Categories > Original > Romance > MindStalker
Nobody said highschool was easy, and Reona knows it best. He's gay, he's in love, and guess what? He reads minds, but the only person his powers won't work on is Ashton, the way-out-of-his-league c...
0Unrated
Chapter one – Mind stalker
Reona skimmed his reflection on a frosty window, sighing with dismay at the sickly pale young man that stared back at him, the whitish puffs of his breath dissolving into the icy cold air. He hated the cold, but even more so did he hate that ridiculous appearance of his. Despite having just turned seventeen, he seemed to have skipped the teenage growth spur altogether, his baby face and all-too-slender frame failing miserably to portray his age.
Ever since the beginning of highschool, those flimsy, almost too feminine looks of his, along with his ridiculously girly name, had turned him into the ideal target for the not-so-harmless harassment of his male schoolmates, which had stubbornly persisted until his senior year. He’d had enough of it, but graduation was only six months away, and Reona was gifted with a remarkable patience. Besides, he’d since long learned how to ignore whatever upset him – he was a mind-reader, after all.
He shoved his hands deep into his jacket’s pockets as he walked past a group of sophomores, tuning out their annoying, high-pitched thoughts with practiced ease, almost laughing out loud when he saw their futile attempts on warming up, the girls bouncing and shifting on their feet to better stand the cold. He’d never understand women. Just who in their right mind would wear a mini-skirt in the middle of winter? Anyway, he could care less about those girls – about any girl – for Reona was gay.
The sudden surge of excitement on their inner voices caught his attention, his body instantly tensing up when a single word formed on their minds.
“Ashton,”
Reona stood rooted to the floor with his eyes closed, resisting the urge to turn around and watch for himself as the captain of the school’s hockey team strolled past the main gate, settling for the girls’ embellished mental pictures instead. He saw him enter in a slow motion, the wind blowing soft snowflakes away from his tousled hair and unraveling his jacket to display the tall, sculpted body beneath. He swallowed dry when the jock flashed the girls a killer smile, wishing that just this once, it would be aimed at him. Because as if being a gay mind-reader weren’t enough to make him unique – he just had to harbor a massive crush on the most infamous student that school had ever known.
His awe immediately wore off when he heard the chuckling that preceded the arrival of Ashton’s friends, mostly members of the hockey team like himself, engaged in what he mentally tagged as typical jock male bonding, which basically consisted in beating the crap out of each other and laughing it off afterwards. He found it tremendously stupid, and Reona hated stupid people. He very much hated Keith.
“Ash, dude!” the captain’s best friend shouted, as if on cue, and jumped onto his back, choking him with an arm-lock. “Look, it’s snow-white Reona! I bet he’s got the dwarfs stashed under his skirt,” He laughed idiotically at his own joke as he climbed off. “C’mon, let’s check it out,”
Reona felt the blood freeze inside his veins, the terror making him tremble uncontrollably as he watched the bulky male close up to him with a sickening smirk on his face, and found himself unable to move, the nausea hitting him with full force when Keith’s wicked thoughts flooded into his mind—,
The first bell announced the beginning of roll-call, causing the jock to give up on his assault plans and retreat. Reona inhaled a mouthful of icy air, having finally remembered how to breathe again. Ashton heaved a bored sigh and resumed his walk to the science building.
“Saved by the bell,” Keith proclaimed, shoving a hand into one of his low-fitting jeans’ pockets. “Oh, look, prince charming‘s come to your rescue,” he mocked, turning on his heels and sprinting to catch up with his friends.
“Hey, Reo,” Elliot greeted, his voice muffled by the thick scarf that covered his mouth. “Are you okay?”
“’Morning,” Reona answered the mental question with a weak nod, turning to make for the literature department with Elliot quietly walking by his side, a comfortable silence established between them. He loved that trait in his friend’s manner – he’d never speak more than strictly necessary, and neither would his mind, which made him the perfect companion for someone who was tormented with every shallow, sordid thought of hundreds of people everyday.
He was Reona’s classmate, a quiet, average-looking young man whose all-too-perfect scores had doomed to being a social outcast, along with a fetish for geeky glasses. When they’d first met, Reona had pegged him as a whiz kid, as well as the most outstanding mind blocker he’d ever encountered, only to find out later that it wasn’t that he couldn’t read his mind – there simply wasn’t much to read. Elliot’s conscience was like a pool of silence, occasionally disturbed by a sharp question.
“Did you manage to read the jock’s mind today?”
“Nope,”
Family aside, Elliot was the only person he’d ever trusted enough to confide the secret of his mind-reading powers, fact to which his friend had reacted with no more than the blinking of his eyes. Reona knew that questioning the truth hadn’t even crossed his mind – such a lie would be pointless, after all – and that had been the birth of a bond that most people often misunderstood. Not that they cared – not that anyone cared, for that matter.
