Responsibilities where they are due.

I parted ways with the girls and met up with Thomas to go to the burger place. We headed there immediately, placed our orders and found a seat. As promised, he paid for my food and I accepted. Fair’s fair.

“Alright, spill it,” he said. “What’s this I heard about some drama in your class?” Of course he’d already heard. Dude had at least like two or three friends in each class at a minimum.

I told him everything, trying to keep it as factual as possible. “Sarah says he yelled at me because he has a crush on that girl, Amanda, but He wouldn’t have said those things if he didn’t believe them, right?”

Thomas groaned. “This is what I meant when I said other people don’t get you. Seems like some think you’re creepy and plotting something nasty when you’re just too damn shy for your own good.”

“…I got that. Thanks,” I told him, unamused by his analysis.

“Sorry to say I don’t really know Mark, so I can’t speak for his attitude. But it seems things are resolved, right?”

“Thanks to Grace doing… something. I don’t know what happened after I left.”

“One can only imagine. But yeah, I’ve heard that Grace can be scary when she’s mad. Never seen it, though. She’s good at putting up an easygoing front.”

I’d only spent a few days getting to know the girls. There was still so much I had yet to learn about them. I was growing more and more curious.

Our talk didn’t shift to any other serious topics. Thomas started telling me about these movies he’d watched and how much he recommended them until we were both done eating.

I spent my evening like usual. A bit of time on the computer and more playing my guitar. The scene of Mark yelling at me would still replay in my mind every so often, but I was able to brush most of it aside by now. The reason? Even after that had happened, Mila, Grace, Sarah and Thomas all hung out with me like nothing had happened. Just because one guy thought I was… weird, didn’t mean everyone did, right? Telling myself that helped. It was an uneventful evening, and with most of my responsibilities taken care of, I went to bed early.

That was when I had an encounter with Frey again. Once more in the dream space resembling my bedroom. Once more, the spirit controlled my state of mind to have me in an apathetic state.

“Alright, responsibilities where they are due,” she started, sitting cross-legged in the air and in front of me. “That whole deal with that big guy was my bad. Sorry.”

I frowned in confusion and tilted my head. “How so?”

“You’ve noticed by now, right? The side effects my powers are having on guys?”

“Ah?”

“When I possessed you I made you more attractive to girls, making you exude a faint, invisible essence like pheromones that catch a woman’s attention. Passively, it’s not very powerful. Only enough to make you more noticeable. I used a stronger version of that on your three new friends, which is what kickstarted this all at that party. As a side effect of those pheromones, however… guys find you more intimidating.”

“…Excuse me?”

“Hey, the last thing I want is some random guy coming in and taking away the girls we already have! It’s already bad enough that you’re so passive and afraid, but if someone were to steal our hard work from under us, you and I would end up traumatized. I know it. I’m taking precautions.”

Then all those times where I glanced at other guys and they seemed scared of me... That was because of Frey as well?

“Wait. But what about Thomas? He’s not afraid of me.”

“Yeah, I noticed too.” Frey nodded. “I think that’s because he sees you as a friend already, so he has no reason to feel intimidated. He trusts you, and I’d say we can trust him as well.”

So Frey was paranoid that someone could come in and steal Mila, Grace and Sarah away from us. She’d be left without sustenance and I’d be… Yeah. Even apathetic as I was, I could understand her logic, even if I disagreed with it somewhat. I didn’t want people to fear me, just like I didn’t want them to laugh at me.

“I’ll try to ease up on that part of the enchantment, but I’m not removing it completely,” Frey continued. “You’ll need it since you can’t stand up for yourself, apparently.”

I should’ve been annoyed or hurt by the comment, but I wasn’t. Dammit. This apathy wasn’t fair.

“…I grow curious, boy. What’s with this fear of people so engraved in your soul? I can see you’re determined to grow out of it, but where does it stem from?”

“I don’t know. I couldn’t say.”

“Then I’ll find out for myself. I’ll let myself into your memories for a while. Excuse me.”

“You what?”

Then the entire space around me became warped. My bedroom disappeared before my eyes as if swallowed by a black hole, and in the blink of an eye I was in another place altogether. It was a place I remembered clearly despite only being there once. A friend’s house, six years ago. I was watching the scene from afar, and saw a couple of children standing before the house. One was my sister Isabelle, the other was me. We looked as we did when we were 13 years old.

My breathing began to quicken as I remembered what had happened here. I didn’t want to see it. I didn’t want anyone to see it. Sure, thinking back on it, it was nothing especially awful or traumatizing. Just dumb kids being dumb. But to me, it was the start of my stasis.

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