61)
Tomi only found his voice again when he was getting into his car. He slammed the door shut before the other man had even gotten around the car.
Then again, he had strode straight toward the car without a word. Lars had caught him by the arm just in time for Tomi to have a car drive by before his nose. Lars had immediately let go after telling Tomi to be more careful.
Tomi had crossed that street rattled and upset.
He stared blankly at the man opening the door to the car.
Lars closed the car door and quietly buckled up.
“Don’t you know not to say the quiet part out loud?” Tomi finally asked.
“I didn’t say it out loud,” Lars defended himself. “I said it where the children couldn’t hear it.”
“You still said out loud. With words. Using your own mouth.”
Lars seemed to consider this for a moment and then nodded. “That I did. I used my own mouth to say it.”
Tomi glared at him in disbelief, but the express was fully earnest.
Tomi wasn’t known for ever having a temper, but nonetheless, a series of escalating curses slipped out in Finnish as he buckled up and gently got the car out of the pocket he had parked in a couple of hours earlier.
Drunk people were too much hassle to deal with, he concluded.
He immediately revised that. Drunk Norwegians were a hassle. He was never handling drunk Norwegians again.
“Where do you live? I’ll drop you off before I return the car to the garage my friends share.”
“Well, I would prefer that over being left in the garage with the vehicle.”
Tomi didn’t move a single muscle that was unnecessary to drive the car.
“I’m staying at a hotel for the time being,” Lars added, before sharing the name.
“Oh,” Tomi offered flatly.
He honestly didn’t care if the man lived in a garbage dump, as long as he could rid himself of this Norwegian man as soon as possible.
“You’re not going to ask why?”
“No.”
“I see.” Lars was quiet for a moment. “You know, I’m not from here.”
“Yes, this isn’t fucking Oslo or Bergen or where the hell you’re actually from. Now shut up, I’m driving.”
The Norwegian fell quiet and Tomi could feel the gaze of the man turn away from him. He glanced in the rear mirror and saw Lars had lowered his gaze, seeming to ponder something.
Not his problem.
62)
Tomi arrived in front of the hotel. He said nothing.
The silly man next to him also didn’t get out immediately even as he clearly look up and noted where they were when Tomi parked.
Unfazed, Tomi fished out his phone and went into the app shop and decided to download a game to play, were it so that the man didn’t get lost before the game finished loading.
The game had just opened when some placating words were uttered in a soft voice. “Don’t be mad. I didn’t mean to upset you, Tomi.”
“I’m not upset. But you’re still in my car.”
Tomi noted in the corner of his eye that the older man lean forward slightly, looking at Tomi.
Was he acting cute? That didn’t work on him. Who wanted someone about fifteen years older acting cute with you, anyway?
“How can I make it up to you? We will have to cooperate together for some time.”
Tomi paused, then straightened and gave the man a long, flat look. Because Lars was still slightly slouching forward, he had to tilt his face a bit to look up at Tomi.
After a standstill, the Norwegian eventually nodded seriously. “I understand,” he said, before he disembarked with as great majesty as a tipsy, tall Norwegian could have.
Tomi watched the man entered the hotel, then slowly lowered his gaze to the silver-coloured device that Lars hadn’t noticed. He started the car as he shut it off. He quietly pocketed it before he drove off.
Let the drunk man lose the stupid thing. This wasn’t Tomi’s car, anyway. He was just going to deliver it the way he picked it up this morning.
That meant ridding it of any rubbish that wasn’t there in the morning, too.
63)
With the luxury of a car for once, almost at his destiny to drop it off, he realised he probably should take the opportunity to buy some food in bulk. His last grocery trip with a car was probably almost two months earlier. He turned around the car around, unwilling to miss this chance. He drove straight back home, ran up to his apartment to grab his wallet.
He tossed the forgotten phone onto his bed to ensure it wasn’t lost and then left in a hurry.
It was another three hours before he strolled home after dropping off the car.
He had put the groceries that needed to be put in the fridge and freezer away, but he was greeted with a large amount of groceries still not put away, and the toiletries had been tossed to the side.
The empty cabinets were slowly refilled while he put cans away.
It was nearly midnight when his phone pinged. He stopped to check the notifications and saw he had been tagged.
Not just once. Multiple times. The only reason he got pinged was because someone he had notifications on for had pinged him too.
The post was about a new card game. Based on a series he had watched years ago. He reposted it on his Solitary Paladin account with the addition, I just bought groceries, y’all?? How am I supposed to pay rent too if I buy this?
He received a reply before he even had time to put his phone done.
Did you see the limited edition yet?
He had no choice but to check it out. And that led to him posted about it on his social media.
And soon he was at the laptop writing a post on his blog about the news and all he could find about it and its background, groceries all forgotten, unil he was barely awake enough to drop onto the bed, still fully clothed. He wouldn’t remember to put the rest of those non-perishables away until well past noon the next day when he woke up from hunger.
64)
“Okay, look, I know you all asked me to invite S.P. for a two-person game, but since he decided the to take a break, I didn’t want to force him to play a game for content.”
Tomi leaned in his chair. It was early in the day (for Tomi) on the Tuesday after he joined the student production to supervise, and he had been caught off-guard when he suddenly got a voice call from another content creator. He had ignored it at first and then got a message to come into the chat.
Intrigued, he opened the streaming platform and checked the stream. He was on his alt so no one would notice he was online.
And that was how he ended up sitting in front of his laptop at half past ten in the morning eating a bowl of cereal while in a voice call as a guest on someone else’s stream, as the Solitary Paladin.
