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For Misha's seventeenth birthday, he sat in the dark basement that his adoptive parents had confined him to and stared at a wall. He had only been in Canada for a matter of days, and already they hated him. He didn't even think they knew it was his birthday. There was a good chance that his мама had changed more than just the year of his birth on his birth certificate. For all he knew, his legal birthday could be in January.
As the year dragged on, there never came a day when his adopters wished him a happy birthday, but Misha didn't care. It was what he had expected, anyway. He had long ago accepted that they didn't care about him enough to celebrate the day that he was inflicted upon the world.
There wasn't a single person in Canada who cared about him enough to wonder about his birthday. None of them even knew that he was legally two. At least it meant that there was literally nothing tying him to this godawful excuse for a country, apart from his age and lack of money. He was already counting down the days until he turned eighteen. At least then he would have the comfort of knowing that he could legally leave, even if his lack of money still technically stopped him.
Every day of school was just another tick on his calendar, and Misha found himself drifting through life in something of a daze. He wasn't alive; just a faint outline in the shape of a boy, waiting for the day that he could move away and become real again.
About halfway through the year, he found something that filled him back in, just a little bit. With nothing to do in his stupid basement but listen to music, he found himself drifting towards hip-hop. He had a fairly gammy laptop that his adoptive parents had grudgingly coughed up the funds for, and he used it to write songs and upload them to YouTube. Bad Egg was more than a username to Misha. He wasn't a means of hiding Misha's real identity, he was Misha's real identity. Bad Egg was the only part of Misha that felt alive.
Finally, Misha had a community. Granted, it was a community that totalled fourteen people, but to them, he mattered. The same could not be said about anyone in Canada. Even the people who tried to be nice to him were pushed away eventually. Misha had a reputation to protect, after all.
Misha would spend his classes thinking up new ideas for his raps and music videos. His grades plummeted even lower than they had been, but Misha couldn't bring himself to care. Everyone thought he was stupid anyway, why should he bother to try and prove them wrong? He knew he was smarter than most of his classmates, and that was all that mattered.
He found himself settling into something of a routine. Go to school, spend the day staring at the wall, come back home and write his music or workout, or just stare at the wall. Go to sleep, wake up and repeat. It wasn't fun, but it was better than being screamed at or shoved around by his adoptive parents. But of course, it all ended up being ruined by his stupid cousin's stupid birthday.
He didn't want to go to the party in the first place, but his adopters dragged him along anyway. The poor kid looked bored out of his mind, just sitting there kicking his feet while all the adults talked over his head about how big he was getting. Misha wanted to do something fun for the boy, to stop him looking so dead inside. When his adoptive father realised that Misha had snuck away with the birthday boy, he called him out of the building without even checking what they had been doing. And while Misha was standing there, getting berated, the birthday boy was inside giving himself alcohol poisoning.
Misha was dragged home in disgrace and shoved back into the basement. The entire drive home, his adoptive mother wept about how unfair her life was, and his adoptive father roared at him and threatened to call the police. In the end, they spoke to the church that he had stolen the wine from. As a seventeen year old, he wouldn't have been charged anyway, so his adopters figured he'd have a better chance of actually suffering if they let the school handle his punishment.
And by God did he suffer in the St. Cassian's Chamber Choir. They practiced after school three times a week, and spent two hours before church on Sunday's getting ready for their weekly performance at Mass. Misha wasn't even a fucking Catholic. He would spend the Sunday performance on his phone, grateful at least that they were up in the gallery so that nobody could see.
He hated the choir with a passion. Not necessarily the members, apart from one, but the fact that he had to take part in it at all. And frankly, the members of it seemed to hate him as well. The only one who seemed to halfway tolerate him was Constance, and she was something of a pushover anyway. She could tolerate anyone. Noel spent most of his time ignoring everyone and writing in a little black leather notebook that he kept with him at all times, and Ricky could only speak in sign language, which nobody in the choir spoke, or using a tablet that he refused to take out in choir. Misha could respect that. It was obvious that Ricky couldn't stand Ocean, the self-elected leader of the choir, even more than Misha. Giving her the silent treatment was the only thing stopping either of the boys from decking her in the face.
