*Beval Hernandez's POV:

"Guys hurry up, we're gonna be late!" I yelled as I banged on the bathroom door.

Robin and Gaia were in there doing their hair and makeup.

Me and Shimizu were already ready.

We decided to get ready over Shimizu's house, since he lived closer to Sunnyside.

"Beval if you knock on this door one more time, I will rip out your throat and play the flute using your windpipe!" Robin threatened from inside the bathroom.

I was honestly not afraid of her threats like Shimizu and Gaia were, they didn't phase me.

"Then hurry up so I don't have to keep on banging!" I yelled back.

"We are almost done Beval, give us five more minutes" Gaia said after she sighed in frustration.

I didn't even feel like arguing anymore. I rolled my eyes and went downstairs. Girls always took so long in the bathroom I swear, like how long did it take just to do your hair, put on clothes and makeup? I guess trying to look popular came with a price.

Speaking of looking popular, if you would've seen me and Shimizu, you probably wouldn't have recognized us. That's how nice we looked.

My hair looked the same, still shoulder-length, thick and wavy, but it was nice and combed. I wore a red polo shirt and a gold necklace with a dollar sign. My jeans were blue denim and sagged a little. I had a Gucci belt to hold my pants in place, and my shoes were red and white Air Jordan's.

To add a little flavor, I put on some red and gold shades and sprayed on my best cologne. To fit in and not be recognized as an experi-baby, I put on Hazel contacts to hide my purple eyes.

I wanted to wear gold fronts on my teeth, but I had braces so that wasn't going to work out, so instead I told Shimizu to buy gold fronts for himself.

Shimizu was going to wear a dressy shirt, but I had to stop him right then and there and tell him "we gotta look popular and trendy, not churchy". Out of the kindness of my heart, I let him borrow my turquoise polo shirt.

Shimizu had on khaki jeans so I already knew the color turquoise would match.

What's bad enough was that he even had on dressy church shoes, so I had no choice but to let him borrow a pair of my turquoise vans. Good thing we wore the same size in shoes.

I could tell this guy had never been to a high school house party before.

To be honest, I was glad I told Shimizu to buy gold fronts, he looked like a new person, a popular person if that. His hair was gelled down, he had on brown contacts so he didn't have to wear glasses. His gold fronts shined every time he opened his mouth and he had on nice smelling cologne, this time it wasn't mine.

After tons of thinking, I made up my mind on how to get Mina's attention: I had speak Spanish to her.

Nothing wins over a girl's affection more than when a guy flirts with her in Spanish. Spanish is known to be the most romantic language in the world. There was a chance she probably didn't know Spanish so if she asked me what I said, I could just lie and make something up.

"Maybe I should just tap her on the shoulder and- no, I shouldn't do that. Or I can just roll up on her, grab her by the hand and- nah. Maybe, I should just walk up to her and show her what I am made of, show her what she's missing out on" I thought to myself, thinking of ways I should approach her.

When I went downstairs, I saw Shimizu sitting on his couch watching TV. His sister Hikari was sitting right next to him talking a mile a minute, asking him about the party and going on and on about how much she wanted to go. His dad was in the backyard fixing up the back fence, but his mom was in the kitchen heating Hikari up some dinner. Shimizu's dog Tadashi was just sitting next to him and staring at Hikari.

I could tell just by looking at Shimizu's expression that he was ready to go.

"Ready to go huh?" I asked rhetorically as I walked over with my hands in my pockets. I sat next to him on the couch.

"Yes, but these gold fronts are killing me, it feels weird on my teeth" Shimizu replied as he was touching his gold fronts.

"Why do you two look like cool kids?" Hikari asked in confusion as she placed her Barbie dolls that she was playing with down on her lap.

"Uh, because we are cool kids" I smiled wide as I popped my collar.

"More like a bunch of dorks" Hikari clapped back.

The smile on my face began to fade away as I and Shimizu just looked at each other.

That was a pretty good comeback for a five year old. Maybe they needed to make sure she wasn't watching any reality TV.

"Hikari! Dinner is ready!" Shimizu's mother yelled from the dining room.

"Yay, spaghetti!" Hikari yelled one happiness as she ran to the dinner table.

"Sorry about that, my sister can be a bit of a smarty-pants sometimes" Shimizu apologized.

