A triumphant hymn echoed around the country as Roufail received a letter in the mail, which he proudly brought to class the next day.
-"The hell is this?" Leo asked.
-"Isn't it OBVIOUS?" Roufail hit back.
-"...No."
-"Well, it is an ANCESTRY TEST! I WILL PROVE TO THE WORLD THAT I HAVE ONE HUNDRED PERCENT HELLENIC HERITAGE!" Roufail answered.
-"Since when do you care about that stuff?" Morris questioned his loyalty to the anti-nativity nationalist party.
-"I just figured it'd be nice to have some stability in such chaotic times, and what's more stable than one's blood?"
Many things, as a matter of fact, but that didn't cross Roufail's mind when he wasted his (Leo's) money on the ancestry test.
-"Well, open it up already!" Riox insisted.
Roufail quickly tore through the paper that concealed his illusive, arguably superficial, most certainly unnecessary, nativity percentage.
-"THERE IT IS!" Roufail flaunted it in the air for all to see before reading it for himself. "WAIT… NO… IT CAN'T BE!"
The text was clear as day.
102% Turkish, with a 2% margin of error.
The earth shattered, the walls reassembled and broke again, the skies split and the water levels raised by three meters globally.
-"I think you're slightly overreacting." Said Leo, staring at Roufail, who was on all fours and weeping.
-"Yeah, that kind of stuff shouldn't even affect you." Tempest concurred.
They were proven wrong when immigration enforcement officers broke through the floor and arrested Roufail.
-"YOU ARE UNDER ARREST FOR BEING HERE ILLEGALLY!"
-"Hey, but he has legal citizenship!" Morris objected.
-"OUR GLORIOUS PRESIDENT PASSED THE COCONUT TREE ACT WHICH MAKES IT ILLEGAL TO BE IN THIS COUNTRY IF YOU'RE PROVEN TO NOT BE VARYING PERCENTAGES OF GREEK BY BLOOD, WHICH CHANGE ABOUT EVERY DAY."
A true and factual act passed by Greek president Kamala Harris, in yet another one of her attempts to satisfy an imaginary voter base that exists only in the dreams of schizophrenic establishment "liberal" politicians.
By the next day, Roufail had been forced out of the country. Thankfully for him, a Turkish kid had gone through the exact same situation as him, so it was decided that they would take each others' places.
The kid's name was Hassan R. Digidag, who looked almost identical to Roufail, with the exception of the red fez he was wearing. He turned out to be 60% Greek, 52% Cypriot.
Roufail moved in to a truly vile neighborhood, one that looked IDENTICAL to the one in his hometown, down to the buildings' architecture and street food, but the glorious Greek flags and gorgeous orthodox churches were replaced by vile Turkish flags and a reduced amount of orthodox churches, made up for in the large number of mosques which he personally couldn't tell apart, but that didn't matter, for he was suffering.
Hassan was suffering too, for the rightful place of the delicious döner kebab was taken by the disgusting gyros, while the gentle and calm sound of the Turkish language was replaced by the ancient and brutish sound of Greek.
There were two hells on earth and they were each in one.
Roufail woke up to the sound, smell and sight of Turkey, so he was already depressed. He walked to his school, which was identical to the one in his hometown, down to the clear lack of funding and insanely pressured students.
In his class he met the individuals who he would have to be friends with. Leo Kemal and Tempest Mohhamed, who looked identical to those back home, but with a distinct Turkish feel to them, which certainly could not be attributed to his schizophrenia.
He talked with no one and went home right when class was over, which was a first time occurrence.
On his way home he ran into a face that he thought he'd never see again.
-"Garlic?" He called out.
Garlic turned around and revealed a face of utter dread.
-"Are you here to ruin my life even more?" He asked.
-"As if, why would I ever come to this hellscape by my own free will?"
Garlic seemed confused.
-"But, Greece and Turkey are damn near the same."
-"A similarity can never be enough." Roufail said "I can't deal with it not being the same as it once was."
-"Uh, okay dude." They started walking away from each other, when Roufail tripped and fell on a conveniently placed pit of needles.
MEANWHILE
The greatest minds in Greece had assembled, about two cities away from where Leo, Tempest, Morris, Riox and Hassan had gathered.
Their plan was simple; develop an ancestry test without any of the flaws of the previous one.
-"What if it turns out they're still not of the nationalities we want?" Tempest asked.
-"Then we'll make some fake papers and pretend it was done using this perfect machine, duh." Leo answered.
-"Now you're speaking my language!" Riox added.
-"Bu ülkede daha fazla kedi olmalı." Hassan remarked.
-"Onlar bunun için fazla otoriterler." Morris told him.
-"Since when do you know Turkish, by the way?" Leo asked him.
-"I know every language in the world, duh, how else will I be a true anarcho hyper globalist?" Morris had this unique way of talking that made everyone around him feel stupid for not understanding his nonsense, and it remained as evident as ever here.
They continued tinkering with their gadget before proudly proclaiming it to be complete.
