"Normal." I muttered with my cheek squashed against the car window. "Who would you even define as normal?"

"Uncle Luca?" My mother responded with her cheerful voice.

I huddled my yellow and black duffel bag, which I had bought at a thrift market. It had the colors of some football team, I think, but I liked it because it looked like a bee.

"Uncle Luca isn't normal; he's boring."

Mom sighed. We were about to drive on the cobblestone road. I hated the cobblestone road.

Our Fiat 500 wobbled like a drunk until we reached the intersection. It wasn't the old model from Lupin III; it was the new Fiat 500. And it wasn't even yellow.

I had asked for it to be yellow.

"I'm going to die," I announced to the world when the train station appeared.

"Yes, sooner or later," my mother maneuvered between lanes like a maniac and slammed the brakes when she found a free spot to park. I would probably die sooner, considering how the woman who gave birth to me drove.

"I'll specifically die in January 2017, the year you sent me to the other side of Italy against my will to be massacred by grown men in funny hats."

Mom turned the key and turned off the car. She rested her arm on the steering wheel and turned ninety degrees towards me. "You've done your dramatic soliloquy. Can we go now?"

"I'm ready to march towards my impending departure, my insensitive progenitor." And I immediately opened the door for a dramatic exit.

It wasn't raining, but the fog was so dense that my socks were getting soaked. I held my duffel bag tight to my chest and squeezed it hard. It was soft.

"What did you put in there?" Mom asked as she retrieved the suitcase from the trunk.

"Survival kit."

The wheels of the suitcase scraped on the concrete with a ghostly lament.

"Don't tell me there are stuffed animals in there." She parked the suitcase next to me.

I did as she asked and didn't tell her.

"Are you really going to open that bag in Turin and pull out a bunch of dolls in front of this guy you don't even know?"

No, I planned to do better. Holding my bee like a baby, I unzipped the bag and pulled my Bulbasaur by the neck. I zipped it back, loaded the duffel bag on my shoulder, and held my favorite grass Pokémon under my elbow, where I could easily pet its head.

Mom looked at me, looked at Bulby, looked at me.

"Mother, I am about to meet my destiny."

"Then hurry, or you'll miss the train." She leaned over and gave me a kiss on the forehead. "Do you want me to take you to the platform?"

"No need."

"Are you embarrassed to be seen with your mom?" She chuckled.

"Mother, I have a Pokémon under my arm. I'm not easily embarrassed."

No, the thing was that saying goodbye to my mother when I would be away for so long was a task of some gravity. And introducing myself to Nicola Demir, a normal boy, was, if possible, an even more burdensome task.

So it was better to separate the two events into distinct moments to give each the attention it deserved.

I hugged my mother, kissed her cheek, confirmed that yes, I would text her when I arrived in Turin, and yes, I would text her when I arrived at the hotel.

Then I took the suitcase by the handle and dragged with me the roar of the unfortunate ghosts.

We had to take the Freccia Rossa. It was weird to say, because in Italian the name Freccia was female, but trains were addressed as males. Does the gender refer to the fact that it's a train, or to its given name?

Maybe it's a non-binary train. But how can it not be on the binary? It's a train.

I laughed out loud. It was a flying, genderfluid train.

"Watch where you're going!" Someone had shoved me. More likely, I had shoved someone.

Okay, focus, Gioele. Eyes on the present. No flying, genderfluid trains. No wolves. No laughing out loud.

I never understood why people don't laugh when they're alone. If they think of something funny, don't they feel like laughing?

EYES ON THE PRESENT, GIOELE. The departure board. I needed to find the departure board. There it was. I had to go to platform five.

I stopped in front of the validation machine and fed it the ticket. It made sound like mhclick, and I repeated, "Mhclick."

Then Bulby and I ran to platform five.

Mine was the seventh carriage, seat 5A. I counted the carriages from afar and then watched the people in front of what looked like the seventh.

