Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Oh fuck oh fuck ohfuckohfuckohfuckOHFUCK!

  It felt as if not a single word was spoken between Evan and Aria while walking on their way to the carnival. Naturally, since one of them couldn’t speak a word out loud. But like, not literally. Aria wasn’t initiating any gestures or writing any notes herself either. Whenever Evan caught a gnce at her, she seemed deep in thought about something. All the more reason to feel too nervous to say anything.

  He was practicing so well in front of the school gates earlier, hoping to present himself as confidently and casually as he could. Little did he know that Aria had dressed up and put on makeup and everything before walking out. Somehow it did not occur to him that a girl could be prettier than she already was during school hours. It made sense, maybe she just thought this was the type of thing where she’d need to dress up. But this thinking was practically fatal to the poor boy!

  It was still the same Aria as ever, of course. Just with a more vibrant face, fuller eyes and a soft pink touch to her lips. How were dudes meant to handle dates with pretty girls?!

  That’s even if she considered it a date at all. Of course, at the end of the day this was just scheming on Grace’s part. If anything, that moment where Aria had appeared had already strengthened the thought in Evan’s head that maybe she was too good for him. If he wasn’t careful, she might get hit on by some other guy at the carnival when he wasn’t looking, at which point she gets swept away by his much beefier arms and chiseled-er face!

  But Grace was still right about one thing… Evan had to reassure himself, she was doing this because she and Maddie, his friends, wanted to actually see him try for once. Maybe she was right, and he was letting defeatism and self-deprecation get to him. What’s important was to make sure Aria had a good time. She’s never been to the carnival before, so it’d suck if her first impression was a bad experience with some loser.

  Just py it small, yeah. None of this is a big deal, it didn’t actually have to even be a date.

  As they turned to see the carnival, Evan felt a small relief seeing the crowds. The dozens of students and occasional locals meant they probably wouldn’t stick out too much. He could be thankful, seeing as that had kinda been what he’d hoped for when deciding on his own outfit for the evening. He’d ditched his bzer and let the simple dress shirt and tie from his uniform do all the covering for him. It was a casual enough look that it’d blend in, on top of just generally making him feel more masculine. It’s not as if he did much shopping for clothes, anyway.

  He carefully eyed Aria as they entered and went to buy tickets, trying to gauge her feelings and figure out his next step. This was about her, first and foremost. She didn’t seem uncomfortable, however, already walking ahead of him to look at some of the stalls.

  Evan recognized them well, those carnie games. A cssic that he knew to be aware of when he’d first went here. It did not prevent him from giving it a shot anyway in an effort to prove himself, however. It was a great blow to a man’s ego.

  “H-Hey, Aria, hold on a sec-!” He went to catch up with her. Evan knew she was sheltered, which meant that she could easily get swindled off all her tickets by those scheming carnies!

  “Heh, ya wanna py, missy? Gonna hafta cost you a ticket.” He heard the carnie tell her. As Evan stood by her side, his pimpled face fell slightly. “Oh.”

  Evan remembered the carnie’s face well. It was the same guy who’d worked here the year before, evidently still neglecting to work on his skincare even into his te teens. Evan had wasted several tickets on this exact booth with no reward. This carnie was the closest thing Evan had to a male archrival. “We’re just passing along, actually. Come on, Aria, let’s go.”

  The man at the booth snickered, but Aria wasn’t budging, even as Evan pulled.

  “Hey, c’mon, these booths aren’t worth it, it’s just-”

  “WOW! Trying to control your girl? Not cool, dude.” The carnie interrupted in a mocking tone. “Pretty garbage thing to try to pull, you don’t respect her or something?”

  “What?” Evan went wide-eyed. Where did that accusation come from?! “N-No, I respect her!” He respected all women!

  But then he looked at Aria again, catching that her gaze was fixed somewhere. Toward the row of plushes behind the booth worker. There was a bear, unicorn, octopus, and various random animals.

