Morning. June 8th, Black highschool. International sports day.

It was the morning of Friday, the blessed day, the pre-weekend day. The day that everyone, be child, be parent, be a free person without a corporate job, you would be waiting for it, for the blessed day. 

Now that I think about it, did “Friday” come from “Fry” combined with the word “day…? So—it was supposed to mean that it’s a day that you fry something? There are people that get fried on every day of the week if you know what I mean, but I don’t think that this is its original meaning. 

Who knows, maybe we are not supposed to find out, eh?

This day was already in the “pre-summer vacation stage”, so the summer vibes were going on as well. Everyone was enjoying the hot sun; some could handle it well, where others couldn’t really handle it, just like me fr.

This year, Ilinca was offered to help as a volunteer for this year’s sports festival, along with Ore and Richi, two of her good friends.

Now that I think about it, this isn’t a “festival”, but let’s keep it this way, it sounds more “summer-ish”, way better than “sport exercise day”, eh?

The three volunteers that happily accepted their roles to get snacks and soda, just something to chew on, you know, for the “invites”, who were basically cousins, friends, etc, called by the principal to spend some time on there, try some things, some food, to watch the activities and so on, but some had a sweet tooth or they wanted something that couldn’t be found there, like special snacks and beverages that could be gotten from stores all the way across the other side of the city.

So the three students got 100 euros from the principal to get these snacks and beverages, and it was supposed to be just enough or borderline enough for them to get what they needed to get from the list written by the highschool’s accountant, a woman, a really good friend of the principal.

The amount of money was put inside a letter, at which all three gazed at, at the same time, wondering what 100 euros would look like.

“What do you think it looks like?”

“Red? Dark red? No—wait—”

“I think it’s grey, for sure it’s grey”

They debated on what the color of the bill would look like, but when Richi was about to reach her hand inside the letter in which the bill found its place, the bus with the number 8b, has reached its next stop, a few meters away from the three teenagers waiting on a bench underneath a long tree wiggling very gently from the slight breeze, as it was holding a big shadow over them.

Inside the bus, the three sat on the way back, in the five seats one right next to each other. Ilinca in the middle, Richi on the left and Ore on the right. All three looked at the letter held aat face-length with Ilinca’s crushing thumbs. With their eyes widened wondering at the letter’s property inside, gazing at it like three goblins greedy for gold.

Ilinca shook her face and put the letter inside her black school bag that had a nice design on it, something complex even.

“Wanna see some old vlogs of (points thumb at Richi). I found them a few days ago on Zutube”

She opened her phone directly where her voice started as the introduction of the video

With this, the wheels inside Richi’s head, started moving, and instantly she knew it was about her, so she jumped at Ilinca, trying to take away her phone, but Ilinca did some yoga on the seats and over Ore, bothering him, getting him tangled in the fight. Ilinca just laughed, shouting to Ore to take the phone and while this was going on, Ilinca laughed and giggled, and Richi was red as a tomato, just angry and annoyed, I mean who wouldn’t?

If someone would show college colleagues my old Minecraft videos I’d be upset as hell, I give you that, eh?

At their final destination in Coconut County, their final destination where the shop filled with goodies was.

Before crossing the road, the girls looked left and right to wait for the cars to pass so that they could cross the road, but Ore’s eyes were caught by a meeting of dice throwing at the corner of the street, like ten meters away from the shop.

He saw the excitement the people playing would get from throwing the dice, the excitement in their voices and the joy in their vocal cords after they would win at throwing dice. Ore thought it was fun to play, so he decided he wanted to get in as well, but he needed a plan with which he could fool Ilinca with, to get the money from her.

“Ilinca, your bag seems heavy, can I take it off you?”

“When did you turn into such a gentleman?”
Ilinca didn’t bother asking any questions in her mind about the sudden gentleman's behaviour of Ore’s, she was just relieved to get the heavy backpack off her small shoulders.

“Maybe if you wouldn’t carry all those damned books with you. Like why do you even carry all of them with you? Only the phonetics book weights like 8 pounds.

“It’s called multitasking Richi, see?”

“Multitasking sucks! Why would you try more things? Just lock in one one thing and it’s done”

“I can lock in on more stuff at once, it’s not as hard as you think”

Indeed Ilinca loved multi-tasking, trust me, it’s one of her favorite things to do because it maximizes productivity, where it takes little less time to finish her homework, essay or to read a book. Actually now that we are talking about multi-tasking, I have a friend, a really good one, now he’s far away in Japan for College. He’s a really great guy, but man… sometimes I just think he’s an alien, the way he was multitasking when we were playing League of Legends like a few years back. He was reading, watching a movie and playing the game with me, even ranked—crazy guy.

Ore stopped the girls' conversation with a small announcement that wouldn’t really care for the two, since they were too heated in the conversation about multi-tasking, with Ilinca making some good points and Richi not really understanding what she was talking about.

“Hey–I’m hitting the bathroom for five minutes, but you can go without me”

With Ore leaving towards the tournament that was going on at the edge of a sketchy street, the girls waited for their friend, right near the store’s exit, on an empty wooden bench with fancy black-painted edges made probably out of iron, and it was colored so that the rust would not be seen… this maybe happens in some places, I have no clue.

Minutes upon minutes of arguing, Ore came back, acting nonchalant: walking slowly, looking once to the left; a few seconds later to the right, with the same backpack on his right shoulder, but something was missing…

“Where were you, we waited like 10 minutes”

“And they had a bathroom in here, you know that, right?”

