Unnoticeable

(This is a chyoa version of a story I am writing on Hentai Foundry. You can find it by searching there for Unnoticeable by Galloway.)

Alex just wanted to be invisible. He had just seen his long time crush, Sasha, flirting with some guy he didn't even recognize. As he walked through the halls of his high school, dodging people to get to class, he tried to be angry at her, but really he knew it was his own fault. This was the first semester where he had actually gotten to sit next to her in several classes, and it had taken most of it just to work up the courage to start talking to her. He hadn't even been planning on asking her out for another couple weeks, but whoever that guy was had already made his move.

He just pushed it out of his mind as he walked into his first period class early. This was out of the ordinary for the eighteen year old slacker, who usually spent the last seconds right up to the bell goofing off in the school courtyard with his friends. But this morning, Alex didn't really feel like talking to anybody so he found himself slumping into his desk a good few minutes before the class started. Mr. Young apparently didn't have anything to say about Alex's unusual punctuality, the English teacher just continuing to write the plans for the day on the whiteboard.

The rest of the class gradually filed in as the clock got closer to the bell. Alex's friend, Kyle, apparently read Alex's mood and didn't say anything as he sat behind him, which Alex appreciated. Soon, the bell was ringing, and Mr. Young was at the front of the class, looking around the room and marking off attendance. He'd learned everybody's names by now and didn't need to call them out, so Alex was caught off guard when he heard his name.

"Is Alex here?" Mr. Young asked, looking straight in Alex's direction before scanning the rest of the room.

"Huh? Yeah, I'm right here," Alex sat up in his seat more, thinking Mr. Young must have missed him due to his slump. Mr. Young didn't look back towards him, the teacher just looked back down at his roll sheet and marked it before continuing to scan for the next person on the roll. "Uh, hey," Alex blushed a little at having to call attention to himself, normally accustomed to avoiding it as much as possible, "Did you get me?" But again, the teacher apparently ignored him.

Alex turned around to say something to Kyle, who was unstealthily sending a text or something on his phone under the desk. "Hey Kyle, since when is Mr. Young an asshole?" He asked in a whisper, but Kyle didn't respond. "Yo, dude," Alex reached back and tapped Kyle on the arm, only to get no reaction. Once more, with a bit more , actually pushing Kyle to the side a little, but still no reaction aside from adjusting his position in his seat to sit back up.

This was weird. Was it some kind of prank? That was the only thing he could think of. Alex looked over at the girl sitting next to him. What was her name? Chelsea, he thought. She was pretty hot, and nice enough, but he didn't pay much attention to her; she was one of those popular girls who was obviously out of his social circle. He figured if it was some kind of prank, Kyle probably wouldn't have been able to get her onboard with it.

He gave Chelsea a poke in the shoulder. No reaction from her either. "Seriously!?" He asked in a harsh whisper to no one in particular. He was getting tired of this joke, after already being on a short fuse from seeing Sasha and that guy this morning. Face turning red in anger, he stood up and said in a voice just under a shout, "Okay, I get it, very funny!"

"Alright everybody, today we're going to be continuing our discussion from yesterday..." Mr. Young just started going into the lesson, and everybody quieted down as they either paid attention or tapped at phones under their desks.

The heat started to drain from his face, and instead he felt a cold pit in his stomach. Was this real? If there was a prank, there was no way everybody, including the teacher could all be in on it. He looked around as he kept hoping someone would crack and start laughing and then he could go back to just being embarrassed. That was a lot easier to process than whatever was going on. He looked down at Chelsea seated at her desk next to him, and waved a hand in front of her eyes. He poked her cheek, shoved her shoulder, did anything he could think of to annoy her, but she didn't react. He messed with her hair so her dirty-blonde bangs fell in her eyes. After a moment, she brushed them back up out of her eyes, but said nothing.

"Okay... So this is real." He felt the weight in his stomach lift a little as he at least got over the uncertainty. But it didn't go away completely, as he still had to deal with the fact that he was apparently some kind of ghost. That didn't really describe it accurately, though. It was more like... he was just unnoticeable. He could interact with people and things, but nobody seemed to notice. Alex slowly walked towards the front of the class, walking over to where Mr. Young was standing as he continued talking about the boring novel they were reading. The teacher was holding a copy of the book in one hand, and Alex cautiously reached out, grabbing the book and taking it. Mr. Young let go of the book as it was taken from him, continuing his lecture as normal. Alex dropped the paperback on the ground, where it landed with a gentle thump.

"And as you'll see on page 95..." Mr. Young looked at his hand with confusion for a moment before looking down at the ground and seeing the book. He leaned down and picked it up, opening to the page he was talking about and continuing the lecture.

"Holy shit," Alex muttered. He could apparently do anything he wanted, without anyone noticing.