Involvement

-I've… been making a list of what I want in a partner. Right now, it's all things he'd be doing for me. I can't think of anything I'm ready to do for a partner without it just being something he asked me to do. Is this bad?
Before Stefan could answer, Leif shuffled as to be able to whisper into Stefan's ear. Stefan answered to Leif:
-How about you try telling him yourself? You need to start somewhere and the chances that this answer will make him angry enough to yell at you are quite slim.
Leif got back to his initial position and uttered a word in a very low voice:
-Cake.
Leif then shook his head. Stefan took over:
-He liked the cake you gave us. Knowing you, we probably only got it because you made so much that even your household couldn't eat it all in a reasonable timeframe. But I agree with him that it's something you can do for your future partner, or anyone else you care about. You seem to have been making it to deal with the recent bad news. Since you're choosing who you're giving it to, you future partner – or anyone else you want to be on good terms with – will be happy to get it.
Put this way, it did seem like a good first item. But there was still a problem:
-One thing isn't going to be enough.
Stefan let out a sigh:
-For today, one word willingly told to someone else than me and one item on the "what can I do in return without being asked?" list will do. This is supposed to be a vacation for me also, after all.

Lalli understood what he was getting at, but had trouble finding something else to ask that wouldn't make him work again to an extent. How had he managed to do so during their dates, already? Only to a certain extent, come to think of it. As he let his thoughts wander, they stumbled upon the fact that the brothel was much further away from the river than both the clinic and the Hunter's Lodge. Lalli could figure out why the clinic hadn't felt safe after the incident, but the Lodge… He had a new question, but Milla felt like the best person to ask. Would it be worth stating it out loud to people who might either not know the answer or have the wrong idea about it? Would it be a good idea with Leif awake? For now, he decided to leave it in a corner of his mind: was there anyone in Stefan's family who would have helped Leif if he'd simply asked them? Then he remembered the part about Göte having gotten the idea that Stefan's family was trying to take the store away from him. As he thought about it a little longer, he realized what any attempt on their part to help Leif after Stefan had given up on making him his partner would look like in the light of Göte's story. Still, he had found himself wishing that story had been true before, so was there a way of making it so? An idea crossed his mind: while the town was supposed to be small, he had seen smaller settlements that had their own store.
-Is the town too small to have a second store?
Stefan was the one who answered:
-Actually, back before the seagull man moved in, someone who had worked long enough at the general store to have an idea of how to go about things gave starting their own place a try. Göte didn't like it. It officially closed a few weeks in because it was being too badly managed to withstand bad luck, but plenty of the unlucky incidents could have easily been the result of an act of sabotage. Enough people were willing to admit that Göte might have had an active hand in it for the entire town to decide that any subsequent attempt would be a great way to lose a bunch of money. The seagull man having moved in since is the only reason Isak will have more of a chance of succeeding.

Isak had mentioned he planned to either take over or compete with a local business. Lalli decided to check something:
-Would opening another store have solved the problem of taking the store away from Leif?
-The town may be able to support two stores like my father's, but not two that size. Eventually, the sustainability of one will be happening at the expense of the other. And if the store that ends up with the most customers is mine, the long-term result might not be that different from what it would have been meant to avoid.
Lalli next turned to Leif:
-Would it have been okay not getting the store anymore if you could still work there?
Leif looked back at him with an expression that Lalli had come to expect to be followed by something along the lines of "Why are you asking me that? It's none of your business". He realized it was one of those times he was asking too much that Stefan had mentioned a while ago. As this was dawning, Leif was already whispering something to Stefan, who promptly reacted:
-People can actually work at a store for quite long. The clerks at the store weren't lasting long because Göte was wearing them out. And Lalli, if just asked this question because part of you is afraid someone here is going to get angry at you for not having figured out a solution to this problem, relax. Both Isak and I made mistakes, but they are ours and you have nothing to do with them. In fact, if you hastily involve yourself in this much more than you already have, you may end up coming up with exactly the sort of naïve solutions that you dislike hearing from others when it comes to your own problems. You don't need to drop the topic completely, but please think a little of what you'll be saying next.
Lalli looked at Leif, looking for the right word to point out that Stefan had only vouched for himself and Isak when it came to not getting angry at him. As he was trying to reshape his thoughts as something that could be asked to Leif directly, Stefan spoke again:
-I'm just now realizing I didn't explicitly include Leif just now, but how do you feel when it looks like someone else is expecting you to get angry at them for something that is out of their control?
Lalli remembered a handful of times this had happened with Roni, who had to find himself in a bad situation that was genuinely not his faut once in a while. It had given him the impression that other things he had already done made him look like the sort of person who would get angry at people for things that were not their fault. He managed an apology to Leif, then focused on Stefan's statement, realizing he had inadvertently made him work again.

