#mikha’s thoughts.

[ratedfleur]

this interaction just fucking ended me OH GOD what do you mean jake is one of those guys who’s willing to let you use him to make someone jealous 🫡

[murasaki-cha]

Eve is a real one because I too would love to get ravished for 10 days straight by this man-

I MEAN WHAT WHO SAID THAT!?!

[biniversity]

[rosiehrs]

roster | mikha lim.

part one of three.

summary ; excitement was something she was missing and you provided it for her. she thinks you're clueless, but she doesn't know that every move she's made has already been played by you.

pairing ; mikha lim x fem!reader

content ; mikha goes to admu, reader goes to up, mikha volleyball player, BABAERO CONYO MIKHA!!!, hookup culture, half smau...., suggestive, read to see ^-^ !!! taglish w eng translations!

genre ; fluff, angst

wc ; 3.8k

playlist here !!

a/n ; thank u @heybeautifulstranger for helping me translate hehe labyu

mikha loved volleyball. without it, she was nothing. at least, that's what she believes.

she put all her time and effort into the sport, disregarding everything else to improve herself. she was already the star player; every young person in the country was familiar with the name ‘mikha lim’. although the girl was incredible at her sport – that wasn’t the reason why she was so well known.

mikha was attractive. she knew that and apparently everyone in the country did, too. people came to her games to watch her play, but not watch her play. mikha wished people focused more on her performance as an athlete, but she wouldn’t lie and say she didn’t like the attention. support was still support.

“huy, friday night na at nagpapractice ka pa? late na, mikhs. umuwi ka na. (it’s friday night and you’re still practicing? it’s late, mikhs. you should go home.)” her coach advised, putting equipment away. mikha laughed, gripping the ball she held. “not yet, coach. may energy pa ako. (i still have energy.)”

“baka namimiss ka na ng jowa mo. (your girlfriend might miss you already.)” she teased, earning another laugh from the star player. “i don’t have time for a relationship po.”

“oo nga, baka magalit ang mga fangirls and boys mo. (that's right, your fangirls and fanboys might get mad)” she joked, mikha rolling her eyes playfully. she threw the ball over to her coach, deciding to pack up for the night. “i can’t have a jowa when i’m supposed to be the nation’s girlfriend!” she grabbed her bag and water bottle, turning to her coach who was clearly amused by her answer. “i’ll go home na po, night, coach! see you next week.”

“bye, mikhs.”

she gets into her car, checking her phone for the first time in hours. dozens of notifications flooded her phone as soon as she changed her focus from do not disturb. ranging from message requests sent by ambitious and confident (delusional) fans to thirsty comments on her posts to getting tagged on edits, and so much more.

she ignored all of them and immediately checked her messages.

when she said she had no time for relationships, she meant it. but that didn’t mean no time for some fun. she drove home to freshen up and get ready to meet up with her friends.

the loud and busy atmosphere always amuses mikha. while some people enjoy quiet and intimate places, mikha enjoyed the club. 

“lim! over here!” kyle, one of her friends, calls out. she made her way past the sea of dancing drunks and sat with her group. “get me a drink, kyle.” she said, making the group laugh. “wow, hello to you, too.” he sassed before getting up to get mikha’s go-to. “sinong target mo today, mikhs? (who's your target of the day, mikhs?)” evan asked with a smirk on his face. “kakarating ko lang, van. (i just got here, van.) let me drink first, then that question will be easy to answer.” 

kyle shortly came back to the table with mikha’s drink, sliding it over to her excitedly. “thanks, kyle.” she dragged, taking a sip from the glass. “okay, you drank na. who’re you going after?” evan pushed, causing the group to laugh. “what if you just sit and relax, mikhs? it won’t hurt to go a night without sleeping with a random girl.” aiah suggested, foolishly, mikha thought. she scoffed, shaking her head. “ate aiah, where’s the fun in that? besides, i’m not in the mood to sleep with someone tonight.”

“then?”

“baka make out lang... (probably just make out...)”

and that’s exactly what she did.

as soon as she got a little tipsy, she moved to the dance floor and picked a girl up without even trying. she pushed the girl against the wall, her lips on hers and hands on her waist. mikha had no idea what her name was or where she came from. they made small talk before, but mikha didn’t bother listening. she knew where this was gonna lead and she didn’t want to waste time remembering details about someone she was never going to see again. 

she pulled away from the girl, who’s eyes twinkled with excitement. “this was fun, thanks…?”

“jen! my name is jen! but it’s okay if you don’t remember! you wanna get out of here? we can get out of here!” she asked, eager to spend more time with mikha. she slowly let go of jen’s waist, squinting her eyes before shaking her head. “nah, i’m good. you have a good night, though.” and with that, she left the girl alone in the bathroom stunned and embarrassed. 

she made her way back to her group’s table, all eyeing her with amusement in their eyes. “what?” she asked, grabbing a fry from the basket they were all sharing. “who was it?”

“i don’t know what you’re talking about.” she shrugs, grabbing another fry to try and end the conversation.

“maybe you should check your hair and makeup before you leave the bathroom, lim.” kyle teased, catching mikha off guard. “shit, is it bad?”

gwen laughed before passing her a wet wipe. “nakakatawa ka, mikhs. (you’re funny, mikhs)”

“i don’t even remember her name. it was like jane something..?”

“jen?! jen santos?! you made out with jen santos?!��� evan yelped, letting out the biggest laugh. “what’s wrong..? she was pretty.”

“yeah, she’s pretty. but she’s like.. obsessed with you. i heard she’s been trying to catch you at one of these things so she’s gone to every club in the area.”

“are you being for real..? what if we’re talking about different jens?” mikha suggested. but evan was quick to whip his phone out and show her jen’s account. “is this her?”

“oh..”

evan let out another laugh, causing kyle to laugh with him. “she’s just gonna keep coming here now! we need to find another place!” they joked, earning an eye roll from her. “she’s probably not that bad, you’re just–”

“mikha!” a voice calls out, catching everyone’s attention. it was jen. she walked over to their table a little too excitedly, standing over mikha and placing her hand on her shoulder. “i think you should rethink your decision, malapit lang ang place ko! (my place is near!) we could dip right now.” she offered, trying to be seductive. “ah.. i’m good, jane.” mikha replied, removing her hand off of her shoulder. “it’s jen, pero okay lang! (but it’s okay!) you wanna sit with me? nakaupo lang ako doon. (i’m just sitting there)”

“i’m good.. i’m here with my friends. you have a good night, though.” she smiled politely, trying her best to send her away. “oh, okay! i’ll catch you mamaya (later)! i’ll get your number or something.” 

mikha simply nodded as the girl walked away, extremely giddy from the interaction. “shit.. no wonder why it was so much easier.” they all laughed at her, echoes of various comments following. “this is why you should’ve listened to me and stayed still.” aiah joked, but meant it.

“next time, i won’t even look at a girl.” her friends snickered knowing that would never be possible.

you were a casual sports enjoyer, being in a sports enthusiastic school – you couldn’t escape it. everyone would go to all the games, basketball, volleyball. it was one of the few things that brought everyone together, but it never came above your academics. 

it wasn’t like all you did was study, you liked to think you had a healthy school life balance, going out with your friends whenever they wanted to hang out, seeing some people here and there. you were able to maintain a good social life with good grades and that was more than some people could wish for. 

and your unexpected ‘attention’ really did help you get through a lot. it all started when you helped your best friend, jay, out with his band, x:o’s set at a local event. they were starting to become popular, their songs being played across the country. they were heavily praised for their good music and well.. good looks. 

x:o consisted of five members, jay, jake, stephen, ricky and evan. they were indeed a group of attractive young men and managed to put out really good music. after the gig, the group’s account dedicated a post thanking those who helped out and you managed to catch the eyes of a lot of fans. 

after the post, your social media accounts started to gain traction, earning a few thousand followers in the time span of a week. you appreciated the attention, but with your focus on school, you were never really active on social media, only posting a few pictures and a few tweets here and there. the attention only grew from there as more and more people started to approach you, later sharing on social media how kind and down to earth you were or how pictures didn’t do you justice. jay teased you for it all the time, joking about how he should be your manager since he’s the reason why all of this started. 

your entire friend group has never missed a gig of theirs, but people only ever pointed you out. you and jay started to gain attention as a pair, people getting suspicious by how close you were, eventually leading to them thinking that you were dating. both of you never made an effort to shut the rumours down as you simply didn’t care. (and it helped jay a little with the people who would flirt with him)

your group would laugh at the posts knowing that you looooved women. you were jealous of jay because of the girls that would approach him; some very attractive girls. ‘i should’ve joined a band’ you would joke whenever a girl would speak to him.

x:o landed a gig at the vault, a very popular club in the area. every weekend this place was crowded, which is why this gig is a big deal. jay was setting up with his band while the rest of you (except angelo) had started drinking. “thanks sa food, ate jho! (thanks for the food, jho!)” sheena shrieked, stuffing her face with the food jhoanna bought for her. “wala yun… dapat magpasalamat ka kay y/n kasi treat niya ‘to. (it’s nothing, you should actually be thanking y/n since this is her treat.)” she glared, causing you to laugh. “okay lang yun, jho! libre kita next time, bribe lang kasi ‘to. (that’s okay, jho! i’ll take care of it next time, this was only just a bribe.)”

“ang daming tao rito, mga walay batasan. (there are so many people here, people with no manners.)” colet commented, kissing her teeth and subtly glaring at everyone she saw. “yun oh, yung naka green, suntukin ko siya, beh– (that one, the one wearing green, i’m gonna punch her–)”

“nakarating pa lang natin, may suntukin ka agad? (we just arrived and you’ve already found someone to punch?)” 

whilst your group started bickering about colet’s impulsive (and violent) thoughts, the nation’s girlfriend had arrived with her group of friends. “guys, we were just here last week.” mikha complained, getting dragged by kyle. “since when have you ever been against clubbing?” kyle asked, “besides, we’re here for evan. supportive friends tayo diba? (we’re supportive friends, right?) our little rockstar, performing at our favourite club. full circle moment na ‘to, guys. umiiyak na ako. (this is a full circle moment, guys. i'm crying now.) ” the girls rolled their eyes at his drama, hitting him with teasing comments about how lame he was.

your two groups were together more often than anyone realised. despite having friends in the same band; your friend groups never came in contact with each other. jay was familiar with evan’s friends and evan was familiar with jay’s friends, but their friends knowing each other wasn’t the case.

mikha slid over to the bar, smiling at the bartender as a non-verbal order. she was here all the time and was very familiar with all the staff. while waiting, she looked around to observe the crowd and her eyes landed on an unfamiliar face. she stared at you for a few seconds, growing more and more curious as she watched you from a distance. feeling someone’s gaze, you turned to the side and locked eyes with the particular redhead. the both of you held eye contact until a glass was placed in front of her. she turned away from you to thank him and immediately turned her head back to your direction, but to her disappointment; you were gone. 

she brought her drink over to their booth, everyone curious about her expressions. “nangyare? (what happened?) you good?” gwen asked, concerned. “yeah, i just think i found my girl for the night.”

“ayan ka na naman. (here you go again.)” aiah sneered, shaking her head. “sino ba? (who is it?)” 

“i don’t know yet eh, but i’ll find out.”

you got back to your group with snacks in hand, sitting down next to sheena. “nakita ko yung atenean na volleyball player (i saw that atenean volleyball player). the redhead.” 

“ah, mikha lim? nandito siya? (she’s here?)” jhoanna asked. “is that her name?”

“yeah, kaibigan ata siya ni evan. bakit? (i think she’s friends with evan. why?)” gelo replied, throwing a peanut into his mouth.

you shrugged and took a sip of your drink, “wala lang (nothing), she’s pretty.”

“her fans call her the nation’s girlfriend,” gelo added, making sheena giggle. “seryoso! (i’m serious!) babaero yan. (she’s a player)”

“ang corny, (how corny)” she added. you rolled your eyes at her, although you did agree. but you did see why they called her that. you only needed one glance to see that she was attractive. 

as time went by, more drinks were bought. kyle was already failing to stand up straight and the band had yet to start. both groups made their way to the front of the stage, cheering as the much anticipated band started preparing for their entrance. “the vault, let’s make some noise!” cheers erupted as the five members walked onto the stage, all their faces laced with excitement and determination. “are we ready to have some fun tonight?” jake beckoned with his bass guitar in his hand. the cheers grew louder, all of you grinning at jay as you saw the excitement on his face, “this is ‘looking for somebody (to love)’, hope you enjoy!”

the familiar guitar melody started playing, jay and stephen immediately getting into it. everyone in the crowd started dancing along as jay started singing the first verse. mikha coolly bopped her head to the music, trying her best to avoid contact with random strangers. you were on the other side of the stage as she caught your eye, her red hair made it easy for her to stick out in a crowd. you admired how elegant her small movements managed to be, smiling briefly as you watched her dance with her friends. coincidentally, she looked up and locked eyes with you once again. a small smirk crawled across her face, pleased with the fact that she had your attention in this crowd. you sent a small smile her way before turning away to dance with jhoanna. she couldn't tear her eyes off of you. she needed to have you.

a few songs after, the crowd seemed to quiet down. “should we slow it down a little? gusto niyo ba? (would you guys like that?)” jay asked, playing with his earpiece.

“this is fallingforyou.”

What time you coming out? 

We started losing light

mikha turned to find you, seeing you leaning on colet. you felt her gaze on you, tilting your head as your eyes met once again. she was amused, but she didn’t know why. there was something about you that was so alluring. she moved to face the band before turning back to look at you, but you were gone. again.

“uh, guys, i’ll be back.” she said, eyes searching through the crowd to find you. “yeah, yeah. have fun, mikhs.” they replied, knowing what she was leaving to do.

she pushed past dozens of people on the dance floor, relentlessly trying to find you. after getting past what felt like hundreds of people, she finally found you standing against a wall near the side exit with your arms crossed. 

“eager, are we?” you asked as she walked towards you. “no.. not really. i mean, you must be though, right? leaving the crowd to wait for me here?” she grinned, standing over you. “who says i’m waiting for you?”

“your eyes are telling me everything i need to know.” she mumbled, hand travelling to your waist. “everything? really?” 

And on this night and in this light

“am i wrong? do you have something else to say to me?” 

you hummed, pretending to think, letting her pull you closer towards her. “bilisan mo na. (hurry up.) i’ve been thinking about you for almost an hour now. my patience is running out.” she complained, ducking her head into your hair, taking in the scent of your shampoo. your breath hitched as her face moved closer to yours, “can i?”

you replied by grabbing her neck and placing your lips eagerly onto hers. mikha let out a breath of content, pleased with the contact you two were finally making. she gripped onto your waist, soothing you with caresses every now and then. 

I think I’m falling, I’m falling for you

your lips moved against each other with vigour, pouring out all of the lust and need you managed to have for each other in a short period of time. for the first time in forever, mikha was excited. she loved the feeling of your lips against hers, the faint scent of your shampoo, how you felt in her hands. she didn’t want to stop kissing you.

you pulled away briefly, placing your head on her shoulder, trying to catch your breath. “you.. i...” she began, unable to form words. you laughed and patted her cheek, not bothering to speak as you knew you’d go through the same struggle. “you wanna get out of here?” she managed, looking down at you with lidded eyes. “i’d love to, but i’m here with my friends.” you answered, the taller girl clearly not pleased with your answer. “please,” she whined, wrapping her arms around your waist to bring you into a hug. “i don’t even know your name, i can’t leave with you.” you laughed, hugging her back regardless. “my name’s mikha, can we go now?”

you laughed once again against her shoulder, shaking your head. “well, mikha. i still can’t leave with you.” 

“thank you all so much! we’re x:o, we hope to perform for you guys again soon! mag ingat kayong lahat! (take care everyone)” you heard from the speakers, causing you to fix your posture. you slowly let go of mikha, getting an annoyed groan out of her. “i have to go, it was nice meeting you, though! mag ingat ka, ha? (take care of yourself, okay?)”

“wait, what?”

“i’ll see you, mikha.” you smiled, locking lips with her once more before you ran into the crowd to find your friends. 

“wait! i don’t even know your name!” 

mikha groaned, throwing her head into her hands. who cares if you were with your friends? she could take care of you (in more ways than one). she stayed there for a few minutes, trying to fight off the warm feeling you left her with. she made her way back to her friends shortly after, evan finally joining them. “mikhs! i was wondering if you were gonna come back. you okay?” aiah asked as she sat down next to her. mikha defeatedly dropped her head onto aiah’s shoulder and sighed, “yeah..” was all she let out.

she felt frustrated, you brought her so much excitement and even if she wanted to do it again (which she did); she wouldn’t be able to. this was the first time she wished she made some sort of small talk before, because other than the taste of your lips and the scent of your shampoo – she knew nothing about you. 

you rushed back to your friends, blindly trying to fix your appearance before reaching them. you saw colet waiting besides the door that led backstage. “well, well, well.” colet began, “nakakatawa ka talaga, beh. (you’re really funny.)” she laughed before dragging you inside. “look who i found. bumalik siya, guys. (she came back, guys.)” you rolled your eyes at her before hugging jay, “good job, jayboy! you did great tonight.”

