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 two – Grasping at straws
Reona winced when Elliot’s elbow dug into his ribs, instinctively hunching to hold his side and whacking his forehead on the desk with a loud bump. “What was that for?” he hissed, unaware of the attention he’d brought upon himself as he rubbed the sore spot.
“Mr. Mills,” The teacher’s sharp chiding tone pierced through his ears, nearly knocking him off the seat. “I understand that Algebra isn’t enough to keep your brilliant mind entertained, but if you’re going to be distracted, at least do it in silence,”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Howes, it won’t happen again,” he promised, face strained in a toothy grin.
“Smiling won’t change the fact that you’ve just earned yourself a detention, Mr. Mills,”
He stared after the edgy woman as she went back to scribbling equations on the blackboard, the rest of the class losing all interest in him as Reona no longer provided them with a getaway from stiff boredom. “Someone needs to get laid,”
“Someone needs to stop staring at Ashton’s ass and actually pay attention to class for a change,” Elliot half-scolded, poking him on the tender spot. “Seriously, Reo. You’re just about to flunk and I know you’re not all that stupid,”
“Why, thank you. You could just help me out during the tests, you know,”
“Help? You’re a mind-reader, for crying out loud!”
“Letters shouldn’t mingle with numbers, period,” Reona grumbled, doodling on his notebook as if taking notes. Just because I can read minds, it doesn’t mean I can tell which answers are right. “Besides, even If I did get a passing grade, she’d just fail me for the heck of it,”
“Ms. Howes knows better than that,”
“You say that ‘cause you’re her kept pet. Nerd,”
“Homo,”
“Look, I can’t help it, he’s right outside,” Reona pointed, back to his privileged view from the window seat on the ground floor. In fact, he could have helped it, although he’d never admit it, not even to his best friend – it was just too embarrassing to confess that he’d only taken Algebra after reading the schedule off some school staff’s mind and realizing it overlapped the hockey team’s morning practice.
And what’s worse, he actually found that those twenty minutes worth of Ashton eye-candy he got twice a week paid off putting up with six more months of Algebra. Watching as he ran around the field, gym shirt sticking to his taut chest, damp with sweat despite the cold. Watching the thin fabric tighten around the muscles of his arms as they bulged with every step. Watching as he finally took off the maddening piece of clothing to wipe his sweat-slicked forehead, parading the chain of ripples and hollows on his stomach—,
Okay, let’s not go there. “It’s not like it’s a crime to stare,”
“Once Candy finds out, you’re definitely getting death penalty,”
Reona looked behind his shoulder. His eyes raked up a girl two desks away, ogling the bare slender legs, the narrow waist, the mini-skirt hanging low on the hips, the sizable breasts underneath a skin-tight jumper, the chiseled face beneath the needless layer of make-up. What men saw in women was just beyond Reona – he’d never understand the appeal of those soft, yielding lumps on their chests – but he could tell Candice was gorgeous. It was to be expected that the finest-looking girl in school would be hooked up with the most-wanted captain of the hockey team. Could it get more clichéd?
“Am I that obvious?”
“You would be, if anyone actually bothered paying attention. You look at him as if you were in heat,”
Reona sulked, watching the hockey team move indoors, out of his sight. “Everyone suspects that I’m gay anyway,”
“I’m sure that knowing you have the hots for him would do wonders – in case the jocks were running out of reasons to tease you, I mean. We don’t want them bored, do we?” Elliot began putting his notebooks away right as the bell for the next class chimed. “I’m just looking out for you, Reo. You won’t graduate if you flunk Algebra. Try to focus a bit,”
“Yeah, I know. Thank you,”
“See you at lunchtime then,”
Reona waved goodbye and began packing. He knew he needed to get a grip of himself if he wanted to get into college. Even though he wasn’t exactly fond of studying, he’d decided to pursue superior education in psychology, hoping to understand the source of his mind-reading abilities by studying the human mind.
Taking up Algebra definitely hadn’t been the smartest move for someone who was nothing but average on the surface, but there was no other way around it – he’d have to cut down on his quiet spying and start studying seriously. Period. Reona skimmed through his timetable, despite having it all memorized. “Self studying,” He closed his eyes. “And morning practice isn’t over yet,” Feeling his resolve crumble to pieces, he walked out the classroom with hesitant steps before throwing his studying plans to the cold winter wind and dashing to the hockey ring.