-"HERE!" Leo raised something that looked near identical to an electrical thermometer, albeit black and with an antenna attached to one end.
-"Bu şimdiye kadar gördüğüm en kötü şey." Hassan remarked.
-"I agree, the stolen materials we used to build this would've been better allocated in arming my developing militia." Morris remarked.
-"Unfortunately, it wasn't possible to make this without two prerequisites; it will scan the DNA of everyone on earth at the same time, and it needs an hour to charge up." Tempest explained "So it seems we have some free time to uh… do whatever, I guess."
They went on a walk outside, just the four of them - and Hassan.
It was odd, really. Riox and Morris were their usual selves, if anything, their common love for crime (thievery, more specifically), gave them good chemistry, while Hassan, despite almost no one understanding him, behaved quite similarly to the missing Roufail, with whatever that brought.
With ten minutes left until the Ultimate Blood Tester 3000™ finished charging, Leo and Tempest sat down on a park bench, a few meters away from the other three, as they started discussing something.
-"You know… All of this is starting to remind me of the previous times." Tempest told Leo.
-"Yeah, I didn't want to admit it but, ever since the Garlic Party something has felt… off."
-"I feel like it got worse at your party as well."
-"True." Leo agreed "At some point we stopped looking for what was, I don't know about you but, I was just tired of pursuing the past. I used to think that'd be like conceding defeat, but I'm not sure what to feel now."
-"We really should've talked about this kind of stuff more often in the past, cause I do relate."
-"Maybe it's just that it's a weird thing to discuss, people's feelings and all." Leo suggested.
-"But necessary nonetheless." Tempest added.
-"Yeah." Craig agreed.
They didn't address the fact that he was now sitting next to them on the bench, instead focusing on the fact that the Ultimate Blood Tester 3000™ had now fully charged.
-"Shall we?" Leo asked.
-"Well, he's an idiot, but I'd rather have an idiot whose language I at least understand than the opposite." Tempest said.
-"Yeah." Craig agreed.
And so, they activated it… though, it would need another 5 minutes of booting up before performing its function, as they were too cheap to pay for the Ultimate Blood Tester 3000™ Premium subscription.
MEANWHILE
Roufail opened his eyes and was greeted by the sight of an unfamiliar, yet distinctly Turkish, hospital room ceiling.
-"You woke up surprisingly fast." Garlic, who was sitting next to his bed, remarked.
-"You brought me to the hospital and waited for me to wake up?" Roufail asked him.
-"I didn't have much of anything better to do anyway." Garlic responded "Do note that if it took you longer to recover I'd have left."
Roufail had never been more confused.
-"You're… Different from last time we saw each other… Less… Annoying." Roufail exclaimed.
-"Gee, thanks for the compliment dude. Yeah, I matured, my house being burnt down was quite the wake up call to how people viewed me."
The atmosphere got awkward, until Roufail realized that he wasn't harmed, at all.
-"Didn't I fall into a bunch of needles? What the hell happened after I went unconscious?!" He asked.
-"Oh right." Garlic said as he pulled out a mirror to show Roufail his face.
It was completely normal, except, instead of having two black colored eyes, his right eye was green.
-"They had to do a transplant because, somehow, every single needle went into your right eye, which might I add wasn't protected by that stupid eyepatch at all. Why do you even wear that thing?"
Roufail didn't have the breath in him to talk. Eventually, he mustered a few words together after some minutes of staring into the mirror.
-"It's… Different… But it's still the same."
-"Eh, I'd say it's somewhat weird."
-"What?"
-"I mean, having differently colored eyes is very rare, y'know. It's usually the same color on both, in case you forgot."
-"Yeah… It's not really the same…" Roufail pondered for a bit, before he got up and walked out the hospital alongside Garlic.
Once outside, he saw a tuxedo cat with white and black fur, which he went to pet. To his pleasant surprise, it let him, liked it even, as it closed its green eyes and pushed its head towards his palm.
-"His name is Mehmet." A voice above the crouching Roufail said.
He looked up to see a man carrying cat kibble, who looked identical to Renie, except, of course, for the red fez.
-"Let me guess, your first name is Renie and the second is something in Turkish?" Roufail asked.
-"What? Dude, I'm Renie." He answered.
Suddenly, a small hologram appeared in front of the faces of everyone there, no, of everyone in the world.
It was the Ultimate Blood Tester™ 3000 in action, as the hologram displayed the true DNA heritage percentage of everyone in the world. Chaos ensued.
Every single Greek was Turskish and every single Turk was Greek, every single English person was French and every single Frenchie was English, every Indian was Pakistani and every Pakistani was Indian, Australia and New Zealand may have been different as well, were it not for the former no longer existing, while Craig's result displayed only an odd "0%".
-"Yeah." Craig agreed… ominously.
Borders collapsed due to the increasingly racist migration laws now working against themselves, allowing Roufail and Hassan to get back to their homes in due time.
Roufail arrived back in Greece on a day that felt weirdly important, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. It was an afternoon, and a hangout with the gang was scheduled.
He arrived last and about half an hour late, as per usual. Oddly enough, Riox and Morris had an announcement to make.