“eh, pano mo malalaman? nawala ka bigla. (how would you know? you just disappeared.)” sheena joked, sticking her tongue out at you. “i heard the entire set! ano ka ba? (what are you saying) i was just doing something.” "right.. right.. you should fix your makeup, y/n. that something didn't really hold back."

“what?!” you asked, grabbing the mirror jhoanna was holding out for you and immediately turned around in embarrassment. you quickly tried rubbing the lipstick marks off your face as your friends laughed at you.  

“whatever, guys. basta (anyway), good job, jay.” 

he laughed but was thankful for the support. "it's okay, y/n. it's a club! i encourage this behaviour, in fact - i endorse it." you rolled your eyes at him as he slung his arm around your shoulders. "let's go na? back to mine? we can get food and drinks on the way." he suggested, wanting a more intimate celebration. "paano ang mga bandmates mo? celebration niyo? (how about your bandmates? your celebration?)" angelo asked. "we had our little moment na after the show. bukas yung celebration namin. okay lang. ready na ba tayo? (we'll have our celebration tomorrow. it's okay. are we ready?)" you all agreed and hurriedly made your way out of the venue. 

mikha spent the rest of the night trying to find you, not knowing you left from the back exit.

“god, mikhs. who the hell did you hook up with? you’ve been so out of it since you came back.” kyle commented, evidently noticing her friend’s odd behaviour. “i wish i knew, i literally don’t know what her name is. i feel like an idiot, i begged her, for fuck’s sake. i don’t beg.” she complained, taking another sip of her drinking, causing aiah to take it away. “okay, that’s enough for tonight. lasing ka na, uminom ka na ng tubig. (you’re already drunk, you should drink water now.)” mikha groaned at her but listened anyway.

“can you describe her?”

“ganda. pretty. cute. ganda. hot. pretty. gwapa. i don’t know,” she slurred, slamming her head down on the table dramatically. “whatever, i don’t even care.” she continued.

mikha got over you the next day, but slowly, a week went by and you still occasionally managed to cross her mind. she still wondered about who you were and unfortunately still wanted to see you again, but there were plenty of fish in the sea and you know, it wasn’t that serious.

– hope u enjoy..... @yumtooki :3

[hotnbloodied]

I know you will probably ignore this but can you try doing Yan farmer x hero reader? (I guess an iskei trip or whatever idk I just wanna know if you could try and build with this idea)

I would never ignore a request, if I couldn't do it I'd let you know! But thank you so much for your request it was very fun to do! I hope that you enjoy~ ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚HB˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

Yan!Farmer X Isekai'd Reader

!Warning! This post contains yandere themes and topics that may be uncomfortable to people who are sensitive to the topic, read at your own discretion.

TW: implied non-con, obsessive personality, controlling behavior, toxic relationships.

!!READ AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION!! MINORS DNI!!

It’s been a month since you found yourself in a world very much like the mmorpg game you used to play back when you were on earth. The first week was extremely rough, in the first three days you were in a frenzy trying to get your wearabouts about you. A couple of knights found you and were actually pretty helpful in guiding you to the church where the nuns made sure you were fed and taken care of. On your calmer day you decided you wanted to try something and called out the menu aloud. You almost jumped when the all too familiar screen popped up in front of you, the only thing missing was the option to ‘quit game’. The next chance that you got you asked one of the nuns how you could go about being an adventurer.

Here you were getting the hang of your class, who knew that combat in real life would be harder than it would be in a game. Monsters were actually terrifying and being in the wild sucked but at least you weren’t relying on other people to get by now.

You might have been getting too comfortable though because while taking on a quest to get rid of some monsters terrorizing some local fields you all but reached your limit, you were tired and wounded but the request was done and you just needed to report back to the guild now but you passed out.

You woke with a jolt. You thought the knights found you and took you to the church again but after looking at your surroundings that didn’t seem to be the case since it looked like a quaint cabin. You also noticed you were bandaged up really well. The door creaked open and in came a person you never saw before. “Oh you’re awake! That’s good.” “I’m sorry I didn’t mean to intrude,” you told them. He shook his head, “It’s the least I can do after you helped clear our fields of monsters.” “Ah, I need to report back to the adventurer’s guild.” “You’re not in any condition to move! You need rest.” “I’m okay, I need to collect my money after all.” “Then, let me come with you.” Seeing no harm in that you allowed him to come with you. “I’m Mikha by the way!” The two of you exchange greetings and names. “Wow so you’ve only been an adventurer for a month? What made you want to be one?” “Change of pace I guess.”

After finishing the business at the adventurer's guild you were about to say your goodbyes with Mikha but he invited you to dinner and you couldn’t pass up free food. Back at his home you helped however you could in the kitchen but since everything was so primitive compared to your original world you were slow in learning. Over dinner you two talked about life, his parents died when he was young and he had to learn to take care of the farm from a young age in order to survive. He talked about how nice it was to have dinner with someone after being alone for so long. “Have you never thought about finding a spouse?” You asked. “I have, it’s just so hard when you have to tend the farm all the time.” The night ended with Mikha insisting that you spend the night there, which you agreed to since it’s better than camping out or spending money at an inn again.

A couple more months went by and you basically made yourself at home with Mikha. Even though he insisted that you paid with your company you still gave him money for his hospitality. All seemed to be going well until you informed Mikha that you were leaving this part of the continent to broaden your horizons of the world. “Mikha, are you okay? You dropped your food.” “I- I’m fine, when are you leaving?” “It’s going to take me a month to prepare so I’m not going any time soon.” “I’m going to miss you…” “I’ll miss you too! I’ll definitely try to write to you when I can.” Mikha lost his appetite, he thought everything was going good between the two of you, he thought he could convince you to stop adventuring someday and the two of you would settle down and start a family together. Was this really how it was going to end? No, he won’t allow it.

Your preparations were coming along and you were getting more and more excited about your journey. You couldn’t help but notice that Mikha seemed to have gotten quieter and just overall seemed to be more on edge. When you asked him what was wrong he’d vehemently tell you nothing was wrong.

Finally, the night before your journey arrived and Mihka had prepared more food than usual as a celebratory feast. You two ate and drank to your heart's content and Mihka even seemed like he was back to his cheerful self. After cleaning up, you went to go get a good night's rest but in the middle of the night you felt something burning in your core. You were extremely turned on and it was to a point where it was near uncomfortable. You squeezed your legs together, you tried to breathe it out and you even tried to relieve yourself but nothing was working. You didn’t even notice the knocking on your door until Mikha walked in to ask what was wrong. “Stay away from me!” You warned him, “I’m not in my right mind!” Mikha didn’t listen and because of that you jumped him and used him to your heart's content.

The next morning you were ashamed of yourself, you saw the marks and bruises you gave him from the night before. You were on your knees, crying and sobbing for forgiveness. He seemed like an angel when he pulled you in for a hug and told you everything is going to be okay but you’d need to take responsibility. You kissed your future dreams goodbye and eventually the two of you married and took care of the farm together. Mikha was just glad that you agreed to take responsibility so easily, but in case you ever tried to leave him, he would tell you about the succubus mark that was implanted on the two of you that night meant that no matter who else you decided to be with your lust wouldn’t have been satisfied by anyone except him.

[iznsfw]

i give hot girls to iz🥵🫠

hope you're doing well qt

Thank you 🙇‍♀️ My IZONE girls are in my heart forever uwu <3

Something something one of these babies are in the next fic—

And I am doing well, thanks for the well wishes! Hope you are too!

You thought it was Eunbi I was gonna post pics of? No, it's Mikha. Okay bye.

[aarghhaaaarrrghhh]

A Summer in a Pioneer's Neckerchief/Лето в пионерском галстуке - Chapter Eleven

Master post here

Chapter Eleven - This Place Will Resound with Music

After wiping away the remaining shards of glass from the windowsill with the uniform, Yurka climbed out of the counsellor’s dorm. Leaving the dandelion field behind without regret – it had taken on a very pitiful look – he left for where the sports area used to be. In his youth it had appeared vast to him, but now it was just a sad little overgrown patch of land.

Everything seems bigger and more important when you’re young, he thought as he encircled the courts. He sighed and shook his head – thoughts about the inevitable passage of time and how merciless it was to everything kept obstinately creeping in. Like a plague, it killed everything it touched.

Afraid of tripping over the chunks of asphalt lying in the damp grass, Yurka looked beneath his feet, at the jagged orange lattice of metal that lay as though growing out of the ground. At some point this lattice had demarcated the court; at some point, Volodya, had, so unexpectedly, held onto it as he apologised about the magazines and talked to him about MGIMO.

I wonder whether he graduated?

His gaze was caught by a dark clump sticking out of a bush growing by the canteen wall. Yura got closer to it. Narrow rectangles were strewn among bits of broken bricks and fallen leaves: the black ones were smaller, the white ones were larger. Piano keys. And the instrument itself was there: broken, with the panels falling off and the lid smashed. On a piece of wood that had once been the front panel, the golden inscription of its name, Elegia, was preserved, and the hammers were also strewn around, while from the inside of the piano, the remains of the strings stuck out.

It almost caused Yurka physical pain to see an instrument from his childhood destroyed thus: How did it get here? The theatre isn’t close by… It was probably the villagers from Goretovka. Back when Goretovka was still here. And they had the sense to pull it out and roll it down to the plaza. But once they’d gotten it out, why smash it? People didn’t leave any stone unturned in the whole village, and this is a piano we’re talking about…

Elegia… He remembered that model of piano – in the USSR it was one of the most popular. Nurseries, schools and other institutions tended to buy those ones more often than any other. The pioneer camp Lastochka was no exception. One just like it, brown, could be found in the theatre and was used at all the rehearsals. Masha had played it, and–

Yurka reached out and touched the scattered keys. He remembered them not as they were, but as being spotless and sparkling. If they had a memory of their own, then they would not have recognised his hand, either. His hands were different back then – youthful. Yura looked at the sad picture of his aged hands on the old keys, entranced. How similar they were.

Old pictures from his memory burst into life before his inner eye, indistinct, flat. But it was as thought time suddenly whirred backwards and the keys turned white before his eyes, and the fingers on them, young and inexperienced.

The picture came to life and acquired lifelike definition and detail, full of sounds and smells – the theatre, evening, the summer of 1986, and him, young, in the theatre, in summer. He was there as an adult there too, with all his thoughts.

***

“Yur, get up! Come on, Konev, get up already! If even one person is late for morning exercise, we won’t get the best title.”

Morning exercise. Breakfast. Lineup. Communal work. Theatre. Volodya would be everywhere. There was nowhere to hide from him. Yurka had told him everything, Volodya now knew all the places where he might have hidden himself. Volodya would find him and ask, “Why did you do that?”

He could not get up, not that day of all days.

“Yur! Come one, Yur, wake up and let’s go,” whined Mikha as he tore his blanket from him. “Hey, why are you dressed?” He was taken aback, but Yurka said nothing in response.

That Volodya would not just stand in one spot and would instead immediately go looking for him no matter where he hid himself, Yurka had already guessed the day before. That was why he ran straight there, where the counsellor would only think to look for him as a very last resort – his own troop dorm. Without undressing, he had dived under his blanket. Volodya appeared while everyone was sleeping and did not dare to wake anyone up.

Yurka could not remember whether he had slept or not. Generally speaking, he did not know what he had been doing that night. He had closed his eyes, but had he slept?

He rose from the bed, shook the apple leaves off from his bedsheet – he had brought them along with him from the disco – changed his clothes in silence and plodded off towards exercise.

It turned out that it was very comforting to walk in rank and file: there was no need at all to lift his gaze from the ground. You drag yourself along, looking at the feet of the person walking in front, in absolute calm – the column would bring you somewhere. And so it did. To the sports area, where the whole camp was gathered for exercise. And Volodya as well. What he would have given to get out of there!

How comforting it turned out to be to watch the shadow of the person standing in front and repeat his movements. Yurka physically could not lift his head; even though he was being shouted out that he needed to lift his chin and stand up straight, he could not. Volodya was everywhere. They would necessarily, inexorably, inevitably meet, their gazes would cross each other. Of course, Yurka was not going to faint, but he could not simply stand. His feet were nailed to the ground, while his body was paralysed, but all the same, Yurka had to do whatever he was asked without fail. He would take out all his anger and hatred out on himself – for example, he would bite his tongue if all else went numb. But his tongue was not his enemy. That for which Yurka hated himself was not something he said, rather, something he did. Why had he done it?!

The lineup. The first troop traditionally stood opposite the fifth. He and Volodya were the tallest amongst those present, and like everyone else, they had to look straight ahead. But Yurka did not follow the rules, as he felt Volodya’s gaze. That gaze did not freeze him and neither did it burn him; it strangled him, to the extent that his face went a little grey.

The anthem. The flag. He needed to raise his hand in salute. He was allowed to look upwards, and that was good, comfortable, because it was not straight ahead.

The orders rang out, and Yurka was sent to be on duty in the canteen. On the way, he noticed that the avenue of hero-pioneers had outstanding asphalt. It was grey and smooth, patterned with shadows cast by the birches growing along the side, made motley by the specks of sunlight that penetrated through the leaves. What was strange was that these little bits of light would focus into little blobs and then disperse like drops of pigment in water. Or was everything normal with the asphalt, and the problem was with Yurka’s eyes? The problem was naturally with Yurka. Why had he done it?

As he arranged the tables in the canteen, he tried to make peace with the thought that he had no future. That after his actions the previous day, all that remained to Yurka was the past – their brief friendship had left for ‘yesterday’, everything positive had gone away: Yurka’s leniency towards himself, his self-respect, his self-esteem. All the while, his misunderstood feeling for Volodya stayed exactly where it was.

While he laid the tablecloth, Yurka decided that this feeling – whatever it was called – needed to be forgotten, and quickly, since no matter what he did, at any reminder of Volodya, he was without fail disgraced by the memory of his shameful deed. Then he would remember his answer as well: You stop that! No, this feeling would not allow Yurka to live in peace. And he wanted to live!

But Yurka knew that somewhere out there, beyond the fence of the camp, without shame or the risk of meeting each other, he would definitely have a life. Somewhere far away spread far and wide an inviting terra incognita where freedom was certainly waiting for Yurka. But freedom was out there and not where he was, not in the camp, not nearby. If only he could run far away from there, off towards the horizon. No, not ‘if only’, rather, ‘he needed’. He had to get out of there!

Yurka drew his spoon around his bowl. He ate slowly, but obediently; he just did not know what it was exactly that he was eating – he was not paying attention. In his bowl, a very large piece of meat floated around, a yellow stain in something tasteless and whitish. In his left hand, some bread was crumbling, next to him stood a glass, but what was in it, tea or cocoa, Yurka could not have said either. Someone sitting opposite him took a drink – Yurka drank as well; he ate – Yurka ate as well, not because he wanted to, but because someone said he ‘needed’ to.

He stood up from his spot, right at the very moment that the whole fifth troop with both its counsellors left the canteen. Whilst the others on duty were cleaning the tables, Yurka lugged trays of dirty tableware around and thought about what he would do next.

Exercise, lineup, work – he would survive all of that, he would survive that day somehow. But the theatre? His role was so small, anybody could manage it, Yurka was not really needed there, much less when he was in a spat with Volodya. Maybe Volodya would take pity on him and exclude him from the troupe? That would be good. Then there would be less encounters, less words, and less regret. Maybe Yurka would even learn to live in such a way that he would not catch his eye at all? Maybe he would get used to him not being around? Volodya would not be around in any case. Not the Volodya that he had been with Yurka before the previous evening – kind, interesting, airy, like a brother. But sooner or later, Yurka would have had to endure this separation anyway. Sooner or later, he would have had to fall out of love with him.

So that the girls could clean the floor, Yurka was charged with putting the chairs on the tables. As he dutifully carried out his task, he was from time to time surprised by how heavy the chairs were since they had nothing heavy in them – just a seat, thin as plywood, and aluminium legs. He grew tired quickly, but stubbornly continued to pick up one after another – during such tedious work, his thoughts could not wander somewhere too bad.

What would he do when they inevitably met, and Volodya asked, “Why did you do that?” Since naturally he would ask, this was Volodya after all.

