When we're taking our seats, I grab Leona's sleeve lightly. I can already tell from her expression that she doesn't intend to join us again today, but...
“Leona, it feels weird, ignoring each other during school. Join us... please?” I ask uncertainly. Her eyes move past me, to my friends, and there's a flicker of something in them, through her passive mask.
“Are you sure you want me to?” she asks.
“Yes. Come on.” I give another gentle tug, and she rises, following those few steps, to stand before my apprehensive friends. Ken and Jen are one thing, having spoken to her a lot earlier, but Lucy and Amari look frozen stiff.
“Hey everyone, this is Leona Vicca,” I introduce her. “She's... well, I'll tell you two more about it later,” I address the purple haired girls. “She's... uhhh... a friend?” I look up at her, eyes uncertain and pleading. I'm not overstepping here, am I? With all she's done, I think of her like a friend. We're even on a first-name basis. But, does she feel the same...?
Her lips twitch, forming into an unexpectedly nervous line. What does she have to be nervous about? “If... you'll have me...” she replies slowly. Her eyes moving to the rest of the group, and she says, “Good to... meet you all...”
It's only seeing this, that I finally wonder...
Is Leona shy?
Unbelievably the addition of a psion to our group is overshadowed by the awkward gazes our two purple members turn on me and Jen. It only lasts a few minutes before Jen can't take it anymore.
“I know what you're thinking” she growls under her breath, drawing all of us into a tight huddle. “The rumors are bullshit. I did not have sex with Sei yesterday, and this morning was a complete misunderstanding.”
“Oh, that's a relief,” Lucy sighs. “How would you even...” After her eyes trail down toward my crotch, they snap back up and she blushes, which just makes the rest of us embarrassed too.
“Wait, why is that a relief?” Ken asks once we all slide back into our seats. Well, I'm still in Gon's seat since he's never here, and Leona is in mine, while Jen sits on Ken's desk like usual, but she's refraining from playing with my hair today. Probably because of all the stares...
“Well, things would get kind of awkward, wouldn't they? My sister said people get weird when they become couples.”
“Hm? Do they?” Ken wonders. We all glance around at each other, but none of us know. My eyes wander in Leona's direction. She's older than us, but...
Whether she knows anything or not, she's still kind of withdrawn, hanging at the edge of the group and not really interacting yet. I don't really want to push her or make her uncomfortable though, so I leave it. I'm just glad that she's here with us.
Despite the rumors, whispers, and increasingly uncomfortable looks, we manage to pass our break times without issue, up until lunch. I only break away from the others for a minute to grab some food in the cafeteria, when an arm closes around my shoulders.
I flinch and look up, but it's... Zeke?
“Hey, long time no see, Sei.” I cringe a little when he addresses me so... intimately. We don't know each other that well, do we? And he's been avoiding me, hasn't he?
“Hey... Zeke-san. What's up?” I try to reply evenly, glancing around to see that there are a couple other guys standing close by. Zeke's friends? I don't recognize either of them from middle school.
“So, the word is that you've become the big stud on campus. Jen of all people? How'd you snag her?”
“I-I...” my words stick in my throat. That's why he's talking to me now?
“Come on, help a brother out. If there's a trick that can get you a girl, I've got to know.”
“That's not... I...” What do I say? “W-we...” After sputtering for a bit, I finally find my voice. “We didn't do it... It's just a rumor.”
“Don't be like that, man. Everyone saw. You must know something.” He leans in closer, making my heart drop. “How'd you fuck her?”
My cheeks flush and I shake my head back and forth. “I-I didn't...”
“Seriously?” When he pauses, another guy speaks up and jabs Zeke with an elbow.
“Hey, weren't they saying that she had him pinned this morning?” At the other man's words, a huge, scary grin spreads across his face. Was Zeke always like this?
“Jen was always pretty butch. Don't tell me... you're the girl in the relationship?”
“N-no, I...” I try to pull away, but he holds tight around me, one hand clamped over my entire narrow shoulder. He pushes, and I stumble a step back into the wall behind me. My heart is racing. What do I do?
There are a ton of other people all throughout the cafeteria, but they're either watching, or not paying attention. My friends aren't here. It's like back then, I'm all alone.
And this time, Zeke is one of the bullies.
I push it down.
“Come on, Sei, tell me, are you a stud or a bitch?”
I stare at my feet. “Please stop.” Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry...
He presses me harder against the wall, leaning in close.
When I feel pinned and helpless, it hits again, and I stop breathing. I can't move.
I stomp it all down.
I will make him stop.
“Yo, can't you see she's not into you?” a deep voice suddenly cuts through, and I snap up from where I'm hunched under Zeke's grip, to find a guy towering over both of us. He looks even taller than Ken...