He poured more cereal into the sour milk and purposely made a crunch in the ear of the other streamer.
“Ugh! Ew! God! What are you even doing?”
“Add the audio of the call to the stream,” Tomi replied, mouth only half-empty.
“Geez. There. You’re on. Say hello.”
Tomi added another spoonful and munched loudly as his reply.
“Goddammit, you!”
Toni swallowed the spoonful and laughed. “You caught me mid-breakfast. What can I do?” He rinsed his mouth. “Hey everyone. Why am I online so early in the morning? How can I help you? What needs slaying?”
“You! Clearly!”
“Poll,” Tomi called out. “Chat, am I to be slayed today? If you slay me, I’m not staying. I’ll go back to silent breakfast.”
What was presumably a door slammed in an apartment adjacent to Tomi’s. He saw the indicator show it picked up the noise.
“…Mostly silent,” he corrected. He couldn’t help but comment, “Damn, who is making noise at this time of day? Is some brat next doors skipping class or something?”
“You’re the brat.”
“Sure,” Tomi agreed shamelessly. “I can be, if you want me to. But I’m not sure I’ll consent if chat wants this to be a brat taming session.”
Another streamer entered the stream’s chat and asked, SP, what are you eating?
“Oh, hi Nattie!” he said, nearly missing the message. He scrolled up to screenshot it.
“What?”
“Nattie in chat. Asked what I was having,” Tomi explained. “I’m eating sour milk and cereal.”
“What?” the other streamer asked, clearly disgusted. “Don’t eat that!”
“There’s nothing wrong with cereal.”
“Not the cereal! The sour milk! Throw it out!”
“No, I just bought it the other day.”
“You bought sour milk??”
Tomi rolled his eyes at the disgusted tone. “Obviously. It has blueberry flavouring.”
“You added blueberries to it?”
“No, it’s…” Tomi considered the word order, “sour blueberry milk?”
“Why are you uncertain? You’re not sure if it’s blueberries either?”
“I don’t know if it’s called sour blueberry milk or blueberry sour milk. Anyway, sour milk with blueberries in it is pretty common. It’s good for you.”
“Does it even matter? You’re going to get sick.”
“No. Obviously not. I’ve never gotten sick from sour milk.”
“What kind of super stomach do you have??”
“Sour milk is perfectly fine to consume.”
“I’m telling you it’s not.. it’s spoilt!”
Tomi was thoroughly amused. “No, they don’t sell spoilt food.”
“But you bought it like that?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t eat it!”
“It’s actually recommended to have sour milk if you’ve been sick. It’s helpful to balance your bowels again.”
“It’s soured milk!”
“Yeah? So it’s fine.”
“HOW?!”
Tomi flinched at the frustrated cry in his ear ä. He asked, “Have you never had sourdough bread? It’s also safe.”
“Sour milk and sourdough bread are not the same.”
“Yes, they are.”
“No!”
“You’re so uncultured.” He paused and then added, voice flat, “Unlike my sour milk, which has a bacterial culture in it that’s good for your bowels.”
He fell silent then, because he saw a user he unexpectedly recognised popping up on the screen as a paid message.
wstrbstr256o2: (US$1.00) call it fermented milk instead esteemed paladin
“…”
Tomi was surprised the word had already reached a familiar set of random letters and numbers.
He let the streamer complain for a long time before he said, “You missed the explanation, darling. Fermented milk.”
“…That sounds absolutely like a crime to food.”
“Then there are plenty of foodstuff that should be banned for being food.”
“Are you having ‘fermented’ cereal, too?”
Tomi wrinkled his nose. “Hell no. But because of your it’s soggy cereal. I think most people find that an actual crime against humanity.”
“Whatever,” the other streamer said.
“So what am I doing here anyway?” Tomi asked to change the topic. “You didn’t want me to play a game, so…”
“Okay, so I just wanted to ask some questions from someone in Europe.”
“I’m the wrong kind of European to ask,” Tomi immediately said. “It’s probably, like, West or Central Europe or maybe the south. Which is, basically all of what people think is Europe and I’m as much of an opposite of a West-Central-Southern European as you can get.”
“No. It’s something from Norway or something, and all of you Scandinavians are similar, right so…”
“…I’m also the opposite of a Scandinavian…”
“What’s Scandinavia then?”
Tomi explained calmly, “Sweden, Norway and Denmark.”
“But you live there?”
“I’m not actually from here. I’ve only lived here for a few years.”
“But you might still know…”
With a sigh, Tomi said, “All right. Shoot.”
“There was a show made a few years ago, set in pre-Viking era.”
“Oh, okay. I think I know the one. My oshi’s arms were covered by sleeved for like three whole seasons. I was so mad about that.”
The other streamer fell silent at Tomi’s recollection. Tomi decided to commit to the bit and started complaining about every costume design that wasn’t showing enough male anatomy.
Author’s Note
If you go to Sweden, I recommend trying fil (sour milk). If it’s tart, you can sprinkle sugar on it or mix it with honey. Piimä in Finland is a different type of fermented milk, while viili is fil. The consistency is closer to yoghurt than milk.
It’s also true that fil is genuinely suggested if you’ve been struck by a stomach bug. Specifically hälsofil or A-fil, with blueberries. Also super common to eat with cereal.
Shake well before eating, and never eat if it’s growing mold. Lumpy fil (despite shaking) might not taste that good but isn’t dangerous (assuming it’s not lactose free) — just even more fermented.