Yurka pleaded to who-knows-what, I hope he never speaks to me again! Don’t even let him come close, let him pretend I don’t exist, don’t let him even look in my direction, so long as he doesn’t ask about anything! Yes, it would be terrifying. Yes, it would be a lot of trouble, but Yurka was strong; he would withstand both the disdain and the hatred. Concerning disdain and hatred for Yurka, he and Volodya were allies. Let at least that remain as their last thing in common.

Yurka would let anything and everything happen, just as long as he did not ask him. But he would ask him! It was Volodya! And what would he say in response to the fully reasonable question ‘Why?’ Why had he done it?

Yurka went to the centre of the hall, meaning to sort out all the chairs there – the floor was already cleaned. He reached out his hands and flinched – from behind his back came a quiet, painfully familiar voice:

“Yura?”

He’s come! Yurka stared straight ahead of himself, his heart in his throat.

The spacious canteen, with its glazed tile flooring and simple, white, weightless furniture, bright and clean as an operating room transformed in a flash into a dark crypt. The black walls, covered with cracks, were settling and crumbling slowly around his shoulders.

“Yura, what’s going on with you?”

Yurka, repressed and bereft of the gift of speech, could manage neither to squeak, nor to breathe, nor to budge.

“Let’s go outside, we need to talk.”

He laid a hand on Yurka’s shoulder and very lightly gave it a shake, but Yurka merely shrunk his head into his shoulders in silence. However, the PUK girls, also on duty in the canteen that day, accosted them. Volodya, without ever letting go of Yurka’s shoulder, spoke with them and might even have smiled, but Yurka could feel the hand on his shoulder trembling from irritation.

Having at long last disentangled himself from the girls, Volodya hissed through his teeth in Yurka’s ear and the chill in his voice seemed to make the floor quake.

“Yura, I said let’s go!”

Without even waiting for any kind of answer, he squeezed Yurka’s hand and dragged him out of the canteen.

Yurka did not take notice of how he got outside. A white vestibule, a creaky door and a grey staircase, it all flew past rapid-fire before Yurka’s eyes, just like his whole life in general. The humid morning air touched his cheeks; Yurka had appeared out on the porch – Volodya sat him down, while he himself cast a huge, dark shadow over him.

“Explain to me, what happened last night? What did all that mean?”

I kissed you. Obviously because I’ve fallen in love with you, Yurka attempted to answer, turning it over in his mind, as though trying out ‘fallen in love’ for taste. He did not like the taste – it was insipid and false, but it was just that no other explanation came to him. The Yurka tried to respond with ‘I like you’, but the words caught in his throat, and he could only choke out:

“I don’t know.”

“How can you not know? What was it, some kind of joke?”

Yurka flinched involuntarily. He could not look up at Volodya. What a strange look – his head felt so heavy that he could not understand how his neck did not break. Yurka diligently tried to pick out some words. he searched with all his strength for an answer anywhere, scanned through all the grey asphalt – if he could not find an answer within himself, then perhaps he would find one there?

Volodya, pacing back and forth as he waited, dragged his toes across the asphalt in impatience and breathed loudly. Waiting did not come easily to him. But what to say in response to him, Yurka still did not yet know, and while his eyes wandered from his hands to his feet and back again, he made a barely audible sniff. The silence, it seemed, had begun to drive Volodya crazy; he was dragging his feet louder, exhaling more angrily, on top of which he also began to crack his knuckles. Then he abruptly dropped to his haunches in front of Yurka, looked him in the eye and struggling to maintain a gentle tone of voice, began:

“Please, explain to me what’s going on with you? At the very least, for as long as we’re friends, I’ll hear you out, I promise. Say that you were joking, or it was to make fun of me, or even that it was revenge, and I’ll get you, say that it was an accident, or you didn’t really want to, and I’ll believe you.”

Yurka grinned mockingly – Volodya was giving their friendship a chance, making a naïve attempt to preserve something at least. Yurka understood that, but instead of playing along with the lie, he spat on everything, gathered his strength and breathed the truth out:

“I wanted to.”

“What?” Volodya fell apart. “You ‘wanted to’? How could you want to?”

Yes, he had given him a chance, but Yurka did not for a second doubt that there was no point to it. The past would not come back. That bright and pure something that had warmed up between them would be no more. All that remained to them was restraint, insincerity and discomfort. And it was him, Yurka, who was to blame for all of it.

“But Yura, you can’t!” Volodya was of the same mind as him. “This kind of joking around is very dangerous! Forget you ever even thought about that!”

Volodya sprung up and, after turning away, froze. He stood like that without moving, and then began to pace back and forth again. Yurka watched his shadow flit from side to side and felt with his whole heart like the world was crashing down around him.

The collapse had begun the day before, when, by his foolish act, he had unleashed a wild catastrophe. It inexorably approached him and finally caught up to him no more than a half hour before, in the canteen, when it shook the floor and knocked the walls down. At that very moment, Yurka was in the epicentre.

He gathered the last crumbs of his self-control and in a lifeless voice, deep to the point of hoarseness, he muttered, not hoping for anything in particular:

“But you said that you’d get it, that we’re still friends.”

“What kind of friends can we be after this?”

Everything came to a standstill, both inwardly and outwardly. The wind died down, the sounds quietened, but suddenly, from somewhere far off, almost another universe, came a child’s scream. Not a scream of joy, like usual, but of fright.

Volodya froze on the spot and ordered:

“Wait for me here.”

But he had only taken a couple of steps before Yurka jumped up and broke off to the side. In a flash, Volodya caught him by the wrist and forced him to sit in his spot. He did not let his hand go.

“I’m not done yet.”

“So, we’re not friends anymore. That’s the lot of it!”

“No, that’s not all. I’ve told you a hundred times, you’re playing stupid and dangerous games. But this!” his voice broke off. Volodya just barely restrained himself from shouting, instead starting whisper forcedly, “Never say a word of what happened to anybody, not one little hint; really, you’d do well to forget all this, like a bad dream. And don’t you dare let yourself even think about anything similar in the future!”

He was squeezing his wrist tightly to the point of pain; Yurka, flinching, did not let a single sound escape. “Volodya!” rang out a squealing, female scream. Yurka did not recognise the voice; at that moment he was not in the state of mind to recognise anyone or anything. “Let’s go, quickly!”

For the first time in Yurka’s memory, Volodya failed in his duty and, instead of rushing without hesitation to where he was being called for, he did not move from his spot and shouted:

“Can’t you see that I’m busy?!”

“Sorry, but there’s… Volodya, it’s Pcholkin again. Sasha’s fallen!”

“Just a minute!” Volodya roared at her, then bowed to Yurka and spoke clearly:

“Wait for me here. And not one step in any direction!”

“Volodya!” the girl burst out sobbing. Yurka only then recognised the voice – it was Alyona from the fifth troop, she was playing Galya Portnovna in the play. “Volo-o-odya! Pcholkin blown the carousel u-u-up! Sanya’s nose is broken, there’s blood all over the playground!”

Volodya went pale and, finally disentangling himself from Yurka’s arm, lightly pushed him aside. He hissed through his teeth, “What a bitch!” and ran off to where Alyona was pointing. Yurka remained alone.

How shameful. He had ruined everything, just got in the way and trashed it. He wanted to fall through the earth, to disappear, to vanish, so that Volodya would never see him again. To be wiped from his memory, so that he could not even think about him.

They were not friends anymore. Volodya would sit Yurka down in front of him for a talking-to in just the same way another time, maybe even another couple of times. Without meaning to, he would torture him, make him repent, though it already would not serve any further purpose. But then would he satisfy his own curiosity, extracting from Yurka, already so downtrodden, all the grisly details? And then what? Would he begin to bully him? Oh no, Volodya would not! He would be even worse – he would present him with the same contempt that Yurka had been ready to stoop to an hour ago. But that was before Volodya had said ‘What kind of friends can we be after this?’, before Yurka understood that he had, in fact, destroyed their friendship. Truly, they were nobody to each other now. That is, Yurka was nobody to Volodya, but he himself had forgotten nothing yet.

And how was he to live another whole week near to Volodya, trying not to look at him, nor to show his face in front of him, so as not to remind him about that degrading kiss. Should he hold himself back while looking at him? Should he speak to him only at rehearsals and only about them, without the slightest hope of hearing even one kind word about himself? This had all become vitally important to Yurka; what he needed now was understanding and gentleness, if not reciprocation. But receiving it was a different thing entirely. Coldness from that person who, over the course of a couple of weeks had become closer to him than anyone else, from whom he had seen and felt caring, even tenderness. Yurka was inevitably going to lose his mind. No, he had already lost it!

What was the point of that camp without Volodya? Why should he torture himself by living there, near to him, but without him? Just to suffer from stabs of remorse, to burn up inside from the shame? Yurka had not liked this place from the very first day of the season, after all.

The intrusive thought that had been whirling round his head all morning bubbled up to the surface once more and twist round and nag at him: I’ve got to get out of here!

He stood up, tore off his armband that showed that he was on duty, threw it down at his feet and took off from that damned porch. He ran along the path towards the avenue, out of his mind. He was kept moving by one goal alone, he understood one thing along: he needed to beat it from that camp – and all the better if he never came back!

He paused only when he suddenly found himself before the bust of Marat Kazej.[1] He shivered as he looked on the face of the hero-pioneer – even he, made of gypsum, was looking at him judgingly. This is some paranoia, huh, thought Yurka and turned to the left – the avenue led to the very centre of the camp, to the plaza. No, there was nothing for Yurka to do there. He looked straight ahead – the path to the construction site, where the empty hiding place with his tobacco was; he looked to the right – that way was the gate, the exit from the camp, that way was freedom! To the point, there were neither any pioneers on duty, nor watchmen. They’ve probably all run off to the commotion that Pcholkin’s caused. Let that hang on their heads! thought Yurka as he rushed towards the exit.

The heavy gate screeched as it opened onto the road and the thick forest, no match for the bright camp. It even smelt differently there – cleaner, and easier to breathe. That is how freedom is – at first, it’s just smelt and makes your head spin, and you only sense it with your mind afterwards. Yurka ‘sensed’ it with the thought There’s no Volodya here; we absolutely won’t run into each other out here!

 He dove into a thicket. He set off through the forest on purpose – he was afraid that the guards had not gone far and that they might notice his departure. Hiding behind the trees, he stomped along the camp’s dead-end route to the main road, where the cars and buses drove by and formulated his plan of escape. The way ahead was long, he had plenty of time.

The first question: when should he make his escape? Not right then, he had neither clothes, nor money, nor the key to his home with him. It would be better to try at night, while everyone was asleep. No, morning was better. He would have to hide somewhere not far from the camp and wait for the first bus to come along. Where to wait in the meantime, he did not know, for Volodya already knew all his spots; he would need to find a new one. In the forest, perhaps? The walk would be the same as it was then, along the forest path, since Yurka would be easily noticed on the road. It would be a good idea to bring water and even just a little food of any kind with him. That day, Yurka planned to do the following: reach the bus stop, memorise the route to it and take a look at the timetable. Did a lot of them come by there? Well, at the very least, one of them would definitely have to go to the city bus station. Thence homeward.

He suddenly remembered the smell of his home. In the kitchen: slightly stuffy and sweet. In the lounge: dusty, the smell of paper from the large, open-shelfed bookcase that ran along the walls. Then the smell of his room intruded upon the memory – the aroma of wood and lacquer from his piano. How quiet and peaceful it was there, and to think, Yurka used to find it boring.

The next thought was an anxious one – Yurka was not expected there, he was going to appear suddenly. He would say it straight – I escaped from camp, please take me in. His mum would scream, and maybe even cry, while his dad would begin to manipulate his conscience – he give his son a look full of disappointment and be silent. And the silence would last a long time, perhaps even until autumn. It would be better if he applied his soldier’s belt ‘down there’, but no, he would do and say nothing. He would start haranguing his son, torturing him with long, sorrowful gazes that cried ‘I’m disappointed in you’. That gaze was worse than anything.

Yurka reflected for a moment; maybe he would not run home, but to his grandmother on his father’s side instead? She loved him dearly, she would say no word against him; on the contrary, she would secretly be glad and would not give him up to anybody. The idea was very tempting, but Yurka reined himself in: Hiding behind my grandma’s back? Chickening out? As if! As though I don’t already have enough to be ashamed of. My parents would go crazy when they’re told that their only child, dearly beloved, has gone missing for real. What would happen to my mother? Ach, but father! He’d stay mute for the rest of his life!

Yurka traipsed slowly. A kilometre away from the camp, the forest started to grow wild; in places, he had to climb through bushes and fallen trees. The path turned out to be difficult. Once, Yurka’s foot even sank into the soft, wet mud and he got stuck, as though the camp did not want to let him go and was trying to make him turn back. Yurka himself wanted something else – to cry. Pitifully so, like a child, since, no matter how he distracted himself with the planning of his escape, however he suppressed the painful thoughts, laden with melancholy and hurt, about Volodya, they bubbled up to the surface all the same. The tone of voice he had spoken in, the way he had looked at him when he squatted down, it was just like his father – with disappointment and sorrow. No, he must not think about that. Better to think about the escape instead. Better to think about crime and punishment.

What would Yurka’s parents do to him for this? Well, what could they do – ground him? Hardly, he was too old for such punishments. Not give him pocket money? That would be a shame, but not the end of the world – Yurka rarely had twenty kopeks to rub together in his pocket, he was used to it. Maybe they would send him out of the city to his grandmother in the orchard? They might as well, this option was the most appealing for them: it was not for nothing after all that his mother threatened while angrily wiping her hands on her apron that, if Yurka fought with someone at camp again, then they would send him to do time in the orchard. Yurka had frowned then, and made it look plausibly like the threat had worked, he even choked on his soup, but in reality, he was not scared at all – he had friends in the garden, Fedka Kochkin and Kolka Celluloid. They would, like in the year before, go roaming round the orchard at night on guard duty, catching hooligans and hedgehogs. There was not just Fedka and Kolka to make the orchard good, there was also their cousin Vova. If the first two were a bit younger, then Vova was older than even Yurka. Yes, definitely older, he had already finished school, he was, more than anything, of an age with Volodya and was just as sensible and a little boring. They even had the same name – Vladimir.

No, what a cruel and terrible world it was! There were reminders of Volodya everywhere, there were Volodyas everywhere. Was it really surprising, however, that, given that the leader of the world proletariat was none other than a Vladimir, half the country bore the same name? The name, by the by, really was very handsome – Vla-di-mir. It was music, plain and simple.

As he chanted the name in his head, Yurka caught a snag and almost fell flat on his face. And yet he would miss him terribly. He would regret ruining everything. He would never see him again. Ever. At all. After all, Yurka did not even have a photo to remember him by – they were printed at the end of the season.

The road reappeared through a gap in the trees, and about two hundred metres down it was the bus stop. Grey like concrete, blocky, monolithic as though hewn from rock, it was very pretty – the light blue canopy stuck out like the outstretched wings of a plan or a swallow. Just below the canopy, in broad, iron letters, rusted in places, was written ‘Pioneer Camp’.

The way there had not taken much effort, and neither did memorising the timetable. All of one single bus route passed by that way, the 410. Yurka was surprised: he had never once in his life seen a three-digit bus number. The bus began its journey at a little past six in the morning and would reach this stop at ten past seven. Yurka nodded and committed it to memory. He took another quick look over it as he left. The timetable was old – there was a wide crack where the route number was written, so perhaps it was not number four hundred and ten, but that was not important – the main thing was that it terminated in the city, at the bus station, where Yurka would certainly see a lot of three-digit numbers.

Having gathered the information for his escape plan, he took a look around and felt unexpectedly calm – a peaceful atmosphere reigned there. The idyll of the deserted road, of the rustling forest all around, of the coolness beneath the roof of the old bus stop was completed by the pure blue sky, in which dozens of light parachutes drifted weightlessly down to the ground like white umbrellas. Yurka smiled: how good it was here, far away from his troubles! He sat on the bench in the shade and for the last time, ran through what he had decided upon. The plan was as follows: in the evening he would break the fence at the new-build site and make a hole like he had the year before. He would gather his things, then in the morning, while everyone was asleep, make his escape. He would get to the bus stop, sit and wait. Then onwards to home. He would face the music from his mum first and wait for divine punishment from his father. And pine. He would pine for Volodya so badly that he would wail, that he would blubber into his pillow, that he would roll around on the ceiling, not even just the floor. Why had he done it?!

Yurka buried his face in his palms. Well, why? How would he get on now, completely alone with this unknown, bittersweet feeling? Guilty, lonely, gnawed at half to death by his conscience?