---
“Don’t look at me like that,” Reona grumbled. “I didn’t do anything wrong,”
“The moment I take my eyes off you, you run off to play cheerleader for that jock,”
“I didn’t go cheer. And no one actually studies during self-study period anyway – except for you, maybe,” They strolled down the corridor, making for their lockers to drop their books. “So now you’re going to see me to every class?”
“Just making sure you don’t skip detention. You’re damned if you do,” Elliot scolded, slamming the locker door shut a little too hard. “From now on, you’ll be dropping by my place every weekend so I can tutor you, and don’t you dare stand me up. And you’ll be treating me to coffee now. Are we understood? I should just keep you on a leash,”
“I heard that. Pervert,”
“I’m not the one who spends self-study staring after a bunch of jocks as they beat the crap out of each other with a stick ‘cause of one lousy metal disc,”
“You wouldn’t understand,” They now climbed up the stairs to the teacher’s lounge room, stopping by the vending machine to buy warm drinks. “I get these flashes, you know, I can see his next move. Those are the only times I can read his thoughts. Well, sort of,”
“Whatever. Off to detention now,”
Reona made a face, swinging his arms around Elliot’s neck. “I don’t wanna go,”
Elliot sighed and slapped the back of his head, ready to scold his friend’s clingy manner when he saw Ashton standing a few meters away, the look on his face telling him that their intimate interaction hadn’t gone unnoticed. The jock sneered, shaking his head in what seemed to be a mix of aversion and disapproval, and walked into the detention room, dropping his heavy bag onto a desk with a crashing noise.
Reona dropped back to the balls of his feet, breaking up their embrace. He blushed, flustered by the jock’s mere presence, and giggled out of embarrassment, and somewhat out of misery. Of all the times Ashton could pick to look at him, did it have to be then? He’d read his expression off Elliot’s mind. He found him disgusting. Could it get any worse?
“See you tomorrow, Reo,”
Reona quietly slipped into the almost empty room, doing his best not to look at Ashton, making such a big deal of it that he nearly tripped on his own feet. Settling for a desk on the back, he slumped onto the seat and prepared to throw himself into a session of self-loathing.
“Mr. Mills, I presume?” The detention supervisor handed him a bunch of worksheets. “Your Algebra teacher said that you’re not to leave until all of these are solved. And remember, the faster you work, the sooner you can go home,”
Reona suppressed the urge to groan in desperation as he skimmed through the worksheets. There’s no way I’m getting out of here before curfew, he realized. Mom’s gonna kill me. A sudden loud bump caught his attention.
The jock muttered a curse under his breath and let another bulky book fall onto the desk before flipping through the pages with the same awkwardness as that of someone who’d never read a book before. He heaved an annoyed sigh, running a hand through his tousled, dark brown hair before dropping his head onto the table.
Reona was fascinated. He’d never seen him lose the aloofness that was typically Ashton’s – he always looked so cool and unaffected, as if surrounded by a glass wall that kept him from the outside world. Something about him simply attracted people beyond understanding, and the jock had proved to be a popularity phenomenon ever since his first day at school, having befriended half of the population in a short week. Everyone knew him and most respected him with the amount of healthy fear his presence inspired, so it wasn’t surprising that his standards were exceptionally high. Standards Reona would never come close to meet.
Ashton suddenly got up and began randomly throwing all the books into his backpack, making to leave the room, but was stopped by the detention supervisor. “Mr. Lutz, are you quite finished with your essay?”
“I can’t write it without my notebook. I left it at home,”
Reona felt a shudder flare down his spine at that deep, smooth voice that seemed to purr every sentence. He loved Ashton’s voice, perhaps because he hardly ever heard it, since he was unable to listen to his thoughts and the jock wasn’t the most talkative of people. He loved it so much that sometimes he’d deliberately bump against him on the school corridors just to hear him swear at him, trusting that he was enough of a jock to never recognize a social outcast like him, no matter how many times that same scene repeated itself.
“Well, you’ll have to make do with what you have then, Mr. Lutz. Must I remind you that you’re on the verge of failing English?”
Ashton gritted his teeth and fell back into his seat, holding his head in his hands. Reona’s mind clicked.
“You can use mine, if you want,”
It came out of nowhere. Reona didn’t even have the time to think whether he was grasping at his rescue straw or digging his own grave before the words left his mouth, which suddenly become dry as sand. He couldn’t tell if his heart was racing or had stopped altogether. He felt like his blood had begun flowing backwards.
