Sunday, September 22nd, 1974

The Block A boys were way too keen about today’s events and quickly devoured their 7 AM breakfast. In small groups, rushing down the busy cafeteria, they scurried to our academy’s foggy courtyard, including me, who was also gearing up to see some girls. 

James brought along Christopher, despite our nerd friends’ reluctance to partake in the silly charade. There we were, gathered in a circle, boys - and an undercover girl - from nations afar, all united by the thought of snagging a potential girlfriend. Not me, though! I just made my presence known to show off that I could be a “better” man than most of these losers. 

“Hey! If we see a stone cold fox, holler at her!” Leandro Najarro, a scarred-up boy from Spain, chuckled to himself. 

In an instant, I could feel myself rolling my eyes to the heavens. Don’t these dumbasses know hollering is annoying? We chicks aren’t animals in a damn zoo, and if you click teeth at us, we’ll punch your teeth out!

“I wonder if they’re just as pretty as you boasted yesterday.” James grinned while peering over the fence. Christopher pretended to look interested, but he was clearly out of it.

“Trust me! You’re gonna go crazy over these chicas!” Leandro let out a smug laugh as Sergio surveyed the courtyard for any teachers. Maybe it’s the fact that I didn’t get good sleep last night, but the first year hailing from Mexico seemed very miffed from my point of view. His thick brow twitched every time the sleazy Spaniard spoke up. 

Wait, I’m pretty sure Leandro and Sergio had some sort of beef. So Sergio being angry in the presence of someone he apparently physically fought last summer made sense. 

As the rising sun made its way towards the orange skies above, a group of sophomore girls from the high school on the other side of the Island were strolling down the dirt road. They modelled graceful velvet uniforms, white-collared tees, and long grey skirts. Many of the girls carried briefcases with one hand and a parasol with the other. I could hear them joke among themselves and laugh as popular girls did. 

Though their sweet, fun vibes soured the moment these stupid, idiotic, bum, loser boys opened their goofy mouths and began catcalling these poor ladies.

“Oye! Lookin’ good! Looking good!~” Leandro whistled and wiggled his brows. 

“Why don’t you ladies come a little closer and take a good look at us?” Branko, an Argentinian representative, motioned to his pants. God, I hate boys sometimes. I secretly flipped both boys off while they weren’t looking.

Vincenzo, who thankfully didn’t notice my vulgar gesture, scoffed at Branko and rolled his eyes. “Is that how you flirt, idiotos? You’re supposed to have a hypnotic voice that the females can’t resist!” 

The Academy girls glanced at each other, then pointed and laughed at the boys, embarrassing the guys, who went jive turkey. Sergio began shaking his head at our fellow Block A students with the disappointment of an old grandpa. But in my eyes, I saw a golden opportunity to dunk on these losers.

“Hey, ladies!” I shouted to the howling girls with a grin. “Sorry about those two loser goofs! They’ve clearly never been kissed by a girl besides their Mother!” 

In the spur of the moment, I pushed myself through the barred, silver gates and ran up to the giggling girls. Though once the adrenaline wore off, I knew I had a good chance of being told off by the school. Shit, well. I was now out of bounds, but the fog provided decent cover for me. So I may as well do what I'm supposed to do and be a show off.

“And what’s military trash like you doing out here? Aren’t you going to get in trouble?” A French girl with light, mauve hair sassily remarked.

“I think being out here’s worth the trouble, cool cats. Especially if I get the chance to apologize about those loser idiots directly to your beautiful faces… Let me know if they try hollering at you again; I’ll kick them in the balls for you.” I sincerely smiled, hoping I wouldn’t be roasted to hell and back. 

The group of sophomore girls giggled and began to walk south towards their school. 

Hey, at least they didn’t beat me up!

Even though  I felt like I just failed at looking cool in front of pretty girls, one of the girls with long, platinum-blonde hair, fair skin, and sparkling, dark purple eyes had stayed behind. She slowly and elegantly approached me with a warm, generous smile.

 In my head, I had a simple, powerful thought: I like her, so I stuck around and leered at the boys who were clearly confused as to what I was doing. 

“What’s up?” I asked, balancing my learned machismo with politeness. 

She unexpectedly held my hand and looked into my grey irises with a charm that I’d never seen before. Gee wiz, were girls always this pretty??? 

“I would like to thank you for defending us!” She spoke softly, yet earnestly, with a heavy Slavic accent.

“H-hey, I have sisters at home, and I wouldn’t want any dopey losers talk to them like that, y’know? It’s common sense, I hope.” I warmly beamed back, feeling my heartbeat quicken the longer this girl held my hands. 