Once the thirst that had been afflicted him for the past hour became unbearable, Yurka stood up from his spot, spat out some thick saliva, and turned back, towards the camp. He plodded along back the exact same way through the forest, consumed by new doubts. Was he really ready for this – to not see him? To burn all bridges, to not leave even the barest chance of making up, without saying goodbye, without saying sorry?

How have I reached the point of coming up with this? How will I have enough courage? How will I look him in the eyes? How can I forgive him for pushing me away? Dozens of these ‘hows’ swarmed around his head: How I humiliated him by doing this! But how nice it was to kiss him!

Yurka plodded ever on and on; it felt like there was no end to the path. The way back usually flew by more quickly, but Yurka was not like everybody else; for him even a hundred metres turned into several kilometres.

Having heard the burbling of a spring, Yurka ventured deeper into the forest. He found it without difficulty and drank. His thirst was slaked, but now he began to get sleepy out of exhaustion.

The memory came unbidden of Volodya’s reaction there, in the lilacs behind the control box, and one phrase rang around in his head – ‘pushed away’, one action played itself out, repeating over and over again – pushing away. On one hand, it was right to push him away, but on the other, it had felt so hurtful that he wanted to blame Volodya for all his troubles. Yurka did not understand at all what was happening with him, he felt lost and all over the place. He did not know what to do until the next day, where to go in the camp, where to hide. However much he wanted to remain in the forest, all the same, the time came to return.

The July sun fell on his skin as it penetrated through the thick canopy of the wild forest trees, scorching and burning disagreeably. Inside too, Yurka was all burning up, aching and itching. He felt like a discarded, dusty old piano which had not been played in a long, long time, used only as a mantlepiece for whatever junk. The strings inside had all gone slack, water had gotten on some of them, and they were going rusty, the pedal which was supposed to draw the notes out longer was broken and fallen down… Now opening the lid – which would only yield with great effort, and creak the whole time – touching the keys, yellowed with age… except, instead of notes that stirred the soul, it would make a terrible cacophony; it had been out of tune for a long time, the hammers were bent out of shape. You would press B and what would come out would be a mix with the flat, the C of the next octave would be totally silent, and if you tried to play across a whole octave at once, a series of screeching and sinking notes would come out.

Music was an undercurrent that ran through his whole friendship with Volodya. It could be heard everywhere: when he saw Volodya on the plaza for the first time, there was the pioneer’s anthem; at their first meeting in the theatre, Pachelbel’s Canon was coming from the radio; at rehearsals, when Masha was playing the piano; during their evening get-togethers at the carousel, it came wafting from the dance floor, and then it was playing from the radio speakers under the willow tree. His feelings for Volodya were constantly in dialogue with music: wherever Volodya was, so too was music, always.

As the heavy gates screeched, Yurka ignored the questions from those on duty, about where he had come from and where he was going, and trudged off in the direction the eyes were looking, Children were running all around. Not a trace of concern about the events with Pcholkin remained on their faces. Just like how not a trace remained of his friendship with Volodya.

It had come to a close the night before, but the season was in full swing. So, might there be a chance of at least making up amicably? Perhaps he did not have to go running headlong to extremes and escape from Volodya? They would never see each other again, after all.

So, there was a plan of escape, but besides his plan, confusion, exhaustion and hunger had appeared. Yurka had been traipsing through the forest for half the day. There was still a long time to wait until dinner, and there was no point going to the canteen – there, he would not even get given a chunk of bread, which was unsurprising; when Zinaida Vasilyevna was on shift, nothing ever trickled its way down to him. Perhaps he could go to the courts, but he did not have the strength to play, nor the desire to watch other play. He could go to some study circle, but he had nothing to do at one. He could go to the river – and bump into Volodya there. No, seeing him then would be the absolute worst thing he could imagine.

But Yurka wanted so badly to see him at exactly that moment.

I don’t understand anything! he whispered to himself, while his feet carried him to the theatre.

In the playground, the girls were launching rubber bands, while the boys were pilfering laundry pegs from somewhere and making them into crossbows. Immersed in himself, Yurka plodded on without noticing anyone around, he just placed a hand behind his back instinctively whenever someone small and nimble ran past too close and too fast. Yurka thought about the theatre. For certain, nobody would be there either, and the piano was there, and Yurka suddenly began to want terribly to sit behind it, open the lid, place his hands on the keys and, holding his breath, at least run his fingers weightlessly over them, to feel them. And perhaps, to play something? What? What would he want to hear right now? Swallowed up thinking about music, Yurka understood that only through his favourite instrument, only like that and no way else could he sort himself out. That nothing else besides music was able to calm him down. That only it could pass through everything, settle his soul, put it in order and coax out from its very depths an understanding of what was happening to him. Only music was capable of calming his soul, making peace with himself, bringing his feelings to reason and explaining everything to him.

In order to make himself touch the piano, Yurka would need to overcome his seemingly undefeatable fear. But what was that sparse, prickling fear compared to this blunt, aching one thar Yurka had been experiencing for the whole previous night and the whole day so far? Whether the fear was strong was unimportant; what was important was that Yurka had been afraid for too long. Like how, with the passage of time, skin becomes coarser and loses its sensation, Yurka’s heart had grown coarse; he almost did not care, something inside him was dulling his emotions. What if he finally managed it?

In the theatre, it was cool and dark. The whole of the premises was illuminated only by the rare sunrays that pierced through the heavy fabric of the blue curtains that had been drawn to.  The hall might have been asleep in its peace and quiet, but it was not empty. On the stage, with his nose stuck in a heap of paper and quietly whispering something, Olezhka was stepping from corner to corner.

“You’re not at the river?” asked Yurka, surprisingly and sufficiently loudly.

Olezhka startled and stopped.

“Oh, Yuwa! None of us awe, they’ve come back alweady.”

“Clearly. And where’s… Volodya?” Yurka became anxious – what if he were somewhere nearby?

“He’s busy. Pcholkin’th been mucking about. He made a bomb out of cawbide, he wanted to thend Thanka to the moon. Thanka doeth alwayth go on about how he dweamth of wowking at Baikonuw.[2] But he didn’t get to go, the flight appawatuth blew up.”

“Cawbide?” repeated Yurka, as though winding him up, but Olezhka was not in the slightest offended.

“Well, yeah, cawbide.”

“Oh, carbide!” Yurka guessed his favourite chemical from childhood with difficulty, and thought aloud, “Yeah, that’s right, carbide. That’s what Pcholkin was looking for at the building site! That’s what he was digging around the stones for. And the girls’ hairspray didn’t just go missing! ‘There was still some in the bottom’. And so there was, right in the very bottom, that’s why the bomb went off early. You need an empty can to make one.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. It made thuch a loud booom! The girlth flew into the busheth, the boyth flew into the busheth, Thanka bwoke hith nothe, blood wath gushing evewywhewe, the whole playgwound wath flooded. Lena scweamed. Oh, it wath tho thcawy! Volodya took him to the diwector. He’th been thtuck there evew thinthe. But why didn’t you come to the wivew?”

“No reason, I just had some stuff to do.”

“Will you come tomowwow?” asked Olezhka with hope. “But why did you come hewe? Altho thtuff to do?”

“I… I want to play a little piano. Don’t say anything to anyone, alright? I’m not very good, I’m embarrassed. So, I decided to come while no-one was here.”

“Tho that’th it! Well then, you play, I’ll go. I altho have, uh… thtuff to do,” smiled Olezhka as he hopped, skipped and jumped away so quickly that Yurka did not manage to shout a single word after him.

There he was, alone. There it was – the piano. The same one stood in Yurka’s bedroom, with one difference – his piano was covered in dust and whatever else collected on top of it: clothes, toys, books, all the way up to the top so that the lid was not visible, while this one was clean, sparkling, beautiful.

In two steps, Yurka appeared next to the instrument. He turned on the desk lamp that stood on the lid and no sooner laid eyes on the keys, illuminated in that dark yellow light, than he was once again gripped by panic.

This fear is nothing compared to the terror I suffered last night. And this feeling of my own insignificance is nothing compared to the humiliation when Volodya pushed me away, he encouraged himself in a strange, but seemingly successful way. He took another step towards the instrument.

He sat, raised his hands and carefully laid them on the keys. The anticipation of a deep, bassy C ran through his fingers to his chest like an electrical discharge. It might seem such a trifling thing, to play one single sound, but he still had to overcome himself. His heart trembled with joy – he could do it. The C burst forth and reverberated around the hall.

Beside himself with joy and pleasure, Yurka, with his fingers stiff from lack of practice, did not press but rather piled into the keys, sending out different notes, trying to remember and play something simple.

“How did it go?” he reflected. “F-sharp, A-sharp. F or A? Not A, F. F, F-sharp. Or was it G? Argh, how did it go?”

He was trying to recall a melody that he had composed himself. Back then, it had been so simple to him that he could play it with his eyes closed, making his parents and especially his grandma on his mum’s side proud, who dreamed that her grandson would become a pianist. Over the course of a year without music, Yurka had forgotten the melody so completely that now it only came back to him with great difficulty. And another problem – his fingers would not bend.

Yurka began to give them a stretch and tried to remember the melody visually.

“F-sharp, A-sharp of the second octave, F, F-sharp of the third octave. F-flat third, A second, F second, A second. Yes! That’s it! I remember!”

Suddenly all his woes disappeared into the background, all his problems felt irrelevant – Yurka was remembering, Yurka was playing! He was finally playing, he was bending the keys to his will, eliciting wonderful sounds, he felt like he could do anything! He knew that there were no peaks that he could not conquer! His enrapturement took him from this world to another, one cozy, warm, and filled with sound. It was as though Yurka had fired up into space and was floating there, enchanted by the white and yellow flares of the stars. Only, in his cosmos, the stars were sounds.

The door to the theatre hall squeaked quietly, but Yurka did not turn around.

“F-sharp, A-sharp, F, F-sharp. F-flat, A, F, A…” he whispered as he played the same thing over and over, running his hand back and forth between the second and third octaves, refreshing his memory of the motions that he had forgotten.

The sound of furious stomping suddenly began to ring out.

An adult, supposed Yurka, the footsteps are heavy – but he then promptly forgot about it. Wholly absorbed in the music, he no longer got distracted; he did not look around, nor listen to anything besides the music.

The footsteps abruptly stopped, then one-by-one, drowned out by the notes, they began to quietly get closer to him. The unexpected guest’s sneakers barely squeaked at all on the lacquered parquet flooring, their hands were wiping a pair of glasses with a handkerchief, the handkerchief was rustling, but none of that made any difference to Yurka.

F-sharp, A-sharp of the second octave, F, F-sharp of the third octave, F-flat of the third, A of the second, F of the second, A of the second…

“Never do that again,” requested Volodya, his voice trembling.

Yurka froze – had he imagined it? No. It turned out that the stomping had been him. Yurka turned around. Volodya stood in a circle of light by the stage, breathing heavily. Looking at the floor, he sighed, slowly and deeply, and no sooner had he put on his glasses than he became, as though by magic, completely calm.

Here he is, he’s come, pronounced Yurka’s inner voice. He’s come himself. To me, he’s come. Again. And what for?

“What is it, exactly, that I shouldn’t do?” mumbled Yurka quietly.

“Disappearing. You were gone for five hours!”

“Aright,” Yurka could only mumble as he observed Volodya cautiously taking a seat next to him on the wide stool.

“I thought I would kill you when I found you,” he frowned sadly. “I was searching for you, you know. By myself at first, and then I put out some spies to find out for me where you were. If it weren’t for Olezhka, I wouldn’t have known ‘til evening where you were and what was going on with you. I don’t know what I would have done then.”

“It’s good,” Yurka piped up, “that you’re trying to act like nothing’s happened. I want to do the same, but I haven’t managed to.”

His hands trembled, another commotion of thoughts and emotions burst into his head. Yurka placed his fingers back on the keyboard and tried to remember the second part of the melody. It was the only way he could maintain his composure.

F, F-flat. Damn, no, that’s not it. F, F-sharp. Or was it flat? Damn it!

Volodya ignored his jibe and continued:

“I’m not trying to put on an act. On the contrary… That’s really what I came here about. Of course, besides making sure that you’re alive and well…” he cleared his throat, abashed. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about what happened. I was trying to decide the whole night what to do and how to do it. The whole night, and it was all for nothing, I had it all wrong! It didn’t ever cross my mind that it might have been serious. That is, no, of course, it did cross my mind, but I drove the thought off, it was too fantastical. But it turns out that everything’s the other way around.  And I panicked. I said totally the wrong thing, not what was needed at all. And not what I really wanted to say. But while I was looking for you,” he emphasised the following, “for five hours, I thought over everything again from the top. Properly, this time. And, well, I came here to tell you what I’ve decided.”

F, F-sharp… Stop.

“What difference does it make? We’re not friends anymore.”

“Of course not. How can we be ‘friends’ after this?”

Yep, we’re not friends. After this, of course, we’re not friends anymore, Yurka had understood this for the whole day so far, but he needed to hear it from Volodya in order to finally lose all hope.

They were silent. Volodya sat with his hands laid on his knees and watched Yurka’s reflection in the lacquered front panel. Yurka himself watched him out of the corner of his eye. He did not want to watch him, but he did so. He did not want to sit next to him – it was too cramped when he was so near – but he did so.

F-sharp, A-sharp, F, F-sharp on the higher octave, F-flat, lower A, F… it sounded uncertain, faltering.

“Yura, are you really not afraid at all?”

“What do I have to be afraid of?”

“Of what we did!”

Of course he was afraid. And yet – though it was incomprehensible and painful, it was somehow more scary and painful to know that by his act he had lost Volodya. Just like that, he had taken it and ruined everything.

“What a child you still are,” sighed Volodya before Yurka could answer. “But really, I envy you.”

Yurka was silent.

“Your recklessness really is something to be envied. You break the rules so easily, you spit on everything and never think about the consequences… I wish I could be like that. To even just once… even just once behave, not how I ‘must’, but how I want to. If only you knew how tiresome it is to constantly be thinking about the properness of your actions! Sometimes I get so fixated on self-control, on what I’m doing, what I’m saying, how I’m behaving myself… that at times it gets to the point of paranoia and panic attacks. In moments like that, I physically cannot judge what’s happening objectively, you understand? And what you did really did seem like a catastrophe to me. But… perhaps it’s not all so bad? Maybe I’m exaggerating?”

Yurka did not understand what Volodya was trying to get at. He was afraid to interrupt this monologue, since at that moment, he was capable only of spilling out all of his emotions and saying whatever was on his mind without thinking it over. He was afraid to embarrass both Volodya and himself again, and to finally destroy what he had already broken. And he did not find anything better than to continue to be silent. All the more so, since he had had a tight lump in his throat for a long time, which precluded him not only from speaking, but from even breathing.

Meanwhile, Volodya was staring with expectation at his reflection in the lacquered panel. His distraught gaze wandered all over Yurka’s face and got caught on his eyes, as though searching for an answer in them. But, not finding it, he cleared his throat again, confused:

“Here’s what I’ve been thinking about, Yur, and I want to know your opinion. There do exist very close friends, who… well, very close, special. For instance, at school and college, I saw guys going round hand in hand, or sitting together in embrace.”

“So what?” Yurka finally swallowed the lump stuck in his throat and began to speak. “Let them go about together like that. They’re close friends, so they can. Not like us.”

“Do you think they kiss?”

“Are you having a laugh? How would I know? I’ve never had any kind of ‘specials’ friends!”

“What about me?” he heard, and it sounded somewhat sorrowful.

“You can go to Masha. I imagine she’s getting sick of waiting.”

“Yur, pack it in. Masha is just someone staying here on holiday, just like everyone else.”

“Just like everyone else…” mimicked Yurka.

At the mention of her name, he began to thrash upon the keyboard to make it louder, to drown out his inner voice, his inner monologue, his reawakening jealousy.

Yurka did not realise that he was playing more and more confidently: F-sharp, A-sharp lower, F, F-sharp higher, F-flat, A, F lower and A. That he was already playing by memory, without looking F, F-sharp, F-flat, A-sharp below and F-sharp once again, A, F and F-sharp above.

He could not tear his gaze away from Volodya’s reflection. He was sitting there, pale, taking shy glances at Yurka, and chewing his lips:

“I don’t want to think of what happened badly. But however I try, I think. Maybe I’m having another fit of panic and paranoia and making mountains out of molehills again, but I’m really scared. Yura, tell me, what do you think about all this?”

About what in particular?”

Volodya shifted even closer, Yurka played even louder.

“You did it because–” Volodya faltered, wiping the sweat from his brow with his palm. “You– you will? That is, you want to be, not just normal, but… special… friends with me?”

Yurka hammered as hard as he could:

F-sharp, A-sharp, F, F-sharp above, F-flat, A from the second, F and A below. F F-sharp higher, F-flat, A-sharp below, F-sharp and A, F and F-sharp above!