Ore stopped in front of the two, standing there, explaining himself, but not knowing how to actually start the conversation about what he did

“---I lost all the money.”

Both girls, still sat down, looking weirdly at Ore, stopping their conversation on a cliffhanger

“YOU WHAT?!”

Shouted Ilinca, but not any shout, it was a shout of a viking filled with rage.

“I’m sorry, okay? They looked like they were having a great time, I just joined… and I lost”

Jumping up from her seat, Ilinca grabbed Ore’s steady shoulders and shook him a few times, as she was very upset, even somehow hurt inside.

“Why didn’t you join with your own money? Why–why did you have to take the 100 bill?!”

“I didn’t have any on me”

“Respect the hustle, boy, neat”
Respectfully said Richi, extending her left arm, fixing a fist towards Ore; a fistbump that Ore accepted it with a slight smirk

“Thank—”

Ilinca looked back at Richi with deadly eyes, a very very serious expression of annoyment and anger, both mixed like a salad with more vegetables.

“We’re dead, we’re so dead… the principal will expel us… EXPEL US ALL!”

Ilinca sat back down, putting her hands on her forehead in sign of mental devastation. It wasn’t really the money for her, it was the thing that they were betraying the principal’s trust, but let’s be honest, who would put money in the trust of 6 teenager hands and not expect things to go south, eh?

Richi nodded her head in front and in the back, slowly, in sign of agreement

“It was a nice try… no?”

Ilinca woke up from her sadness and punched Richi’s left shoulder with an fist that wasn’t even clawed-in correctly

“We can’t do anything about it now, let’s at least welcome his brave action. Because… let’s be honest, it was brave, right, right?”

Asked Richi, trying to not hold back her laugher

“Right.”

“Don’t condone this kind of behaviour”

A few seconds of silence followed, and only Ore’s scoffing could be heard, which sounded more like a long mouth exhale.

“You punch like a girl”
Laughed Richi, making a chain that activated a small burst of laughter that was held in by Ore

“RICHI!”

“Wait, what if we take it back from them, it should be pretty easy, we can just ask the money back”

Ilinca looked at ore with a slight glimpse of hope inside her bright and small eyes. Richi looked at Ore and Ore looked at Richi, both sighting, grunting their eyes and mouths.

“It’s not a very good idea… Ilinca, you see–_”

But without having the honor of finishing his sentence, Ilinca got up and walked towards the edge of the street near where the people playing would have been.

Ilinca, with her rapid walk, approached the edge of the street, at the corner of a block, as she was looking back at Ore, pointing towards the edge of the game zone, feeling some way. Actually she was scared as heck inside her soul. Her hands were shaking and her voice was slightly trembling, which she hid with voice fixes, just like when you’re sick and your voice changes, and you keep forcing your vocals for your normal voice to come back. On the outside? Oh boy—on the outside she was brave, like a grown woman in a protective world. 

Right when Ilinca turned the corner, she saw the group of homeless people along with one which seemed like a shopkeeper and another one who wore a suit and tie, a formal person

The dices thrown were quickly caught in the shopkeeper’s hands and the entire group looked at Ilinca with the same look, the same glassy eye and hypnotized look, the look of addicted people feeling the thrill from playing the game.

“Huh, wanna play too, girly?”
Asked the shopkeeper with his hoarse voice, showing his upper and lower pair of teeth in a smile segment, having one golden and one black tooth.

“H-hello, my friend there, he’s like this tall—he has this broccoli hair and he did the mistake on…

“Grr…”

Groaned two homeless men at Ilinca, angered just by her presence because she was disturbing their game.

(Not enough)

“Can we have his money back, please?”

Her smirk or let’s say “polite smirk”, brightened up the zone all over her of a space of a meter or so, while the aura of negativity was winning over the entirety of the zone.

The shopkeeper raised his gaze from the shadowy space of the unseen void, and only with the top of his eye, his desperate and angered, super angered sight, focusing on Ilinca’s eyes, and in that moment, a voice trembling voice followed in Ilinca’s next sentence.

“Have a wonderful day, gentlemen”

She saluted with the wave of her hand and ran away, bumping into the other two who were spying from the shadows, jumping in if something was about to happen, but actually they were as scared as Ilinca.

“Did you get the money?”

Asked both, at the same exact time, both Ore and Richi.

Ilinca squinted her fingers, the thumb and pointing one, high pitching her voice as well.

“I were thiiiis close”

“Yeah, of course, of course”

Replied Richi, but actually not believing what she just said. We can see this from the small chuckle she gave out right after speaking out the words.

Back on the bench of shame, underneath the shadow of a tree, the three were thinking of another way they could make some money to avoid the trouble that was inevitable.

Ore sighted, getting a few cold looks from the girls, being like “Are you for real right now?”
Looking away, towards his right, Ore saw a woman walking near them, putting her credit card back in her wallet, giving a jolt of ideas for Ore, like creating a thought which put him who was putting her credit card back in her wallet.

“Hmm…”

Quickly after, he looked towards the left, directly at the local bank.

(Not enough)

“Hmmm…?”

Switching his look back at the ground, Ore looked focused on an idea, zoning out entirely.

“Hmm…”

“Wait, wait, I got it for you”

Richi pulled down a thin and long chain from near his head, turning on an imaginary lightbulb