Flips and Tricks
"He's, what, five?" Gisu asked, her cheeks pink as she stifled her laughter. "And you really, really believed his crappy psychic stories?"
Dion crossed his arms and made a point not to meet her gaze. He pressed his lips into a thin line, narrowing his eyes on the dirt and patches of grass surrounding them on the cliffside. While amusement caused Gisu's cheeks to gloss with a rosy hint, heat burned his face to an even darker shade of red. He rubbed his neck, slinking his hand through his perfectly coifed, sharp hair, Gisu filling the silence with short bursts of snickers.
"I mean, Queepie's smart," he said, the words sounding lamer than he anticipated. He kicked a stray stone into the river below. His attempts at maintaining an aloof persona failed him as Gisu covered her mouth, unable to help herself as she spat out a hoarse laugh. He clenched his teeth, his fingers fidgeting by his sides, and he wondered when his palms had become sticky with sweat.
Gisu shook her head. She flipped her hair out of her face, arching a thick eyebrow at Dion. "Dude, like I said, he's a little kid."
"Well, it wasn't just Queepie!" he blurted, his tone pitching like a chime. Clearing his throat, he gripped his hips and cocked his head in the direction of his family's circus. "My parents had a lot of stories to tell us siblings about psychics." He lowered his voice. "Horror stories about how they cursed our family to drown in water."
"Which turned out to be a bunch of falsehoods?" Gisu countered, dropping her levitation board to the ground. She stepped on it, rocking in place and setting her hood by her shoulders. "I gotta say, Dion, it's still incredible you fell for your brother's tricks without fact-checking or considered he might have been lying."
Dion rolled his eyes. The smirk on her face seemed almost too confident. Her demeanor was something that he couldn't entirely place. She was cool, collected, and she found a way to push his buttons. What other girl could do that? None that he had encountered before during his family's travels. He watched her pivot in place, the small, lime green levitation balls squishing against the dirt as she spun around, then brought her legs up, kicking off the ground before landing perfectly.
He sighed. He couldn't think of a counterargument, most likely because whenever he thought of a solution, it sounded more pathetic the longer he ruminated. "You got me there," he muttered, itching his chin, "but I still think I deserve some credit when all my life I've been told psychics are an Aquato's natural enemy."
She appeared to mull that notion over. Her brows knit together in a way that made him stare at her eyes. Flecks of hazel popped up as she contemplated, her attention focused on her board, lifting the rounded tip off the ground. She spun in a circle, her neutral expression swapping for delight in the instant she faced him as if she had solved a puzzle.
"Makes sense. Being told your whole life that psychics cursed you to drown is some pretty heavy, messed up stuff," she said, nodding.
Dion threw his hands into the air and clapped them together. "Thank you! No Psychonaut around here got that. I tried telling it to that old-timer at the lab, and he said that he wanted to examine my brain to see how badly anti-psychic propaganda impacted my thought process. Crazy."
"That's Otto for you." She twirled her finger through her curly side bang. One corner of her mouth raised higher than the other as she added, "Well, in his defense, that's how the Psychonauts roll. If you say something anti-psychic, they brush off any criticism that comes with it. They don't have any time for that nonsense, especially when it sounds like magical hooey."
His frown cut an immediate line through his face. All his life, the threat of psychics had been pounded into his skull by his parents, and Nona's consistent, panicked reminders to steer clear of water hammered the nail deeper into his brain. He couldn't escape that fear no matter how many years he tried ignoring it. Instead, as he grew up, he simply accepted his guardians' words as absolute truth. Psychics cursed him and his family to drown.
But that was a falsehood implanted in him from when he could first think. Countless opportunities had been lost to that lie instilled in the Aquatos. The only one who tried escaping that fate was his middle brother going on to achieve greatness in a way that made his blood boil. Even if Raz unraveled that lie and granted the Aquatos their freedom, the cost was much more than Dion expected, and he clenched his fists so tightly his knuckles ached.
Gisu hesitated. She rubbed her fingertips together and stepped off her board. She raised her hand, and the board lifted into her palm. Pressing it to her chest, she asked, "Are you okay, man? Uh, sorry if that was too insensitive."
"Well, when you're made to believe all your life that you'll eventually die from a psychic's curse-" He gritted his teeth and leered at her. "-you get a little testy when someone calls it magical hooey. Got it?"
Gisu raised her hand defensively. She blinked away her surprise, and Dion couldn't unharden his features. They remained stony, fixed in aggravation and annoyance, years of terror deepening the lines in his brow. He swallowed, his arms wrapping around himself, and he clutched his firm elbows through his silk coat.
"Looks like you need to think something out," she interjected, and she held out her board.
Dion grunted, his bewilderment freezing him in place. He hitched his thumb at himself, and Gisu nodded, setting the board in front of his chunky boots. He looked between her and the board, and she gestured to it, her wrist rolling and her eyebrows raising. So stupefied was Dion that he missed placing his foot on the board and almost stomped on her foot, his face heating up again in a fresh feeling of embarrassment.
"It's cool," she said after he spat out an apology. "Just focus on your footwork."
Dion carefully placed both feet on her board. It wobbled, and he raised his arms to steady himself. It was like standing on a thicker tightrope, and he smirked at the realization. He extended his right leg high into the air and swung it backward, launching himself into the cloudy sky. He flipped once, cutting through the breeze and grasping the sides of her board with both hands, landing upside-down and stretching his legs out.
Gisu uttered a short cry of amazement. She brought her fists together, grinning as Dion chuckled. He couldn't help but perform. Gisu had given him a small stage, and his acrobatic instincts took control. He launched upward like a rocket, his boots pointing at the sun. Bending his hips, Dion snatched his ankles and curled into a ball, appearing like a hedgehog spinning in midair before coming down. He stuck the landing, shooting his arms out and giving Gisu a sweeping bow that had her applauding, his energy infectious.
"Dude! Sick! I intended for you to ride my board, but that's better than I expected," Gisu remarked, clapping for him.
Smoothing down his jacket, he gave her a toothy grin. "Well, I didn't wanna bust my ass in front of a cute girl like you. Doing flips on any type of platform is just in my blood."
Nodding, Gisu jumped back on her board and raised the tip. Tilting her head, she said, "Seriously, though, sorry about the magical hooey comment."
Dion shrugged. He played it well, sticking his hands halfway into his pockets, his thumbs still exposed. "Eh, no worries. I got too riled up."
"Yeah, that's definitely not a good sign during a first conversation," she replied, and he laughed, nodding. She maneuvered in front of him, effortlessly gliding across the ground, Dion cutting himself off when he felt her lack of presence. Looking over her shoulder, she asked, "So, there's a cool place around here where I grind and think. Wanna come see it?" Her eyebrows rose up and down again. "if you get my drift, it's pretty private."
A rush of excitement raced through Dion. It smothered his previous exasperation, and he nodded his head a little too quickly for his own liking. Gisu inched closer to the tip of her board, pushing her elbow down, and his eyes widened at her meaning, noting that her board seemed particularly small all of a sudden.
"Don't worry. This baby can fit two people," she promised, offering her hand.
Shrugging off his worry, Dion pressed his feet onto the back of the board. He closed his hand around hers, marveling at her smooth, cold skin, only to emit a shrill shriek when she took off downhill. As the wind sliced his face, he supposed it wasn't all too bad. The sharp breeze carried Gisu's laughter right into his ears, even if his screaming nearly drowned it out.