“That’s enough! I can’t shout about stuff like this!”

F, F, F, F. Yurka’s whole insides began to tremble.

Volodya grabbed his arm and pulled it away from the keys. Everything froze: the music, his breath, his heart. Yurka turned. Volodya’s face was an inch away from his; once again, he felt his breath on his cheeks. Volodya’s closeness made even his thoughts come to a standstill; goosebumps were flaring up all over his body. His cold fingers trembled as they gripped Yurka’s hands, and behind the lenses of his glasses, his eyes shone feverishly.

Volodya struggled through a gulp and whispered:

“Maybe there’s not actually anything wrong with kissing a… special friend?”

And then it struck Yurka, what Volodya had been trying to say for the past ten minutes. It did not just reach him, it caused a landslide. His heart took the blow, not his head, and Yurka reeled from it.

“Volodya… What are you on about?” he asked the stupidest question in the world, just to convince himself that he had not misheard. “What are you saying, who are you trying to fool – me or yourself?”

“Nobody.”

“Then… you’re sure it’s not some kind of self-deception?”

Volodya shook his head and licked his dry lips.

“No. What about you?”

Barely breathing, Yurka blinked, his eyes bulging with trepidation and rubbed his fingers. His heart thumping in his throat, Yurka squeaked out:

“Yes.” He did not understand the essence of the question, he just wanted to say ‘yes’.

Yurka could not believe what was happening. Volodya himself came closer to him and inclined his head slightly. His pupils dilated, he looked at him excitedly, he held Yurka’s hand. He held his hand! Not like usual, but tenderly and tremulously. He traced his fingers around his hand. His lips were dry, and they smelt nice. Could all this really be possible?

But what was he, Yurka, meant to do – pucker up his lips? By the junction box he had not thought about this. But that was the day before – a long, long time, and not with him. Right then, the main thing for Yurka was to not sigh from delight, nor to be deafened by his heartbeat. He shut his eyes and leant forward. He no longer felt breath on his cheek, but lower down.

But, right then, the porch door of the theatre screeched.

“Blood-red stars are burning on the tracks, the tram ran over a troop of Octoberists….” chanted Sashka from outside.

Yurka sharply turned away, knocking the side of Volodya’s glasses with his brow in his clumsiness, jumped up to his feet and stood back. Volodya’s hands were shaking; they convulsed up and crashed down on the keys. A cacophonous bryammm rang out around the whole hall.

“Ugh, what a thtupid thtowy!” Olezhka replied to Sashka.

The door opened, and over the threshold came stomping all the young kids from the troupe; the older ones were not there yet. Yurka breathed heavily, as though he had just been running, while Volodya sat behind the piano and, batting his eyes around, looked back and forth in confusion between the keyboard and the people coming in.

“You’re all so early today… communal work time isn’t over yet…” he mumbled, his voice gone flat.It’s a good thing that the steps squeak! Yurka laughed hysterically in his head, but decided not to say anything aloud.

[1] [Author’s note] Marat Kazej was a Belorussian and Soviet hero-pioneer, a young scout for the Red partisans, and was awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union award.

[2] The Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, where the rocket launches for the Soviet space programme took place. I once went to an art exhibit about it, it does seem like a cool place to work.

[secretswiththezee]

A Lot Has Happened

Dear You,

It's been a while since I last wrote something here. It is now September of 2024. During the last few years I have felt like I lived through a whole different timeline. 

Last we spoke, your nephew was annoying AF. Guess what? he isn't anymore. He is an absolute sweetheart. He is empathetic, he is kind, he has emotions, he loves to draw and tell stories. He is in grade 1! almost grade 2!!

So much has happened since then. Let's see, when we last met, dad had a stroke and I was still working in migration. That was back in early 2020, we're towards the end of 2024 now nearly five years later. 

2020: I uprooted the whole family (mom, dad, Akik, Ovi and Eli) to a beautiful little regional town called Benalla. It's a 2.5 hour drive from the city, we moved due to the requirements of my visa and because Covid hit and both Akik and Ovi lost their jobs. I had to support everyone on my paycheck, I was not about to allow mom and dad to return to Bangladesh after dad's stroke without post-hospital care. They were with us for two years and left towards the end of 2021 (mind you they came in November of 2019). It was nice having them around.

I was able to work full time as mom looked after Eli, Ovi and Akik looked for work, we didn't force Akik to find work as we wanted him to finish his professional year smoothly. Eli had a horrible time in that house. He was almost what we call feral. He was biting, hitting, aggressive and non-verbal. The GP and specialists all said he was on the spectrum, in the middle of the pandemic, we had a wonderful speech pathologist come over and help Eli communicate. 

During this time 2020- December of 2022, I worked full time as a secondary maths and science teacher. Can you believe it? a MATH's teacher AND I taught Chemistry!! You would have been proud. I am good at maths now, it even surprises me. In 2021, you would be surprised to know that after ALL that hard work, we got our Permanent Residency.

In 2022 December, we moved back to Melbourne. By we I mean, Ovi, Eli and I. You would glad to know that our little brother got work and lived on his own for the first time from December 2022 until now. He has been getting a taste of independence and he is doing a terrific job. 

After moving to Melbourne, Eli's demeanor completely changed. He went from being a semi-verbal almost feral child to a beautifully speaking, pleasant child. He even goes to mainstream school now. His speech is a bit delayed, but he is getting there. He likes to draw, read, and do speed math. He hates writing though. 

In September of 2022, Akik got his invitation for applying for the skilled regional visa which leads to the PR. He worked his butt off to get that. After applying he finally got it in October of 2023. 

October of 2023 was a bag full of surprises. Let me tell you brother. So firstly, mom and dad were travelling to Dhaka from Cumilla when they were in a freak car accident. The car flipped three times, miraculously mom and dad weren't seriously injured. Mom did have an injury close to her spine. I was so stressed. Akik planned to go to Bangladesh, and we also decided to tag along because I couldn't stop stressing and crying. 

Upon reaching BD, we were able to introduce Eli to almost everyone. Eli really enjoyed the airplane and was overjoyed to see mom. He loves mom more than he loves me. Well so let me tell you what our sneaky parents were up to....

So for about a year or so, mom and dad have been talking to another family about Akik's marriage, not only that, Akik had also been talking to the girl. She's really nice and matches with Akik's Akikness well. Trust me, Akik is in love with her and it is soo cute. 

Anywho, our genius parents thought, this is the best time to get Akik's marriage done because we will not get Mikha, Ovi and Eli with Akik together again like this. Thus, in what was to be a 4 week trip to help those two recover, turned out to be a wedding fest. 

So our little brother, the last of the Khan's was married in November! we have a new addition to our family! and she's great.

Upon our return, I jumped back into work, Ovi and Akik did the same. We brought along with us Ovi's mom. She's been with us for a year. She's been helping with Eli.

This year 2024, something amazing happened within a few short few weeks. We (Ovi and I) passed our citizenship tests. We also purchased our very first home. There's another surprise, but I am not going to write about that here just now. 

Overall, since the last time we communicated, a LOT has happened. I cried thinking about you during each and every one of our milestones. Mom, dad and Akik also cried thinking about you, what you would do, how you would react, what you would say. We miss you big brother. We move on with life, but we will never forget you and what you meant to us. Love you to the moon and back. I hope we can see each other again one day. 

Ciao,

Zee

[ratedfleur]

omg random thought but like gyuvin is sooo the type to say “baby please, just the tip..” and he’d thrust into your wet pussy, whining when he wants to thrust his entire length into you but then he promised that he’ll put only the tip. ):

he’d end up crying on top of you, begging to let him bottom out inside of you. “baby.. wan’ fuck you.” gyuvin cried as he kept thrusting his tip into you, crying even louder when you shake your head no.

[psytots]

Chapter 1

Double A, Double Trouble

Maraiah & Marianne — The Arceta Twins

"Ate Aiah!"

"Maloi? Oh, why are you pouting like that na naman ba?"

"Eh kasi, sabi ni staku di ka daw sasama sa gala namin mamaya with bunso."

Aiah softly laughed as she felt the younger woman cling on her arm, looking at her with her brown eyes that were behind her iconic red bayoneta glasses. Maloi pouted more at her reaction, tugging at the older girl.

"Sorry loi, may lakad kasi talaga ako today eh. Actually, kami ni Mommy, may pupuntahan kami"

"Saan ba yan, ate Aiah?"

This time, nanggaling sa likod nila ang boses. It was Stacey, and beside her was Sheena, who also greeted her Ate Aiah. The four of them were headturners as they walked down the hallways of their school, yet they paid no attention to the stares as they continued talking.

Of course, who wouldn't stare at the 4 Muses. Aiah, Maloi, Stacey, and Sheena were considered the four most famous ladies on their campus. Even so, their fame did not change them as they remained kind and friendly towards everyone.

"Oh, bat curious ka na ngayon? Di mo nga ako pinansin sa chat kahapon after ko dine-cline yung invitation mo for gala."

"Yun, si tampo pala 'tong si Stacey eh."

"Manahimik ka Sheena Mae!"

"Kay ate Aiah ka lang pala titiklop ha, natimbog ka na namin Staku."

Maloi and Sheena laughed and highfived each other after successfully pissing off the princess of the group. Napatawa na lang din si Aiah na nanonood sa kanilang tatlo. It was like watching an Ate with her tatlong mga makulit na bunso.

"Seriously tho, babawi ako girls, you know me naman."

"Paano kung samahan na lang namin kayo ni tita, ate Aiah?"

Aiah was surprised at Sheena's suggestion. She hasn't thought about it yet, and hindi nya din napagpaalam sa Mom nya. But she figured out na malalaman din naman nila kung ano talaga ang importanteng lakad nya ngayon, kaya she decided that the suggestion was acceptable.

"Okay, sama na lang kayo saken, Manong will fetch me naman using our van so may big space tayo sa likod."

"YAAAYY"

The girls cheered and hugged their Ate, whereas Aiah only laughed at her fave girls, her heart filled with warmth. And so, sabay silang tatlo na naglakad palabas ng gate. Before they completely got out, Aiah gave them a reminder that left them all confused.

"I hope you guys won't be surprised sa malalaman nyo ngayon — just a heads up, this is a serious lakad. I'll share the details lang mamaya."

--------

Meanwhile....

"Ianne, what's wrong?"

"Huh? Nothing, mikhs."

"Yeah, your shaking leg says otherwise."

Indeed, kanina pa nagba-bounce ang legs ng matangkad na babae, it was obvious that she was anxious and nervous. Her friends can see right through her. Mikha, Colet, Gwen, and Jhoanna shared a knowing look.

"And don't tell me sa lamig lang yan, you don't get cold easily, Ate Ianne."

"Just... I'm just nervous, Jho..."

Ian honestly said as she stared outside the window. They're currently inside the plane, waiting for their arrival. They were riding the Arceta's private plane, so it was only the five of them as the passengers.

"Hey, calm down ate Ianne, we're here with you"

It was Gwen who spoke, the one who rarely shows her soft side, giving a warm and understanding smile towards the eldest among them. They all know that underneath Marianne's cold exterior is a very sensitive and soft heart.

"Thanks, Gwenny.."

Colet, who was sitting beside Ianne, held her hand and gently squeezed it. Ian wasn't one for physical touches, but with the people she loves and is comfortable with, she doesn't mind. The girls smiled and just started talking about another topic that eased down the tension.

Philippines huh... I'm finally going back. I can't wait to see my Mom and that twin of mine.

[ejaydoeshisbest]

Chapter 5.5 - 5.6

“Is this your grandson, dear Gloria?” She was tall, I noticed. Taller than grandma and she looked down at me with vile interest. “Look at his eyes. His nose. He looks very much like his mother.”

“Of course he is. He is my daughter’s child.” Lola said.

“Do you draw, hijo? Do you spend all your time cooped up in your room?” She was smiling. No, she was taunting. I felt it. I felt the chill of her questions jab at me. “Did you keep all your mother’s paintings, Gloria? So he too could be inspired by the work of her mother. And look where she is, disappearing again after you’ve boasted about her?”

This woman was saying bright things to wrap the meanness in them. I felt awful about myself as she kept asking guessing what I’d been doing. She was slimy and smelled putrid than all the lifeless rotting fish discarded on the shore. I felt smaller than I was and wanted to sink into myself and hide in my own chest. Suddenly, I was standing behind Lola and I thought my grandmother was a stable shed against the awful wind.

That delighted her even more. “Aw, how adorable. Look at him hide, the shy thing.”

Lola patted me on the shoulder. I didn’t see her face when she suddenly said, out of the blue, “Mikha is a quiet one, it’s true. But I’d rather have a grandchild who doesn’t give me worries than a nephew who drinks and screams in the middle of the night. Tell me, how is darling Arturo? Isn’t he supposed to be out by now after doing his penance in the barangay hall after causing such a scandal?” Lola, too, knew how to hide venom underneath a pleasant smile. “I imagine his name would stink up the neighborhood for weeks if not months.”

That shut the woman up. My lola then took me away, the day ruined, and stormed off, huffing. The anger we shared silenced us. I asked her why she did that, and how she thought it was all right to do that. And then I saw all the faces of all my classmates. All the ones who slapped the label ALIEN on my forehead. 

“Some people don’t grow up as they grow old. And some people just don’t know how stupid they are.” Lola was massaging her temples. “I should have controlled my mouth. That was uncalled for.”

“She was stupid and rude,” I said as I grabbed her arm.

“We must be better. We shouldn’t stoop down to their level. I only said what I said because…” she looked at me, then looked away. “It would be fine if it only happened to me. I couldn’t bear seeing you about to cry.”

Was I? I carried whatever we bought back home in silence, holding my grandmother’s arm, and stood close to her, this woman who could shout at the nasty wind.

___

Later that afternoon, Lola didn’t clean. She told me to go outside and watch the goats and hens for a while. The house was quiet as the sun turned yellow, then red. When I returned at dusk, I couldn’t find her in the kitchens and in her room. I stared at the locked wooden door. I crept up slowly to that door and I thought she was moving boxes and arranging stuff like she said she’d do. But in the silence, I thought I heard her voice hitch, like how one cries through a pillow.

I hated people who found joy in the suffering of others. I hated how they would torment them to get a reaction, like prodding a wounded, cornered stray.

[seullovesme]

« about me »

hello! i go by lila, short for liliana (she/her)

i'm 18 and 🇵🇭

i love listening to music (it's probably 90% of what i do in a day)

INFP-T

honestly when i write, i usually blast music that puts me in the mood of my story and type away. my attention span is kinda short though so i end up just listening the the music lol (ITS ALSO WHY I LITERALLY CANNOT SIT STILL AND COMPLETE A WRITING IN ONE SITTING 😭)

i have a vent acc no one knows about, i unleash my thoughts about everything on it so if you find it don't question me 🤗🤗

fav artists

bini, frank ocean, wave to earth, faye webster, cas, chet baker, matt maltese

ult

seulgi ofc 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩

bias line (there's a lot so i shrunk it to who i'd write for the most)

seulgi, wendy, irene, mikha, maloi, karina, giselle, yunjin, haewon, sullyoon, lily, wonyoung, yeji, ryujin, yuna

i love talking and having conversations about the most random things for no reason so u should come talk to me 😇

[mythoughtsverbatim]

Another defector Alex Zuyev= Having made it to the West , Zuyev said that he was gradually becoming disillusioned with Soviet society and system. In his own words, the events of April 9, 1989 in Tbilisi – when an anti-Soviet, pro-independence demonstration was brutally crushed by the Soviet Army, resulting in 21 deaths – were the last straw. At the time, Zuyev was still serving in the 176th Fighter Aviation Regiment at the Mikha Tskhakaya airfield in Georgia. He initially thought about leaving the armed forces, but eventually decided to steal the newest Soviet fighter aircraft and defect to the West.

[engravedinaash]

Memory

Part 5.1

Lore masterpost (mobile friendly)

Sen has been a Fortemps knight in all but name as of late. He hides his feelings for his “lord” in knightly devotion as who would think to doubt such noble emotions? He’s assigned himself this job knowing its not necessarily needed. He doesn’t need to stand by Haurchefant’s side while he welcomes more merchants and travelers but his presence doesn’t seem to bother him. He’s selfish for his…friend’s attention, sure, but could that be easily altered to simply offering protection?

Though he can try to fool himself, nothing passes Ninne once she arrives at Camp Dragonhead. She is nice, and keeps to herself…mostly. Sen’s ears have on a few occasions picked up her conversing with Haurchefant about him, and when she has tended to any of his wounds as a chirurgeon she brings up the other man as well. She also has quite a bothersome knowing smile that directs itself at Sen when he and Haurchefant walk in and out together. But, he cannot bring himself to think ill of her as she sits in thought by the hearth each day. Even if she has ideas spinning around her mind about him…

That could be worrisome.

