Coco
"Yang, calm down. Stop fidgeting."
"But I'm excited…"
"You're also like a first grader on a long car ride. Have a little patience."
Yang and I were seated in Beacon's auditorium, waiting for the hypnotist to come on stage. The blonde hadn't sat still since we'd arrived, despite my best efforts to calm her down. The seats had slowly started to fill, and every place was occupied by the time the lights dimmed. On stage, there were a couple of rows of chairs, maybe twenty in total. Under each was a regular water bottle.
The dean of Beacon, Professor Ozpin, walked out and called for silence. He silently looked around the room, surveying the spectators while his silver hair glinted in the spotlight.
"Bring Black Widow out," Yang moaned quietly beside me. I hushed her as Ozpin began to speak.
"I'll… keep this brief," he began. "You are gathered here tonight in search of entertainment. The show you are about to see will amaze you, make you question everything you thought you knew about the mind. Without further ado, here he is: Black Widow."
Ozpin calmly left the stage as another man, dressed in black with red trim on his jacket, walked out. A cheer went up, lasting for several seconds before Black Widow raised his hands and everyone grew silent.
"Welcome," he greeted. "Thanks for coming. For some of you, tonight will be an incredible experience. For others, a night of pure entertainment. We will begin with a test, to see who among you possesses the focus and imagination required to participate in my show. Everyone keep your eyes and mouth closed, and hold both arms at shoulder height in front of you." He waited for everyone to comply, before continuing, "now, imagine there is a helium filled balloon attached to your left wrist, dragging it upwards. Don't move your arm, just imagine that balloon. Let your subconscious make it real. On your right arm, there is a stack of several heavy books weighing it down. Again, let your subconscious make it real." Incredibly, as Black Widow spoke, I felt my left arm rising and my right arm drooping. It was a couple of minutes before the hypnotist spoke again. "Open your eyes, and look at the position of your arms." There was a collective gasp as everyone realised what their arms had done. Mine were spaced about a foot apart vertically, but Yang had her arm straight up in the air like she was a school kid with a question.
"How the hell does he do that?" she whispered in shock. "I'm not even hypnotised right now!"
"Now, if you had considerable spacing between your arms, perhaps you will be able to attain a state of hypnotic trance. Come to the stage if you would like to try." Yang eagerly joined the crowd of a couple dozen people making their way onstage. Black Widow then did another test in which people's hands ended up stuck together as they imagined superglue between them and a steel bolt holding them together. Even with Yang's brutish strength, she couldn't separate her hands. Again, no one had been hypnotised yet at this point. Some people, however, got their hands apart immediately and were sent back to the audience.
"Now, I will start the induction. This will be the most boring four or five minutes of my show, and your lives, but keep quiet until I am done," Black Widow announced, addressing the spectators. "Also, you will be allowed to film as much of the show as you want, take all the pictures in the world, just not during the induction. It is actually illegal to film this, so don't do it."
He then addressed everyone who was to be hypnotised, telling them they were relaxing their whole bodies and stuff. As he'd said, it was rather boring, but it ended with a dozen people slumped over in their chairs, apparently dead to the world.
"You may now film," Black Widow told us. Turning back to the trance people, he started giving commands. "I am going to count to three, you will all sit up, your eyes will open and you will no longer be able to see me, that's right, I will be gone from your vision. You will hear my voice, my footsteps, everything but I will be invisible to you. If I touch you, you will feel it but you still will not be able to see me. When I clap my hands," he stopped and clapped once for emphasis, "I will reappear, even if I am right on front of you. One two three, eyes open." As I got my phone out to begin recording, Yang and the others shot up with their eyes open and looked around in confusion. From where I was sitting, I could just make out my girlfriend's voice asking "Where'd he go? I was looking forward to this, where is he?"
Meanwhile, Black Widow was walking around the stage with an almost manic grin on his face. "You guys looking for me?" he asked loudly. Someone shrieked in surprise as he added, "I'm right here. In front of you. Look!"
"Come on dude, this isn't funny," Yang snapped. Everyone laughed as Black Widow knelt next to her chair and whispered something in her ear, causing her to nearly fall to the floor in shock. Next, the hypnotist went to someone else, took him by the shoulders and began shaking him rigorously. The dude freaked out and yelled something about being possessed, sending the audience into a fresh wave of hysterics.
Standing with his face inches from that of a hypnotised person, Black Widow clapped. The guy he was facing screamed at the "sudden" appearance of someone who hadn't been there a second ago. The others looked around happily as, in their minds, the star of the show had finally shown up. Black Widow went down the rows of chairs, taking everyone's names and instantly putting them to sleep with a touch and the word "sleep". I couldn't help but wonder at the power of hypnotism as he immediately got my blonde girlfriend quiet.