Despite the rumors, Reona’s sexual preference wasn’t exactly common knowledge, and the only one who knew it for a fact was Elliot, who was unprejudiced enough to accept and support his homosexuality, but not his crush on the captain of the hockey team. He loathed jocks, and Ashton just ticked him off beyond bearing.
“I seriously don’t get what you see in that prick,” he mentally commented, both of them having grown accustomed to their semi-telepathic conversations over the years.
“I’d be worried for your ass if you did,” Reona joked, his lips curling up in a smile for the first time that day. “And I don’t think he’s like the other jocks. Well, not as bad. At least he doesn’t pick on me,”
“Of course he doesn’t bother picking on you – he’s the jock boss. Anyway, how do you even know? It’s not like you can read his mind,”
Elliot’s mind-ranked second on the category of the most intriguing, topped only by Ashton’s. He’d noticed right in the beginning of his junior year, because even though being able to read thoughts had proved to be a major pain on the neck for most of the time, it did have some benefits. Were Reona the gossiping kind, he’d surely be the best informed person in the whole school, but that wasn’t the case – instead, he’d use his ability to see what being someone felt like. It was like leading several lives at the same time, but seeing the world through other people’s eyes did take his toll on his own mind.
He’d been refraining from indulging in his guilty pleasure when the idea of raiding Ashton’s mind flashed through his own. It was just too irresistible – and it seemed impossible that it’d never occurred to him before – but what could feel better than being the most popular jock among the girls? Than being the school’s most promising hockey player? Than having guaranteed access to college due to a sports scholarship, and not having to bother with more than passing grades? If anyone had a heavenly life, that person was definitely Ashton, Reona had decided.
But when he’d tried to access his thoughts, which to Reona had always felt as natural and effortless as breathing, he’d seen nothing. Either Ashton was a soulless walking body, or his mind was somehow off-limits to him. Well, it wasn’t like he couldn’t read anything. On the months that followed that discovery, he’d invested most of his time in mind-stalking him, patiently waiting for the rare glimpses he’d get from the jock’s thoughts, which revealed very little about him.
Somewhere along the way, he came to realize that Ashton’s inaccessible mind represented more than just a challenge – he no longer wanted to read his thoughts just because it was beyond his abilities. He wanted to get to know the real Ashton. He was irrevocably in love with him.
Reona skimmed his reflection on a frosty window, sighing with dismay at the sickly pale young man that stared back at him, the whitish puffs of his breath dissolving into the icy cold air. He hated the cold, but even more so did he hate that ridiculous appearance of his. Despite having just turned seventeen, he seemed to have skipped the teenage growth spur altogether, his baby face and all-too-slender frame failing miserably to portray his age.
Ever since the beginning of highschool, those flimsy, almost too feminine looks of his, along with his ridiculously girly name, had turned him into the ideal target for the not-so-harmless harassment of his male schoolmates, which had stubbornly persisted until his senior year. He’d had enough of it, but graduation was only six months away, and Reona was gifted with a remarkable patience. Besides, he’d since long learned how to ignore whatever upset him – he was a mind-reader, after all.
He shoved his hands deep into his jacket’s pockets as he walked past a group of sophomores, tuning out their annoying, high-pitched thoughts with practiced ease, almost laughing out loud when he saw their futile attempts on warming up, the girls bouncing and shifting on their feet to better stand the cold. He’d never understand women. Just who in their right mind would wear a mini-skirt in the middle of winter? Anyway, he could care less about those girls – about any girl – for Reona was gay.
The sudden surge of excitement on their inner voices caught his attention, his body instantly tensing up when a single word formed on their minds.
“Ashton,”
Reona stood rooted to the floor with his eyes closed, resisting the urge to turn around and watch for himself as the captain of the school’s hockey team strolled past the main gate, settling for the girls’ embellished mental pictures instead. He saw him enter in a slow motion, the wind blowing soft snowflakes away from his tousled hair and unraveling his jacket to display the tall, sculpted body beneath. He swallowed dry when the jock flashed the girls a killer smile, wishing that just this once, it would be aimed at him. Because as if being a gay mind-reader weren’t enough to make him unique – he just had to harbor a massive crush on the most infamous student that school had ever known.
His awe immediately wore off when he heard the chuckling that preceded the arrival of Ashton’s friends, mostly members of the hockey team like himself, engaged in what he mentally tagged as typical jock male bonding, which basically consisted in beating the crap out of each other and laughing it off afterwards. He found it tremendously stupid, and Reona hated stupid people. He very much hated Keith.
