Adelaide Vilasko, nicknamed Adi by almost everyone except her mother, is a 13-year-old similica who always has the right word. A studious student under the watchful eye of her demanding mother, Adi is also the most popular girl in school. Very sociable, she is loved by her friends and most of the boys fall for her. She has a natural gift for leading, which makes her a much-listened-to voice, especially by her friends Magalie and Basile, a little group that later expands to include Louise and Cassandra!

Despite her young age, Adi shows a maturity and conscience due to her demanding upbringing, notably in rejecting the Blemalia ideology that currently dominates Sartovia. Passionate about life experiences, Adi loves trying new things and is fascinated by rural life, despite being a pure city girl.

However, her life is not a smooth one. Her mother, Adele Vilasko, who runs the family business, wants Adi to take over from her and follow a set path that includes prestigious studies, marriage and children to ensure the continuity of the Vilasko dynasty and company. Adi, on the other hand, dreams of exploring the unknown rather than settling for a predetermined future, while she doesn’t even want to hear about marriage! Despite these differences, Adelaide shares an unparalleled complicity with her mother, at times having an almost sisterly relationship, as this complicity breaks down the generational divide between the two similicas.

Basile Citrus, nicknamed Zile by his friends, is a tender-hearted 11-year-old hursian. He is one of the sons of a middle-class family of Hursians. Androgynous and gifted, Basile is characterized by his romanticism taken to extremes, earning a reputation as a oversized romantic.

Basile’s “universe” is almost entirely feminine, having never really recognized himself in the hobbies of other boys his age. His best friends are girls, Adelaide and Magalie! What’s more, Basile regularly falls in love with the other girls he meets. This romantic impulse leads him to seduce Louise Deladiva as soon as she enters secondary school, and he succeeds, with Louise now Basile’s girlfriend. Their relationship, though superficial, is cute nonetheless!

Basile’s passion for soppy movies and all things romantic, but also sensitive, makes him irreconcilable with the most common clichés of masculinity. This sensitivity makes him a natural target for secondary school bullies, but he always finds comfort in his friends, especially Adelaide, who doesn’t hesitate to use her popular-girl stature to protect “her Zile”.

Finally, if Basile is said to be “one of the sons”, it’s because he has a twin brother from whom he was separated at birth, under the one-child policy that Hursians suffer in Sartovia. Basile, who knows this, is convinced that his twin is still alive, somewhere in Sartovia.

Louise Deladiva is an 11-year-old Hursian girl. Unlike Cassandra, she is a pure city girl who was born in Nievicila and has always lived there. The only daughter of a middle-class Hursian couple, she has a complex about being slightly overweight and about her “ugly” appearance. It was her complexes around the notion of beauty that prompted her, at the age of 10, to dye her hair pink.

Louise and Cassandra meet on back-to-school day, and turn out to be roommates at the secondary school boarding school. The two Hursian girls hit it off quite quickly, and eventually Louise becomes Cassandra’s first friend at Nievicila, while from Louise’s point of view, Cassandra is her first friend… at all! Before that, Louise had never been able to make friends. There are many reasons for this, but her shyness and low self-esteem have a lot to do with it.

Although Louise has the flaw of being slightly clingy when she gets attached to someone, she is nonetheless a profoundly kind and caring Hursian, and will play a major role in Cassandra’s integration into her new urban environment, notably by introducing her to other students, but also by comforting her during the difficult times Cassandra will go through. Because Louise, as her roommate, is by far the person Cassandra will see most often!