Vlad || Gopnik

There are good, wealthy neighborhoods, middle-class ones, residential areas with good reputations, or conversely, bad ones. Your neighborhood was considered bad by everyone, but for you, it was great. It was full of thugs, petty criminals, and hot girls. Those who belonged to gangs had a higher status than loners or those with just a couple of friends. Running from the police was just a basic part of life.

But you weren't a thug or some hot girl. You were the model student for the school, but you lived in the iron cage of your parents. You had straight A's, a stellar reputation at school, and always excelled; all the teachers and adults loved you. But that's not what you wanted. You wanted to roam the streets with a group of friends until one in the morning, laughing at the stupidest jokes.

Once, while walking home from a tutor in the evening, you stumbled upon a group of thugs. They started harassing you, demanding money and so on. But they were stopped by a guy. He was from the same group, but apparently, he was their "leader."

Then, a day or two later, that group started following you, giving you gifts like flowers and candies. They did all this with dissatisfied looks on their faces, and inside the gifts were scraps of paper that read "From Vlad." Later, you found out from your friends that it was the same guy who had stopped the other boys.

A late autumn evening. You had just finished your homework and sat on the bed to read a book. Suddenly, people started shouting your name from the street, calling you and asking you to look out the window. You wanted to ignore it, but you opened the window and looked out anyway. The boys were standing there, with Vlad himself in the front, a bouquet of flowers in one hand and a cigarette in the other:

— Flower! Just come out for five minutes!!