  He took a step closer to see where she was specifically looking. It was the one in the very corner, a stuffed plushie of a… lobster.

  “See one you like, kid?” The carnie asked.

  Aria nodded without skipping a beat, a small smile creeping up her face.

  “I… I think she likes the lobster.” Evan answered for her.

  Aria nodded again, more passionately. She opened her mouth wide to mouth something out, which Evan couldn’t parse.

  The carnie raised an eyebrow in confusion, but Evan was quick on his feet to ask Aria for a crification. “Um, what were you trying to say?”

  Aria let out a silent gasp, before quickly grabbing her notepad to scribble something out in extreme haste, handing it to Evan.

  ‘I LOVELOBSTER!!!!’

  “Ah.” Evan responded bluntly, “I see.”

  Aria pumped her fists up while facing him, and again repeated her silent yell of excitement. Her smile was wide, eyes brimmering, the surge of sugary cuteness coming from the girl from that moment was almost making the boy feel woozy.

  “Well, ya wanna try your hand, kid?” The carnie pulled out a ball, then pointed at the pyramid of ten soda cans behind him. “One throw is one ticket.”

  Aria’s smile fell, her face growing unsure as she gnced back to Evan.

  Pursing his lips, he revealed the ten tickets in his hand. “Well, we only have so many tickets…”

  Aria inspected the tickets in Evan’s hand for only a moment, before she gained a thoughtful expression, and then appeared to sigh. She turned, and started walking away.

  “W-Wait, you’re just going?” Evan questioned. “I thought you might have… you know…”

  She turned back around and looked at Evan for a few seconds. It looked like she wanted to say something, but instead of pulling out another note again, she eventually just shrugged to Evan, with a disappointed half smile. Then she kept walking.

  “Ooooh, you prolly fucked up there, dude.” The carnie intruded. “Definitely not getting some, tonight.”

  “What is your problem?!” Evan snapped back.

  “I dunno, I just live for the drama. Not much else going on when you’re working at a carnival booth.”

  Evan wanted to be angry, but he reminded himself of how to keep calm. He was in a public setting, trying to be professional with his date-but-kinda-not-date. He had to let it go. “Oh, forget it.” He dismissed the worker, thinking back to the main purpose of his being here.

  But Aria had already walked off ahead without him. Evan felt the worry and anxiety well up. Was she splitting up? Did she not actually want to accompany him for the whole thing? It’s not like she saw this as a date, so it would figure…

  Of course, maybe she was expecting him to follow her, but maybe she wasn’t. And if she wasn’t, and he kept following her around, it’d make him look like a creep or something, right? They might have been friends on some level, but trying for anything more would be assuming things.

  Maybe just give her some space. Let her wander or go to the bathroom or whatever.

  A short while ter, Evan had found himself sitting alone at one of the benches by the food stand. He sat hunched over the table, hands on his head trying to wrap his head around it all.

  Here he was, fool of a boy, still not any more sure of this than he had been before.

  He was going to go find Aria in a bit, but he just didn’t feel that prepared anymore. He was vastly out of his depth, trying to actually talk to a girl was hard! How did guys in the movies even do it?

  Evan thought further, mind drifting to the legendary explorer Franco Cruz from the bestselling novel series of the same name. He had great luck with women. The guy had a new one on his arm practically every other book, refusing to settle down. The way women eventually swooned for him seemed almost effortless on his part. Was it his innate charm? Was he just that hot, built like Evan could only dream of? He knew he was a fictional character, but even so, Evan wished he could learn from a guy like that.

  Thinking hard, he tried to imagine what it would be like if he was sitting next to him right now. If he really existed here, how he would answer his questions in an honest conversation.

  “Speak up, boyo.” The imaginary Franco Cruz said, “What’s on yer mind?”

  “I just don’t know how to do it, Franco Cruz,” Evan answered. “Talking to girls like that. You make it look so easy, but I don’t even know what they’re thinking half the time!”