Once Zeke moves though, he sees my uniform, a flash of confusion playing across his face. But once it passes, he grunts, “Scram,” sending Zeke and the two guys with him slinking back off into the cafeteria. Now that I'm looking, isn't his tie yellow? A third year?
“Uniform...?” the man mouths the word more than speaks it. “No wait, are you Seiko Maka-san?” He knows me? I nod hesitantly, pressing further back against the wall. I have no idea what to expect anymore.
“Dude, everyone's calling you the legendary first year!” I let out a choked breath when he goes that way. He's not here to bully me too. “It hasn't even been a month and you already got laid!”
Oh god, why are men like this...?
“What are you doing, getting picked on by some dipshit like that?”
“I... he...” I mumble, but the upperclassman waves it off.
“Whatever, just got to man up when guys like that step out of line.” Just... man up...? “Channel some of that big-dick energy,” he laughs and goes to give me a big slap on the chest. I flinch, curling up so he hits my shoulder instead. He doesn't seem to notice though, he's already walking away laughing, one hand waving back over his shoulder.
My chest heaves. Don't cry, don't cry...
I end up running back to the classroom without getting any food.
The rest of the day continues without incident, but I can't get those words out of my head. Man up. I have to man up.
Dad always said I have to man up...
When I get out of the toilet, changed for gym, I notice that Jen has a sour look on her face, but when I ask about it, she just shakes her head and says it's fine. I don't know...
It turns out gym class is more track and field. With my discontent over this and everything that happened at lunch earlier, I try to stick close to Ken the whole time. I feel like Zeke is eyeing me now. Why is he so, so...?
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I swear, I don't understand sports.
Slumping over between runs, I sigh. I always feel so self-conscious when people watch me with anything athletic. Some people get so riled up over it, but then... I don't know, no one seems to put in much effort? I don't understand it at all.
Like – even Leona. When I look over at her doing a hundred meter dash, she just kind of runs along and does it. Even though I know as a ridiculously powerful psion, she could travel that distance in an instant.
I guess everyone gets self-conscious about sports? Even the huge guys with bulging muscles. They should be so much faster and stronger than everyone else, but the results are always about the same. While I'm grumbling about that, I wind up getting called up, and half-ass my way through my run too.
I already have enough people staring at me, and enough stupid rumors going around, I don't want to give everyone even more reasons to make fun of me...
When we go to the infirmary after last period, everyone comes along. “Is this... really necessary?” I ask. “I'm just getting my checkup, you guys don't have to stick around.”
“Just your checkup?” Jen immediately drops in with a scolding tone.
“W-wait!” I shake my head when I realize that not only is our usual group. Bell's here too, currently slouched against Ken's side.
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“Eehh?” he whines lazily when I point him out. “I can't be here?”
I bow my head. “Sorry, this is a bit...”
“Fine, fine,” he waves it off, yawns, and wanders away.
“Seriously, what's with that guy...?”
“Eh, who cares?” Jen shrugs. “We asked everyone to come along so we can fill everyone in and get on the same page with all this psion stuff.”
“Ok,” I sigh. “Thanks for taking your time for this, Lucy-chan, Amari-chan.”
“No worries, no worries,” Lucy laughs.
We all head into the infirmary, and the doctor turns, standing up from her chair. “Oh, good afternoon, everyone. What brings all of you here?”
“These are Seiko's friends, they are all aware of the issues Seiko is going through right now, so we are bringing everyone up to speed.” The doctor bobs her head faintly to Leona's explanation.
Sitting on the edge of a few rest beds and chairs in the office, we take a few minutes to explain everything again, for Lucy and Amari this time. Once that's settled, it's time time for my checkup. But first-
“So, what was the result yesterday?” the doctor asks. “Of course, I've already heard the rampant rumors...” and her eyes lock directly on Jen.
At this point, when Jen crosses her arms over her chest, she looks more aggravated than embarrassed. With a clipped tone, she reports, “Yesterday, I helped Sei burn off the extra energy by teaching him to explore and enjoy his own body.” Then she locks eyes with everyone except me and the doctor, and says, “I'm sure you understand, it was an extremely important lesson for him to learn.”
I don't understand, why was it important? All it's done is get me all mixed up inside... But for some reason, everyone nods solemnly. The doctor glances around, clearly also out of the loop on whatever they're talking about.
“Now, moving on,” Jen waves a hand. “Let's do this daily checkup, and see how to deal with the side-effects.”
Leona nods. “Seiko, lie down. Same as last time.”
“Alright.”
While I'm taking off my clothes, she warns everyone, “Stand back and stay quiet. Don't distract me, or it could be dangerous.”
They all retreat as instructed, and I toss my jacket and vest on the end of the bed. Leona pulls out a little plastic tab thing and sticks it to her forehead, then messes with her mobile and sets it on the bed.
