Fantasia, the Ugliest Girl (pt. 1)

They say one should never judge a book by its cover, yet people always assess one’s worth based on appearance alone. This is a tale about a boy who fell in love with the ugliest girl he has ever met.

***

Slovakia, a small country in the heart of Europe. Capital city, Bratislava. It is a sunny Thursday morning; birds are already singing their songs outside, creating a beautiful harmony. A fresh spring breeze gently caresses the blooming flowers.

“Oh maaan! What a beautiful day and we are stuck at this stupid school!”

“Come now, Zhang, you’re always building up rage like this right from the early morning, try to be normal for once, please?”

“You see? I am not the least normal here! I told you, Yutaka!”

As Seko declares this with a triumph in his voice, he pours water from his bottle through a little grid on the wall next to his seat. Yutaka gives him a fed up look, trying to fathom this peculiar ritual for the whole 2 years of their time high school.

“Hey, Ravel? What do you think? Am I more normal than Zhang??”

“E… E… the World Order... E…”

Ravel mutters for himself, daydreaming about something seemingly important. He adjusts his black spiky hair reminiscent of a shonen protagonist from his favorite anime and stares at Seko with his deep blue eyes.

“Huh…?”

He is not in the mood for ‘deep’ topics this early.

“You know I am usually still sleepy until 10 a.m., don’t talk to me…”

Ravel yawns as he rests his head on the desk, shutting his eyes.

“Anyways, how is your search for Lady E going?”

Yutaka has always had a knack for asking the right questions.

“Ehh, not good at all…” Ravel replies while still trying hard not to get disturbed from his late morning sleep.

“Hey, what are you guys talking about? Who is this ‘Lady E’?”

“What the hell is wrong with you, Seko? Did you forget about Ravel’s obsession?”

“Stop it, it’s not an obsession!”

Ravel energetically stands up and accidentally hits Seko’s desk which makes his opened bottle tumble, spilling the water on the floor.

“Okay, okay, I get it, haha!” Yutaka took a defensive stance while Ravel keeps glaring at him.

A girl with blonde twin-tails enters their classroom, all eyes on her. She passes by Ravel and not noticing the spillage, she slips and falls down, landing on her left hand.

“Ouch!! W-what is this?”

“Hey! Are you okay? I’m so sorry, I spilled a little!”

Ravel immediately offers his hand, only to be met with the girl’s reflexive withdrawal.

“I-it’s fine, don’t worry about me!”

She casts her gaze away shyly, concealing her light blue eyes.

Ravel retracts his hand and watches her grab a wall map from the class and walk away with it, obviously still in pain.

“Who was that hideous creature?”

“That’s not nice to say something like that about a girl, Zhang! At least refer to her as a human being. A hideous or ugly human.”

Zhang can be very simple and direct but Seko just straight up murders with his words.

“That was Fantasia from the class 1.B. They are about to have a geography lesson so she is probably in charge of the class duty this week and was tasked to borrow the map from us.”

“You always know your stuff, huh, li’l Joe?”

This is how these four boys showed affection. Calling themselves by a nickname “li’l Joe”. Yutaka was definitely Zhang’s one and only li’l Joe.

“It’s only natural to scan all the girls in the surroundings.”

Yutaka adjusts his glasses with a smug face.

“Yeah but I thought you only cared about pretty girls, so why even remember a name of such a-“

“Stop it.”

Ravel, slightly annoyed, raises his voice to interrupt this discussion.

“She may not be the prettiest girl ever, but maybe she has a beautiful heart. Big dreams, blazing soul and a need to help others whenever it is necessary!”

Ravel clenches his fists and closes his eyes, trying to support his statement with his body language.

“Come on, dude. She can be a kind person, true. But… 50% of girls at this school are no models. And yet she shines the ugliest among them all.”

Seko doesn’t stop with his offensive remarks at Fantasia’s appearance. Ravel calms himself down and takes his seat.

“…I’m just saying it is wrong to say this about her. She didn’t even do anything to you. Quite the opposite, she got hurt because of us. Because of me....”

***

A school bell rings, signaling the end of the last period. The whole 2.A class sighs collectively. Zhang stretches his neck and runs off hastily.

“Where’d he rush?”

“He’s probably trying to catch the bus so that he can play his video games as soon as possible…”

Ravel ignores the boys and leaves the class without a word.

