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“Errn…. Dude?” Asked his friend, the one he invited to come over after class to play video games. They had just entered his room and while Flug was saving his belongings inside the wardrobe to deal with the mess later, said friend was sitting on the ground, setting up the console. “Why is there a crow in your window?”
Flug looked over a shoulder at the aforementioned opening in the wall where its yellow curtains swayed in the wind, and a crow was resting on the sill.
The boy laughed.
“Oh, that’s Lord Black Hat.” He explained. “He appears sometimes to keep me company.” Reaching deep inside one of the cabinets to withdraw a metal pot hidden there. “My parents tried scaring him out but he always comes back, so I gave him a name. Here -” Flug called, opening the metal pot for his friend to see inside. “I give him snacks sometimes, he likes these types of seeds.” From inside, he took out a pistachio seed, opened it with the help of teeth, and opened his palm up with the green seed inside.
The friend just kept looking at the red and absolutely terrible lifeless expression on the face of said dark bird. Those animalistic eyes seemed to be reading his soul. And to make things even weirder, the crow was huge. Like, the size of a big cat.
It wasn’t abnormal to see crows in that city, they are surrounded by cornfields - but a crow with that size was pretty rare.
Flug approached like he was already pretty used to being close to that scary creature .
“Are you hungry?” He asked in a low voice, looking at the bird. In his palm, there were three small green pistachio seeds. The crow, slowly, took his evil look out of Flug’s friend, then he looked directly at Flug’s eyes and after that at Flug’s palm, biting the seeds with his beak and swallowing them.
The younger boy beamed, happy.
“Did you see?” He asked his friend. “He is completely harmless.”
“But isn’t it creepy as hell?” The other boy asked as Flug reached a hand to pet the bird in the head like he was, indeed, a big cat. “I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if this thing was on my window!”
Flug hummed, thinking about it for a second, caressing the top of the crow’s head. The bird closed its eyes, enjoying.
“I don’t feel scared. He isn’t a bad company.” He replied to his friend. Pondering. “But sometimes he startles me. The other night when I woke up he was sleeping on top of my blankets, looking at me from above.” He said, in a lower voice, probably embarrassed to say such a thing in the presence of the crow. “But I don’t mind, really!” For assurance, he added out loud.
The friend looked at him with a worried expression.
“Dude, you mad?” He asked, laughing.
Flug only shrugged, sitting beside him in front of the TV and taking one of the controllers.
“Yeah, maybe…” He laughed. “Well, it's easier to vent to a crow than to my parents, you know.”
The friend sympathetically smiled at him.
“I guess... But, hey, you can talk to me too.” He said. “If you want.”
Flug looked at him, but his smile wasn’t a warm one, it was rather a bit upset.
“Thanks, but I know you only came because you want help with your science project,” Flug said, knowing the real reason. “Next year you will go back to ignore me, like the others.”
The friend frowned at him, surprised.
“W-who said anything about that?” He asked, after a minute of speechless stuttering.
Flug started the game, picking up one of the guns on the ground of the battlefield and going to look for the enemies to shoot at.
“ Lord Black Hat .” He answered, with a malicious grin on his lips.
“The crow?! What the hell, dude?!” Exclaimed the other boy, scared.
Flug started laughing out loud, with tears in his eyes as if that had been the funniest joke ever.
“I was kidding !” He said, playing the game.
His friend punched his arm, playfully.
“You freak .” He groaned, cursing Flug in a playful way. “That was scary as hell.”
The younger boy looked over his shoulder to see if the crow was still in his window - and checking that it was indeed, Flug went back to play the game. His friend finally joined in.
-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-
“Sorry, I can’t date you…” Flug told her.
The girl was a short one, with pink hair and a pink dress. She used too much makeup and she smelled like rich girly perfume. She was really cute. Many other guys from high school wanted to go out with her, but she decided she wanted Flug - and he could clearly see in her eyes that rejection was never a possibility in her plan.
“ What? ” She asked, shocked. Almost livid. “Do you have any idea who I am?!”
Flug took a deep breath in and then he sighed. Of course, that was going to happen.
They were outside of the school. Flug just wanted to go to the library, give back a pair of books, go to the supermarket, buy some nuts for Lord Black Hat and go home where he’ll probably be alone for another four hours, then he’d have to cook something for himself to eat (because due to the absence of his parents at this point he practically lives on his own in that house) and finally sleep.
High school was dull, the classes were boring, the people were way too irritable and irritating, the teachers started to stop liking him because he was showing too many signs of being a genius, and the people he thought were his friends didn’t, in reality, liked him after Flug stopped letting them use him for projects and studies, so he lost all of them.
In all honesty, Flug was getting tired of this shit. He wanted to go to college earlier.
Even the girls were way too… girly for him.