"It's all cool man, she kind of reminds me of me somehow" I said as we both looked over at her.

"Is it because you guys are both sassy, opinionated and sarcastic?" Shimizu asked as he rested his head on his hand, clearly bored.

"Hmph, I guess you can say that" I responded, leaning back on the couch.

"Yeah. Hey, do you know what time it is? Robin and Gaia are taking a long time" Shimizu asked.

I took my phone out of my pocket and looked.

"It's 5:20."

"5:20?! If it's 5:20, then why are you talking about us being late when the party starts at 6:00?" Shimizu asked in confusion.

"Because if I'm there early, I can try to talk to Mina before everybody else does. The good news is that nobody really arrives to parties on the exact time it starts. Plus, it's a fifteen minute drive to 900 Sunnyside Blvd, so therefore, we have about ten minutes to get the hell out of here, that way we can get there at about 5:45. I did the math."

"Wow, you did all of that in your head? You're a math god" Shimizu questioned in shock.

"But we all knew" I said in confidence with a shrug and a big smile.

About ten seconds later, Robin and Gaia started to gracefully come down the steps.

I had to say it, they looked absolutely amazing. I've never seen those two this dressed up since 8th grade graduation.

Robin's hair was straightened but curled. The top half of her hair was in a high ponytail and the rest of her hair was down.

She had on eyeliner and had a smokey-eyed, eye shadow look. Her dress was a short dark blue dress with gold sandals, gold hoop earrings, and her lips were a rosy pink color.

Gaia's hair wasn't in a braided mohawk, I guess she changed her mind about which hairstyle to wear.

She had the left side of her head cornrowed but the rest of her hair was out. Her hair was straighten, but it was also curled.

I honestly never knew Gaia's hair was that long, it was down passed her chest. When her hair was in it's natural state of tight curls, it was a little pass her shoulders.

She had on a black, short dress, large pearls as earrings, a silver necklace, and black knee-high sandals. She had the same smokey-eyed look as Robin.

"Woah, you guys look great!" Shimizu complemented as he walked over to them.

"Thank you" Gaia said as she blushed.

"Thanks Mizu" Robin smiled as she nudged Shimizu a bit. He timidly giggled as he stroked his arm.

Being me, I decided to have a little fun with Robin and Gaia.

"Yeah, you guys do look nice. I mean, just to see a tough, impetuous, violent tomboy in girly clothes is pretty shocking. But Gaia, wow, you have so much black on, I never knew you were Gothic" I teased as I slowly approached Robin and Gaia.

Gaia just gasped and pouted at me, and as usual, Robin got triggered.

"One more word out of you and I'm gonna rip your small intestines out your mouth, and rip your large intestines out your butt, and use you as a skipping rope!" Robin threatened as she balled her first up at me.

Okay, I'll admit, that threat did kind of scare me.

"Well dang" I replied as I blinked my eyes rapidly, backing away.

Robin and Gaia high-fived each other, followed by Gaia sticking her tongue out at me and flipping her hair.

"Alright, are you guys ready to go? You got everything?" Mrs. Mizuki asked us.

I looked around at Shimizu, Gaia and Robin before I answered.

"Yup, we're ready" I nodded.

"Good. Oh wait, let me just get three pictures!" Mrs. Mizuki said as she excitedly reached into her purse and searched for her phone.

"Seriously?!" I thought to myself.

After the three pictures, we rushed out of the house and into Mrs. Mizuki's car.

Shimizu sat up front, I sat in the middle, Gaia sat to the right of me and Robin sat to my left.

I decided to mess with my two best friends as I wrapped my arms around them.

"So ladies, what'cha gonna do once we get to the party?  You guys can hang out with me and Mina but you'll have to fight through the crowd of people that will be watching us. Robin, I know you won't have a problem doing that" I stated with a playful smile as I looked at her.

A second didn't even go by before Robin held me down, pinned my arm to my back, smothering my face in the seat.

"Robin let me go! I was just kidding arou-"

Robin put even more pressure on my arm. I yelled out in pain.

Shimizu tried his best not to look back and what was happening. Gaia pretended it wasn't happening and just looked out of the car window as she rested her head on her hand.

"Alright kids, that's enough" Mrs. Mizuki spoke as she looked in her review mirror at us.