Sen tries to hold back on his enthusiasm to join his friend on excursions, to not linger in the evenings while everyone else turns in for another frigid night. No one else can get the wrong idea, especially not the man himself, of his…no, not affections. He will keep denying until he freezes to death out in the neighboring stream or he perishes of a broken heart. Whichever comes first.

The dull ache of his heart continues to rear its ugly head when he thinks too hard, when he overhears Ninne, when Haurchefant touches his arm or shoulder the way he does. Some nights he does think he might die, and some nights he wants it. But he can’t, promised he wouldn't. And to cause himself harm would not go unnoticed here with all these people. He feels helpless when he feels too much. How he wishes he could go to Haurchefant’s door. But he doesn’t even know what he would ask for–to be held? To be hurt? He feels disgusted to want either. He nearly wants to go back to feeling nothing at all.

Frustrated, he claws his bedding and forces himself to try to sleep. At the very least, he wishes he could talk to his chocobo Mikha right now. She was a good listener. Out of delirium he finds himself sending a prayer to the Twelve she and Darek made it out safe from the Calamity. His brother too, his mother….He relaxes his fists, comes to terms with what he cannot change and eventually finds rest.

Ninne is an npc at Camp Dragonhead to anyone who may not know or forgot!

[sheragon]

Decided to try out tumblr, and from what I see so far I really liked the separate blogs function! i get to support and share all the great art I see or just thought dump anything without being fixed on only a single blog...

Most of all I can share my kitty pics. I love it!

Anyways yeah have a cat pic to cheer your day 😊 say hi to Mikha!

[aarghhaaaarrrghhh]

A Summer in a Pioneer's Neckerchief/Лето в пионерском галстуке - Chapter Thirteen

Master Post here

Chapter Thirteen. A Lullaby for a Counsellor

The next morning, Yurka was playing pioneerball on the beach with the second troop. It was packed with people. The girls from the second troop who were taking part in the play were there as well: Nastya – Portovna, Katya, who was playing Luzgina, and Yulya, the village traitor. They greeted Yurka in unison. Yurka began to feel very pleasantly.

The score was in the first troop’s favour, but what won out overall was friendship.

Yurka complained at Ksyusha – the only one of the PUK girls playing:

“We should call our team ‘Friendship’ next time, then we might actually win already.”

“Exactly!” Ksyusha replied gaily, and even smiled at him. Yurka was dumbfounded – Ksyusha? Smiled? At him?

Having finished playing and wound up by the heat, Yurka set off to go swim, but really to drown Mikha together with Vanya. They had promised to be ready as soon as the score was announced, but they were still holding back on the beach. Yurka was tired of waiting and jumped into the water first, but no sooner had he cooled off and begun to relax than Olga Leonidovna arrived on the beach with Volodya.

The directress was gesticulating with concentration at him, while in the meantime, he was searching for someone with concentration. Yurka guessed who, stuck his fingers in his mouth and loudly whistled. Volodya noticed him, straightened his shoulders, waved and smiled, his glasses shining. And Yurka remembered what had been the night before. It was not like he had forgotten, but in that moment, he remembered especially sharply, to the extent that he felt Volodya’s breath and scent on his lips. His chest grew warm, and he froze in place with a stupid smile on his face; he went slack and almost went under the water, but he came back to his senses and put his arms in motion.

Olga Leonidovna tugged Volodya by the wrist – like Yurka, he too was unmoving as he watched him – and dragged him towards the guys from the second troop, who were sitting in a circle on their towels. The towards Pasha from Yurka’s troop, then to Mitka and Vanya. Once the guys had bowed their heads to her in fright, Olga Leonidovna took Volodya by the hand and retreated with him.

The visit went by quickly enough; Yurka did not even have time to get out of the water. He shouted to Mikha and Vanka and they came running towards him, spraying sand over the people sitting on the beach and splashing the people paddling in the river.

“What did she want?” asked Yurka.

“She was calling us to the theatre to be extras,” replied Vanka. “Well, I say ‘called’, she said we’d come and that’s that.”

“Oh…”

“Uh-huh!” Mikha echoed. “Yurets, listen, your director, he’s… strict, right? Mean? Just don’t tell anyone I said that.”

“Volodya?” Yurka laughed as he thought back to the night before, when those usually strict eyes behind the glasses came right up close to his face and closed, and did not open again until their long, warm kiss had ended. Even in the cool water, Yurka sweated. “Oh… It’s… If something’s not going right, Mikh, it’s Olga Leonidovna, not Volodya, who’ll rip your head off.”

“We’ve been ambushed!”

“Hey, Mikh, it’s alri-i-ight,” drawled Vanka. “They gave Petlitsyn a role with actual lines, after all. Me and you just have to stand in silence, and it’ll come together.”

“It won’t just come together!” Yurka was indignant. “Guys, you need to respect Volodya! Just give it a try, for me…”

“We will, we will,” assured Mikha.

“Understood, loud and clear!” Vanka affirmed. “Hey, come on, let’s swim already, eh? I’m freezing here.”

“Race you!” Yurka commanded and broke out in first place.

When they had returned to the beach, Yurka unhurriedly towelled down and, looking out at the opposite bank of the river in the hopes of seeing the willow tree there, declared meditatively:

“Petlitsyn got given a speaking role, you say? Yezavitov, clearly. That’s bad – Volodya didn’t want that. Mitka would have been better, oh-ho-ho, what a voice that one has.”

“And where is he, by the way?” inquired Vanka as he stretched out languidly on the hot sand.

The answer followed without delay.

“Hello, pioneers! Have a listen of the Pioneer’s Dawn,” Mitka himself responded from the speaker. “Tomorrow is the long-awaited celebration – the birthday of our beloved pioneer camp Lastochka. Two important activities to do with this will take place today. The first: the full rehearsal for the amateur creative arts club concert will begin after midday. Artists from the first troop are to be at the plaza at four o’clock, from the second troop, at four-thirty…”

Mitka dictated the rehearsal times for all the remaining troops, while the activist girls from the first and second troops focussed on writing down what he said. Olga Leonidovna had decided to put on at least some kind of activity in place of the play, and would be directing a small medley concert, only an hour in total, consisting of short, simple numbers, so that the artists would only need a day to prepare. Yurka was not taking part in it. He only knew that the girls were planning to do some kind of dance.

Mitka concluded with that activity and immediately moved on to the second, which was far more important and affected everybody holidaying at the camp:

“Over the course of today, everybody in the camp must, without fail, report to the medic’s for measuring weight gain. Attendance is compulsory. Larisa Sergeyevna will only admit pioneers as part of their troops. Your counsellors will communicate to you information about attendance times.”

Up to that point, Mitka had been speaking drily and matter-of-factly, but suddenly his tone warmed up. Everyone guessed that the important news had wrapped up, which meant that the radio broadcast was also just about at an end. But Mitka had more to say:

“In honour of the forthcoming, unscheduled weight-gain measurement, allow me to read out a poem beloved by many pioneers, On the Scales.”

Mitka had never read poems out before – it was a news programme, not entertainment, and the ears of everyone in both troops at the beach pricked up. Mitka, having cleared his throat, began:

In our camp there are weights, Not just because, not for beauty, We find out in the mornings, Who’s filled out, by how many grams. No, we don’t walk far into the forest: What if we lose weight on the way?! We’re not here for birdsong. We spend the mornings on the scales.

Vanka laughed into his fist. Yurka nodded in agreement. Mitka continued in an expressive bass, without forgetting to leave pauses:

We mustn’t go traipsing about the woods, Everything is by the clock! And by the scales! And in rain, we go right under the shelter, Kids are worth their weight!

Stifled giggles sprung up around the beach.

And what drama there is here: Seryozha has lost a kilogram, And long did the medical personnel Gasp and moan. All of a sudden, our routine changed: In the morning, we run to the river–[1]

Suddenly an indistinct rustling sound rang out, then a terrifying crash. Then silence. The troops burst into laughter at the top of their lungs – Mitka had had the microphone taken away from him!

Not a half hour had gone by before the hero of the day himself appeared before them – Mitka, who right off the bat let Yurka know some important news: now Mitka too had been drawn into the play. But as revenge for the poem, Olga Leonidovna had given him one of the most laborious jobs – raising the curtain. Yurka felt sorry that the charismatic Mitka was not given a role, but on the whole, he was still glad – the most important thing was that he would not have to be the one to raise the curtain.

They marched to their troop dorms in formation like usual. By tradition, Yurka walked ahead, next to Vanka, while right behind them were the next pioneers in height order – Polina and Ksyusha. The girls were whispering loudly. Suddenly, Ulyana, who was walking behind them, butted in to the conversation and began to twitter excitedly:

“Girls, picture it, someone on the beach slipped me a note. I was getting dressed when I see something has fallen, some paper–”

“What was on it?” interrupted Ksyusha harshly.

“Let us read it, come on, give it, give it,” Polina flashed into life.

“Van, will we have a competition with the counsellors before the concert tomorrow? Rollcall. Then a competition – counsellors versus pioneers. Then the concert, is that right?” asked Yurka, not knowing at all with what to busy himself. He was in fact up to date; he had laid out the sequence of activities accurately, he simply hoped that Vanka might know something more. But he kept silent as he eavesdropped on what the girls were talking about.

“’I like you…’ Oh-hoh! Fantastic, Ul! ‘I like you’!” rejoiced Polina. “Who’s it from, do you know?”

“Yur! Konev!” Ksyusha called out, while Yurka flinched. He had nothing to do with it!

“Mm?”

“Did you happen to see someone come up to our things while we were swimming?”

“Of course I didn’t see. Your stuff isn’t any of my business!”

“Maybe it was you? You slip me a note, huh, Yurchik?” giggled Ulyana.

Yurka merely clicked his tongue and rolled his eyes after catching a jealous look from Mitka who was walking nearby.

Yurka only managed to meet with Volodya at lights out. Looking him in the eye, he knew that Volodya had been looking forward to their meeting no less than him, if not more so. Inclining his head slightly, he gave him a fixed, tender look. He was silent, but Yurka did not need words. He understood that he himself had not enough to describe even mentally the rapture that he felt from Volodya’s proximity. His breath was taken away by knowing that that closeness existed between them, the way it ran through them and bound them so tightly. Yurka dreamt of one thing only – to hurry up and kiss him.

It seemed that Volodya too wanted the same thing: without any unnecessary conversation, he nodded to Yurka in the direction of the river and, without discussing, they headed off towards the willow.

As they found themselves beneath its canopy, Yurka thought to himself that this was probably absolute happiness – touching Volodya’s face with his cheek, rubbing noses, pressing lips, all without having any memory or sensation of himself. Listening to his breathing, sensing his odour, watching his eyelashes flutter behind the frames of his glasses. This is a dream, Yurka kept telling himself, but it was not his dream; rather, it belonged to the whole world all around. It is said that a sleep is a little death and everything around really did seem to have died out. There was just the wind brushing against his skin and, with its warm gusts, making the branches of the willow sway, allowing rays of sun to break through and blaze.

Volodya wanted to sleep. He kept rubbing his tired eyes and was constantly yawning, but at Yurka’s suggestion that he take a nap, he sharply refused:

“We have too little time left. And on the contrary, we have a lot to do.”

Yurka’s breath caught.

“And what do we have to do?”

“Let’s run through the script.”

Yurka did not have any concrete plans. Afraid of his own thoughts, he had not dared dream of anything. But right then and there, when they were finally together, to practise his role?

“Why not?” he affected a smile and began: “Are you really from Leningrad? Your zity vas taken a long time ago, and if fraulein vould be zo kind as to render a small service to ze Nazi High Command…”

The lines were interesting a gave an easy distraction from his thoughts full of disappointment. Besides, parodying a German accent was very amusing for Yurka, such that he and Volodya both had a lot of fun, and even burst out laughing. Volodya took the script off Yurka and began to read himself, but he “zpoke”, as Yurka called it, too unrealistically:

“Volod, you’re overdoing it. You shouldn’t throw yourself to extremes. There has to be a harmony, like music. Here, look–”

But Volodya abruptly cut him off.

“Yur, do you know, you’re very handsome when you’re playing…”

Handsome, handsome, handsome, echoed around his head. Yurka’s eyes swam and any German, “zpeaking” and the like flew out of his head in an instant. He sat up and looked abashedly at Volodya, who was saying quietly and affectionately:

“You have such an interesting look: ethereal, but focussed. You probably don’t even notice that you never sit still – you rock back and forth, or sometimes sing to yourself, and sometimes you chew your lip. It’s so cool to watch: like, you’re kind of here with me, sitting next to me, but in reality, you’re somewhere far, far away. I look at you and wonder, where are you? You should get lost in stuff more often, I really like it…”

While he said this, Volodya grew embarrassed and got all bashful and blushed. To refuse him, so kind, gentle, so his own, was utterly impossible. But so was saying something in response – the words just caught in Yurka’s throat.

Volodya spread out on the grass and laid his head on his knee and gazed up at him from below with such a fond look that everything in his chest began to melt. It grew impossible to even breathe, let alone to speak, and Yurka laid aside the script and turned on the radio, so that the silence hanging between them did not become oppressive.

On the radio, the hour of Russian classical music was making its round again, and, when Tchaikovsky began to ring out once again, Yurka could not hold back a storm of emotion. His voice, trembling with delight, produced not at all the words that were so desperate to burst forth, but instead some others about music:

“Do you feel immersed in it? Like you’re sinking through it: the bass envelopes you, the atmosphere thickens, everything slows to a standstill and we sink slowly too, like through honey, we’re falling to the very bottom–”

“If I’d heard that two weeks ago, I would not have believed that it was Yurka Konev speaking,” Volodya smiled, but he immediately became serious. “It’s got to be you who plays the Lullaby at the play!”

“But I don’t remember it at all.”

“Relearn it! It’s got to be you, Yura. I’m begging you, play it.”

He was all aglow; the furrows on his forehead had flattened out, the exhaustion that was so habitual as to be considered one of his facial features had been wiped away. As he admired him, Yurka did not restrain himself from asking permission to stroke Volodya’s hair.

Volodya nodded. As he brushed some strands and entwined dark locks around his fingers, Yurka leaned closer and, terribly abashed, asked in a whisper:

“And can I take your glasses off? I’ve never seen you without them…”

What an intimate action it was to take Volodya’s glasses off! So exciting and anxiety-inducing that his fingers trembled, as though Volodya were going to appear before him more denuded than simply naked. His glasses turned out to be unexpectedly heavy, while his face without them was unusually sleepy and exhausted. Circles darkened beneath his eyes, on top of which Volodya was squinting funnily.

“What’s this?” he led his head along Yurka’s lap. “You have something hard in your shorts, what is it?”

“Chalk,” replied Yurka simply; he was always forgetting to take the chunk out of his shorts pocket. “I took it from Alyosha Matveyev.”

“What do you have chalk for?”

“What do you mean what for? Once you’re asleep, I’m going to use it instead of toothpaste to draw all over you. It’s the honourable way to do it, you know! Pioneers aren’t to be messed with. What an adrenaline rush – drawing on a sleeping counsellor! Not everyone would be brave enough, much less capable of going through with it.”

“And you carry it around in your pocket every day?” hemmed Volodya when he suddenly remembered: “Hey, by the way, I have a present for you!”

He got up and carefully took a big, white lump the size of an apple from his shirt pocket.

“Here. I picked it yesterday but forgot to give it to you. You did want something to remember by. Take it.” He outspread the hand he had extended to Yurka and revealed a dried white waterlily.

“You got all the way to the backwater?” whispered Yurka once the lily found itself in his outstretched palm, light as paper and yet more delicate. “You picked it anyway, despite all your saying ‘the Red Book, the Red Book…”

Volodya shrugged in thought.

“I thought it was important to you. And it… it would have died at some point anyway.”

“It’s not that it was important back then, but now… Now, I think, yes, it’s important. Thank you. I’ll preserve it.”

They were silent for a little while. To Yurka’s disappointment, Volodya stopped laying on his lap and began to sit up again. He looked at the river, thought about something of his own and suddenly, as though having just remembered something else, fired off in one breath:

“Yura, when did you realise that you didn’t feel about me in a normal way? Was it back then at the backwater when I suggested we take a dip and… got undressed?”

Yurka was terribly embarrassed by this question. Having gone red, he drawled quietly and uncertainly:

“Maybe it was then that I understood, but it all began earlier.”

“Earlier?” Volodya sighed with relief and stared Yurka in the eye. “When earlier? What did I do? Was it when I let you sleep on my shoulder?”

