“Diana…!”
Grogginess clings to me like a heavy, fuzzy blanket as I gradually awaken from my nap. My head feels like it’s encased in a fog, and it takes a moment for my surroundings to start making sense.
The classroom is dimly lit by the warm, golden hues of the setting sun, casting elongated shadows across the room. The last traces of daylight filter through the half-closed blinds, painting the walls with a soft, amber glow. The hum of distant chatter and the gentle rustling of leaves on the Banta tree outside create a subdued ambiance that’s almost soothing.
I blink a few times, trying to dispel the fatigue and adjust my vision to the light. My gaze lands on the empty desk before me, my notes and textbooks scattered in haphazard disarray.
And then, as if emerging from a dream, I notice the presence of someone standing beside me. A familiar face, partially illuminated by the fading light, leans slightly towards me.
“WAKE UP!” He shouts next to my ear, causing me to groan in pain.
“Stronzo!” I snap, quickly pulling him down by his tie so his face meets the corner of my desk.
“Ahia!” He cries out in pain. “Diana, stop! Stop! Let go of me!”
“Francesco, you absolute bastard. Why did you wake me up?!” I finally release him, and he takes a moment to adjust his uniform before responding.
“Because the school is closing! The janitor just passed and asked us to leave!”
I stare at the empty corridor, then out the window and sigh. “What were you doing all this time?”
He pulls a doughnut in a plastic bag out of his pocket and tosses it onto my desk. “I went to buy two of these at the canteen and then came back, but you were sound asleep. I didn’t want to wake you up, so I waited here and read this new manga on my phone. Look.” He shows me the cover page of a seemingly uninteresting story with vampires and witches.
I shake my head and rub my eyes. “I’m planning on staying all night. You should go home, Francesco.”
Chuckling, he responds, “It’s Saturday, stupido.”
“All the more reason…” I rest my head on my hand and begin to doze off.
“No, no, no! You don’t get it, idiota. You can’t stay here all this time! What are you going to eat?”
“You just gave me something to eat. Grazie, by the way.”
“That’s it?!” He exaggerates with grand dramatic movements. “How are you going to shower?”
”… A little bit of scum never killed anyone… It never killed her…” I finish, whispering to myself.
“Tch…” Francesco clicks his tongue before heading out of the classroom.
Drifting back to sleep, I lay my head back on the desk, facing the window. The Banta tree dominates the playground, and I get the comforting feeling that it’s watching over me. Down below, I expect to see Francesco’s silhouette heading towards the exit, but it doesn’t come. Instead, a group of four girls skips by, laughing, just as the janitor closes the gate.
‘What is that dumbass doing…?’ I think to myself before closing my eyes.
But as I am about to fall asleep, I hear the sound of regular steps behind me.
“Francesco… Why didn’t you go home? How are you going to get past the gate now?” I pronounce, my eyes still closed.
His cold hand lands on my head. “Wake up, Diana. Take your things and come.”
“Where to?” I ask him, irritated.
“To my home. There is plenty of space. I already asked my father and he agreed.”
My heart skips a beat when I hear this announcement.
“I can’t accept,” I begin, but he interrupts me.
“You have no other choice. I went as far as calling my father so you have to accept.”
“I never asked.”
“You fucking idiot! Can you stop being stubborn for ONE second?!”
I stand up in a second and grip Francesco’s hand. With my right foot, I stomp on his and push his knee with my own until he falls over and I pin him down.
Before he has time to notice anything, I pull my knife out of my pocket and point it towards his left eye threateningly.
“W-what…?” He stutters.
“What, what? Didn’t you notice nobody else is here? Rich pampered boys like you think the world is theirs? You think you can command me to go with you and I will follow like a well-behaved dog? I can kill you here if I want and nobody is going to stop me. Why do you want me to go with you? To your home or any other shithole you fancy. What were you going to do with me, uh? You thought I was a weakling that you could manipulate and abuse however you want?”
Francesco’s face shows tension before loudly cracking up.
“HahahahAHAHAHAHA! I can’t believe it, Diana, you are truly CRAZY! I just wanted to watch anime with you. Besides, I would never do anything weird to you since you’re clearly not my type. In fact, I consider you more like a boy than anything.”
Unimpressed by his diversion skills, I bring the knife closer to his eye. “Would you like me to hurt you?”
“If that makes you feel better.” He laughs.
“Why?”
“You aren’t the only one who’s living a nightmare, you know? Things out there are shit for everybody.”
“More for some than others.” I retort.
“The eye you’re pointing at there is a fake. It won’t hurt one bit, even if you stabbed it multiple times over and over. It has a camera too, it’s recording everything.”
“What the hell?” I suddenly pull my knife away.
“It’s kind of a pain to maintain it. I would honestly prefer it if you could destroy it. That way pops would know I didn’t do it.” He raises his torso to give me a better look at the eye.
“That’s insane.” I comment. “Why do you have this?”
“My family is in some shady business, if you want to know. We’re dirty rich, yes, but not recommendable. This is some sort of guarantee. Or more like a way to know who exactly assassinated me, or blackmailed me, or anything really, and retaliate. You don’t wanna get caught in one of those vendettas.”
I stare into his eye, realizing that I have no means to tell if it’s fake or not.
“Did you make all that up?”
Francesco doesn’t make a sound before bursting out laughing again.
“HahahHAHAHAHAHA!! Did you believe me? No way did you believe what I said?! You’re such a dumbass, Diana!”