I lie down on the bed with just my undershirt. I don't exactly want to say it's for modesty, but... no, she told me to do it the same way as last time, so this is fine.
Once more, a heavy, oppressive air rolls off of her as she begins to focus. She continues taking deep breaths, while climbing up on top of me.
“Ok...” Leona mutters under her breath, pushing my shirt up. Her jaw is clenching and unclenching like last time. Just what is she doing that's so hard...? Staring up at her eyes, I can see the way the glow behind them is growing, bit by bit as she works. Like before, the purple is wavering through different shades as the hue shifts back and forth, slowly working its way toward red. Wasn't it blue last time?
She slips a hand under my bra, sliding it up so she can press against the center of my chest again, the other coming down just under the base of my ribs. I take deep breaths too, trying to ready myself for the rush again this time.
I see it, when the flaring glow pooling in her eyes reaches blood red, barely spilling over at the edges, and take a deep breath. Then she comes down, pressing her face to mine, and hits me with another overwhelming rush of light and color, baring down into me. The power washes through me, like electric fire pouring over every nerve ending until my heart is hammering out of my chest and my every muscle fiber is shaking uncontrollably.
Then it's over, her body snapping up with a hiss and gasp. She shows a wide, feral grin, for just a moment, but doesn't even have time to get up, before I'm lurching to my feet, sending her stumbling.
“S-Sei?!” a few voices call in shock.
I'm on my feet, shaking hands and legs moving rapidly, running in place.
“Have to- I have to move!” It takes every shred of self control not to throw myself out the door.
“Seiko!” Leona calls, grabbing my attention long enough to snap the jacket she's throwing at me out of the air. I yank my clothes back into place, throw the jacket on, and see her pocket her mobile. “It's fine, go!” She waves a hand. I glance over everyone else, their surprise and concern, then I'm gone.
I'm out the door in one move. Down the hall in another. Outside, in a field, and I'm running.
My arms and legs pump. The grass flies past. I hit the edge of campus. There's a large fence, two stories high, a mesh of plastic and wire. I turn to head along it. I run and run, every instinct in my body screaming and shouting in joy at the movement and power.
Wind whistles in my ears, my eyes wide and grin spread from ear to ear. I keep circling the school grounds, the buildings and people flying past in the distance. Every step is like a surge of adrenaline and an explosion of powerful euphoria.
I make a full circuit around the school grounds three or so times before the screaming power in my chest begins to sputter out. My manic running high begins to fizzle, and I aim back in the direction where I came from, my friends coming into sight a short way outside the school building.
I pull to a stop before their shocked faces and stand, panting a few more wild breaths.
Then I fall face first into the ground.
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“Haa...” I sigh out, eyes fluttering open. What just happened?
“Sei?” I shift my gaze over to follow Ken's voice, and find him sitting next to me.
“Hey.” I start to sit up, but hands immediately move to restrain me.
“Stay still for now,” Leona's voice instructs. “You just put your body under enormous strain, we're still checking for injuries.”
She says that, but I can already tell by the feel of my own body that I'm fine. “Alright,” I agree and lie still anyway. “So what was that? Too much desire to run or something?”
“Possibly. It looks like the excess energy also massively strengthened your body for the duration, so you were able to move much faster than should usually be possible. That's why we're worried about injuries, from your over-stressing your body when the power ran out.”
“Haahh...” Lying there, I briefly think back on my run. Just letting loose like that, without a care for what anyone watching thought, it felt so good...
Oh god, but what are people going to say? Running that much, how many students saw me? What sort of rumors is it going to cause? As I'm just starting to spiral into worry, Ken speaks up.
“Heh, I knew Sei was a good runner, but that was next level,” he jokes, and everyone laughs lightly. I smile at the ceiling for a little longer, before I want to ask something.
“Hey, do sports make you guys self-conscious?”
“Sports?” Ken wonders. “Well, not really?”
“What about gym? Everyone's so...” I flutter my hands slightly, trying not to move my arms off the bed much.
“That's not very descriptive, you know...” Jen sighs at me.
“What I'm trying to say is that no one ever gives it their all. I've been wondering, is everyone worried about people watching them? Is that why they don't try?” I shift my head a little toward Leona, on my left. “Leona, your hundred meter dash is like twelve seconds, right? Even though you could do it in an instant.”
“Mm?” She blinks down at me. “That's just how I run unpowered. Psion powers are important and shouldn't be wasted for silly reasons.” Looking troubled, she tries to explain. “There's no good reason to expend power just to run around a track, especially when I'm supposed to be testing my regular, human body, in comparison to ordinary, non-psions.”