“Ash, dude!” the captain’s best friend shouted, as if on cue, and jumped onto his back, choking him with an arm-lock. “Look, it’s snow-white Reona! I bet he’s got the dwarfs stashed under his skirt,” He laughed idiotically at his own joke as he climbed off. “C’mon, let’s check it out,”
Reona felt the blood freeze inside his veins, the terror making him tremble uncontrollably as he watched the bulky male close up to him with a sickening smirk on his face, and found himself unable to move, the nausea hitting him with full force when Keith’s wicked thoughts flooded into his mind—,
The first bell announced the beginning of roll-call, causing the jock to give up on his assault plans and retreat. Reona inhaled a mouthful of icy air, having finally remembered how to breathe again. Ashton heaved a bored sigh and resumed his walk to the science building.
“Saved by the bell,” Keith proclaimed, shoving a hand into one of his low-fitting jeans’ pockets. “Oh, look, prince charming‘s come to your rescue,” he mocked, turning on his heels and sprinting to catch up with his friends.
“Hey, Reo,” Elliot greeted, his voice muffled by the thick scarf that covered his mouth. “Are you okay?”
“’Morning,” Reona answered the mental question with a weak nod, turning to make for the literature department with Elliot quietly walking by his side, a comfortable silence established between them. He loved that trait in his friend’s manner – he’d never speak more than strictly necessary, and neither would his mind, which made him the perfect companion for someone who was tormented with every shallow, sordid thought of hundreds of people everyday.
He was Reona’s classmate, a quiet, average-looking young man whose all-too-perfect scores had doomed to being a social outcast, along with a fetish for geeky glasses. When they’d first met, Reona had pegged him as a whiz kid, as well as the most outstanding mind blocker he’d ever encountered, only to find out later that it wasn’t that he couldn’t read his mind – there simply wasn’t much to read. Elliot’s conscience was like a pool of silence, occasionally disturbed by a sharp question.
“Did you manage to read the jock’s mind today?”
“Nope,”
Family aside, Elliot was the only person he’d ever trusted enough to confide the secret of his mind-reading powers, fact to which his friend had reacted with no more than the blinking of his eyes. Reona knew that questioning the truth hadn’t even crossed his mind – such a lie would be pointless, after all – and that had been the birth of a bond that most people often misunderstood. Not that they cared – not that anyone cared, for that matter.
Despite the rumors, Reona’s sexual preference wasn’t exactly common knowledge, and the only one who knew it for a fact was Elliot, who was unprejudiced enough to accept and support his homosexuality, but not his crush on the captain of the hockey team. He loathed jocks, and Ashton just ticked him off beyond bearing.
“I seriously don’t get what you see in that prick,” he mentally commented, both of them having grown accustomed to their semi-telepathic conversations over the years.
“I’d be worried for your ass if you did,” Reona joked, his lips curling up in a smile for the first time that day. “And I don’t think he’s like the other jocks. Well, not as bad. At least he doesn’t pick on me,”
“Of course he doesn’t bother picking on you – he’s the jock boss. Anyway, how do you even know? It’s not like you can read his mind,”
Elliot’s mind-ranked second on the category of the most intriguing, topped only by Ashton’s. He’d noticed right in the beginning of his junior year, because even though being able to read thoughts had proved to be a major pain on the neck for most of the time, it did have some benefits. Were Reona the gossiping kind, he’d surely be the best informed person in the whole school, but that wasn’t the case – instead, he’d use his ability to see what being someone felt like. It was like leading several lives at the same time, but seeing the world through other people’s eyes did take his toll on his own mind.
He’d been refraining from indulging in his guilty pleasure when the idea of raiding Ashton’s mind flashed through his own. It was just too irresistible – and it seemed impossible that it’d never occurred to him before – but what could feel better than being the most popular jock among the girls? Than being the school’s most promising hockey player? Than having guaranteed access to college due to a sports scholarship, and not having to bother with more than passing grades? If anyone had a heavenly life, that person was definitely Ashton, Reona had decided.
But when he’d tried to access his thoughts, which to Reona had always felt as natural and effortless as breathing, he’d seen nothing. Either Ashton was a soulless walking body, or his mind was somehow off-limits to him. Well, it wasn’t like he couldn’t read anything. On the months that followed that discovery, he’d invested most of his time in mind-stalking him, patiently waiting for the rare glimpses he’d get from the jock’s thoughts, which revealed very little about him.
Somewhere along the way, he came to realize that Ashton’s inaccessible mind represented more than just a challenge – he no longer wanted to read his thoughts just because it was beyond his abilities. He wanted to get to know the real Ashton. He was irrevocably in love with him.
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