“Look, you are great. Yes, many guys want to date you. But I know you are just planning to use me as a tool to become the next scholar representative and win the student council elections.” He explained, adjusting his backpack over his shoulder. He wishes she would just drop the deal already. “In the end, I’m gonna get anxiety and start using controlled medicine, so I really wanna prevent that from happening.”
She wasn’t the first and probably won’t be the last one to try to use him. Whatever. He just wants to have a life where he isn’t a manipulative-people-magnet.
Her face was red in rage, but she faked it behind her evil and horrible personality.
"Are you gay ?" She asked, laughing at his face. Her eyes were unfocussed. She was clearly desperate to try turning the tables on a late game. "Because, seriously , that's the only explanation! What’s your problem?!"
Flug looked at her from behind his thick goggles with a bored and tired expression.
“My problem, Lydia ,” He began, looking at her. “is this fucking city and this fucking school.” He raised a hand in the air, gesturing to the school and to the lawn they were in front of, where many other students were passing by. “No matter who I try to befriend - everyone is either selfish, ignorant, or sadistic. Either I'm treated like garbage, or an object, or a shortcut to get something. And I’m tired of that.” He vented, turning around and just leaving her behind.
The girl groaned, stomping her feet on the ground and crossing her arms - pouting.
Serves her right, she was way too spoiled .
-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-
Crows don't speak , they don't have vocal cords to pronounce words. It was a good thing most of the time. But, sometimes, Flug wishes he could actually talk to Lord Black Hat while he’s awake other than just in the dreams' world.
“I bet she cried.”
In his mind - the dream world was an empty lab with a library, where he could save books in the infinity roll of bookshelves on the right, and keep the ideas of projects and discoveries he still wants to use on the left side.
There were machines, laboratory glassware, and a lot of papers.
In his dream world, he could do a lot of things. As long as it follows the principles of physics.
“Now you are just being mean.”
He replied, his voice echoing on the walls of the white lab. Spinning around in the wheelchair, sitting unlike usual, arms resting on the back.
“Well, I can’t help it. I hate her.”
In his dream world, the crow is a man. A tall one, as dark as the bird’s feathers are. His attire is of a 60s gentleman, and - for the sake of the name, probably - he uses a hat. He didn't have an animal-like face, but he was way too eery to be human either.
“You hate everyone that talks to me.”
He spun on the wheelchair again, mumbling.
“Because they don’t deserve you.”
He halted, frowning at the figure floating in front of him.
“Sometimes I think you cursed me. Because it’s impossible for me to be so unlucky.”
Lord Black Hat barked a laugh at his theory.
“Why would I do that? Because I’m a crow? You’re not even religious.”
Flug stood from his chair, getting closer to one of the bookshelves. He was short but the stair is always where he needs it to be when he’s in that dream world.
“When you appeared outside my window for the first time, yes, I thought you were the omen of my death. A psychopomp--”
He read the word on one of the pages of the book he took out of the shelf, it was a new one - he learned recently. The genius kid seeking challenging knowledge.
“Oh, that’s cute.”
The black man grinned, giggling, pressing a hand against his lips trying to suppress it.
“-- but you just… appeared and decided to stay without a reason. Well, you brought me clarifications that prevent me from a later headache, and I thank you for that, but--”
He saved the book back into the shelf and took another one out.
“This is all just a fanciful illusion in my head because I have no one else to talk to, isn’t it?”
The boy sighed, leafing through the book, looking for the page he wanted.
“You are not a bad omen. You are not a good omen. You are not real. And you are not even a crow!”
He groaned, showing the floating man in front of him the page of the book he was holding open. On the page, there was a technical observation of details that distinguish both birds.
“You are a Raven !”
The old man laughed at him, clearly amazed. After laughing a lot (to the point he decided to stand on the floor to rest against his own knees), he shrugged.
Flug was pissed.
“It took me three years!”
Black Hat grinned, not at all apologetic.
“I’m sorry?”
The boy was not satisfied with that apology.
“Why do you keep coming back? Is it because I feed you?”
The dark-skinned eery man approached, their height difference getting more apparent with how closer he got. Sometimes they touch. Sometimes just Flug is touched by those cold hands. Sometimes he wakes up sweating. And those times the dream world seems way too real.
“What can I say? I like you.”
The boy sighed, putting the book back on the shelf. The dark man was already within reach distance.
“You are creepy.”
With a taloned finger, Black Hat traced Flug’s flushed cheeks.
“If I’m nothing but your imagination, it is you who is creepy.”
Flug couldn’t argue with that statement, even though he knows pretty well he isn’t capable of creating a dream world like that.
Black Hat kept rubbing the back of his talon against Flug’s skin.
The boy sighed, defeated.
"Yeah, maybe…"