Every practice, Ocean would blatantly ignore Ricky, make her token effort to get Misha to join in, and then go back to talking at Constance. Noel would mostly be left to his own devices, given that he was the only boy who would actually sing.
Eventually, Misha started to bring a notebook of his own to practice, to fill the time and stop his battery health wearing down too quickly. It wasn't really a notebook, just a maths copy that he hadn't used yet, but it gave him a chance to jot down his ideas for raps and his music videos. It infuriated Ocean to see him ignore her so blatantly, but there was really nothing that the tiny redhead could do against him. When she threatened to tell the teachers that he wasn't taking part in his punishment, he called her an asshole and told her to fuck off.
This was his new routine, and over the course of the year, Misha found himself settling into it. The weeks ticked by, and he actually found himself no longer hating the practices as much as he originally had. Now that Ocean had abandoned her attempts to get him to join in, he would sit next to Ricky and write his raps, while the other boy drew pictures of humans with cat faces on his tablet. Ricky didn't seem to realise that Misha could see his drawings, and Misha definitely wasn't going to strike up a conversation about it. He was perfectly happy for their acquaintanceship to remain silent.
One Thursday, about two weeks before the end of school, Misha arrived back to his basement and realised that he'd lost his rap notebook. No matter where he searched, he couldn't find it, and he figured he must have left it in the choir room. He resigned himself to going to school early to search for it the next day, and spent the evening trying to recall everything he'd jotted down that day.
The next day he left ten minutes earlier than he usually would. Normally he didn't care about coming to school late, but he didn't want anyone going into the music room and finding his notebook before he got to it. His raps were important, he didn't want to lose them. He moved quickly through the school and got to the choir room with a few minutes to spare. But despite his feverish searching, the copy was nowhere to be found. His eyes narrowed in frustration. One of the other kids must have taken it. He kicked a chair, just to show his exasperation, and left to go to his first class.
He'd have to check with the choir on Sunday, because he refused to be seen talking to any of them in public. It wasn't that he hated any of them, apart from Ocean, and he didn't worry about being seen as weird by the school, but he had already made his mark as the angry loner, and he didn't want anyone to think that he had friends. He didn't even actually want friends. The less he had tying him to Canada, the better. Once he was eighteen and had enough money to move back to Ukraine, he'd be gone. It would be far easier if he had nothing to leave behind.
He walked into History and threw his bag down by his desk, already fuming. He didn't even have another copy to write in, because he'd long ago abandoned the pretence of actually doing any work. If a teacher ever tried to get annoyed at him, he'd glare and tell them that their faces were ugly in Ukrainian. Generally they took this to mean "I don't speak English", and would leave him alone.
His mood only got worse as the day wore on. He couldn't remember the last time that he was so bored in school. By the time Maths rolled around, he had decided that there wasn't a single thing that could make him stay past lunch that day. Mentally, he was already sitting under a tree to go smoke. He flung himself into his usual seat beside Constance Blackwood and glared at the floor. He hoped half-heartedly that she would notice him glowering and not try to make conversation, but it was in vain. As usual, Constance gave him a smile and a cheerful "hi!". He didn't want to turn his bad mood on her, but he found himself struggling to hold back when she kept talking.
"I hope this isn't overstepping, but when I was leaving practice yesterday I noticed that you left this behind." Misha's eyes flickered over to her in shock as she held out his copy. It had Misha Bachynskyi written on it in WhiteOut, because he hadn't found a pen that could show up against the black cover, and a badly drawn egg wearing sunglasses. "Um. I didn't open it or anything, but I like the little guy on the front. Is he your original character?" She pushed the notebook over onto his desk with a shy smile.