“Huh...” I mumble. I never really thought of it that way. But... even without her powers, that's the best she can do? Just looking at her, tall and lean from her military service, shouldn't she be way faster than she is?
I don't get it...
After a little longer, I get the ok, the health scan coming up all green. The doctor reports no fractures, torn ligaments, or other damage that she can find. “Looks like that power did its job right, strengthening your body until it ran out.” Then she sighs. “This is going to be a long year, isn't it?”
“I'm sorry,” I apologize awkwardly.
“Just... Come here if anything does start to hurt, alright?
“Yes, ma'am.”
The doctor sends us off, and we all head back to the dorms together.
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I end up spending most of the weekend studying and catching up on homework with Leona while everyone else hangs out. That's fine by me, it gives me a break from thinking about things for a while. My daily checkups start to smooth out too.
Saturday I just wind up fainting for a while, and by Sunday, it seems like she's started dialing in on how to do a psionic flood without quite as much excess power, because the side-effects don't hit me as strongly as before, so I just get really hungry for a bit. The whole process seems less intense and stressful for her too.
Most of our time is spent working in silence, or strictly talking about the work, but I do get the chance to make a small amount of conversation with Leona along the way. I'm still having trouble pinning her down though. Incredibly beautiful, powerful, from a ridiculously high class military command family. But also shy and strangely standoffish. And the weirdest part, how she pays so much attention to me all the time.
Maybe it's related to her work observing me, but I haven't been getting that feeling. Something about the way she moves around me, always hovering, like she's prepared to protect me from some unknown danger.
I don't know, maybe it's just my imagination? I am definitely getting the same sort of protective vibe from her as I get from Ken and Jen. It's an impression that only grows stronger as the weekend ends and we return to class.
The days pass by peacefully, in part thanks to the new rumor spawned by my little run last week. Apparently, people suspect me of being a psion now. I have been hanging out with the only known psion in our school...
That rumor... also ends up being the popular explanation on how I 'had sex' with Jen. With mind control or something. Leona scoffs when she hears that one. Apparently powers like telepathy and mind control are absurdly rare and unique, exclusively among exceptionally powerful psions.
Well, I don't mind the rumor that much since it's actually helpful, keeping people from messing with me.
One thing that... Well, I'm not entirely sure how to feel about it, honestly. Leona calls me Seiko. I hate my name because of all the pain it's brought me, but somehow, it's different when she says it. Like, she isn't just using it as one of my labels to remind me how I'm a girl now.
Instead... It's like she uses it to refer to all of me as I am right now. I mean, yeah, that includes the girl parts, but... Something about the way she says it makes me feel like she doesn't care about anything else, and just sees me. It's a complicated feeling but... I don't hate it.
Besides, Seiko is all she calls me. Literally, she will not refer to me any other way, which gets her into a few spots where her sentences just sound ridiculous.
I think 'Seiko went to Seiko's room because Seiko forgot Seiko's textbook' is the worst among them. It definitely draws some looks when she says that during class one day.
My checkups are definitely a mixed bag. Even if they aren't as dramatic as before, they're still seriously disruptive.
I get knocked into a mini-coma from Monday night to Tuesday morning, end up reading obsessively on Tuesday, and am unbearably itchy on Wednesday. It makes it pretty hard to do much of anything after school each day. I try my best to study and get through my homework when I can, but it's way more of a struggle than I expected.
Apart from all that though, there is one thing that really starts to bother me as the week wears on. Jen feels distant. She never explains anything when anyone asks, but there's a clear shift. She isn't opening up to us about it.
We make it to Thursday before I come out of the toilet, changed for gym, and she's not there. “Where's Jen?” I ask, getting shrugs from everyone except Amari.
“Monasta-san wanted to talk to her.” Lacey Monasta? She sits toward the back of the class. A girl who always has her silver hair in these ridiculously fancy braids. I haven't really spoken to her myself. She's pretty, but comes off as a really nasty person...
Maybe my impression is a mistake, but hearing about her call out Jen makes me really uneasy. “I'll... go check on her. You guys can go ahead.” I wave them all off, then jog back to the classroom. Just as I'm about to open the door, Jen comes out, and we almost run into each other.
“S-Sei?” she stammers a little in surprise. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to find you, you weren't with everyone else.”
“Ah, alright. Let's get to gym,” she immediately pushes me forward to get moving, and sets a jogging pace, since we're so far behind.
I didn't get chance to ask though... What did Lacey Monasta want from her?
Friday night, I manage not to cry myself to sleep for the first time in a while. I'm tired and just took a shower after an hour compulsively braiding my hair, and my skin feels wonderful in the sheets of my bed and... and I like it. I don't want to ruin this feeling.
So for tonight, I manage to put away the thought that I shouldn't feel good, snuggle with a dolphin plushie, and relax into sleep.