One, Two, Three, I can't believe I forgot I was the leader!

Everybody was sleeping, it was cold, past midnight and I had my boots on.

“Pss, pss, c’mon, wake up”, I whispered to one of the 19 boys sleeping in the room.

“Shut up, I’m not waking up”, his eyes were closed when he answered.

Something had to be done, the other two were waiting outside, we’ve been through this already. Yet, Smith’s afraid and lazy ass had to screw everything up.

It wasn’t like I was a bad person, it had to be done.

“What’re you doin’, Smith?!”, his voice became louder and his eyes opened as soon as his blankets flew and the warmness vanished from his body. Maybe I was a bad person, it was the funniest shit seeing his lambs near his body, desperately trying to keep the heat from escaping through the window the other Smith had unlocked.

“Your boots”, I handed ’em to him, as I saw Smith-2’s teeth showing and his eyes widened.

“It’s the sergeant, go, go! Go, Smith!”, my heart raced as I ran to the window.

I jumped right in the mud. It was gross, scented like duck’s shit. 

Two guys my age were neatly dressed in the army’s uniform, each one carrying two flashlights.

They helped me stand.

We ran.

Pant pant pant

Four guys surnamed Smith, it was like this we met. My name is John, Smith-0. The lazy fearful one is Kenya Isayama Smith-1, a half-black, and half-Japanese small guy. Despite having the shortest legs, he flew successfully from the sergeants first, almost screwing us midway.

Nicholas Smith-2 is the funny and hyper courageous tall white one, he’s the one who helped me convince everybody for tonight.

“Hey, Number Two, I gotta thank you for before, we’d be screwed if they found us”, I patted him on the back. 

He seemed confused for a moment, until his teeth appeared once again in the largest smile I’ve ever seen, “Zero, One, I was kidding, the sergeants are sleeping like the cute little babies they are, and your scared adorable faces were nice!”.

I squinted at him. One wasn’t as calm as me, as I saw the two seconds that took his clenched fist to reach Two’s stomach.

“YOU!”, One panted.

Another punch. Two smiled.

“I HAVE FUCKING ASTHMA!”, the punch that landed on Two’s jaw vanished with his attitude.

“Hey!”, he grabbed the short one’s collar, “I’m gonna beat you to death!”

“You couldn’t beat your tiny boy down there if you tried”, One’s response was immediate and precise.

Chuckle

Oh, yeah, I forgot. I can’t say it’s uncommon, though.

It’s I-don’t-know-his-first-name Smith-3, the over quiet-and-enormous one who once in a while will lightly chuckle from something mildly funny.

The other two and I looked at him, only to see he looked away into the darkness of the forest.

He’s also the one who releases the tension in moments like this.

“Well,” One slapped Two’s hand out of his collar “let’s go, otherwise, the sergeants are having us for dinner the next month”.

We grabbed the flashlights and walked the trail. It was my idea, they say there’s a mountain here with the most gorgeous landscape, and I thought it was the perfect place and occasion for me to tell’em that.

Of course, we couldn’t go during the day, as we always had some cleaning or training to do thanks to the boot camp, so our bright moon and flashlights would help us when everyone was asleep.

Other recruits would stand guard all night, but theoretically, we shouldn’t find’em if we were quiet enough.

Which we weren’t.

Everybody seemed apprehensive, it was dark, and, besides the light coming from our flashlights, we couldn’t see much. I could understand how middle-age people imagined so many creatures, goblins, elves, orcs, it was like this all the time.

“Thank God we have light poles in the city”, One whispered in the usual fearful tone, his body contracted, making him even smaller.

Crack

“Fuck! They found us!”, One neared Two.

“Shut up, it’s a branch, must be a fox or someth…”, Two’s voice turned inaudible and I saw his Adam’s apple descending close to his collarbones. So he could get afraid.

Whispers

“Turn 'em off, it’s the guards!”, I said as I pulled the other three off of the trail. Walking backward, we tripped and fell in the bushes.

“Ouc-”, my hands flew to Two’s mouth as I shushed him.

We looked at each other in the eye.

I moved away.

“My mom is the one who wanted me here, she served for years and…”, it was one of the two guards, he wore some red hair in his head. They were recruits like us, weren’t in the same dorms, though.

“Why do we have to be here? No one’s coming to these mountains”, the other one interrupted.

“Don’t they say recruits used to come here to… you know”, the four of us looked at each other.

Two threw random nervous looks at me. Three didn’t express much with his face. One was…

Oh shit, an asthma attack.

“Hey, I really gotta piss”, the red-haired one announced.

I laid him on the ground, “Breathe as I count, one…”

“Is it in my mouth? So shut up and go”, the other responded.

“Two…”, why did this have to happen now?!

“Just saying. You can go back, I get you on the way”, no.

No, no, no!

He was coming to the bushes.

He was gonna find us!

“Three… c’mon, breathe, we gotta run”, he didn’t seem to get better.

“He-”.

“Shhh”.