After about a twelve minute car ride with Robin and her torture methods, we finally made it to Sunnyside. The neighborhood looked a lot like Beverly Hills, it was rich, it was clean, it had huge houses, and it was somewhat quiet.

"My GPS is saying that we are three minutes away" Mrs. Mizuki announced.

"Finally, in three more minutes and I would finally get the girl of my dreams. This was the time where I had take advantage of my good looks." I thought to myself in excitement.

Three minutes later, we finally got there. I had never seen Mina's house until now, it was huge. I could hear the song "Bartier Cardi" by Cardi B being played from her house. It was one of my favorite songs by Cardi B.

Mrs. Mizuki finally, after a thousand years of searching, found a place to park for us to safely leave the car without worrying about traffic.

"Thanks Mom" Shimizu said to Mrs. Mizuki as we left out of the car.

I along with Gaia and Robin waved bye to her.

"No problem, I'll be back to pick you guys up at ten."

"Okay" we replied.

Mrs. Mizuki parked about thirty feet from the house, so we had to run to it to be one time, even though we were already on time anyway.

Once we approached the front door, I rung the doorbell of the house.

A big security guard answered.

He was a bulky, muscular, bald black guy with black shades and a tuxedo, he had to be around 6"10 and looked to be in his thirties.

"Do you have the invitation?" He asked. His voice was so deep he could pass for a demon. But he also kind of sounded like that guy from that "All-State" commercial.

"Yup, it's right here" I said with no fear, reaching into my pocket and giving it to him. I always told my friends: "always bring your invitations to the party you were invited to, you'll never know when you'll get into a situation like this".

He took it, looked at the invitation for a second or two and chuckled.

"Beval Hernandez huh? Mina is expecting you."

My heart was beating so fast I thought it was gonna burst out of my chest. My cheeks were becoming red.

"Really?!" I asked, clenching my fist with joy.

He ignored my question and looked my friends up and down.

"Are they with you?" he asked me, refused to look away from them.

"Yes sir, they're my friends" I smiled.

"Alright, come on in."

As he opened the door all the way, we finally got a good glimpse of what the house looked like from the inside.

Me and my friends were amazed at how big and beautiful the house looked on the inside.

The walls were painted gold and red, there had to be like 7-10 bedrooms in that house, that's how big it was. There was a huge staircase that was several meters away from us. Right above it sat a big, gold chandelier. There were people there, but not a lot. Yet.

I checked the time on my phone, it was about 5:44 pm. I still had time.

Once we walked in, I turned to my friends.

"Alright, here is where we're gonna split up. Do whatever you want, eat up all the food, play games, dance, do whatever. We're gonna meet up at the front gates of the house when the party is over at ten. Deal?"

"Sure, I'm all for it, we can split up and do our own thing" Shimizu agreed in his usual preppy voice.

Robin and Gaia just nodded their heads in agreement. Robin then spotted something.

"Hey, I think that's Mina over there, see that girl up there in the red?" Robin pointed up to the stairs behind us.

I turned around and very much so, it was Mina.

She looked like a supermodel. She had on a pretty red dress, 6-inch red pumps and hot pink lipstick. Her makeup was on point and her hair looked good. She was at the top of the stairs on her phone texting.

I turned back to my friends, put up the "deuces" sign and started making my way to her.

"You go get her Beval, you can do this!" Robin yelled at me.

"But remember, be yourself!" Shimizu yelled also.

"I will, thanks for the advice. You guys are the best!"

Two of my friends were supporting me, cheering me on, except for Gaia.

I looked at Gaia and realized that she was the only one who wasn't supporting me. Actually, she was looking at me, frowning.

Maybe something made her upset. Maybe it was when I called her Gothic when we were still at the house. When I get a chance, I will apologize to her about that.

I fixed myself up and tried my best not to sweat or tremble as walked up the steps.

As I got closer and closer to her, my heart was beating faster and faster.

Once I made it up the steps, I started having second thoughts and was about to head back down until Mina looked up from her phone and looked at me.

She placed her phone down and smiled. It gave me butterflies. I smiled back, standing as still as I could.

That's when another song started playing: "Moment for life" by Nicki Minaj.

I was only ten feet away from her. We were just standing there, staring at each other awkwardly and smiling. Suddenly, she spoke up.

"Hi, you must be Beval Hernandez" she smiled as she held out her hand for me to shake.

