Chapter 2

Yuya winked one eye open, before languidly stretching. She still maintained the appearance of a diva, despite having mussed up hair and blinking tiredly. She gained awareness, however, and her customary smirk appeared on her lips while she looked at Minako.

“My, my, if it isn’t darling Minako,” Yuya said as she crossed her legs and sat up on the sofa. “Relax, Minako. It’s not like you came across Kaito and I doing anything lewd. Though we could perfectly very well do lewd things, we don’t need your permission to do what we want.”

Minako pursed her lips. “Since when did you get involved with Yuya-san?”

“It’s a long explanation,” Kaito said, before scratching the back of his head “But really Minako, there is no need to worry.”

“Oh really?” Minako said with a slight huff, before she plopped the box she carried on Kaito’s toes. Kaito let out a yelp.

“My hands accidentally slipped,” Minako said coolly, before she said. “I’m leaving.”

“Wait. Minako!”

“I know everything that I possibly need to know. If you’re going to associate yourself with that…that foul woman, then so be it. I’m going home. I need to cook dinner for my family.”

With that, Minako then slammed the door behind her, leaving Kaito in shocked silence. Yuya draped herself around him, and purred in his ear. “Don’t worry about a second rate wife like Minako, Kaito. I’m obviously the superior choice.”

“Minako is my friend,” Kaito said, before Yuya pushed him into the wall and put her face dangerously close to his.

“Don’t tell me you’re having second thoughts, mm? What about that promise that you made about devoting yourself totally to me so that you can become a man worthy of being my boyfriend? Was that all bravado, I wonder?”

“It wasn’t,” Kaito said, though he felt a little uneasy about Minako. Though say, didn’t you and Minako have a history together or something?”

“Before you moved to our school, Minako and I were best friends,” Yuya stated offhandedly, before saying. “But whatever, the past is the past. First of all, we need to work on something. We need to work on getting you out of the house and into school again.”

Kaito gulped. He remembered having awkward social graces and being rejected by his peers, partly out of jealousy and partly because he didn’t know how to communicate with people that weren’t at his ‘level’ properly. He had been arrogant once about his gifts, and that caused other people to rather dislike Kaito and shun him. When he read their projected thoughts towards him, Kaito was surprised at the animosity they had towards him.

“School?” Kaito said with a gulp.

“Yes,” Yuya said while putting her hands on her hips, pressing away from Kaito. “You can’t just sit around in the apartment all day playing video games. I want to show off my totally awesome boyfriend.”

“Well…are we really doing this? This girlfriend and boyfriend thing? And the whole psychiatrist thing?”

“I’m serious,” Yuya said, before she looked at Kaito with vivid blue eyes. “Are you?”

“Yes,” Kaito said.

“Good.I want you to eventually go on a date with me, and I want it to be the best date ever. I think that we’ll get to know one another rather intimately through intense psychological therapy sessions, and during this time I’ll reprogram you into someone who is worthy of being my boyfriend. Sound like a good deal?”

“Yeah,” Kaito said, and Yuya then let out a smile.

“That’s good then! Well, let me see. Let’s use this scenario for an example. Pretend that I’m a random girl that you don’t know, and you’re approaching her for the first time. What do you say or do?”

“Um,” Kaito said, before he looked towards Yuya up and down and said, “Are we doing these roleplaying sessions or something?”

“As an answer for the scenario, asking to roleplay with a strange woman would probably turn her off, because you don’t yet know her. Though as for the actual therapy session, we can actually do roleplaying scenarios. Wouldn’t that be fun? I’m a rather convincing actress, if I do say so myself. But honestly. What do you say?”

“You’re beautiful,” Kaito said, before Yuya crossed her arms and shook her head.

“You don’t even know her. Just giving her a compliment on her looks usually indicates that you’re not seeing the real her. People have more substance than just their looks, you know.”

Kaito looked down. “That is true.”

“Now,” Yuya said. “Let’s try again. Try to initiate with more confidence and look her straight in the eye! BE sure to stand tall and proud! Women love confidence in men.”

Kaito gulped. Now he normally didn’t feel confidence in himself, and Yuya intimidated him as usual. If he didn’t know her, he wouldn’t have approached her at all. Yet somehow, Kaito couldn’t imagine doing this kind of thing with anyone else, and Kaito cleared his throat and looked her straight in the eye.

“Hey. I noticed you liked reading that book about Freud,”

“That’s a big no no,” Yuya said while waving the book tauntingly in his face. “If a woman is reading, it’s best that you don’t interrupt her. It also shows that she’s not interested in you if she pretends to be doing something else.”

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“So what, do I try to impress her or something?” Kaito said, while Yuya shook her head.

“Trying too hard will only make you look desperate. Then again, I’m purposely making this difficult for you, Kaito.”

“Then…would you be interested in going for a coffee date, Miss?”

“I’m gay.”

“Yuya!”

“What? You have to deal with all kinds of scenarios, so you better be prepared for them! Hehehe.”

Kaito ran a hand through his reddish-pink hair and sighed. Yuya could be difficult at times, he knew. Though still, she was making an effort to better him, at least. The human heart was a curious affair, and Kaito wondered what made people fall in love with one another. Like any other teenager, Kaito hoped to go on romantic dates and hopefully find someone to marry for a lifetime, though even psychic powers couldn’t make him popular. He remembered that his father often flaunted his psychic powers in front of the other children, demonstrating that his genes were the ones that created someone special like Kaito. And Kaito, thinking that he had powers that no one else did, was superior to them, and this made him rather unpopular with his classmates. So he stopped using his psychic powers after a while, hoping that they would disappear.