Two’s hand appeared in my mouth as I heard the sound of unzipping. I couldn’t believe it.

I couldn’t fucking believe.

I didn’t believe as I felt my legs get increasingly wet, nor when the cold of the night vanished so this disgusting heat could appear.

The wetting descended from my knee, passing through the shin until my ankle was soaked.

One breathed normally, fucking now, and Two was trying hard to not burst out laughing, thanks.

“Oh, I feel rejuvenated”, red-hair guy said.

I was gonna kill all of 'em. But, at least, he wasn’t gonna find us. We made it.

Chuckle

Oh, no, I can’t believe it.

“Is someone in there?!”

Smith-3 fucking chuckled.

The red-haired one pushed the recently wet bushes and lit us up.

The four of us gazed long at him. He gazed back.

“GET HIM!”, I screamed.

Every minute I got more convinced that I wasn’t meant to go to the top of the mountain, nor was I to see that landscape.

Was it so difficult to just sneak out of our dorms and walk the forest without interruptions? I just wanted to tell’em that, I needed, but the universe conspired against me, and no matter how much I moved forward, the farther from my objective I seemed to get.

Why? Just why?

“Get the fuck outta my house, you’re enlisting or I’ll kill ya”, that was my dad’s furious voice, but… I didn’t want to remember that now.

“Dad… I-”, my body retracted, I was and felt so small.

“I ain’t no dad of yours, you’re disgusting”, his bare hand reached my face in a slap as my mom reached the room with a sad look.

“Mom…”, my eyes teared.

“Yeah, call your mommy like the little… you are”, what was it that he said? What did he call me?

“Hey, Zero”.

What was dad angry about?

“Zero!”, I snapped back to reality. The three Smiths were expecting for me to answer something, while the red-haired guy was kneeling with a scarf in his mouth.

“What do we do with him?”, Two touched my shoulder while pointing to the one on the ground.

“I already said we should kill him”, One said nervously.

“Hmmm! Hmmm!”, he was trying to say something.

I looked at Three, who just shrugged off the problem.

The kneeling guy had his eyes widened, he certainly was even more desperate than we were. We had the high ground.

“Your future and the future of your kids,” I said, kneeling close to him, “depends on how you answer the next question, understood?”

He nodded in despair.

I whispered, “Can you keep a secret?”.

He stared at me, not knowing what to do. His eyes were brown, I could see my reflection on him, even though he probably couldn’t see much due to the flashlights on his face.

“I’ll do you a favor and you’ll only answer what I asked”, my voice came out low, yet menacing, as my fingers reached to his scarf.

As it lowered, he promptly whispered: “I’m a grave and I’ve got a family, I have too much to lose to denounce you, just let me go”.

“Why aren’t we killing him?”, I don’t know if One was joking at this point, but I just plain ignored him.

“One, Three, you watch him. We keep going”, I said.

Steeper and darker was the path the more we got deeper into it. The silent blackness made me alone with my mind. I could hear’em walk, but it was like an illusion, I felt alone in there.

“Mom, why didn’t you help me? I was afraid, dad was really nervous”, my voice was weak, I felt desolate. I wished so much she had helped me, I needed to know why, why she didn’t confront my dad.

Was it fear? Maybe it was the only way. At least she must’ve felt anger, just couldn’t act on it.

“You’re going to listen to him”, she had a choked voice, I could see the wet in her eyes.

“But I don’t want to!”, I screamed.

“I’m disappointed with you, John Smith! I didn’t raise a child to be like this!”, her despaired expression became closer, I could feel the cold of her tears drop on my hands. It was too much. I couldn’t handle that. 

The woman walked away wrapped by her husband’s arms before they could see my suffering.

“Damn, why do I have to be like this?”, the words escaped from my mouth before I could imprison them with my lips.

“A damn nice soldier, you mean?”, whose voice was that? Was it Two’s?

I caught him staring at me with a smile on his face.

“I don’t care about that”, I said.

“You don’t care much about anything, huh?”, he was half right about that, but what did he want?

“Why’re you here?”, he asked.

One and Three were still watching the guard behind us. Sweat ran down me as we moved forward. I started to doubt there was a top to this mountain, much less that supposedly gorgeous landscape.

“To serve my country”, I answered.

“Don’t bullshit me”, Two didn’t believe it for a second. Shit.

I could still feel the warmness and wetness from the guard’s pee over my leg. It smelled strong, I had to focus to ignore it.

“I ran away from home”, I said as he neared our distance.

“Daddy issues?”, our shoulders touched, it was warm. Not pee warm, but warm enough.

“Something like that.”

“My little brother…”, he hesitated. Not especially usual for him, as his attitude was always that of the super hyper strong, confident, and trustworthy guy. 

“Your brother?”, I encouraged him to proceed.

“He used to watch those war movies, you know? Saving Private Ryan, Hacksaw Ridge, and stuff”, I nodded as he talked about movies I didn’t really watch.