“I have to get going with my classmates, but I hope to see you again next Sunday!” The platinum-blonde girl giggled and began running off. 

“Wait!!! What’s your name???” I called out. 

“ANNIE! MY NAME IS ANNIE!...” She suddenly stopped in her tracks, turned around and called out to me. “WHAT’S YOUR NAME?!” 

“IT’S BASIL!!!”

“O-OKAY! BYE-BYE!!!~” 

And that was that! I got a girl's name, and I didn’t even have to catcall! Though I braced for tattletails and finks alike as I marched through the Academy’s front gate with a bold smile. 

“... What was that about us being losers?” Leandro raised a brow; his face reddened. 

I couldn’t defend myself from that off-the-cuff comment I made, so I playfully grinned and folded my arms. “What can I say, my fellow gentlemen? All you gotta do is actually talk to a fox and get to know her. Hell, I even got her name.” 

Gosh, being overly macho was so cringe-inducing. 

“Oh, yeah? What’s her name then?” Branko mocked as he combed back his dark brown hair with his dusty hands. 

“Hmm, if ya promise to keep my little ‘fence incident’ a secret between us, I just might give you guys the full skinny and tell you her name.”

The boys looked at each other and unanimously nodded in agreement to my deal.

“Go on, don’t keep us in suspense!” Hikaru Yamazake sparked up, his black irises clouding with anticipation. 

“Alright, alright, chill my dudes…” I leaned in and smiled with the intent to fib. “Her name was Milla, and lemme tell you, she even told me she liked me.~”

These absolute bunnies aren’t getting her real name; that’d be a disservice to poor Annie. But I will take every opportunity I can to shove a pretend romance in their faces, just to leave her alone. The rowdy boys suddenly began trippin’ like animals and congratulating me. Patting me on the back, giving me nuggies, and shaking my hand like I won a World Peace reward. 

Stupid boys.

“Huh! Well played, Basil!” Leandro chuckled and playfully punched my shoulder. 

Boys like Branko, Hikaru, and Issak were suddenly friendlier towards me, despite being a little cold during classes. Vincenzo only rolled his eyes and walked away with the rest of the boys. The only one who stayed behind was actually Sergio, who looked just as miffed as before. At first, I thought he was congratulating me like the other boys, but destiny had another plan.

“Hey, I’m only saying this because you seem like a nice kid during class, but I find your behaviour disgusting as fuck.” The towering Mexican disputed with a glare of disapproval. My shoulder muscles tensed as Sergio firmly placed his hand on me. 

“H-Hey man, I don’t want any trouble!-”

“You asked for trouble, and I’ll give it to you.” He sharply argued back and clicked his teeth. “I don’t like the fact that you used that girl to score points in front of the others. Has your Mother taught you nothing?” 

What the fuck??? 

I was just trying to prove a point! 

I am literally a girl!  

All I did was…

Ah. 

You know, Sergio might be a boy, but he’s not completely wrong. I exaggerated my relationship just to get the boys off my back and appear like one of them. Sure, I didn’t use Annie’s real name, but those stupid zoo animals could start calling her “Milla” and harass her all because of me. 

Damnit. I really need to calm the hell down with my thinking process.

“...Shit. H-hey, you’re right, man.” I shakily sighed and looked down at my black runners in shame, as Sergio’s expression went from angry to more confused. “Listen, I do really like her a lot, and I shouldn’t have fucked up like that. It ain’t right to show off, and I wouldn’t want someone using my sisters as brownie points with their stupid friends.” 

“Wow, you actually meant all that.” The Mexican dressed in the Block A’s navy uniform let out a long, annoyed sigh. “I’ll let you go only because you’re polite to me in our classes. But don’t let me catch you being a little cabron like that again.”

“... Cabron?” I repeated in a confused, half-decent Argentine accent. 

Sergio snickered at my poor attempt at speaking Spanish. “... It means ‘asshole’ in Spanish… But I gotta say that accent of yours wasn’t too bad! Do you speak Spanish?”

“... Maybe a little.” 

I awkwardly shrugged and walked off to see Christopher and James, who were waiting for me by our Academy’s entrance hall. The Québécois was pretty impressed by the way I spoke and gave me a pat on the shoulder, though Christopher only gave me a solemn thumbs up before going silent. Seemed like he, too, didn’t like my jive-talking nonsense.

My head swam with so many awkward feelings, but from this experience, I learned three things: The boys in my Block are so shit at flirting, Sergio had a proper mindset that even snapped me back to reality, and I might be gay. 

Oh God, I might be gay.

Or maybe not, because I still had my huge crush on Sergio. But at the same time, the thought of Annie holding my hand gave me really good vibes.