

“Wait, there’s no need! I really appreciate the offer, but I wouldn’t want to get in your way!”

“Kaisa, if you walk home now you will get in my way. Because I will run you over with my car. Repeatedly.”

“Oh, come on-“

“No, I’m serious! You said it would take you an hour to get there. If you let me drive you, I’ll be there and back in less than half! This is non-negotiable.”

Kaisa mumbled something grumpy sounding under her breath, but the smile tugging at her lips told a different story. Maybe she should have been more insistent, but Johanna really made her feel like she wasn’t imposing. Besides, the prospect of another fifteen minutes in her presence was a very welcome one.

They walked for a few minutes until they were closer to the STEMs buildings, much newer than the ones they frequented, and the conservation and breeding grounds. Most people walking nearby were veterinary or agronomy majors, now. Kaisa had a friend whose lab was around there. She wondered briefly if the woman was nearby, but the one beside her was taking a lot more space in her mind, currently.

Johanna’s car was a red beetle, old but clearly well kept. She kept it parked in front of the house, which was single floored and cosy looking. It was very different from the other student houses on campus, much more unassuming. The kind of place you’d come to for a quiet weekend, not for a frat party, and reminded Kaisa of her own house a bit.

Golden started the car, and Kaisa settled in by her side, noticing that the vehicle smelled like apple and cinnamon, similar to the scent that took over her kitchen when Tildy baked apple pie. She wondered if that was what she would scent if she got close enough to Johanna, but did her best to stop herself from going down that particular rabbit hole of thought.

“Do you live here on your own?”

“Oh, no.” Johanna fastened her seatbelt and gave her a pointed look to do the same. In her defence, she was already going to. “With my cousin, Edmund. It used to be a fraternity house, but then the boys graduated and left without being replaced, and only he stayed to do his Masters in Conservation Ecology. Then I came along and he invited me to live with him.”

“Neat.”

Biting her bottom lip to stop herself from chuckling, Johanna had to admit that Black Cat really had a tendency to go back to those one word replies. If that was simply the case, Johanna knew she’d learn to take it as just one of her characteristics, instead of a sign she didn’t want to talk to her.

“Oh, mind if I put on some music?” She asked, already reaching for her cellphone while they were still on campus grounds and there was no need to worry about other cars appearing out of the blue. At Kaisa’s ‘sure, go for it’, she plugged it in and turned on the radio. 

Even though Kaisa looked like she preferred some edgier, indie music, or maybe something classic and instrumental, Johanna put on her playlist which she had specifically for when she had to play music she liked for other people, composed of mostly well known songs that even if you didn’t quite like them, you probably would hate them either. 

The only change she made to it was adding a girl in red song to the queue right before they crossed the university’s gates and entered the avenue. When it came up, both of them started humming the lyrics to ‘we fell in love in october’, and exchanged shy smiles when they caught the other doing it. 

Just as she had planned. The sapphic-to-sapphic communication never failed.

They spent the ride mostly like this, enjoying the songs and making some odd comments here and there when they remembered something interesting. Sooner than Johanna would have liked, Kaisa pointed at a smaller street that branched out of the highway and asked her to turn into it.

The street was only paved with cobblestone, which made them shake in the car, but Johanna didn’t have to drive much further down it. Kaisa’s house was one of the firsts, a lovely cottage which to Johanna looked like it could house a fairy. Or a really nice fairytale witch, those that were full of wisdom and helped you in your quest.

“Just here is lovely.” She said, looking out of the window for longer than she needed to. For some reason it felt really bad to say bye to Johanna. She had seriously considered inviting her in for lunch, but it wouldn’t be polite of her to invite someone her family didn’t even know without giving them any sort of forewarning. “Thank you so much, Johanna. For the ride and for the company.”

Golden Retriever beamed, because of course she did, and tucked a stray auburn curl behind her ear. Her hair looked so soft, it was ridiculous.

“The pleasure was all mine!” Kaisa wouldn’t be able to know how true that really was, but she said it anyway. “Hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend. See you Tuesday?”

“Thanks, you too.” She opened her door and stepped out, offering a shy smile of her own. “And yeah, definitely.”

“Great! Tell me how your sister’s scout thing was later. See you soon!”

“See you.” Her voice sounded a little absent minded when she said it as she closed the door, but she hadn’t been able to control it. She’d just been caught unprepared by Johanna remembering and asking about her other appointment that day. Not that it was too impressive, or anything, but outside of her family she couldn’t remember people ever caring enough to remember such small details about her. 

Shaking her head, she headed towards her front door, with intricate carvings on the dark wood and a circular brass knob. When she opened it, she turned around to see that the car was still there, and gave it a little wave. Only when she was safely inside her home did she hear her driving away.

                                                 ………

Later that day, Kaisa would text Johanna to thank her again for going out of her way to help her, and proudly tell her she’d won the Sparrow Scouts trivia with her little sister. Johanna would assure her once again that she had enjoyed doing it, congratulate them, and share that she had been a sparrow scout herself when younger.

Kaisa would answer that she had always been a bookworm, but had loved observing bugs as a child, and Johanna would suggest she talk to her cousin about this. They would joke and share stories from childhood and from their more recent years, and send each other pictures of the mess that had become their personal desks.

Tildy and Frida would look at each other with raised eyebrows when they caught Kaisa giggling at a notification on her cell phone during dinner, and the woman would clutch her heart when she saw her older daughter sit down to read on their couch and then spend a full hour texting away. She’d waited years to see her giving more value to the things that ought to be treasured, and she was surprised and proud to get the feeling that this was a start.