Aljoša Rodinger, pen name AL Rodinger, is a 21-year-old writer and amateur boxer currently studying history and English literature at the University of Maribor. He was born on 1.7.1999 in Maribor, Slovenia and attended the Rada Robič Elementary School in Limbuš. He began to take interest in the English language from a very early age and by the beginning of his 6th grade was already a fluent speaker of the language. After finishing his elementary school education, he attended the First Grammar School in Maribor as a student of the classics, where he was exposed to a lot of in-depth history, as well as both Latin and ancient Greek. It is there where he began and later on finished writing his book, Killjoys. It is also around this time where he began practicing boxing. After graduating, he enrolled in the University of Maribor as a student of both history and English literature. Currently, he is also employed at the Marbior Slovene National Theatre as an usher. 

“If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, if you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two impostors just the same. Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, and - which is more - you'll be a man, my son.”

These are the words that start our tale of four friends, their deep and personal friendship and their own coming of ages, where they finally come to terms with their own flaws and manage to find perfection in being imperfect and broken. It is a story about accepting yourself with all of your strengths and weakness, living life with all of its ups and downs, experiencing pain and joy, confronting both your inner demons as well as the people closest to you. 

Our character’s lives are entwined with discrimination, hatred, addiction and death, yet it always seems that there is some resemblance of light, of contempt at the end of the dark and long tunnel before us. We just simply have to find a way to get to it and make our own path.

Killjoys

Heavy music blasted into his ears as Matt sat alone in his room as he was sitting on his bed and scribbling into his notebook. 


His room was small with dark grey walls and it had one small window, which barely managed to allow light to pass through. Aside from a desk and wardrobe, his room was all but barren. 


He stopped scribbling and took off his headphones as he glanced towards his desk and spotted the pink envelope. 


"That letter-. I probably should open it shouldn't I?"


He stood up and opened the envelope, noticing how even the inside smelled like strawberries. 


Have you ever thought about the word "love"?


He was just about to crumble the paper and throw it in the trash when some invisible force stopped him. 


"I mean, under normal circumstances, I would throw this in the trash, thinking that it was some sort of prank or a bet of some kind. But whoever wrote this, really tried their best. There's no way that someone would do this as some form of a joke. Someone actually thinks they love me-" 


He placed the letter down on the desk, next to a white porcelain crow mask, with eye slits too small to effectively see out of them and red roses painted on it. 


"But why would they? Nobody loves me-no, they love him."


He put on his headphones and went back to scribbling. 


"Ok, think; who could have possibly written that letter? It would be a dream come true if it was her-" he thought with a smile. Looking down at his notebook he realised that subconsciously, he drew the girl with purple hair.


He ripped the page out and threw it in the trash. 


Finally, he threw the notebook at the wall and banged on the back of his head.


"Stop thinking about her dammit! There is no way on Earth that she has feelings for you. She hates you, remember? Besides, even if she didn't hate you, she already has Arnaldo. You can't compete with him. Perhaps you just need some rest."


He went under the covers and closed his eyes. Yet, no matter how much he tossed and he turned, but sleep wouldn't come to him. He shot up from his bed and sighed sadly. 


"I can't sleep. I can't- I can't stop thinking about her with him. I can feel it. He's having a smoke and she's taking a drag. Then they go to bed and I can feel my stomach getting sick. I know it's all my imagination but I can't get the image of her touching his chest as he's taking off her clothes out of my head." He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. 


"I bet they're having one of their moments of intimacy right now."


Chapter 20