“Hey, where are you off to? Ravel!”

Ravel acted as if he didn’t hear anything. He nervously looked around in the hall. Spotting the exit, he decided to venture in the opposite direction.

After a few minutes, he reached his destination. Standing before classroom 1.B, he enters and finds himself met with disapproving glares form the younger students.

“Is there a girl named Fantasia?” Ravel asked loudly with confidence.

“If you mean Fantasia the Ugly, then no, the monkey is not here anymore.”

One of the girls in the class responds and triggers a chorus of laughter from her peers.

“Yeah, you said it, sis! The ugliest monkey in the whole Slovakia! Hahahah.”

“I see… so she is not here anymore…”

Ravel’s face turns gloomy as he leaves the classroom.

***

Ravel walks home alone as always, thinking about what happened to Fantasia earlier this morning. I need to make it right somehow, he thought.

Upon reaching his home, he discovered the door locked.

“They’re not home again, huh…”

Unlocking with his own key, he got inside, not bothering to announce his safe arrival from school. There was no reason to since his parents were absent.

He stowes away his backpack in his room and finds a note stuck on a PC table - the only reliable place to stick something on in order to ensure he notices the important message his parents left him.

The sink in the kitchen is broken, a plumber will stop by at 5 p.m., so be home.

A simple and straightforward message from, by the looks of the handwriting, his mother. Glancing at the clock on his phone, he realizes there is about 30 minutes left until then. He turns on his PC and puts on a new episode of his favorite anime, None Piece.

“A 20-minute episode and my favorite waifu Winata will keep me busy!”

***

Ravel is silently sitting on his comfy chair in front of the PC, watching another breathtaking episode.

But something rare occurs. He realizes he cannot focus on the episode, since he still thinks about the girl who because of him slipped and hurt herself.

“I’ve got to talk to her tomorrow and apologize properly. Should I buy a chocolate? Any girl likes chocolate, right?”

Ravel rubs his chin. When a “To be continued” screen appears just like at the end of every episode, a doorbell rings. They’re early, he thought.

Coming downstairs towards the door, he still has that gloomy look on his face. He has always been too empathetic. Feeling more guilt than he probably should, he opens the door to answer the doorbell ringing.

“Hello! Sorry I came this late but I rushed from school as soon as possible! So? Where do you have that sink?”

A rather well-spoken girl with a nice soothing voice stood in front of him, wearing a dark blue plumber working uniform with yellow galluses and holding a red tool case in her right hand. She has closed eyes and a wide smile reveals dental braces.

“Huh??? Fantasia?!”

Ravel couldn’t believe his eyes. Is this the power of the guilt? Imagining things like that?

“Oh, it’s you! You’re from the class 2.A! How do you know my name though?”

“What are you doing here? Did you come to haunt me?!”

“What are you talking about? Your father called a plumber because of that broken sink so I am here to fix it!”

***

Ravel sits on a chair next to a kitchen table with his gaze fixed upon Fantasia who is on her knees, diligently repairing the pipe beneath the kitchen sink.

He cannot escape all the thoughts that swirl in his mind.

What is this situation? Isn’t it one of those cliché tropes in the rom-com anime where a boy meets a girl in the most unexpected way and their lives intertwine? No, this looks different. A girl from school in a plumber uniform is kneeling under the sink in my house in the first episode. This can’t be rom-com. It’s more like a reverse scene from a por-, his thoughts are suddenly cut short.

“Can you help me with the spanner over there, please? I am holding it together with my right hand, but cannot use my left.”

What was I thinking. In a rom-com, or in that other media, girls are usually much cuter than her. This is just a normal everyday situation, although a little bizarre.

He crawls next to her under the sink and starts using the spanner where she holds it.

“Okay, that’s enough or you’ll break it!” she stops him by putting her right hand over his hand.

Their faces are in close proximity, they feel each other’s breaths. He tried very hard. He was desperately looking for a single beautiful thing on her. But in that male work uniform, she didn’t even appear girly.

As his eyes wandered over her plain blonde hair with almost no lively color, blue eyes with no spark in them, ears… okay, the ears get a pass... eyebrows kept without any care, a little nose and dry, cracked lips, while she was still inspecting the pipe, Ravel thought to himself that she really isn’t that pretty. In fact, this girl, Fantasia, is not pretty at all.

CHAPTER 1: END