01 - The Beginning of Time
"I am very sorry to have called you in, Mrs. Oxenstierna, but your son..."
Berwald watched from his chair in the corner of the principal's office, eyes as green as sea glass glaring over horn-rimmed glasses. How many times in his thirteen years of life had he heard those words before? They had bitten at his ears so many times over the years that he no longer reacted to them, simply glaring at the balding principal of his school.
Even his mother was unperturbed by such words, having heard them just as many times as Berwald had. "What did my son do this time?" she asked tiredly with an exasperated, drawn-out sigh.
"He broke all the windows in the gymnasium, save for one."
Broke that one less than ten minutes ago, Berwald corrected mentally.
"His grades are at the top of the school, but we cannot continue to have him act this way!"
Berwald's mind wandered to Monika, the pretty blond girl in his history class. He wondered what she was doing right now. It was she who said to him with an idle smile on her face that she wished the gym windows were made of stained glass, and, well, maybe if the windows were broken, maybe if Berwald had broken them, they would replace them with pretty stained glass windows and Monika would flutter with happiness.
He was still thinking of Monika when his mother, spitting up apologies as if they were snakes, dragged him by the sleeve of his uniform out of the principal's office, into the car, and home, lecturing and chiding him the whole time.
Later that night, he would carefully peel the tape off from the bottom of the pinup of the buxom blonde above his bed, take a pencil, find an empty space on the wall, and write in his faint, neat script, "I did it for you, Monika," and stare at it until all the graphite under his wall melded together into a gray mass, reaching out at him, taunting him, and when it became too much, he would carefully replace the poster, bury himself in the blankets, and go to sleep.
That was three years ago.
XxX
He would repeat the same experience many times in the next three years, even after Monika disappeared from his thoughts and the buxom blonde girl on his wall was replaced by a buff brunette boy, until one particular day which would live in Berwald's mind forever.
He was sixteen, whacking at trash cans in an alleyway near his school with a baseball bat. The boy he liked had gotten a girlfriend, a pretty, raven-haired girl in her last year of secondary school with rosy lips and dark eyes. Quite the opposite of tall, stocky, golden-haired, thin-lipped Berwald. So engrossed in his negative feelings, he didn't notice one particular classmate come running up to him.
"Aïe, kid, what are you doing?" he cried, wavy blond hair bouncing as he ran over to Berwald.
Berwald froze like a deer caught in headlights, baseball bat clattering to the pavement of the alley way. He recognized that particular Senior from his mixed-grade architectural design class: his name was Francis Bonnefoy. A feeling of panic rose within him; he could handle inanimate objects like windows or trash cans just fine, but he was awful with people... The sight of his classmate running towards him was just terrifying. "I don't know what kind of crazy shit you're doing, but you need to stop!" He raged. Berwald responded with his most terrifying glare, one he hoped would scare Francis away.
It didn't work. Francis did not relent, trapping Berwald against the wall, screaming and yelling incoherently. Berwald put his hands over his ears, trying to block the rage out, looking up only when it stopped. Francis's words took on a softer tone and clarity. Berwald lowered his hands.
"Look, mon ami, if you really need something to do, take this card and come to this address," he produced a small business card from his pocket. "It's better than beating up trash cans in your spare time."
Reluctantly, Berwald took the card, and reluctantly, he went to the address inscribed the next day.
Reluctantly, he had become a model.
XxX
It was tough going at first, and Berwald had the urge to give up and go back to kicking trash cans countless times. Francis was strict with him no matter what, and seemed dead set on reforming the troubled teen, even after he graduated. But it all paid off in the end: through his undying perseverance, by the time Berwald graduated high school with his handsomest smile (which was really no more than an elated smirk) and exemplary grades, he was an upstanding, openly and proudly gay young man who had not lashed out in three years, was on his way to becoming a first-degree black belt in TaeKwonDo, and one of the youngest and most prolific models in all of Germany.
He had reformed his life to an immense degree, but when he had finally unpacked the last box in his new apartment in Berlin, turned to express his overwhelming, heart-aching feelings of gratitude to Francis for helping him so much, and choked on his own words, he realized with a sinking heart that he still had a long way to go.
XxX
Around the same time, a young man named Tino Väinämöinen, in his last year of secondary school, was in the library, studying for his college entrance exams. He was a handsome kid, with a round, cherubic face and warm violet eyes which sparkled when he smiled, and had the top marks in his school and a plethora of friends, but this time, he was not smiling. In fact, he was on the verge of tears, staring at a blurry math problem he had completely forgotten how to solve, no matter how many times he checked his notes or racked his considerable brain for the answer.
Why does this keep happening? he thought desperately, Am I losing my edge? I'm still the top student, but... He wanted to scream, but this was a library and he had to stay quiet.
And then there were the voices of his friends and family.
"Come on, Tino, you're the best at everything!"
"Tino, you're so smart, thanks for helping me out!"
"Man, you should get into Himmel University no problem!"
"Wait, Tino, you got an A-? What?"
"Wooo! I can't believe I got a higher grade than Tino!"
"Tino, you thought that test was hard? That was the easiest exam I've ever taken!"
All he had to do was get past the exams, get into Himmel University, and then the stress would be over. Done. And he could finally relax as the success he was.
He wiped the tears away with the heel of his hand. Exams were tomorrow, and he had to get studying.
XxX
The results.
Tino stared at the paper, wide-eyed, unable to believe what was on it.
He failed.
Perhaps for the first time in his life, Tino had failed.
All those hours he had logged into studying, all those times he had blown off his friends, all those hours he had literally given up his life in favor of cracking open a textbook when he would rather be sleeping or eating or relaxing... All for naught. He had staked his entire future on Himmel University, and failed.
Either way, he still graduated at the top of his class, even making a speech as valedictorian, but the smiles he gave were hollow and when he got home, all he wanted to do was rip his diploma to shreds. But he couldn't bring himself to do that and instead hid it in a manila envelope under his bed.
Now that he had graduated without getting into college, he didn't want to do anything anymore. His entire life had been thrown off course and he had no idea what to do; he was doomed to live a bleak, uneducated life stuck in Berlin. Maybe he would become a sewer rat. As he lounged around on the couch, he entertained dark fantasies of unemployment, homelessness... All alone and without any brightness to look forward to.
Well, he did have one thing to do.
He grabbed his fake ID and headed downtown for a drink, unaware that his life was not quite over yet.
AN: And it's up! Hopefully, those who liked Top Model and also like SuFin will like this fic as well, for this is for you guys! This time, I'm aiming for something a bit more serious, but don't worry, it'll get more glamorous as time goes on. ;) People were anticipating this, and I hope I can deliver, if you just bear with me for a bit! I actually already have the first five chapters written and I am working on the sixth... I can't believe it took me five chapters to fall back into the swing of things, I am so sorry.
Rant aside, readers, new and old, I hope you enjoy this as well!
The universities mentioned are also fictional because generic university FTW.
Love, Jayy/Nerdgirl-Hime