The jock turned around on his seat to face him, gifting him with a killer smile. “I couldn’t thank you enough for that,”
Reona winced when Elliot’s elbow dug into his ribs, instinctively hunching to hold his side and whacking his forehead on the desk with a loud bump. “What was that for?” he hissed, unaware of the attention he’d brought upon himself as he rubbed the sore spot.
“Mr. Mills,” The teacher’s sharp chiding tone pierced through his ears, nearly knocking him off the seat. “I understand that Algebra isn’t enough to keep your brilliant mind entertained, but if you’re going to be distracted, at least do it in silence,”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Howes, it won’t happen again,” he promised, face strained in a toothy grin.
“Smiling won’t change the fact that you’ve just earned yourself a detention, Mr. Mills,”
He stared after the edgy woman as she went back to scribbling equations on the blackboard, the rest of the class losing all interest in him as Reona no longer provided them with a getaway from stiff boredom. “Someone needs to get laid,”
“Someone needs to stop staring at Ashton’s ass and actually pay attention to class for a change,” Elliot half-scolded, poking him on the tender spot. “Seriously, Reo. You’re just about to flunk and I know you’re not all that stupid,”
“Why, thank you. You could just help me out during the tests, you know,”
“Help? You’re a mind-reader, for crying out loud!”
“Letters shouldn’t mingle with numbers, period,” Reona grumbled, doodling on his notebook as if taking notes. Just because I can read minds, it doesn’t mean I can tell which answers are right. “Besides, even If I did get a passing grade, she’d just fail me for the heck of it,”
“Ms. Howes knows better than that,”
“You say that ‘cause you’re her kept pet. Nerd,”
“Homo,”
“Look, I can’t help it, he’s right outside,” Reona pointed, back to his privileged view from the window seat on the ground floor. In fact, he could have helped it, although he’d never admit it, not even to his best friend – it was just too embarrassing to confess that he’d only taken Algebra after reading the schedule off some school staff’s mind and realizing it overlapped the hockey team’s morning practice.
And what’s worse, he actually found that those twenty minutes worth of Ashton eye-candy he got twice a week paid off putting up with six more months of Algebra. Watching as he ran around the field, gym shirt sticking to his taut chest, damp with sweat despite the cold. Watching the thin fabric tighten around the muscles of his arms as they bulged with every step. Watching as he finally took off the maddening piece of clothing to wipe his sweat-slicked forehead, parading the chain of ripples and hollows on his stomach—,
Okay, let’s not go there. “It’s not like it’s a crime to stare,”
“Once Candy finds out, you’re definitely getting death penalty,”
Reona looked behind his shoulder. His eyes raked up a girl two desks away, ogling the bare slender legs, the narrow waist, the mini-skirt hanging low on the hips, the sizable breasts underneath a skin-tight jumper, the chiseled face beneath the needless layer of make-up. What men saw in women was just beyond Reona – he’d never understand the appeal of those soft, yielding lumps on their chests – but he could tell Candice was gorgeous. It was to be expected that the finest-looking girl in school would be hooked up with the most-wanted captain of the hockey team. Could it get more clichéd?
“Am I that obvious?”
“You would be, if anyone actually bothered paying attention. You look at him as if you were in heat,”
Reona sulked, watching the hockey team move indoors, out of his sight. “Everyone suspects that I’m gay anyway,”
“I’m sure that knowing you have the hots for him would do wonders – in case the jocks were running out of reasons to tease you, I mean. We don’t want them bored, do we?” Elliot began putting his notebooks away right as the bell for the next class chimed. “I’m just looking out for you, Reo. You won’t graduate if you flunk Algebra. Try to focus a bit,”
“Yeah, I know. Thank you,”
“See you at lunchtime then,”
Reona waved goodbye and began packing. He knew he needed to get a grip of himself if he wanted to get into college. Even though he wasn’t exactly fond of studying, he’d decided to pursue superior education in psychology, hoping to understand the source of his mind-reading abilities by studying the human mind.
Taking up Algebra definitely hadn’t been the smartest move for someone who was nothing but average on the surface, but there was no other way around it – he’d have to cut down on his quiet spying and start studying seriously. Period. Reona skimmed through his timetable, despite having it all memorized. “Self studying,” He closed his eyes. “And morning practice isn’t over yet,” Feeling his resolve crumble to pieces, he walked out the classroom with hesitant steps before throwing his studying plans to the cold winter wind and dashing to the hockey ring.