I silently put my knife back into my pocket, then stand up and start picking up my things.
Once I’m done, I stare back at Francesco’s face and imagine him with an empty socket, undergoing surgery to get a new eye he never asked for.
“What are we going to watch?” I ask him nonchalantly.
Beaming, Francesco stands up in a jump and pushes me out, excited. “I have downloaded so many of them! I have a whole catalogue! Wait, did I ever show you my home cinema? It’s underground, and we have cinema armchairs too! They’re really comfy. Oh, we can order some food on the way too. My father will be there any second.”
“W-what? Your father is coming to pick us up in a car? We aren’t taking the bus??”
“Yeah, when I told him your name was Diana and you speak Italian, he became all excited. Don’t pay too much attention to it, though. Just respond politely to his questions, haha. Oh if he asks you anything about where you live or your family or anything, just make up something. I’ll try to cover for you and change the topic, don’t worry. So, what kind of food would you like to eat? Pizza? Burgers?” I walk silently, bewildered by what’s happening. “Oh, and make yourself more cheerful, Diana, and do something about your hair! It’s always in the way of your face! It’s so emo! Cheer all that up! Being depressed all the time is such an anti-social thing!”
“What…? I don’t—” I begin, but he interrupts me.
“You don’t get it. Nobody wants to hear about your misery. Nobody wants to know that you’re sad. Nobody wants to know what’s going bad in your life. All the random people, I mean. They don’t need to know anything about you, okay? You should keep those things to the people who care. Otherwise, you’re just going to be a bother to everybody around you.”
I restrain myself from saying that I actually want to be a bother.
“What about you, do you care?” I ask, almost cracking up.
“Of course not!” He exclaims without thinking twice, and we both end up laughing in the playground.
A gigantic black car appears behind the gate and Francesco starts climbing over it.
Having difficulties reaching the other side, he growls, while I swiftly leap to the top, then jump to the other side, outdistancing Francesco, who curses amusingly.
Admiring this stuck idiot, I begin to laugh wholeheartedly.
Failing at holding back my tears, I laugh to cover them up.
Thinking that my hair does get in my way like he suggested, I push it aside and appreciate for the first time how lucky I am to be able to see the world with my own two eyes.
…
“… And that’s how we get to today, where we meet, you and I.”
The moustache guy who thinks he’s the Laozi of love finishes his explanation with a smile.
The whiteboard is now a huge mess of different characters linked with lines of different colours and it takes me some time to realize the terrible truth…
“I’m sorry Moustache, but I didn’t listen at all. Can you start again?”
It’s not my fault, okay? The eyepatch Major he drew at the beginning reminded me of something and then I couldn’t stop daydreaming, reminiscing of the past!
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Moustache puts a hand to his forehead, bewildered. “It took me a whole day to make up this abridged course so all the information is perfectly concise and condensed!” He cries.
“Ah, it’s my bad…” I scratch my head, “I should have filmed it. I remember I used to film some courses before when I knew I was going to doze off.”
“So you knew you were going to doze off?! Why didn’t you warn me, we could do this another time!”
“No, but, you seemed so excited to do it now, it would have been so cruel. You had all the sense of timing and stuff; you even drew all this on the whiteboard. It’s your board, right? If it isn’t, I’m not going to help you clean it. You made it seem like you entered a random building, but this is your hideout, right? Not too bad, not too shabby.”
“Hm… Yes, it is, but don’t act as if you figured it out by yourself, I literally said it during my explanation.”
“I still figured it out myself because I didn’t listen.”
“God fucking damn it.” Moustache slouches on his chair and brings the tea to his lips. “Bloody hell, it’s cold.”
“Cold tea is good too. Like iced tea, you know?”
“Oh my gosh, no, I don’t know what iced tea is. Could you explain it to me?”
“What? For real?”
“OF COURSE I KNOW WHAT ICED TEA IS!”
“No need to shout. In your own house, even. The neighbours will get mad.”
“They evacuated.”
“Ooh…”
“I can’t believe you didn’t listen to a single thing.”
“It’s fine, Moustache, you can just do it again. It’s condensed, right? It shouldn’t be that long.”
“I ran out of energy… You sucked up all of it…”
“I don’t suck anything, you sucker.”
“Sweet Jesus, save me from this predicament…”
“EEEEEEH PATRON!”
“Che?”
“Y’a deux noich qu’ont pop d’l’aut bout du monde pour t’voir.”
“Rital, quante volte ti ho detto di parlare bene? Il tuo strano dialetto è incomprensibile!”
“Pardon, pardon.”
With my sole eye meeting those of the two strangers that Rital introduces to us, one of them appears unmistakably familiar.
“No fucking way. You’re alive,” I exclaim, amazed by what I’m seeing. “What the hell are you doing here on this godforsaken side of the world?!”
One of the Chinese guys whose name I’ve forgotten, the one we abandoned with his boyfriend on the Japanese ship that caught on fire, is standing in front of me while I’m enjoying some free time in one of my family’s casinos.
Smirking, he bends towards me and recites my family’s oath in one breath: “Because you are tigers in a world of beasts.” He then takes a seat behind the poker table I was playing at and smiles. “It’s time to grant me my wish.”
The croupier throws cards in front of him which he looks at before cracking up. Without even looking, I know his hand is trash. “How many?” I ask.
“Lots,” he says, then points at the guy with long hair standing beside him, “But it begins with this dumbass.”
And with a nod of my chin, a rain of bullets pours onto him.
