She's gotten pretty used to the loneliness every day. It's something she has adapted to for a few months. Her friends have somehow managed to slowly isolate her. At that time, Thaovy was very oblivious to their actions. Today, she's keeping up her act. Finding out a picture of four of her friends who finished watching Suicide Squad on Instagram just immediately shatters her heart. She's gotten too used to being alone, dark thoughts crawl into her mind.

She starts to foolishly but hesitantly despise her friends. Every day, she feels like she doesn't belong with them. For example, she decided to quit choir while her friends tryout into Varsity Choir. She seems to have a hatred upon popular pop songs, like Sorry by Justin Beiber—she still isn't forgiving him from a long time ago. She's still deciding if she has a purpose of her existence because no one isn't noticing her as much.

Still, she can't simply abandon them. They've been close—somewhat close, actually—to her when she wasn't fitting in at her unfamiliar middle school. Her mom gradually forced her to keep them close, but Thaovy doesn't feel that close spark between their friendship.

Her mind is crowded with too many events to do and decisions to make. It's causing her a huge headache. She really wants this problem off of her mind for a moment. She grabs her phone and heads outside. She walks around her neighborhood, her phone clutched in her hand as she searches for any Pokémon nearby. She wishes to be alone right now; she wants no distractions or noises that keep her eyes off of her screen.

Not many of those good Pokémon are around, only Caterpies and Rattatas, she sighs in her head.

She doesn't realize a man, looking at the scenery, walking towards her. Thaovy and the man bump into each other, her phone dropping to the ground. She isn't quite comfortable with strangers, but no one stops her from catching an exclusive Pokémon, especially the one that is exclusive in Europe that somehow her brother got one in New York. Thaovy quickly swipes her iPhone back up and sees that the Pokémon, a Jynx, had escaped. Her anger starts to build up.

"Damn you!" Thaovy cusses, finally facing the stranger. "I was about to have a Jynx until it escaped, thanks to you!"

The man trembles backward as his hands raise in defense. "AHH! PLEASE DON'T KILL ME!"

Thaovy's face softens, guilt stabbing her chest. "Oh god, I'm so sorry!"

She's able to have a clear scan of the man. A strange curl sticks out of his brown hair. His eyes are completely shut, Thaovy guessing he couldn't see while he was walking. He wears a loose pink tank top with the word "PASTA" on his shirt, along with a picture of it. He also wears tan khakis and water shoes. Thaovy lends him a hand, which he gratefully accepted as she pulls him up. After seeing the height distance, Thaovy curses in her mind but kicks it off aside.

"I noticed your accent and shirt for a minute... Are you Italian?"

"Ve~, si!"

"Finally," she says with excitement, "an Italian living around here! There's always the Mexicans around here in Texas!"

"Um, I'm just visiting," he responds.

Her excitement dramatically drops. "Aww, man!"

"That's okay! I can come here whenever I want to!"

Her sore feet ruin her happy mood, causing her to groan. "My feet are so tired," the Asian whines as her lips pout. "Can we sit over there near the pond?" She points towards a green bench in front of the pond.

"Sure!" he replies, skipping ahead.

She jogs after him. After taking a seat, he feels like starting a conversation. The awkward silence really is annoying to both of them.

"Why don't we talk about some of our friends?" he questions.

Kinda weird conversation starter, but better than starting a conversation with "I made tea." from that meme. Is it weird that puns are actually figurative language, though...Wait, I'm supposed to answer the man. God damn it, Ninja. Back at it again with the spacing off face.

"Sure! You can tell me some things about yours first," she finally suggests after getting trapped in her own thoughts. "I'd like to learn about others."

"Okay! First is my best friend Luddy! He's a strict German who likes sausages, but I still love him! He has an older fratello named Gilbert! He is an albino who calls himself awesome! I've heard there's a secret tension between them over a girl! Then, I have my fratellos, Lovino and Sebatian..."

He continues rambling on of all of his friends. Thaovy, although tired and wishing she would actually sleep instead, enjoys hearing different personalities of each of him friends. His friends differ from her friends; his friends are always together, no matter how many differences there can be in each person. Her friends, well, kind of.

As he finishes speaking, she speaks. "You seem to have very good friends," she admits, a hint of jealously washing over her. "Wish mine were still the same..."

"What do you mean?"

She shrugs. "It's complicated. I don't think I should tell you."

"No, it's fine! You can tell me!"

Thaovy takes one last breath before ranting. "Okay...It's just that I feel like don't really belong with my friends. I'm drifting away from the squad we have, because I'm way too different from them. I'm always alone and I have dark thoughts about my friends when they post of picture of them hanging out without me! It freaking sucks balls."

She grips her head, her brain nearly aching again like it did before. Her eyes stare downwards at her feet. She hopes that he would just sympathize her, but she isn't expecting this answer:

"Then why don't we hang out?"

Thaovy faces the closed-eyed Italian. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that we should get to know each other more! That way we can become friends and hang out!"

"I don't know..." she uncomfortably mutters as she looks away from him.

She's been taught to stay away from strangers. Her mom had told her scary outcomes when going somewhere else with a stranger. She fears that this Italian might not be what she actually first believed about him. Maybe he's just pretending to be a happy-go-lucky friend so he can discover her weaknesses. He might use it against her.. She wishes she hadn't said a word about her friendship problem.

The man's somehow able to read her mind as he softly pats her back in comfort. "I know we just met and all, and you think I'm going to do something bad, but I wouldn't hurt anyone! I remember becoming friends with Ludwig. He didn't want to become friends with me at first either! Like I said to him, when you need help, I can be there for you! When I need help, you'll be there for me! See, we'll be there for each other! I'll be by your side all the time!"

Thaovy deeply overthinks of her decision. Does she really want to give her trust to an unknown, innocent-looking adult? Does she want to keep being the oddball of her group? She hates being ignored and loves attention. Why not take the risk? Maybe more friends will appear.

"I suppose we can be friends. I love making new ones," Thaovy states without hesitation.

"Yay!" the Italian cheers, spreading his hands in the air. "You want to meet here again tomorrow?"

"Sounds awesome," she answers with a smile. "Thanks for sticking with me. No stranger has actually done this before. I'm really surprised, honestly."

He finally snaps his eyes open, Thaovy somewhat disturbed of his open eyes. "I haven't got a chance to know your name. I'm Feliciano, ve~!" He hands out his hand.

Thaovy gladly shakes his hand and presents him a hard shake. "Thaovy."

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Translations

Fratello (Italian) - brother

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FINALLY, IT'S POSTED HUZZAH

I KNOW YOU'VE BEEN ALL WAITING FOR IT

SORRY IT'S BEEN A WEEK AND FEE DAYS

IM BEEN WORKING HARDER, PIANO STUFF, AND BAND ALL-REIGON AND ALL-DISTRICT AUDITIONS.

AT LEAST I ACTUALLY POSTED THIS