---
“Don’t look at me like that,” Reona grumbled. “I didn’t do anything wrong,”
“The moment I take my eyes off you, you run off to play cheerleader for that jock,”
“I didn’t go cheer. And no one actually studies during self-study period anyway – except for you, maybe,” They strolled down the corridor, making for their lockers to drop their books. “So now you’re going to see me to every class?”
“Just making sure you don’t skip detention. You’re damned if you do,” Elliot scolded, slamming the locker door shut a little too hard. “From now on, you’ll be dropping by my place every weekend so I can tutor you, and don’t you dare stand me up. And you’ll be treating me to coffee now. Are we understood? I should just keep you on a leash,”
“I heard that. Pervert,”
“I’m not the one who spends self-study staring after a bunch of jocks as they beat the crap out of each other with a stick ‘cause of one lousy metal disc,”
“You wouldn’t understand,” They now climbed up the stairs to the teacher’s lounge room, stopping by the vending machine to buy warm drinks. “I get these flashes, you know, I can see his next move. Those are the only times I can read his thoughts. Well, sort of,”
“Whatever. Off to detention now,”
Reona made a face, swinging his arms around Elliot’s neck. “I don’t wanna go,”
Elliot sighed and slapped the back of his head, ready to scold his friend’s clingy manner when he saw Ashton standing a few meters away, the look on his face telling him that their intimate interaction hadn’t gone unnoticed. The jock sneered, shaking his head in what seemed to be a mix of aversion and disapproval, and walked into the detention room, dropping his heavy bag onto a desk with a crashing noise.
Reona dropped back to the balls of his feet, breaking up their embrace. He blushed, flustered by the jock’s mere presence, and giggled out of embarrassment, and somewhat out of misery. Of all the times Ashton could pick to look at him, did it have to be then? He’d read his expression off Elliot’s mind. He found him disgusting. Could it get any worse?
“See you tomorrow, Reo,”
Reona quietly slipped into the almost empty room, doing his best not to look at Ashton, making such a big deal of it that he nearly tripped on his own feet. Settling for a desk on the back, he slumped onto the seat and prepared to throw himself into a session of self-loathing.
“Mr. Mills, I presume?” The detention supervisor handed him a bunch of worksheets. “Your Algebra teacher said that you’re not to leave until all of these are solved. And remember, the faster you work, the sooner you can go home,”
Reona suppressed the urge to groan in desperation as he skimmed through the worksheets. There’s no way I’m getting out of here before curfew, he realized. Mom’s gonna kill me. A sudden loud bump caught his attention.
The jock muttered a curse under his breath and let another bulky book fall onto the desk before flipping through the pages with the same awkwardness as that of someone who’d never read a book before. He heaved an annoyed sigh, running a hand through his tousled, dark brown hair before dropping his head onto the table.
Reona was fascinated. He’d never seen him lose the aloofness that was typically Ashton’s – he always looked so cool and unaffected, as if surrounded by a glass wall that kept him from the outside world. Something about him simply attracted people beyond understanding, and the jock had proved to be a popularity phenomenon ever since his first day at school, having befriended half of the population in a short week. Everyone knew him and most respected him with the amount of healthy fear his presence inspired, so it wasn’t surprising that his standards were exceptionally high. Standards Reona would never come close to meet.
Ashton suddenly got up and began randomly throwing all the books into his backpack, making to leave the room, but was stopped by the detention supervisor. “Mr. Lutz, are you quite finished with your essay?”
“I can’t write it without my notebook. I left it at home,”
Reona felt a shudder flare down his spine at that deep, smooth voice that seemed to purr every sentence. He loved Ashton’s voice, perhaps because he hardly ever heard it, since he was unable to listen to his thoughts and the jock wasn’t the most talkative of people. He loved it so much that sometimes he’d deliberately bump against him on the school corridors just to hear him swear at him, trusting that he was enough of a jock to never recognize a social outcast like him, no matter how many times that same scene repeated itself.
“Well, you’ll have to make do with what you have then, Mr. Lutz. Must I remind you that you’re on the verge of failing English?”
Ashton gritted his teeth and fell back into his seat, holding his head in his hands. Reona’s mind clicked.
“You can use mine, if you want,”
It came out of nowhere. Reona didn’t even have the time to think whether he was grasping at his rescue straw or digging his own grave before the words left his mouth, which suddenly become dry as sand. He couldn’t tell if his heart was racing or had stopped altogether. He felt like his blood had begun flowing backwards.
The jock turned around on his seat to face him, gifting him with a killer smile. “I couldn’t thank you enough for that,”
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