I woke up at nine to the sound of the opening theme song to "The Real Adventures of Superman." It was one I had seen, but I decided to watch it anyway because it was one of my favorites.
The one where Superman gets struck by lightning. See he's trying to stop this guy from killing himself in this cemetery and then they get struck by lightning. They both get knocked out for a second and when they wake up they are both fine, but suicide guy...has...super...powe...EUREKA!
That must be what happened, Schuldig must have transferred his powers to me when we were struck by lightning. If that's the case then I really am psychic. But unlike Schuldig, I would use my powers to better mankind. Or to seduce Kenken, whichever comes first.
Feeling newly confident I swaggered downstairs into the kitchen to fix myself some breakfast. I saw Ken running out the opposite door as I entered. Weird.
"Morning Yoji-kun"
"Morning Omi" [I wonder if he is reading my mind right now.]
"fraid so Yoji, I can't seem to turn it off."
"So you've accepted it then?"
"uh huh"
"Well then let's set some ground rules, all things in Yoji's head, stay there. Tell no one no matter what it is. I'm pretty sure that goes for Aya too. Go ahead and spill whatever you want about Ken though."
"I wasn't going to go blabbing all of your secrets Yoji-kun."
"And another thing, don't just assume things, some thoughts are taken out of context."
I didn't think to ask what would be taken out of context in his own mind. I wasn't really listening to him anyway. I was trying to concentrate on Ken so I could hear his thoughts, but I think he was too far away already.
After breakfast I went upstairs to get ready for school. It was a school sponsored casual dress day to support the pep club so instead of my uniform I put on a pair of clean jeans and my favorite sweater. Yoji gave it to me last Christmas. It's really soft and shaggy, and bright lime green.
Normally I can con Ken into giving me a ride into school on his motorcycle, but he was still out to wherever he was so I took the metro. I was kind of glad to have a bunch of people to practice my new power on anyway.
When I got on the train I was hit by a typhoon of voices that quadrupled my now constant headache. I crouched in a corner with my hand shielding my eyes from the harsh fluorescent lights for several minutes while I sorted everything out. I found that if I concentrated on one mind then all of the other mind voices were pushed to the background.
I started with a girl that was sitting nearby and smiling pleasantly at me.
[I wonder how many muppets died to make that hideous sweater]
Obviously she had no taste so I moved on to the man sitting next to her.
[should a kid that young be traveling alone?]
I looked around for several seconds searching for the kid in question before I realized he was referring to me. Maybe I should concentrate on people who were a little farther away and weren't thinking unflattering things about me.
One by one I listened to people's thoughts and fears and dreams. There was a woman who had just discovered she was pregnant and was going downtown to tell her husband the good news right away and a businessman that was planning to propose to his long-time sweetheart. There were people thinking about groceries and finances and family and several people mentally commenting on the appearances of some of the other passengers. Some of it was pretty funny.
[Why is that kid dressed like Oscar the Grouch looking at me]
Maybe not that funny.
I rushed into my classroom just after the bell rang. The metro always makes me late.
The classroom thoughts weren't nearly as interesting as the commuter thoughts. Mostly it was just a dozen girls agonizing over what to wear to the dance and guys wondering if it was too late to get out of going. I tuned them all out while I thought of my own dateless predicament.
I don't like dances as a rule. Momoe always makes me go and there is always a gaggle of girls cooing over how adorable I look in my tux and their dates making slightly less then good-natured comments on my appearance and sexuality as they try to get the girls attention. It's just the couples always look like they are having so much fun.
I know that if I got Ken to go with me we would not be doing all the sweet couple-y stuff. Even if we called it a date, we wouldn't be able to tell anyone else, I've been pushed into enough lockers without being openly frickin gay thank you very much. If he did come we would probably just sit off to the side and well, bask in each other's presence. Not that we don't get enough basking at home, we are pretty much in each others pocket from the second I get home and start our shared shift until around nine when we finish the dishes together because neither of us can really cook and he goes to watch TV while I do homework in my room. We're together even more now that Aya-chan is back and Aya has started to spend quality time with her. Ken doesn't have anyone to hang out with on the weekends anymore so he has started tagging along with Yoji and me. (I have no idea what he and Aya used to do together, but I'd be lying to say I wasn't a tad suspicious.)
But basking at the dance would be different because...well, it just would. I'm not sure why exactly, but something about dances is just romantic, getting all dressed up and...man I'm gay.
It really didn't matter since I was never going to get the nerve to ask him anyway. Maybe I would just take Aya-chan.
I went to find her during break. I figured she would be thrilled to have a date, but when I found her she was bragging to Sakura about how she had had a secret crush on this guy for a long time and she had asked him to the dance and he said yes. Sakura was listening politely but I could hear her thinking about how she didn't have a date and what hell Aya-chan would make her life if she didn't get one. I never knew Aya-chan had a malicious streak.
Anyway, I asked Sakura to go with me since I knew I was going to be dragged to the damn thing Ken-less anyway.
When I got home, Aya-kun locked me alone in the closet we call a store room to make about three gazillion corsages and boutonnières for this weekend. Tokyo High's winter formal is the same weekend as West Tokyo High's snowcoming and Saint Clair's Christmas bash and about three weddings, and we are by far the most popular flower shop in Tokyo. Yet another reason that I dislike formal dances.
By the time Aya-kun finally came down with the key to let me out (you thought I was joking when I said he locked me in didn't you? Well I wasn't) my hands were sticky and I was developing allergies. Not only that, but Ken had fallen asleep on the couch so my plans to seduce him were foiled. I sat up listening to his scattered thoughts while he slept under the pretense of watching the blue team from wherever beat the purplish-grey team from that other place, but his dreams made no sense at all. Seriously, I don't think I even own boots.1
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1 Reference to Ken's dream. For anyone who doesn't know, boots in a dream means a desire to have sex with someone. Usually it would be Ken wearing the boots though.
