So just pull the trigger.

6. Luckily, you're not ugly either

The apartment building where the party was held was an around seventy square meters sized three-room apartment, which belonged to the host Pavel's parents. Pavel, who was Misha's age, still lived with his parents who had traveled off to visit their relatives in St. Petersburg and left their home in Pavel's responsibility. Misha doubted that his parents knew about the party since he remembered them to be quiet and modest people, opposite to their son. Pavel was one of those friends in Russia who knew about him being gay and therefore about his relationship with Joni.

They heard the loud music already in the hallway as they climbed the stairs to the third floor. "I can imagine that his parents will hear about this later," Misha commented in English and Galina grinned at him.

"Oh definitely," she replied. They stood by the front door and rang the doorbell. There were loud voices mixed with music and laughter and finally Pavel made it to the door.

"Misha!" He declared, holding a beer bottle in his hand. He hugged his childhood friend tightly before bringing his attention to Galina.

"Galina, attractive as always." Pavel had tried to make his moves on Galina for years with quite little success and the woman's reaction didn't give a cause for high hopes this time either.

"And you, drunk as always," Galina replied and stepped inside. Pavel sighed and brought his attention to the brunet who stepped in after Misha, he smiled and held out his hand, introduced himself in Russian and the younger man replied, it was a shame that their communication would be quite limited because Pavel only knew a few words of English.

"Handsome boy," Pavel said to his friend, still looking at Joni. "Want some vodka?" He asked and for a moment Joni looked confused. Pavel raised his free hand and indicated drinking. Misha smiled.

"Do you want some vodka?" He clarified to his boyfriend.

"Hmh... Is there anything less strong?" Joni asked he didn't want to get too drunk and risk making a fool of himself. When Misha translated the answer to his friend, Pavel chuckled, patting Joni's back and saying something that he naturally couldn't understand. Misha smiled suspiciously and finally told Joni that Pavel had said he could always mix him something.

Joni smiled insecurely and nodded while taking his shoes off, Pavel disappeared into the kitchen and Galina sighed. "He thinks far too much of drinking, it would have been more polite to introduce you to the others first.."

"Well, I don't think that an official introduction is necessary." Misha smiled and they headed to the living room. There were around fifteen guests which made the small apartment quite crowded. Misha knew most of the people there, but a couple was new faces to him as well. Even Stanislav was there, someone that Misha had had a crush on in his early teenage years. It was strange seeing him after all those years. 

Stanislav stood by the window, his arm wrapped around a blonde woman, his other hand holding a bottle of beer, they chatted with Petya and his girlfriend Kristina. When Misha greeted the crowd, Stanislav brought his gaze to him, smiled, and nodded to greet him. They had never been close friends, but pals, and Misha had admired the other's appearance. Stanislav had become manlier, naturally, he was tall, lean, and handsome enough, but at the same time, he looked kind of worn out and didn't capture Misha's eyes the same way as before.

Misha introduced Joni as his Finnish friend and women looked at them both with clear interest sparkling in their eyes as they whispered to one another and giggled. Misha felt an odd pride in his chest when he looked at his boyfriend and saw the way others looked at him; how fine Joni's posture was, the way he smiled; his warm brown eyes had that certain sparkle that Misha loved, his skin had a healthy glow, Joni stood out in the crowd to his benefit and easily drew the others' attention to him.