“No, even earlier than that. The carousel, maybe.”

“When I touched your knee?”

“‘I, I, I,’” muttered Yurka in irritation. “What’s it all got to do with you? It happened by itself, you didn’t do anything.”

“Absolutely nothing?” Yurka chewed at his lip in agitation, and his expression became imploring.

“Nothing,” nodded Yurka.

“Good…” Volodya drew out; he finally lay on the ground and once again placed his head on Yurka’s lap. “That’s good.”

Not wishing to hold back any longer, Yurka dared to reach out once again and touch his head. Volodya finally closed his eyes, while Yurka began to stroke his hair, and the whole rest of his body froze for a few long, sweet minutes.

“Shall I turn off the radio? Will you still be able to sleep alright?” he asked after a little while.

“I won’t be able to anyway.”

“Are you worried about the play?”

“Oh, no, it’s just that when you haven’t slept in a long time, falling asleep gets harder and harder, and I’ve now not slept for two nights already.”

“If you can’t fall asleep at night, sleep during the day. Right now, and I’ll keep watch over you.”

“What do you need to watch over me for?” he smiled. “I won’t be going anywhere.”

“I’ll see to it that nobody comes up to us. And what’s more – I’ll learn the script,” hemmed Yurka.

Volodya nodded:

“Let’s give it a shot.”

Yurka took his hand away from his hair and had no sooner picked up his notebook in both hands than Volodya grabbed his left hand without looking and placed it back on his head. Yurka laughed, but not a trace of emotion was reflected on Volodya’s face.

Yurka tried to learn his lines, but he could not manage to focus on the script. He kept lowering his gaze downward at Volodya’s face, stealing glances, observing how his eyelids and lashes fluttered. Admiring and worrying simultaneously.

“Still can’t?” asked Yurka quietly.

“Not at all,” replied Volodya with a sigh.

“Shall I sing you a lullaby?” guffawed Yurka.

“Yes. But I’d rather you played one. At the play. I want to see the most extraordinary Yurka, the very best in the world, at a piano and hear the Lullaby so much. You love it so much, and I… really want to watch you. To admire you. I really want to. Play it for me.”

  Yurka would sooner have chewed through the trunk of the willow than refuse him in that moment. After such words, felt like the best person on the planet. How could he not? How could he not become the best? So Yurka became.

“I’ll play it. For you.”

After getting back to the camp right after bedtime, he drew a keyboard on a long piece of paper and began to train his visual memory. Further, he got some staff paper, transcribed the notes of the Lullaby and stuck them in his pocket so that they would always be with him, so that he could practise in any practical moment.

Only, he did not manage to get any practice done that evening, because Olga Leonidovna heaped him up to his ears in work. And as soon as he had finished it, as though to mock him, she gave him more. Clearly, having decided that the Yurka the blockhead was the cause of Volodya’s failures, that dried fish began to drive him around the camp until blue in the face with a thousand orders and tasks.

Volodya, meanwhile, was stuck up to his neck in counselling work – the fifth troop was also preparing a little scene for parent’s day. Yurka had utterly no time, nor opportunity to help or see him. Stressed to no end, in the evening they just about managed to find ten minutes to be alone together. Yurka had been tempted by the though that they might be together at night, but after the news that Volodya had not slept for two full days, he did not even mentally suggest going for a walk after bedtime. Anyway, Yurka had been sleeping poorly recently as well. But he could fall asleep for even a couple of hours, while Volodya was not able to at all. Yurka knew that it was no exaggeration, either – that to which he had for a long time not paid attention was now staring him in the face: the dark circles under his eyes, Volodya’s lethargy and dejection. However much Yurka wanted to be with him all the time, he did not have the moral right to demand that Volodya not sleep at all.

***

The next day, Lastochka’s birthday, Yurka did not hope to find even half an hour before the start of the festivities to be together with Volodya. But it turned out even worse: they did not find a single minute. From the very early morning, Yurka was ordered to do a million little jobs, to do five Five-Year-Plans in three years,[2] to build a couple of BAMs[3] and to carry the piano. Yurka was outraged most of all by that last one – it would fall apart. Nevertheless, Yurka’s mood was martial.

“Faster, higher, stronger!” he heard the voice of the gym instructor Semyon coming from the sports area. His voice was thunderous, bless him, it was audible from the plaza.

 For the first time in his life, Yurka was officially – with Olga Leonidovna’s blessing – skipping exercise; he went going to the platform to decorate it for the concert and listened to the gym instructor. He expected the trees to crack apart from that huge voice and thought that he, Yurka, was already faster, taller and stronger than everyone else; even better, he was all-powerful. How could he think otherwise, when all these fantastical things happened to him, to that blockhead Konev? Volodya, the very same Komsomolets/hunk/nerd Volodya had kissed him on the cheek, taken him by the hand and said ‘You’re so handsome when you play.’ Yes, it happened infrequently, but that was not their fault. ‘If I had my way,’ Volodya had said the evening before, ‘I would never let you go.’

Moving the piano turned out not to be such a laborious task – Yurka had big-eared Alyosha and superintendent Sanych as helpers, the piano had wheels and the back entrance to the theatre and the platform had ramps. But the instrument was still to be pitied. While they hauled it, Yurka complained helplessly to himself under his breath, “Is a cassette deck not enough for them? What if it rains?” and as they set it up and checked the sound, he swore to himself – as sure as death and taxes, it was broken, the C no longer played.

“Oh, who’s going to tune it now?”

“Goodness knows we have people with the know-how, Yurok, we’ll find a person.” And with a sprightly step, the superintendent headed in the direction of the administrative block.

“Can’t you do it?” enquired Alyosha naively.

“Tuning? Of course not. But once upon a time, as it happens, I gave it a try – it’s just that I hate it when it doesn’t sound right, and I didn’t have the patience to wait for the tuners, so I climbed in myself. That’s when I almost got taken out by a broken string,” he remarked, not without bravado. “Do you see the scar on my chin?”

“Woah! You’re so brave, Yurka! You know, they said all sorts of things about you, but I didn’t believe. I said that Konev is a good guy – and it’s the honest truth, that’s really how it is!”

“What ‘sorts of things’ and who said them?”

“Different people say different things: some, that you’re a blockhead, others, that on the contrary, you’re aiming to be counsellor’s little helper. Don’t pay attention to it, let them say what they want.”

“Says who?” asked Yurka, thinking of Ksyusha.

“Well… just as long as it’s between me and you, alright?”

“I’ll keep silent as a partisan.”

“Masha Sidorova complained to Olga Leonidovna that you’re distracting the play’s director from his work, while here you are, tuning the pia –”

“Masha?!” Yurka cried out, taken aback. He added, more quietly, “Masha… You’re in for it from me!”

“Hey, it’s just between me and you, you promised!”

“It’s all in confidence, Alyosh, it’s all in confidence.”

Breakfast time drew near. As a first matter of business, Yurka hurried off to find Masha, to get it out of her, why she had been badmouthing him, but Masha was nowhere to be seen. The PUK girls were sitting as a pair, without Ksyusha. Yurka approached them, asking:

“You don’t happen to know where Masha is?”

Ulyana smiled coquettishly:

“And why would you need to know that?”

“Because I wanted to let her know that she’s not going to be taking part in the play anymore, it’s going to be me playing the accompaniment!”

“Oh boy…” Ulya trailed off.  “Take a look in the study hall. She’s drawing posters for the celebration there with Ksyusha.”

Yurka liked the spontaneous idea of doing Masha dirty so much that he decided not to look for her. He knew that the news about her exclusion from the play would spread quickly through the grapevine; Sidorova would find him herself. He just needed to warn Volodya…

***

Having warned Volodya and had breakfast, Yurka returned to the square. The third troop also turned up there, headed by their counsellor. They stood around waiting for the musical director – the camp had even such a specialist. He was responsible for the radio and the concerts. Yurka himself took a seat to wait for the steward Sanych, who appeared looking satisfied, cheerfully communicated that the musical director would tune the instrument, and spryly went about his stewarding business. The musical director appeared with an accordion, heard Yurka out and had a little go on the keyboard. He agreed and asked him to wait until the number was run through. Yurka was not given the chance to get board – he was sent to help Alyosha decorate the stage.

The July heat was marinading the third troop pioneers; they dismally trudged through a song from the film Guest from the Future:

I hear your voice from the wonderful faraway, A morning voice in the silver dew, I hear a voice, a beckoning path Makes my head spin, like a childhood carousel.

With that dismal accompaniment, Yurka hung the heavy, dark blue curtains together with his jug-eared comrade. Both of them got worn out – the thin loops kept falling off the hooks or tearing and had to be sewn back on while it hung. The music director did not want to leave his wards, who continued to groan, rather than sing, the sad children’s song about a happy future.

Every now and then, Yurka got distracted by it. He did not particular love that film; Guest had always felt too tedious for him, and if the first watch had been interesting, then by the second Yurka was already bored of it. But he had watched the whole series more than once – his mother’s friend’s daughter Tonka adored that film, but was still too small to go to the cinema alone, so Yurka, motivated by the fifteen copecks ‘for ice cream’ industriously took her to every screening. He knew the film practically line for line. He even knew the song, but he had never once listened to it attentively, nor given the lyrics any thought. But now he was paying attention, and he grew sad – it reminded him about how time was passing, how the season would come to an end soon, and he and Volodya would have to go their separate ways.

The kids kept repeating and repeating the final couplet:

I swear that I’ll be cleaner and kinder, And to never get a friend in trouble, I hear a voice and hurry to the summons, As fast as possible, on the road where there is no trace.

Even the shadows were melting in the ridiculous heat, yet a chill ran down Yurka’s spine: On the road where there is no trace, he repeated in his head. Suddenly he understood that the song was a horror story! That it was not all about a bright future; rather, it was about the loss of a comprehensible, kind present – childhood. Yurka was already tired, his head was spinning from hunger, and delirious images turned over in his imagination: he saw the wide, grey road, himself, Volodya and everybody present there. They were walking forward, without guessing that that way was the way to nowhere, that they were not walking by themselves, but rather they were being pulled into the unknown by the black hole of the future, which would inexorably swallow him, Volodya, and all those children.

He shook his head and hurried to distract himself.

“There’s just one curtain left to hang.”

It seemed to Yurka that he and Alyosha had been hanging the curtains for an infinitely long time, while the kids kept singing and singing that awful song. Finally, the siren called them to lunch.

Yurka ate without an appetite, looking the whole time at his Volodya in the far corner of the canteen. He was standing with his back to him, wearing, like usual, shorts, a white shirt and a red neckerchief. Yurka was suddenly struck by thought that in no time at all, Volodya would no longer be dressed like that. That Volodya would change, and Yurka would change too, they would both inescapably grow up. He knew that he did not want to grow up, that he did not want into that ‘faraway’ – even worse, he was afraid of it.

In less than a week they would go their separate ways. Maybe not forever, maybe not even for years, just for months, but they would be separated. And how would Yurka see him the next year? Would Volodya become taller and wider in the shoulders? Would he smile more or less often? Would his expression get sterner, or more exhausted than it was then? Or maybe it would be the other way round and it would get softer and kinder. So many questions, and nobody could give him answers.

Lunchtime came to an end; the little raisin biscuit for desert slightly improved Yurka’s mood. He pinched another one, having resolved to move his mood from neutral to positive with its help, but glancing at the half-starved Volodya – the kids were acting up again, not letting him have a normal mealtime – and he decided to leave the biscuit for him.

They bumped into each other at the exit; Volodya began to protest, insisting that Yurka eat it himself, but Yurka was uncompromising. Volodya was grateful and promised that as soon as he had dealt with his barefoot horde, he would meet with him by the platform, if they managed before the ceremonial parade.

Yurka walked back and thought, The season’s ending – tell me something I don’t know! Of course it’s ending. Everything ends, and now it’s ending. But why so soon? But somehow it had seemed to him like all this would be forever. At camp, where one days goes by in two, a lot of things can feel like that. Yurka could not believe that in less than a week, his whole life would change: there would be no forest, nor camp, nor friends, nor theatre, nor Volodya. And already that Yurka Konev that his mum had sat on the camp bus was no more, since he had already changed. A month before, he would not have dreamt that he would do the things he had done: helping out, taking part, and most of all, taking up the piano again. How glad his mum would be when Yurka took the clutter off his instrument! But would he be glad to return to his cramped room in an old apartment in a grey nine-storey block, one of thousands in his dusty city?

The ennui of which he had already grown tired gripped Yurka once again, and in order to dispel it, he headed for that wonderful instrument that could help him forget about whatever necessary.

Alyosha and the others responsible for decorating the square ran around their separate ways with their troops. The end of the day’s work approached and silence reigned in the camp, apart from the cook Zinaida Vasilyevna, thundering as she heaved some pots out the pantry, and both the gym instructors, Zhenya and Semyon, solving crosswords as they sat on a small bench in the shade of an apple tree. Yurka climbed onto the emptying stage. He checked whether the piano was tuned, nodded in satisfaction, took out the crumpled sheet of paper with the Lullaby on it, took a seat by the instrument and arranged his score. And life began to shine in new colours.

The gentle melody flowed through the scorching air like honey. Yurka hunched over the keyboard in focus. His fingers glided over the keys and came to a stop, barely making contact. The black G flats and A sharps alternated between the second and third octaves with deep Cs, and his fingers fluttered right back up to the bright A and F. But Yurka was unsatisfied. The piece was not simple, after a long break it came back to him with difficulty. Nothing worked out, he kept playing wrong notes and shaking his head in irritation. As he repeated it again and again, fingering the keys, Yurka began to think about how, perhaps, the examiner had been right back then, at school. Perhaps he really was giftless?

Suddenly all went dark before his eyes – someone, stealing up from behind, had covered his face with their palms.

“Can you play it like this?” asked Volodya quietly. Yurka could tell from his voice that he was smiling.

“Hey, let me go!” Yurka feigned indignation.

“Nuh-uh. Tell me, Yur,” he began, without taking his hands away, “are you satisfied with yourself? We have the play in three days. Go on, train as hard as you can, so that everything succeeds, and you’ll be able.”

“I’ll be able to do it, just not right now, I’m not in the right mood. Oh Volodya, take them away! Or let’s do it like this – I’ll play it with one eye closed.”

“As if! What a fool I’ve got here. No way, both.”

“I won’t!”

“Alright, how about like this then?” he just slightly moved his fingers apart. Yurka began to be able to see the keyboard.

“The-e-ere we go! It’s another matter entirely!” Yurka burst out laughing. After glancing from side to side to check that the dancefloor was completely empty, he threw his head back and rested the back of it against Volodya’s stomach. He looked up at him from below, smiling. Volodya smiled also.

They played like that until Volodya abruptly withdrew his hands and recoiled to the side. Yurka startled in surprise, opened his eyes and followed Volodya’s gaze. By the edge of the stage, staring at them with wide eyes, stood a pale Masha, gripping a broom tightly.

Yurka felt uneasy, but one look at how frightened Volodya was, and he caught his fear as well.

“Where are you flying off to?” blurted Yurka in order to diffuse the atmosphere and turn it all into a joke.

“What?” said Masha angrily.

“On the broom,” explained Yurka. “You’re standing here, pretending to sweep a clean floor.”

“Is this, in your opinion, funny, Konev? And more to the point, what’s this all about?”

“What are you talking about? About how you’re a witch, or about how you’re little snitch?”

“Yurka, stop it!” Volodya cut in. “And you too, Masha! I already explained to you that he was joking. Yura will only be playing the Lullaby at the play!”

“Then why did he tell the girls–”

They were interrupted by the signal horn calling the pioneers back from recess. If not for it, Yurka would have bitten Masha’s head off, he was so angry at her.

Soon, Mitka announced over radio broadcast the assembly for the ceremonial parade.

The day passed by unremarkably. First was the parade: the flag, the pioneer salute, Deep Blue Nights. The everyone rushed to the sports area to compete. They ran sack races and relay races – Yurka, as it happened, beat the third troop’s counsellor – and played tug-of-war and lapta.[4] Then all the older boys were called together for football. Volodya was on the opposing team, and even then, Yurka, focussed solely on the ball and the goals, gave himself the target of beating the counsellors’ team even by himself, but it came to a draw.

The final part of the festival day, the concert, Yurka was looking forward to least of all. Still, taking part was always more interesting than watching, and there was nothing worth watching. The only thing that caught his interest and made him laugh turned out to be the fifth troop’s number, where the kids performed a skit about rocket launches at the Baikonur cosmodrome. The pilot, and at the same time, the spacecraft was Sashka. Stuck from head to toe in a grey cardboard cylinder, he proudly cast his gaze down upon the spectators from his round face hole and shook the spacecraft-coloured cone on his head. Pcholkin stood at the control panel and violently struck a red, also cardboard, button. At Sasha’s signal of Vwoosh! he was launched into space and girls dressed as stars ran all around, while all the rest of the kids began to sing a song about the Earth seen from a porthole.

