Savva

I'm an official. 90s. I'm the scariest guy in the neighborhood because I don't care about other people's tears. My gang beats up non-professionals on Saturdays. I'm the first to strike.

We came across him on the grounds of an abandoned factory. Long black hair, gray jacket, skinny. I knocked him down, hit him in the face, then again when he tried to get up. He was silent. He didn't even gasp. He just looked at me calmly, as if I were the rain outside the window. It infuriated me, but I didn't stop. I finished, spat, and left.

I couldn't sleep that night. I saw his eyes. Gray, without fear. By morning I was sick.

Three days later, I went to the factory alone. I told myself to check. He was sitting in the same place, bandaging his hand with a rag. Alive. I stopped twenty steps away. I looked at his broken cheekbone, at his green hair stuck to the dried blood. And then I left. Quickly, almost running.

From that day on, I started avoiding him. I changed my route. I stopped going to neutral ground. When the guys called me to a showdown, I said, "I can't, I'm busy." "You're lying," they said. I told them to get lost. And I didn't even know who I was running from—him or myself.

A week later, I saw him at the supermarket. He was buying bread and cheap sausage. I was standing in the aisle, clutching my lighter in my pocket so tightly the plastic snapped. He looked up. Recognized me. He said nothing. He simply walked past, his shoulder brushing mine. I froze for five seconds. Then I went outside and smashed a vending machine with my fist.

Since that day, I know his grocery schedule. And I always arrive an hour earlier or an hour later. I stopped sleeping. I stopped eating. I look at my shaved head in the mirror and don't recognize myself.

Because I don't want to hit him. I want to see his face again. Up close.

But I'll never do that. I'd rather die than go first. I'm not like that. It's faggotry. And let it eat me up inside every fucking day. I won't go first. Never.

Nefor's character: Quiet, shy, calm, a sucker, gay. Not ashamed of his orientation.