Misha took it with a frown. "Original character?" he repeated, utterly lost.
Constance faltered. "Yeah! Like, a character that you made up. Do you draw him a lot? Have you, like, given him a name?"
Misha looked down at the front of his copy. "Is bad egg. My YouTube persona."
Constance smiled at him again. "Oh, you're on YouTube? That's so cool! What do you do?"
Misha tucked the copy into his bag and frowned at Constance. "Why?"
Her face dropped. "Oh, no reason, I just thought it was cool," she said quietly. "You don't have to answer, I've just never met a YouTuber before."
Misha felt bad. He hadn't meant to upset her, he just didn't understand why she was asking. "I make raps. And autotune musics."
"Wow, that's so rad! Can I look up your account, or would that be a bit weird?"
Misha was spared answering by the teacher, who stormed into class in an even fouler mood than he had been in and instantly started giving out to the pair of them for interrupting the class.
The last week of school was spent by most students taking their summer assessments. Misha was technically doing the same, although what he was really doing was skimming through the paper, half-assing the easier questions and spending the rest of his time learning to spin pens through his fingers. He already knew he was going to fail based on his participation in class during the year, but hopefully he would be able to plead "idiot European who doesn't speak English", and the principal would let him through to Grade 12 anyway.
And suddenly, it was summer. Most of Misha's classmates were either working or going on holidays. Misha's adoptive parents were, in fact, going on their annual three-month long family trip to Jamaica, and offered to pay him to stay at home and not trash the house. Misha took this deal happily. He would be earning about a hundred dollars a week, minus food expenses, and he even had permission to use the kitchen. That being said, his adoptive father had dragged him upstairs and made him watch as the man walked around the kitchen, painstakingly locking every single cabinet bar two.
Misha's summer was spent working out, learning to bake some of his childhood treats from Ukraine, although they didn't turn out the way that he remembered, and making more videos. His following had grown from a total of fourteen people to nearly thirty, so he felt a lot more pressure to put out quality content. One of those new followers, Natalya, would comment paragraphs on every single new video, talking about what she liked and what she would change. She wrote these comments in Ukrainian, despite Misha changing the language of his raps to English as his understanding grew. He figured that his music would appeal to a wider audience if it wasn't in Ukrainian.
There were a couple of other frequent commenters as well. Stepan and Davyd from Kyiv, along with Talia, and Chris and Melissa from Saskatoon in Canada. There was also someone called sugarcloud. Most of Misha's followers would sign their comments with their real names, given the size of his community, but sugarcloud was one of his only anonymous followers. They were probably one of his favourites, second only to Talia. They always left a positive comment, no matter how poor the video actually was.
Misha found himself genuinely enjoying his summer. He didn't feel like he had to walk on eggshells at home thanks to his adoptive parents being gone, and he didn't have to hide behind a mask of aggression like he did in school. For the first time since coming to Canada, he felt like himself again.
When his eighteenth birthday rolled around, he even made a video about it. This was his first video that wasn't music, and he was a bit nervous making it, but he wanted to thank his followers for all of their support, and this was the best way to do it. He wrote out his script in Ukrainian and English so that all of his followers would understand. It was only about three minutes long, but he thanked all of his followers generally, and gave shoutouts to all of his regular commenters. Then he held up a bottle of vodka that he'd stolen from his adopter's kitchen (it had taken him about a month to learn how to pick the locks they had put on the cabinets), and knocked it against the camera with a grin. It was cheesy, he realised that, but he was so happy that he didn't care.
About twenty minutes after he uploaded the video, he got his first comments. Melissa (mellyjelly1) said happy birthday bad egg! have a great day!, and sugarcloud said woah i didn't know it was your birthday! are you doing anything fun?
Mischa grinned and responded drinking alone, taking sips from his bottle as he did. He didn't have any plans for the day other than to get drunk and maybe marathon the Saw movies, but the day was already turning out well. If only he knew who sugarcloud was, then he could count them as one of his online friends instead of just a follower. He wandered into the living room and settled onto the couch. There were a few of the Saw movies on Netflix, so he clicked the first one and left it playing in the background as he scrolled through his YouTube home page.