Yurka had absolutely no idea why it had to do with the camp’s birthday, but it was funny.

During the next troop’s performance, Yurka began to get bored. He started to fidget on the spot and look out for Volodya. He found him very quickly – he was sitting two rows behind Yurka, his head bowed and his eyes either cast downwards or closed. Volodya looked exactly like he did at rehearsals – like he was reading the notebook laying across his lap. But it was not a rehearsal, and he had no notebook on his lap. The number finished and people began to applaud the second troop; suddenly, Volodya dropped forwards, started, and sharply raised his head. From the way his eyelids fluttered, Yurka guessed that the counsellor had been asleep. He did not manage to get to sleep in the silence beneath willow in Yurka’s lap, but he could do so there, in the din of the concert, sitting next to Olga Leonidovna.

She, as he judged, could not have failed to notice it. She looked at him with concern and asked him something, but, after hearing his response, did not start scolding him like Yurka was expecting. On the contrary, she beckoned Lena, whispered something in her ear and nodded at Volodya, who immediately got up and left. To sleep, Yurka guessed.

Well, that’s good, he thought as that dismal song about the wonderful faraway began to play yet again.

Yurka awaited the evening like Heaven’s manna.

When the festival disco started, he immediately hurried over to the fifth troop’s dorm. Finding his way in, he took all of a couple of steps down the dark corridor before he jumped on the spot – somebody bumped into his stomach and squealed in surprise.

“Sasha? Why aren’t you in your hall? On the hunt for blackcurrants again?”

“Not at all,” wheezed Sashka as he tried to catch his breath, “I was going to pee. Volodya’s asleep and Zhenya’s sitting with us, telling us horror stories…”

“That scary, huh?” chuckled Yurka.

“Not at all,” repeated Sashka dejectedly, clearly not understanding the joke. “It’s the opposite, it’s about DSC. It’s so boring! Save us, Yura!”

Torn between the desire to go to Volodya’s bedroom – especially as he was alone in there – and his duty to help the sleeping counsellor to put the children to bed, Yurka a long time on the fence. He only came back to his senses on the doorstep of the bedroom and did not notice immediately that Sashka was no longer next to him.

It was dark in the bedroom. On a chair by the door, clutching a torch, sat Zhenya, who was saying in a spooky voice:

“A car with the inscription DSC, which means ‘Death to Soviet Children’ stopped next to the boy and this old gaffer got out. He went up to the boy and started talking him into getting into the car, he promised to give him a puppy, sweets, toys. But the boy didn’t agree. He got scared and ran away, but the machine drove after him…”

“Yula!” squealed Olezhka in joy. The gym instructor jumped. The little boys all began to make a cheerful racket: “Stay with us!”, “Tell uth a howwow thtowy!”, “Is it true that there’s cars like that?”

“Come on, let’s listen to Zhenya,” suggested Yurka as he sat down on Sashka’s empty bed and frantically planned what to do next. The prospect of sitting with the boys until lights out for everybody, and then spending the night alone did not tempt Yurka.

Zhenya continued in a sepulchral voice, “The boy managed to hide in an abandoned house and did not fall into the hands of the spies, but if they’d caught him–”

But he was not allowed to finish. The door to the bedroom was flung open, and on the doorstep appeared a sleepy, dishevelled and unkempt Volodya, and Sashka, satisfied, hung around behind him.

Unable to hold back the delight flaring up withing him, Yurka stepped forward involuntarily to meet Volodya and took his hand. Volodya squeezed his palm in response, playing it off like a normal handshake. The children rejoiced – “Now it’ll be a good horror story!” Even Zhenya was glad for the counsellor arriving; he rolled his eyes and moaned:

“Finally! Can I go?”

“You can,” said Volodya sleepily and nasally. “Thank you for stepping in.”

“Will you tell a horror story now?” squeaked Sashka, squinting craftily.

Yurka guessed then that the counsellor had been helped along in waking up, and, grasping that Volodya must still be hungry, he burst into a full panic: where would he have to run, what would he have to do to feed him?

At the same time, Volodya awkwardly flopped onto the edge of an unoccupied bed and tried to smoothen out his dishevelled hair with his hand, but in fact did the opposite, and just got it more tangled. Lost, he whispered in Yurka’s ear:

“What should we tell them? We’ve not come up with anything for a long time.”

“Then think of something!” ordered Yurka. He brushed his ear with his nose, pretending as though it was by accident.

“I can’t come up with anything at all right now,” grumbled Volodya.

And as though in support of Yurka’s recent concern that Volodya wanted to eat, a new sound reverberated through the room – the hungry rumbling of his stomach. Right then, a realisation deigned to strike Yurka – almost all the children got sent parcels by their parents, and that meant that the children had food! Yurka livened up:

“I’m giving you a five-minute head start. Get thinking.”

Giving Volodya time to think, he stood in the middle of the room and began to take charge:

“Listen up, everybody! So that your counsellor’s brain can work, he needs fuel, by which I mean food. Climb in your siloes, scrape out your granaries, your counsellor needs to eat!”

“What’s a granary?” they asked from the right corner by the window.

“And a grarany? Or was it granary?” they asked from the left, by the door.

“Your parcels,” explained Yurka. “Is there anything left from your parcels or have you gobbled it all up? Sanya, I know for a fact that you’ve got biscuits under your pillow,” he poked a finger at Sashka’s bed. “I’ll swap half a pack for one excellent horror story.”

“How do you know that I’ve got biscuits?” scowled the fat boy.

“From the fact that I check your beds every morning,” Volodya rushed in, reinforcing Yurka’s guess.

To his surprise, Sanya did not argue and pulled out a packet of Jubilees, squeezed the biscuits to his chest and asked doubtfully:

“And the horror story will be really superb?”

“That depends on the biscuits,” Yurka crossed his arms over his chest.

“But the main thing is that it’s fresh and based on a true story!” Volodya gave Yurka to understand that he had thought of something to say.

“Oh-hoh!” Sanka nodded, satisfied, but his hands trembled all the same when he thrust the biscuits towards Volodya. “If the horror story turns out to be bad, then give the biscuits back!”

Volodya nodded and, having rapidly torn the wrapper off, crunched into a biscuit.

“Chewed up?” chuckled Yurka. “Deal!”

“No, not chew–” Sashka only managed to get out his indignation before Volodya, without having chewed fully, began to tell his story.

“Literally the day before yesterday in the morning, I got woken up by some kind of strange rustling in the bedroom. I open an eye, look at the floor and there’s this weird black spot crawling along the floor, all fuzzy with a strange spiky outline! And it was crawling right towards Zhenya’s bed, and at the same time, making this terrifying rustling sound…” he crunched into another biscuit. “And Zhenya’s asleep like nothing’s happening. I was overcome by terror, I don’t know what it is or what it might do! Then the spot suddenly stopped! Then it began to shift on the spot, it turned away from Zhenya’s bed and started heading for me! And I can’t even grope around on my bedside table for my glasses, I’m too scared to move! Well, somehow, I caught hold of a book instead of my glasses, I crept to the edge of the bed, preparing to attack… The spot was circling the room all the while, now it’s creeping to Zhenya’s bed. Taking advantage of the situation, I jumped up and stole up to it, but just as I was about to swat it… the spot flung itself at my leg! I cried out and jumped away. Zhenya woke up, not understanding anything that was going on. I pointed at it, he saw it and oh, how he swore! And then he pulled the blanket off his bed and through it right on the spot! He says to me, ‘Volodya, put your glasses on!’ I pick my way over to the nightstand and stick my glasses on, while Zhenya rolled the blanket up into a ball and took it in his hands. I look and out of it comes this… pink nose! And it sniffs about! Confess, who brought our Fyr-Fyr here out of his green corner? They almost gave a counsellor an aneurysm!”

Yurka couldn’t hold back – he laughed heartily. His laughter was picked up by the kids.

“That’th no howwow thtowy!” squeaked Olezhka happily. “It’th a comedy!”

“However the food is, that’s how the story’ll be. I did warn you!” declared Yurka, and, imitating Volodya’s commanding tone, “That’s all. And now it’s time to sleep.”

“Under the duvet. And without any chatting,” Volodya tagged on.

They only finished putting the children to bed half an hour later. Finding themselves outside, breathing the fresh, still warm air, Volodya cheerfully asked Yurka:

“How are you? How’s your day gone?” and he squeezed his hand for the second time that day.

“I’ve missed you!” blurted Yurka.

As though hearing from elsewhere what he had said, Yurka instantly went red and grew hoarse – he had blabbed something very candid. He coughed and slapped a seat on the carousel, inviting Volodya to sit next to him. The latter seemed to like what he had heard; he smiled, and, putting on a show, adjusted his glasses.

“I’ve als–” Volodya did not get to finish before they were interrupted.

A piercingly loud shriek, twenty voices strong, rang out from the female chambers. Volodya flew to the porch and tugged on the door, but it turned out to be locked from the inside. Yurka dashed to the window, jumped up and saw ghosts were ‘flying’ around the room with bedsheets and torches.

“Volod! Everything’s alright, it’s not an attack. Some ghosts have come to visit the girls,” he related, laughing.

Volodya ran up to him and also took a look; Yurka felt him casually put his arm round his waist.

“Six ghosts!” exclaimed the counsellor as though nothing much in particular was happening, just a hug, as it should be. “Let’s catch them!”

He disentangled from him and, with a reckless smile, he broke off for the other door – the one for the boys’ room, which turned out not to be locked. Yurka stood by the window and watched how a few seconds later, Volodya broke in with a wild cry Aha! to the room full of frightened girls, moved the confused and ragged Lena to the side and caught the first ghost. The others fled outside in fright and opened the locked door. And Yurka was waiting for them there.

They only left the dorm once all the ghosts were rendered harmless, placed back in their chambers and put to sleep.

“And what are you in such a good mood for?” Yurka was surprised.

Before, Volodya would always get angry at disobedience, while Yurka would be entertained by it, but now it had flipped round the other way. He had not noticed when it was that they swapped places.

“Firstly, I’ve finally got some sleep, secondly, I’ve realised that if I don’t learn to treat these pranks with a sense of humour, then I’ll just die of all these little things,” chuckled Volodya. “Evidently the horror story really was bad this time. It didn’t work,” Volodya took Yurka’s hand and led him into the bushes.

The thick undergrowth of lilacs and some other bush, Yurka could not make it out in the darkness, clustered together off into the distance. It was dark and quiet there; it seemed that they could hide there from anyone, even from ghosts with torches, despite that Volodya and Yurka could see the whole clearing.

But no longer were they keeping watch for anyone, nor expecting, nor following anyone, either. Finally left alone together, they were occupied solely with each other, and they embraced tremblingly, whispering to each other about whatever nonsense.

After no more than half an hour, the sound of someone’s footsteps on the path leading to the fifth troop’s dorm could be heard. Yurka heard them first and recoiled from Volodya:

“Do you hear that?”

Volodya pressed a finger to his lips and peered out of the bushes, lightly moving the branches apart, in such a way that Yurka could also see. Walking on the path, it was Masha.

She had a look into the window of the girls’ bedroom; she was looking for a long time. Clearly, she was searching for someone in the room, weakly illuminated by a nightlight. Yurka could guess who – Volodya. Not finding the counsellor there, Masha approached a different window – the boys’ bedroom. She looked, waited, listened. Figuring that he was not there either, she picked her way through the flowerbed to a third window.

“My room,” whispered Volodya.

It was absolutely dark there; Masha quickly returned to the porch and, the door quietly creaking, she cautiously made her way inside. Volodya noticeably tensed up.

“Has she gone mad? Where’s she sneaking?” Volodya twitched at his side and would have leapt up, had Yurka not grabbed him by the elbow.

“Wait! Do have something dodgy there? I mean, compromising stuff, anything like that?”

“No, not really,” he reflected.

“Then don’t get up. If she sees you roaming around in the bushes, what will she think?”

“Like hell am I going to hide here while someone rummages around in my room!”

Volodya leapt out of the bushes at just the right moment. Masha came out a minute later and collided with Volodya at the doors. It was too late by then for Yurka to come out. His anxiety grew with each passing second; his awful guess would not let him stand in peace – could lovesick Masha have gone so far off kilter that she was now stalking Volodya?

Wrestling with his mad urge to fling himself at her and tell her everything he thought, Yurka froze in the bushes and felt like a helpless idiot. The porch was too far away: he not only could not hear their conversation, Yurka could not even read their lips – the weak lamp was made flickery by the mosquitoes encircling it, it was impossible to make anything out. One thing was clear – Masha replied to Volodya in such a way that negated all his outrage.

They concluded. Masha unhurriedly left down the path and had no sooner gone down below than Yurka emerged from the bushes and ran up to Volodya:

“Well? What did she say?” he blurted, panting from worry.

“She was looking for you…” replied Volodya, perplexed. “She said that Irina is looking for you, and since you weren’t in the theatre, Masha though that you might be with me. I can’t say that it was strange. You’re in the same troop, she often helps Irina out, and it’s just so normal, but… I wasn’t expecting it.”

“No the whole thing is still weird! You know, they told me that Masha was telling on me. She was behaving very strangely, did you notice? She turns up near to us too often…”

“Are you not exaggerating?”

Seeing Volodya’s gracious smile, Yurka grew embarrassed. He probably thought that Yurka remembered their dance too well and was still jealous, and that that was why he was ready to blame Masha for anything. And if that was really what Volodya thought, then he was right. Yurka’s burning desire to leap out of the bushes and catch the spy red-handed was aroused precisely by jealousy. But Yurka also found arguments in favour of his theory.:

“It’s not the first time she’s been walking at nighttime. Remember back when Irina came to the theatre and had a go at me, she asked what I’d been doing with Masha and where we’d been walking? And it is true, wherever we are, she’s always nearby. Volod, we have to talk about her walks!”

“Let’s sort it out with Irina first.”

And Yurka headed for her almost immediately. All the same his mood was spoilt, and Volodya was paranoid again; he kept freezing, listening closely and looking around, and he would not even let him touch his hand. The evening had already come to an end.

After hastily saying goodbye to Volodya, Yurka returned to his own troop and found his counsellor. Expecting that she would be narrowing her eyebrows at him from the doorstep and would start shouting, he had already prepared to babble some justifications, but Ira stared in surprise at him and replied:

“No, not at all, I wasn’t looking for you.” Yurka had by then turtled up behind his hands, while Ira exclaimed. “But where were you, by the way?”

“With Volodya.”

“Have you seen the time?! Yura, this isn’t a game! If you’re going to be late, you should give me some warning!” Yurka was overwhelmed, wrestling with confusing, anxious feelings. A lot of girls were constantly hanging around Volodya, but it seemed to Yurka that Masha was cropping up too often. It must have been jealousy. On top of everything else, he was also evidently infected with Volodya’s paranoia.

[1] The poem is Leto na vesax (“Summer on the Scales) by Agniya Barto (1901–1981). Each verse of the poem has an AABBCC… rhyme scheme in Russian:

Jest’ v našem lagere vesy, Ne prosto tak, ne dlja krasy, My vyjasnjajem po utram, Kto popolnel, na skol’ko gramm, Net, my ne xodim v dal’nij les: A vdrug v poxode sbavim ves?!

…And so on. One day, if I revisit and revise these translations, I’d like to put some effort into making the English poetry fit the meter and rhyme of the Russian originals where possible, but that’s hard and it’s not a priority for me, so for the time being, I’ve just rendered literal, fairly word-for-word translations of all the songs and poems in the book. I’m sure I must be missing lots of puns or other jokes in the poems as well, because they just seem so random to me.

[2] The Five-Year Plans were a series of economic plans, most associated with the efforts to industrialise and modernise the Soviet Union under Stalin, consisting of production targets and quotas for various industries to fulfil over the course of five years. Many of them were declared complete (to what extent they actually were is subject to academic debate) early, and you can find a lot of old Soviet posters encouraging workers to “make five years in four” and similar slogans. One of my proudest academic achievements is getting 97.5% on my final essay, about the Five-Year Plans, for high school history when I was 18 lol.

[3] The BAM [Baikal-Amur Mainline, or in Russian, Bajkalo-Amurskaya Magistral’] is a railway in Eastern Siberia and the Russian Far East. It is one of the longest railways in the world. The main route from Tayshet to Sovetskaya Gavan’ was built, with large interruptions, between 1938 and 1984.

[4] A Russian folk bat-and-ball game.