I didn't move at all. I just blew my breath, looked down at my shoes and thought about my plan:

"Try to get her affection by speaking your first language: Spanish" I thought to myself.

That's when I made my move, but I had to remember: I had to be myself.

"Are you okay?" she asked, bewildered. She still had her hand out and was wondering why I was just standing there.

I looked up from the ground and at her. I placed my hands into my pockets and walked towards her. As I was walking to her, I was eyeing her up and down. That gets the girls every time.

"Hola" I smiled as I approached her.

She looked confused and furrowed her eyebrows at me.

"Huh? Wha-"

"Shh!" I shushed her as I gently touched her soft full lips.

She looked surprised but also interested in what I had to say. I began circling her.

"Señorita Mina, he estado pensando mucho en usted últimamente" I said in a flirtatious tone of voice as I was eyeing her. Translation:

(Miss Mina, I've been thinking a lot about you lately.)

She was still confused, but still showed interest.

"Verás, he estado muy enamorado de ti desde sexto grado. No he tenido una conversación uno a uno contigo hasta ahora. Y realmente no me has notado hasta esta noche". Translation:

(You see, I've had a huge crush on you since sixth grade. I haven't had a one to one conversation with you until now. And you really haven't noticed me until tonight.)

She was starting to become even more interested. She started giggling and smiling. This was a good sign! No, a great sign!

I stopped circling her and we stared deeply into each other's eyes, even though she couldn't really see mine because I had on my red shades.

She placed her head down and I could tell she was blushing and trying to hide her face.

I smiled as I tilted her chin back up for her to look at me.

"He estado soñando con esto durante los últimos tres años ahora, y ahora finalmente lo conseguí....finalmente
te conseguí," I whispered to her. Our faces were only inches away from each other. I looked at her lips then back into her eyes.

Translation:

(I have been dreaming about this for the past three years now, and I finally got it...I finally got you.)

I was not prepared for what she said next.

"Oh, por favor, detente me estás, haciendo sonrojar" she replied as she touched her cheeks. Translation:

(Oh please stop it, you're making me blush)

It was as if a DJ had scratched a CD. Totally unexpected.

"Wait, you can speak Spanish?!" I questioned as I stepped away in shock.

"Yes, I am fluent in Spanish, Arabic, Mandarin, German and French."

"Damn it" I mumbled, shaking my head as I took my shades off and placed them into my pocket.

She walked over to me and tilted my head up to look at my eyes.

"Why aren't your eyes purple anymore? You must be wearing contacts" she claimed.

"Wait a minute! You know about my eyes being purple?!" I yelled out in panic.

"Shhh! And of course, I've always known. You and your friends all have unique eye colors. Obviously, you guys were experimented on. I could tell when I bumped into you a week or so ago" she said after she shushed me.

"You remember that moment?!"

"Shhhhhh! Jesus, you'll have people staring at us," she said as she looked around.

"Oh, sorry. I tried my best to hide them well from you. But one more question, did you understand everything I told you in Spanish?" I asked, afraid of the answer.

She shook her head yes.

"Oh god!" I groaned, face-palming myself.

"But that doesn't mean I don't feel the same way."

I looked at her with wide eyes.

"What?!"

"I like you too Beval" she smiled.

"Re-really?! You like me?!"

"Yes. To be honest with you, I liked you ever since eight grade, but I was afraid to tell you and afraid to approach you, so I did nothing. I always though you were really handsome and I loved your spunky and sassy attitude while we were in school. The mouth you gave Mr. James near the cafeteria was legendary. You roasted him, haha."

"But what about when you said you would never date a guy who was experimented on?" I asked.

"You heard that?!"

"Me and my friends were eavesdropping into your conversation a little at the restaurant. We didn't mean to though, we just heard it", I said in an apologetic way as I looked away from her.

"I only said that to fit in with my friends and to be cool. I don't care if you were experimented on or not."

She then grabbed my hands.

"Love is love, and I know you won't use your powers to harm me or anyone else, because I know you aren't that kind of guy" she continued.

My heart was beating like crazy and I couldn't stop smiling. This whole time, my dream girl liked me back and I didn't even know it.

"Let's go sit near a patio and talk before the party really does start" Mina suggested with a smile as she grabbed my arm and guided me off somewhere.

"Ss-sure" I stuttered as I was in a trance-like state.

My dream had finally come true.