Eurovision 2023 - Käärijä x reader

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Hello again! Yet another short one, but I hope it is still enjoyable<3

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Her name was (Y/N), her stage name was (S/N), and her song was an absolute banger. That was about as much as Jere knew about her.

After having filmed that video for Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu, Jere couldn't keep his mind from wandering to her every once in a while. Her voice, her video, her music, her face... Yet Jere had not even tried to look up anything about her online. Somehow it felt wrong to do, as if he didn't have clear motives. So he would only think of her, and any thought of any kind of action was pushed away. That was until a post from one of the other contestants appeared on his instagram feed. That was when he decided it was time to get an insight into who these people were. After all, he was going to spend a lot of time with these people.

That night Jere laid in his bed, scrolling mindlessly through his phone. He took the time to go through all of the contestants' Instagram accounts, giving them a follow, looking at their first few posts, before going on to the next one. All except her. The thought of looking at her account was almost embarrassing to him. As if looking and even following her account meant that he was admitting something that he did not want to admit. Jere had to remind himself that it was nothing but her voice and face. He didn't know her, and she didn't know him. He knew however, that he was going to compete against her in Eurovision 2023. Of all the things that would happen, she was nowhere close to what he should be worrying about. Yet he was.

For the longest time, he just stared at her Instagram name, building up courage to click on it. She had popped up, after he had clicked follow on Alessandra's account. At that point Jere couldn't run from her any more. He should just have gone to bed instead of doing this. It was getting late, and Jere had a sleeping schedule to follow. But he wasn't tired. Actually, he was very much awake and his curiosity was growing. So he finally got himself together and clicked on her name.

Jere looked at (S/N)'s instagram, probably for way longer than he should have. Royal blue was definitely the color she went with the most, but there were also quite a few pictures of her in other colors. Plenty of pictures of her and her gigs, as well as a bunch of her having fun with friends and family. Pictures of her winning her national selection, and behind the scenes pictures of her music video. She looked like she was having fun.

But even after having looked through half of her Instagram posts, Jere still didn't feel like following her was right. He had to know more about her. After all, she was one of his biggest competitors. It would only be right to learn a little more about her, before letting himself follow her. That was at least the excuse Jere kept giving himself, before finally letting himself look her up.

She was BIG in her home country. She was (age) years old, from (town), and had over the past few years become something of a star. There had been a lot of talk about her getting into (country)'s national selection. People had talked about (S/N) taking part in Eurovision for quite some time, so when she finally decided to participate, people were ecstatic. As far as Jere understood, it had gone somewhat like his performance in Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu; a total landslide. The jury was pleased with (S/N), even though their favorites was a pop group. Jere saw the video of her and the other group waiting for the public vote, and he could feel the tension building up as he saw it. She sat there in her royal blue suit, hugging her dancers dressed in black and white. So far she was in second place. They called out her televote result, which caused her and her dancers to cheer, clap and dance in their seats. (S/N) rose to first place. Jere looked at the numbers. He doubted that the other group would be able to catch up to her, and he was right. Their televote was nowhere near hers. (S/N) was screaming and jumping with her dancers in pure happiness. Jere was impressed that she could do so in high heels. She then looked at the camera, did the rock and roll salute, and yelled something in her language that made the crowd scream along. Jere smiled at this. She seemed like a person he, and most definitely Käärijä, would like to hang out with.

Jere's curiosity peaked once again, when he found a video of (S/N) reacting to her Eurovision competitors. Jere just had to see that.

The video was in her native language, so Jere turned on the subtitles. There she was, smiling at the camera, looking just as happy as when she won her national selection, this time looking very casual in a plain t-shirt. Jere read the subtitles as she spoke.

"Hey! I am (S/N), and I am representing (country) in this year's Eurovision with my song (song). I am excited to see what is going to happen this year, and I am even more excited to hear what people are bringing to the table", she said with a big smile.

The first song was "EAEA" by Blanca Paloma. Jere was somewhat surprised that (S/N) wasn't waiting for a kick off in the same way he had. Instead she reacted in a way that seemed pleasantly surprised.

"Not something I often would listen to", (S/N) said. "But I like this. It feels like a subtle song, but when you listen it's actually not. There's a lot of different sounds, but it's not overwhelming at all. Actually very nice, fits the singing very well".

Next up was Mimicat from Portugal and (S/N) started dancing. "I like the songs so far!", she laughed. "Cultural and dance friendly. That's always good".

It continued like this. (S/N) saw them, listened to them, danced a little to them, and generally praised their songs, even if they were, as she said, not her personal style.

Jere took note of her reaction to Joker Out. "Oh", she said when she saw them. "There are also cute guys this year. I really like this year". It wasn't jealousy Jere was feeling, no way. Just a slight irritation that he didn't cause that reaction.

It was groups like Lord of the Lost and Voyager that caused her to look at the camera and say: "There it is! My kind of music!", before she then would start to dance and sing along to "Who the Hell is Edgar?", and exclaiming how much she loves Loreen while "Tattoo" playing.

Then it came, the one Jere had been waiting for. As the music video for "Cha Cha Cha" started, (S/N)'s eyebrows flew up in surprise. As Käärijä started singing, her jaw dropped and her eyes found the camera man's. She let out a small laugh in disbelief. Jere did not know how to read that. Did she like it or not?

"So that's what they have been hiding in Finland", (S/N) said, still with a big smile. Her head nodded to the beat, as she noticed the tattoo on his chest. "Ay! Rammstein! I like this guy!" Jere almost choked on his own air as he felt a minor butterfly in his stomach. No way.

The chorus started and (S/N) looked in disbelief once again. "Finland!", she exclaimed. "How dear you hid this man from me!" The happiness this was giving Jere.

"I love this", she said while the second chorus was playing. "I love this, he's amazing, and wow".

The song did its genre change, and (S/N) came with a sound Jere could only describe as pure excitement. "That's it", she said, acting as if she was going to take her headphones out with a laugh. "There's no way I'm beating this. I will try! But there's no way".

Jere felt happy and shy, while having this strange feeling that none of it was real. It was an absolut surreal feeling. Not only did (S/N) know about him, but she liked his song as well. He would scream in the backyard, like he did when he was told he was going to UMK, but after the neighbor's complaints, he decided not to. That was until a message popped up on his phone. It was from Instagram. (S/N) was now following Käärijä.

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Fun fact: The comment about Finland hiding Käärijä from us, is the actual comment me and my brother said when we saw his video. Having two Käärijä fans in one household has been chaos to our poor mother<3