If Nicola hadn't boarded yet, he was probably waiting there in front.

I squeezed my Bulbasaur to gather courage and crossed the thick fog. I knew I would suck at the internship, but being scolded by the chef was much less frightening than the idea of sleeping, eating, and working with an unknown peer.

Carriage number five. Carriage number six.

Okay, here we are. Maximum concentration, eyes on the present.

There were only two people in front of carriage number seven. One was an old lady, and the other was a boy.

There was a serious possibility that Nicola wasn't the old lady, but this didn't give me the courage to approach an unknown boy and open my mouth to say words.

The boy was looking at the incoming passengers on the platform instead of looking at the flying, genderfluid train.

Our eyes met, and my throat sealed itself according to the well-known safety protocol that says that when I meet new people, I must lose the gift of speech.

The boy abandoned his black suitcase and took three steps toward me. "Are you Gioele?"

Instead of answering, I looked at his ears.

They were quite large, sticking out of a mess of formless black curls. I imagined him flapping his ears and taking off like Dumbo.

I burst into laughter.

Nicola furrowed his brows, which were as curly as his hair. I realized he had asked me a question, and I had laughed in his face.

He didn't look happy. I had to recover now or never.

"Yes, I am Gioele." I said, looking into his eyes. They were black, well, not exactly black, or he would have looked like a cat when it purrs. They were very, very dark brown. Everything was dark. The hair, the eyes, the skin, the clothes.

"I'm Nicola," he introduced himself, even though it was quite logical at this point.

He extended a hand to shake mine. The thing was, I was holding the handle of the suitcase with one hand and the straps of the duffel bag hanging from my shoulder with the other.

Nicola lowered his gaze and noticed my dilemma. He also noticed Bulby stuck under my arm.

"Uhm." He said with a deep and perplexed voice.

"Uhm." I repeated before I could stop myself. I didn't want him to think I was making fun of him in the first five seconds of our acquaintance.

Change the topic. Say something intelligent. "Don't worry, he's harmless."

Nicola dropped the hand I hadn't shaken yet. I wasn't sure what that expression on his face meant, but I was sure that my introduction wasn't going well.

"Bulbasaur, I mean. He's harmless." I let go of the duffel bag and abandoned the suitcase. I lifted Bulby to face height to show him since Nicola was a bit taller than me.

"OH." I realized I had free hands now, so I grabbed his to shake it. But he had already let it fall along his sides, so it was a slightly more violent handshake than usual.

Okay, this wasn't the smoothest social interaction I'd ever had. I'd done better.

I let go of his hand. I ran out of talking points. I had said my name, I had said nice to meet you. No! I hadn't said nice to meet you.

"Nice to meet you."

That was absolutely the right thing to say when meeting someone new, so he had no right to give me that look.

I started to feel uncomfortable. I held Bulby tight as if he could protect me from that awful interaction. But what could he do? Use Vine Whip on my opponent?

My head materialized the sound effect from a Pokémon game when a move is super effective. I laughed. So, Nicola was weak against grass moves? He must be a water, ground, or rock type, then.

Nicola had a weird expression. We had been silent for too long.

"Uh." Stop talking about Pokémon. "Sorry, I'm a bit nervous." I laughed. And stop laughing out loud.

"Me too." Nicola replied, slowly. That wary and somewhat dark look gradually opened up. "Don't worry." Nicola smiled, and his ears perked up. Wow, they were so cute.

"You have huge ears! You look like Dopey from Snow White."

My new roommate/workmate opened his mouth like they do in cartoons. Usually, people don't do that in real life, but I had a talent for eliciting that kind of expression.

"I mean." I cleared my throat. "In a good way. Dopey is my favorite dwarf. And they suit you very well. Like. The ears."

It sounded like a lie. It sounded like I was making fun of him. But it was true that Dopey was my favorite dwarf. And it was true that they looked good on him...