“Yuya,” Kaito said in a serious tone. “Why did you want to be my girlfriend?”

“Do you really want to know the answer, Kaito?” Yuya said seriously, and Kaito straightened. “You could read my mind if you really wanted to know, Kaito.”

“But that’s a gross violation of privacy. Thoughts should be kept in one’s own head, after all.”

Yuya looked off into the distance.

“You still don’t trust me, do you?”

“I…”

Kaito paused.This was dangerous waters here, and Kaito found himself unable to completely trust her or her motivations. Didn’t she want to be his girlfriend because he had psychic powers and that he was a child prodigy? He was the only one that could relate to her on her level, after all. Being fellow child prodigies meant that they shared certain burdens that chlidren weren’t meant to have. Though would she ever truly wonder what it would be like to have psychic powers, that instead of it being teh amazing thing that she thought it would be, such as being a powerful supervillain, that it was a disaster day in and day out?

“I don’t know,” Kaito finally said.

Yuya let out a sigh. “You really think so poorly of me that I will abandon you and break your heart, right? I’m serious about wanting to be your girlfriend. Though it looks like you’re not taking me seriously enough. That’s you problem, Kaiot. You always jump to assumptions about other people because of your psychic powers. You think that psychic powers are a quick cheat and insight into another person’s mind and heart, though people are so much more complicated than that. You may have sealed yourself off from your psychic powers because you’ve heard the collective voices of people who were envious of you and your ability, but they didn’t straight up hate you, you know? You just assumed they did because you heard their thoughts. Though sometimes, a person’s thoughts are different from their actions. If they really hated you, Kaito…they wouldn’t even acknowledge that you exist. You’re still acknowledged by our classmates, even outside of school.”

“They didn’t want me there,” Kaito said stubbornly. “I know they didn’t. If their thoughts really weren’t their true feelings?”

“Because people can say or think one things, but feel quite another,” Yuya said. “I have a vague notion about how your powers work, but I’m sure that your psychic powers don’t work properly because you’ve closed your heart off, Kaito. You just assumed the worst out of people and began isolating yourself from them so you wouldn’t have to deal with them. Well, I’m teaching you to not run away anymore, Kaito. So what if they have mean thoughts about you? Not everyone is going to like you. So what if they think you’re a freak because you’d rather spend time learning about complex topics rather than play baseball or some other sport outside? Or maybe they think that you’re a freak because of your psychic powers. The truth is, when you showed off your psychic powers before, they became disinterested in it. It was a shiny and novel thing at the time, it was pretty special, but after you’ve used them for everything that you did, people lost that sense of novelty. Life moved on, and they’ve found other ways to compensate for their lack of their powers. It’s not about them hating you, they were just unimpressed that psychic powers was the only thing that you could do.”

“You’re saying that I’ve become so dependent on my psychic powers that I don’t know how people think or feel anymore?” Kaiot asked.

Yuya nodded. “Learn to trust other people. Learn to not assume the worst because of your psychic powers. You act like you can predict people, but even if you can read their thoughts, you can’t predict the future, can you? Thoughts can change over time. Feelings can change over time. I’m sure that, if you just tried again, people will like you and acknowledge you.”

“Yuya, you’re saying all these things, but,” Kaito said, and Yuya looked towards him patiently. “I’m a loser boyfriend, essentially. I don’t understand people. Maybe I don’t. And maybe I don’t care to. If you’re my girlfriend, though, you’re the only person that I care about. Just the two of us against the world, right? We said we would kick down the heavens themselves if we could.”

Yuya shook her head. “Kaito. I know that you came into this half-heartedly. You have feelings for Minako too, right? That’s why you’re not fully committed to this relationship, either. You may say that I’m the only one for you, but I know that your heart is divided, and I don’t need psychic powers for that.”

“And you say that I’m the one assuming things.”

“Listen, Kaito…I want this to be a truthful relationship. The truth and nothing but the truth. I’ve been honest with you this whole time. Have you been? Or are you deceiving yourself and me?”

“I don’t want to talk about this,” Kaito said.

“You’ve got nowhere else to go,” Yuya told him. “So tell me, Kaito. What were you hoping to get out of this relationship? You wanted to be saved, right?”

“Yes, I did ask for your help,” Kaito said, and Yuya put a finger to his lip.

“Let me finish. You wanted to be saved, you said that I was the only person who could help you out of your situation. Let me make a prediction, and I don’t need psychic powers for that; this is not going to be a happy relationship if you’re not truthful, Kaito.”

“I know, I know…”

Kaito ran a hand through his hair, thinking. Had Kaito been deceiving himself all this time? Was he really going about this relationship half-heartedly, like he did with everything else? He quit going to school. He quit his relationships with his friends and family. The only thing he hadn’t quit on yet was his own life, but even then, he wasn’t sure sometimes ifi he would be able to survive another day. Everything was just so boring, and this conversation was boring too. He wanted to hear none of it.

“Just leave me alone…” Kaito said, and Yuya shook her head.

“No, I’m definitely not going to leave you alone right now. You need someone, and what you need is the cold honest truth. You’re half-assing things again, Kaito. You may make some talk and bravado about something, like that beautiful manifesto that you spewed to me before that I’m the one who will save you and whatnot. You said that you would change. But I know that, you’re going to rebuff me and convince yourself that I’m going to manipulate you in some way or that I have certain schemes up my sleeve to humiliate you. I did humiliate you once when we were kids, and that was out of petty jealousy, but people can change. You can change too. You just gotta meet them halfway.”

“So I ask you again, Kaito. Do you truly wish to be saved by me?”

Kaito looked her into the eyes straight in the face. His voice wavered. “I don’t know.”