About halfway through the second movie, he was jolted alert by the doorbell ringing. He stood up cautiously, pausing the movie. Surely his adoptive parents hadn't returned early? They weren't due back for another couple of weeks at least. He made his way nervously into the hallway, but he couldn't see the outline of their car through the frosted glass, so he opened the door.
Constance Blackwood was standing there, holding a cake in her hands. It was covered in green frosting and said Happy Birthday Misha! on it in red. Misha stared down at her, utterly bewildered.
She must have seen the confusion in his face because she immediately started to explain, laughing awkwardly as she did. "Um, sorry, I know this probably seems really weird, but you know sugarcloud?" Misha nodded dumbly, still staring at the cake. Constance continued, faltering a bit as she spoke. "Well, remember when you left your notebook in the choir room, and you told me about bad egg? I went home and looked you up that night, sorry, I know that was really creepy, and I actually really ended up liking your music! But I don't know, I thought it might be a bit weird if I followed you and you knew it was me, so I wanted to keep it a secret, but I really do like your music! I mean, I know I really don't seem the type, but..."
She trailed off and looked at Misha nervously. "I'm sorry, am I being really creepy? I'm not stalking you, I promise, but I consider you one of my friends, what with choir and everything, and I don't like the thought of one of my friends drinking alone on his birthday."
Misha took a step back into the house. "Uh. What the fuck?" he said slowly, and Constance's face dropped.
"I'm so sorry, I really didn't want to freak you out," she started, but he cut her off.
"No, is really cool of you to do this. You like my music?"
She grinned back. "Yeah! It's so cool that you write it yourself and everything, I wish I was that talented!"
Misha just shook his head, still in shock. "So you're sugarcloud?"
Constance nodded. "I mean, yeah!"
"Uh. Come in, you don't need to just hold that cake up like that."
Constance stepped inside awkwardly and looked around before heading towards the kitchen. Misha trailed after her, still feeling a bit of whiplash. "Sorry again, I know this is sorta unexpected," Constance said after she had put the cake down on the table.
Misha frowned and rubbed his forehead. "Yeah. What's happening?"
"I mean, I like doing things for people, especially on their birthdays, and I always help my parents in the café so I figured I'd bake you a birthday cake! I didn't know what you'd like, so it's just vanilla. Hope that's okay?"
Misha nodded vaguely. "Wow. I still can't believe that you like my music."
Constance just grinned bashfully. "Yeah, I know it doesn't seem like my kind of thing."
Misha looked at her again. "Well, thank you, Constance. You didn't have to do this, it was really dope of you."
Now that the initial shock was wearing off, he felt a bit awkward. Yeah, he was probably closest to Constance out of everyone in the choir because she was the only one that would talk to him, but he'd never considered her a friend. Still, he considered sugarcloud a friend, and since sugarcloud was Constance?
"Do you like Saw movies?" he asked.
"I've never seen them," Constance admitted. "I don't really watch scary movies that much."
"Do you want to see them?"
She looked up at him in surprise. "I mean, sure! It's your birthday, and I'd love to hang out with you."
Misha couldn't help the smile that was forming on his face. This was possibly the first nice thing that anyone had done for him so far in Canada. It was definitely the first time someone had treated him like a friend.
"You can obviously say no, but what do you think about me inviting the rest of the choir as well?" Constance asked hesitantly. "I mean, I know you're not a huge fan of Ocean, but I know you would sit with Ricky a lot, and I talk to him and Noel sometimes. It might be a nice way for everyone to get to know each other! And I bet there's enough cake to go around."
Misha frowned down at his hands. He didn't have anything bad to say about either of the boys in the choir, but he'd never really spoken to them. Still, he'd never really spoken to Constance either, and it turned out that she was massively fucking dope, so maybe the rest of the choir was too?
