Kollins, my best friend was waiting at the school's gates after school ended.
He greeted me with a simple "Hey."
I responded with a "Yo," and then we began heading back home.
"Today I heard some interesting rumors," he said with an annoying smile on his face.
Oh, curious, aren't we?
"I wonder what are you talking about?" I feigned ignorance and kept walking forward.
"Everyone's been talking about it. Apparently you instigated a fight; was it true?" He asked.
He almost tripped on a random rock as he tried to catch up to me.
Unlike my parents, he didn't sound concerned, worried, angry, or disappointed; he was just curious to know the truth.
"And what do you think?" I teased him.
"Mhhh." For a moment he pretended to need to think really hard about this question.
"I think you did it; opportunistic as you are, I'm sure you've been tormenting that guy the last couple of weeks," he said with a large smile on his face.
Ha, you know me a little too well.
"It was stupid of him to react that way; now he's a further risk since he threw the first punch. What did you even say to him for him to finally throw a fist?" He asked curiously.
True, he was just a dumbass.
"Nothing new; he must've been more stressed than usual to react that way." I replied, still pretending not to know.
"You're foul." He commented.
"I am a genius." I corrected him.
"Yeah, for sure…"
As we were headed back to my home, we saw a man standing in front of my building; he was currently delivering a list of notifications, slipping mail in the mailboxes of the many tenants of the building.
The man was wearing a red military uniform, typical of a recruiter.
Huh, why is a recruiter standing over here? Did something happen?
My friend was quietly pulling me away in order to quickly move past him, probably afraid of receiving a letter of draft in hand.
You really shouldn't be so obvious about it; if you act like that, you're just going to make him more curious.
"Good morning." I greeted him as I moved past him.
I felt the grip he had on my biceps tighten at that moment. He was digging his fingers into my arm as he kept dragging me inside the building.
Ouch, calm down, man; he can probably feel your fear.
"Mornin'!" He replied, shuffling through the dozen letters in his hand.
"Come on, let's go; there's no need to idle here." Kollins whispered as he dragged me inside the apartment complex and into the elevator.
"What the fuck were you doing?" He then yelled at me the moment we stepped inside the elevator.
"Relax, he wasn't here to draft us. When have you seen recruiters handing out letters?" I explained it to him, but that didn't seem to calm him down.
He tried to peek his head out of the elevator but was too hesitant to do so.
"He could've changed his mind. It could've been a tactic to lower our guard!" He said.
"You worry too much; there hasn't been any news of any incident or anything of the sort, so I doubt they'll be drafting us." I repeated, but that didn't seem to work; Kollins was scared to his core.
So to prove to him that I was right, I got out of the elevator and waved my hand at the individual standing in front of the building.
"You…"
"See? I was right," I said.
You're too much of a coward when it comes to this; the more you avoid them, the more you instigate them. Just ignore them; pretend they're regular civilians, and they'll also ignore you.
I thought as we began to head back to the elevator.
To mess with him, as the elevator's door was closing in, I jumped outside the elevator to shoot a few more glances at the recruiter.
Before he could drag me back inside, I saw my mother in the distance.
"What now?" The impatient Kollins asked me.
She was looking more tired than usual, dragging her backpack on the ground, but before she could make a step into the building, the recruiter in military uniform stopped her to hand her a letter.
"I wonder what they're talking about," I told him.
"You can discuss it once we're back home. Now can you move your foot so we can get going?" He was getting more and more impatient with every second.
"Relax, it's nothing too serious; I'm sure it'll be over soon." I said as I freed myself from his grasp.
"If anything bad happens to me, I hope it stays in your conscience," he said as he also came out of the elevator.
Stop being such a pussy. Don't you feel any shame behaving like that? I would rather die than act like that.
"Yeah yeah, stay quiet now; I can't hear what they're talking about." I said to shut him up.
I took a few steps forward, but my mother was quick to notice it, so she decided to close the door on me.
"Well, what can I say? It's a shame we couldn't hear more of their conversation. Well, might as well go home so that we can start doing our homework." Kollins couldn't even hide the relief he was feeling; it was written all over his face.
"What if…"
"Hell no!" he replied even before I could finish my sentence.
"You haven't even given me a proper chance to explain myself." I complained.
"I don't need to." He yelled as he put his hands over his ears.
"Listen here." I tried to yell at him, but he simply raised his voice over mine.
"I'm not listening." He repeated.
"But think about this… what if this is an opportunity, a new one, an opportunity to rise far above everyone else?" I tried to remove his hands from his ears.
"LALALALALALALALALALALALALALALA!" he kept shouting nonsense just to not hear my voice.
"I'm not joining the army," he yelled back.
"What if instead of the army, we could join—"
"Those spots are probably already taken." He interrupted me once again.
For some odd reason, my words couldn't seem to get through his thick skull, so I tried to explain it to him in a way even a toddler would understand.
"Not really, but both the Jittermeist and Lumine have very few people left, with Lumine only having the head of the family and his four sons and the Jittermeist only having the matriarch and her only son." I explained.
"All their support has been executed, all of them; it's impossible to replace that many people in the span of a couple of months."
"If you think they would entrust a position to nobodies like us… you've already lost your mind. Be more realistic here… at most, they'll treat us like expendable soldiers." He commented bitterly.
"As if… there hasn't been a fool that challenged the Jittermeist family in—" I quickly shut my mouth at the realization that I was spouting nonsense.
The last attack was a couple of months ago.
"See? Even after the Great War, people are still willing to go to war with them; it's not a safe position as you're selling it out to be." Seeing my hesitation, he suddenly got more talkative and more brave.
"Fine!" I conceded the point.
"YES!" He's celebrating, throwing his fist in the air.
"Whatever, you stay here if you're really that scared; don't be surprised if you then lag behind me."
"At least I'll live longer." He replied.
"Hopefully under my shadows." It was on now; we were in a battle to see who would end up losing.
"You wish! Have you taken a look at our grades?" He went for a low blow, so I had to be on the defensive.
"Math doesn't pierce the chest of an enemy." After that quick counter I saw him finally starting to slip.
"But with a good head on your shoulders and the right connection, you can make it so that you will never have to face those people." In a rushed attempt at defending his position, he finally gave me the ammunition needed to defeat him.
"That's what I'm doing, building connections."
And just like that, the war was over.
"That's just suicide; don't you dare compare it to my plan." He tried to see if the situation was salvageable, but it was already too late.
"Sure, sure, whatever you say… Coward." And just like that, I had dealt the finishing blow.
"You…"
I then opened the door.
"Good morning sir—"