Chapter 1

10/05/2019 - New York, Manhattan, Upper East Side.

[ Iuri Stevens' Vision]

Once again I wake up late, I forgot to alarm the wake up call yesterday, I spent the night watching anime. When I went to sleep it was after four in the morning, and now it's exactly ten past seven, I only have twenty minutes to get to school.

I look in the mirror, nothing has changed, my face is full of pimples, my body is slender, my height is average. My eyes are full of dark circles under my eyes, I have been marathon anime for a week, but I don't care. I grab my backpack on top of the chair at the computer table and throwing it over my shoulder I run down the steps of the stairs, with quick steps I follow to the pantry and meet the housekeeper.

"Good morning Iuri" Mrs. Lueni greets me.

She is a sixty-nine-year-old lady who has been working for my parents since before I was born, I believe she is from the time of my grandfather, who unfortunately is no longer with us, he died of natural causes while he was sleeping, he was already ninety-seven years old.

Mrs. Lueni's face is of fatigue, her hair is completely white, but her blue eyes and smile are still very young. I have a lot of affection for her.

"Good morning!" I speak quickly.

"Late again?"

"Yes, yesterday I missed the schedule watching anime" I say and bite my apple.

"You need to stop watching so many anime, you could end up dropping your grades!" she says worriedly.

"Don't worry, I'm a genius" I say and wink at her.

"Good for you!" she smiles with my grace.

"I'm leaving, otherwise I'll miss the first class" I kiss her forehead and walk out of the house.

"Go with God" I hear her shout before closing the door.

I am already eighteen years old, I should have left high school last year, but in elementary school I ended up repeating a year, they made a hard joke on me, they mixed eggs and horse manure in a bucket and set a trap on the classroom door, when I opened it the bucket fell on my head, everyone in the room started laughing and throwing leftover food and paper at me. After that I didn't set foot in the school for the rest of the year, my parents sued the school.

I changed schools again, this is my first year at Birch Wathen Lenox Shool, if nothing goes wrong I will graduate this year. I hurry my steps, it is only fifteen blocks away from my house. The school year is almost over, my grades are high, I am considered a nerd by my friends, in this case, only Jorge. Only he sees me in that school.

When I transferred there, I didn't expect that in my class was also Aya Millenis, the girl with the kind violet eyes. We met only twice, the second time was at a social in the company where our parents worked seven years ago, but she didn't exchange a word with me.

Her hair was loose and went down to her waist, and her coloring was black. Her eyes have not changed, as I remember when we were children, they remained gentle, she was wearing a very pretty baby pink dress, I remember it had a very large lilac bow on the back. To my sadness, she doesn't remember me, she doesn't remember our meeting when we were little, nor our social gathering. And because I am shy, I never talked to her at school, I just watch her from afar.

Well, at school I'm completely invisible, I've never attracted any attention and I've never been good at sports, I like math. But I never went to the blackboard when the teacher asked for volunteers, and luckily for me, I was never one of the chosen ones. I hate the feeling of too many stares on me, I get the impression that they are holding back their laughter.

I look at the clock on my wrist and there are exactly five minutes until the gatekeeper closes the gate. I quicken my steps, I'm almost running, there are still two blocks to go. With exactly one minute left I reach the gate of the building.

"Good morning, Mr. Mouares" I greet the doorman.

"Good morning, Mr. Stevens, you almost got outside!"

"I think I'm lucky" I say smiling.

"Lucky all week, you live so close, I don't understand why you are late."

"I had to solve a few problems" I lie with a straight face "See you later Mr. Mouares!"

"Good class Mr. Stevens! Oops, another one who almost misses the schedule."

His speech catches my attention and I look again to the gate, I'm holding the stairway handrail with my left foot paused on the first step. I feel hypnotized to see Aya passing through the gate.

"Good morning, Mr. Mouares," she says nicely.

"Good morning, Miss Millenis, better hurry."

"I will!"

She stands with her back to the doorman and facing me, but doesn't direct her gaze in my direction, nor does she greet me, just runs past me up the stairs. I sigh.

"If you continue like this, you won't be able to attract the girl's attention" says the doorman laughingly.

If I were better looking, good at sports, had more highlights among the students, maybe she would look at me. But since I'm just an invisible person in the back of the class, all I have to do is watch her from afar. In the classroom she sits in the first chair in the last row near the window; I sit in the last chair in the first row near the entrance door, I choose to sit there because I have a good view of her back.

Conformed, I lazily climb the steps, my room is the last door on the left of the hallway. The hallway is not that long, there are about six doors on each side of the room, I am a sophomore, D-room. The door is already open, I enter the room and everyone is already in their seats, only mine is left.

Leandro is also in the same room as me, I don't know what made him repeat the year, but I have for me, that he probably was expelled from some school, just theory.

I look at Aya, she is wearing her headphones, they have little cat ears in the blue placement. She also doesn't stand out as much as the other girls, she doesn't wear make-up or a short uniform like the others, the covers of her notebooks are always from anime, when I saw her the first time, I was happy, I thought that knowing this fact that we had in common would make me brave enough to talk to her, but I couldn't, I gave up halfway through.

She got more attention because a few weeks ago, she declared herself to Leandro, and he just turned his back and left her talking to herself. It broke my heart, she likes someone else, it hurts me. Leandro is tall, muscular and good at sports, dumb in class. But this doesn't stop the girls from falling in love with him.

I'm glad he never talked to me, I don't like him and I'll never forget the nasty things he and his gang did to me when I was younger.

"Earth to Iuri" I come out of my reverie when I hear George's voice.

"Hi, what's up?" I ask a bit bewildered.

"Did you do the math activity?"

"Yes, why?" I ask question by question, I already know the answer.

"Can I borrow it? Please, I just forgot" he makes a face like a dog without an owner.

"What would be new would be if you remembered."

I open my backpack, take out my notebook and open it to math.

"Good morning class!" the teacher enters.

"Oh, shit!" George speaks softly so that the teacher doesn't hear.

"Good morning, teacher Marcus!" Everyone, with the exception of George and me, greets the teacher.

"Bring your activities, they are equivalent to two points of the unit."

"I see I'm going to have to take a failing grade, no one deserves it," George complains and lowers his head.

In a way I feel sorry for him, he's not good in almost every subject, but he's very good at drawing. I wait for everyone to turn in their papers, and then I finally get up and return to my seat as quickly as possible.

"Before I start the correction, I want to tell you that the summer dance will be at the end of this month, does everyone have a date?"

Another ball where I won't have any participation, maybe I will show up, but only to see Aya. Maybe this will be the last time I will see her. The professor says a few more things about the ball and then turns his attention back to the notebooks on the table.

"Why don't you ask Aya to be your date for the ball?" George turns to ask me; he is sitting on the chair in the row next to mine.

"She would never accept," I say, feeling sad.

"I've never seen her with a date at the last few dances I've been to!"

I answer nothing, I know that I'm not pretty, and the chances of her accepting me are practically null, but I'll try, at least once I'll take the risk, it's better to try and hear no than to have this doubt eating me up for the rest of my life. When class is over I'll pluck up the courage and ask her to be my date to the summer dance.