The door busts open; Ken is leaving home. He seems in a little bit of a hurry, running through the street to the bus stop. Swerving around two dads and their stroller, he arrives to the stop at the same time as the blue bus, which slowly brakes in to a stop. As he is boarding the bus, Djennifer waves to him. He waves back, and with the other hand he pays for the ticket. After finding a seat, he opens his bag, and start doing the homework. 

After a while, the bus driver announces that the next station “will be Berry Park, mate” and Ken packs his books again. As he walks off the bus, he sees Djennifer again, with a very beautiful, black haired woman at her side. They chat merrily, and their black hair shines like black diamonds in the sunlight. The unknown woman and Djennifer part ways, and Ken realizes he is a tiny bit jealous on Djennifer. That hair, and those teeth; angelic is the only word that does them justice.

In homeroom, the ginger teacher assistant that’s present (“ya teacher is sick, so y’all can do whatevs”) dismisses the class after two minutes so Ken goes out on the yard. He carries a book, and has his mind set in some peaceful reading in the warming sunlight.

After a few very good chapters, Drew joins him. They sit in silence for a minute, until Drew tries with an ice breaker.

- Hi, what are you reading?

- A book.

- Yes, I am not dumb. I mean what book?

- Well, it’s good so far. Although, the rape scene is a little disturbing, but the book portrays gender roles and the ditto binary very well, without being to pushy about it.

- Oh, that sounds nice!

- Well, it is…

Then they both sit awkwardly silent, neither figuring out anything to say. Saved by the bell, Drew excuses himself and goes to his class.

Ken tries to read further, but his mind strays, so he puts the book away and goes towards the school to fetch something else to do. While walking over the grassy yard, he sees Erich through the window. Driven by a sudden compulsion to look at him, he sits down outside the window and watches Erich struggle with his math. The blonde hair falls down in the soft, grey eyes, and frames the smooth face perfectly. As the bell rings, Ken walks indoors and to his next lesson: English.

As he enters the busy classroom, he takes a seat in the back. The chair shrieks as he pull it out, and reacts similarly when it is pulled back. While the teacher silences the class, Ken prepares his speech for today: a complete dissection of the themes in Golden Boy.

The class slowly calms down, and Ken walks to the front of the class. He takes forth his notes, and starts with the topic of male pregnancy. All the others are in pairs or triplets, reading a book together and doing the presentation in group. Ken alone is by himself, since no one chose him. As he comes to the topic of intersex, the gender binary and the notion of cisgender, the class sighs. This is one of the reasons why the class in general doesn’t like him: he is very passionate for what he thinks is right, and the class and Ken doesn’t agree on what that is.

However, Ken hasn’t always been this feminist. Back in middle school, he was one of the bullies, shouting sexist and homophobic things to the left and right. When his sib came out as genderqueer, he struggled with it for the first period of time. Later on, he accepted them and their identity, and realized that he didn’t have as much of a say in other’s life as he thought he had. While reading a anthology of feminist essays, he realized that it was a ideology that matched with his views, and so he accepted it. Further down the road, he discovered intersectionality, and jumped right onto the train. So now, present day, he is doing a presentation on a intersex and genderqueer-positive book, and feeling powerful and feminist as could be. No friends in B, but he has Djennifer from A, and also Drew from that class. And also a clear conscience and a strong feeling of contributing to a better world.

As the bell rings to lunch, he enters the cafeteria. Immediately, Drew and Djennifer waves to him, gesturing for him to he come and sit with them. He takes his food tray and joins them, immediately immersed in the interesting conversation. Today it’s about whether the tenor saxophone or the baritone saxophone sounds sexiest. Drew is strongly on the side of the tenor, but Djennifer thinks it’s the baritone. He tries to get an agreement halfway between them, but neither one is giving up. Ken sighs: everybody knows that the trombone is the sexiest instrument ever, just realize it already! 

Since the argument is going nowhere, Ken silences them and starts a new topic about he connection between garlic bread (yum) and the patriarchy (I have discovered a truly magnificent connection, but the margin is to small to write it here). Whilst doing so, he and Drew accidentally looks eyes. Drew looks away, blushing, but when Djennifer asks why he blushed, he just says that “it is hot in here”. Taking off his sweater, Ken strongly agrees, and Djennifer puts down the case.

They play basketball in P.E. As Ken is waiting for his turn, Kyle from A comes to him. 

- Ken, how’s it going?

- Nice, how about you?

- Good, but there is a thing I’ve been wanting to ask you. Is it ok if ask you now?

He leans in closer and starts whispering.

- I’ve seen you hanging after Erich a lot lately, and was wondering if you wanted an introduction to each other.

- Why?

- Eeh… I think I don’t, but thank you.

- Ok, but if you change your mind, just hit me up!

- Yes, I will!

He walks away, and Ken jumps into the game, running and jumping for his life.

When he sits on the bus to the sports center, he thinks back to all the events that has occurred during the day. Why did Kyle come to him? Does he look stereotypically gay? Did he put his earring in the wrong ear? No, it is in theleft ear. Does Erich have crush on him! Seems unlikely, he seems straight as a stick. Well, you shouldn’t judge after looks. Maybe he is gay, and just waits for the moment to come out? Ken is going to investigate this later, but right now he has to step of the bus and go to the lacrosse training. 

As he runs over the lacrosse field, he looks forward. Look, there’s a cute butt! Ken just can’t take his eyes off it. 

Wait, what? Wasn’t he straight before, you might wonder. Ken thinks the same, but the approaching ball takes him back to reality and he decides to ponder this another time.

As he comes home, he goes straight to his room. He puts good music on in the headphones of his computer, and just drifts away from reality for a moment. This day has been stressful and weird, and he just wants to unwind.

That moment ends up being so long, it is morning when he drifts back.