-"It is with much pride that we announce…" Morris started.
-"We are going to…" Riox followed.
-"TAKE OVER MOLDOVA!" They finished at the same time.
…
-"What?" The other three asked at the same time.
-"Well, turns out, I am now Moldovan. I can use this nativity status in combination with my expert political capabilities to convince everyone that I am the rightful heir to the throne of the Moldovan Socialist Islamist Anarchist Empire, which I will manifest in its truest form."
-"And I… I'm just gonna go with him cause committing crimes with you guys isn't as fun. Sorry, but it's true."
Morris and Riox said in that order.
-"So you guys are leaving?" Leo asked.
-"Yeah, obviously."
-"Forever?" Tempest turned to Riox.
-"Hey, we might visit sometimes, you guys aren't COMPLETELY unfun to commit crimes with and you're relatively fun to hang out with for other activities as well." He answered.
Roufail wasn't sad, nor happy. He was certainly upset, but he primarily felt an emotion that he couldn't quite put into words. His pondering over that distracted him into forgetting to say his farewells, which he only realized once Morris and Riox had already ridden R.Dash in the air.
-"GOODBYE, EVERYONE!" They yelled from above
-"SEE YOU LATER!" Roufail added, smiling widely upon seeing them nod before they rode off into the sunset.
And now, there were three.
-"Man, there are so many things I need to talk to you guys about!" Roufail told them.
-"Us too." Leo said.
-"And I feel like they concern similar topics." Tempest exclaimed.
The last two were dumbfounded when Roufail assumed a shocked facial expression, horrified even. But they understood why that was once they turned to look at what, or rather, who was behind them.
-"Hey." Kewmed greeted them.
The three were dead silent, hardly believing their eyes.
-"What's wrong, lol? Oh yeah, I got a new haircut. It's great, isn't it?" Kewmed's "haircut" was really just a buzz cut that revealed a blinding amount of his forehead, but that wasn't the reason they stayed quiet.
-"Go." Tempest calmly told him.
-"What?" He asked in bewilderment.
-"Leave us, you don't get to act in the ways you have and then just come back like everything is normal, you dick." Leo insisted.
-"What? Man, can you believe them, Roufail? They're trying to remove me, ME!"
-"I also think you should go." Roufail said quietly.
-"Yeah right, this group won't be the same without me, I am one of the main OGs, dude! Stop being such babies, guys." Kewmed said as he turned his back to them and started walking, as if he was leading the way or something.
-"Yeah, it won't be the same." Roufail told him as he grabbed him by the shoulder "But even if we're not as we once were, even if bad things happen that change shit, even if the group looks completely different from one day to another…"
He forced Kewmed to face him as he winded back a punch
-"THE GANG WILL PERSIST, DIFFERENT, MAYBE WORSE FOR A TIME, BUT EVENTUALLY FOR THE BETTER. AND MOST OF ALL, IT WILL FOREVER REMAIN AT LEAST SOMEWHAT WEIRD!"
He punched Kewmed in the face with so much strength that he was sent flying at speeds that rivaled those of light, reaching Turkey in no time, only to be kicked back into Greece by Renie.
Still airborne, he got upercutted by Tempest into the sky, kicked upwards even further by Leo, until, in the end, all three of them went right above him.
-"SOME WEIRD DRILL!"
They kicked him down at the same time, making him land on the ground with so much force that his body now resembled an accordion.
They turned their backs and walked away from him, never to be forsaken by his unpleasant sight again.
-"Oh, right." Roufail finally remembered "Today was the last day of school, wasn't it?"
-"Yeah, you missed it." Leo answered.
-"Well, it's not like we did anything. Matt T. Eacher is still… somewhere and the entire roof is now being supported by a line of 'wall' that's thinner than a pen. So, you didn't miss out on anything." Tempest exclaimed.
-"But, I did!" Roufail started tearing up "This was our last day of middle school, and all three of us are going to different high schools! I missed the last day just because of my stupid ass wanting to take that pointless heritage test."
Tempest and Leo both laughed thoroughly, leaving Roufail bewildered.
-"Yes, you are stupid, but that's not the only reason." Leo said.
-"What?" Roufail asked.
-"So what if we go to different high schools? You said it yourself, the gang is not being broken up, ever… At least not for the foreseeable future. We at worst won't see each other every day anymore." Tempest elaborated.
-"Sucks, but that's what the weekend is for anyway." Leo remarked.
Roufail sighed as relief overtook his entire being and the tears went running down his smile, only now they were tears of happiness.
-"Come on, now. We still have our last summer before high school, don't we?" Tempest said.
-"Geez, you always either take everything too seriously or not seriously enough. I guess you calling yourself stupid could count as a moment of acceptance." Leo added.
-"Indeed… It was… It is… acceptance." Roufail said lastly.
And so, the three of them went on with the sunset on their backs, continuing another hangout, one that was similar to those before it, and not too different from those that were yet to come. For in all of them, they had themselves, and regardless of everything, they remained some weird group.