"Okay," he said decisively, and Constance let out a delighted little laugh.
"Yay! Happy birthday, Misha!"
The rest of the choir seemed just as bewildered to receive a message from Constance as Misha had been to see her standing at his front door, but they all agreed to show up after she promised them free cake. Misha told her to tell them to arrive at about three, given that it was already half past one and he wanted a chance to clean up around the place. Constance pulled up his account on YouTube and turned on her favourite song of his (I Fucking Hate This Country) while he washed dishes and she swept the floor.
Misha couldn't stop laughing at the thought of Constance genuinely sitting at home and listening to his raps for fun.
"What?" she asked defensively, after he brought it up for the third time. "Are you saying you don't think your own music is good?"
"No, is just funny to think that you saw me in school every day and then went home and listened to the music that you know I make!"
"It's not that funny," Constance complained. "I just think it's good!"
"So are you like, number 1 fan?" Misha asked her. "Do you have a t-shirt with my face on?"
"Ew, no! I'm not that much of a creep!"
"I know, I'm sorry," Misha laughed. "I can make you one, if you like? When is your birthday?"
"If you make me a t-shirt with your face on it for my birthday, I will burn it," Constance told him sincerely.
"Geez, okay, I will make you giant cardboard cut-out instead."
They were interrupted by the doorbell ringing again, and Constance raced over to open it. "Hi Noel! Hi Ricky!"
The two boys entered, looking self-conscious. They were both holding envelopes that they handed over to Misha, who took them awkwardly.
"Sorry that it's kind of low effort, this was all pretty short notice," Noel said with a little laugh. Ricky nodded emphatically, gesturing at his envelope and making a thumbs down.
Misha opened the cards almost reverently, unsure what to expect. Noel had gotten a generic Happy 18th Birthday! card and written a similarly generic message inside, although he had drawn a fairly detailed rose as well. Misha put it aside gently and grinned at Noel. "Yo, thanks, homie," he said, and watched as Noel's smile twitched on his face.
Ricky had forgone a traditional card and instead done a coloured drawing of Misha in a purple space-suit, planting a flag with his Bad Egg logo on the moon. "Your music is out of this world!" he read, and Ricky smiled bashfully.
"Holy shit, you listen to my music too?" Misha blurted, and Ricky gestured towards Constance.
"Um, I sent everyone a link to your channel a couple of hours ago, because I just think it's so cool," Constance admitted. "Sorry if that was overstepping."
Misha looked back down at Ricky's drawing, utterly delighted. "No way! Holy fuck, man, that's so dope! Thank you!"
Noel peered at the drawing as well, and groaned. "Aw, now my card looks even worse. Thanks, Ricky."
"No," Misha insisted. "It was so cool of you to get me anything, man, I didn't expect anything."
"It's nothing," Noel mumbled, flustered.
The doorbell rang again, and Constance went to retrieve Ocean. She had brought a similar card to Noel, and had written Happy Birthday, from Ocean on the inside. "Dude, thanks so much," Misha told her honestly, and she gave him a tight little smile.
What are we going to do? Ricky asked via his tablet. Misha glanced around at the choir. "I mean, I was just planning on watching all the Saw movies and getting drunk. Do you guys have any better ideas?"
"I think that sounds fun," said Constance, and Ocean let out a shocked little spluttering sound. "Maybe not the getting drunk part," Constance added loyally. Misha directed the other three into the living room to start the movie again while he and Constance cut the cake.
Just as Constance started walking towards the living room, Misha stopped her. "I wanted to say..." He hesitated for a moment, but she smiled at him in a gesture for him to continue. "I wanted to say thank you. For being my friend, and listening to my music and shit. You're a really cool person, Constance."
"Aw, thanks," she mumbled in response, cheeks flushing a bit. "Come on, we'd better go give this cake to the others."
Misha grinned at her. "Yeah."