  “Barrumph!” Franco Cruz belted out in a short ugh. He was always described as having a thick Newfoundnd accent, but Evan had no clue what that even sounded like, so his mental image of the character’s voice had always been a cartoonishly heavy Scottish accent, which wasn’t too accurate either. “Should be easy for you, ddie, you’ve lived amongstem for years!”

  “But that’s different!” Evan moaned, “They’re nice enough that it’s easy making friends when you’re pretending to be one of them, but now I’m out of the closet, and want to be more than that! It's a whole different game!”

  Franco Cruz put a hand to his chin, scratching the overly thick bck mustache stretching over his entire upper lip. “In that case, first, it’s important to make sure they know yer a man!”

  Evan nodded, “I’ve done that, but I don’t know if she’s taking me seriously like that. Like, maybe she just thinks I’m a weirdo for it.”

  “Nonsense!” Franco Cruz ughed again with a roar. “To be a man would ne’er be weird! It is a path of brav’ry, and glory!”

  “I guess so…” Evan mumbled. “I guess a lot of my manhood so far’s just mostly been me being awkward and sweaty about everything.” But that’s being a teenager for you.

  “If ye don’t think she believes yer a man,” Franco Cruz continued, “Then ye prove yerself! THAT is the key to the lost treasure ye seek!”

  “But how do I do that?” Evan questioned out loud. “How do I prove myself when physically I might as well only half of one?”

  “Manhood’s whatye make of it, boyo.” Franco Cruz reassured, with an imaginary paternal pat on Evan’s back. “Figure out what ye can do with what ye have, and it’ll be in sight.”

  Evan gripped his fist, thinking over those words. “Thanks for the support, Franco Cruz.”

  "It's notten', an' remembah! Mystery is a hundred treasures, and love is a hundred mysteries!" After delivering his iconic catchphrase, the imaginary Franco Cruz faded away, leaving just Evan alone again.

  “Did you say Franco Cruz?” A voice suddenly asked.

  Evan looked up, finding a boy standing behind him. Probably around his age, wearing the other school’s uniform. He was holding some half eaten cotton candy he’d probably gotten at the food stand, and was a bit on the shorter side.

  “Uh- um- I mean- well-” Had he really said that out loud? Had Evan really let his dumb little private thoughts out into the real world? “I-It’s just something- I was thinking about a book I really liked, it’s nothing.”

  “The Franco Cruz books?”

  “Y-Yeah?”

  “Sick! They’re awesome, right?”

  “Huh? I mean- yeah.” Evan was at a bit too much of a loss to give a more articute answer. This random guy was just talking to him.

  He was a Hanssen’s kid, too. Kids who he’d sometimes think about what it’d be like to hang out with, in a more bro-y sense than he would his friends at Marie’s.

  “How many have you read?” The guy asked.

  “Oh, a-about… all of them?” Evan answered hesitantly. “I just finished binging the new one a while back.”

  “Seriously?! Man, I’m still on the fourth, they’re so long!”

  “I dunno about that, but definitely more than your typical Schostic fair,” Evan chuckled.

  “True. I guess I’m just not much of a reader otherwise. Franco Cruz just hits different, you know?”

  “Yeah! It’s got everything!” Evan excimed. “It suits the medium, too. People sometimes say they can’t wait for it to be adapted into a movie or show on stream but they definitely can’t adapt some of the crazier stuff! Even if you made it animated there’s that entire arc in the third book that’s impossible to adapt visually, the metayer nature of Franco Cruz’ mind pace intersecting with Calcium Gray’s, and you can’t just not include that when it’s so important to set up their rivalry and intertwined fates in future books and-!”

  Evan found himself needing to draw a deep breath, and promptly stopped and realized how much he’d been talking. Fuck. “S-Sorry, went kind of on a ramble there.”