“At first, I found it silly, I haven’t ever really thought about joining the army, I was more of the bum kind, but… seeing those bright eyes so full of life and intent, different from the ones we see in young people nowadays, different even from mine back then”, he clenched his fist in front of him, wearing the same eyes he described.

He looked at me and said with an excited smile “I guess it inspired me!”

Wow. That was something.

“About m-”, I interrupted myself, “We’re here”.

The moonlight finally showed itself over the trees right in front of us.

“What?”, Two seemed eager to know what I’d say.

I screamed with the biggest smile on my face while running to see that landscape, “Turn off the lights, everybody, ‘cause WE FUCKING GOT HERE!”

The four Smiths and the guard ran to see what we were promised. I didn’t look back as my feet jumped several feet at once to get there!

And!

It was here!

Looking forward, there were hundreds of feet of dark blue water forming a huge lake that reflected the moon right in my eyes. On the horizon, an enormous mountain covered with orange-leafed trees contrasted with it.

The wind created waves, which shook the pale-white light that descended from the stars and the moon. There were no cities, no humans, no nothing as far as the eye could see, and that was the most spectacular part of it.

Birds flew on the sky as my cheeks burned from my smile. My eyes watered. It was… it was too much. I couldn’t handle that!

“Quite the view, huh?”, Two sounded as satisfied as I was.

“It’s gorgeous”, I had a choked voice.

“So… are you gonna say why you came here instead of making up with your dad?”, his look was genuinely curious, almost worried.

What was it that he said? What did he call me?

“Hum, I think that’s why we’re here anyway”, I really tried to sound nonchalant about it, despite failing miserably.

What was dad angry about?

“Some time ago my dad got home earlier”, I sat on the grass, admiring the waves that asked me to abandon everything and go live with ’em.

“He really loved me, supported me when I decided to learn judo, when I bought my first physics book and even when I asked for some really expensive painting equipment”, a timid smile escaped from my lips, “ I was his boy”.

I hugged my knees like a child. Two sat near me, not close enough for our shoulders to touch. I was happy he respected that.

He remained silent, intently listening while I spoke.

“I thought nothing I could do would ever make him love me less, and maybe I was right, but… there was one exception he wouldn’t tolerate, and I was dumb enough to be vulnerable with him specifically about that”, I held my dry ankle tight.

“He got home earlier and found me with a boy”, his eyebrows jumped, but the rest of his face remained unchanged.

“It was enlistment or death, he said, so I decided to die doing something remotely important”, I smiled, more to comfort myself than to express any emotion.

And that was it. That was why my dad kicked me out of my home. It was because I was a disgrace for my family.

I wasn’t as nice as he said, certainly not someone who decide things. So… why did they act like that? Why did they ask my opinion on stuff? The course of action?

I was no leader.

I was nobody.

Just Zero. Just… Smith-0.

I couldn’t confront my dad, even my mom wouldn’t stand up for me. My only option was to run.

Why did I say this to him? It’s not going to make any difference, Two will only lose the misdirected respect he has for me. Well, maybe that’s what was supposed to happen since the beginning.

Maybe things should be this way.

“D’you think I didn’t know?”, he asked with a smile. Why was he smiling at me?

“I catch you staring at my ass all the time,” he didn’t look bothered, “I mean, I just let you be happy. It’s not like I don’t have a nice ass”.

“What’re you talking about?”

“‘Bout your old man, it was a deliverance. This kind of people are the worst, but I’m 200 percent sure about two things”, in a swing, he showed two fingers.

“First, I’m sure he’s confused about all that. I, too, would have a hard time accepting my son wasn’t mesexual, but eventually would come to terms with him”, the certainty and emotion impregnated in his voice made me think he really believed that.

“Second, if your dad won’t,” his hand landed on my shoulder, “it says shit about you. You aren’t what people say you are, be it your father, the president, or the pope himself! Zero, that isn’t your name ‘cause you’re worth nothing”, his smile was unbreakable, his attitude unshakable, he meant all of that.

“It’s because you’re the origin, the foundation with which everything else is based on. In other words, you’re our leader, man!”

Leader?

“You tell him!”, One screamed with enthusiasm.

I looked at him with disbelief. He had his small thumbs raised for me.

“Wait, ain’t I the leader?”, Three finally spoke, even if it was for this.

Even the guard nodded when I saw him.

“Am I?…”, I asked.

“D’you still doubt it?”, Two responded showing them.

It was true.

Of course, it was true. And hadn’t been untrue once since the beginning. I never was a nobody.

I can’t believe I fell for a lie that old. To believe I was something less than…

The man!

“You’re right, One, you’re goddamn right, Two! I am your fucking leader!!!”

I threw my hands to the sky as if I had just won the most important tournament of my life.

My huge smile was the most important thing in the world!

There was only one thing left.

I looked away from that landscape and saw the fort.

It was 2 AM so I found it really strange.

Why were all the dorms’ lights on?

“One, Two, Three, we got lost in the forest while training and the guard here found us and saved us”, I said.

Looking at the guard, I asked in a smile.

“Hey, guard, can you keep a secret?”