"Person I'm touching right now," he began, with his hand on Yang's back, "in a minute you will wake up and notice two things. One, the number three will no longer exist. That's right, it's gone, it doesn't matter, you're too lazy to remember it, whatever. It's just not there. You will count one, two, four, five and so on. The second thing is that nine will be hilarious to you. I'm talking like a how five year old views Saturday morning cartoons. If you even think of nine you will collapse into laughter. The rest of you will just watch what is going on but will not find anything funny. You will not laugh, that is very important. One two three, eyes open." As everyone woke up again, he placed his hand on Yang's shoulder and asked, "Yang, is it? Can you come over here, we're gonna try a cool little trick." The two of them walked to centre stage as Black Widow explained " so hold out your left hand, we're gonna count your fingers." Yang frowned, but did as she was asked. "Speak into the microphone as you count."
He began pointing to the blonde's fingers in turn as she counted, "one, two, four, five, six." She kept a straight face the whole time. The entire audience laughed as Black Widow asked Yang to count the fingers on her other hand. Again, there were six.
"You have six fingers on each hand?" he asked.
"Yeah."
"Is that normal, have you always had six?"
"Yeah, why?"
"It's just that I have five on each hand. Okay, if you have six fingers on each, you have twelve, right?"
"Yeah."
"Hold out both hands, we'll count them."
"Sure. One, two, four, five, six, seven, eight, ni-" At this point, Yang started giggling uncontrollably. After about ten seconds, she calmed down enough to continue. "Nine, ten, eleven," she gasped, tears of mirth on her face.
"Eleven?" Black Widow asked, feigning confusion. "You had twelve before."
"Yeah, I did. What happened?" Yang replied, sincerely baffled.
"I don't know, did you drop one?" the hypnotist shrugged. "Okay, back to your seat, we'll figure this out later. Sleep," he commanded as the blonde sat down again. Again, I couldn't help but smile at the sight. He went round to the others, asking them if they saw what had happened and things like that, instantly putting them to sleep before they could answer. "Now, all of you have a bottle of clear liquid under your chairs. When you wake up, this liquid will incite an emotion in you which I will specify. It will be stronger than you've ever felt this emotion. I will then specify another, and you will feel that. One two three, eyes open." As everyone sat up again, he asked "who's thirsty?"
"Me," Yang complained, while some of the others simply raised their hands.
"Luckily, you all have drinks under your chairs. However, they put weird stuff in these drinks, I don't know what's gonna happen when you take a sip," Black Widow told them. As Yang and the others retrieved their bottles, he announced "the first sip will make you laugh. You don't know what you're laughing at, but you can't stop. Go ahead, drink up." Instantly, water was spat out as the dozen people on stage began cracking up. Yang looked like she had in the museum with the mineral names she had found hilarious. When they all calmed down, Black Widow detailed the effects of the next sip. "You will become very angry, because your best friend in the audience got up and yelled out your deepest, darkest secret. You trusted this person, they're the only one apart from you who knew whatever it was, and you're pissed because they betrayed you. Don't make it a real secret, let your subconscious invent one. Go ahead, drink up."
Several seconds later, a dozen voices were hurling insults at people in the crowd. I tried not to feel hurt as Yang yelled at me. "You betrayed me! How could you? I trusted you with my life! Why would you do that to me?!" were some of the things she said. Eventually, Black Widow got everyone to be quiet and asked what they were mad about.
"Coco," Yang told him, almost venomously. I had to remind myself that it wasn't her talking and that whatever I'd done wasn't real.
"Who's Coco?" I timidly raised my hand. "Okay, what did she do?"
"She told everyone what I did when my sister was in sixth grade," Yang complained.
"What did you do? It's okay, I'm not judging you."
"I baked brownies for my sister," the blonde started.
"Seems like a nice thing to do, why does that make you mad?"
"I put pot in them," she explained. "Ruby took them to school and didn't realise what she was actually eating. Coco told everyone after I trusted her not to." Everyone in the audience laughed at the story, knowing it wasn't true and that I hadn't actually spilled any secret. The rest of the stories were kinda similar, hilarious but obviously not true.
"Okay, last sip," Black Widow announced. "This time, the person you like the best from the audience just told you the words you most want to hear, whatever they may be, and you're the happiest person on the planet. You're reacting to that. Go ahead, take a sip."