In the past, Lalli had been yelled at for not being involved enough in something. More recently, he had been told a few times that he was too involved. He found himself sorting through what he had been paying attention to since he had broken up with Roni and the reason. Anne-Mari. He had needed to care for her a few days during the trip he was currently partly making in reverse. But ever since he had gotten her in the hands of the caretakers she shared with Juha, he mostly kept an eye on them because he was afraid of how Onni and Tuuri would react if something happened to them while he was under the same roof. Juha's kitten and its noisy bell. Considering the reason Onni and Cecilia had gotten married, he had been worried about what would happen if Juha didn't inherit Väinö and Cecilia's powers. He had considered Stefan as potential lifetime partner and was currently doing the same about Emil, so there had to be an extent to which getting involved with their lives was acceptable. Come to think of it, this was probably one of the reasons he had heard "being involved" being used for talking about people who were in a relationship. But what about Emil's young cousins, beyond making sure someone was watching them when he and Emil went on dates? Would it have even been his business to give him advice on how to care for them if he hadn't outright asked for it on their first date? Milla, because she felt like the most likely source of retaliation if he turned out to be mistreating Stefan in some way without realizing it. The Old Man, because the house was technically his. Leif and Göte, because of the situation in which he had been all too recently and the feeling that he would have maybe gotten out of it earlier if the members of this family with the true decision-making powers had been paying more attention. Was he paying attention to all those situations for practical reasons? For Stefan's suggested reason that he was afraid to be yelled at if any of them went wrong? Did he genuinely care for some of them, but didn't notice because he wasn't sure what "caring" actually meant? He realized that it would make sense for it to be just as broadly defined among different people as "disrespecting" was. The fact that both not paying enough attention and paying too much attention could be bad when it came to "caring" actually made the possibility that it could be the same kind of word even more likely. Would it be caring to not ask Stefan about this newfound topic because he really wanted both Leif and him to have a relaxing rest of the trip, or exactly the sort of behavior he had been holding against Onni for the past few weeks? Their cart reached a part of the road that inadvertently rocked Lalli to sleep as he was still thinking things over. When he was woken up by a gentle poke on Stefan's part, the sun had set and they had arrived to their destination.

xxxx

Isak's mother and sister were expecting them and had enough food and space to accommodate all four of them for the evening and following night. As the meal ended up finishing with time to spare before going to bed, Lalli decided to have a little walk to get an idea of how the town was built to make his task for the next day a little easier. He left his luggage behind, but took Emil's delivery with him on the off-chance that he stumbled about its destination while the occupants were still awake. The first place he went was the local lake, which was the town's hardest to miss feature. He used his already-activated night sight to have a look at the address Emil had given him, as quite a few streets in the part of town closest to the lake alluded to it and he had just remembered the mention of a lake in the address. The speed at which he found the right street, then the right house, reassured him in regard to the state of his professional skills. As the lights were still on and people were moving inside, he decided it was worth knocking. The man who opened seemed old enough to the father of Emil's cousins, so he made sure of his name, explained that he knew Emil and happened to be in town, then gave him the bundle he had been carrying in his arms during the walk. The late hour gave him the perfect excuse to not linger any longer, but he noticed something on top of the open door as he was about to take his leave: a squirrel that was looking at him, with a touch of magic inside it. Just as the implications hit him, he heard a familiar voice from inside the house:
-Lalli?

Next thing he knew, he was sharing a small four-place table with Onni, Tuuri and Cecilia. The seat he was occupying was probably Reynir's, but the latter was by far the one the least needed around the table. It had turned out that the addresses to which to send the letters were different because the family had kept its habit of renting a letter deposit box at the local post office, which was in another part of town. The very first thing he had to do was to explain that he was, in fact, not coming back to work and had simply taken advantage of the fact that acquaintances of his were headed for the town. Catching on what had happened since last time he had sent them a letter took all the energy that the nap had helped him preserve. For some reason Onni, of all people, was surprised at the effort he was putting into finding a partner. Lalli couldn't help but ask:
-Don't you want me to find another partner quickly?
The next words pronounced came from Cecilia and were addressed to Onni:
-See? I told you he'd get that idea if you kept phrasing things that way.
Cecilia next addressed Lalli:
-If you've been feeling like you had limited time to find a new partner all this time, rest assured that it's not the case. Onni has just been trying to encourage you and give you advice all this time. Even convenience partnerships like ours should be done with a carefully chosen person. I'm not going to get into the sort of things that can happen if that caution is not applied, as you have experienced one of them first-hand.
Lalli felt no choice but to immediately admit that he was actually dating Emil while expecting him to turn out to be a bad choice, in hope of convincing the part of his mind that seriously considering him as a potential partner to let go. He then noticed a potential problem:
-Is it going to be a problem if I break up with him while you are all still working for his uncle?
Tuuri was the one to answer him:
-I think both Onni and I want to make up for having tried to convince you that breaking up with Roni was a bad idea. If Emil turns to be a bad idea also, go ahead and break up with him.
From there, the conversation had trouble continuing, Onni suddenly remembered that he was staying elsewhere for the night and he was quickly told to return to the house at which he was staying as to not make his hostesses wait for him for too long. Lalli had a few things for them as well, so they decided that he would visit them during their lunch break on the next day.
One his way out of the house, he was met by a woman who seemed to be around the uncle's age:
-Hi, I'm Siv, the children's mother. I wanted to thank you for this delivery personally.
A drawing Helena had made of the children had been among the items that had made the cut.
-Okay… I mean you're welcome. Goodbye.
He returned to the house he had come from, did minimal preparations and quickly fell asleep.