  “No, you’re actually pretty right.” The boy answered, nodding.

  “Huh?” Evan blinked. He… wasn’t bothered?

  “Like it was mindfucky in a good way.” He sat down next to Evan. “I don’t think any of that works if you don’t have the yers of stuff going on in that plotline.”

  “RIGHT?!” Evan let out. “Do you seriously think Netflix could pull out the cash to even make it happen?!”

  “They’d screw it up somehow.”

  “I’ll never forgive them for how they handled Santa Crita Diet.”

  “The Santa what?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Okay, but you’ve read the other books. So it doesn’t fall off or anything?”

  “Pfft,” Evan huffed. “No way! Even if it did, it’s way too investing for me not to give a crap. 17 books in and it’s still going strong.”

  “I wonder how long the series would go on for…”

  “The author’s been throwing around the idea of a clean hundred in interviews.”

  The boy’s eyes lit up, a realization hitting him. “Because that’s-!”

  “-The number of secret pages! A-And the number of symbols on the Great Door! It’s symbolic to the series!”

  “The themes…” The boy’s mouth was agape.

  “Yeah…”

  A silence continued for another five seconds. “...I think she can make it.”

  Evan nodded, “Yeah.”

  “Oh, by the way,” The boy reached out his hand. “Um, guess I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Flynn.”

  Feeling suddenly way more at ease than when he started the conversation, Evan smiled and shook Flynn’s hand. “Evan.”

  Flynn looked puzzled.

  “You okay?”

  “O-Oh, just… surprised. Wasn’t expecting a…”

  The realization then hit Evan. “Oh!” He spped himself on the head. “Sorry, I-I’m stupid, I thought you already figured I was a guy and-!”

  “N-No, like, it’s good. I just got thrown off, I thought you were wearing something from the girl’s school. Y-You obviously don’t look that much like a girl or anything, just…”

  “Wait, huh?”

  “What?”

  “I…” Evan paused. Did the revetion somehow make the misunderstanding deeper? “No, you’re right, I’m from Marie’s, I just uh.”

  “Just what?”

  “It’s a whole thing, you know how they talk about it on tv sometimes. Guys taking hormones and going to doctors to be girls, and sometimes the opposite?” Flynn seemed pretty casual, so Evan wanted to match the vibe to his new guy friend, and hoped that the more casual uninformed expnation would fit.

  “Ohhh, like a… Wait, what was it called again?”

  “Transgender?”

  “Transsexual, yeah.”

  Close enough, Evan thought. “But yeah, so you’re technically kinda right. Girl parts, but guy on the inside, if that makes sense.”

  Flynn rubbed his chin, inspecting Evan closely. “I think I get it. It kinda felt like I was just talking to another dude, anyway.”

  “Oh, you mean it?”

  “Yeah. Not like I talk to a lot of girls anyway, though.” Flynn sighed, “Would be too much of a hassle for me, personally.”

  “Hey, they don’t bite.” Evan chuckled.

  Flynn lightly chuckled back, but then he stood up. “A-Actually, I just realized I should probably be somewhere. It was nice talking, I guess.”

  “Yeah, same!”

  As Evan waved goodbye, the boy left and went on his way.

  The interaction was… surprisingly nice. It was his first time talking to an actual guy his own age, and it was way more casual than he thought it’d be.

  “He… felt like he was talking to a dude…” Evan mumbled out loud. He wasn’t sure if he was just trying to be nice, if there was any truth to that, but he couldn’t deny the smile it was causing.

  Yeah. He was a man. If even an actual cis guy could see that, then that had to mean something.

  He was a man.

  He just had to prove himself. Like Franco Cruz said, figure out what he can do with what he has.

  Soon enough, Evan strolled back up onto the carnie booth.

  “Oh, hey kid, looking for your girl? I thought she went-”

  “I’m not here for her,” Evan said. “I’m here for the prize.”

  TernUnfettered