Yang locked eyes with me, and her lilac orbs appeared to be glowing, even from this distance. She blushed and couldn't seem to find anything to say. As the other people rejoiced at whatever they'd heard, Yang surprisingly remained silent as she continued to stare at me. Black Widow began asking what people were happy about, this time starting on the other end of the row from the blonde.
When he got to her, he asked, "hey, you're blushing, what's going on?"
"She said it," Yang replied happily.
"Who said what?"
"Coco. She... She said she loves me." A resounding "aww" echoed around the room as Yang added, "love you too, babe", making a heart gesture at the same time. I was speechless. The words she most wanted to hear were "I love you", spoken from my mouth? I'd been feeling for a while now that I really did love her, but was I ready to say it yet? Furthermore, was she ready to say it back? As these thoughts circled in my mind, I pretty much missed the rest of the show, but I still recorded all of it.
"Ladies and gentlemen, thanks so much for being here," Black Widow called. "Those of you who are with me on stage will get up and go back to your seat, immediately falling back into the deep sleep you are in now. When the audience applauds, you will get up, believing you have slept through the whole thing. You will be disappointed and come see me to apologise. When I touch your hand, you'll remember everything." Turning to the audience, he added, "if you came with someone who's on stage now, be sure to come up with them and film them as they remember, it's the best part. One two three, eyes open." Yang made her way back to her seat beside me and instantly slouched over again. A few seconds later, everyone began applauding as the hypnotist shouted "thanks so much! I've been Black Widow, goodnight!"
"What does he mean, 'goodnight'?" asked Yang, who no longer seemed to be in a trance. "He just got on stage."
"No, he's been on for a couple of hours, honey," I told her, taking her hand.
"Was... Was I asleep?" she asked, looking devastated at the thought.
"Yeah, I think so," I replied gently, playing along.
"Noooo..." she moaned. "Can we go see him so I can apologise for sleeping during his show?"
"Yeah, sure, no problem," I answered softly. "But hey, I recorded the whole thing, don't worry."
"Really?" Yang asked, eyes widening in gratitude. "Thank you so much!"
"Anything for you, you gorgeous thing," I replied as she threw her arms around me. We then made our way onto the stage, where Black Widow was bringing back the memories of everyone he'd hypnotised, one at a time. When it was Yang's turn, she almost broke down, apologising profusely and looking like she'd do anything to change the past.
"Hey, it's okay," Black Widow told her, offering his hand. Yang shook, and her expression went from heartbroken, to confused, to annoyed to jolly in about two seconds.
"I hate you," she laughed, pointing at my phone whose camera was still rolling. "Shut that off." I also laughed as we left the auditorium hand in hand and returned to Yang's dorm. When we arrived, Blake was asleep so I decided to use the quiet time to ask Yang about something that had been bugging me since halfway through the show.
"Hey, Yang?"
"Yeah?"
"How much do you remember?"
"All of it. Why?"
"Even when you heard the words you most wanted to hear?"
"Oh. That's what this is about."
"Listen, I know you were in a trance and stuff and I shouldn't take any of what you said as truth but..." I paused as I considered my next words. "You made me realise something I've known for a while now."
"Go on," she urged, with some slight trepidation creeping into her voice.
"I uh... I realised that uh..." I wasn't sure how to say it. Three simple words. How hard could it be? Come on, Coco, I told myself, steeling my nerves. You can do this. "Yang Xiao Long, I love you. Completely," I told her, taking deep breaths afterwards to calm myself down. Yang was silent for a worryingly long time.
"What I said back there was true, Coco," she finally said. "My subconscious mind knew things about me that I didn't even consciously know. When I said I loved you, I meant it."
"Really?"
"Would I lie to you?"
"Fair point."
"Now shut up and kiss me," Yang demanded, smiling once more. I gladly obliged. The kiss seared with passion as our tongues entwined, dancing instead of fighting for once. "Stay here tonight," she offered when we separated.
"I don't have a change of clothes," I reminded her. "Or anything-"
"I don't care. Stay with me." How could I refuse her, after the moment we'd shared? I kissed her again, more softly this time. We lay down on her bed, fully clothed, and I soon fell asleep in the girl's warm, loving embrace.
A/N: I actually got this out when I said I would. Go me. Anyway, thanks for reading. The stage name was my friend's idea, inspired by Spidey (the hypnotist I saw the other day). He shares a spider-themed name with a Marvel character and that's what my friend went with. Some of what happened was inspired by the show I saw as well. So, we got more relationship development. I'm gonna say it now: lemons are coming in a couple more chapters. Probably. Nothing else to say, so leave a review and follow/favourite if you want.